Special issue: managing and adapting to global change in tourism places

The focus of the articles in this special issue of Tourism Geographies is global change. Global change incorporates social and economic globalization, which is arguably the most important process to have shaped the development of modern tourism since the nineteenth century, and climate change, which is likely to be the most significant factor influencing human behavior and livelihood in the coming decades. The organization of these articles reflects a traditional geography approach, emphasizing the physical geography foundation of the human condition, especially through the issue of climate change. This is broadened by a series of insightful comparative studies of how communities relate to their changing natural and social environments through tourism.     

The contested rescaling of economic governance in East Asia: a special issue

The special issue this article opens engages with an apparent conundrum that has often puzzled observers of East Asian politics—why, despite the region's considerable economic integration, multilateral economic governance institutions remain largely underdeveloped. The authors argue that this ‘regionalism problématique’ has led to the neglect of prior and more important questions pertaining to how patterns of economic governance, beyond the national scale, are emerging in East Asia and why. In this special issue, the contributors shift analytic focus onto social and political struggles over the scale and instruments of economic governance in East Asia. The contributions identify and explain the emergence of a wide variety of regional modes of economic governance often neglected by the scholarship or erroneously viewed as stepping stones towards ‘deeper’ multilateralism.     

Abortion law reforms in Colombia and Nicaragua: issue networks and opportunity contexts

This article analyses two instances of abortion law reform in Latin America. In 2006, after a decades-long impasse, the highly controversial issue of abortion came to dominate the political agenda when Colombia liberalized its abortion law and Nicaragua adopted a total ban on abortion. The article analyses the central actors in the reform processes, their strategies and the opportunity contexts. Drawing on Htun's (2003) framework, it examines why these processes concluded with opposing legislative outcomes. The authors argue for the need to understand the state as a non-unitary site of politics and policy, and for judicial processes to be seen as a key variable in facilitating gender policy reforms in Latin America. In addition, they argue that ‘windows of opportunity’ such as the timing of elections can be critically important in legislative change processes.     

The reconciliation trap: disputing genocide and the land issue in postwar Guatemala

ABSTRACT

Guatemala’s reconciliation debate is as much about the present and the future as it is about history. In order to highlight its political dimension, I propose to read this controversy through the lens of hegemony theory. It is precisely because of the entwinement of specific political economic interests, centuries-old ethnic conflict and structural racism in Guatemala that charging genocide constitutes a key moment in a fight over power—a fight in which controversies about the politics of history are also expressions of struggle over economic resources and political hegemony. In this light, reconciliation does not appear to be a solution but a trap, set by those who defend their interests against the changes that the Peace Accords and the recommendations of the Historical Clarification Commission demanded. In the first section, I show that one crucial motive for these elites to deny the Guatemalan genocide, besides obvious reasons of historical shame and responsibility, is economic issues, among them the century-old land question. In the following sections I present two seemingly contrary arguments from the political and academic left. One takes apart, from a poststructural perspective, simplifying binary logics of class and ethnic conflict and thus delegitimizes the indigenous and peasant struggle for economic reform in the process. The other proposes a form of universal guilt that also ends up depoliticizing the history of the civil war.     

Unexpected diversity of ratites (Aves,Palaeognathae) in the early Cenozoic of South America: palaeobiogeographical implications

Agnolin, F.L., July 2016. Unexpected diversity of ratites (Aves, Palaeognathae) in the early Cenozoic of South America: palaeobiogeographical implications. Alcheringa 41, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518.

Ratitae is represented in South America exclusively by Rheidae. Recently, the oldest purported fossil rheid, Diogenornis fragilis, was attributed by several authors to various other ratite clades. A new revision of museum fossil specimens from Argentina has resulted in the discovery of several ratite specimens that clearly do not belong to Rheidae, but resemble other clades. The newly identified specimens derive from Paleogene and Miocene strata. The great diversity of non-rheid Patagonian ratites ended via extinction of several groups by the late Miocene, probably owing to enhanced aridity that also favoured the dispersal of arid-adapted rheids. The new specimens described here reinforce the hypothesis that the traditional vicariant biogeographical model, which proposes ratite clades originated exclusively before the breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent, is questionable owing to the unexpected diversity of various ratite clades in South America, and also in Europe and Africa. This might indicate that the history of Ratitae was more complex than previously envisioned.

Federico L. Agnolin* [fedeagnolin@yahoo.com.ar], Laboratorio de Anatomía Comparada y Evolución de los Vertebrados, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia’, Av. Ángel Gallardo, 470 (1405), Buenos Aires, Argentina. *Also affiliated with: Fundación de Historia Natural ‘Félix de Azara’, Departamento de Ciencias Naturales y Antropología, Universidad Maimónides, Hidalgo 775 (C1405BDB) Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, República Argentina.