Asia Pacific Viewpoint最新文献

This study explores the impact of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) on households in Samoa, particularly those households that invested in the TVET qualification and certification of at least one member of their household. Significant benefits accrue to households through productive employment of the TVET-certified household member, and this study is one of a kind designed to gather some base line socio-economic data from 15 case study households to validate these claims. The study is framed within the sustainable livelihoods approach and capabilities approach. Improved skills of TVET persons provide a sustainable livelihood for their households and enabled strengthening of people's capabilities to make significant contributions to their families, community and national development agenda. Questionnaires and focus group discussions were methods engaged to answer the study question on the socio-economic impacts of TVET-certified members on their households. The results substantiated what we have always observed and believed, that the households with at least one TVET-certified member is able to make positive physical and social contributions towards improving the livelihood of the entire household.

Sponsored by the Asia Pacific Viewpoint, this paper was originally delivered as a keynote address at the New Zealand Geographical Society (NZGS) conference in November of 2020. Building on the conference theme, ‘Embracing Diversity: Expanding Geographies’, it argues that any consideration of our diverse, layered and growing environments must consider the sacred. Rather than focus solely on what are often deemed ‘sacred’ sites – or those places marked by physical signposts, particular rituals or sanctioning – it encourages us to think deeply about the everyday sacred though recognising how places feed. Flowing between places and times, between Kumutoto Stream in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and Pōhakuloa in Hawaiʻi, this paper is a call to stand on whenua and see it, smell it, taste it and love it. It is an invitation to relate to place on an intimate level. It is a prompting to be critical of the urban and colonially constructed spaces that have become naturalised in our daily lives and to uncover the stories, histories and peoples they work to displace and erase so that we can plant collective roots of resistance and solidarity for better futures.

This article applies the pluralistic concept of environmental justice to the issue of park accessibility between people across different socioeconomic strata in the metropolitan region of Shanghai. Data were obtained from China's 2000 and 2010 population census, Shanghai Landscaping and City Appearance Administrative Bureau, semi-structured interviews and secondary sources. The article finds significant environmental injustice between foreign citizens and Chinese citizens (including people from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan and mainland people with and without Shanghai hukou) and between blue collar, white collar and wealthy white collar people from distributive, recognition, participatory and procedural justice perspectives. The article then discusses why such injustice is the result of urban China's unique authoritarian mode of governance, power structure, neoliberal practice and globalisation development. The findings offer insights into the development of the concept of environmental justice in the Chinese context and the country's objective to build an impartial society.

Instances of civil unrest and disorder have pockmarked the mainly peaceful functioning of multiple Pacific states in recent decades. This paper examines factors which can be seen as fault lines for predicting and mitigating such unrest, with a particular focus on Fiji and Solomon Islands. Drawing on data collected through interviews with youth advocates and activists, it becomes clear that the common justification of ‘ethnic tensions’ for past unrest and fears of future unrest being necessitated by a ‘youth bulge’ oversimplifies the complexity of factors that lead to disorder. Issues of land rights, uncertain livelihood futures and public perceptions of inequality provide more salient framings for understanding why citizens engage in unrest. Indeed, it is perceptions of injustice and inequality which may well prove to be the greater indicator of the likelihood of any future destabilisation.

This comparative empirical study on North Korea and Mongolia was conducted to demonstrate how satellite imagery extracted from Google Earth can be used to estimate the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) baseline. Forests in North Korea are eight times more densely distributed (8 471 787 hectares, 69.6% of its total land area) than that of Mongolia (12 842 624 hectares, only 8% of its total land area). Forests in North Korea have up to 10 times more carbon storage capacity (e.g. above-ground biomass of Pinus koraiensis under the category of the temperate continental forest, IPCC Guideline: 58.23 ton) than that of Mongolia (e.g. above-ground biomass of coniferous in boreal tundra woodland: 5 ton). Results are expected to be used as objective basic data in the process of introducing REDD+ to North Korea by verifying sharp differences between North Korea and Mongolia. The study could help companies preparing for carbon offset ventures in North Korea since it provides evidence for a more cost-effective carbon credit than in Mongolia despite less initial investment and maintenance cost for forest plantation.

