Linking land displacement and environmental dispossession to Mi'kmaw health and well‐being: Culturally relevant place‐based interpretive frameworks matter

For over five decades, Pictou Landing First Nation, a small Mi'kmaw community on the northern shore of Nova Scotia, has been told that the health of its community is not impacted by a pulp and paper mill pouring 85 million litres of effluent per day into a lagoon that was once a culturally significant place known as “A'se'k,” and which borders the community. Based on lived experience, the community knows otherwise. Despite countless government‐ and industry‐sponsored studies indicating the mill's pollutants are merely “nuisance” impacts and harmless, the community's concerns have not gone away. Using a “Piktukowaq” (Mi'kmaw) environmental health research framework to guide the interpretation of oral histories coming from the Knowledge Holders in Pictou Landing First Nation, we convey the deep, health‐enhancing relationship with A'se'k that the Piktukowaq enjoyed before it was destroyed, and the health suppression that has occurred since then. Conducting the research using a culturally relevant place‐based interpretive framework has demonstrated the absolute necessity of this kind of approach where Indigenous communities are concerned, particularly those facing health impacts vis‐à‐vis land displacement and environmental dispossession.     

Book reviews

General

Peter Elphick. The Far Eastern File: The Intelligence War in the Far East, 1930–1945. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997. xvii, 510 pp. Introduction, author's note, maps, photographs, index. £20.00, hardcover.

Northeast Asia

Nancy Abelmann. Echoes of the Past, Epics of Dissent: A South Korean Social Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. US$40.00, hardcover; US$18.00, paper.

Robert Barnett and Shirin Akiner, editors. Resistance and Reform in Tibet. London: Hurst and Company, 1994. £32.00, hardcover; £12.95, paper.

Ronald D. Schwartz. Circle of Protest: Political Ritual in the Tibetan Uprising. London: Hurst and Company, 1994. £37.50, hardcover; £12.95, paper.

Mick Broderick. Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film. Japanese Studies Series. London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1996. x, 255 pp. US$93.50, £55.00, hardcover.

Susan Brownell. Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People's Republic. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995. 393 pp. Bibliography, index. US$49.95, hardcover; US$18.95, paper.

Lincoln Li. Student Nationalism in China, 1924–1949. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. ix, 209 pp. Acknowledgments, notes, bibliography, plates, index. US$19.95, paper.

Colin Mackerras. China's Minority Cultures: Identities and Integration Since 1912. Melbourne: Longman, 1995. x, 252 pp. Contents, preface, maps, photographs, references, index. A$42.00, hardcover.

David Zweig. Freeing China's Farmers: Rural Restructuring in the Reform Era. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. xvii, 365 pp. Contents, preface, tables and figures, index. US$62.95, hardcover; US$24.95, paper.

South Asia

John Hutnyk. The Rumour of Calcutta: Tourism, Charity and the Poverty of Representation. London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1996. x, 223 pp. Preface, bibliography, index. US$65.00, hardcover; US$22.50, paper.

Frederic C. Thomas. Calcutta Poor: Elegies on a City above Pretense. An East Gate Book. New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. ix, 166 pp. Preface, plates, notes, bibliography, index. US$29.95, hardcover.

David William Martin. The Changing Face of Calcutta. New Delhi: Vikas, 1997. xxvii, 232 pp. Rs.450, hardcover.

Thomas R. Trautmann. Aryans and British India. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1997. ix‐xiv, 260 pp. Illustrations, maps, references, index. US$35, £24.95, hardcover.

David Gordon White. The Alchemical Body. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. xviii, 596 pp. Preface, abbreviations, notes, bibliography, index. US$49.95, hardcover.

Joanna Williams. The Two Headed Deer: Illustrations of the Ramayana in Orissa. California Studies in the History of Art, No. 34. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. xix, 210 pp. 289 plates. US$65.00, hardcover.

Liz Wilson. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. xviii, 258 pp. Foreword, bibliography, illustrations.

