Anchored locally – Linked globally. Transnational social movement organizations in a (seemingly) borderless world*

Dial locally -act globally: this slogan seems to appropriately reflect, under prevailing conditions of globalization and disembeddedness, the seemingly unrestrained possibilities of a variety of actors to influence events - without being present - anywhere on the planet. While focusing on a broadly conceived group of transnational social movement organizations - from non-governmental organizations to loosely linked transnational advocacy networks - the aim of this paper is to give evidence of the fact that geography - and all manner of borders - still matters even for these actors. Despite being linked with the world, they continue to act from deeply embedded local contexts, very often not triggering true transnational interaction but much more limited translocal encounters. In doing so, however, they literally cause collisions between different worlds while not only modifying existing but also constructing new spaces.September 1984 – first week of my field-work on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, eastern Canada. A teacher at the local high school had agreed to make the first contacts with environmental groups, who were opposed to the use of pesticides by a Swedish forest products company. In return, he asked me to give two geography lessons on Germany to his class.After the lessons the 15-year-old pupils asked questions. One of the first of these was what I did with my family on a free weekend. Without long consideration, I answered: ``We often go for a walk in the forest with our children'. The pupils doubled up laughing in response, and the geography teacher was obviously also amused.A few days later I understood the reason for this reaction, when I saw typical forest land in Nova Scotia for the first time. Forests of an age which in Germany would be airy timber forests, which could be walked through even away from paths, were here largely inpenetrable thickets with numerous trunks per square meter not much thicker than an arm. Nobody could `go for a walk' here...This episode serves as a background to the issues that will be discussed, and I will return to it in my conclusion. It supports a central aspect, which is often neglected in many discussions about globalization: geography matters.     

十载共研地动因--忆恩师陈国达院士

以笔者师从陈国达院士十年,学习与研究大地构造理论———地洼学说、壳体大地构造学与构造地球物理问题为线索,介绍恩师陈国达院士在大地构造研究领域里的教学与研究,传道、受业与解惑等方面的情况,特别是笔者与恩师的学术交往中就学术研究的继承与创新,科学理论与研究学派的发展,科学精神、科学思想与科学研究方法等方面的问题曾经进行的许多研讨,至今历历在目、记忆犹新、发人深省、受益终身,可起纪念先人、激励后学之功效。     

Research dissonance

While academics increasingly recognize the complexity of phenomena that do not easily conform to our reductive understandings, it sometimes remains difficult to reconcile this with a need for clear and conclusive arguments. In this article I share the contradictory forces and unresolved discrepancies in my own work as a means to better understanding the process of coming to terms with empirical and theoretical messiness. In particular, I draw on the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance to better understand the psychological influence this concept has in pushing us to make sense of the world in a way that downplays contradictions, counter-trends, complexity, gaps and unresolved loose ends. Having identified this largely subconscious dynamic, the pursuit for an agentic suspension of the need for cognitive harmony can be a productive means for thinking through the results of our research. Using my own work understanding the impact of the U.S.–Mexico border on the Tohono O’odham, an indigenous group based in Arizona and Sonora, I share how the perspectives of the groups with which I work has helped me think through contradiction in writing up the results of my research. For a more complete understanding I must embrace the counter-currents at play and alternative understandings of these events and places-even if I cannot fully explain away such incongruent forces.     

Anxiety, epistemology, and policy research “behind enemy lines”

Based on my political opposition to neoliberal policies, I elected to conduct dissertation research on a World Bank-funded land policy in Guatemala. This paper explores emotional aspects of this work. Specifically, I describe my fear that research subjects would accuse me of being a spy. I then describe my efforts to cope with these fears and the ways that fear and coping influenced my meaning-making work.     

Parents,permission, and possibility: Young women,college, and imagined futures in Gujarat,India

This article advances critical geographies of youth through examining the spatiality implicit in the imagined futures of young women in rural India. Geographers and other scholars of youth have begun to pay more attention to the interplay between young people’s past, present, and imagined futures. Within this emerging body of scholarship the role of the family and peer group in influencing young people’s orientations toward the future remain underexamined. Drawing on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork, my research focuses on a first generation of college-going young women from socioeconomically marginalized backgrounds in India’s westernmost state of Gujarat. I draw on the “possible selves” theoretical construct in order to deploy a flexible conceptual framework that links imagined post-educational trajectories with motivation to act in the present. In tracing the physical movement of these young women as they navigate and complete college, my analysis highlights the ways in which particular kinds of spaces and spatial arrangements facilitate and limit intra- and inter-generational contact, and the extent to which this affects young women’s conceptions of the future. I conclude by considering the wider implications of my research for ongoing debates surrounding youth transitions, relational geographies of age, and education in the Global South.     

