Earth Mother Myths and Other Ecofeminist Fables: How a Strategic Notion Rose and Fell

The notion that women are ‘closer to nature’, naturally caring for land, water, forests and other aspects of the environment, has held powerful sway in certain development circles since the 1980s. Along with the rise in global environmental concern, ‘women, environment and development’ (WED) perspectives gained ground among many donor agencies and NGOs, complementing and sharing core assumptions with earlier‐established ‘women in development’ (WID) discourses. The materialist dimensions of WED were bolstered by fables about women's natural, cultural or ideological closeness to nature grounded in varieties of ecofeminist analysis. This proved a seductive mix for agencies wishing simultaneously to promote environmental protection and WID, as well as for certain forms of feminist activism and sisterhood‐construction, such as those around the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. This contribution revisits these narratives and the politics of this strategic fix in the development of international environmentalism and explores the sustained critiques of these ecofeminist fables by feminist scholars and activists from the early 1990s onwards. It provides a critical review of the approach to gender and the environment in some current donor, NGO and other policy documents, which draw little from the feminist critiques of the 1990s. The author reflects on how, and for whom, women–nature links might have practical or strategic value today.     

Gender mainstreaming and rural development policy; the trivialisation of rural gender issues

This paper considers gender mainstreaming of the EU Rural Development Programme. The EU promotes the gender mainstreaming of rural development policies because retaining women in rural areas is seen as crucial to the long-term viability of rural areas. A review of literature and scan of policy documents demonstrates that few rural development plans address gender issues, and generally only by including some separate projects for women. Little is done to address the systemic features of gender inequality and to realise inclusive developments that address the needs of all social groups. The de-politicisation of rural gender issues results in policy makers ticking the obligatory gender box without envisioning any real change in the agenda or process of rural development policy making. I argue that a more fruitful way to go forward is to re-politicise gender in rural development and to tease out at the local level how changing gender relations and rural development coincide.     

Gender In Third World Development Studies: An Overview Of An Underview

This paper reviews twenty years progress in the study of gender in Third World development and the extent to which gender has been incorporated within mainstream development theory and practice. Special reference is made to the role geography has played in this arena. It is argued that while gender as a theoretical framework for explaining women's differential but continued subordination should be reaching maturity, there has been little attempt to formulate cohesive models which integrate micro-and macro-level concepts and which could provide a firm base for future theory-building. More important, studies of gender in the Third World development have seldom addressed the question of development policy or put forward practical solutions for the integration of gender issues in development planning. As a case study of gender in development planning the paper examines the Australian Government's women in development (WID) policy, the ways in which it was informed, and the extent to which it has been implemented.     

Policy Coherence and Component-Driven Policymaking: Arctic Policy in Canada and the United States

This research extends theorizing about the implications of political environments to the content of policy areas. We consider the case of Arctic policy in Canada and the United States as an example of what we label as component-driven policymaking. We show how the lack of a clear constituency and the lack of a stable policy subsystem for the Arctic create a policy environment for which the politics of particular issues dominate Arctic policymaking. The result is a policy space labeled Arctic policy that lacks policy coherence. We suggest that similar features of component-based policymaking help explain limited policy coherence for a variety of policy areas such as policies for children, families, rural areas, urban areas, and women in the United States.     

From Mexico to Beijing: ‘Women in Development’ Twenty Five Years On

During the past twenty five years the Women in Development (WID) approach has become an increasingly important issue in the literature on Third World development. WID policies and related activities have now been incorporated into the aid practice of most development agencies. This paper critically analyses the diverse and conflicting ideologies that have emerged in the WID literature since the early seventies.     

A Bigger Piece of a Very Small Pie: Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and Poverty Reduction in Africa

Feminist research has convincingly shown that an increase in household income does not necessarily lead to improvement in the well‐being of all members of the household. More questionable is the policy conclusion often drawn from this research for rural Africa: redressing gender imbalance in control of productive resources will significantly reduce poverty. This contribution argues that the evidence and analysis presented by two studies repeatedly cited to show that gender inequality is inefficient are problematic. It is mythical to suggest that tinkering with women's market position by exchanging unequal collective rights to productive resources for individual ones will decisively reduce rural poverty in Africa. That will depend on the restructuring of long‐term and deeply unequal processes of integration in the market, not on a firmer insertion of women within existing patterns of individualization and commodification of productive resources.     

