The Human Role in Earth Surface Systems: Some Theoretical Considerations

Studies of human influences on the environment may treat human agency as an imposed, exogenous source of change or disturbance, or as an intrinsic part of earth surface systems. Consideration of human influences as exogenous or endogenous to earth surface systems can affect, or even predetermine, the outcome of analyses. This is demonstrated via qualitative stability analyses of generalized mass-and-energy-flux systems. When human impacts are considered as external disturbances such systems are stable, and will regain equilibrium after changes or perturbations. Conversely, when human impacts are included as a system component, with goals of either maximizing or minimizing throughput of mass and energy, the system is inherently unstable.     

Reviews

AUSTRALIA IN WORLD AFFAIRS 1956–1960. Gordon Greenwood and Norman Harper (eds.). For the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Melbourne, F. W. Cheshire, 1963. Pp. viii + 430. 63/‐.

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE POLICY 1951–1963: MAJOR INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS. Sir Alan Watt. A.N.U. Department of International Relations: Working Paper no. 4. 1964. Pp. ii + 92. 10/‐.

THE DEBATABLE ALLIANCE: AN ESSAY IN ANGLO‐AMERICAN RELATIONS. Coral Bell. R.I.I.A., Chatham House Essays, no. 3, 1964. Pp. 130, Australian price 14/3.

SOUTH AFRICA AND THE UNITED NATIONS: MYTH AND REALITY. R. B. Ballinger. Johannesburg, The South African Institute of International Affairs, 1963. Pp. 32. 32 cents.

THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA AND THE HIGH COMMISSION TERRITORIES. Lord Hailey. London, Oxford University Press. Pp. viii + 136. Australian price 29/9d.

APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA. New York, United Nations, 1963. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES. New York, United Nations, 1963. Pp. 84. $1.00. STUDY OF DISCRIMINATION IN THE MATTER OF POLITICAL RIGHTS. New York, United Nations, 1962. Pp. viii + 105. $1.50.

STERLING IN THE SIXTIES. Christopher MoMahon. R.I.I.A., Chatham House Essays no. 4. London, Oxford University Press, 1964. Pp. vi + 118. Australian price 14/3.

INTERNATIONAL LIQUIDITY. Ian Shannon. Melbourne, P. W. Cheshire, 1964. Pp. 143. 21/‐.

IMPERIALISM. THE STORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF A POLITICAL WORD, 1840–1860. R. Koebner and H. D. Schmidt. London, Cambridge University Press, 1964. Pp. xxvi + 432. £3/3/‐ stg.

SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY 1924–1926. Volume Three, Parts I and II. E. H. Carr. London, Macmillan, 1964. Australian price 363/‐. THE RUSSIAN PEASANT MOVEMENT 1906–1917. Launcelot A. Owen. New York, Russell & Russell, 1963. $7.50.

THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOUR IN MODERN JAPANESE POLITICS. Mosao Maruyama. Edited by Ivan Morris. London, Oxford University Press, 1963. Pp. xx + 344. Australian price 68/‐.

THE CHINESE VIEW OF THEIR PLACE IN THE WORLD. C. P. Fitzgerald. R.I.I.A., Chatham House Essay No. 1. London, Oxford University Press, 1964. Pp. 72. Australian price 10/‐.

COMMUNISM IN NORTH VIETNAM. P. J. Honey. Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. Press, 1963. Pp. xvi + 207. $4.95.

SOUTH‐EAST ASIA: A SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY. C. A. Fisher. London, Methuen, 1964. Pp. xix + 831. Maps. £4.4.0 sterling.

INDONESIA: PERSPECTIVES AND PROPOSALS FOR UNITED STATES ECONOMIC AID. Report to the President by the VS. Economic Survey Team to Indonesia. Yale University South East Asia Studies, 1963.

INDONESIA. Bruce Grant. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1964. Pp. x + 190. 32/6d.     

Making and Mastering Violent Environments: Following the Infrastructures of Accumulation in Coastal Louisiana

Louisiana’s coastal wetlands have been disappearing at an alarming rate over the past several decades, with the greatest harm experienced by vulnerable populations (poor and racialised residents). It was not until 2005 that the state legislature responded with a much-lauded Master Plan tasked with integrating the construction of new flood control infrastructure with wetland restoration. Seeking to unsettle this initiative, we develop a historical-geographical materialist approach to follow the entanglements between infrastructural production and capital accumulation in Louisiana over the past several hundred years. In so doing, we present a two-fold argument: that the making and mastering infrastructural violence has always been part of the historical unfolding of the socio-spatial dynamics of capitalism; and that infrastructural development has played an integral role in this duality at every historical turn. The capitalist state, at both the federal and state levels, has played a vital role in producing and controlling this violence.