Practicing decolonial political geography: Island perspectives on neocolonialism and the China threat discourse

Island peoples around the world remain entangled in colonial processes. Western and metropolitan powers are increasingly deploying discourse of a ‘China threat’ to justify neocolonial entrenchment in the form of greater Western militarisation and economic dominance. In this paper, we investigate how Western and metropolitan powers use the China threat and warnings of economic, environmental, demographic, and military disaster to maintain and deepen colonial influence in former colonies, with special focus on four island states and territories: Guåhan/Guam in Oceania, Kalaallit Nunaat/Greenland in the Arctic, Okinawa in East Asia, and Jamaica in the Caribbean. We undertake this investigation as a means of practicing decolonial political geography, collaborating as a group of scholars from around the world and drawing upon diverse epistemologies and experiences to inform collaborative research and writing. Due to the complexities we have confronted in our efforts to think outside coloniality, this paper foregrounds our decolonial methodology and process, even as we respect our empirical findings.     

Dreaming as a critical discourse of national belonging: China Dream,American Dream and world dream

This article explores the normative politics of national belonging through an analysis of the ‘China Dream’ and the ‘American Dream’. It traces how politicians and public intellectuals employ such slogans to highlight how national dreams emerge in times of crisis and involve a combination of aspirations and anxieties. It compares parallel rhetorical strategies – ‘patriotic worrying’ in China and the American Jeremiad in the US – to examine how belonging to these two nations involves a nostalgic longing for the past as a model for the future. Debates about the meaning of these national dreams highlight the tension between freedom and equality in the US, between the individual and the collective in China, and between longing for the true nation, and belonging in the actual nation for both countries. It concludes that while this quest for redemption through past models limits opportunities for critical discourse in China, the American Dream still contains much ‘promise’. The China Dream and the American Dream thus are, at the same time, 1) familiar expressions of nationalism and national belonging, and 2) ongoing self/Other coherence‐producing performances that help us to question received notions of nationalism and national belonging.     

Ecofeminism and First Nations Peoples in Canada: Linking culture,gender and nature

Many ecofeminists see women's subordination as a result of linking women with nature. Thus one of their tasks has been to unravel the underlying dualistic structure of the categories ‘women’ and ‘nature’ and to argue for a reconceptualization of these categories. However, there exist amongst ecofeminists epistemological differences pertaining to the ways in which the women–nature connection should be addressed. Spiritual ecofeminists argue that the connection between women and nature is worth reclaiming and celebrating. In contrast, social ecofeminists contend that the connection represents a patriarchal artifice that reinforces oppression. In support of both perspectives, ‘Western’ ecofeminists have invoked the cultural beliefs and histories of Aboriginal peoples. Such use of Aboriginal beliefs and experiences within much of Western ecofeminist discourses is partial and uninformed. In this article an alternative approach is offered—one that emphasizes the importance of listening to Aboriginal voices describing contemporary connections to nature. Aboriginal voices are presented in the context of in-depth interviews conducted with Anishinabek (Ojibway and Odawa peoples) living in one First Nations community and three cities in Ontario, Canada. The interviews highlight the importance of listening to Anishinabek describe their connections to Mother Earth (nature) as they reveal counter-narratives that offer the potential to reconcile spiritual and social ecofeminism and to reconceptualize nature (Mother Earth) as an active and dynamic agent. Such counter-narratives may improve current understandings of gender–nature connections within Western ecofeminisms.     

Enhancing fieldwork learning with technology: practitioner's perspectives

This research paper reports the findings from an international survey of fieldwork practitioners on their use of technology to enhance fieldwork teaching and learning. It was found that there was high information technology usage before and after time in the field, but some were also using portable devices such as smartphones and global positioning system whilst out in the field. The main pedagogic reasons cited for the use of technology were the need for efficient data processing and to develop students' technological skills. The influencing factors and barriers to the use of technology as well as the importance of emerging technologies are discussed.     

Description,appropriation, transformation: Fascist rhetoric and colonial nature

During the period of Fascism, a variety of discourses and representations were attached to colonial landscapes and to their uses. African nature was the subject of diverse rhetorical strategies, which ranged from the persistence of visions of wilderness as the locus of adventure to the domesticating manipulations of an incipient tourist industry aiming to familiarise the Italian public with relatively tame forms of the exotic. Contrasting images of bareness and productivity, primitivism and modernisation, resistance to change and dramatic transformation found their way into accounts of colonial territories ranging from scientific and pseudo-scientific reports to children's literature, from guidebooks to travel accounts, all of which were sustained not just by written texts but also by iconographic representations. This article will look at the specific example of accounts of Italian Somalia in order to explore Fascist discourses regarding colonial nature and its appropriation. Documents examined will include early guidebooks to the colonies, a small selection of travel accounts aimed at the general public, as well as the works of a number of geographers and geologists who were among the most active polygraphs of the period, and whose writings addressed a wide range of Italian readers.     

Japan's global environmentalism: rhetoric and reality

The 1992 Earth Summit marked the emergence of a new type of global environmentalism in which nation states increasingly sought to represent themselves as key environmental actors. Since the early 1990s, Japan has attempted to position itself rhetorically as a global environmental leader. This rhetoric must be compared to Japan's international environmental impacts, which are considerable, especially in East and Southeast Asia. Japan's domestic environmental situation is evaluated, and five key areas of international environmental impacts are discussed: official development assistance, foreign direct investment, deforestation, overfishing, and the promotion of high technology. Motivations for Japan's use of global environmentalist rhetoric including its domestic political environment, geopolitical goals, geoeconomic motivations, and the increasing globalization of the Japanese economy are analyzed. The spread of the Japanese model of development is linked to Asia's continuing environmental crises.