The cultural politics of local economic development: meaning-making, place-making, and the urban policy process

A major concern of work in urban and political geography in recent decades has been to analyze how and in whose interests local space economies are produced and reproduced. A common focus is on the role local elites play in gathering support for their development agendas. Drawing from these literatures, this paper focuses on how various visions of the future of localities are contested in the local policy process. It argues that this struggle can be usefully understood as a cultural politics in which meanings are defined and struggled over, where social values are naturalized, and by which `common sense' is constructed and contested. The use of the term `cultural politics of local economic development' is, then, intended to indicate that meaning-making and place-making occur simultaneously in struggles over the future of space economies. It is also an attempt to overcome the problematic distinction between `culture' and `economy' that continues to haunt a great deal of work on urban politics. Through a case study of urban politics in Lexington, Kentucky in which discursive strategies are highlighted, it is argued that this approach is useful in that it provides insight into non-elite perspectives on local economic development and that it underscores the role played by everyday life in constituting political action. The paper concludes by suggesting that any problematization of the conceptual distinction between `culture' and `economy' must be carried out in and through detailed analyses of how groups involved in social struggle frequently construct rhetorical strategies in reference to it.     

Something in the Air: Civic science and contentious environmental politics in post-apartheid South Africa

The emergence of an environmental movement in post-apartheid South Africa has involved the reframing of the environment as a ‘brown’ issue, articulating the discourse of social and environmental justice and a rights-based notion of democracy. Environmental movements have pursued a dual strategy of deliberation and activist opposition. Environmental movements have deployed science to pursue the strategic task of democratic opposition and have established networks of environmental knowledge and expertise. Ecological modernization is the dominant approach to environmental governance and adopts a science-based policy approach. In this context the regulation and management of the environment is premised on the need for science, which provides the authoritative basis for a regulatory response. In local environmental movements, there exists a fundamental tension between a cumulative history of lay knowledge about pollution and the lack of official acknowledgement of qualitative narratives. This is accompanied by a lack and suspicion of reliable official data. Environmental movements have thus employed ‘civic science’ strategically to place the issue of air pollution on the political agenda. This paper uses the case of environmental politics in Durban to reflect on the ways in which civic science and lay knowledge, together constituting community hybrid knowledge, are produced and disseminated in order to pressure the state and capital. The three ways in which knowledge is deployed are: to frame environmental problems, in strategies of oppositional advocacy, and in deliberative policy forums. Empirical analysis shows that civic science is produced through knowledge networks, and both lay knowledge and civic science are opportunistically used by environmental movements to engage both inside and outside formal policy making arenas. This deployment of hybrid knowledge by environmental movements represents a broader challenge to the power of science and technology based on increasing evidence of the hazards and risks facing ordinary people in their daily lives.     

A critical portrait of hate crime/incident reporting in North East England: The value of statistical data and the politics of recording in an age of austerity

This paper contributes to research on the reporting of hate crime/incidents from a critical socio-spatial perspective. It outlines an analysis of third party reporting of hate crimes/incidents in the North East of England, based upon the work of Arch (a third party hate crime/incident reporting system). The data set is one of the largest of its kind in the UK and therefore presents a unique opportunity to explore patterns of reporting across different types of hate crimes/incidents through a system designed to go beyond criminal justice responses. Whilst not downplaying the significance of the harmful experiences to which this data refers, we are very aware of the limitations of quantitative and de-humanised approaches to understanding forms of discrimination. Therefore the paper adopts a critical position, emphasising that interpretation of the data provides a partial, yet important, insight into everyday exclusions, but also cultures and politics of reporting. While the data records incidents across the main ‘monitored strands’, analysis here particularly focuses on those incidents recorded on the basis of ‘race’ and religion. Our analysis allows us to both cautiously consider the value of such data in understanding and addressing such damaging experiences - but also to appreciate how such an analysis may connect with the changing landscape of reporting and the politics of austerity.     

武夷山北段及相邻区深部电性构造与成矿分析:基于三维大地电磁探测结果

华南地区经历了多期构造-岩浆-成矿作用,矿产资源丰富,存在多个成矿聚集区,是国家经济发展的重要矿产基地。本文使用华南地区采集的区域大地电磁阵列观测数据,利用WSINV3DMT三维反演程序科学构建了武夷山北段及相邻区三维电性结构模型。结果显示,沿闽西北断裂、政和—大浦断裂等断裂带下方,深部表现为明显的低阻异常带,可能是古微陆块拼合线或深大断裂的反映,对上覆浅层断裂构造具有明显的控制作用。武夷地区已探明的主要内生金属矿床中,绝大部分矿床点位于这些低阻异常带、深部软流体边缘位置上方,同时又主要分布于ΔT化极磁异常梯度带之上,具有明显的分布规律性,结合上述规律和特征,可在武夷地区初步圈定找矿有利方向。     

Evaluation of local amplification in the seismic microzonation: comparison between punctual multidisciplinary integrated studies and macroseismic methods in Fivizzano's area (Toscana, Italy)