Stanley Wolpert. Nehru, A Tryst With Destiny. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. xii, 546 pp. Preface, illustrations, footnotes, bibliography, index. A$49.00, hardcover.

Southeast Asia

Justin Corfield, editor. Rama III and the Siamese Expedition to Kedah in 1939: The Dispatches of Luang Udomsombat. Trans. Cyril Skinner. Monash Papers on Southeast Asia No. 30. Melbourne: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1993. Editor's introduction, translator's introduction, map, plate, appendices, index. 338 pp. A$24.95, paper.

Duong Thu Huong. Novel Without a Name. Translated from the Vietnamese by Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPherson. London: Picador, 1995. 289 pp. A$16.95, paper.

Dean Forbes. Asian Metropolis: Urbanisation and the Southeast Asian City. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996. xxii, 120 pp. Foreword, contents, maps, plates, index. A$19.95, paper.

Antoon Geels. Subud and the Javanese Mystical Tradition. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1997. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series No. 76. Preface, author's note, abstract. 262 pp. £30.00, hardcover.

Bryan Hunsaker, Theodore Mayer, Barbara Griffiths and Robert Daley. Loggers, Monks, Students and Entrepreneurs: Four Essays on Thailand. Introduction by Clark Neher. DeKalb, Illinois: Southeast Asia Publications, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, 1996. Occasional Paper No. 18. vi, 143 pp. Introduction, bibliographies, index. US$12.00, paper.

Ian Mabbett and David Chandler. The Khmers. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995. x, 289 pp. Preface, introduction, plates, maps, appendices, bibliography, index. £35.00, hardcover; £13.50, paper.

Leo Suryadinata, editor. Ethnic Chinese as Southeast Asians. Sydney and Singapore: Allen and Unwin, and ISEAS, 1997. A$35.00, paper.     

When Businesses Collide: Producer Interest Groups and the Politics of Regulation

Much interest-group analysis assumes that producer-group pressures are especially influential. Sometimes business interests conflict; in that case, which producer groups will be most influential? Using data from 54 state telephone rate cases, this paper explores the relative influence of several different intervener types. Estimates indicate that influencing outcomes depends on credible information rather than other resources, and also that business interest groups cannot all be considered homogenous. Some implications for the Telecommunications Act of 1996 are drawn.     

Climate migrants and new identities? The geopolitics of embracing or rejecting mobility

New evidence is emerging to suggest that climate change mobility is giving effect to changing forms of island identity among Tuvaluans and i-Kiribati. This nascent shift prompts a number of questions addressed in this paper. What, for example, does climate change migration mean for island identity and its geographic performance? How does the spatialization of identity inform shared experiences of climate change, and how does identity assist in the formation of shared positions from which to advocate for change? Drawing on discourses of sedentarism and mobilization among Tuvaluan and i-Kiribati, we explore performances of identity related to climate change being fashioned and refashioned in different contexts.     

Implications of climate change for glacier tourism

For more than 100 years, the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers in Westland Tai Poutini National Park have attracted thousands of tourists annually and have emerged as iconic destinations in New Zealand. However, in recent years, the recession of both glaciers has been increasingly rapid and the impacts on, and implications for, visitor experiences in these settings remain relatively unexplored. A mixed-method approach was adopted to investigate visitor experiences and stakeholder perspectives through an assessment of climate-related changes on tourism at the glaciers in Westland Tai Poutini National Park. The bio-physical conditions at both the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers were reviewed in order to assess the magnitude and rate of retreat. Perceptions of climate change risk and awareness of impacts in the National Park were assessed through stakeholder interviews (n = 13) and a visitor survey (n = 500) was used to better understand how impacts at these sites have affected and may continue to affect visitor experiences. Research results were reported to local communities via a series of public talks. Results revealed the fundamental importance of viewing the glaciers as a significant travel motive of visitors, suggesting that there is a ‘last chance’ dimension to their experience. Furthermore, the results demonstrate a high adaptive capacity of local tourism operators under rapidly changing environmental conditions. The implications of altered visitor experiences for tourism operators and protected area managers are discussed in light of these findings.