'Something Happened': The Relevance of the Risk Society for Describing the Siting Process for a Municipal Landfill

This paper investigates reactions to a proposed municipal solid waste facility in Southern Ontario supposed to be a low-level, low probability risk using the risk society framework, developed independently by Beck (1992a, 1992b) and Giddens (1990, 1991). Residents often view risk from environmental hazards as high despite expert assurances that risks are low. The appeal of risk society as a general framework is that it connects quantitative risk assessment (QRA) and the social construction of risk (SCR) to show how individuals and social structures reflexively alter and are altered by conflicts over (actual/potential) technological hazards. The analysis involves 30 in-depth face-to-face interviews with residents in Caledon, Ontario, contextualized by interviews with proponent experts (n=4) from the government organization responsible for conducting the siting process. The risk society framework, although developed primarily to describe the effects of high-consequence global hazards, seems well suited to describing local level, low-consequence hazards. The siting process involved a series of fateful moments which upset people's security in particular ways of life. The proposed landfill and the process itself threatened the very nature of what people valued and expected from their community. However, this study raises a concern that the risk society played out at the local/regional level may exacerbate inequalities in the distribution of risks relative to benefits from technological environmental hazards. This stands in contrast with Beck's (1992a) notion that the risks from hazards are equitably distributed within the risk society.     

Concerning values: what underlies public polarisation about climate change?

Climate change is a partisan issue, with increasingly politically polarised responses, particularly in Anglophone countries. While politics clearly have a role in determining attitudes to climate science and policy, understanding the human values that underlie attitudes offers advantages over a focus on political differences. This study examines public concern about climate change in Hobart, the state capital of Tasmania, Australia. Hobart is a microcosm of polarisation about environmental issues due to its long history of conflict over natural resource use. Using a survey of 522 citizens of Hobart, the research examines the values underlying concern and unconcern about climate change. Applying an innovative analysis of human values to this area of research, I have found that, in the Tasmanian context, the unconcerned may be categorised into two groups with opposing values: people who prioritise national security, social order, and tradition; and people who value freedom of choice and the ability to make their own decisions. High levels of climate change concern are associated strongly with care for nature, suggesting that climate change is seen primarily as a threat to the environment, rather than to humanity. In this article, I argue that understanding the values underlying divergent interpretations of the threat of climate change is essential to resolving deadlock in political discourse. The work draws lessons for re‐engaging the unconcerned in inclusive conversations about climate change through narratives addressing a broader range of values.     

Evaluation of community planning and life of senior cohousing projects in northern European countries1

Cohousing schemes were evolved as alternative housing to reduce housework for working women, and to reduce loneliness of elderly people by promoting active mutual relationship with community residents in northern European countries. This article discusses how residents manage their life in senior cohousing projects in Sweden and Denmark. The purpose of this study is to investigate residents' life satisfaction connected with demographic characteristics of residents, physical environment and common activities in the senior cohousing communities, so that it could offer usable information for the establishment of new senior cohousing projects in other countries, as well as an empirical evaluation of the existing projects in Scandinavian countries themselves. Important variables influential to residents' life satisfaction are also discussed in order to improve senior citizens' quality of life. The methods used for the study are literature review, interviews, field trips and questionnaire. Nine hundred and thirty‐five postal questionnares were sent to 28 senior cohousing communities throughout Denmark and Sweden. Of those 536 replies were collected and analysed by SPSS program using frequency, mean and Chi‐square test. As a result, it was found out that most of the respondents are healthy, 70‐year‐olds, and satisfied with their current living in the community. The majority of them also would like to strongly recommend others to move to senior cohousing schemes to improve quality of life in their later years. Residents' intensive concern about building location and design is a noteworthy reminder for designers and architects as well as for professionals and decision‐makers who work in the elderly welfare sector.     

Patterns of Forest Settlement in Western Thailand

Most studies of land settlement are concerned with planned schemes. This is despite the fact that unplanned settlement has more often been the major process by which agricultural land is settled in many countries. In this local study of spontaneous forest settlement in western Thailand, the recent history of two communities is traced in order to shed light on the process of settlement Common assumptions about frontier communities are examined critically. It is suggested that many aspects of the post-settlement community, in particular social differentiation, can best be understood in light of the process of settlement     

Death,Grief, and Cross-World Longing

Death has enduringly offered anthropologists a unique theoretical conundrum in that it concerns humans and human personhood, and yet unlike most aspects of social life, it involves an absent interlocutor. A terrifying rupture into mundane existence, death demands a response on the part of individuals and communities. The four books I review here offer varied contributions to this rich anthropological tradition but are united by a concern with grief and the ways in which death both erupts into and transcends social life.     

