Community discourse and the emerging amenity landscapes of the rural American West

We explore the construction of community meaning on an emerging amenity landscape in the western United States through in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with residents of rural Fremont County, Colorado. The meanings ascribed to community center on different interpretations of home, social interaction, and personal identity. Although in some cases these differences correspond to the conventional division between new and long-term residents, the more significant finding was a discourse of “co-opetition” that captures a broader countywide understanding of community as simultaneous cooperation and competition among local stakeholders. Ultimately, this conceptualization of rural community is a way of negotiating the form and function of the amenity landscape. The production of meaningful social interaction points to opportunities for engaging residents in land management as they interact with one another and the landscape.     

Understanding the vulnerability of migrants in Shanghai to typhoons

China has experienced considerable migration from inland to coastal areas since the reforms of 1978, with migrants becoming an important population in many coastal cities. Compared with non-migrants (long-term residents), migrant vulnerability to typhoons is considered high due to limited access to job opportunities, social security, information, and other resources; however, there is no research on vulnerability of this population sector to natural hazards. This initial study analysed the perceptions and personal experiences of migrants living in Shanghai of typhoon hazards. During May 2010, empirical data were collected using an online questionnaire and face–face interviews. Response data indicated that risk knowledge of migrants was significantly lower than among non- migrants; differing risk perceptions between the groups were consistent with levels of personal typhoon experience; statistically significant differences in hazard knowledge within the sample also related to education and occupation; a variety of strategies to cope with typhoon hazards was being applied by residential committees; and that migrants were not generally recognised as a vulnerable group requiring special consideration in hazard risk management. To reduce the vulnerability of migrants to typhoons, we recommend expanding the range of accessible communication technologies distributing warning information; organising more educational and training programmes, at government and corporate level, to increase community awareness of natural hazards; encouraging local residential committees to promote social networks and engagement for migrants; and providing corporate incentives to develop insurances specifically for migrant needs. Further research is necessary to assess the differences in vulnerability between different types of migrants.     

Return migration and the reiteration of gender norms in water management politics: Insights from a Chinese village

Recent work on return migration in China suggests return migrants bring with them new knowledge, skills, and potentially beneficial relationships accumulated during their sojourns, enabling them to introduce new forms of leadership and community action. Social remittances of this kind could be read as carrying the potential to enhance collective action in support of sustainable local natural resource-based livelihoods. This study of the links between return migration, leadership and collective action in water management sounds a more cautionary note, demonstrating that home communities may respond to return migrants in ways that repeatedly mark and reiterate gender and kinship norms, reiterating gender, generational and clan-based social hierarchies. The paper draws on and contributes to recent feminist political ecology approaches to show how migrant returnees’ ’social remittances’ translate into leadership in collective action in a rural Chinese village in ways that reinforce existing gender hierarchies and social positions within the community, thus questioning the extent to which any influx of new ideas, relationships and practices acquired from migrant experiences necessarily destabilizes power and authority in the village in any meaningful way.     

Land, ethnic, and gender change: Transnational migration and its effects on Guatemalan lives and landscapes

Migration to the United States of America from Guatemala effects many aspects of Guatemalan life. We document, through extensive ethnographic fieldwork, how migrants and their remittances effect gender relations, ethnicity, land use, and land distribution. Our evidence is drawn from research in four communities. San Pedro Pinula and Gualán represent communities of eastern Guatemala. San Cristóbal Totonicapán is an Indigenous town in Guatemala’s western highlands, and San Lucas is a lowland frontier community in the Guatemalan department of Ixcán, which borders Chiapas, Mexico. Our results reveal that migrants and their remittances, both social and tangible, result in significant changes in land use and land distribution in Ixcán. Migrant money permits the conversion of rainforest into cattle pasture and also results in the accumulation of land in the hands of migrants. In terms of land use, we see in San Pedro Pinula that migrant money also allows the Pokoman Maya to make small entries into the Ladino (non-indigenous) dominated cattle business. In San Pedro Pinula, the migration and return of Maya residents also permits them to slowly challenge ethnic roles that have developed over the last five centuries. When we look at how migration effects gender roles in Gualán and San Cristóbal we also note that migration and social remittances permit a gradual challenge and erosion of traditional gender roles in Guatemala. We point out, however, that migration-related changes to traditional gender and ethnic roles is gradual because migrants, despite their increased earnings and awareness, run into a social structure that resists rapid change. This is not the case when we examine land transformations in Ixcán. Here, migrants encounter few barriers when they attempt to put their new money and ideas to work. Despite the advantages that migration brings to many families, especially in the face of a faltering national economy and state inactivity regarding national development, we conclude that migration and remittances do not result in community or nation-wide development. At this stage migrant remittances are used for personal advancement and very little money and effort is invested in works that benefit communities or neighborhoods. We call for continued studies of the effects of international migration on Guatemalan hometowns that build on our initial studies to better understand the longer-term ramifications of migration in a country where no community is without migrants.     

