Tourism and sacred landscape in Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park,Nepal

Abstract

While tensions between the sacred and the profane in tourism have been of long standing interest to tourism scholars, there is a dearth of literature on the growing influence of tourism on local residents’ spirituality and religious practices in sacred landscapes. This paper examines how local residents’ interpretations of sacred landscapes are influenced by tourism development, and whether tourism plays a role in influencing and reproducing sacred landscape and place-based spiritual values. This exploratory study is based on four months of fieldwork conducted in 2014 and 2015 in Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park in Nepal’s Khumbu Region. Results of the 33 interviews conducted with ethnic Sherpa community indicate the Sherpa consider their homeland as a beyul (sacred, hidden valley), and its landscapes (i.e. mountains, forests and lakes) as the abode of local deities. Tourism’s influence on local spiritual values is evident and reflected in changes in mountain deity worship, shift in human-environment relationship, and alterations in religious routines and practices. Although Sherpa still regard Khumbu as a sacred place and are actively involved in maintaining their spiritual values and cultural identity, the religious influence of beyul is slowly diminishing as reliance on tourism grows.     

“That type of thing does give you a boost”: Control,Self‐valorisation,and Autonomist Worker Copings in Call Centres

There are growing concerns over current and future incarnations of routine work, based on the rise of technology and its perceived impact on skill requirements in the labour market. Drawing on Autonomist Marxist (AM) literature, the following article demonstrates how and why workers are likely to play a role in maintaining meaningful forms of work. Complimenting labour process research, which focuses on the role of worker “resistance” in the workplace, we develop a more nuanced perspective on worker agency and the human potential to create meaning through self‐governance in even the most unlikely service work encounters. Taking resilience and reworking agencies as subtle forms of “self‐valorisation”, we show how different spaces of routine work are mobilised for reproducing human connections and values in ways which act in opposition to management’s control and the evolution of unpleasant work environments.     

Red outposts in a hostile landscape: People's houses,People's parks and the reconstruction of rural southern Sweden's political geography, 1889–1909

Organizing rural workers has always proved to be a challenge for the labour movement. This was especially the case in Scandinavia where well into the industrial era, labour and property relations in the agricultural countryside remained essentially feudal in character. Nonetheless, and especially in the rich agricultural districts of the southernmost province of Skåne, the Swedish labour movement had succeeded spectacularly by the interwar years. Perhaps unintuitively, a key to its success was that it focused as much money and energy on constructing new spaces of culture and leisure – so-called People's Houses and People's Parks – as it did to direct workplace organizing. Drawing on Kevin Cox's concepts of “spaces of dependence” and “spaces of engagement,” this paper explains how and why Sweden's labour unions succeeded in remaking Skåne's political geography and transformed the region into one of the strongest social-democratic districts in early-twentieth century Sweden.     

Refusing to be Toured: Work,Tourism, and the Productivity of “Life” in the Colombian Amazon

Starting from the contention that exercising a “right to tour” is predicated on the work of producing tourability, I examine how tourability itself is a contested process involving relations of land and labour. Examining the current “resource boom” of ecotourism in the Colombian Amazon, I use an analysis of work and capital accumulation to unravel a seemingly small act of refusal by the community of Nazaret that has barred tourists’ entry to their land. I argue that this act of refusal opens up space for critically examining the relationships of land and labour, especially through the production of “life”, in the accumulation of tourable places in contemporary global capitalism. Engaging literature on both tourism studies and land politics in the Amazon region, I contribute to the scholarship on tourism and work while examining how Indigenous landscapes are being made productive towards the ends of capitalism.     

Linking Gentrification and Labour Market Precarity in the Contemporary City: A Framework for Analysis

The interplay between intensifying labour market precarity and gentrification constitutes a hitherto under‐researched topic in the fields of labour and urban geography. To rectify this lacuna, we argue that gentrification and labour flexibilisation are both socio‐spatial manifestations of capital's efforts to confront crises of accumulation. Distinguishing between what we call “weak” and “strong” links between them, and drawing upon the concepts of “gentrification‐supporting” and “gentrification‐fostered” labour flexibility, we outline a framework for connecting gentrification and precarity. This allows us to make links between the restructuring of the built environment and the reorganisation of work in the post‐industrial city; it also allows us to show how workers, through their agency, can shape rent gaps in the contemporary city.     

