Gendered livelihoods and social change in post-apartheid South Africa

This article employs gendered livelihoods analysis and participatory methods to examine the politics of development among small-scale rooibos tea farmers in a rural coloured area of southwestern South Africa. Differentiating between sources of conflict and cohesion, I discuss how communities navigated resource scarcity, unstable markets, and shifting relations. While patriarchal dynamics informed livelihoods, with males and elders enjoying greater access than females and young adults, women took advantage of relatively fluid female roles to enter into agriculture and commerce. In contrast, rigid male roles and unattainable expectations of manhood isolated men, engendering destructive behaviors among young men in particular. Communities maintained social cohesion through democratic arrangements, and a politics of identification enabled research participants to relate to differential interests. In addition to providing situated and relational insight into the identitarian aspects of rural development, participatory gendered livelihoods analysis offers a critical means for deconstructing power and decolonizing knowledge.     

Weather sensitivity and climate change perceptions of tourists: a segmentation analysis

ABSTRACT

Many communities rely on tourism spending, so it is important to understand any potential changes to tourist flows resulting from changing climate and weather patterns. However, tourists are not a homogenous group, as they have different motivations, values, and goals. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation is to better understand potentially varying perceptions and behavior of different tourist types, specifically in regards to their weather sensitivity, climate change concern, and behavioral intention for climate change mitigation. Tourists were randomly surveyed at 20 locations throughout the state of Maine in the United States (n = 704). Segmentation analysis on the activities tourists participated in yielded three segments of Maine tourists: non-nature-based tourists (50.6%), nature-based generalists (16.2%), and nature-based specialists (33.2%). Differences across segments were explored for perceptions of weather impacts, climate change concern, and mitigation intent. Additionally, weather sensitivity was analyzed based on type of overnight accommodations to better understand if this also had a role in differences. Non-nature-based tourists thought that weather variables were less influential during their travels in Maine than the other segments, while nature-based generalists perceived weather to have the highest influence. Additionally, nature-based specialists had the highest level of climate change belief, while nature-based generalists had the highest willingness to engage in climate change mitigation behavior. Results are useful to understand how segments of tourism demand may be altered with a changing climate, such as increased temperatures, precipitation, and storms, and what groups may be the most beneficial to target for marketing or educational efforts to reduce the impact of climate change.     

Scotland’s Electoral Geography Differed from the Rest of Britain’s in 2017 (and 2015) – Exploring its Contours

The rapid expansion in support for the Scottish National Party (SNP) between the 2010 and 2015 general elections substantially changed the country’s electoral geography, as again did its relative decline at the next election in 2017. At that last contest, however, the SNP won many seats with fewer than 40% of the votes cast, a situation very different from that in the rest of Great Britain. That difference – which had a considerable impact on the formation of a government in June 2017 – came about because of the nature of the competition in individual seats.     

Managment of Beached Shipwreck Archaeological Sites: Defining Stability

The archaeological remains of ships in the beach zone are part of a complex and dynamic system. Being periodically exposed and reburied, they vary between being both visible and frequently forgotten features of the physical and cultural coastal landscape. These limited and non-renewable resources are highly susceptible to instability within the landscape. Challenges to stability result in these resources being damaged, ignored, or forgotten, leading to a potential loss of pertinent social, economic, and physical information. Although little can be done to prevent certain physical actions, a better understanding of physical and cultural processes allows for their mitigation and better management practices for the beached shipwreck resource. This paper looks at how stability is defined in relation to beached shipwreck sites and how these definitions impact the management of the resource of two case study sites in Maine and North Carolina.     

Racial,Gender, and Professional Diversification in the Forest Service from 1983 to 1992

The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service traditionally has been dominated by white, male for esters, particularly in its professional and leadership ranks. Beginning in the mid-1970s, however, civil rights legislation, lawsuits, and statutes that mandated interdisciplinary planning collectively impelled the agency to begin diversifying by race, gender, and profession. This study attempts to quantify the progress the agency has made in workforce diversification since the early 1980s by grouping Forest Service job series into categories and tracking changes in these categories over time. The study reveals that the numbers of employees in “nontraditional” Forest Service fields (e.g., the social and biological sciences) increased markedly, but that these employees remain vastly outnumbered by employees in traditional fields such as forestry. The number of women in the agency also increased greatly, but women made much greater gains in administrative support positions than in jobs that put them in the pipeline for leadership positions. They remain vastly overrepresented in clerical and administrative positions and highly under rep resented in professional and technical positions. People of color made gains in nearly all job categories, but, like women, remain significantly overrepresented in jobs that will not lead to leadership positions. Thus, while aggregate numbers show greater diversity in the Forest Service workforce, a more detailed analysis reveals that the leadership ranks are still the domain of white, male foresters.     

Rural out-migration and economic standing in a prairie setting

"This study attempts to trace the determinants of rural out-migration for a typical portion of the Canadian Prairies, namely agricultural Manitoba. In concentrating on the 'push' factors responsible for gross out-migration over the period 1966-71, the study considers aspects of several dimensions: spatial, economic, social, ethnic and demographic. However, in order to explore the ramifications of interaction between migration and these multifaceted factors, a model is construed which dwells not only on the forces responsible for out-migration, per se, but also on those capable of regulating rural economic structure and agricultural welfare."