The ambiguities of self‐determination: IGAD and the secession of South Sudan

This paper examines the 1994 Declaration of Principles (DoP) for the resolution of the Sudanese civil war, adopted by the Inter‐Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). This was the only occasion on which an African inter‐state organization included separation as an option for resolving a civil war. It was the basis for South Sudan's independence in 2011. The DoP was drafted by the Ethiopian government, and imposed on belligerent parties, both of which were, at the time, unionist. The paper identifies two concepts of self‐determination within the DoP— independence for colonial territories and the Marxist‐Leninist idea of self‐determination for national groups. The rationale for including both arose from Ethiopian leadership within IGAD. The paper also examines the diverse Sudanese debates on self‐determination, including several strands of nationalism, Islamism, and the ‘New Sudan’ of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). There was radical disagreement among Sudanese on national identity and self‐determination, creating ambiguities that ironically facilitated the exercise in southern self‐determination in 2011. Drawing on documentation of Sudanese negotiations, the paper examines how the DoP unlocked the Sudanese debate on the issue, and how the different concepts fared up to the time of the independence of South Sudan.     

The necessary indeterminacy of self‐determination: Politics,law and conflict in the Horn of Africa

This article frames a themed collection on Nationalism and Self‐determination in the Horn of Africa. It demonstrates how the praxis of self‐determination in the Horn of Africa has contributed to normative developments. On the basis of case studies of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan/South Sudan this article argues that nationalism and self‐determination have had different meanings in the political cultures across the different countries and have changed over time. We contend that such indeterminacy is unavoidable and should be welcomed. Nationalism is driven by historical circumstances that are contingent and often transitory. Self‐determination claims based on such nationalism are equally contingent and transitory. When the principle of self‐determination gets translated into concrete legal entitlements (for instance, a referendum on independence), it tends to solve one problem only by creating others. Instead, the pursuit and realization of self‐determination require constant political processes.     

The socioecology of fear: A critical geographical consideration of human-wolf-livestock conflict

Animal fear can be an important driver of ecological community structure: predators affect prey not only through predation, but also by inducing changes in behaviour and distribution—a phenomenon evocatively called the “ecology of fear.” The return of wolves to the western United States is a notable instance of such dynamics, yet plays out in a complex socioecological system where efforts to mitigate impacts on livestock rely on manipulating wolves' fear of people. Examining Washington state's efforts to affect wolf behaviour to reduce livestock predation, we argue that this approach to coexistence with wolves is predicated on relations of fear: people, livestock, and wolves can arguably share landscapes with minimal conflict, as long as wolves are adequately afraid. We introduce the “socioecology of fear” as an interdisciplinary framework for examining the interwoven social and ecological processes of human-wildlife conflict management. Beyond frequently voiced ideas about wolves' “innate” fear, we examine how fear is (re)produced through human-wolf interactions and deeply shaped by human social processes. We contribute to the critical physical geography project by integrating critical social analysis with ecological theory, conducted through collaborative interdisciplinary dialogue. Such integrative practice is essential for understanding the complex challenges of managing wildlife in the Anthropocene.     

Household economic resilience to catastrophic rainstorms and flooding in a Chinese megacity

Megacities situated on flood plains face escalating risks of waterlogging and inundation. Tianjin is one of these megacities in China where residents are exposed to these risks and not well prepared for their consequences. Government policies should support the most vulnerable and less resilient groups. This study can inform policy‐making by identifying the socio‐economic characteristics of those who are financially better prepared for the consequences of catastrophic rainstorms and flooding. A structured questionnaire survey was administered to 332 Tianjin residents. Results confirm that financial conditions crucially determine household resilience to these natural hazards. Lower‐income and less educated urban residents have lower resilient capacity. Weak engagement in the community, including residential committees and other organisations, is related to lower capacity to cope with the economic consequences of extreme weather events. Less resilient groups are therefore those who are subject to urban poverty and have limited social capital. Tianjin and other cities in the developing world require resilience strategies that attend to this segment of urban population.     

Between the Vinča and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Linearbandkeramik</Emphasis> Worlds: The Diversity of Practices and Identities in the 54th–53rd Centuries cal BC in Southwest Hungary and Beyond

Perhaps nowhere in European prehistory does the idea of clearly-defined cultural boundaries remain more current than in the initial Neolithic, where the southeast–northwest trend of the spread of farming crosses what is perceived as a sharp divide between the Balkans and central Europe. This corresponds to a distinction between the Vin?a culture package, named for a classic site in Serbia, with its characteristic pottery assemblage and absence of longhouses, and the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), with equally diagnostic but different pottery, and its apparently culturally-diagnostic longhouses, extending in a more northerly belt through central Europe westward to the Dutch coast. In this paper we question the concept of such a clear division through a presentation of new data from the site of Szederkény-Kukorica-d?l?. A large settlement in southeast Transdanubia, Hungary, excavated in advance of road construction, Szederkény is notable for its combination of pottery styles, variously including Vin?a A, Ra?i?te and LBK, and longhouses of a kind otherwise familiar from the LBK world. Formal modelling of its date establishes that the site probably began in the later 54th century cal BC, lasting until the first decades of the 52nd century cal BC. Occupation, featuring longhouses, pits and graves, probably began at the same time in the eastern and western parts of the settlement, starting a decade or two later in the central part; the western part was probably the last to be abandoned. Vin?a pottery is predominantly associated with the eastern and central parts of the site, and Ra?i?te pottery with the west. Formal modelling of the early history of longhouses in the LBK world suggests their emergence in the Formative LBK of Transdanubia c. 5500 cal BC followed by rapid dispersal in the middle of the 54th century cal BC, associated with the ‘earliest’ (älteste) LBK. The adoption of longhouses at Szederkény thus appears to come a few generations after the start of this ‘diaspora’. Rather than explaining the mixture of things, practices and perhaps people at Szederkény with reference to problematic notions such as hybridity, we propose instead a more fluid and varied vocabulary, encompassing combination and amalgamation, relationships and performance in the flow of social life, and networks; this makes greater allowance for diversity and interleaving in a context of rapid change.     

Organisational geographies of corporate responsibility: a UK-US comparison of retailers' ethical trading initiatives

Ethical trade, involving corporate codes of conduct for sitesof production, has become a key means through which labour inretailers’ global supply chains is regulated. Yet, thereis evidence to suggest that retail corporations vary markedlyin their approaches to ethical trade and that such variationis shaped, in part, by the national-institutional contexts inwhich retailers are based. This article explores this insightby evaluating the distinct roles played by multi-stakeholderinitiatives for ethical trade in the UK and USA. While the UK'score multi-stakeholder initiative, the Ethical Trading Initiative(ETI), encompasses retailers from a variety of sectors and takesa developmental and continuous learning approach to ethicaltrade, the US multi-stakeholder initiatives are focussed moreon corporate accountability based on compliance monitoring exclusivelyin the clothing sector. Given recent organisational attemptsto foster transnational dialogue between multi-stakeholder initiatives,though, we argue that the precise ways in which national-institutionalcontexts shape retailers’ ethical trading approaches arefluid and mutable. We contribute to the literature on the governanceof global supply chains, retailer power and corporate responsibilityby emphasising the political significance of national-institutionalenvironments. However, in line with notions of relational economicgeography, we understand these national-institutional environmentsas active and dynamic contexts, and accentuate the coalitionalways in which nationally based organisations evolve in theirhome countries and go on to shape broader transnational agendasfor ethical trade.