Outstations to primacy: Economic policy,class formation and growth in the towns of Papua New Guinea

Most towns in Papua New Guinea are small and the hierarchy comprises many isolated outstations and small towns. As a response to changes in economic policy the largest towns are growing rapidly at the expense of the small service centres. Changes in the population structure of these large towns have resulted in high rates of natural increase, while rural urban migration is steadily bringing in newcomers, to face urban unemployment and a lack of adequate housing. A secondary urban problem arises from the colonial legacy of urban zoning, which exacerbates the housing shortage and has created artifical socioeconomic residential areas. Although social differences are relatively small, the policy of economic growth will increase the gap between rich and poor, while urban unemployment and lack of housing have reached a crisis level in the rapidly growing big towns.     

A study of housing typology and perceived age-friendliness in an established Hong Kong new town: A person-environment perspective

Our study examines older people’s perceptions towards the urban environment and their spatial experiences through a person-environment perspective. We argue that Person-Environment (P-E) fit is critical to older people’s quality of life: positive environmental stimuli and personal adaptation competence have been held to influence this fit, and quality of fit will eventually affect interactions between older people and place. In a mixed-methods study, a context sensitive place audit was applied to a new town in Hong Kong, with a view to identifying strengths and weaknesses in the built environment and older people’s own strategies of living. Through 302 questionnaires and three focus groups with older participants, the results revealed high appreciation of outdoor spaces, transportation and social participation. The findings also indicate a strong association between housing typology and perceived age-friendliness. People accommodated in public housing estates tended to accord higher scores to their living environment although social exclusion was identified among oldest-old respondents in particular. Older people’s affective links with their living environment across time and their unique life-course experiences may help to explain their relatively relaxed attitudes when they face changes and hardships.     

Place-based learning and knowing: critical pedagogies grounded in Indigeneity

For Indigenous peoples, knowledge and science are written onto the landscapes our languages ??talk into being?? through the ??individual and collective consciousness of our communities (Cajete 2000, 284).?? Our landscapes are the storied histories, cosmogonies, philosophies and sciences of those Indigenous knowledges which are increasingly being pushed aside by the ??gray uniformity?? of globalization and its progenitor, European colonization. It is within storied places that we can still glimpse alternatives to this gray uniformity of globalization which brings with it a rhetoric of capitalism, modernism, abstract space and Western science. It is this rhetoric produced through globalization which erases the storied landscapes, destroying the libraries embedded within Indigenous toponyms, creating a terra nullius: an empty land awaiting a colonial/neo-colonial history and economy. As Paulo Freire has challenged us to see, critical consciousness requires us to ??read our world,?? decoding the images of our own concrete, situated experiences with the world (Freire and Macedo 1987, 35). A critical pedagogy of place recognizes the concrete experiences of communities grounded in shared histories, stories and challenges based within a politics of place. A critical pedagogy of place seeks to decolonize and reinhabit the storied landscape through ??reading?? the ways in which Indigenous peoples?? places and environment have been injured and exploited. This paper seeks to discuss how through reading the places in the world as ??political texts,?? one may engage in reflection and praxis in order to understand, and where necessary, to change the world.     

Transgressions of the man on the moon: climate change,Indigenous expertise,and the posthumanist ethics of place and space

Indigenous peoples have been enrolled in climate change research for decades, participating in data-gathering, as writing collaborators, and serving as the symbolic “canary in the coal mine” for public outreach and policy-making. They have indeed experienced some of the most rapid environmental changes, but rather than emphasize their vulnerabilities, we argue their expertise is narrowly understood in formulating knowledge; the research on climate change has a limited understanding of what it might mean to be inter- or trans-disciplinary because research is formulated exclusively through the assumptions of Enlightenment thought, without sufficiently engaging non-Western subjectivities. Qualitative social sciences and “Indigenous methodologies” can be used to better achieve trans-disciplinarity; in this article we re-tell a story told by Native elders from tribes across Alaska about the “man on the moon.” While literally referring to the US moon landing, elders invoke this story when addressing climate change: it teaches the ethics of the human-nature relationship, developed from a “more-than-human” (or “posthuman”) philosophy. Our data comes from participant-observation and oral history; we draw upon poststructuralist theory, and frame our analysis through the literatures of critical geography, science studies, and American Indian studies. To ensure that Indigenous peoples are not used as props in Western policy agendas, researchers must engage with non-Enlightenment intellectual traditions. More than being a source of data or a symbol of humanity’s ruin, Indigenous wisdom can productively inform sustainable policy agendas to adapt to climate change. What can be learned, for example, is a more-than-human ethics of place and space.     