In the seismic microzonation the evaluation of the local amplification issue may be solved using different methodological approaches. Taking the hint from the studies made within VEL project framework, sponsored by Tuscany Region on Fivizzano's area we are herewith comparing the results of geotechnical and geophysical integrated multidisciplinary studies with the existing data available from previous studies, mainly using a macroseismic approach, on the same area. This qualitative method does not seem to be able to make any forecasting on the scale whereas generally microzoning is performed. On the contrary, the knowledge of the geological-technical model of the investigated area, obtained by punctual multidisciplinary integrated studies, allows a direct collection of the data to insert in input step of numerical modelling, aimed to local effects evaluation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Melt/peridotite interaction in the Southern Lanzo peridotite: Field, textural and geochemical evidence

This paper presents field, petrographic–structural and geochemical data on spinel and plagioclase peridotites from the southern domain of the Lanzo ophiolitic peridotite massif (Western Alps). Spinel lherzolites, harzburgites and dunites crop out at Mt. Arpone and Mt. Musinè. Field evidence indicates that pristine porphyroclastic spinel lherzolites are transformed to coarse granular spinel harzburgites, which are in turn overprinted by plagioclase peridotites, while strongly depleted spinel harzburgite and dunite bands and bodies replace the plagioclase peridotites. On the northern flank of Mt. Arpone, deformed, porphyroclastic (lithospheric) lherzolites, with diffuse pyroxenite banding, represent the oldest spinel-facies rocks. They show microstructures of a composite subsolidus evolution, suggesting provenance from deeper (asthenospheric) mantle levels and accretion to the lithosphere. These protoliths are locally transformed to coarse granular (reactive) spinel harzburgites and dunites, which show textures reminiscent of melt/rock reaction and geochemical characteristics suggesting that they are products of peridotite interaction with reactively percolating melts. Geochemical data and modelling suggest that <1–5% fractional melting of spinel-facies DMM produced the injected melts. Plagioclase peridotites are hybrid rocks resulting from pre-existing spinel peridotites and variable enrichment of plagioclase and micro-gabbroic material by percolating melts. The impregnating melts attained silica-saturation, as testified by widespread orthopyroxene replacement of olivine, during open system migration in the lithosphere. At Mt. Musinè, coarse granular spinel harzburgite and dunite bodies replace the plagioclase peridotites. Most of these replacive, refractory peridotites have interstitial magmatic clinopyroxene with trace element compositions in equilibrium with MORB, while some Cpx have REE-depleted patterns suggesting transient geochemical features of the migrating MORB-type melts, acquired by interaction with the ambient plagioclase peridotite. These replacive spinel harzburgite and dunite bodies are interpreted as channels exploited for focused and reactive migration of silica-undersaturated melts with aggregate MORB compositions. Such melts were unrelated to the silica-saturated melts that refertilized the pre-existing plagioclase peridotites. Finally, MORB melt migration occurred along open fractures, now recorded as gabbroic dikes.

Our data document the complexity of rock-types and mantle processes in the South Lanzo peridotite massif and describe a composite tectonic and magmatic scenario that is not consistent with the “asthenospheric scenario” proposed by previous authors. We envisage a “transitional scenario” in which extending subcontinental lithospheric mantle was strongly modified (both depleted and refertilized) by early melts with MORB-affinity formed by decompression partial melting of the upwelling asthenosphere, during pre-oceanic rifting and lithospheric thinning in the Ligurian Tethys realm.     

Simultaneous horst-basin formation and magmatism during Late Variscan transtension: evidence from 40Ar/39Ar and 207Pb/206Pb geochronology in the Ruhla Crystalline Complex

40 Ar/³⁹Ar–mica and ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb–zircon dates are presented and combined with existing P–T data and the sedimentary record. These data indicate that the RCC was faulted into three segments which underwent different exhumation histories during the Late Carboniferous/Early Permian. The eastern segment shows ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar–biotite data of336 ±4 and 323±3 Ma. Furthermore, it is intruded by the Thuringian Hauptgranite dated at 337±4 Ma by the ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb single zircon method. At approximately 300 Ma rocks of the eastern segment were finally exposed and, subsequently, subsided as part of the Oberhof pull-apart basin, filled by Late Carboniferous/Early Permian molasse sediments and volcanic rocks (296–285 Ma; Goll 1996). A similar Late Carboniferous evolution is inferred for the western segment, since it is also overlain by Upper Carboniferous volcanic rocks. In contrast to the eastern and western segments, distinctly younger intrusion and cooling ages were recorded for the central segment of the RCC (⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar muscovite: 311±3 Ma; ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar biotite: 293–288±3 Ma) that was intruded by the Trusetal Granite, the Ruhla Granite and Brotterode Diorite (²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb single zircon: 298±2, 295±3, 289±4 Ma, respectively). These young data are unique in the MGCR and testify that plutonic activity and cooling of basement rocks took place simultaneously with basin formation and volcanism in the eastern and western segments. Overlying Upper Permian (Zechstein) and Triassic sediments indicate final exposure of the central segment by approximately 260 Ma, as a part of the Ruhla-Schleusingen Horst. Combination of these results with P–T data from the contact aureole of the Trusetal granite indicate that the central segment was unroofed by at least 8.5 km during the Late Carboniferous. The Late Carboniferous/Early Permian horst-basin formation, documented in the RCC, is due to dextral transtensional movements along the NW-trending Franconian fault system. It may have been enhanced by mantle upwelling widespread in Central Europe during the Early Permian that also caused intensive magmatism in the Thuringian Forest region. Received: 2 February 1999 / Accepted: 15 November 1999     

