Multilevel (mis)governance of palm oil production

The palm oil industry exemplifies the ‘regionalisation without regionalism’ pattern seen in other industries in Asia: extensive, regionally concentrated transnational economic integration accompanied by a low level of formal regional institution-building. Production is concentrated in Malaysia and Indonesia, and Asian countries account for a major share of the market for intermediate products. The ownership structure of palm oil production reflects the dominance of transnational Malaysian and Singaporean firms. There is no authoritative regional institution governing production, investment standards or labour in the industry. A patchwork of both enabling and regulatory governance institutions supports the industry. These are formal and informal, public and private, and are situated at multiple levels: within, below and across the nation state. Although the governance structure surrounding the palm oil industry has supported it well in terms of production volumes and profits, large externalities—environmental and social costs—persist. This article argues that the governance failures associated with the industry stem from different stakeholders' competing interests in contexts of highly unequal wealth and power distribution. Misgovernance is not an unintended consequence of institutions failing to keep up with markets in scale and scope, but is embedded in the multilevel governance regime that supports, and partially regulates, the industry.     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 29, Number 3. June 2013

Front and back cover caption, volume 29 issue 3 Front cover Oil palm plantations and surplus labour The photo shows old oil palms injected with roundup to kill them prior to replanting – operations that require very little labour. Indonesia already has ten million hectares of oil palm, most of it planted in massive, mono‐cropped, plantations eerily devoid of people, having obliterated the villages, farms and fruit trees that were there before. Market‐wise, oil palm is resilient. Its price goes up together with the price of oil since it can be used as a biofuel. We eat it (cooking oil, margarine, chocolate), bathe with it (soap), and put it on our lips (cosmetics). As food, the potential market in India and China is immense, and as a ‘biofuel’ it fills European Union mandates to replace fossil fuels with ‘renewable energy’ sources. The crop is rapidly blanketing the major islands of the Indonesian archipelago (Sumatra, Kalimantan, Papua), it is expanding in Latin America, and being re‐imported into Africa – its place of origin – as a large scale plantation crop. Resilience in terms of livelihoods is another matter. Corporate oil palm is a land‐gobbling, people‐dispelling machine. The Indonesian government promotes the crop as an engine of poverty reduction, but its focus is corporate profits. It previously obliged corporations to develop 80 percent of their concession area for smallholders, but the number now is reversed: 80 percent of the land can be used by the corporations. They treat smallholders as irritants to be swept out of the way, rather like mosquitoes. Industry promoters claim that one hectare of oil palm generates five jobs, but the actual number is one job per five hectares. The industry isn't highly mechanized, it just doesn't need many workers once the plantations are established. Oil palm is foreclosing options. It uses a lot of water, making it difficult to grow anything else nearby. We don't know what the land will be good for after oil palm, or how climate change will affect it. Committing massively to one crop under these conditions seems like a bad promise – an IOU no‐one should accept. But the risks aren't equally distributed. Most of us encounter palm oil as consumers. As Tania Murray Li argues in her guest editorial in this issue, its livelihood effects way up a river in Kalimantan are out of sight, out of mind. Back cover UNWANTED CHILDLESSNESS A young mother with her children in Bangladesh. Children are the raison d'être for couples in this densely populated country but women in particular. Involuntary childlessness tends to evoke pity but also condemnation and exclusion. What happens to people when no children are born to them? Sjaak van der Geest and Papreen Nahar sketch the social, emotional, and existential consequences of unwanted childlessness. Drawing on ethnographic work in Ghana and Bangladesh and on a British dystopian novel, they describe how childlessness leads to loneliness, sombreness and a sense of uselessness. Inspired by the work of psychologist John Kotre and philosopher Ernst Bloch they proceed to make sense of these experiences by linking them to the issue of continuity / discontinuity and what it is to be human. Life is future‐oriented. Children constitute and personify continuation, also after death. Without children the future is locked. Life is interrupted and loses its meaning. Through anthropological reflection on women's complaints and a novel about a future childless world, the authors search for a more profound understanding of what renewal of life means to human beings.     

WOMEN'S WORK: A CASE STUDY OF PROLETARIANIZATION OF PERI-URBAN VILLAGERS IN VANUATU

This study focuses on peri-urban women in Vanuatu from 1972 to 1983 in order to measure the impact of a greater participation of women in the labour market, an increase in the number of consensual unions in the village, and the changing pattern of female migration. Not unexpectedly, these result in a loosening of ties between some villagers and village land. What matters even more is that such a loss of land rights endangers the ideological reproduction of this hybrid sociological form in Melanesia. In effect, peri-urban villagers walk an ideological tightrope. What remains of their subsistence economy generates a corporate ideology under the form of discourses on the virtue of communality, and this is what distinguishes and preserves the village social field from that of the town. A loss of land rights may well lead to a questioning of communality and a realization of the hegemonic nature of the ideology of social undifferentiation.     

