It's the Lungfish,stupid: knowledge fights,activism, and the science–policy interface

Since the post‐positivist turn in the 20th century, many scholars and philosophers have argued for the importance of Other Ways Of Knowing – including local, embodied, situated, partial, and indigenous knowledges – in developing a better understanding of the world. This argument has been further stressed by a large subset of scholars working in the fields of geography, policy, planning, natural resource management, and community development, yet in practice, positivism retains its epistemological dominance. Drawing from a case study of a dam proposal at Traveston Crossing, Queensland, Australia, this paper will explore these epistemological tensions from the perspective of those whose first/primary ways of knowing about the issue were marginalised, namely the local activists who opposed the proposal. Using data gathered from document analysis and interviews, the paper will explore how these activists implicitly understood this epistemological marginalisation, how they adopted and employed positivist knowledge and language to further the exposure and credibility of their campaign, how this credibility was mediated by their identities, how they strategically deployed different forms of knowledge at local, national, and international scales, and how their successful navigation of these epistemological tensions was critical to the ultimate success of their campaign.     

New Indices for the Existing City-Centers Streets Network Reliability and Availability Assessment in Earthquake Emergency

During earthquake emergencies in existing city-centers, streets network permits inhabitants to reach safe areas, and rescuers to access damaged zones and help population. However, the network can suffer from blocks due to debris of collapsed or heavily damaged buildings. Understanding urban fabric modifications and classifying elements vulnerability are fundamental steps while dealing with risk-assessment and risk-reduction strategies. This article offers a first quick approach for assessing seismic vulnerability of paths network by considering interferences with building heritage damages. Quick data about existing urban fabric (e.g., buildings typology; streets and buildings geometries) are combined for developing new vulnerability indices for streets network. The earthquake macroseismic intensity is introduced for evaluating probable street blockages and summarizing the overall rating of risks in critical network locations, thus intensity that is not included in other current quick methods for streets-building interference is here taken into account. Risk-reduction strategies based on the proposed indices could minimize the interventions on architectural heritage, maximizing the safety of evacuees. These new indices could be combined with traditional assessment of buildings vulnerability, and evaluations on pedestrians’ and vehicles evacuation flows, for evaluating management strategies.     

Emissions Trading,New Enclosures and Eco‐Social Contestation

Abstract: The central operating strategy within the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and most of the advanced capitalist world's environmental policy is to address climate change through the market mechanism known as emissions trading. Based upon government issuance and private trading of emissions reductions credits and offsets, this approach quickly rose to $135 billion in annual trading. But in the wake of the collapse of climate negotiations in Copenhagen and a world financial crisis which undermined market faith in derivative investments, carbon trading has an uncertain future. Linkages between deep‐rooted financial market and emissions market problems are revealing in spatio‐temporal terms, especially in the context of a deeper overaccumulation crisis and investors’ desperate need for new speculative outlets. It is in the nexus of the spatial and temporal aspects of carbon financing amidst resistance to “new enclosures” by adversely affected peoples, that broader‐based lessons for global/local environmental politics and climate policy can be learned.     

Settlers unsettled: using field schools and digital stories to transform geographies of ignorance about Indigenous peoples in Canada

Geography is a product of colonial processes, and in Canada, the exclusion from educational curricula of Indigenous worldviews and their lived realities has produced “geographies of ignorance”. Transformative learning is an approach geographers can use to initiate changes in non-Indigenous student attitudes about Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies. This study explores non-Indigenous student perspectives concerning a field school and digital storytelling as transformative experiences within the context of an “Indigenous Perspectives on Environmental Management” course; they were asked to reflect on their course experience. Findings indicate that students found both to be effective and important steps in the transformation of their own worldviews.     

Russian Revenues from Oil and Gas Exports: Flow and Taxation

A senior Japanese economist traces the flows of revenue derived from oil and gas exports through the Russian economy. The author examines the use of revenues and investigates their contribution to Russia's state and regional budgets in the form of taxes. After detailing the methodological difficulties encountered in measuring revenue streams statistically, he proceeds to approximate their magnitude through intensive use of input-output table data and budget statistics provided by the Russian Federation Ministry of Finance. His investigation of the list of destination countries for Russian oil and petroleum products exports has interesting implications for the study of capital flight from Russia to the West. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F14, H20, Q43. 10 tables, 37 references.     

逻辑架构、运作模式与优化路径——对中国民主党派参政资源体系的系统分析

本文运用系统论的分析方法,对当代中国民主党派的参政资源体系进行了综合考量,认为加强民主党派作为参政党的建设,必须优化参政议政资源体系,在坚持中国共产党领导的前提下,积极培育参政人才,完善参政议政的各项法律制度,借鉴西方政治文明中的有益经验。     

档案信息资源利用可持续发展探析

档案事业,是中国特色社会主义事业的重要组成部分。文章认为必须充分认识档案事业的重要性,深刻把握发展档案事业面临的新情况新问题,认真贯彻落实“科教兴档”的战略部署,努力培育和发展档案事业发展的新的生长点,力争实现档案信息资源可持续发展。     

华侨华人创业的模式及其影响因素分析——基于上海市的调查

本文以上海为实例,依据创业模式的相关理论,分析了华侨华人在大陆投资创业的主要模式划分、基本特点以及创业模式选择的影响因素。结果表明,华侨华人成功创业与其选择正确的创业模式密切相关,创业模式的选择与行业的关联程度较高,同时,创业模式的选择也与创业者对物质资本、技术资本及人力资本的拥有量密切相关。     

The Rationale Determining Advocacy Coalitions: Examining Coordination Networks and Corresponding Beliefs

The contemporary trend within natural resource governance sees a strong increase in collaborative management. A successful turnout of these arrangements is, however, dependent upon the formation and characteristics of advocacy coalitions. Uncovering the rationale determining coalitions is therefore a key undertaking in policy analysis and the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) has been widely applied for this purpose. This article aspires to test several important hypotheses regarding the nature of coordination networks and the formation of coalitions, treating the ACF both as an inspiration and as a framework in need of further refinement. This is done in the context of a complex and conflict‐ridden policy subsystem: the Swedish carnivore‐management subsystem. The results indicate, firstly, that perceived belief correspondence, and not perceived influence, is the driving mechanism behind coordination; and, secondly, that the catalog of beliefs shared by actors within a coalition is composed by policy core beliefs, in particular, with a more normative content, while no connection between deep core beliefs and coordination is found.     

Practical and Auspicious: Thai Handbook Knowledge for Agriculture and the Environment

This article is the first thorough examination of the Thai handbooks that are produced to explain agricultural and environmental knowledge. These khu-meu (handbooks) and tamra (textbooks) come into use when knowledge is moving from one party to another. They also establish symbolic correlations within the human, terrestrial world, or between the human, terrestrial world and the worlds of the gods, spirits, ancestors, or the unseen. Despite the fact that handbooks are pervasive for the organising, preserving, retrieving, transmitting and consuming of knowledge throughout the Southeast Asian region, there has been very little concerted study of handbook knowledge. Our analysis of environmental handbooks in Thailand shows that simplified mastery is a common goal of the handbook genre in both its “how to” and “reading signs” forms. The knowledge captured by the Thai language handbooks is of a practical, predictive kind and suited to particular circumstances. Such knowledge can ultimately bridge and blur the dichotomy between scientific and local epistemologies.