Financial Exclusion in Rural and Remote New South Wales,Australia: a Geography of Bank Branch Rationalisation, 1981–98

The provision of financial services in rural Australia is a significant public policy issue, reflected in the high level of media and political interest in the recent spate of branch closures. There are, however, many aspects of the current debate regarding the delivery of financial services to rural communities that are, at best, less than ideal and, at worst, erroneous. Using telephone directories for New South Wales, non‐metropolitan bank branch listings for the period 1981 to 1998 were collated. A recategorisation of these data according to the Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Areas classification reveals, amidst a spatial realignment of financial service provision, that rural and remote New South Wales have been disproportionately affected by a relatively recent and concerted withdrawal of services. The research demonstrates that corporate‐level responses to increased competition within the financial system are significantly more important in deciding rural access to banking services than local and regional population trends. Indeed, two‐thirds of rural localities that have lost branches had experienced healthy population growth during the study period. In the wake of the post‐deregulation reconfiguration of the bank branch network, the socio‐economic marginalisation of rural communities is being compounded, a process of ‘financial exclusion’ recognised in other parts of the developed world.     

珠江三角洲城镇化研究三十年

本文以政策变化与城镇化演进关系为主线,对改革开放以来的珠江三角洲城镇化研究进行了回顾,揭示了珠江三角洲农村城镇化的特点与动力机制,认为珠江三角洲农村城镇化模式在中国城镇化研究的过程中占有重要的地位,包括小城镇发展、城镇化路径以及城镇化主体的讨论,21世纪后,对农村城镇化的反思推动了珠三角城镇化研究的新视角向全球化与政治经济学视角的转化;本文进一步对珠三角城镇化的研究趋势进行了展望。     

Changing intergenerational contracts: gender,cohorts and elder care in central rural China, 2005–2013

In the absence of stable pension systems, elder care arrangements in rural China depend on intergenerational contracts. The existing scholarship on elder care in rural China tends to treat the elderly as a homogeneous group and depict them mainly as ‘care recipients’. Based on a diachronic qualitative study in central rural China between 2005 and 2013, this research examines the changing intergenerational contracts between two cohorts of rural elderly and their adult children. These cohorts hold different positions in terms of family structure, number and sex composition of adult children, living arrangement, physical situation, economic standing and appreciation of intergenerational exchange. These differences further produce different social exchange patterns and disparate elder care modalities between genders and cohorts. Drawing upon insights from gender theory on social gerontology, this research identifies the ‘agency’ of older rural women and explores ageing issues among older rural men. This study also presents policy implications by identifying the most disadvantaged group in terms of elder care support.     

基于地理学视角的乡村生活质量研究进展及展望

提高生活质量是社会发展的核心目标之一,一直是国内外社会学、经济学、地理学、城乡规划学等不同学科关注的热点课题。近年来乡村生活质量相关研究成果逐渐增多,并取得了一系列高水平的研究成果,有必要对其进行系统梳理。国内外基于地理学视角的乡村生活质量研究主要集中在乡村生活质量的空间格局、演变及形成机制、存在的突出问题、调控与优化等方面内容。从理论研究、研究方法、研究内容等方面对国内外乡村生活质量相关研究进行述评,并展望了地理学研究框架下乡村生活质量研究有待进一步深化的方向。     

Farm women and femocracy

While rural and farm women have a long history of interaction with the Australian state, it is only recently that Commonwealth government departments have established specifically dedicated policy machinery to address their needs. What is notable is that this has occurred at a time when other gender equity infrastructure is being disbanded. This article examines this anomaly. To begin, it documents the material and discursive changes in terms of equity for women which have occurred since the election of the Howard government in 1996. Following this, it details the emergence of a state agenda for rural and farm women in Australia and explains some of the definitive elements of this agenda. In the final section, the article gives attention to explaining why equity for farm and rural women has been emphasised by government in a period marked by the erosion of state-sponsored equity initiatives.     

Rural geographical research: working in rural places and with rural communities

ABSTRACT

Across a number of disciplines at the University of Aberdeen, there is a long tradition of research focused upon the interrogation of issues associated with rural places and rural communities. Since the mid-1960s, rural geographical research has been a prominent component of the research undertaken by academic staff in Geography. Drawing upon an analysis of the large corpus of ‘rural’ publications arising from this scholarly enterprise, this paper presents a chronologically structured overview of how rural geographical research at Aberdeen has reflected developments in, and contributed to, the evolution of the sub-discipline of rural geography.     

Bridging Top Down and Bottom Up: Modelling Community Preferences for a Dispersed Rural Settlement Pattern

This paper explores the scope to bridge top-down and bottom-up perspectives on spatial planning by drawing on EU-funded action research in relation to rural settlement planning in Northern Ireland. The empirical work is located within a review of planning theory that exposes a long running tension between the technocratic stances of government planners and the aspirations of engaged citizens. It demonstrates the operation of a large group planning methodology that delivers community preference with environmental responsibility as a participatory input into planning policy formulation. Transferable insights into the dynamics of spatial planning are identified.     

