Development Discourses and Peasant–Forest Relations: Natural Resource Utilization as Social Process

This article analyses the changing role of forests and the practices of peasants toward them in a Costa Rican rural community, drawing on an analytical perspective of political ecology, combined with cultural interpretations. The study underlines the complex articulation of local processes and global forces in tropical forest struggles. Deforestation is seen as a process of development and power involving multiple social actors, from politicians and development experts to a heterogeneous group of local peasants. The local people are not passive victims of global challenges, but are instead directly involved in the changes concerning their production systems and livelihood strategies. In the light of historical changes in natural resource utilization, the article underlines the multiplicity of the causes of tropical deforestation, and the intricate links between global discourses on environment and development and local forest relations.     

Unearthing Women's Anti‐Mining Activism in the Andes: Pachamama and the “Mad Old Women”

Women play an important role in social activism challenging the expansion of extractive industries across Latin America. In arguing that this involvement has been largely unrecognised, this paper explores Andean Peruvian and Ecuadorian women's accounts of their activism and the particular gendered narratives that the women deploy in explaining and legitimising this activism. These discussions contribute to understanding the patterning of grassroots activism and making visible the gendered micro‐politics of resistance and struggle around natural resource use, as well as to understanding the gendered and strategic ways in which women contest dominant discourses of development.     

The South African Transition: From Development to Security?

This article questions some recent analyses which claim that global neo‐liberal discourses are disseminated to shift the focus away from development towards a greater emphasis on security issues. Taking as its point of departure the analysis of empirical material from Cape Town, the article shows that security and development in South Africa were never separate concerns. After the ANC came to power in 1994 there was an effort to boost development efforts rather than security. However, these efforts were soon dwarfed by local circumstances, notably the pressure from local state employees who felt their jobs and lives to be under threat from the townships, and the changing nature of violence in the city. The first part of the article details the practices and discourses of state agencies; the second section analyses the consequences of reconfigured security and development concerns for the production of political subjectivity in South Africa's townships.     

Decontextualized Knowledge,Situated Politics: The New Scientific–Local Politics of Rice Genetic Resources in Thailand

Recent practices of scientific–local knowledge interaction in Thailand surrounding rice genetic resources have led to a new phenomenon, which this article calls knowledge inclusion. This study explores several forms of knowledge inclusion —participatory science, localized science, scientized knowledge and hybridized knowledge— as new loci of political practices among government rice breeders, non‐governmental officials and farmers. Ethnographic studies are used to reveal that, through selectively incorporating elements of each other's knowledges, these scientific and local knowledge practitioners have drawn on the discourses of scientific–local knowledges to their political advantage. The ramifications of this new politics vary according to different political arenas in rice genetic resource management. Based on these findings, the article argues that recent practices of knowledge inclusion should not be obscured by the notion of situated knowledge, but should be understood as situated politics of decontextualized knowledge in genetic resource management. The argument reconceptualizes the new scientific–local politics as a synthesis between the power–knowledge relation and the power–structural context in which genetic resource management takes place.     

The Discourse of Maendeleo and the Politics of Women’s Participation on Mount Kilimanjaro

Studies of participatory development and empowerment often fail to place people’s actions and motivations within their wider cultural, social, political and economic context. Drawing on fieldwork which looked at village‐based women’s groups on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, this article deconstructs the dominant discourse of development on the mountain (maendeleo) to show how women’s participation in their local organizations is used as a strategy to boost their social status and financial gains. Local, national and global discourses on development, modernity and gender are reappropriated by Chagga men and women to produce a normative Chagga developmental subjectivity which women can demonstrate by participating in women’s groups. The over‐representation of better‐off and higher‐status women in these groups suggests that, in excluding the poorest women, participation in women’s groups is serving to legitimate, and perpetuate, existing inequalities within Chagga society.     

Competing imaginaries: Crypto-utopianism and the material forces of Bitcoin mining

Drawing on Marx's theory of history, this article argues that the competition and capital accumulation inherent in the production of Bitcoin (i.e. ‘mining’) are at odds with the narrative discourses that position Bitcoin as a revolutionary technology capable of subverting traditional power structures. Through an analysis of the evolution of Bitcoin mining, the article demonstrates how the material conditions of its production have shifted over time, leading to the concentration of mining power among a few large corporate entities and a concomitant erosion of the decentralized ethos that underpinned the early Bitcoin community. The article also argues that this shift is not simply a result of the ‘natural’ evolution of the technology, but also the outcome of specific social and economic forces that encourage the accumulation of capital over Bitcoin's democratic and decentralized potentialities. Overall, the article suggests that the narrative discourses surrounding Bitcoin need to be understood in relation to the material forces that shape its production and circulation, and that a more nuanced analysis of the interplay between material and discursive factors is necessary to fully grasp the dynamics of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.     

