‘Bringing government to the people’: women, local governance and community participation in South Africa

This paper considers the ongoing political transformations in South Africa in the context of debates about good governance and participatory democracy. It first appraises the current transformations of local government in South Africa, focusing specifically on relationships between gender equality and citizenship on the one hand, and local government policy, legislation, and community participation on the other, and then explores meanings of participation and how they inform approaches towards local socio-economic development. The findings of primary research conducted with civil society organisations and black women in communities in the Cape Town metropolitan area are explored through three interrelated themes. First, the model of structured participation that is central to South Africa’s democratic transformation is assessed from the perspective of black women. Second, cultures of alienation, both within local governance structures and amongst black women and the extent to which recent restructuring is combating or contributing to these are explored. Third, how participation policies are dealing with conflict within and between target groups are analysed, whether stakeholder group politics obliterate important differences in interests and whether alternative structures might be more effective in terms of women’s participation and empowerment. Finally, the findings are interpreted in relation to theoretical concepts of good governance and participatory democracy, and the potential and problems of realising South Africa’s transformation process toward developmental local government are assessed.     

Spatial imaginary and geography: A plea for the geography of representations

After twenty years of work on the geography of representations, how is it still possible to define geography as “the science of space”, ie as direct knowledge of material reality? This conception of the discipline — based on Cartesian precepts of evidence (eg the observer's independent certainty), reductionism (ie a disaggregation into sets of simple elements), causality (ie the presupposition of a linear linkage between cause and effect) and exhaustiveness (ie the certainty that nothing essential has been omitted) — has been thrown into question by the geography of representations' holistic approach. How can our scientific practices be separated from our interior existence with its affective and emotional aspects? Is not scientific action an extension of being? Mustn't the geographer, above and beyond the observation of concrete phenomena, also understand the subtle and complex — at times random and hidden — links which unite human beings and their life-space, be it from the viewpoint of the poet, or of all those who take alternative approaches to geography? What I would like to demonstrate is (1) how in an historically and socially given environment, the individual constructs his own reality in linking together the structural, functional and symbolic; (2) how the representation of the landscape is related to our existential experience; and (3) how the imaginary and the real are connected in each place.     

Beyond geography: The geography of the beyond in ancient Japan

This paper is a review of the literature on the world-view of the ancient cosmography of Japan. It explores the structure of cosmographical space as it was conceived, through archaeological evidence, historical written records and comparative study of primitive religion. It then goes on to examine in some detail the landscape of that world-view, which reflected the actual physiography of Japan, only in mirror-image. It is argued that several aspects of the ancient world-view continue to influence not only some Japanese customs, but also play an underestimated role in determining some important aspects of land use in modern Japan, particularly that associated with mountains and Shint shrines.     

Social epidemiology as medical geography: Back to the future

There is something very traditional about Nancy Krieger’s decidedly modern work. She advances a social epidemiology that is multidisciplinary, advancing a “quantitative population science” that is also spatial in its approach and method of analysis. Many geographers see their work as affirming the potential of medical cartography and geography as disciplines critical to public health studies of disease incidence. This article argues that the history of epidemiology and public health are historically spatial and geographic, a link lost in the research of many twentieth century health researchers. A review of the history of medical geography, and of public health, insists upon the spatiality of disease studies as a critical groundwork not simply for contemporary disease studies but for the history of disease studies as they have slowly developed over for more than 200 years.     

Scale and the other: Levinas and geography

This paper seeks to contribute to Geography's recent conversation of identity, landscape, scale and difference. It brings into dialogue previously divergent discussions about space, place and difference and proposes an approach that treats time, space, place and scale as co-equal conceptual and/or analytical elements of cultural landscapes. It argues that many philosophical debates about embodiment, emplacement and difference abstract a universalized notion of `place', `body' and `self' which confounds and conflates scale issues and consequently confuses the dialectical interplay of `time', `space', `being' and `culture' across scales. The paper takes the work of Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) and the discursive communities around it as a philosophical entry point into these debates.     

