Locating migrant Latinas in a diverse economies framework: evidence from Chicago

In this article I use an intersectional diverse economies framework and weak theory to build knowledge about migrant Latinas' economic spaces in Chicago. Drawing on qualitative data, I demonstrate how multiple and dynamic identities are linked to economic practices. I show that Latina migrants are not limited to capitalist or noncapitalist forms of economic engagement within neoliberal structures or to single spaces within or outside ethnic economies. Their multiple and dynamic practices shifted, as did their identities and geographies. I captured a snapshot of one migrant Latina economic community and provide insights about the nature and scale of its activities as well as the opportunities, and obstacles it faces. I propose future research and policy resulting from seeing economies differently. What kinds of programs might support collective economies and migrant Latina crafts? How might we re-envision workforce development programs if we see economies differently? What kinds of creative campaigns and advocacy do we need with new kinds of economies? More data and reflection on the nature and scale of intersectional identities within migrant (and other) economic communities and the geoeconomic ramification within those communities is needed. Furthermore, I call for the imagination of new global forms and practices that respond to the crisis that the current economic structures are facing.     

Testing the waters of coastal urbanization: contested projects on Corsica’s protected lands

In the wake of the decentralization reforms implemented in France in the early 1980s, the Coast Protection Act (‘loi littoral’) was enacted in 1986 to counterbalance the significant regulatory powers devolved through those reforms to local municipalities in matters of urban planning. The act’s purpose was to contain urban sprawl, especially in heretofore undeveloped and protected areas such as those found on the Corsican coastline. Many local officials protested that the act would freeze any development on vast tracts of land and become a hindrance to carrying out potentially lucrative tourism projects on the most attractive coastal frontage parcels. The inquiry draws on a statistical sample of 252 legal arguments put forward in 180 claims, which were filed in the Corsican Administrative Court during the 2004–2011 period. From a sociological perspective, we examine in this article the strategies behind litigation and the use of the administrative courts as a means to resolve conflicts that have arisen over the attempted development of protected coastal areas. Special attention is paid to disputes over proposed development projects against which claims have been filed by local inhabitants and state administrators with the intention of containing urban sprawl.     

‘The Constructive Use of Abundance’: the UN World Food Programme and the Evolution of the International Food-Aid System during the Post-War Decades

This article studies the expansion of multilateral economic development aid in the early 1960s by exploring the history of the United Nations (UN) World Food Program. It analyses the pivotal role played by key development economists within the UN Secretariat, such as Hans Singer, alongside US policy-makers in the Kennedy administration in framing and directing the debate on multilateral food aid. It specifically argues that this period marked a shift in how food aid was perceived and utilised by donor and recipient countries - as well as international organisations like the UN and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Ultimately, what began in the 1950s as a bilateral method to feed the hungry through the disposal of surplus agricultural commodities evolved into an international food-aid system by the 1960s centred on the utilisation of surplus agriculture for economic development. This change showcased both the common goals and competing interests of US and UN policy-makers as food aid now joined the wider debate on various doctrines of development.     

马来西亚民间华文历史文献的类别及其对方志研究的作用*A

论文根据田野调查的经验,分析了马来西亚民间华文历史文献的类别,并从组织序列、历史序列两方面,探讨了马来西亚乡土历史的书写内容和方法,归纳其对方志研究的作用。马来西亚的史学乃至华人研究,除了少数几位民间文史工作者,一般皆以传统文献切入,学者下乡采集文献资料较少,故此民间华文历史文献的采集和研究工作可谓大有可为。除地方文化研究必须依托民间文献方克有成外,华人民俗文化的研究依赖民间文献之处更为显著。这两个领域恰好正是殖民政府和现今的国家机器较少涉入,乃至不闻不问、任其自行发展的地带。近一二十年随着国家经济发展,迅猛的城市化,无所不在的西化,许多地方特色在发展洪流中消失。因此,马来西亚的民间华文历史文献采集和研究有待进一步深入。     

Time Ni Hota Hai: time poverty and food security in the Kumaon hills,India

This article investigates food and nutritional security (FNS) in a sub-Himalayan North India community, and argues that socio-spatial policies and practices naturalize a discourse that places women in a position where they are responsible for an inequitable share of both productive and reproductive labor. As a result, women are often unable to properly perform FNS practices. Paradoxically, insecurity increases when there is more agricultural labor and thus less time for food preparation, a notion itself that is productive of anxiety and further compounds poor FNS practices. NGO and government programs implicitly reinscribe these gendered labor burdens through exclusively targeting women, educating them to be ‘better’ housewives and mothers. While simple solutions and an educative approach were the dominant activities, these organizations also constitute the home as a delimiting social space for development and seek to empower women through livelihood diversification and employment activities. While these programs provide women new spaces with which to forge social relations and develop different sets of knowledge outside the home, without a renegotiation of household labor burdens, these novel commitments oftentimes exacerbate women’s existing workloads at home. This analysis suggests that while FNS programs and policies might sometimes lend short-term relief to FNS, the greatest threat to FNS comes from the ways that the home spaces of women and their household work are devalued through development practices. This results in a lack of gendered labor time to adequately prepare food, thereby contradicting the policies’ stated objectives of reducing food insecurity.     

HEGEL AND PATHOLOGIZED MODERNITY,OR THE END OF SPIRIT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

This article has two broad concerns, both of which are pursued primarily with reference to Hegel's philosophy of history. First, it examines whether Hegel can help explain the difficulty we have in modernity in responding to climate change and ecological crisis. It argues that Hegel provides a useful analysis of this problem, since the model of self‐determination that he appeals to is comprehensively embedded in embodied forms of culture. This helps explain why even a self‐correcting worldview like modernity is obdurate in the face of this crisis. Second, Hegel claims that the defining attribute of spirit is its capacity for self‐production. Modernity is characterized by the emerging and widespread knowledge that spirit is self‐producing. Modernity develops institutions that facilitate and provide an objective reality for spirit's self‐production and its freedom. This aspect of the article examines whether the distinctive capacity of spirit for self‐determination, which is realized in modernity, is subject to the same atrophying conditions by which Hegel says all other historical shapes of spirit are characterized. It asks if the present ecological crisis, something that is directly attributable to spirit itself, represents the limits of self‐producing spirit. The article concludes by examining the difficult position of those countries that cannot be considered to be responsible for the emergence of the Anthropocene but whose actions in the present will amplify its impact.     

Sectoral diversification as insurance against economic instability

This paper examines the extent to which sectoral diversification can act as an insurance mechanism against fluctuations in regional gross value‐added growth rates. Portfolio theory is applied to the growth‐instability properties of German districts. Furthermore, a comprehensive diversification measure is defined. Stochastic Frontier Analysis is deployed in order to estimate whether diversification allows regions to achieve more efficient growth‐instability combinations. The results confirm that diversification does generate such effects. Spatial interactions do also play a role: The effects are less pronounced for regions whose economic performance is mainly driven by the surrounding regions.