Planting Roots,Making Place: Urban Autochthony in Port Vila Vanuatu

A contentious issue for Pacific Islanders, as well as researchers of the Pacific Islands, is ni-Vanuatu notions of ‘belonging’ to urban centres. Previous research in Vanuatu has shown that despite generations of people born and raised in Port Vila, the nation's capital, the urban centre is not generally perceived as a ‘place’ to which urban migrants can say they are from. For many, exclaiming that one is ‘from’ town is tantamount to admitting one has ‘no place’. This paper, based on fieldwork among a group of urban young men in Freswota, a residential community of Port Vila, argues that in contrast to this, Freswota young men are generating a new locative identity. Their urban community rather than their parents' home island places is emerging as their primary location of belonging and the source of their sense of self, personhood and social identification. As such, these young men are the urban autochthones of the country.     

民族互嵌视野下的畲族海外移民研究——基于浙南文成侨乡的田野调查

论文以浙南侨乡文成县为田野调查点,基于畲汉民族互嵌的视角,分析了文成畲族海外移民的历史背景、动力机制、发展现状,阐释了侨乡畲族海外移民的时代意义。浙江文成县畲族海外移民既是中国改革开放的时代产物,也是文成县侨乡文化强烈辐射和畲族与汉族良性互动的结果。其深层动因则源于文成畲汉民族关系由形式上的互嵌向结构性的互嵌之顺利转型。文成畲族海外移民案例,标志着畲族历史变迁中的时代飞跃,有利于缩小畲汉发展结构性差异和增强畲汉民族关系的和谐,对当今畲族乡村振兴和畲汉民族关系发展亦具有重要启迪意义。     

魏晋十六国北朝关中侨置武都郡研究

前秦时关中氐人分布的武都是指侨置武都郡。侨置武都郡始于曹魏。曹魏为与蜀汉争夺陇右,将武都氐人迁徙至关中,并先后在小槐里和美阳设置武都郡以进行管理。西晋江统的《徙戎论》反映出此时关中武都氐聚居的地方未置武都郡。十六国初期屠各刘氏和羯族石氏先后统治关中,将大量氐羌迁往关东,因此这一时期在关中侨置武都郡缺乏现实基础。苻健立国关中后,在战略要地宝鸡附近侨置武都郡,是其氐人本位政策的体现。北魏时侨置武都郡始领县级行政单位,统治范围扩大,标志着氐人的关中化,同时它也是太武帝平定盖吴叛乱时分化关中南道氐人的重要战略举措。西魏北周立国关中后受政区滥置影响,武都郡领县减少。隋开皇间侨置武都郡在当权者废郡、保留州县的地方行政政策的影响下消失于历史舞台。     

The Option for the Poor as a Decolonial Option: Latin American Liberation Theology in Conversation with Teología India and Womanist Theology

Decolonial theorists pose a new challenge to liberation theology: Does its formulation of the option for the poor address the coloniality that distinguishes the modern context? This article argues that an option for the poor within theology, as a decolonial option, has to retrieve and deepen two central concerns of liberation theologians’ early articulation of the option for the poor: (1) the commitment to the poor and the way the divine is manifested historically, and (2) the affirmation of the need for social analysis and the need for this analysis to impact the commitment to God. The article draws on Teología India and womanist theology to indicate how these two interrelated commitments within the option for the poor can strengthen the option for the poor as a decolonial option.     

What does a republican government with Donald Trump as President of the USA mean for children,youth and families?

This viewpoint outlines the likely impact of the election of a Republican government with Donald Trump as President on children, youth and families. It focuses primarily on the impact on undocumented and mixed-status families, and briefly addresses the impacts on children’s health services, juvenile justice and education.     

The role of women in payment for environmental services programs in Osa,Costa Rica

Costa Rica was the first country in the world to implement a nation-wide payment for environmental services (a.k.a. ‘payment for ecosystem services’), or PES, system in 1996. This research investigates the role of women in PES programs in Costa Rica’s Osa peninsula in response to the current dearth of such gendered research on this topic. Osa, one of the least-developed regions of the country, is still heavily forested and replete with properties under PES contracts which are aimed at forest conservation. Extended, structured interviews of 80 landowners in Osa (40 women and 40 men) culled both quantitative and qualitative information about PES participation, environmental perceptions, and both economic and conservation goals. Salient results were, first, that women see current levels of PES funding as more helpful and useful than do men. Second, women much more often perceive themselves as the sole entity responsible for protecting the environment. Third, women more commonly than men listed ‘helping the environment and animals’ as a personal benefit of their PES participation, while men more commonly focused on financial rewards. Last, according to the study herein, women in PES households currently display less decision-making power than those in non-PES households. This dynamic is analyzed through the lens of patriarchal hierarchies as well as women’s mitigation of those hierarchies through the deployment of ideology and agency. Based on these general findings, the researcher recommends that FONAFIFO, the government agency in charge of PES payments, take specific steps to increase PES funding to female-headed households.     

Caretakers of the Earth: integrating Canadian Aboriginal perspectives on culture and sustainability into local plans

Abstract

While still contested in most jurisdictions, a consensus on the four-pillar approach to sustainable development is slowly emerging. This perspective attempts to integrate the environmental, social, economic and cultural elements of a community into local sustainability planning processes and has been widely adopted in Canada as the basis of Integrated Community Sustainability Plans. However, Aboriginal perspectives have generally been marginalised in such efforts, largely because Aboriginal peoples take a more holistic approach to both sustainability and culture than Western-educated planners and decision makers. This article examines current approaches and methodologies adopted by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in Canada to integrate culture in sustainability planning and presents several case studies that examine the application of medicine wheel and other Aboriginal integrative worldviews to community sustainability planning. It discusses whether Aboriginal perspectives on culture can provide an alternative narrative that will advance our understanding of culture’s role in community sustainability and counteract the monocultural perspectives that are the legacy of colonialism throughout the world.     

‘In summer we go and drink at the lake’: young men and the geographies of alcohol and drinking in rural Estonia

In this paper, we explore the role of place in drinking practices of young people in the context of rural Estonia. We draw on a participatory research project carried out during seven months with a group of eight young men (15–18 years of age). We focus on three locations identified as the most popular drinking places by the young men in our research – familial homes, a local hamburger kiosk and the outdoors. The findings indicate that youth drinking practices as well as the drunkenness-related risks are spatially contingent. Characteristics of individual drinking locations influence the negotiation of local and national opportunities, restrictions and attitudes toward drinking, and the associated risks. We argue that, when developing public health tools, it is fruitful to pay attention to the local context and specific places in which young people's drinking practices are negotiated.     

The Politics of Emotion in Participatory Processes of Empowerment and Change

In this article I reflect on the role of critical analysis and emotions in participatory approaches to empowerment and change. I argue that, in participatory research and practice, certain cognitive and analytical knowledges are prioritized as principal catalysts of empowerment and transformation at the cost of recognizing, and making full use of, the empowering potential of emotional and embodied knowledges. This argument is developed based on 2 years of fieldwork in a local youth participation project in Mejicanos, a poor and violent neighborhood in El Salvador, aiming at empowering young people by involving them in participatory action research (PAR). ¹ As part of my research, I looked critically at the young people's PAR process, asking whether and how they felt empowered by it and whether and how social change came about. Originally, the research did not focus on emotions, yet, in an inductive fashion, emotions and embodied knowledges evolved from fieldwork as crucial elements in understanding participation, empowerment and social transformation.