GEO LOGIC

Let me begin by outlining the role of this column. It is aimed at European geoscientists who use personal computers. Rather than duplicating what is already discussed in the hundreds of computer magazines that can be found at any newsagent, I will concentrate on those products and services that have a particular application in the Earth Sciences. This is not to say that only those products with a specific Earth Science application will be discussed. Instead, anything that a practising geoscientist might find useful will be a candidate for review; a software package for compiling reference lists in the many styles demanded by different journals would be an example. The column will devote itself to products for IBM-PC and Mac users. I apologise in advance for the UK perspective offered in the first few articles; this reflects my ignorance of the European scene and the difficulties I have faced in overcoming it. I look forward to feedback from continental geoscientists who, I hope, will bring me up to date regarding the truly European picture.     

Environmental justice discourses in Indian climate politics

This paper examines India’s participation in ongoing climate politics with a lens of environmental justice (EJ). Using key-informant interviews conducted in Delhi and Copenhagen, I sought to understand how Indian officials conceptualized EJ in the context of climate change. I found my respondents to largely privilege ideas of historical responsibility and per capita equity in a North–South context. The North was seen to have an ecological debt towards the South and the South was seen to have a right to development and ecological space. I highlight two questions that inevitably arise from this framing of international environmental justice. What are the implications of this line of argument for the issue of domestic inequities within states? A related question is that if justice is seen as right to development, what exactly is meant by development? My findings indicate for the most part an uncritical acceptance of a neo-liberal vision of development based on an economic growth paradigm. Consequently, a direct link is observed between emissions and development, despite the impetus to delink them. There was also a marked reluctance among officials to discuss the topic of domestic inequities in India, and an inclination to dismiss them as a sovereignty issue. I suggest that an approach to EJ that combines the imperative of historical responsibility and ecological debt in an international context, with a ‘capabilities’ approach to EJ and development within the domestic context has potential to be more forceful and convincing than one that emphasizes the former but ignores the latter.     

怀念敬爱的导师、杰出的地质学家和古生物学家尹赞勋先生

尹赞勋教授是我国一位杰出的地质学家和古生物学家,他把自己整个一生贡献给中国地质学的发展和进步。本文记述他在中国科学院地质研究所工作期间的部分学术生涯,并涉及他指导年青科学工作者如何进行化石的研究,如何有效地开展科学研究,如何阅读英文书籍和文献等。所有这些教导对正在从事地质和古生物研究的年青一代将有重要意义。     

Pedagogy, post-coloniality and care-full encounters in the classroom

In this paper, I consider what it means to take up the twin post-colonial commitment to critique and destabilization, and open and ’future-oriented’ practices, in the neglected space of the classroom. I make a case for extending how we conceive of our responsibility to this commitment to include the care-full work of interrogating how we encourage students in developing fresh ways of relating to difference and inequality. Care embraces responsibility yet it usefully forces attention to the mediation and embeddedness of responsible relations in the interpersonal contact zones of the classroom. In its cautionary meaning, care also brings to questions of responsibility a carefulness, which alerts us to the difficulties of exercising such an engaged and indeterminate pedagogy in an institutional setting driven by the norms of assessment, benchmarking statements, disciplinary expectations and the conventions of academic discourse. It draws attention further to the potentially un-caring consequences of framing post-colonial commitments through intersubjective categories of self-other. In this paper I reflect on my own experiences teaching a level three module on the post-colonial Caribbean and, in particular, my use of fiction as a way to initiate more responsive and open-ended encounters with Caribbean peoples and places. I highlight some of the opportunities created by the use of different forms of writing but also the institutional and discursive constraints, including my own mediation of the texts and student expectations, which persistently threaten to settle and reclaim evidence of destabilisation and newness.     