Declining Food Security in a Philippine Oil Palm Frontier: The Changing Role of Cooperatives

The long‐held redistributive function of agricultural cooperatives — one of moral economy and poverty alleviation — has changed dramatically as they emerge as core brokers for agro‐industrial development in the so‐called ‘green economy’. This article examines the changing role of cooperatives involved in brokering oil palm production and its impact upon the food security and livelihoods of smallholders who labour in plantation regimes situated in historically uneven agrarian political economies. Findings show how, increasingly, cooperatives reinforce uneven agrarian social relations of production and exchange in which indigenous smallholders experience loss of land, poor wage labour conditions tinged with insecurity and prejudice, and mounting debt in an expanding oil palm complex. The article suggests that these changes in agrarian social relations negatively influence indigenous farmers’ food security pathways, with their access to and use of appropriate foods diminishing. It asserts that understanding the impacts of cooperatives on food security pathways requires a relational and situated analysis of livelihood change and agrarian relations in extractive frontiers.     

西方现代劳动力地理学研究进展及对中国研究的意义

劳动力地理学研究有助于理解全球化背景下劳动力作为当前国际国内经济转型和产业区位的一个重要因素及其发生作用的内在机制,对指导劳动力市场调节、促进地方劳动力市场发展具有重要意义。本文总结了国外劳动力地理学理论研究的起源,认为其理论演变经历了由新古典经济地理学区位理论,到马克思主义新经济地理理论,到近年来"文化、制度转向"的劳动力市场地理发展历程。介绍了近年来地方化劳动力市场地理理论和实证研究领域,及其对产业空间组织的影响等方面所取得的最新进展。在对当前的研究进行评述的基础上,指出不足和未来方向。与西方学术界相比,我国相关理论研究较为欠缺,尤其是文化、制度等因素对我国劳动力市场影响的研究有待进一步加强。     

Archaeology and Climate Change: Evidence of a Flash-flood During the LIA in Asturias (NW Spain) and its Social Consequences

This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary study of the impact of climate change during the Little Ice Age on a medieval village in Asturias, Spain. The research focused on tracing evidence for a catastrophic flood that buried the village beneath a thick layer of debris, including examining the remains of structures and agricultural land sealed beneath the debris, and considering the social and economic implications of the event in the subsequent history of the area. First, a series of test pits was excavated within the area of the modern village to map the full extent of the damage. Following this, analysis of the stratigraphy, architectural remains, datable artefacts and radiocarbon dating contributed further details, while historical evidence revealed the privatisation of the agricultural land following the catastrophe. The findings offer a snapshot of climate change and its social contexts in a specific, under-studied area with possible implications for the study of risk behaviour and disaster response in currently inhabited areas.     

Land Snail Shell Beads in the Sub-Saharan Archaeological Record: When,Where, and Why?

Shell beads are well established in the archaeological record of sub-Saharan Africa and appear as early as 75,000 BP; however, most research has focused on ostrich eggshell (OES) and various marine mollusc species. Beads made from various land snails shells (LSS), frequently described as Achatina, also appear to be widespread. Yet tracking their appearance and distribution is difficult because LSS beads are often intentionally or unintentionally lumped with OES beads, there are no directly dated examples, and bead reporting in general is highly variable in the archaeological literature. Nevertheless, Achatina and other potential cases of LSS beads are present at over 80 archaeological sites in at least eight countries, spanning the early Holocene to recent past. Here, we collate published cases and report on several more. We also present a new case from Magubike Rockshelter in southern Tanzania with the first directly dated LSS beads, which we use to illustrate methods for identifying LSS as a raw material. Despite the long history of OES bead production on the continent and the abundance of land snails available throughout the Pleistocene, LSS beads appear only in the late Holocene and are almost exclusively found in Iron Age contexts. We consider possible explanations for the late adoption of land snails as a raw material for beadmaking within the larger context of environmental, economic, and social processes in Holocene Africa. By highlighting the existence of these artifacts, we hope to facilitate more in-depth research on the timing, production, and distribution of LSS beads in African prehistory.     

Adjusting to change: privilege and place in post-Soviet central Moscow

In the new Russia where one lives plays an important part in influencing life chances, and consequently in shaping opinions regarding the changes since the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991. This study of the social geography of central Moscow is based on surveys of sample populations undertaken in 1993 and 1997. Post-Soviet central Moscow has undergone substantial change in population, social class structure and economic function during the transition from socialism to a market economy. Tens of thousands of central city residents have been relocated in the wake of re-development in the central city and there is evidence of growing social stratification as the inherent high value of central city space is reflected in the post-Soviet market place. Quality of life indicators suggest that there remains a wide gap between expectations raised by the advent of democracy and the market economy and the reality of daily life and labour for central city residents.     