Skilled migration in global cities from `Other' perspectives: British Arabs, identity politics, and local embededdness

Migration scholars increasingly have turned their attention to skilled migration, focusing, in particular, on the transfer of professionals within and between transnational corporations. Recent efforts have been made to bring a `cultural' analysis to this phenomenon, including greater scrutiny of the corporate cultures and social networks in which skilled migrants are embedded. This research has emphasised the importance of locality even among these most footloose and transnational of migrants. But despite these complex views of skilled migration, analyses have generated a somewhat limited conception of `skilled migrants' as managerial elites disengaged from local life. This paper examines skilled migration from a different perspective. First, using the case of Arab immigrants in London, this paper highlights the complicated nature of migration trajectories and reveals the diversity of patterns and experiences within the category of skilled migrant. Second, focusing on responses from female study participants, this paper examines the ways in which skilled migrants, rather than disengaging themselves from the host society context, may participate in the local politics of multiculturalism and integration.     

Interpreting amenities,envisioning the future: common ground and conflict in North Carolina’s rural coastal communities

This paper contributes to ongoing discussions about the implications of rural change and amenity migration for members of diverse rural communities. We engage with recent amenity migration and political ecology literature that focuses on social constructions of nature and landscapes, and how these constructions affect the attitudes and opinions of community members. We use our case study of a mail-based survey in Down East, North Carolina to suggest that the ways in which people conceptualize the particular ‘natures’ and landscapes of a place matters in terms of shaping people’s attitudes with respect to ongoing processes of change. We find that people’s opinions about environment, culture, and land use are often superficially similar but that when conflicts arise or particular actions are considered, substantial differences in people’s underlying conceptual frameworks are revealed. In particular we find that despite widespread shared appreciation of the environment and culture Down East, differing interpretations of these key terms lead to potential misunderstandings and land use planning challenges.     

Household-level disaster-induced losses and rural–urban migration: Experience from world’s one of the most disaster-affected countries

Losses due to natural disasters induce rural–urban migration throughout the world. It is also a major driver of population influx in Dhaka city, the capital of one of the most disaster-affected countries in the world, Bangladesh. While the relationship between natural disasters and migration is evident, the magnitude of household-level losses inducing rural–urban migration has not been widely discussed. This paper approaches this issue based on an empirical study. Using appropriate sampling procedure, a total of 407 households in Dhaka statistical metropolitan area were interviewed. This research finds out that 18.43% of rural–urban migrants in Dhaka city are disaster induced. A sharp drop in income immediately after the disaster is the predominant reason behind their migration. The river bank erosion-affected migrants encountered as high as 89% drop in income, whereas the flood-affected migrants experienced 70% drop. This article identifies five post-disaster components that ultimately determine migration. To conclude, the paper offers several approaches to minimize mass rural out-migration.

     

Re-thinking rural-amenity ecologies for environmental management in the Anthropocene

The migration of lifestyle-orientated landholders (amenity migrants) to rural landscapes is resulting in the production of new rural ecologies. To date, the future implications of these ecologies for environmental management have been framed largely in ‘traditional’ conservation biology terms, focusing on how we can conserve or restore natural environments to a past ecological benchmark. However, the Anthropocene provides an opportunity to critically examine how we can progress environmental management in a way that locates ecologies as emergent products of human–environment interaction through time. We extend from Tim Ingold’s work on wayfaring to position people and plants in environmental management as cohabitants who are traversing a world that is continually in the making. We conducted qualitative research in the hinterlands of Melbourne, Australia, involving narrative interviews with landholders and walking their property with them, using a form of participant observation called the ‘walkabout’ method. We found that the conservation aspirations of amenity migrants were mediated by the landscape histories that were embodied in the plants they engaged with on their property. These embodied landscape histories served to structure the trajectory of ecological emergence in which landholders were a part. We develop the concept of ‘landscape legacy’ to explain how past actions and future aspirations come together in management practice to produce novel and often unanticipated ecologies. Landscape legacy grounds the Anthropocene in everyday environments, capturing the need to progress environmental management as a wild experiment in rural-amenity landscapes, focusing on ecological form, function, relationship and process.     