The head vs. the gut: Emotions, positionality, and the challenges of fieldwork with a Southern nationalist movement

This essay explores the inner process of researching a group that is proudly white, conservative, fundamentalist Christian, and Southern. The recent attention to emotions in scholarship has not extended to the subject of fieldwork with right-wing movements. I discuss my experience interviewing members of the League of the South and explore the extent to which my positionality shaped the interactions that I had with League members and informed my emotional response to the fieldwork.     

21世纪地球科学研究的重大科学问题

凝炼地球科学研究的重大科学问题,对推动地球科学基础研究的发展具有重要意义。美国国家研究理事会（National Research Council）2008年3月发布的研究报告《地球的起源和演化：变化行星的研究问题》提出了21世纪固体地球科学研究的10个重大科学问题：①地球和其他行星的起源;②地球早期的演化历史;③生命的起源;④地球内部的运动及其对地表的影响;⑤地球的板块构造与大陆;⑥地球的物质特性对地球过程的控制;⑦气候变化的原因与幅度;⑧地球—生命的相互作用;⑨地震、火山喷发等灾害及其后果的预测;⑩地球内外流体运动对人类环境的影响。这些重大科学问题对我国的地学发展战略研究及地球科学基础研究均将具有重要的借鉴和指导意义。主要依据NRC的《地球的起源和演化：变化行星的研究问题》报告,对这些重大科学问题进行了解读和分析。     

固体地球科学研究的重大科学问题

应美国能源部、美国国家科学基金会、美国地质调查局和美国宇航局的要求,美国国家科学委员会组织专家,研讨驱动固体地球科学研究的重大科学问题。这些问题的研究将深刻影响我们对地球的理解。     

文字缘同骨肉深——记袁希渊与杨克强的友谊

本文翔实地记述了袁复礼、杨钟健两位学者在半个世纪中的学术合作和真挚友情,从而可见两位先生不仅是卓有建树的科学家,而且在道德风范方面也是足为楷模的。     

The limits to good governance and the state of exception: A case study of North Sea fisheries

This paper explores a series of maxims, widely known in policy and academic circles as the ‘principles of good governance’, which state that policymaking in the European Union (EU) should be participatory, conducted as close to citizens as practicable, transparent, accountable, effective and coherent. These maxims were introduced into EU fisheries management as part of a radical reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 2002. This reform was instituted in response to criticisms of a prevailing management regime alleged to be inefficient, undemocratic, and potentially responsible for an environmental crisis: the exhaustion of key fish stocks. The research for this work has found that there are limits to the actual achievement of good governance in EU fisheries. In practice governance innovations are very often contradictory and rife with tensions. I reason that such problems result not merely from policy implementation failures; they constitute a more endemic feature of the CFP reforms. We can begin to understand these limits to good governance principles by looking to Agamben’s permanent state of exception thesis. Agamben’s theory helps to show how these contradictions and tensions occur under new governance regimes, because the relationship between democratic norms (like good governance) and political power is no longer clear. I argue that this blurring has been exploited by groups seeking influence in these new regimes. They do this through citing a supposed need for emergency measures to mitigate crisis. Although this research broadly supports the state of exception thesis, my analysis leads me to question some aspects of its application in contemporary governance spaces.     

Religion and governmentality: Understanding governance in urban Brazil

In this paper I argue that geographies of religion are fundamental to understanding governance and social order in contemporary urban space. More specifically, I show how Foucault’s notion of governmentality characterizes regimes of power beyond the state apparatus, positing that religion and churches also produce and maintain the knowledges, truths, and social order associated with governmentality and self-regulated governance. By considering the geography of religion literature within the context of Foucualt’s work, I illustrate the importance of religious and spiritual practices to contemporary urban space, and the roles they play in producing and maintaining governance and socio-political order. My purpose is not to suggest that governmentality has been misapplied as a theoretical tool for understanding the state and political power, but to show how the term actually describes power more generally, including spiritual moments in addition to political ones. Drawing from my case study in Fortaleza, Brazil, I substantiate my theoretical argument using empirical examples, showing how governmentality is produced through religion and churches and the relationship between spiritual practices and governance in everyday space.     

