Fish Stories: Science, Advocacy, and Policy Change in New England Fishery Management

Once the poster child for government-sponsored overfishing, New England by 2005 had become a fishery conservation success story. This article develops and deploys a problem-definition framework to explain the dramatic shift from a permissive to a protective fishery management regime in New England. I argue that neither new and improved scientific information nor pressure from powerful commercial interests caused government officials to modify their approach to fishery management. Instead, environmentalists used lawsuits to threaten fishery managers' autonomy and thereby forced them to replace fishers' risk-tolerant definition of the problem with environmentalists' more precautionary one as the basis for management. Environmentalists had legal leverage because they were able to demonstrate convincingly a substantial discrepancy between what the agency's governing statute required and what managers actually did. Two factors were critical to environmentalists' success: a compelling and credible scientific story about the relationship between fishing and the health of fish stocks, and an explicit conservation requirement in the language governing fishery management.     

Industry,Science and Politics

Abstract

Today industry is much criticized for its lack of responsibility – for fast cars, for side-effects of drugs and for the dangers of nuclear power. However, industry means mass production and mass consumption, essential for the high standard of living enjoyed in Europe. To achieve progress in society, industry must show enlightenment in addition to using the results of scientific research. In this the media have an essential role to fulfil. At present the societal system is too specialised and interdisciplinary scientists must take the lead in bridge-building between industry, science and politics, as interdisciplinary engineers have done within BMW.     

Gender,Science, Politics and Geographies of the City

Most histories of urban studies represent the theoretical statements of the Chicago School of Sociology in the 1920s as foundational. However, perspectives on sociospatial relationships associated with Robert Park and his co-workers could be recognised as a distinctively masculinised form of knowledge, centred on science, objectivity and distancing. Contemporaneous research on the city by women in the Chicago School of Social Service Administration has been ignored by (predominantly male) urban geographers and sociologists. I argue that this neglect can be explained by a downgrading of knowledge produced by these women in relation to scientific sociology, by the context of political radicalism within which the research was produced, and by subsequent developments in urban studies which were unsympathetic to their ideas. In making this case, I first identify significant theoretical contributions made by women in the School of Social Service Administration. Second, the marginalisation of the women's research is related to the sexist attitudes of male sociologists coupled with the claims of a masculinised social science, positioned above other forms of knowledge. The question of gendered knowledge is explored through object relations theory and, particularly, the work of Evelyn Fox Keller. Thirdly, I discuss the politics of women in the School of Social Service Administration and the Hull House Settlement. Their embrace of socialism, feminism and pacifism contributed further to their marginalisation .     

Energy and Environmental Politics in Post-Corporatist Mexico

No government that is serious about environmental protection will imitate the Mexican model. The undrinkable waters and defiled deserts of Mexico's northern border towns and the poisoned air of its capital city are infamous. But there are noticeable changes in Mexican politicians' and lawmakers' attitudes toward the country's environmental ills, in no small part because of changing public attitudes toward these problems. As Mexico's political system becomes more open and democratic, policy elites are increasingly attentive to environmental problems, as ordinary citizens, and especially urbanites, vent their frustration at the ballot box. Perhaps ironically, Mexico's hydrocarbon industries are potential leaders in the nascent environmental reform process. Inducements for better environmental behavior by the oil and natural gas industries are new, municipal and federal environmental regulations, stepped-up enforcement, and local and cross-border markets for Mexico's gas.     

Current Research on the Gulf Coast of Mexico

The Gulf Coast of Mesoamerica is a culturally and environmentally heterogeneous area that encompasses the lowlands along the Gulf of Mexico as well as rugged inland highlands. Blessed with a wealth of valued resources and a favorable geographical setting, the pre-Hispanic Gulf Coast played a critical role as a cultural and economic crossroads, and its cultures contributed vital elements to other Mesoamerican traditions. Gulf Coast archaeology currently is experiencing the most active period in its history. This recent research underscores the diversity and dynamism of the area's cultures and environment. An enormous expansion of settlement pattern studies reveals considerable diversity in sociopolitical organization, urbanism, and human–land relationships. A second important trend focuses on documenting and understanding variation in craft production and exchange systems. A third is the continuing emphasis on interregional interaction through all time periods. These three foci merge in a growing interest in variation and change in Gulf Coast political economies. Future research will need to incorporate theoretical perspectives that focus on the generation of cultural variation, including agency-based models of technological choice and political economy, as well as those, like Darwinian approaches, that emphasize the differential persistence of variation.     

