Divergent responses to urban transformation projects in Turkey: common sense and state affinity in community mobilization

This article examines the role of state affinity in community struggles against authoritarian, neoliberal urban transformation projects (UTPs) in Turkey. It argues that as neoliberal hegemonic devices, UTPs produce contentious political spaces within which communities negotiate, resist, or comply with state-imposed, pro-market rationales (i.e. common sense). As an alternative to depictions of subaltern communities in mobilization as totally ‘co-opted‘ or ‘victimized‘ in neoliberal renewal or as ’unwilling’ or ’unable’ to produce a collective rights identity, the analysis offers a more complicated picture of community resistance, inactivity, and co-optation. To do this, it adopts a combination of Henri Lefebvre’s theory of production of space and Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. The analysis is based on the findings from original ethnographic research on two ethnically distinct working-class neighborhoods under UTP threat in Gebze, a satellite city of Istanbul. It compares communities’ affinity with the state-sponsored ideologies (Sunni-Turkish nationalism, neoliberalism) by looking at their ethnic identities and social histories.     

Competing rationalities in water conflict: Mining and the indigenous community in Chiu Chiu,El Loa Province,northern Chile

Conflict over water is a significant phenomenon in many parts of the world where globally linked neoliberal economic activities encroach on the lands of indigenous peoples. This case study from Chile examines how water scarcity affecting indigenous agricultural communities in the Chilean Altiplano has been exacerbated by legally sanctioned mining‐related practices. Notably, the legal framing of the 1981 Water Code promotes private ownership of water rights and enhanced mining activity usually at the expense of the ancestral territorial rights of indigenous communities. In the case of the Atacameño community of Chiu Chiu, a serious decrease in subsistence and agriculture production has been suffered as a consequence of reduced flow in the Loa River, resulting from the water intensive needs and extraction practices of the nearby Chuquicamata mine owned by Codelco, the National Copper Corporation of Chile. Via an analysis of the political ecology of competing rationalities this paper explores how an economic rationality based on utilitarian and reductionist thinking manifested by Codelco has taken precedence locally over a socionatural rationality grounded in holistic thinking and sustainability concerns as articulated by the Chiu Chiu community.     

Lasting Legacies: Conservation and Communities at Huascaran National Park,Peru

This article uses a case-study approach to investigate the challenges of protected area (PA) management for Huascaran National Park in the Peruvian Andes. The park is analyzed by situating the timing of establishment of the park boundaries within the context of two historical Peruvian events: agrarian reform (1969) and an earthquake (1970). Interviews and narratives from community members and stakeholders associated with park delimitation and management were used for the study. Analysis of narratives revealed that the establishment of park boundaries, the legal definition used for the park, and land use restrictions contribute to diminished support for the park from surrounding communities. Community and national institutions negotiate the spatial boundary of conservation in Huascaran National Park while engaging with historical narratives that invoke environmental constraints and acts of resistance.     

PARTNERSHIPS AND PHOTOGRAPHS: COMMUNITY CONCEPTIONS OF KEWEENAW NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK*

Geographers have a long tradition of using photographs to investigate landscape meaning. I conducted photo‐elicitation research with community members residing in and around one of the National Park Service (nps ) “partnership parks” in order to obtain their conceptions of the park. The nps partners with myriad groups in order to manage the park, resulting in mostly privatized amenities at Michigan's Keweenaw National Historical Park. Participants in my study took photographs of landscapes and used them to discuss their conceptions of the park. Building upon recent scholarship on the perceptions of parks and place attachment in parks, the photo‐elicitation revealed a strikingly complex array of understandings. Social class, not whether one lived within or outside the park's boundaries, was the most important variable in categorizing perceptions of the park. These data help us understand how community members conceive of partnership parks and thus may help inform nps decision making.     

Nonprofits and park equity in Los Angeles: a promising way forward for environmental justice

Disparities in park provision raise environmental and health justice concerns. With public agencies stepping back from providing environmental amenities in increasingly neoliberal urban regimes, nonprofits in the U.S. have assumed a prominent role in the parks and recreation sector. But very few studies have comprehensively assessed whether and how park nonprofits contribute to increasing or closing the equity gap in park provision. Focusing on Los Angeles, I analyze how park nonprofits operate and which demographic groups benefit from new and improved parks supported by nonprofits. Based on interviews with local practitioners and geospatial analyses, I find that nonprofits are leading a park equity movement in Los Angeles and helped address park disparities. To do so, nonprofits built diverse coalitions, leveraged complementary strengths, coalesced with public agencies, and helped generate public funds for parks. These findings show that equity-oriented nonprofits can successfully challenge the unjust outcomes of neoliberal governance.     