IT Industrial Development in Taiwan and the Constraints on Environmental Mobilization

Studies in the development of high‐tech industries have shown low levels of community involvement and environmental mobilization. In contrast to the tenets of social movement theories, it seems that the openness of political systems and the tactics of social movements are not enough to lead to increased grassroots environmental resistance in the context of high‐tech development. This article uses the example of high‐tech electronic development in Hsinchu, Taiwan, to examine why and how grassroots activism has been impeded in the past two decades. The article highlights the industrial characteristics and processes within the information technology sector, and analyses existing obstacles to environmental mobilization in the context of a fast‐growing high‐tech economy. It argues that a unique IT development structure has dramatically changed local social characteristics in a way that constrains grassroots mobilization in public social agendas. It also shows how the influential and rapidly expanding IT sector has come to dominate resource‐use in the area, leaving opposing forces more powerless than ever.     

Une histoire de résidus : à propos des facteurs généraux et locaux de croissance régionale au Canada,de 1971 à 2001

Starting from an econometric model of local employment growth, applied to Canada (1971–2001), residuals—relative to model predictions—are analyzed over time and over space, in turn allowing us to draw a distinction between general explanatory variables and factors of a more local, cyclical or accidental nature. The model's explanatory power grows over time, founded on variables such as urban size, market access and industrial structure, allowing us to conclude that local employment growth in Canada follows an increasingly geographically predictable pattern. However, an examination of the residuals reveals more localized processes. Growth volatility is most manifest in Alberta and British Columbia, home to the most erratic local economies. Emerging patterns are visible in the last period, most notably the underperformance of Northern Ontario and of non‐metropolitan communities between Windsor and Québec City, lying along the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence. The over‐performance—compared to model predictions — of small and mid‐sized towns in south‐eastern Québec can, on the other hand, be interpreted as a sign of truly local social processes, generally associated with a particularly dynamic local entrepreneurial class.     

‘IT'S ALL A QUESTION OF BUSINESS’: INVESTMENT IDENTITIES,NETWORKS AND DECISION‐MAKING IN THE CLEANTECH ECONOMY

Cleantech has emerged in the last decade as a major new investment sector at the forefront of the green economy. It responds to the need for innovative technologies to combat the impact of global environmental, climate and resource trends. Focusing on the cleantech sector, this article explores the central importance of relationality within the financial domain of the green economy. The central aim of this article is to deepen understandings of the operation of cleantech investment by examining the decision‐making processes of cleantech actors, how these are influenced by (and influence) cleantech investment networks, and the relationships between these factors and the macro‐level drivers and discourses focused on the cleantech sector. A relational economic geography approach is used in conjunction with other frameworks (spanning the cultural, structural and actor‐network dimensions of cleantech investment) to investigate: how cleantech investors define the sector; the macro‐ and micro‐level drivers of cleantech investment; and how cleantech networks form and operate to create and disseminate cleantech discourses and to generate the mutual trust and information sharing needed to secure cleantech investments. In so doing, the article seeks to shed greater light on the micro‐level processes contributing to the creation and growth of cleantech investment markets as an essential catalyst and component of the green economy.     

Hybrid Uptakes of Neoliberal Conservation in Namibian Tourism‐based Development

Neoliberal conservation schemes involving nature‐based tourism are implemented throughout the developing world to address rural poverty. Drawing on socio‐economic surveys and in‐depth interviews, this article uses the case of Uibasen Conservancy in Namibia to investigate social responses to neoliberal conservation. We find that people's aspirations for upward economic and social mobility lead them to participate in neoliberal conservation projects in an attempt to combine economic opportunities created by nature‐based tourism with traditional livelihood strategies. In this case, certain aspects of neoliberal conservation are perceived as a source of hope for non‐elites seeking to achieve economic self‐sufficiency and to ascend social hierarchies. We find that intra‐community power struggles dominate discourses of discontent and local‐level conflict which consequently masks the disruptive and anomic forces of the global tourism industry. We additionally provide insight into specific social contexts that may increase the allure of neoliberal conservation and explain why marginalized individuals may embrace some neoliberal logics despite — or, perhaps, because of — their disruptive tendencies.     