Perceived Risk and Citizen Preferences for Governmental Management of Routine Hazards

Risk perceptions are important to the policy process because they inform individuals’ preferences for government management of hazards that affect personal safety, public health, or ecological conditions. Studies of risk in the policy process have often focused on explicating the determinants of risk perceptions for highly salient, high consequence hazards (e.g., nuclear energy). We argue that it is useful to also study more routinely experienced hazards; doing so shows the relevance of risk perceptions in individuals’ daily lives. Our investigation focuses on the impact perceived risk has on citizens’ preferences over hazard management policies (as distinct from identifying risk perception determinants per se). We use a recursive structural equation model to analyze public opinion data measuring attitudes in three distinct issue domains: air pollution, crime, and hazardous waste storage and disposal. We find that citizens utilize perceived risk rationally: greater perceived risk generally produces support for more proactive government to manage potential hazards. This perceived risk–policy response relationship generally holds even though the policy options respondents were asked to consider entailed nontrivial costs to the public. The exception seems to be when individuals know less about the substantive issue domain.     

中国旅游业更加可持续的发展:小步伐大策略

近年来,西方研究人员在撰写有关中国旅游的课题时,对可持续发展旅游业给予了特别的关注。"可持续发展旅游业"这一词可理解为为了达到社会文化、自然环境、以及旅游业经济增长这三点之间的和谐关系而努力发展的旅游业。本文回顾了全球各方力量对旅游业的塑造,并指出在创造积极的旅游前景时其可持续发展性所面临的挑战。对如何执行和研究可持续发展所采取的具体措施及对其的深度理解是当前研究的热点。通过五大路径,十种个人行为及四个组织模块建立可持续发展旅游业的主导思想。     

The Politics of Environmental Risk: Perceptions of Risk Assessment in the State Legislatures

As state governments increasingly turn to the process of quantitative risk assessment to set environmental policy, the question of what state lawmakers know and believe about risk and the risk assessment process has become critical. The perceptions of state legislators may affect their decisions about a wide range of environmental conflicts, from funding water treatment facilities to siting hazardous waste incinerators. This article reports the results of a nationwide survey of state legislators and their staff that explored their intuitive understanding of environmental risk and risk assessment. The survey revealed strong support for the use of risk assessment by most state lawmakers, but significant differences, by gender and political affiliation, in perceptions of the risks from chemicals, the value of risk assessment for setting environmental policies, and the environmental risks faced by racial minorities.     

Sir Vivian Fuchs – in appreciation

Abstract

The productivity of modern agriculture is a result of a remarkable fusion of technology and science. The emerging skepticism about the role of science in society has led to a questioning of the benefits from technical change in agriculture and there is a rising demand for more effective social control over the development and use of agricultural technology. Agricultural science cannot evade responsibility for the costs as well as the benefits of technical change. But it is in society's interest to let the burden of responsibility rest lightly and to insist that agricultural science maintain its commitment to expanding the productive capacity of the resources used in agricultural production. But society should also insist that agricultural science embrace an agenda that includes a concern for the effects of agricultural technology on the health and safety of agricultural producers; a concern for the nutrition and health of consumers; a concern for the impact of agricultural practices on the aesthetic qualities of both natural and man-made environments; a concern for the quality of life in rural communities; and a concern for the implications of technical choices for the options that will be available in the future. The agricultural science community should, in turn, expect that society will acquire a more sophisticated perception of the contribution of agricultural technology to the balance between man and the natural world. It is also time for the general science community to begin to follow the lead of agricultural science in embracing the fusion of science and technology rather than continuing to hide behind the indefensible intellectual and class barriers that have been retained to protect its privilege and ego from contamination by engineering, agronomy and medicine.     

What's in a name? Clerical representations of Parisian beguines (1200-1328)

This article examines how Parisian university clerics responded to the city's communities of beguines (uncloistered religious women), highlighting in particular the ways in which clerics employed the term ‘beguine’ in sermons and preaching material from thirteenth-century Paris. Because the beguines were not hidden behind convent walls but were instead a visible presence in the city, they were often the focus of Parisian clerics' ideas about religious women. Sermons preached, composed, and copied in Paris reveal the process by which Parisian medieval thinkers constructed, although not always consciously, a negative meaning for the term ‘beguine.’ Always poorly defined, ‘beguine’ evoked a wide variety of meanings and associations for clerical observers in medieval Paris. The varied ideas about and images of the beguine allowed the Parisian intellectual elite to include these women in discussions of their own position in society as clerics in charge of the religious instruction of the laity. Clerics used the beguine as an example of the contemplative life, often comparing their own intellectual approaches to religious knowledge with the beguines' mystical knowledge. These positive comparisons, however, were joined by negative accusations when clerics expressed concern that the beguine thought too highly of her spiritual gifts.     

