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Among the many concepts used in farming systems research, the agrarian system—système agraire—stands out in the works of francophone agronomists, agricultural economists and geographers. It is an all-encompassing concept, capable of making sense of agricultural activities at a regional scale in a way that accounts for both ecological and socio-economic dimensions. The objective of this article is...
Water has been the source of many controversies in Canada. While the extensive literature on international water transfers has focused on the continental schemes aimed at diverting and transferring Arctic water southward, little has been written about the only existing bulk water transfers between borderland communities located along the Canadian and American border. This article introduces the concept...
In recent years, there has been heightened interest in creating more environmentally sustainable forms of urban development in China. Central in these greening initiatives has been increased attention on promoting public participation in community-based environmental activities. Focusing on China’s green community initiatives, we examine the production and effects of participation in a state-led development...
We describe contemporaneous changes in environmental quality and social deprivation in English local authority districts over four decades, using secondary source GIS modelled data on environmentally intrusive development. The distribution of this development is described with respect to the Townsend material deprivation score, corroborated against the Breadline Britain index. Spatial patterns of...
Changing social and economic drivers of land use require a more integrated approach to land conservation that addresses both the land and the socio-economic context of land use. Technical and legal conservation focused at the single-parcel scale is insufficient. This research examines ecological entrepreneurship, discussed by Marsden and Smith (2005), as an integrated conservation strategy that targets...
This paper considers a particular popular-cultural phenomenon: ‘Pokémon’. Specifically, it concerns a social–historical juncture – a so-called ‘Pokémania’ – wherein Pokémon toys, games, collectables and merchandising were ‘must-have’ items for many children in South-East Asia, Europe, North America, and Australasia. Drawing upon research with Pokémon fans aged 5–8 in the UK, the paper explores some...
The last few decades have seen increasing attempts to foster ‘collaborative’ and ‘participatory’ approaches to spatial planning and decision-making, with a more sophisticated conceptualisation of the contested term, participation. Participatory, ‘bottom-up’ geo-information technologies have been concurrently developing and these are expected to strengthen participatory spatial planning; important...
Explanations of the existence of socio-spatial divisions in Western Europe and the United States revolve around the importance of economic, demographic, political, and socio-cultural macro developments and often also on the role of globalization. Much of the literature also emphasizes the role of institutions, especially the national and local state as well as individual and household constraints...
Over the past decade, there has been a significant structural and geographical change in space travel. Following policy, budgetary and regulatory changes in the United States, space travel may now be conducted by private companies. This privatization has also led to some geographical competition and shifts between states within the US. In this paper, I respond to MacDonald’s (2007) call for more critical...
Many Hindu pilgrimage sites in India experience heavy influxes of pilgrims and are subject to considerable environmental impact. Existing literature on the study of the environment in pilgrimage sites, however, appears to follow two divergent directions: one emphasizes degradation of the physical environment while the other highlights the sacred character of the place and how that is compromised by...
This article explores refugees’ views about the ‘durable solutions’ or three Rs – Voluntary Repatriation, Local or Re-Integration and Resettlement – underscoring the need for refugees’ voices to inform policy actions taken on their behalf. Central to discourses on the right to return and the policy practice of voluntary repatriation is the salience accorded the nation-state of which territorial boundaries...
This paper uses the concept of “grantocracy” as an analytic to understand a form of governance through grant-making by state actors as one aspect of the reregulation wrought by neoliberalization of the state. We explore this idea through a case study of conservation grant making in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a highly rural and remote forestry-dependent economy. Grantocracy...
Sustainable development was introduced as an approach to overcoming growing concerns about consumption and the limitations of the natural resource base upon which society depends. It advocates a system in which economic growth can still occur, but within natural resource limits and such as not to disadvantage either current or future generations. However the implementation of sustainable development...
Over the last decade, flexible citizenship has contributed much to our understandings of how contemporary Chinese migrate across the world in late capitalism. This corpus has not only called attention to the manifold strategies that these migrants adopt to inhabit multiple spaces, but has also elucidated how transnational migration can be deployed for the purposes of capital accumulation and enhancement...
In the northern uplands of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the state is taking dramatic steps to (re)configure agricultural production through the introduction and subsidisation of hybrid rice and maize seeds. These require yearly cash investments and access to state supplied inputs, a far cry from earlier upland ethnic minority livelihood strategies. In this paper we develop a conceptual framework...
In spite of continued mass urban protests in post-apartheid South Africa, few are the social movements or individuals which openly disengage from the dominant and former liberation party, the African National Congress. Many authors have analysed this paradox as a two-pronged strategy, ‘the brick’ and ‘the ballot’, to try and influence public policy. However, these two political positions become increasingly...
Desalination alters a basic premise of water geography – fresh water flows from the sea inward, rather than the other way around. But, is this observation important? To address this question it is necessary to identify the potential ramifications of the changes in the water geography brought about by desalination. Israel is used as a basis for identifying these ramifications as it has recently embarked...
Rubber tappers promoted extractive reserves as a sustainable alternative to forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon. However, the significance of rubber tapping itself has declined since the creation of extractive reserves, which raises questions about the contemporary cultural content of the rubber tapper identity. This paper therefore evaluates rubber tapper identity, using the case of the Chico...
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