Recent urban policy in Nigeria: Housing rent edict in the Cross River State

The urban areas within the Cross River State of south-eastern Nigeria are characterized by severe housing shortages and overcrowding, a situation due in large part to the marked levels of rural—urban migration and the high rents that have been charged by landlords. This paper examines the character and background to this situation and describes the Cross River State Housing Rent Edict which was introduced in 1977. The limiting influence of the Rent Edict is described and alternative strategies advanced.     

Wildfire evacuation experiences of band members of Whitefish Lake First Nation 459, Alberta,Canada

This paper presents results of a study which examined how a mandatory wildfire evacuation affected members of Whitefish Lake First Nation 459, in Alberta, Canada. A qualitative case study approach was used, and semi-structured interviews were completed with 45 band members to learn about their evacuation experiences during the wildfire evacuation in May 2011 and explore the factors that complicated the evacuation process and put further strain on the evacuees and First Nation. This evacuation caused considerable distress for evacuees and had negative effects for the First Nation. Factors that affected evacuation experiences included: (1) transportation issues compounded by cultural land-use activities, (2) fear of home loss compounded by existing housing shortages, (3) information and lack of media interest, (4) language, (5) poverty, (6) large multi-generational families, (7) health concerns, and (8) reimbursement of evacuation-related expenses to the community. An overarching factor that affected the entire evacuation was jurisdiction. Based on these findings, recommendations are provided for emergency managers on improving wildfire evacuation experiences for Indigenous peoples.

     

Managed out of existence: over-regulation of Indigenous subsistence fishing of the Yukon River

Humans are adversely affected by the loss of vital fishery resources, specifically Indigenous peoples and the traditional knowledge systems that are foundationally tied to their culture. Discounting the ability and knowledge of Indigenous peoples stems from concepts rooted in “Tragedy of the Commons” in which a shared resource, in this case fisheries, if left unchecked will be destroyed by the mismanagement of users. The Alaskan fisheries policy regime is recognized as one of the best managed and influential fisheries in the world, but the state is predominantly driven by a conservation approach that discounts other knowledge systems. Alaskan Native fishers, for example the Gwich’in, who maintain a sustainable 30,000 year (conservatively) relationship with their environment, possess culturally specific Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) that is a result of the mechanisms or physical act of fishing, thus giving meaning to the term we will use in this paper, Indigenous Fishers’ Knowledge (IFK). Alaskan Natives along the Yukon River derive specific knowledge about their environment and King Salmon through the act of fishing. TEK is not static nor is IFK as it is transmitted to younger generations through the practice of fishing. TEK and IFK play a large role in the transmission and acquisition of knowledge, they both connect knowledge to culture and play a role in creating culture and traditions, they are in fact very intricate systems. Indigenous fishers seek inclusion and involvement that does not separate them from their knowledge but recognizes and implements their practices/control on a local level.     

Spatial policy and metropolitan economic growth in Sao Paulo,Brazil

The Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area is the second largest urban centre in terms of population among the developing countries of the world. The federal and state government authorities responsible for planning urban development in the State of Sao Paulo in Brazil have been actively considering whether to advocate a new policy initiative to decentralise manufacturing industry from the metropolitan area as a further strategy to restrain future growth. This paper discusses the particular situation facing policy-makers in Sao Paulo in the mid-eighties, as well as using the Sao Paulo policy problem to illustrate a number of themes of relevance to all would-be large city restraint strategies in developing nations. The paper draws upon a programme of research undertaken in the World Bank between 1980 and 1982; in particular, on a large industrial survey of companies establishing in new locations during 1977–1979 in the State. The policy recommendations are cautious, given continuing levels of ambiguity in policy objectives and of uncertainty in the pattern of underlying market forces.     

