Patronage or Participation? Community‐based Natural Resource Management Reform in Sub‐Saharan Africa

This article examines the institutional factors that account for the outcome of efforts to decentralize control over natural resources to local communities. It focuses on the political nature of institutional processes associated with decentralization in sub‐Saharan Africa through a comparative analysis of wildlife management reforms in seven east and southern African countries. Institutional reforms are largely dependent on state authorities' patronage interests, which in turn are shaped by the relative economic value of wildlife, the degree of central control over commercial utilization, and the accountability of governance institutions. Our findings have a range of practical implications for the design of CBNRM initiatives and institutional reform strategies.     

时代、文化资本与支配权:对张謇创办南通博物苑的再思考

面对19世纪末中国空前的民族危机和剧遽社会变迁,张謇选择了"实业救国"、"教育救国"的道路。南通博物苑作为张謇教育事业的重要组成部分,是其教育救国思想的具体体现。张謇在南通博物苑创办过程中实现了资本的文化化和文化的资本化双重过程:一方面,将经济资本转化为文化资本;另一方面,又将文化资本转化为其象征资本的一部分,使其获得更大社会权力,从而能够按照自己的政治理想对地方社会进行塑造。张謇对于作为文化资本的南通博物苑的支配主要体现在三个方面:藏品内容及知识系统的构建、博物馆教育作用的树立及对参观者的规范。张謇对文化资本的支配表面上是其个人意志的体现,由其政治理念所驱动;而深究,终不免受时代和机构属性等因素的制约与影响。     

Decolonisation and Wildlife Conservation in Kenya, 1958–68

Several of Kenya's wildlife conservation areas were established from the late 1950s through efforts by the international conservationist lobby to decolonise African conservation programmes initiated by colonial administrations from the late nineteenth century. The prospect of African independence induced conservationists to look for ways to give Africans a stake in their own wildlife, with a view to securing the future of conservation under independent governments. Kenya's internal politics shaped these efforts on the ground, giving birth to community-controlled wildlife conservation projects such as game reserves. Although the government of independent Kenya had started to transform the conservation programme in favour of state-controlled wildlife areas by the late 1960s, the legacy of the community game reserves persists today. This paper analyses the impact of the internal politics of decolonisation on Kenya's wildlife conservation programme.     

The Symbolic Making of a Common Property Resource: History,Ecology and Locality in a Tank-irrigated Landscape in South India

Today there is a pervasive policy consensus in favour of ‘community management’ approaches to common property resources such as forests and water. This is endorsed and legitimized by theories of collective action which, this article argues, produce distinctively ahistorical and apolitical constructions of ‘locality’, and impose a narrow definition of resources and economic interest. Through an historical and ethnographic exploration of indigenous tank irrigation systems in Tamil Nadu, the article challenges the economic-institutional modelling of common property systems in terms of sets of rules and co-operative equilibrium outcomes internally sustained by a structure of incentives. The article argues for a more historically and politically grounded understanding of resources, rights and entitlements and, using Bourdieu's notion of ‘symbolic capital’, argues for a reconception of common property which recognizes symbolic as well as material interests and resources. Tamil tank systems are viewed not only as sources of irrigation water, but as forming part of a village ‘public domain’ through which social relations are articulated, reproduced and challenged. But the symbolic ‘production of locality’ to which water systems contribute is also shaped by local ecology. The paper examines the historical and cultural production of two distinctive ‘cultural ecologies’. This serves to illustrate the fusion of ecology and social identity, place and person, in local conceptions, and to challenge a currently influential thesis on the ecological-economic determinants of collective action. In short, development discourse and local actors are seen to have very different methods and purposes in the ‘production of locality’. Finally, the article points to some practical implications of this for strategies of ‘local institutional development’ in irrigation.     

Tourism–conservation enterprises as a land-use strategy in Kenya

Since the early 1990s, nature conservation organizations in Eastern and Southern Africa have increasingly attempted to integrate their objectives with those of international development organizations, the land-use objectives of local communities and the commercial objectives of tourism businesses, in order to find new solutions for the protection of nature and wildlife outside state-protected areas. The increased inclusion of the market in conservation initiatives has led to diverse institutional arrangements involving various societal actors, such as private game reserves, conservancies and conservation enterprises. The Koija Starbeds ecolodge in Kenya – a partnership between communities, private investors and a non-governmental organization – serves as a case study for emerging institutional arrangements aimed at enabling value creation for communities from nature conservation. Based on a content analysis of data from individual semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews, as well as a document and literature review, this article reveals a range of benefits for community livelihood and conservation. It also identifies a range of longer term governance challenges, such as the need to address local political struggles, the relations between partners and transparency and accountability in the arrangement.     

