Local employment growth patterns and the Great Recession: The case of Spain

The 2008 financial and economic crisis has led to widespread destruction of employment in Spain. Using municipality data, I examine employment growth differences between urban cores, urban hinterlands, and rural areas during the pre‐crisis period and the recession period. The data show that patterns of growth and decline have been very uneven across different types of areas. While in the boom years, hinterlands and rural areas experienced higher growth, urban core areas have done better during the recession years. I then test three strands of explanations for local growth differences: (i) the role of the local sectoral composition, (ii) the role of human capital, and (iii) the role of access to urban core areas. Estimations for employment growth in the two periods show that the crisis has altered some of the drivers of local employment growth and that human capital has been a key determinant of local resilience during the Great Recession.     

Cultural implications of international volunteer tourism: US students’ experiences in Cameroon

ABSTRACT

A popular trend is for US colleges to organise short-term, self-funded trips for students to volunteer for several weeks in poverty-stricken communities in the global South. To explore the cultural implications of short-term, international volunteer projects, I undertake an ethnographic study of college students of who travel to a small village in Cameroon to improve the quality of drinking water and community health. I examine whether the volunteer tourism can serve as a unique opportunity to see beyond the African stereotypes to recognise the historical and structural context in which Africa continues to suffer. Although a trip such as this can be a disruptive event for students to critically evaluate the global privileges of Westerners, students tend to experience Cameroon through the lens of popular stereotypes about Africa and Western paternalism. The encounters with Africans in the absence of sufficient education about postcolonial Africa can affirm the stereotypes and cultural superiority formed in USA because students negotiate their actual experience in ways to confirm their perception of Africa. Therefore, seminars and workshops about the fundamental aspects about global inequality can help educate volunteers about the postcolonial context of foreign aid of Western countries for the Third World, and White privilege.     

The United States,Great Britain,and the Creation of the Iranian Oil Consortium, 1953–1954

This article examines the attitudes of US, British, and Soviet policy-makers as they planned for the forthcoming peace during the Second World War. It charts how they moved from planning a ‘peace by dictation’ of the great powers, to planning one which would be based on a model of collective security involving all members of the United Nations alliance. The latter plan would reflect both the great powers’ special responsibilities for maintaining international peace and security and the stake which lesser powers had in such a venture. In addressing these historical developments the article employs two concepts familiar to International Relations scholarship, namely concert and hierarchy. It shows how the understandings which the principal post-war planners had of these concepts – and crucially of their inter-relationship - changed over time and the consequences of these changes. The article makes two core claims: firstly, that as post-war planning progressed, the attitudes of the Big Three towards the acceptable nature of the great power–lesser power hierarchy changed radically; and secondly, that the structure and nature of today's United Nations Organisation is in significant part a consequence of these changes.     

Leaving nothing but ripples on the water: performing ecotourism natures

This paper investigates nature–society relationships through the socio-spatial practices of ecotourism. Drawing on Whatmore's ideas of ‘hybrid geographies’, we examine the embodied experiences of kayakers participating in ecotours in Krabi Province, Thailand. Calling upon relational materiality, particular attention is given to the corporeal mobilities and experiences to explore performing ecotourism natures of the kayaker. Our case study provides a lens through which to explore methods for engaging with the sensuous worlds. Our results suggest that in the performances of enacting ecotourism geographies, kayakers are unable to move beyond the bounds of the natural premised on its separation from the human realm. We conclude by critically reflecting on our methodology.     

Ecotourism,Poverty and Resources Management in Ranomafana,Madagascar

Abstract

This paper explores how the protection of natural resources is managed in Madagascar in order to understand how and why tourism development is part of the strategy to safeguard these resources. Based on a heterodox political economy approach and using documentary analysis as well as exploratory interviews, this paper focuses on the specific case of Ranomafana National Park showing how the environment, economic growth and poverty alleviation strategies are instrumental to a ‘development framework’ that envisions the rural poor population as a problem as well as a solution with respect to resource depletion. The analysis concluded that tourism is far from being an ‘axis of development’ for the Malagasy economy, and, thus, an insufficient alternative to address the destructive practices described in this paper. The case study shows that ecotourism creates few work opportunities for local people and does not absorb the job seekers who rapidly revert to survival techniques and anarchic use of resources, thereby threatening the integrity of the forest and the long-term survival of ecotourism activities. In this context, the place of tourism in general and of ecotourism, in particular, appears to have been highly exaggerated in Madagascar as the direct economic benefits of tourism at the local level remain minimal.     

"Silently Farting in the Face of the Empire." Review of Paul and the Imperial Roman Order

Abstract

As the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy ventures more frequently into the sphere of environmental ethics and makes pronouncements on large-scale environmental problems, its effectiveness will consistently be undercut by its commitment to what is traditionally called "Catholic act analysis," which when used to evaluate a host of commonplace actions leads Catholics to believe that they are morally unproblematic. Yet when these same actions are performed day after day and year after year, they contribute to many large-scale environmental problems that are unquestionably harmful—and are often viewed negatively by the Catholic hierarchy. At some point, this pattern of approving morally of certain actions the cumulative, corporate side effects of which cause pernicious environmental problems will strain the Catholic Church's credibility on environmental matters—and until the hierarchy reexamines its commitment to Catholic act analysis, this dilemma will be unavoidable.     

Autogestion and competing hierarchies: deaf and other perspectives on diversity and the right to occupy space in the Mumbai surburban trains

This article offers a detailed ethnographic account of how people appropriate available space in compartments for disabled people in the Mumbai suburban trains, make it their own and monitor it, in the context of a succession of recent spatial changes. These compartments have increased in size over the years, and subsequently, the body of travellers has become more diverse. Passengers produce hierarchies based on need, physical differences, age differences and physical appearance, determining who can enter the compartments and who can’t, who can sit and who should stand, and where they should sit/stand. These hierarchies are mediated, but not dominated, by medical and disability certificates which are, in addition to a valid ticket, the documents that entitle people to travel in the handicapped compartments. Hierarchies are influenced by sexism, classism and audism and partially overlap but also are competing, such as in the case of deaf people who argue for the right to occupy seats and at the same time struggle with how to balance this quest with the need to act morally towards fellow travellers who seemingly suffer.     

生态旅游目的地等级评价的理论分析

目前生态旅游的研究已经从概念理论探讨转入可行性实践的判别中。上世纪90年代后期开始出现了许多对生态旅游及其目的地进行评价及论证的研究,生态旅游影响研究成为主流。
本文介绍了国内外生态旅游评价研究的基本状况、所取得的成果以及存在的问题和困难,并在借鉴他人研究成果的基础上提出了"生态旅游程度(Ecotdegree)"及"生态旅游等级"两个概念。前者指生态旅游目的地在经营过程中所能体现出的生态(Eco)思想、观念及行为的程度;后者则将生态旅游目的地划分为四个等级:自然旅游,一级生态旅游,二级生态旅游及高级生态旅游。文章将"生态旅游程度"作为评价的总目标,在系统分析的基础上,设置了相应的八大类指标体系,并从理论上探讨了具体的评价方法。     

扬州胡场汉墓群随葬品所反映的几个问题

本文通过对扬州胡场汉墓群随葬品的分析探讨了汉代的饮食习俗、木刻版画及墓群的主属关系。