Perspectives on the contribution of Arabs and Muslims to geography

Conclusion The fact that Arab and Muslim geographers had contributed in a substantial way to geographical thought is well-recognized by many scholars of international standing including orientalists. It has now also been proved beyond any doubt that Muslim geographic thought was transmitted through Spain (Andalusia), Italy and Sicily during the Middle Ages to Europe. The Muslims had more advanced culture than did most of medieval Europe, and had made great discoveries in various fields of study (Hasan 1967). They had also preserved many of the writings of ancient Greek, Roman and other oriental civilizations. It was through Spain that the Muslims made these works as well as their own contribution available for European scholars. The centres of learning in Muslim Spain were thriving, with scholars from many places and particularly so from Europe. As Arabic was the language of culture and learning, many books were translated from Arabic into Latin and other European languages including German, French and English (Ahmed 1947; Hasan 1967; Kish 1978; James & Martin 1981; Muhammadain 1988).It is also understood that when geographical works were not translated some of the ideas and concepts revealed in them were adopted in other translated works. With the final collapse of Muslim rule in Spain (1492 AD), Muslim intellectual centres were opened to Christians from all over Europe. Indeed, translations from Arabic into European languages continued well into the 16th century, and some of the translated books remained in use until the 17th century.To ignore, as did some writers, the contribution of Muslims to geography during the Middle Ages, and to claim that the European Renaissance developed independently of what was happening in the Islamic world, is to dismiss seven centuries of Muslim leadership of world culture. Surely, no one nation or group of people can claim all the achievements of our present civilization. Present-day civilization is actually the sum total of all the past human efforts which have been accumulated over the long years of man's existence on earth, and as such there can be no gaps in human cultural history. While accepting the fact that the contribution of the various groups of people to the advancement of culture has not been the same, all are participants and have shared in its building and development. By looking at human cultural history in this spirit, it would not be difficult to appreciate the positive role played by the Arabs and Muslims in the advancement of knowledge during the Middle Ages. One of these branches of knowledge, which we have been trying to explain in this essay, is geography. To put the contribution of Arab and Muslim geographers into even more perspective, one can say that their most outstanding and original contributions, as has been stated before, were in the field of regional and mathematical geography as well as surveying. Although most of the studies were concerned with regions or individual countries, some contributions were highly specialized dealing with only one topic, such as climate or plants. The regional approach is represented by the many books written with the title: Al-Masalik wa Al-Mamalik or Roads and Provinces, and those with the title: Al-Bilad or Countries. As has been indicated earlier in this essay, treatment in these regional studies has beencomprehensive covering almost all aspects of physical and human geography.To contemporary Muslim people the science of geography will continue to be as appealing as it was to their predecessors, partly because of religious needs and partly because of the Muslim love for his environment. To sum up, in the following quotations from the Holy Quran Muslims are asked to contemplate four things: qu]Do they not look At the Camels, How they are made? And at the sky, How it is raised high? And at the mountains, How they are fixed firm? And at the Earth, How it is spread out? (Holy Quran: Sura LXXXVIII, verses 17\2–20).The contemplation of these things does not only make Muslims sense the absolute powers of their Creator, but also makes them constantly aware of their geographical surroundings.     

Forest offsets and the California compliance market: Bringing an abstract ecosystem good to market

Improved Forest Management (IFM) projects under the California cap-and-trade market allow production of new, non-traditional commodities: forest carbon offsets. Earlier analyses have considered forest offsets generated through tree planting in the Global South, as vehicles for sustainable development. However, the California IFM program is testing offset production in new geographic and forest management contexts: with offsets produced and consumed within the US on working (timber producing) forests. With data drawn from California IFM project design documents and in-depth interviews with carbon project developers, this study traces the development, sale, and maintenance of forest offsets, in order to map access to benefits along the commodity chain. Results reveal that the cost and complexity of rendering biological services ‘real’ for market legitimacy are reducing benefits to marginal landowners, who lack needed capital, knowledge, and technology to bring offsets to market. An important insight of this study is that the state has maintained power over program participation and offset supply through control of the forest offset methodology, creating a production process largely mediated by the state, adding risk and uncertainty to market participation. Findings provide an empirical example of neoliberal nature and offer broader lessons on governance and benefit distribution for ecosystem service commodity chains.     