Land reform in Namaqualand, 1994–2005: A review

With the transition to democracy in 1994, South Africa was faced with an enormous challenge in redressing the highly unequal and racialized pattern of land rights inherited from the colonial and apartheid past. In Namaqualand, a history of land dispossession and racial segregation presented the new government with a complex set of problems, which led to a series of distinct policy responses within the context of the wider national land reform programme. Land reform in Namaqualand aims to impact positively on local people's access to land, improve livelihood opportunities and develop the local economy. Unique features of the land reform process in Namaqualand include the reform of tenure in the former Coloured Rural Areas, the prominent role played by local municipalities and the heavy reliance on municipal commonage as a form of landholding. This study provides and overview of the process of land reform in Namaqualand since 1994, considering the three elements of tenure reform, land redistribution and restitution of historical land rights. It concludes that, while considerable progress has been made in provision of additional land to historically disadvantaged communities, obstacles remain in the area of post-transfer support to new and emerging farmers.     

‘The law is not for the poor’: Land,law and eviction in Luanda

This article investigates how an existing two‐tiered land tenure system creates a hybrid space that blurs, and essentially questions and problematizes the boundaries of the formal/informal divide as presented within Angolan political and legal discourses. It showcases how urban formality and informality exist alongside each other in Luanda and how people take recourse to both formal and informal channels in attempts to secure housing, land tenure and livelihoods in the city. Through case studies, the article describes how small‐scale farmers in Luanda's northern municipality of Cacuaco lost their lands to urban development in 2009–10 and the ensuing circumstances in which formal rights and informal land tenure became intermeshed and ambiguous. As the case studies illustrate, a gap exists between the legal code and practice on the ground. This gap is represented in how Angola's postconflict land strategy, with its forced evictions and demolitions of houses and neighbourhoods, often with little or no compensation, is at odds with the Angolan Land Law, which states that land may only be expropriated by the state or local authorities for specific public use and must be justly compensated.     

Resource economies and neoliberal experimentation: the reform of industry and community in rural British Columbia

This paper argues that the current literature on neoliberalism in advanced capitalist societies has concentrated primarily on urban issues, and has thus failed to see resource economies and regions as theoretically significant sites of neoliberal reform. Using research from British Columbia, Canada, we argue that resource regions are often targets of intense neoliberal experimentation. The neoliberal project in British Columbia involves an extreme shift in state policy from a strong Fordist-Keynesian programme to recent efforts to 'liberate' corporate actors from non-market social and spatial obligations (to environment, labour and community). We argue that such policy shifts have exceptional consequences in resource regions due to strong and direct state influence in corporate-resource and community-level economies. We draw several theoretical lessons from this research for the mainstream literature on neoliberal reform.     

POWER, NATURE AND NEOLIBERALISM: THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF WATER IN CHILE

Since the 1990s, international water sector reforms have centred heavily on economic and market approaches. In regard to water resources management, tradable water rights have been promoted, often supported by the neoliberal model adopted in Chile. Chile's 1981 Water Code was reformed to comprise a system of water rights that could be freely traded with few restrictions. International financial institutions have embraced the Chilean model, claiming that it results in more efficient water use, and potentially fosters social and environmental benefits. However, in Chile the Water Code is deeply contested. It has been criticised for being too permissive and has produced a number of problems in practice. Moreover, attempts to modify it have become the focus of a lengthy polemic debate. This paper employs a political ecology perspective to explore the socio‐environmental outcomes of water management in Chile, drawing on a case study of agriculture in the semi‐arid Norte Chico. The case illustrates how large‐scale farmers exert greater control over water, while peasant farmers have increasingly less access. I argue that these outcomes are facilitated by the mode of water management implemented within the framework of the Water Code. Through this preliminary examination of social equity and the environmental aspects of water resources management in Chile, I suggest that the omission of these issues from the international debates on water rights markets is a cause for concern.     

FIGHTING FIRE WITH A BROKEN TEACUP: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOUTH AFRICA'S LAND‐REDISTRIBUTION PROGRAM*

ABSTRACT. Since the rise of its first democratically elected government in 1994, South Africa has sought to redress its highly inequitable land distribution through a series of land‐reform programs. In this study we examine land‐redistribution efforts in two of South Africa's provinces, the Western Cape and Limpopo. By analyzing a cross‐section of projects in these two locales we develop a political ecology of stymied land‐reform possibilities to explain the limited progress to date. Given South Africa's ambitious goal of redistributing 30 percent of its white‐owned land by 2014 and the incremental and flawed nature of its redistribution program, we argue that the process is like trying to put out a fire with a broken teacup. Our results are based on interviews with policymakers, commercial farmers, and land‐redistribution beneficiaries, as well as on an analysis of land‐use change in Limpopo Province.     