‘Who is Lhakpa Sherpa?’ circulating subjectivities within the global/local terrain of Himalayan mountaineering

This paper traces different formations of subjectivities negotiated within the transnational circuits of mountaineering media and cultural production. Drawing from ethnographic research in Nepal and Canada in 2000, I examine various representations of the second Nepali woman to climb Everest in order to demonstrate the linkages between scales and geographies of media narratives and subjectivities. Appearing in newspapers, a research interview with myself (a foreign researcher) and on the Internet, these differently scaled narratives render Lhakpa Sherpa in terms of local and global subjectivities, which shift after her successful climb, and are complex and dynamic. I engage with feminist critiques of globalization to encourage a view of globalization as enacted rather than merely resisted and to analyse ‘the global’ and ‘the local’ as inseparable and contingent and productive of particular gendered subjectivities. The disjuncture between her popularity in Nepal and the lack of knowledge about her in Canada reveals the uneven processes of globalization wherein Lhakpa Sherpa struggles against gender and racial politics in mountaineering at the same time that she is privileged to climb as a sponsored mountaineer, a new subjectivity for a Nepali mountaineer.     

How do Migrant Workers Respond to Labour Abuses in “Local Sweatshops”?

This article aims to provide empirical evidence on understanding how migrant workers’ responses to labour exploitation in low‐wage economies are articulated. Inspired by the low levels of conflict among workers in small urban sweatshops in Italy and Argentina, we ask ourselves what contextual and subjective factors prevent workers from organising collectively. Here we argue that in order to understand the nature of their responses, it is necessary to consider not only the organisation of the labour process, but also the class divisions within migrant communities. We also bring in briefly the role of the state in (mis)regulating migrant labour exploitation. We conclude by showing that workers’ responses are highly individualised and that community leaders with economic interests in sweatshop economies may play a role in securing their continuation by channelling the workers’ responses towards the defence of the “ethnic economy”.     

从“职住空间”到“社会空间”——在日中国新移民的生存适应策略探讨

论文基于笔者对新移民组织和文化祝祭活动的资料收集与实地调研,运用社会学相关理论,以"社会空间"的形成作为切入点,探讨了在日中国新移民的生存适应策略。认为中国新移民通过"节点"的纽带作用积累"社会资本",进而构建以人际关系网络为基础的"社会空间"。在动态变化的社会空间,中国新移民可以利用各种平台,运用各类社会资源,在与他者的相互关系和互动中求得共生。网络式移民社区空间的构建,更符合中国新移民高流动性、高层次性、高创造性的特点和当今时代特征。它的存在不仅使在日中国人在远离故乡的生活世界里找到族群公共圈,产生连带感和归属感,而且避免了与日本社会的正面冲突,有利于新移民在与当地民众和平共处的前提下推进族群活动的日益丰富和活跃。     

Forced to Concede: Permanent Restructuring and Labour's Place in the North American Auto Industry

Abstract: The stunning decline of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler over the past decade has rendered the once “Big Three” US automakers a vulnerable “Detroit Three”. In their attempts to return to profitability, the Detroit Three have undertaken a series of “turnarounds” aimed at renewing their competitive edge. Through this corporate restructuring agenda, 250,000 assembly jobs in North America have been lost, upwards of 50 auto plants have been closed, wages and benefits for new hires have been cut substantially and once strong, independent auto unions have been thoroughly overwhelmed. Permanent restructuring, then, represents a crisis strategy on the part of the corporate elite to continually intensify the demands placed on labour in the hopes of creating new conditions for capital accumulation. Working within labour geography, this paper documents the “regional race to the bottom” in the North American auto industry while reminding labour geographers that capitalist restructuring is a powerful constraint on labour agency.     

Qenja: child fostering and relocation practices in the Amhara region,Ethiopia

In this article we discuss temporary relocation and informal labour of children in rural Ethiopia. We respond to the call ‘to understand the wider logic underlying child relocation and non-parental residence among populations experiencing poverty’ (Boyden, J. 2013. “We're Not Going to Suffer Like this in the Mud: Educational Aspirations, Social Mobility and Independent Child Migration among Populations Living in Poverty.” Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 43 (5): 580–600. 582). Drawing on the perspectives of children and families involved in the practice of qenja (meaning ‘teaming’ or ‘forming a coalition’) we examine how – in contexts of uneven distribution of rural labour – children's involvement in transient agricultural labour outside the home is a fundamental feature of social reproduction. We argue that qenja is a social coping strategy that co-exists alongside gendered and generational relations of household production and reproduction. An understanding of the practice as merely transactional and exploitative ignores long-standing community strategies of labour acquisition and redistribution. We stress that child protection campaigns by non-governmental organizations and national legislations that intend to criminalize the practice are not in the interest of children, families, and communities.     