Empowering Pyromaniacs in Madagascar: Ideology and Legitimacy in Community‐Based Natural Resource Management

Development practitioners frequently rely on community‐based natural resource management (CBNRM) as an approach to encourage equitable and sustainable environmental resource use. Based on an analysis of the case of grassland and woodland burning in highland Madagascar, this article argues that the success of CBNRM depends upon the real empowerment of local resource users and attention to legitimacy in local institutions. Two key factors — obstructive environmental ideologies (‘received wisdoms’) and the complex political and social arena of ‘community’ governance — challenge empowerment and legitimacy and can transform outcomes. In Madagascar, persistent hesitancy among leaders over the legitimate role of fire has sidetracked a new CBNRM policy called GELOSE away from one of its original purposes — community fire management — towards other applications, such as community management of forest exploitation. In addition, complications with local governance frustrate implementation efforts. As a result, a century‐long political stalemate over fire continues.     

Watercourses and Discourses: Coalmining in the Upper Hunter Valley,New South Wales

ABSTRACT Water is a resource that both unites and divides people in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales, where many communities are facing the prospect of large‐scale open‐cut coalmining developments on productive mixed use land, or already live in proximity to mines and power stations. This article analyses conflicts over a proposed coal mine at Bickham in the Upper Hunter Valley, by contrasting the various protagonists' discourses of water scarcity, supply, and connectivity. It examines the ways in which the terms of opposition are narrowed to the arena of state and industry supported science and economic development, marginalising other cultural values and environmental ethics that are integral to opponents' discourses. Opponents have achieved some measure of success through contestation of the uncertain science of hydrological modelling, bolstered by the context of drought and increasing public acceptance of climate change science.     

NORBERT ELIAS,THE CIVILIZING PROCESS: SOCIOGENETIC AND PSYCHOGENETIC INVESTIGATIONS—AN OVERVIEW AND ASSESSMENT

Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, which was published in German in 1939 and first translated into English in two volumes in 1978 and 1982, is now widely regarded as one of the great works of twentieth‐century sociology. This work attempted to explain how Europeans came to think of themselves as more “civilized” than their forebears and neighboring societies. By analyzing books about manners that had been published between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, Elias observed changing conceptions of shame and embarrassment with respect to, among other things, bodily propriety and violence. To explain those developments, Elias examined the interplay among the rise of state monopolies of power, increasing levels of economic interconnectedness among people, and pressures to become attuned to others over greater distances that led to advances in identifying with others in the same society irrespective of social origins. Elias's analysis of the civilizing process was not confined, however, to explaining changing social bonds within separate societies. The investigation also focused on the division of Europe into sovereign states that were embroiled in struggles for power and security. This article provides an overview and analysis of Elias's principal claims in the light of growing interest in this seminal work in sociology. The analysis shows how Elias defended higher levels of synthesis in the social sciences to explain relations between “domestic” and “international” developments, and changes in social structure and in the emotional lives of modern people. Elias's investigation, which explained long‐term processes of development over several centuries, pointed to the limitations of inquiries that concentrate on short‐term intervals. Only by placing short‐term trends in long‐term perspective could sociologists understand contemporary developments. This article maintains that Elias's analysis of the civilizing process remains an exemplary study of long‐term developments in Western societies over the last five centuries.     

In the Long ‘Run’: Kanak Stockmen,the Cattle Frontier and Colonial Power Relations in New Caledonia, 1870–1988

ABSTRACT For more than a century, from the 1870s to the 1980s, stockmen were important intermediaries and figures of power and influence in the construction, maintenance and renewal of the colonial order in New Caledonia. Social relations between Kanak and settlers working in the cattle ‘runs’ permitted a unique form of mobility spanning the frontier. The relations developed between chiefs and cattle farmers are central to the processes by which certain administrative chieftaincies emerged in the late‐nineteenth century, and by which Kanak entered the ‘political’ sphere in the second half of the twentieth century. With reference to the locality of Koné, this article traces the political alliances fashioned between Kanak stockmen and their employers in the context of colonisation, rebellion, evangelisation, post‐war political emancipation, local development and, finally, the struggle between supporters and opponents of independence in the 1980s.     