Migrants can be disproportionately impacted by disasters due to their increased vulnerability. Knowledge of Chinese migrants' perceptions and experiences in the face of hazards and disasters is limited. This qualitative descriptive study explored Chinese migration in relation to disasters and disaster risk reduction in New Zealand. Semi-structured interviews with 22 Chinese migrants living in Auckland were conducted and data were thematically analysed. Participants displayed strong transnationalism via the creation of ‘mini-China’ and conceptions of China as their ‘mother’ country and New Zealand their ‘step-mother’ country. Chinese migrants compared their experiences of disasters in China to those in New Zealand, with many expressing difficulties with accessing information and not trusting New Zealand government authorities, particularly given how the approach contrasts to China's more ‘hands on’ approach. Fear of losing life and property and responsibility to their family were key factors underpinning Chinese migrants' decision to prepare for a disaster. Participants shared insights to guide disaster risk reduction efforts from a community level and expressed a willingness to participate in disaster preparedness organised by agencies involved in disaster risk reduction. The findings indicate capacities of Chinese migrants that planners can leverage and highlight important cultural nuances that need attention in future planning.

This paper explores the social support of Timorese workers under the Australian Seasonal Workers Programme (SWP). The SWP, which allows citizens from Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste to work in Australian agriculture for six to nine months, has become the major source of remittances for seasonal workers from Timor-Leste. The paper describes how access to the internet and the availability of social media devices can help to maintain long-distance family relationships, support migrants' well-being and alleviate the effects of socio-spatial segregation to some extent. However, the need to earn remittances in a fixed period of time forces them to accept a trade-off in the quality of their social and personal lives in rural Australia. According to the New Economics of Labour Migration (NELM), isolation and separation from families are part of a rational household strategy to accumulate remittances. This paper argues that insufficient attention has been paid to the social costs borne by workers and left-behind households and that the sustainability of the SWP depends to a large extent on the ability of workers to find ways of meeting their needs for social support. The analysis is based on data from participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 50 Timorese seasonal workers in Australia and Timor-Leste.

This article investigates the impacts of the 2015 New Zealand (NZ) All Black rugby test match with Manu Samoa in Samoa: the ‘Game that stopped two nations’ (henceforth referred to as ‘the Game’). Outlining key concepts as well as events and experiences surrounding the Game, this paper reflects on how the Game aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals as well as NZ's current Pacific Reset Agenda, an agenda which aims to increase understanding, friendship, mutual benefit, collective ambition and sustainability (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2017). A Likert-styled questionnaire, a 15-category ranking exercise, semi-structured interviews, analysis of relevant media and other sources, informal discussions and participant observation help to provide insights into how sport for diplomacy and development functions. The Game was viewed as providing an opportunity for income generation, most participants felt excited to have shared in the experience, and many were hopeful as to what this might mean for future NZ/Samoan relations. However, we argue that, overall, this event represented a missed opportunity. If sport diplomacy events are to authentically contribute to diplomatic and development goals, more needs to be done to create meaningful and enduring engagement.

Oceania includes sovereign states as well as overseas territories of metropolitan powers. In both cases, contemporary geopolitical borders are legacies of colonialism. As in many (de)colonised places, materialisations of spatially anchored social imaginaries and practices of self and otherness, play a role in the everyday politics of Oceania's communities and states. Notably, cultural intimacies (Herzfeld, 2016) in this region are also shaped by tensions between islands in an archipelagic unit. Characterised by plural identities, Oceania's communities must navigate solidarities within the colonial borders of unitary sovereign states or non-sovereign island territories. Given this context, we ask whether spatially anchored identities within archipelagic contexts are politically engaged, playing a role in the politics of state (dis)cohesion across the region. This paper presents findings from 73 interviews across four pairs of Pacific islands – Wallis-Futuna, Tahiti-Mangareva, Rarotonga-Manihiki, Pohnpei-Chuuk – exploring how communities define their own identities and the identity of those on ‘the other island’. We find both sides in agreement on six complementary and rather respectful identities. We therefore suggest that while political tensions and calls for secession in archipelagos are real, it is unlikely that identity politics at this point in time inflames political break ups.

This article examines the discourse of ‘Li's Field’ in Hong Kong, named after tycoon Li Ka-shing and used to satirically denounce the government-business political nexus. The discourse challenges the apparent reluctance of the weather agency to decide that a typhoon is strong enough to warrant a city-wide suspension of business activities, which would obviously be detrimental to capitalist interests. In comparison to the earlier period characterised by political trust, institutional and political factors in recent decades have intensified the impression of government-business collusion and the erosion of political trust. Li's Field is a case illustrating how political distrust can spill over into bureaucracy, challenging the traditions of bureaucratic neutrality and meritocratic and scientific policymaking. This article provides an analysis of the ‘field’ with primary interview data, media discourse analysis and secondary data. This study contributes by exploring political trust in politicians and bureaucrats, and how the former spills over into the latter.