‘They took our beads,it was a fair trade,get over it’: Settler colonial logics,racial hierarchies and material dominance in Canadian agriculture

Canada is in a liminal space, with renewed struggles for and commitments to indigenous land and food sovereignty on one hand, and growing capital interest in land governance and agriculture on the other. While neoliberal capital increasingly accumulates land-based control, settler-farming communities still manage much of Canada’s arable land. This research draws on studies of settler colonialism, racial hierarchy and othering to connect the ideological with the material forces of settler colonialism and show how material dominance is maintained through colonial logics and racially ordered narratives. Through in-depth interviews, I investigate how white settler farmers perceive and construct two distinctly ‘othered’ groups: Indigenous peoples and migrant farmers and farm workers. Further, I show the disparate role of land and labour in constructing each group, and specifically, the cultural and material benefits of these constructions for land-based settler populations. At the same time, settler colonial structures and logics remain reciprocally coupled to political conditions. For instance, contemporary neoliberalism in Canadian agriculture modifies settler colonial structures to be sure. I argue, however, that political economic analyses of land and food production in Canada (such as corporate concentration, land grabbing and farm consolidation) ought to better integrate the systemic forces of settler colonialism that have conditioned land access in the first place. Of course, determining who is able to access land—and thus, who is able to grow food—continues to be a territorial struggle. Thus, in order to shift these conditions we ought to examine how those with access and control have acquired and maintained it.     

Contesting colonial rule: Politics of exile in the Indian Ocean

This paper examines the compulsory relocation of anti-colonial nationalists from other parts of the empire to Seychelles during British colonial rule. It explores how these colonial policies of forced expulsion that were used to contain anti-colonial political activity unintentionally enabled political exiles to create new trans-imperial networks of resistance. From the late 1800s, the British Colonial Government exiled to Seychelles over 500 anti-colonial leaders and their followers from Egypt, Somaliland, Ethiopia, Gold Coast, Palestine and other colonies; the last political exile was Greek Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios who arrived in Seychelles in 1956. Based on archival and empirical research this paper examines their experiences of exile and how, despite feelings of loss and isolation, they continued to challenge colonial authority by mobilising new forms of contestation. Through a colonial geographical imaginary, Seychelles was constructed as distant, remote and isolated, a place where political agitators could be safely confined and prevented from infecting others with their anti-colonial sentiments. Instead, however, these movements brought colonised people together from across the empire and created spatially extended networks of ideas that became significant in connecting these ‘remote’ islands to other places. Exiles disrupted the authority of the British Colonial Government through mundane and small acts of resistance in which they made constant, almost daily, demands for their right to return home and better living conditions. This study, on a much under-researched form of imperial mobility and confinement, contributes to debates on colonialism, space and resistance by identifying networks produced by colonised people and, through an exploration of translocal subaltern agency and resistance, confounds place-bound notions of politics.     

Assessing the discourses and practices of urban regeneration in a growing region

Most research on the discourses and practices of urban regeneration in the UK has examined case studies located in areas of relative socio-economic distress. Less research has been undertaken on regeneration projects and agendas in areas characterised by strong economic growth. Yet, it is in such places that some of the best examples of the discourses, practices and impacts of contemporary urban regeneration can be found. In some areas of high demand regeneration projects have used inner urban brownfield sites as locations for new investment. With the New Labour government’s urban policy agendas targeting similar forms of regeneration, an examination of completed or on-going schemes is timely and relevant to debates over the direction that policy should take. This paper, drawing on a study of urban regeneration in one of England’s fastest growing towns, Reading in Berkshire, examines the discourses, practices and impacts of redevelopment schemes during the 1990s and 2000s. Reading’s experiences have received national attention and have been hailed as a model for other urban areas to follow. The research documents the discursive and concrete aspects of local regeneration and examines the ways in which specific priorities and defined problems have come to dominate agendas. Collectively, the study argues that market-driven objectives come to dominate regeneration agendas, even in areas of strong demand where development agencies wield a relatively high degree of influence. Such regeneration plays a symbolic and practical role in creating new forms of exclusion and interpretations of place.     