The politics of the Shanghai courts: the state,local elites,and social networks in Nationalist China, 1927–1937

This article explores the ways in which the Nationalist Party established dominance over the Shanghai courts in the foreign concession area to use them as weapons against political dissidents, and it analyzes the intricate relations among the Nationalist Party, local elites, and the Shanghai courts during the Nanjing decade (1927–1937). Building on recent studies that pay attention to the limited success of the Nationalist Party’s policy of putting the judiciary under Party control, this study demonstrates that the process of establishing the Nationalist Party’s dominance over the Shanghai courts was highly contested. The interplay between the Nationalist Party’s effort to gain control over the Shanghai courts by building formal and informal institutions and the local elites’ appropriation of their own social networks rendered the Shanghai courts vulnerable not only to the Party’s intervention, but also to the influence of social forces. I argue that due to the weak authority of the Shanghai courts, the Nationalist Party’s use of law against political foes could be a double-edged sword.     

China’s Rangelands under Stress: A Comparative Study of Pasture Commons in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

China’s economic reforms have exacerbated the problems of over‐grazing and desertification in the country’s pastoral areas. In order to deal with rangeland degradation, the Chinese government has resorted to nationalization, or semi‐privatization. Since the implementation of rangeland policy has proved very difficult, however, experiments with alternative rangeland tenure systems merit our attention. In Ningxia, in northwest China, local attempts have been undertaken to establish communal range management systems with the village as the basic unit of use and control. Some of these management regimes are under severe stress, due to large‐scale digging for medicinal herbs in the grasslands. This digging has resulted in serious conflicts between Han and Hui Muslim Chinese, during which several farmers have been killed. It is against this backdrop that this article explores the institutional dynamics of range management in two different villages.     

Rising From the Ashes? The Difficult (Re)Birth of the Georgian State

This article explores some of the social and political dynamics that shaped Georgia’s transition from a constituent Republic of the Soviet Union to an independent state between 1987 and 2000, highlighting the factors that led to a series of catastrophic conflicts, the disintegration of social, ethnic and political relations, and the destruction of state institutions. Although not a typical case of state collapse, the Georgian experience draws attention to the interplay between social dynamics, political identities, the institutional legacy of Soviet rule, and the role of conflict in transforming competition over political power. The Georgian case, moreover, also reveals how understandings of state ‘collapse’ cannot be untangled from ‘reconstruction’ (or state formation more broadly). Rather than simply a negative end–game, collapse must be understood as a specific dynamic inscribed in the competition for hegemonic power and authority which, through its eventual coalescence in social, political and institutional forms, constitutes the essence of the modern state, and of political life in general.     

Chiefs,hunters and adventurers: the foundation of the Okavango/Moremi National Park,Botswana

This article is about the politics of wildlife management in Botswana. The existing literature on the origins of wildlife conservation in Africa has portrayed the formation of protected areas as an imposition of colonial state authorities. Preservationist policies are usually cast as the product of European conservationist ideas, and related notions of the ‘wilderness’ value of African landscapes. Many recent studies have emphasized the negative effects of such ideas and policies in a colonial context: they have drawn attention to the way in which they devalued local African ideas, undermined local management strategies, and criminalized access to important economic and cultural resources. The case discussed here, however, suggests that this interpretation needs closer scrutiny: the meaning and impact of global ideas and policies of wildlife conservation depends on how they are localized in particular places. The key actors in the foundation of Botswana's Okavango/Moremi National Park in the 1960s were not state officials but local BaTawana chiefs and a network of hunters and adventurers turned conservationists. The initiative was conceived as a means of protecting wildlife from the depredations of illegal South African hunting parties and ensuring future local use, and was initially opposed by the colonial state. The article discusses why Okavango/Moremi was an exception, and why the initial coalition of African and local settler interests came to see preservationist policies as being in their interest.     