震后赴川入境旅游者满意度评价研究

本文以震后赴川入境旅游者为研究对象,采用因子重要性排序、配对样本t检验及重要性-绩效感知模型揭示了震后赴川入境旅游者的真实满意度感知。研究显示,入境游客对四川旅游经历的整体满意度较高;地震遗迹、大熊猫诸因子期望值与满意度之间的距离存在较大的差距,在排除前期望值过高的干扰后,得出大熊猫因子最终满意度较高的结论;民俗文化、历史文化、自然景观、当地人友善度为主要吸引要素;多数因子的重要性及满意度均较高,仅有城市基础设施一项因子重要性低而评价高,没有因子的重要性高而评价低。     

旅游地居民对旅游影响感知研究综述及中外研究比较

随着旅游业迅速发展,旅游影响研究逐渐成为研究热点,而基于居民感知视角的旅游影响研究是当前主要研究范式。本文对1995-2008年之间相关文献进行分类和统计,从文献数量变化、研究指标、研究地、研究方法、作者分布等进行中外对比分析。分析旅游影响研究在指标选取、研究方法和研究地域等方面的总体特征及国内和国外研究的特征,以分析旅游影响研究的主要内容和中外差异特征,并基于分析的结果,对国内未来的研究提出一些建议。     

What's in a name? Clerical representations of Parisian beguines (1200-1328)

This article examines how Parisian university clerics responded to the city's communities of beguines (uncloistered religious women), highlighting in particular the ways in which clerics employed the term ‘beguine’ in sermons and preaching material from thirteenth-century Paris. Because the beguines were not hidden behind convent walls but were instead a visible presence in the city, they were often the focus of Parisian clerics' ideas about religious women. Sermons preached, composed, and copied in Paris reveal the process by which Parisian medieval thinkers constructed, although not always consciously, a negative meaning for the term ‘beguine.’ Always poorly defined, ‘beguine’ evoked a wide variety of meanings and associations for clerical observers in medieval Paris. The varied ideas about and images of the beguine allowed the Parisian intellectual elite to include these women in discussions of their own position in society as clerics in charge of the religious instruction of the laity. Clerics used the beguine as an example of the contemplative life, often comparing their own intellectual approaches to religious knowledge with the beguines' mystical knowledge. These positive comparisons, however, were joined by negative accusations when clerics expressed concern that the beguine thought too highly of her spiritual gifts.     

From the Rhenish Prussian Eifel to the Wisconsin Holyland: immigration,identity and acculturation at the regional scale

The processes and variables that contribute to the construction and maintenance of regional identity can be examined by tracing the origins and transformation of community life. In the case of immigrant communities, pre-migration experiences, social relations, power structures and public memory play significant roles in the construction of regional identity. The transplantation of several communities from the Eifel in Rhenish Prussia to Wisconsin's ‘Holyland’ in the nineteenth century provides the opportunity to study transfer and subsequent acculturation on a regional scale. The power of common cultural origins, based on kinship and an existing sense of community in the Eifel, played an enormous role in the construction of identity and community life in the Holyland. An analysis of the acculturation process within this region reveals the variables that were significant in shaping community life, and provides further insight into the ways in which acculturation and the construction of identity and borders are interrelated.     

FLORAL HAZARDS: NOOTKA LUPIN IN ICELAND AND THE COMPLEX POLITICS OF INVASIVE LIFE

Once established in new spaces, exotic plants not only impact the “native” biota, but also affect environmental politics in often complex ways. This article looks into one instance of such politics: that of the Nootka lupin (Lupinus nootkatensis), a leguminous plant of North American origin. Imported to Iceland in 1945 to stem soil degradation and recover vegetation, it soon became firmly established in Icelandic landscapes. Its spreading was actively assisted by human actors as part of fulfilling a moral duty to heal a land scarred by unsustainable past land use practices. Changing perspectives in environmental management have brought about a radical reversal in the lupin's status. It is now seen by many as a “floral hazard”, and has been declared an “invasive alien species” by the Ministry for the Environment. New lines of defence are being established to curb its spread into the deserts of the central highlands. A polarized debate has ensued about the politics of invasive life. Increased research by natural scientists has not led to any resolution. It is argued that such seemingly intractable controversies cannot be resolved unless close attention is paid to the historical construction of values and moralities underwriting the production of the discursive communities involved. Conditions of radical uncertainty with the advent of the Anthropocene further complicate the politics of invasive life.     