Random harvest： an anthology of editorials

Over the past two decades, whenever a copy of Journal of Geological Society of lndia has reached my hand, the first thing I have done is read the editorial. No matter what their topics are, these essays are never dull but lively and precise presentations of various earth science issues facing the developing countries and oftentimes the world as well.Coming from the pen of Dr. B. P. Radhakrishna,     

Cosmogenic10Be: A critical view on its widespread dominion in geosciences

The radionuclide¹⁰Be (half-life = 1.5my), produced naturally in the Earth’s atmosphere by nuclear interactions of cosmic rays, was sought in ocean sediments in the late fifties, considering its potential usefulness as a radiotracer for dating sediments.¹⁰Be was discovered independently by two groups, one in India and the other in the USA, and used only for dating marine sediments and manganese nodules until the seventies. Subsequently, as a result of a technical advance resulting in the improvement in the sensitivity of measurement of¹⁰Be by about a factor of 10⁶, there was a global rush to measure this nuclide in most materials participating in the physical, chemical and biological processes in the dynamic geosphere. This paper outlines the reasons for this “isotope rush”, and the lessons learned from these studies. I also present my personal views of the special attractive features of this nuclide on the one hand, and on the other, the pitfalls or the wrong message this nuclide could convey!     

Comments on the paper of B. Lehmann: Molybdenum distribution in precambrian rocks of the Colorado mineral belt

Conclusions 1. Lehman lends me statements that I have not written.2. Interesting enough, the analytical data he presents do not allow, in effect, a molybdenum geochemical province in the Colorado mineral belt to be found. However, a better differentiation of rock types would be a useful improvement.3. Neither the available results, nor the (classic) model Proposed for the large Colorado deposits, are tests of the basic theorem. Furthermore, the model implies a heritage, a logical inference tightly associated with the theorem without being in its foundation.In my opinion, it is to be desired that our journals and learned societies become, at intervals, concerned about the history of our science and concepts in order to avoid drifts, not accuse B. Lehmann. I only believe he reads (in French) too quickly.     

Strontium isotope distribution in a regionally metamorphosed granite from the Zentralgneis,south-east Tauernfenster,Austria

The effect of Alpine (40 my) low amphibolite facies metamorphism on strontium isotopes in the Variscan (250–300 my) granitic complex of the Zentralgneis was investigated by analysing samples of a leucogranite which forms small intrusions into a tonalite. The leucogranite has Rb/Sr ratios up to 30.Two muscovites and three biotites underwent complete reequilibration during the metamorphism. The ages of 12–20 my are consistent with published K-Ar ages on micas from the same area, and reflect post-metamorphic cooling.Six whole-rock samples define an isochron with an age of 244±7 my (=1.47×10^–11yr^–1). Three further samples, collected within 30 cm of contacts with the tonalite, plus 1 cm sawn slabs of leucogranite and tonalite from either side of a contact fit a line with 10% greater slope; this line is interpreted as a mixing line, resulting from contamination of the leucogranite, near its contacts, with strontium from the enclosing tonalite. The time of contamination is uncertain but petrological evidence suggests it is the result of the metamorphism.Neither leucogranite whole rocks nor minerals from the tonalite, at contacts and in a xenolith, show any evidence for preferential mobilisation of radiogenic strontium in the course of metamorphism.The work was carried out in Heidelberg during successive tenure of the Michael Foster Memorial Scholarship from the University of Oxford and a Wates Travelling Fellowship of the Royal Society of London. Field work and sample collection was supported in part by the Geologische Bundesanstalt, Wien. For support from each of these sources I am very grateful. It is also a pleasure to acknowledge with thanks the support and facilities afforded me at the Laboratorium für Geochronologie by Dr. Hans-J. Lippolt.     

Postcolonial environmental justice: Government and governance in India

In this paper, we investigate the context within which struggles for environmental justice are taking place in India. We explore the ways in which postcolonial patterns of government and governance in India affect the ends, the means and the representation of these struggles, focusing on three particular areas: state reform, the judiciary and public interest litigation, and environmental social movements. We argue that India differs from west in the ambitious yet incomplete and contradictory nature of government-sponsored intervention in the environment, and in the particular nature of its public sphere, both of which have been important in shaping struggles for environmental justice. Our wider intention is not merely to catalogue these differences, but to use the Indian material to raise questions about the emphases and implicit assumptions of western environmental justice literature, and reflect on how these may be need reconsideration when working in postcolonial contexts.