Migration and gender identity among Chinese skilled male migrants to Australia

This paper reports on a study of the effects of migration on constructions of masculinities among Chinese skilled male migrants to Australia over the past 50 years. Data were collected in in-depth, semi-structured interviews of a sample of 40 Chinese male migrants in Brisbane city. The respondents came from a variety of countries of origin and varied in marital status, sexuality, age and previous migration experiences as well as duration of settlement in Australia. Because of an immigration policy based on a points system for measuring skill potential among migrants, these informants were of middle to upper-middle socio-economic status. Core ideas which emerged from the study included: Chineseness; insularity; the centrality of family, kin and friendship networks; Chinese males in the workplace; the division of labour in the household; employment and the fears of unemployment. These Chinese skilled male migrants displayed qualities of hegemonic masculinity in their households where traditional Chinese division of labour persisted. The markers of masculinity included: centrality of work and education; being a successful provider and protector; the accumulation of wealth and power. Unlike local hegemonic variants of masculinity these males placed little emphasis on sport, sexual prowess and performance and alcohol consumption. There were no ambitions among this sample of males to model local variants of masculinities, however gay males in the sample while experiencing marginalisation, racism and homophobic behaviour at the hands of local hegemonically masculine males, were more like the local dominant males in terms of an emphasis on sexual performance and preferences for well-muscled and fit bodies. Gay males in the Chinese sample found it necessary to restrict their social circles and physical locales. This Australian study has demonstrated the importance of the cultural sensitivity of concepts in doing comparative studies, and of considering sexuality as a dimension of identity in migration research that seems to assume a heteronormativity in its samples.     

Conservation and community in the new South Africa: A case study of the Mahushe Shongwe Game Reserve

The idealization of natural landscapes and peoples during colonialism, coupled with the popularity of sustainable development in the postcolonial era, has contributed to the expansion of conservation planning throughout the African continent. Concerns surrounding the promotion of national and international conservation agendas at the expense of local livelihood needs have generated interest in community conservation projects that attempt to include local participation and knowledge in natural resource management. The early excitement associated with community conservation has waned in light of recent assessments that it has been unsuccessful in meeting its ecological and social goals. This parallels other research that suggests communities are understood in generic or homogenous ways that influence how these initiatives are understood. Using a case study of the Mahushe Shongwe Game Reserve, this paper evaluates how rural households access environmental and economic resources to produce livelihoods, and how these access patterns impact their views of the project. It is argued that there are significant livelihood variations within the community that shape the ways households engage with, and benefit from, conservation planning. Rather than strictly viewing Mahushe Shongwe as a constraint to environmental resource access or site for limited employment, community members identify a number of benefits from its existence including education and development opportunities. Additionally, transformations in governance systems in the region impact community views of the project since younger residents are less likely to engage with the Matsamo Tribal Authority, which participates in managing the reserve. The consequence is that conservation has various impacts and meanings within a specific community that remain tied to the livelihood and governance systems being renegotiated in the post-apartheid era.     

Irregular migration,informal remittances: evidence from Ethiopian villages

Although Ethiopia has seen a reduction in refugee flows over the past decade, documented and undocumented labour migration has significantly increased. International migration has changed from that born out of conflict to irregular migration mainly driven by economic reasons. The source of migrants has expanded from urban centres to include rural areas, making them an important source of low-skilled labour for the international labour market. Based on a qualitative study, this paper explores the process and pattern of Ethiopian migration to South Africa, an emerging destination in the global South. This migration corridor is increasingly characterised by its irregularity. The paper also reflects how migration patterns shape the pattern of remittance flow, along with the way in which migrants and their networks substitute the function of financial institutions engaged in the remittance industry. It also highlights the features of remittances utilisation in emerging rural migrant community in Southern Ethiopia.     