Property-based redevelopment and gentrification: The case of Seoul, South Korea

The urban experiences of South Korea in times of its rapid urbanisation and economic growth show that wholesale redevelopment had been a dominant approach to urban renewal, leading to redevelopment-induced gentrification. This was led by a programme known as the Joint Redevelopment Programme, transforming urban space that was once dominated by informal settlements into high-rise commercial housing estates. This paper tries to explain how this approach was possible at city-wide scale in its capital city, Seoul. Through the examination of redevelopment processes in a case study neighbourhood, it puts forward three arguments. First, the development potential arising from the rent gap expansion through under-utilisation of dilapidated neighbourhoods provided material conditions for the sustained implementation of property-based redevelopment projects. Second, this paper critically examines the dynamics of socio-political relations among various property-based interests embedded in redevelopment neighbourhoods, and argues that external property-based interests have enabled the full exploitation of development opportunities at the expense of poor owner-occupiers and tenants. Third, South Korea had been noted for its strong developmental state with minimum attention to redistributive social policies. The Joint Redevelopment Programme in Seoul was effectively a market-oriented, profit-led renewal approach, in line with a national housing strategy that favoured increased housing production and home-ownership at the expense of local poor residents’ housing needs.     

Government housing policy in Indonesia 1900–1940

Colonial society in Indonesia during the first forty years of the 20th century faced housing problems for both the European and native populations analogous to those in many Third World countries today. Some colonial cities tried to provide more housing first by annexing more land and so making building sites available and second by supporting the few private building societies which arose. In the mid-1920s housing proponents organized two national housing congresses. One result was the creation of limited liability public housing companies financed jointly by the central and city governments. By 1940 these companies had failed to provide more housing and so improve housing conditions particularly for the urban native population. The poverty of the masses, the shortage of funds, increasing populations, and government priorities which existed in colonial Indonesia are different in scale in Third World countries today and one may wonder if present-day solutions to housing problems will be any more effective.     

Butchulla perspectives on dingo displacement and agency at K’gari-Fraser Island,Australia

There is a complex geography to Aboriginal-dingo-settler-dog relationships in Australia. This paper examines aspects of that geography in a world heritage area, heavily contested by multiple stakeholders for whom the dingo has come to represent resource and identity, as well as a powerful symbol of nature. The Butchulla people were recently recognised in Australian law as holding native title to world-heritage listed K’gari-Fraser Island, a decision that confers recognition and consultation rights; however, genuine ownership and control of the island is denied through a lack of joint management of the island. This paper reviews evidence from some Butchulla people who declare their ongoing dispossession through various discourses and actions that attempt to circumvent extinguishment of their title to territory. They implied that dingoes have equally endured dispossession and extinguishment of territory through common colonial discourses that subjugate the ‘other’, albeit Butchulla people and dingoes have different forms of resistance and agency. Butchulla people in our study parallel their treatment under colonial structures of governance with those of the dingo in that both have endured limited freedom of movement and expressions of sovereignty. We argue some Butchulla people liken notions of dingo agency and resistance with their own attempts to assert sovereignty and responses to displacement. Aligning with the dingo (and broader discourses and politics that surround the dingo) may afford Butchulla people a greater entitlement to be a major voice in dingo 'management' specifically, and management of the island more broadly, than their native title resolution confers.     

Welfare reform and the intra-regional migration of beneficiaries in New Zealand

This paper investigates the net effect of major cuts in welfare benefits and associated changes in the delivery of housing assistance on the relocation behavior of beneficiaries. It does so against an international literature which has documented the tendency of welfare recipients to adjust their costs of living by moving from urban to rural settlements. The paper reviews the literature on welfare and migration, introduces a theoretical framework based on a metropolitan labour market and then tests several hypotheses about the possible effects of benefits cuts on spatial adjustment. The research design uses quinquennial census data to compare core beneficiary relocation patterns with those of non-beneficiaries before and after the cuts to welfare benefits in the Wellington region of New Zealand in 1991. The period following the benefit cuts in New Zealand was characterised by increasing job opportunities which helped to mitigate their adverse effect and made it difficult to identify a more general down-market residential adjustment. While a downward adjustment in housing consumption by core beneficiaries was identified, residential movement from urban to the cheaper settlements in adjacent rural areas was only observed from former State house areas where the income effects of benefit cuts were compounded by increases in rents on former State houses. Thus, while this paper supports the findings of independent sample survey work, our census based analysis underscores the highly contingent nature of that response. Evidence of urban-rural migration is placed in the context of the government's `remote area policy' which attempts to dissuade beneficiaries (who are receiving a social security benefit related to their employment status) from moving without good reason to `remote' locations where job prospects are weak. The paper raises the more general policy issue where benefit cuts, designed to stimulate more active job searching among the unemployed, actually prompt some beneficiaries to relocate to the urban fringe and in some cases to remote parts of the country where job prospects are weak. The theoretical and policy implication of this paper is that there are geographical correlates to the reservation wage which need to be integrated into thinking about the participation consequences of setting benefit levels.     