FIAs(Foliation Intersection/Inflection Axes) Preserved in Porphyroblasts,the DNA of Deformation:A Solution to the Puzzle of Deformation and Metamorphism in the Colorado,Rocky Mountains,USA

Abstract: FIAs have been used extensively for more than a decade to unravel deformation and metamorphic puzzles. Orogenic processes developing early during the history or orogenesis challenge scientists because compositional layering in rocks always reactivates where multiple deformations have occurred, leaving little evidence of the history of foliation development preserved in the matrix. The foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, USA contain a succession of four FIA sets (trends) that would not have been distinguishable if porphyroblasts had not grown during the multiple deformation events that affected these rocks or if they had rotated as these events took place. They reveal that both the partitioning of deformation and the location of isograds changed significantly as the deformation proceeded.     

川东华蓥山二叠系/三叠系界线附近粘土层中粘土矿物的类型及成因

对川东华蓥山二叠系/三叠系界线附近粘土层中的粘土矿物进行野外采样和室内X射线衍射分析,结果表明,这些粘土矿物主要由规则混层伊利石-蒙脱石组成,其中1个样品可能含有少量不规则混层绿泥石-蒙脱石等粘土矿物。总地看来,该界线粘土层中的规则混层伊利石－蒙脱石中伊利石层的含量自下而上呈现减少的趋势,平均含量约83%,所经历的最大古地温在125～150℃之间。这些粘土矿物的构成和特征与前人在华南其他地区相同层位取得的成果总体上具有较好的一致性,显示了该粘土层成因的相同性及所具有的等时意义。不同地区粘土矿物构成的差异性（如高岭石的存在与含量）可能与二叠系/三叠系界线不整合的存在与否或间断时间有关,规则混层伊利石－蒙脱石的混层比则与埋藏历史和沉积—沉积期后的流体介质有关。     

哀牢山构造带晚渐新世地壳深熔与熔/流体迁移:锆石U-Pb年龄与微量元素证据

哀牢山构造带是青藏高原东南缘重要的边界构造带,其内出露的深变质岩系一直被认为是古老的变质基底岩石。利用LA-ICP-MS原位微区分析技术对哀牢山深变质岩系锆石进行U-Pb年龄、微量元素分析。结果表明深变质岩系的原岩有728±8Ma、727±3Ma、231±4Ma的花岗质岩石和其它年龄的碎屑岩,变质时代为27.8~23.7Ma。综合野外地质特征和分析结果,我们认为哀牢山深构造带在晚渐新世27.8~23.7Ma发生了大规模的地壳深熔作用,现今所见深变质岩系是由不同时代、不同岩性的原岩在晚渐新世(27.8~23.7Ma)变质形成,不全是古老的变质基底岩石。深熔过程中熔/流体发生了明显的迁移。哀牢山变质带具有混合岩化特征的岩石很可能是峰期变质作用后减压熔融的产物。晚渐新世地壳深熔作用与左行走滑剪切是哀牢山深变质带折返过程中近似同时发生的两种不同变质表现形式,两者相互影响、相互制约。     

Thermal History of the Naruo Porphyry Deposit in the Duolong Ore District, Western Tibet: Evidence from U-Pb, 40Ar/39Ar and (U-Th)/He Thermochronology

The Naruo porphyry copper deposit containing more than 2 Mt of copper is located in the Duolong ore district in the west of the Bangongco–Nujiang belt in central Tibet. New zircon U-Pb, biotite 40Ar/39Ar, zircon (U-Th)/He ages, published age data together with thermal modeling were presented in this paper to investigate the thermal history of Naruo deposit. Thermal modeling reveals a prolonged magmatic-hydrothermal evolution firstly cooling from ~700°C to ~350°C at 120 Ma, then cooling to 230°C at 106 Ma and maintaining at 200°C from 106 to 90 Ma which is attributed to multiple magmatic events and thermal effect of strike-slip fault. Affected by thrust nappe structure, the sample was consistent with 120°C from 70 to 63 Ma. The Naruo deposit started to experience exhumation at a rate of ~0.07 km/Myr since 60 Ma which is related to India-Asia collision. The prolonged magmatic-hydrothermal evolution process might have important influence on the Naruo deposit. The ore-related intrusions preserved in the foot walls of strike-slip fault and thrust nappe structure are the objects of future exploration in the Duolong ore district.