Amenity migration: diverse conceptualizations of drivers,socioeconomic dimensions,and emerging challenges

Rural communities throughout the postindustrial world are in the midst of a significant transition, sometimes referred to as rural restructuring, as traditional land uses, economic activities, and social arrangements transition to those associated with “post-productivist” or “multifunctional” landscapes. Amenity migration, the movement of people based on the draw of natural and/or cultural amenities, can be thought of as both driver and implication of this transition, resulting in significant changes in the ownership, use, and governance of rural lands, as well as in the composition and socioeconomic dynamics of rural communities. In concert with other social, economic and political processes, amenity migration is contributing to the fundamental transformation of rural communities throughout the world. This paper presents a review of the social science literature related to the concept of amenity migration, focusing on the ways in which it has been conceptualized, theorized, and documented by different communities of scholars. We then profile and summarize diverse perspectives on drivers and socioeconomic impacts, highlighting emerging challenges and opportunities related to this type of migration occurring at multiple scales and in multiple sites. The paper also identifies and discusses particular areas where further research is needed.     

From feeding the locals to selling the locale: Adapting local sustainable food projects in Niagara to neocommunitarianism and neoliberalism

This paper traces attempts to foster local, sustainable food projects in Niagara, Canada as part of community economic development (CED) projects during two distinct periods of provincial governance. In the first period (1990-1995), social democratic government support for local sustainable food projects through CED can be understood as neocommunitarian in nature. During this time there was a concerted attempt to link local people with access to local food and also to support a relationship between local food projects and agri-tourism. I argue that this neocommunitarian policy was an accommodation to a wider and more global neoliberal hegemony and was underlain by a romanticism of petty commodity production and a tenuous link to social and ecological sustainability. In the second period of governance (beginning in 1995) the progressive conservative government led by Mike Harris pursued particularly virulent, revanchist forms of neoliberal governance. With many of their state supports slashed, Niagara NGOs and activists turned, and were pushed, to more market-led, elitist forms of local food projects and agri-tourism. In these latter food projects, the practices of ecological and social sustainability were significantly hollowed out and their local and light green nature was harnessed as accumulation strategies. The paper is based on interviews conducted in the year 2003 with people involved in various urban and rural food projects (including community gardening, community supported agriculture, local/seasonal cuisine, organic/ecological farming and food box programs).     

Socioeconomic impact of oil in Nigeria

Taxes and royalties from the oil industry in Nigeria have made possible massive infrastructural and social development throughout the country; this single industry continues to be the most important contributor to the national treasury. Along with oil, however, have come environmental and social problems, some severe and, in the social sector, possibly of long duration. Questionnaires were employed to solicit environmental and socioeconomic information from residents in the oil-impacted area as well as to ascertain the views of the oil companies with respect to their Nigerian operations, in particular to their socio-economic responsibilities to the local residents. Responses point to serious discontent on the part of the impacted population, especially in the most important southern (Niger Delta) oil producing region. These negative attitudes in part are based upon the impacted population’s inability to secure for itself a sufficiently large number of oil industry jobs and in part to the presence in the local community of ethnic strangers who do have such employment. There is evidence of serious environmental damage, but its biological dimension has been overshadowed by claims for monetary compensation at the local level. Data derived from these investigations might well be applicable in the wider field of trans-national mining and petroleum extraction operations in developing countries, especially to the unwritten social obligations of the expatriate firm to local residents.     

From inflexible national legislation to flexible local governance: management practices in the Pelister National Park,Republic of Macedonia

The involvement of local people in protected area management a key factor in the sustainable and efficient protection of wildlife, and an economically preferable approach for the effective everyday care and protection of the environment. This paper aims to explore the community participation and protected area management challenges faced by national park authorities in developing countries, through a case study of the Pelister National Park in the Republic of Macedonia. The paper focuses on the multiple social, economic and political expressions of flexibility in national park management at the local scale. These examinations are based on field research in Pelister, executed in the summer of 2006, and involving 20 in-depth interviews with local policy-makers, nature protection experts and local inhabitants, as well as a questionnaire survey of 140 residents of three villages in and around the park (Nizhepole, Malovishta and Brajchino).     

Tackling social exclusion in European neighbourhoods: experiences and lessons from the NEHOM project

Disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods with their complex social, economic and physical situations have increasingly become the focus of governmental policies in the EU. The emphasis has shifted from improving physical qualities to building opportunities for social groups in these areas. While physical upgrade is easier to achieve, at least in the short run, initiatives often fail in outcomes on communities and local participation. This paper aims to improve understanding on how to tackle area-based social exclusion and create socially coherent communities. Building on the results of the NEHOM project, the focus is on examining how various interventions have impacted local communities and their opportunities for better inclusion. A comparison between neighbourhoods shows that mixing social groups to a certain degree is likely to be a necessary step towards opening long-term opportunities for a disadvantaged neighbourhood. The planned initiatives should at the same time directly benefit local communities, and the involvement of local groups in the planning and implementation process helps to guarantee that the overall changes are accepted by the local community. However, the proposed guidelines do not provide a universal recipe for a successful renewal suiting each neighbourhood—the contextual matters should always be a starting point when planning an initiative.     