CHOOSING RESIDENCE,COMMUNITY AND NEIGHBOURS ‐THEORIZING FAMILIES’ MOTIVES FOR MOVING1

This article takes its point of departure from an ongoing research project that examines the connection between everyday life and choice of residence. The first component of this empirical study is an investigation of reasons given by families for moving out of Copenhagen to a commune ‐ Absalons Have in Trekroner – in a new suburban area close to the city of Roskilde (located approximately 25 km west of Copenhagen). The research examines the connection between this choice of residence and the everyday lives of the families, including why this form of residence ‐ the commune ‐ is attractive to them. What kinds of needs do the families have and how can the new residence fulfil these needs? This article examines these questions, first, by outlining a theoretical discussion of how to capture the connection between everyday life and residence. Here concepts such as “sense of place”, “the social construction and use of place”, “meaningful places”, and how place experiences play a central role are examined. Second, the article presents findings from an empirical study examining families’ choice of Trekroner and the commune Absalons Have.     

The Political Economy of Class Compromise: Trade Unions,Capital–Labour Relations and Development in North East Brazil1

Abstract: This article investigates how capital–labour relations (encompassing processes of class formation, representation, struggle and compromise) impact on emerging regions’ developmental trajectories. It does so because much of development studies portray labour simply as an input (human capital) subordinate to more fundamental processes such as capital investment and accumulation. The paper draws on and extends insights gained from the “new working class studies” and global commodity chains literatures in order to examine evolving capital–labour relations—from relatively militant struggles to class compromise—in an emerging sector of North East Brazilian export horticulture. It identifies sources of workers’ structural and associational power and uses these to explain significant gains achieved by the region's rural trade union during the formation of the export horticulture sector. It then asks, why, despite continuing structural power, the region's trade union has entered into a class compromise with the leading employers via (a) reducing its militancy and its strategy of striking against employers to win concessions, and (b) shifting its objectives in terms of concessions sought. It speculates on the impacts of these changing class relations on the region's developmental trajectory.     

Skilled Natives,Inept Coolies: Marmot Hunting and the Great Manchurian Pneumonic Plague (1910–1911)

Taking as its setting the great Manchurian pneumonic plague epidemic of 1910–1911, this article examines the construction of epidemiological blame that targeted migrant labourers from the peninsula of Shandong employed in the hunting of the Siberian marmot (Marmota sibirica), a natural reservoir of the disease. The article demonstrates how Chinese epidemiologists sought to pathologize marmot-hunting migrants from Shandong as unskilled pestilent “coolies”, while at the same time valorizing Mongol and Buryat marmot hunters as a “native” counter-paradigm; a binary anthropology of skill and sanitation, which instituted “coolies” as an anthropological type essential to the construction of hygienic modernity in China.     

Ideological others and national identifications in contemporary Poland

Sexual minorities in Poland are excluded from the traditional understanding of “Polishness” premised on conservative, Catholic values. This article examines how ethnic Polish citizens who identify as non‐heteronormative navigate their relationship to “Polishness” at a moment of heightened nationalism. Through 31 interviews with Polish sexual minorities, I show that while national identification is a struggle for some sexual minorities, others work to reframe what “Polishness” means to them. I argue for further research examining the ways that stigmatised members of the ethnic majority—what I term ideological others—understand and navigate their relationship to national identity. The study contributes to the literature on everyday nationhood and national identity by attending to national identification among stigmatised members of the ethnic majority.     

Crisis,Continuity and Change: Neoliberalism,the Left and the Future of Capitalism

Abstract: This essay's point of departure is the coincident economic and environmental “crises” of our time. I locate both in the dynamics of capital accumulation on a world‐scale, drawing on the ideas of Marx, Karl Polanyi and James O’Connor. I ask whether the recent profusion of “crisis talk” in the public domain presents an opportunity for progressive new ideas to take hold now that “neoliberalism” has seemingly been de‐legitimated. My answer is that a “post‐neoliberal” future is probably a long way off. I make my case in two stages and at two geographical scales. First, I examine the British social formation as currently constituted and explain why even a leading neoliberal state is failing to reform its ways. Second, I then scale‐up from the domestic level to international affairs. I examine cross‐border emissions trading—arguably the policy tool for mitigating the very real prospects of significant climate change this century. The overall conclusion is this: even though the “first” and “second” contradictions of capital have manifested themselves together and at a global level, there are currently few prospects for systemic reform (never mind revolution) led by a new, twenty‐first century “red‐green” Left.     

