Gender and emergent water governance: comparative overview of neoliberalized natures and gender dimensions of privatization,devolution and marketization

This article provides a critical reading of some of the gendered dimensions of emergent water governance regimes, specifically those related to the privatization, marketization and devolution of water resources management. After first providing an overview of recent nature–society contributions related to neoliberalization processes, the article comparatively evaluates insights with respect to the gender dimensions of recent shifts in water governance. I make several arguments at the intersection of relevant literatures. First, there is a need for gender theorists interested in water resources and nature–society debates to engage more with issues, theories and processes associated with neoliberalization. Second, there is a need for more attention to gender, feminist theory and approaches to inequality and socio-spatial difference in discussions of neoliberalized natures. Third, reading these literatures together reveals that there is a need to be self-reflexive and critical of elements of the gender and water literature that implicitly endorse foundational elements of the neoliberal turn in resource governance. Finally, there are particularities with respect to gender theory and politics, and water materialities that hold importance for understanding recent water governance shifts in the broader context of political and economic changes associated with neoliberalization.     

IS PRODUCTIVITY HIGHER IN BRITISH CITIES?*

ABSTRACT This paper examines the determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) using a GB plant‐level data set. The main findings relate to whether spatial spillovers and “place” effects are important: plants located in cities generally perform better than plants in the same region outside of these cities; but with the exception of Bristol, no city has significantly higher TFP levels than the South East. This suggests that spatial externalities associated with city location are not as important as the benefits of being situated in the South East region.     

PANEL ON THE SOVIET UNION IN THE YEAR 2000

A panel of geographers debates possible future developments in the Soviet Union in regional and environmental policy, water resource management, agriculture, industry, energy, population, urban growth and planning, transportation, and foreign trade. The present emphasis on modernization of existing plant capacity in cities of the western, more heavily settled regions of the USSR seems destined to continue, although it will be constrained by a growing shortage of industrial labor, declining terms of trade and resource oversupply in increasingly competitive export markets, and the continued resistance of Central Asian populations to urbanization and industrial employment.     

Ethnic Tensions in the Successor Republics in 1993 and Early 1994

A distinguished specialist on the human geography of the former USSR examines the process whereby the Russian Federation increased its influence over most of the successor states during 1993 and early 1994. Particular attention is devoted to the interplay between (a) the status of Russian minorities, political instability, and ethnic conflict in the successor states and (b) military, economic, and political pressures exerted by the Russian Federation. In addition, the paper surveys the status of interethnic relations among Russians and eponymous populations in Russia's republics and other ethnic-territorial formations. 1 map, 44 references.     

Units of Archaeological Stratification

The excavating archaeologists’ methodological set ‐ excavation, recording, analysis and publication ‐ rests on the notions and principles of the stratigraphic succession of archaeological deposits. Since 1954 when Sir Mortimer Wheeler published Archaeology From the Earth, there has been a dearth of published discussion on the stratigraphie theory in archaeology. This paper examines some of the background of the stratigraphie notion in archaeology and a revised model for archaeological stratigraphy based on ‘units of stratification’ is presented. Re‐evaluations of stratigraphie configurations in archaeology arc perhaps long overdue and this article is an attempt to engender discussion on this fundamental archaeological tenet.