The Shady Side of Consultation and Compensation: ‘Divide‐and‐Rule’ Tactics in Bolivia's Extraction Sector

The rights to prior consultation and compensation have been established within the framework of international indigenous peoples’ rights. However, in practice these processes have often gone hand in hand with adverse social consequences for local populations, such as the exacerbation of conflicts, the division of communities and the weakening of indigenous organizations. These phenomena have received little attention, despite their great relevance for these populations. This article sheds light on the use by the Bolivian state and extraction corporations of exclusionary participation and negotiation processes, on the one hand, and ‘carrot‐and‐stick’ techniques on the other, which have together accounted for negative social impacts on the ground. The article is based on recently conducted field research, focus group discussions and semi‐structured interviews in Guaraní communities in Bolivia. The findings extend the existing literature by providing a fine‐grained and systematic analysis of divisive undertakings and their sociocultural and sociopolitical consequences in neo‐extractivist Bolivia. The broader implications of the study add to academic debates about participation in development, about ‘divide‐and‐rule’ tactics and about the practice of indigenous peoples’ rights.     

Unravelling the Relationships between Used‐Clothing Imports and the Decline of African Clothing Industries

African clothing industries have declined since the implementation of economic liberalization policies in the early 1980s whilst used‐clothing imports to Africa have increased. The general effects of economic liberalization on African clothing industries are well documented, although little research has been conducted on the particular impact of increased imports of second‐hand clothes on the local manufacturing sectors. Whether these two processes are causally related is difficult to determine due to limitations in official data sets. In this article, the used‐clothing trade is explored in detail and a broad range of cultural and local economic processes are investigated. Trends such as declining local purchasing power and the opening of African markets to cheap new clothing imports, as well as imports of used‐clothing, are examined, along with the converse boost to African clothing export production resulting from preferential trade agreements in the 2000s. With respect to the differential legal and illegal imports of second‐hand clothing to selected African countries, it is demonstrated that official trade data sets often fail to capture the nuances of contemporary social and economic processes.     

Recategorizing ‘Public’ and ‘Private’ Property in Ghana

In the course of political struggle in northern Ghana, the classification of land and resources has shifted between the two ‘master categories’ of public and private. Despite the fact that master categories may be wholly inadequate in accounting for the actual complexity of property objects, social units and rights, they are not divorced from the agency of people who have something at stake. Laws, rules and by‐laws are referred to as important markers and fashion the local political struggles over the rights to and control over resources. This article offers a general account of conflicts and the recategorization of resources in the property system of small‐scale irrigation. It examines the logics and positioning of the different stakeholders, and discusses how different levels of public policy have provided opportunities for such changes. A case study presents the opportunity to examine the details of a particular controversy demonstrating the social and political powers involved in the recategorization of property.     

Senegalese street‐sellers,racism and the discourse on ‘irregular trade’ in Rimini

The coast of Emilia‐Romagna is a favourite destination for the seasonal movement of Senegalese street‐sellers. It is no coincidence that Rimini hosted one of the first racist demonstrations of shopkeepers in 1989. The situation has worsened over time. In fact, the local public discourse on immigration never developed autonomously but has always been connected to the discourse expressing the main concern of the town: irregular trade. Yet discourses do not work alone and are linked also to social relations and to economic trends such as the restructuring of the local retailing economy and the tourist sector. This article therefore shows how racism in Rimini is the fluid product of, first, the overlapping of discourses about differing social phenomena which shape the dominant discourse on immigration; and, secondly, the identification with this dominant discourse that has emerged from everyday social relations and institutional practices. The latter part of the article presents elements of the counter‐discourse, based on observations and conversations carried out with Senegalese immigrants in a summer camp outside Rimini. Finally, a proposal by the mayor of Rimini to exclude non‐resident immigrants coming from outside the province is analysed as an example of the criminalization of immigrants through the application of a ‘sedentarist metaphysic’.     

Alternative Pathways to Community and Economic Development: The Latrobe Valley Community Partnering Project

Conventional approaches to development in areas that are experiencing economic decline invariably focus on business growth through interventions such as incentives, infrastructure development and job readiness training. This paper reports on a pilot project aimed at developing an alternative approach to community and economic development in the context of the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, a resource region that has experienced downsizing and privatisation of its major employer, the state‐owned power industry. The project was shaped by a poststructuralist concern with the effects of representation. It sought to challenge familiar understandings of disadvantaged areas, the economy, community and the research process in order to open up new ways of addressing social and economic issues. The resulting four‐stage research project was informed by the techniques of asset‐based community development and action research, as well as by discourses of the diverse economy and communities of difference. During the two‐year span of the project, four community enterprises were developed. The varying degrees of success they have met with in the four years since the project concluded highlight the critical role of local agencies such as the council in providing ongoing support for such endeavours.