Where rights begin and end in Puerto Rico's gated communities

In 1992, Puerto Rico's governor and police superintendent incorporated the National Guard with local police in a militarized battle against crime. Mano dura contra el crimen (strong arm/iron fist against crime) policies led to the gating of 82 public housing communities in the island. Simultaneously, privileged private communities organized and petitioned municipalities to retrofit their neighbourhoods with gates in the name of safety. These enclosures followed the privatized management of all public housing communities in the island only a few years before. Based on ethnographic research, I examine the sociospatial outcomes of these policies, how they reframe community participation and deploy a discourse of self‐responsibility that distributes power unequally across private and public housing communities. While in the privileged communities these policies have cultivated community leaders and invigorated social life as residents take control over public space, the gates in the communities of the poor reflect a skeletal structure of democracy. Private management companies impose increasingly restrictive regulations in attempts to organize the community and the only recourse to participation is to engage in small acts of everyday resistance, from apathy to subversion. As part of larger neoliberal tendencies to retrench the ‘public’ in favour of the ‘private’, the mano dura policies curtail democracy as the voices of the poor are silenced and the scope of efficacy of the rich expands.     

Between Environmental Change and Neoliberalism: The Effects of Oil Palm Production on Livelihood Resilience

Rural communities worldwide are increasingly confronted with the simultaneous impacts of environmental change dynamics and processes of economic restructuring that diminish traditional sources of state support while shifting investments toward large-scale intensive production models. A key question in this context is how livelihoods are affected by these interacting forces of change and whether new production models can contribute to resilience at the household and community scales. Here we examine the impacts of oil palm production on marginal rural communities in Mexico that have experienced both the economic changes associated with neoliberal policy reforms and the dynamics of environmental change. We find that oil palm production can contribute to livelihood resilience when community members participate in its management and governance and when production is associated with state support, but that the kinds of neoliberal policies promoting oil palm expansion may exacerbate existing community vulnerabilities in the face of environmental change.     

Land scarcity and land access in a hazard-prone island: Sagar,Indian Sundarbans

The analytical inseparability of natural environment and society is reiterated by the findings of this study which contributes to a genre of studies that centre-stages the socio-ecological system. This study seeks to understand the interplay of state-related and other modes of securing property rights in the context of pervasive coastal hazards through a case study from the Indian Sundarbans region (Sagar Island in West Bengal). This paper also contributes to research pertaining to slow-onset disasters and attempts to examine emerging dimensions of land scarcity as well as diverse modes of access to land in the context of progressive ecological vulnerability. The analysis highlights the varying shades of declining land access and investigates how existing land policies and disaster management mechanisms remain far from extending security to communities experiencing environmental crisis. The paper thereby examines how community and state agencies adopting means to allocate property may in fact refute legality and perpetuate informality.     

Geography, law and the centralizing state: wages arrestment in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Scotland

This paper analyses reform of the law of wages arrestment in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Scotland to examine the spatial nature of the 'regulatory dilemmas' faced by the state in legal interventions in a spatially heterogeneous context. Though this reform was an example of how the nineteenth-century British state sought to regulate the spaces of everyday life, the analysis shows that law-making processes are the outcome of complex tensions between and within the state and legal systems. In these processes, local legal cultures, tensions between systems of common and statute law and the complex geographies of social life play important roles in shaping the conjunction of space, place and law.     

Bringing globalization to the countryside: Special Economic Zones in India

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are important vectors of neoliberal globalization in India. Despite facing widespread resistance against the proposed land acquisition for these zones, they are still being promoted across the country. We argue that the wealth redistribution to the country's elites and the fractured resistance movements enable neoliberalism and its practices to grow in the countryside. Using a private sector SEZ in Gurgaon as a case study, this article explores how special economic zoning, as a neoliberal policy, has been implicated in the spatialized production of poverty. We also show that the main actors who promote neoliberalism in India (the state and the large‐scale urban private sector) have found a seemingly unlikely ally in rural India in the form of farmers with large landholdings, rural elites who are willing to let go of their land under certain conditions. The data for the article was collected in India in 2009–10.     