Informal institutional change in De Achterhoek region: from citizen initiatives to participatory governance

As in other European countries, the formal planning task of Dutch governments is subjected to devolution and austerity measures. Not only did these developments lead to outsourcing planning tasks to lower-level governments, also citizens are increasingly ‘invited’ to take responsibility for providing public facilities and services. In De Achterhoek, a Dutch region, these shifts are amplified due to population change and traditional active citizenship, and led to institutional change. Since a decade local governments stimulate citizen initiatives, under the umbrella of participatory governance. This process of institutional change did not alter formal institutions, but was the result of an informal and dialectic process between local governments and citizen organizations. In this paper, we will demonstrate the process of change and how it affected planning practices in De Achterhoek, building on theories of informal institutional change and its driving forces. The empirical part of this paper draws on the results of three focus group meetings, in which a diverse set of local stakeholders discussed the effects of change they observed and how it shaped planning practices. In the final section, we reflect on the degree of institutionalization, by examining the robustness and resilience of the observed change.     

Domesticating online games for preteens – discursive fields,everyday gaming,and family life

This article examines families’ everyday practices connected with online games played by children ages seven to eleven in the USA. Based on interviews in homes with children and parents, the article employs domestication theory to account for social experiences and symbolic meanings of games and game devices within private and public contexts of children’s game play. The analysis focuses on the social process through which online games are brought into home environments and incorporated into families’ daily routines. Games are analyzed as both impacting on everyday practices of the family and being shaped by the histories, values, and relationships within the households. The article contributes to an understanding of preteens’ online gaming and highlights the strength of using domestication theory to investigate children’s media practices.     

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.     

公安部队组建初期组织体系和领导体制的历史考察(1949—1952年)

公安部队是武警部队的前身,是中国人民解放军的一个组成部分。中华人民共和国成立后,为了在全国范围内迅速建立革命秩序,巩固新生政权,在中央军委和公安部的领导下,逐步把地域性的公安武装和中国人民解放军担负公安任务的部队正式改编成“中国人民公安部队”。在军委公安司令部成立后,公安部队又进行了整编,组建了“中国人民解放军公安部队”和地方公安部队,逐渐接替全国内卫任务。随着边防公安组织和边防武装的建立,全国公安部队初步形成了正规公安部队、地方公安部队和边防公安武装的体制。为统一对国家内卫、边防斗争的领导,加强公安部队的建设,1952年,中共中央、中央军委决定将内卫、边防和地方公安武装统一整编为“中国人民解放军公安部队”,全部纳入中国人民解放军的建制序列。内卫、边防工作和公安部队的建设进入了一个新的阶段。     

Spatial imaginaries and collective identity in women’s human rights struggles in Honduras

In recent years, geographic analysis on social movements has emphasised the influence of actors’ concepts, lived experiences and perceptions of space on the emergence of collective action. Cultural approaches to social movements in Latin America as well as feminist scholarship have revealed that women’s collective action is shaped by their perceptions of institutional and societal challenges, which are rooted in authoritarian and patriarchal culture prevalent in their society. This article combines geographic and cultural approaches to social movements as well as transnational feminist theories to explore women’s human rights mobilisation in Honduras after the coup d’état in 2009. It investigates how a group of urban and rural activists that included feminists, rural women, students and community leaders, adopted human rights discourses and practices to respond to the coup. The article draws on interviews and focus group discussions to suggest firstly, that protests in response to the coup shaped the interviewees’ spatial imaginaries and particularly considers how urban feminists’ spatial imaginaries were merged with those of rural women under the collective framework of human rights. Secondly, the study demonstrates that a collective identity as women human rights defenders was crucial for the emergence of collective action and also prompted the establishment of a national network. This case study contributes to research on women’s collective action to negotiate women’s rights, human rights and social justice in changing political processes.     

Governing urban regeneration in the UK: a case of ‘variegated neoliberalism’ in action?

The article focuses on the redevelopment of previously developed land by public-private sector partnerships in three cities/towns in South-West England, two of which can be described as medium-sized places with little previous experience of such developments. In each case we situated the redevelopment process in its wider multi-level and horizontal relationships using Social Network Analysis to produce network and centrality maps to reveal the complex network of relationships the process was embedded within and shaped by. These developments took place in what is termed the ‘roll-out’ phase of neoliberalism and we illustrate how the overarching planning and regulatory regimes (including contracts), along with wider economic conditions, shaped the development process, with the proviso that in each case these factors were mediated and themselves shaped by the assortment and interaction of local organizational, political, economic and civic forces. These included local planning committees and their interpretation of planning regulations and the developers involved, but also opposition to the developments from local sources. Much, however, depended on the ‘capacity to act’ of the relevant partnerships, in the sense of mobilizing and deploying available resources to realize the proposed developments.     