The Mobile Politics of Emotions and Social Movement in Oaxaca,Mexico

In light of recent debates between affect and emotions in geography, this article focuses on how the emotional landscape of spatial struggles in Oaxaca articulated people together, thereby generating solidarities and a collective sociality offering the potentiality of interconnection that geographers of affect emphasize. Through an analysis of a women's march, I demonstrate how social movements move people, mobilizing them both physically and emotionally, with effects that go beyond a movement's political demands. Engaging with how emotions do movement‐building work means going beyond a focus on the relational construction of emotions and arguing instead for their collective agency, including their power to transform participants into activists. Highlighting the centrality of spatial struggles and emotions to the shifting, mobile politics of social movements brings into sharp relief the importance of a situated, historical analysis for theorists romanticizing the emancipatory possibilities of a revolutionary transnational articulation between social movements.     

Religion and the US Presidency: Politics,the Media,and Religious Identity

Abstract

The relationship between religion and the presidency impacts both the viability of candidates and the manner in which decisions are made in the voting booth. Today we are living in culture where religion is front and center in politics. This article examines the role of religion in political discourse with special attention to the 2012 presidential election. It focuses on the manner in which religion and politics have become inextricably interwoven in the past sixty years. It begins by establishing the role of religion in the broader political arena. The article then turns to the manner in which religious identity and participation influence voting patterns, and how religious affiliation shapes the office of the presidency. The conclusion offers some reflections on the future of religion in presidential politics, an issue that will continue to be a significant factor in how and why voters support and marginalize particular candidates.     

Recreational Business Districts in Gulf of Mexico Seaside Resorts

Within the body of literature addressing tourism imprints upon the cultural landscape, the recreational business district (RBD) has been identified as a key component of a resort area, and the seaside has been no exception. Comprised of tourist-oriented businesses and historically focused upon the beach, incipient RBDs evolved at seaside termini of railroads, highways, and footpaths. Construction of bathhouses, casinos or beach hotels at these sites was followed by nearby clustering of secondary and tertiary recreational enterprises. Lateral expansion of coastal roads often led to RBD elongation, but RBD core areas usually remained as the central focus of tourist activity. Variations in RBD development have resulted from shifts in beach access corridors and/or ‘redevelopment’ of older resort landscapes. Along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the RBD persists as an artifact of the touristic landscape.     

American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf Region

On 18 February 1946 a mutiny broke out in HMIS Talwar, a Royal Indian Navy signals school in Bombay. Over the following days the disturbance spread to over 10,000 men, 66 ships and shore establishments, while there was civilian rioting in several major cities. The causes of the mutiny have traditionally been attributed to discontent over service conditions, racial abuse and the influence of Indian nationalism, firmly framing the ‘strike’ as part of India's anti-colonial struggle. Such explanations have been applied uniformly across the force, regardless of the wide-scale nature of the disturbances, and with little focus on those who remained loyal. By examining the experiences of units other than Talwar, this article challenges the predominant nationalist narrative of the mutiny, questioning the notion that overarching causes existed across the navy, and demonstrating how motives and reactions were more fractured and complex. It will also reconsider the connection between the mutiny and civilian rioting in Bombay, introducing organised crime as a notable influence, and examine the role of the preceding RAF ‘strikes’ and political discourses in framing the actions of the naval ratings.     

Long-Term Regional Landscape Change in the Northern Tequila Region of Jalisco,Mexico

The Tequila Valleys, in Jalisco, Mexico, are well-known in archaeology for an early complex society known as the Teuchitlán tradition (350 b.c.–a.d. 450/500), but later developments have received little attention. Here I report on the first systematic, full-coverage survey of the Tequila region north of the Tequila volcano. I explore the ways in which the societies that occupied this territory experienced sociopolitical change diachronically by investigating settlement scale, integration, complexity, and boundedness. Through the use of these core features, I analyze how each changed in varying ways, resulting in patterns that do not conform to static societal categories. Interestingly, there is no evidence that a large polity controlled the entire region at any point in the sequence. Results indicate a dynamic sociopolitical landscape that did not develop along any predetermined pathway.     

明清时期安庆地区的渔业经济

本对明清时期安庆地区的河湖水系形态及其演变做了较为详细的阐述,揭示了部分湖泊水体逐渐淤塞湮废的过程,并初步探讨了导致其迅速淤浅湮塞的原因;本还从该地区的渔税征收机构河泊所的设置分布及裁革情况,渔课的数量、比重及变化等分析和探讨了明清时期这一区域的渔业经济状况夏其变迁。     

美国环境政治史研究的兴起和发展

环境政治史是因环境问题而衍生的各种社会政治关系史。美国环境政治史研究萌芽于20世纪六七十年代的资源保护史;八九十年代以环境政治的现实和学科交融为背景,研究内容得到拓宽;2000年前后,以总结过去、面向未来为主旨,美国的环境政治史研究步入一个新阶段。美国环境政治史研究主要关注现代环境政治,研究内容十分广泛,学科交融特点也十分突出。