People,Space and Place: a Multidimensional Analysis of Unemployment in Metropolitan Labour Markets

It is becoming increasingly apparent that, in order to understand a range of socio-economic outcomes, research needs to be focused on a multi-dimensional approach that accounts for individual characteristics and behaviours together with locality and activity within space and place. Within labour market analysis there is a need to situate empirical analysis within a conceptual framework that considers both the assets of individuals within the labour force and the social and local labour market contexts in which they find themselves. Using a broad notion of employability, this paper develops an analysis of unemployment in Australia's metropolitan labour markets. Specifically it uses a combination of individual survey data and aggregate labour market data to consider the associations between these multi-level factors. It finds that, while individual characteristics are important in understanding unemployment in metropolitan areas, it is equally the case that the strength of spatially distinct labour markets also plays a role. The paper reaches the conclusion that, while contemporary labour market policy tends to focus on individual characteristics, there is a need to widen the policy understanding of labour market outcomes so that other broader contexts, including the impact of space and place, are also seen as being influential.     

Vulnerability,Control and Oil Palm in Sarawak: Globalization and a New Era?

In the post logging era, Sarawak is being restructured to make way for large‐scale oil palm plantations. In this restructuring, the vulnerabilities of particular areas are being used in a wider battle to control production, particularly for export. Native customary lands, considered ‘unproductive’ or ‘idle’ by officials, are the target of oil palm plantation development under a new land development programme called Konsep Baru (New Concept). This article looks at the contradictions generated by the complex process of laying claims to ‘idle’ native customary land and focuses on Dayak organizing initiatives in northern Sarawak, Malaysia.     

Village Inventions: Historical Variations Upon a Regional Theme in Uiaku,Papua New Guinea

Anthropologists have come to realize that even the most ‘traditional’ Melanesian practices and ideologies may be historically shaped by the people's experiences within encompassing regional systems. This article examines the reshaping of local understandings of the village among the Maisin people of Oro Province over the past century. I distinguish three contexts within which Maisin notions of the village have been formed: colonial models of village government imposed before the Second World War; Christian village cooperatives in the post-war colonial period; and village meetings in the 1980s. The paper shows that the idea of the village has a complex evolution, shaped within overlapping dialogues between villagers and significant outsiders and between elder and younger village leaders who have had differing experiences of the outside world and the place of their own community within it.     

Slash and Trash: Dendroarchaeological and Ecological Inferences from a Twentieth-Century Logging Camp in Western New Mexico

Logging related sites and features are relatively common in forested areas of the western United States. Such sites are typically investigated through site mapping and artifact recording, and if possible, oral history. We present the results of a dendroarchaeological investigation of a small-scale unauthorized logging site in western New Mexico, US. The results provide information on the economic and social forces that created the site, as well as the scale of activities conducted there. We suggest that individuals quickly responded to improved lumber market conditions and changes in public land administration to exploit what had been an economically marginal timber stand.     

Relative Pleasures: Drugs,Development and Modern Dependencies in Asia's Golden Triangle

As opium cultivation is increasingly controlled in the Golden Triangle, producers and traffickers have created new markets for methamphetamines (ATS) amongst highland and lowland populations. At the same time, evolving forms of drug abuse also reflect a larger order of social change that directly shapes the consumer market. This article explores how demand for methamphetamines in mainland Southeast Asia emerges in sync with changing value systems fostered by development trajectories within a globalized commodity culture. The primary focus is on Akha highlanders in northwestern Laos for whom dual processes of opium eradication and village relocation directly encourage the currently prominent uptake of ATS. As Akha move into the lowlands to engage in modern capitalist systems of production, increased methamphetamine use emerges as a means to facilitate a greater reliance on sedentization and petty commodity trade. Rather than the uptake of heroin that took place in neighbouring countries, the transition from opium to methamphetamines is a highly charged sign of new social and material relations adopted by the Lao Akha as they enter primitive forms of capital accumulation and wage‐labour.     

Engendering New Labour's Workfarist Regime: Exploring the intersection of welfare state restructuring and labour market policies in the UK

This article deconstructs New Labour's emerging workfarist regime to reveal the complex and contradictory gender relations embodied in and through its work–welfare policy. Starting from the decline of manufacturing employment within the UK, it traces the deregulation of the labour market and the range of structural and social changes initiated by this process. Noting, in particular, how the ‘feminisation of the economy’ is connected to the changing characteristics of employment and women's socio-economic positions, the article identifies the manner in which the growing labour market participation of women is serving to (further) entrench gender inequality. Against this background, it proceeds to raise issues regarding the increased expectation to enter the labour market observed within programmes such as the New Deal for the Unemployed, which stipulates that the receipt of state benefits ought now to require a labour input. The crux of analysis is on the policy and political discourses that award priority to paid work in the formal labour market, whilst simultaneously neglecting the gendered divisions of labour around unwaged care work and domestic tasks. In suggesting that gender remains a key form of political-economic organisation in the contemporary period of after-Fordism, this article argues that (further) attention must be given to the ways in which its socially constructed properties are manifest within work–welfare policy and the ramifications of this embedding for social and economic equality.     