国外乡村社会地理研究综述

本文首先对国外乡村社会地理的研究进行阶段划分与总结,分析了九十年代以来新的研究进展,然后重点介绍了当前几个重点研究领域:乡村社区、城乡关系、乡村景观及乡村社会问题等,最后指出发展不足及今后的发展方向。全文旨在通过大量文献分析,梳理出国外乡村社会地理的研究进展与今后发展趋势,期望能够对国内相关研究与乡村发展具有一定理论与实践意义。     

Rural Women,Displacement and the Three Gorges Project

Based on empirical research, this article examines the status, situations and development issues of rural women displaced by the monumental Three Gorges Project (TGP) in China. The study reveals that TGP resettlement is leaving women worse off as family members, as well as worse off than male members. Woman resettlers are more likely to become impoverished than men, partly because women make up the main labour force in agricultural sectors. Most women are unable to achieve occupational mobility in the process of resettlement. Fewer employment opportunities, a gender‐segregated labour market, low level of human capital and social prejudice are principal causes. Land provision for resettlers is inadequate with a lower quality of productivity. Marriage is a means for some women to remain in or move to the reservoir area to improve their socio‐economic status, but bias against granting of ‘resettler’ status to married women and their generally low levels of education and lack of occupational skills work against them. It is imperative that the authorities integrate a gender perspective into policy‐making and design of resettlement schemes.     

新时期中国“乡村病”的科学内涵、形成机制及调控策略

“乡村病”是指在乡村转型发展过程中,由于乡村发展系统内部各子系统之间以及乡村发展系统与周围环境互动失衡导致乡村发展系统失去了自适应、自调节能力而导致乡村发展受阻甚至乡村地域系统衰退的现象。“乡村病”的成因包括乡村资源禀赋及区位条件、社会经济因素、制度与政策因素、技术因素等。“乡村病”在快速城镇化和工业化以及由其扰动形成的乡村转型发展过程中产生,其产生根源在于城乡二元体制以及“重城轻乡”政策等所构成的制度与政策约束。最后,从制度与政策创新、城镇化与乡村化协调均衡发展、村镇建设新格局的构建等方面提出了“乡村病”的调控策略,为我国城乡协调发展的科学决策以及乡村振兴战略提供认识和理论研究基础。     

Citizenship and Belonging in the Rural Fringe: A Case Study of a Hindu Temple in Sydney,Australia

Despite Australian multicultural policy that asserts the right of all citizens to maintain and practice their religion, formal citizenship has not guaranteed the welcome or belonging of migrant religious groups at the neighbourhood scale. This is most starkly reflected in contests over the inclusion of minority religious spaces in the Australian landscape, which increasingly take place in the rural–urban fringe of metropolitan areas. This work examines the controversy over a proposed Hindu temple in metropolitan Sydney and reveals insights into the way that rural–urban fringe space is imagined, understood and experienced by land use planners, residents and temple members. Critical discourse analysis of policy documentation along with interviews reveals that land use planners circumscribe belonging in the landscape through the use of zoning ordinances and design controls, local residents mark the boundaries of white privilege through narratives of heritage and cultural difference and temple members claim rights to citizenship based on assertions of sameness.     

Conceptualizing the Regional Roles of Universities,Implications and Contradictions

The impact of universities on the economic wellbeing and innovative potential of regions has been the object of intense scholarly and policy interest in the last years. Despite this interest, a clear picture is missing in relation to the roles universities are seen to play, the benefits of university activities and the mechanisms through which they occur. This paper proposes a review and a critique of current views on the role of universities and their associated policy implications. To achieve this, the paper identifies five “models” for universities as they are reflected in the literature, each advocating different set of roles of universities, different spatial aspects of interactions, as well as different mechanisms for university engagement. National and regional innovation and research policies tend to explicitly or implicitly reflect one or a combination of several of these models, giving rise to potential contradictions or conflicts of policy rationales and objectives.     

农村空间商品化的理论基础与实现路径

实施乡村振兴战略,产业兴旺是关键。农村空间商品化是农村空间生产转型的主要驱动力,其概念强调农村经济重构,以农村空间商品化研究农村发展问题符合理论与实践要求。本文旨在:(1)梳理西方农村地理学理论发展脉络以支撑农村空间商品化概念与路径探索研究;(2)基于农村空间商品化的概念、理论、实践,参考相关研究方向的发展模式,提出农村空间商品化的多种实现路径;(3)讨论初级农产品生产等四条路径与农村空间商品化的关系及其在全国的分布特征,并对纳入城市建设拓展区等三条路径的特征做了简要说明。