Environmental learning and the social construction of an exurban landscape in Fremont County, Colorado

Across the rural American West, the restructuring of rural capitalism has transformed production landscapes into those increasingly structured by the development and consumption of natural and cultural amenities. This project used principles from symbolic interactionism, ethnographic methods, and the analytical framework of regional political ecology to understand the role of environmental learning in negotiating the new management regime associated with amenity-based capitalism in rural Fremont County, Colorado. The study found that most amenity residents participate regularly in social learning about the environment through a variety of interpersonal and organizational behaviors. In addition, they are responding collectively to environmental risks and opportunities associated with wildfire, noxious weeds and invasive grass species, prospective uranium mining, and restoration of cultural-landscape features. Ultimately, the practices of environmental learning concern how private properties and assets will be managed relative to the social construction of the environment as an amenity for personal consumption. Conservation and management prospects in this and other rural areas in the postindustrial world can be enhanced by understanding the microsociology of exurban geographies and by engaging the social forms and processes related to this distinctive landscape construction.     

‘Making space’ in Cairo: Expatriate movements and spatial practices

This paper examines what it means to be an ‘expatriate’ in Cairo through the lens of movement and space-making. Inquiring into a set of migrant (im)mobilities, spatial practices, relations, and imaginations, it argues that as a ‘spatialised’ identity category ‘expatriate’ narrates and enacts migratory privileges linked to wider hierarchies of social difference. It contributes to a growing literature examining the social and political dimensions of ‘expatriate’ migration and further engages scholarship thinking space and movement in relational and socio-historical terms. Rather than denoting an easily distinguishable group of migrants, ‘expatriate’ emerged as a contingent and ambiguous category of practice. As such, ‘expatriate’ stands in a productive relationship with privileged movement and socio-spatial processes. Like other migrants, respondents skillfully navigated the global differences in wealth, power and status they were presented with. Yet, unlike many other migrants, they did so from a privileged position within the global power-geometries of international migration. Migrants’ personal geographies were further shaped by how bodies were racialised and gendered in entangled, intersecting and sometimes counter-intuitive ways. This diversity and complexity of ‘expatriate’ geographies highlights the necessity of intersectional and situated analyses of privilege.     

The community morphology of skilled migration: the changing role of voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) in the grounding of British migrant identities in Paris (France)

Research into skilled migrant communities tends to emphasize the grounding of identities through transnationalism and mobility. Less research has been conducted into how skilled migrants actually ground their identities within the city through everyday social networks. The paper addresses this imbalance by examining the changing significance of British voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) in Paris, France. Combining qualitative and quantitative data, findings show local migrant networks to be important focal points for the British even though migrants’ lives may increasingly be transnational in orientation. The research also shows that in situ social networks are evolving. Specifically, traditional forms of elite expatriate communality are not as omnipotent as they once were, with the popularity of some high-profile British VCOs in Paris declining over recent decades. The paper argues that the link between social dynamism and communal morphology helps explain this shift: as British middle-class lifestyles have fragmented, and as the British migrant population in Paris has grown in scale and scope, so the range of VCOs and associated informal networks has grown. Whilst some skilled migrants still embed within traditional expatriate organisations, Britishness is increasingly grounded elsewhere; both within the city through alternative social networks, and located beyond the city through transnational ties.     

Using spatial statistics to identify and characterise ethnoburbs: establishing a methodology using the example of Auckland,New Zealand

Recent studies in the United States and other Pacific Rim countries have identified a new form of ethnic minority group clustering within the residential mosaic—ethnoburbs. These are suburban in location, occupied by relatively high-income, predominantly Asian, immigrants, and low density in their nature: many migrants move directly to those suburbs rather than the inter-generational outward migration from central city clusters typical of other migrant streams. Although ethnoburb residents tend to cluster in particular segments of the built-up area they do not to form large percentages of the population there. As yet, no methodology has been developed to identify these clusters, as a prelude to identifying their characteristics. This paper offers such a procedure, based on local statistical analysis. It is applied to six Asian groups in Auckland, New Zealand.