A Soviet outpost in Tel Aviv: the Soviet legation in Israel, 1948–53

This article inquires into the reasons why the ideal type of ethnic democracy proposed by Sammy Smooha has no viable manifestation other than Israel. Ethnic democracy exists in the tensions between the two contradictory principles of inclusive and egalitarian democracy, on the one hand, and a preference for a majority ethnic group on the other. The archetype of the ideal type of ethnic democracy is Israel. Yet since the conceptual tool of ideal type was developed by Weber for the purpose of overcoming idiosyncrasies and discovering similarities, other manifestations of the ideal type must be found. Although Smooha presupposes that ethnic democracy is essentially “non-Western,” he finds its manifestations mainly in “Western” democracies. He tries to overcome this difficulty by characterizing Israel as the sole embodiment of the ideal type of ethnic democracy. However, a comparison with West European democracies renders the ethnic attributes of Israeli democracy empirically dubious and logically circular.     

Time,Waste, and the City: The Rise of the Environmental Industry

In many US cities, especially those in the Rust Belt, the environmental goods and services (EGS) industry has played a significant role in restructuring local economies to promote new, flexible, and “creative” forms of service‐based labour. And yet much of the environmental work conducted in these cities has been directed at an industrial past, cleaning up the waste left over from long‐departed manufacturing sectors. Returning to David Harvey's earlier work on the urban process, this paper develops a theory of waste switching that situates EGS within a larger renegotiation of space and time across city landscapes. This theory is fleshed out in case studies of the EGS industry in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Milwaukee, where new cycles of accumulation have been built on refuse, toxins, and dead labour. These “toxi‐cities” and their cleanup challenge traditional conceptions of urbanisation as spatially—but also temporally—bounded.     

Making Space for Energy: Wasteland Development,Enclosures, and Energy Dispossessions

This paper analyzes why and how wasteland development narratives persist through an evaluation of wasteland development policies in India from 1970 to present. Integrating critical scholarship on environmental narratives and enclosures, I find that narratives of wastelands as “empty” spaces available for “improvement” continue because they are metaphors for entrenched struggles between the government's shifting visions of “improvement” and communities whose land use practices contradict these logics. Since the 1970s, “improvement” has meant establishing different types of tree plantations on wastelands to ostensibly provide energy security. These projects have dispossessed land users by enclosing common property lands and by providing forms of energy incommensurate with local needs, a trend I term “energy dispossessions”. Factors enabling energy dispossessions include the government's increased attempts to establish public–private partnerships to carry out “improvement” and a “field of observation” constructed to obscure local livelihoods. Unveiling these logics will help to problematize and contest future iterations of wasteland development.     

Untangling the different components of Norwegianness*

ABSTRACT. National identity is under scrutiny in Europe. A new non‐ethnic conception of the nation to replace the traditional ethnic one is needed. National identity is therefore undergoing a public reconstruction. This article is based on narratives of “Norwegianness” that emerged in a qualitative interview study of white majority Norwegians who live in multicultural suburbs in Oslo. I respond to an overlooked need to analytically untangle different components of “Norwegianness” as phenomenological knowledge, to decouple its different constituents from each other. In order to analyse qualitative data where notions of “Norwegianness” and “non‐Norwegianness” are at play, their different aspects must be clarified. I identify multiple discursive oppositions that researchers ought to keep apart, and distinguish between civic aspects (citizenship), cultural aspects, and ethnic/racial aspects. I suggest that everyday notions of the national are fruitfully studied as discursive space constituted by a series of overlapping, but sometimes mutually contradicting, oppositions.     

Ethnic boundaries and boundary-making in handicrafts: examples from northern Norway,Sweden and Finland

When ethnicity is said to be manifest and practised through handicrafts, these seemingly innocent objects become political. They raise questions concerning who can do what handicraft, who can use what symbols or what developments are “allowed”. They illustrate the continuous production of ethnic norms and boundaries, especially when global tourism enters into the equation. Taking a social constructivist perspective, our study addresses ethnic boundaries and boundary-making in handicrafts in northern Sweden, Norway and Finland. Our findings are based on fieldwork (35 interviewees) with people of diverse local backgrounds making and selling handicrafts. Methodologically, we avoid preselecting people based on ethnicity, but instead contribute to an understanding of the constitutive processes of ethnicity by looking at how ethnic talk comes into conversations about handicrafts. Our findings demonstrate that the interviewees draw an ethnic divide between “Sámi”/“non-Sámi”, while other ethnic-choices move to the background. This divide can be seen to be amplified by tourism. The boundary for who can make a Sámi handicraft or use Sámi symbols remains significant, yet also fluid. The article deepens the understanding of the Sámi/non-Sámi ethnic categorization, here in relation to handicrafts. It also helps unravel the complexities between tourism, ethnicities and handicrafts more broadly.