All Strings Attached: Negotiating Relationships of Geographic Information Science

Human geography has driven substantive improvements in methodologies and applications of Geographic Information Systems (GISs), yet Indigenous groups continue to experience erasure in geographic representations. GIS ontologies comprise categorised labels that represent lived contexts, and these ontologies are determined through the shared worldviews of those labelling spatial phenomena for entry into GIS databases. Although Western ontologies and spatial representations reflect Western understandings of human experience, they are often inappropriate in Indigenous contexts. In efforts to be represented in courts and land management, Indigenous groups nevertheless need to engage Western spatial representations to ‘claim space’. This paper examines what GISs are and do and shows that GIS technology comes with strings attached to the myriad social contexts that continue to shape the field of GIScience. We show that Intellectual Property Rights Agreements can sever and control these ‘strings’; the agreement between the Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation and university researchers reframes GIS from a technology of erasure to a technology of opportunity that enables Indigenous groups to define their own engagement. The visual and narrative outputs will contribute important understandings of the environmental crisis facing the Murray–Darling Basin and connect older and younger generations through knowledge sharing. We conclude the application of GIScience is never simply technological but always has potential to empower particular communities. Applying GIS technology to new circumstances is an engagement of new relationships in the social praxis of technology transfer, where worldviews meet and negotiations are made over what exists and how we know.     

游客的犯罪侵害风险感知研究——以印度国际游客为例

游客在旅游活动中担心受到犯罪侵害,不但会影响游客的到访意愿,而且殃及当地旅游业的发展。本文旨在了解游客对犯罪侵害的心理反应,探讨旅游侵害风险感知形成的相关因素。本文以到访印度的国际游客为研究对象,于2010年1月在印度德里机场进行问卷调查。调查发现在印度的国际游客认为被骚扰、诈骗及盗窃的可能性较大。女性、亚洲人明显有较高的防卫行为倾向。观光游客比商务游客感觉受侵害风险更高。旅游侵害风险感知与旅游决策间具有负向关系,旅游风险意识及旅游信息在侵害风险感知与旅游决策关系间具有调节效果。     

Gendering Border Studies

Scholars working in (post)colonial settings have called for more-than-human (MTH) and post-human geographies to shift their gaze beyond Anglo-European ways of knowing the world. In this paper I explore the opportunities for an MTH political project that works in solidarity with and learns from Indigenous communities. I begin by examining the considerable synergies between MTH theorists’ understandings of nonhuman agency and kinship, and the worldviews of Ngāi Tahu (a Māori tribe). I then examine how Ngāi Tahu have worked within a new water management regime in the Canterbury region of Aotearoa New Zealand to articulate a relational ethics with the Hurunui River. In navigating multiple tensions and advocating for the lively river, the political space of the new catchment committee was expanded to (begin to) include the river. However, non-Māori who attempted to describe an understanding of a river-kin were less successful. This unevenness, I argue, highlights the complementary contributions to be made by expanded theoretical engagements. In particular there are generative possibilities for MTH theorists to work alongside Indigenous communities, and carve political space for more people to advocate for a relational ethics.     

ABDULLAH BIN ABDUL KADIR MUNSYI: A MAN OF BANANAS AND THORNS

Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi is best known for his memoirs, labelled by some his autobiography, the Hikayat Abdullah. The missionary, Alfred North, encouraged him to write his life story, a first in Malay, and it has been assumed that Abdullah, working in a new genre, was relatively faithful to the conventions of the genre; that at the very least, he was attempting to produce a tolerably straightforward account of his life and times. Both his admirers and detractors, though seemingly at odds, saw Abdullah's work as a mouthpiece for British values. It did not occur to scholars that Abdullah might possess his own agenda, and that his working in a foreign genre did not necessarily produce what those scholars assumed it did. This has produced a blinkered understanding of what Abdullah was about. His supreme aim was to enhance his own image and stature. Production of ‘historical’ facts was sometimes a secondary concern. ‘Fiction’ and ‘nonfiction’ were not yet established conventions in his literary milieu. He worked under major constraints, for his livelihood depended on not alienating patrons and future patrons, yet he devised ways to air views critical of the powerful. Here he was much more concerned with Islamic issues than ethnic ones.     

Benchmarking in Geography: Some implications for assessing dissertations in the undergraduate curriculum

Internationally there is concern about assessment standards and the qualities of graduating students. In the UK this is resulting in the introduction of benchmarking by disciplinary communities, including that of geography. In that context the authors report on a project across social science disciplines, including geography, in one UK university, to examine and improve the assessment of undergraduate dissertations. The project examined what assessment criteria are currently published to students and identified some sources of inconsistency in applying them. It identified some potential core criteria and recommended ways of increasing transparency in applying them, so as to reduce inconsistencies and potential unfairness in marking. Implications for geography departments and the international disciplinary community are suggested and for the benchmarking exercise in British geography.