For the sake of the children: coping strategies of women in Swaziland's domestic service sector

This article examines the coping strategies of domestic workers in the city of Manzini. The Swaziland government has made many efforts to improve the social and economic conditions of the Swazi people after independence in 1968. Yet a failure to recognise domestic work as paid employment has minimised the effect of government policy in improving the lives of women who dominate this sector. The anomalies that it raises as paid housework has meant that conditions in the domestic service sector have changed little since the colonial era. Domestic workers are in practical terms, not protected by legal systems of labour relations. Coupled with other barriers that prohibit their access to land and shelter and dismally low wages, they have adopted many coping strategies in the city to maintain their families and their dignity.     

Transnational ties and intra-immigrant group settlement experiences: A case study of Indian Bengalis and Bangladeshis in Toronto

Transnational theories have established that, after migrating to a new country, migrants often maintain their pre-existing social, economic, and political ties to their home country. The extent to which however, transnational institutional and social connections may affect the residential location and housing experiences of immigrant and refugee groups, and why and how these experiences differ within broadly defined immigrant groups such as the ‘South Asians’ remains unexplored. Building on transnational theory and previous research on the housing trajectories of new Canadians, this paper examines the housing experiences of two recently arrived ‘South Asian’ subgroups in Toronto–Indian Bengalis and Bangladeshis. By highlighting important intra-immigrant group differences, the study reveals how diverse transnational ties affect their neighbourhood choice and the type, tenure, and quality of housing when they first arrived in Toronto.     

The difficult combination of renting and building a house in urban Ghana: analysing the perception of low and middle income earners in Accra

This study examines the experiences of low and middle income earners in urban Ghana in combining renting and self-building a house with their meagre income. Using a case study of 3 building sites in Accra, this study employs semi-structured interview guide to gather qualitative data from fifty respondents. The conclusion of this study is that improving housing career amidst other competing responsibilities in the life course pathways imposes stress and huge financial burden on households in a manner that they are compelled to forgo or cut down on non-housing consumption such as clothing, up-keep of in-laws, marriage, higher educational qualification and cars among others. This study recommends a revisit of the discussion on the enforcement of the provisions of the Rent Act, 1963 and consideration of the practice of rent deposit and monthly rent. Affordable housing finance options should be a priority of African governments and their development partners.     

Oil pipeline construction in Eastern Siberia: Implications for indigenous people

Traditional economic activities, lifestyles and customs of many indigenous peoples in the Russian North, such as reindeer herding, hunting and fishing, are closely linked to quality of the natural environment. These traditional activities that constitute the core of indigenous cultures are impacted by extractive sector activities conducted in and around traditional territories of indigenous peoples. This paper examines implications of an oil pipeline development in Eastern Siberia on the Evenki community in the Aldan district of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). It examines community concerns about potential environmental damage and impacts on traditional livelihood. The paper analyses the interaction of indigenous communities with the pipeline project through interrogation of elements such as impact assessment, consultation, compensation, benefits, communication and public activism. The paper discusses how state policy and industry’s approach towards land rights and public participation affects the position of indigenous peoples and discusses barriers for their effective engagement. The analysis shows a number of policy failures in the protection of traditional natural resource use of indigenous peoples and provision of benefits with regards to the extractive sector that leave indigenous peoples marginalised in the process of development. There is a need to involve indigenous peoples on the basis of dialogue and partnership, improve regulation and shift industry’s approach towards consideration and engagement.