领域化理论视角下的乡村旅游社区社会空间变迁——以丹霞山青湖塘村为例

乡村地区的旅游发展带来乡村社会空间的快速变迁与重构。对此,现有研究主要侧重空间生产过程的分析,而空间生产与权力关系之间的联系尚未充分理论化。论文以丹霞山青湖塘村为例,借助领域化理论,分析了多元主体的领域化行为所引发的乡村旅游社区社会空间变迁,总结了其中交织的权力—空间关系及社会空间变迁机制。结果发现：乡村旅游社区社会空间变迁是一个持续的领域化过程,是由“领域的社会组织”与“社会的领域组织”之间的交互作用所引致的,在这个过程中,无论是自上而下的管控权力还是自下而上的抵制权力,只有通过领域建构实现空间化才能实现真正的控制,权力关系正是在空间化中实现了生产与再生产。基于此,论文对旅游地社会空间变迁中的“权力—空间关系”进行了初步理论化,并讨论了领域化分析对于旅游社区产权制度实践、旅游地空间治理等问题所具有的启示意义。     

国家公园游憩利用与社区协调的空间重构机理与联动逻辑

游憩活动带来的“人”与“地”的互动使国家公园原本的人地关系有了更复杂的内涵。国家公园的社区协调与游憩利用需要联动发展,其机理是当代社会由流空间与地方场所形成的空间重构。以流空间理论为基础,解析国家公园空间重构机理,构建游憩利用与社区协调的空间联动逻辑模型,结果发现：1）国家公园生态空间所具有的独特资源禀赋是生活空间、生产空间、游憩空间运行发展的基础,生活、生产、游憩空间三者都影响生态空间的生态承载力。2）生活空间中原住民的地方依恋和文化认同都起源于生态空间,为游憩空间提供人文资源,通过宜居程度和生活保障的提升来促进生产空间的优化。3）生产空间也为游憩空间提供具有原真性的文化资源,通过生产方式的转变和就业渠道的增加提高原住民的收入水平,带动生活空间的改善。4）游憩空间所产生的经济资本和文化资本能够助力于生态空间的维护、助力于生活空间的改善和生产空间的优化。因此在未来的国家公园建设与发展中,一是需要根据流空间结构,推进游憩利用与社区协调的科学管理;二是基于空间重构机理,促进游憩利用与社区协调的要素流动;三是需要利用空间联动逻辑,完善游憩利用与社区协调的多元发展模式。     

浅析湿地公园的社区参与

湿地公园承担着保护生态思想的传播责任,而湿地公园的建设、保护和管理需要社会共同的关注和参与。社区作为生态旅游文化的营销终端,可通过监督、宣传等参与活动与湿地公园形成互动,对城市、湿地公园和社区居民部具有十分重要的积极作用。本文列举了国外湿地公园的群众参与情况,提出构建社区参与机制的原则,以供有关部门和单位借鉴。     

Belongingness and the Harlem drummers

In this article, I analyze a recent conflict over drumming in a Harlem park to understand the ways in which cultural and racial symbols are employed in negotiations of space within cities. Specifically, I argue that racial belongingness—a racialized claim to space that exists outside of property rights and demarcated through iconography—can be used to both resist and facilitate gentrification in urban locales. The Harlem case illustrates how racial belongingness functions as a device that allows groups to contest power, representation, and access to public space across temporal, physical, and aural boundaries. Thus, I look closely at the city as a canvas and stage upon which passive forms of communication manifest in a racially and culturally coded fashion. Additionally, I argue that contemporary public space discourse is overly preoccupied with class, often neglecting the significance of race in the constitution and experience of urban space.     

The political economy and geopolitical context of India's economic crisis, 1990–91

The Indian economy suffered a balance of payment crisis in 1991, which provided the context for the rolling out of neoliberal policies, also referred to as the New Economic Policy in India. This paper examines the national and global causes and context of India's economic crisis and adoption of neoliberal policies. While grounding my analysis in historical‐geographical materialism, I argue that India's economic crisis was a product of certain contingent conditions. I draw attention to India's pre‐neoliberal economic regime and analyse how the earlier‐established relationship between revenue generation and expenditure ran into trouble; what changes occurred in the organization and management of revenues and capital; nature of interventions of the state in the circulation of capital; changes in the physical aspects of circulation of commodities, together with foreign trade and the formation of the ‘world market’; and the rise of the United States as the only global superpower. I conclude that India's economic crisis of 1990–91, and the neoliberal policies that followed, are products of contingent historical and geographical conditions. A teleological approach towards examining global capitalism and production of economic crisis often neglect such contingencies and provide a set of causalities that may, at best, be classified as incomplete.