Images of ‘Wild Africa’: nature tourism and the (re)creation of Hluhluwe game reserve, 1930–1945

This paper explores the relationship between new discursive constructions of South African nature and the material imperatives that influenced game reserve management in Zululand in the 1930s and 1940s. It also investigates the social consequences of these developments. The paper traces the emergence of marketable constructions of ‘wild nature’ linked to the development of tourism and their expression in the increasing exclusion of Africans from game reserves. At Hluhluwe, this process was tentative and its outcome far from inevitable. Yet while the question of an African presence in game reserves remained open in the early 1930s, in the longer term it was clear that black people could not be part of Zululand's new, purified ‘space of nature’ – or, more correctly, they would participate only as employees and not as residents or tourists. The management of the Hluhluwe game reserve as a tourist destination ultimately entailed the more systematic exercise of spatial controls over its landscape, contributing to the dispossession and exclusion of local Zulu people. The paper argues that enhanced social controls and a new brutal geography of forced removal are implicated in the (re)creation of Hluhluwe as a romantic space in which tourists could experience wild nature and an ‘unspoilt’ African landscape.     

Stumbling towards Empire: The Shanghai Local Post Office,the Transnational British Community and Informal Empire in China, 1863–97

In the second half of nineteenth century, a small transnational British and foreign community grew up in the treaty ports scattered along China’s coast, a community literally caught between the great inner Asian empire of the Manchu Qing and British-dominated informal empire in Asia. Although scholars often contend that few major developments occurred in the foreign sector of the treaty port world until the very end of the nineteenth century, this article joins recent revisionist scholarship seeking to better understand the growth of this transnational treaty port community through a study of the Shanghai Municipal Council’s local post office in the context of informal empire prior to the rise of muscular Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century.

As an institutional history of the virtually unknown local post office, this article is a study of the decades-long process by which the foreign settler community of Shanghai slowly built up the administrative capacity, trading networks and communications infrastructure of informal empire and semi-colonial order in the nineteenth-century treaty ports. The history of the local post office is largely unknown not because of its insignificance, but because we have not paid enough attention to the institutions that facilitated the emergence of transnational expatriate and settler communities throughout the world of British informal empire and the global and local influences that shaped them.     

Beyond Hybridity to the Politics of Scale: International Intervention and ‘Local’ Politics

The evident failures of international peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions (PSBIs) have recently prompted a focus on the interaction between interventions and target societies and states. Especially popular has been the ‘hybridity’ approach, which understands forms of peace and governance emerging through the mixing of local and international agendas and institutions. This article argues that hybridity is a highly problematic optic. Despite contrary claims, hybridity scholarship falsely dichotomizes ‘local’ and ‘international’ ideal‐typical assemblages, and incorrectly presents outcomes as stemming from conflict and accommodation between them. Scholarship in political geography and state theory provides better tools for explaining PSBIs’ outcomes as reflecting socio‐political contestation over power and resources. We theorize PSBIs as involving a politics of scale, where different social forces promote and resist alternative scales and modes of governance, depending on their interests and agendas. Contestation between these forces, which may be located at different scales and involved in complex, tactical, multi‐scalar alliances, explains the uneven outcomes of international intervention. We demonstrate this using a case study of East Timor, focusing on decentralization and land policy.     

The dossettiani and the concept of the secular state in the constitutional debates: 1946–7

It is now generally accepted that the members of the Constituent Assembly who were charged with drafting the Constitution concentrated their efforts on formulating the ideals to be expressed in it at the expense of the institutional arrangements of the new Republic. This has generally been viewed as resulting from a combination of two factors: their weak grasp of the liberal principles underpinning liberal parliamentary democracy, and a concomitant error of judgement in assuming that sufficient stress on the ideals of the Constitution would guarantee the basis of a healthy democracy. This article sets out to examine the input of the most influential Catholic group, the dossettiani, and argues, against the error of judgement thesis, that in fact their rejection of the concept of the secular state was a more fundamental denial of important principles of a pluralist democracy than has usually been supposed. The article also places their contribution within the context of the Church's aim to create a ‘Christian civilization’, and further suggests that the model of Catholic Action which inspired its collateral vision of Catholic forces was corrosive of a pluralist vision of correct institutional arrangements. The article ends by suggesting that these factors may have weighed more heavily on subsequent distortions of Italian democracy than has so far been supposed.