Masculinity, Identity and Labour Market Change: Some Reflections on the Implications of Thinking Relationally About Difference and the Politics of Inclusion

Abstract In this paper I want to address the connections between the three areas of work: first, the theorisation of identity as relational; second, the significance of difference and diversity in thinking about inequality, labour market restructuring and the social construction of multiple masculinities; and finally, the political implications of taking diversity into account in arguing for a participatory democracy based on ideas about inclusion, respect and responsibility. I want to illustrate these connections in the specific context of a case study about young men in contemporary Britain. In the sections that follow, I focus on each of these areas or concepts in turn, but attempt to demonstrate the connections between the substantive debates in each of the sections. In my conclusion I raise some of the policy implications for building wider social inclusion in democracies by connecting notions of difference and diversity to structural inequalities, or what is sometimes referred to by geographers as ‘the cultural’ and ‘the economic’ dimensions of difference.     

Labour in Global Value Chains: Work Conditions in Football Manufacturing in China,India and Pakistan

A critical challenge facing developing country producers is to meet international labour standards and codes of conduct in order to engage in global value chains. Evidence of gains for workers from compliance with such standards and codes remains limited and patchy. This article focuses on the global football industry, a sector dominated by leading global brands that manage dispersed global value chains. It assesses the working conditions for football stitchers engaged in different forms of work organization, factories, stitching centres and home‐based settings in Pakistan, India and China. It draws on detailed qualitative primary field research with football‐stitching workers and producers in these three countries. The article explains how and why work conditions of football stitchers differ across these locations through an analytical framework that interweaves both global and local production contexts that influence work conditions. In doing so, it argues that current debates on the role of labour in global value chains have to go beyond a narrow focus on labour standards and corporate social responsibility compliance and engage with economic, technological and social upgrading as factors that could generate sustained improvements in real wages and workers’ conditions.     

Institutions du travail et etat‐nation histoire d'un mariage à l'avenir incertain

Concepts of unemployment or of the labour market are not abstract, but develop from each society's own particular logic. Taking the examples of Germany and France at the end of the nineteenth century, it is possible to see how these concepts were constructed in specific national contexts, and how they were then used in practice. This analysis leads us to rethink current ideas about work and unemployment, and to ask what their future will be in a united Europe.     

Women's and Men's Work: The Production and Marketing of Fresh Food and Export Crops in Papua New Guinea

Fresh food markets have been a fixture of the social and economic landscape of urban and rural PNG since colonial times. They were often the first points of engagement with the market economy, especially for women, who as small‐scale producers, sold surplus produce from their food gardens located on communally‐owned land. Although local food markets have remained an important livelihood for women, the later adoption and expansion of perennial export cash crops like coffee and cocoa overshadowed food production for local markets as men dominated export crop production on land alienated from communal ownership for decades or permanently. New forms of social relations of production and more exclusive forms of land tenure emerged to accommodate export crop production that were very different from those governing the production and marketing of fresh food. Market values and a trend towards individualisation of production with less capacity to mobilise labour through reciprocal labour exchange networks have characterised export crop production. With the income benefits captured largely by men, women began redirecting their labour to fresh food production where they were able to exercise more control of production and income while still mobilising labour through indigenous labour exchange arrangements. Attempts by men to appropriate the income of women and sons’ labour in export cropping were greater during flush periods when income levels were high, and they were less likely to attempt to appropriate this income in low crop periods when incomes were lower. However, with the recent emergence of female entrepreneurers earning relatively large sums of money in large‐scale, profit‐driven vegetable production, the moral frameworks governing food production are coming to resemble those governing export crops, and making labour more difficult to mobilise. Despite women being key players in these changes, we argue there is an emerging risk that men will attempt to assert control over this income or move into vegetable production themselves and possibly marginalise women in the process.     

基于空间再生产视角的西方城市空间更新解析

1970年代西方开启了向新自由主义的转型过程,城市空间的更新变迁都打上了资本积累、资本增殖的烙印。文章将西方的城市更新历程归纳为三个阶段,以空间再生产的视角揭示了城市更新的本质,指出1980年代以来鼓励公共-私人部门共同参与空间再开发成为城市更新的基本特征。文章归纳了西方城市更新的三种模式,并对其经济社会绩效进行了评估,深度解读了其动力机制。最后,文章提出了对中国城市更新的基本判断。