Social geography: its place and formation

The Soviet geographical literature of the last decade has adopted four principal, alternative premises about the place of social geography within the overall system of geography. These are that social geography: (1) does not exist as a separate branch of the subject; (2) belongs to a lower hierarchical order of geography, usually as a sub-division of population geography; (3) belongs to a medium level within the hierarchy of geography, broadly equivalent in status to economic geography; or (4) belongs to the highest hierarchical level of the subject, being synonymous with the geography of human society (sodetal geography). The author stresses the difference between the wider definition of social geography, which takes it to be the geography of society, studying the arrangement of sodetal objects in their geographical interrelations, and the narrow view, which defines ‘social’ as sociological. In this case, social geography is synonymous with sociological geography; it studies sociological objects in their geographical setting. The paper also discusses the process of the sociologization of geography.     

Gender, geography and policy: the conundrums of engagement

This paper contemplates the relationship between the discipline of geography, and the making of public policy. It is particularly concerned with the compatibilities and incompatibilities of the nature of academic knowledge production and public policy development. As such, we contribute to an ongoing debate among geographers regarding whether and how they should engage with policy, and utilize examples from our involvement in the Metropolis Project, a Canadian initiative based on interdisciplinary research networks linked to government and public service agencies involved in immigrant settlement. We argue ultimately that geographers do need to engage politically with policymaking, but that the manner in which to do this is never straightforward, but rather takes place across institutional, ideological, and political landscapes that are perpetually shifting. Finally we suggest some helpful tools from feminist methodologies with which to approach policy-related issues.     

In bed with the state: political geography and sexual politics

Part of the task of reconfiguring Political Geography must be to consider forms of political activism and participation other than those which have traditionally been the mainstay of the discipline. The rise of new democratic struggles and new social movements, including those around sexual politics, must be integrated into the agenda of a reformulated Political Geography. This paper considers some of the most pressing concerns of contemporary sexual politics—queer politics, sexual citizenship, and AIDS activism—as a way of opening up Political Geography to ‘sex’.     

On rationality: Contemporary geography and the search for the foolproof method

Recent works on geographic explanation rest on an almost unanimous belief in the existence of a universal, discoverable form of rationality. At the same time, works in other disciplines — notably anthropology and the philosophy and history of science — are more circumspect; they suggest that there may be several or even many types of rationality. Because the question of the nature of rationality has decided implications insofar as other issues — of relativism, for example — are concerned, it is worth considering in more detail. Analysis suggests that those who believe in a universal form of rationality more fundamentally are expressing a desire for the creation of a foolproof method in geography, one based in part on a deep-seated but unquestioned belief in progress.     

Economic development and the geography of crime: an empirical analysis

The paper examines criminality as one of the second order consequences of development which the society has been struggling off for so long. In the study area, Kwara State of Nigeria, positive associations between development and criminality have begun to manifest themselves. The highest positive associations are between criminality and urbanization, telephone and motor vehicles respectively, while the lowest associations are with industrialization, electricity and education. In order to reduce criminality without holding down development in the state, various suggestions have been made. Central measures include more equitable distribution of criminality, strengthening of the police force and free mobilization of policemen from high crime areas to low crime areas. Long term measures include improving the socio-economic wellbeing of the general populace with special reference to the provision of modern industries, education, electricity, water and roads to rural dwellers and thereby curbing the wave of rural-urban migration and its attendant social ills. This should be accompanied by unqualified deep-rooted revolution in the monstrously unjust socio-economic system we currently operate, for afterall, as Peet (1975) rightly observed crime is a surface expression of discontents which lie deeply embedded in the social system.