What local people? Examining the Gállok mining conflict and the rights of the Sámi population in terms of justice and power

The global extraction of minerals is commonly located in areas populated by indigenous people; and while conflicts between multinational corporations and local activists and indigenous people are widespread today, the understanding of their dynamics are lacking. The Swedish government’s encouragement to an expanding mining industry has caused resistance due to environmental and social implications, particularly its effect on Sámi reindeer husbandry. The resistance to a mine in Gállok is based on the belief that the right to decide about land use historically falls on the Sámi people, and the right to affect land use is detrimental for the survival of Sámi culture and reindeer husbandry. Although the conflict may be perceived as concerning access to natural resources, we argue that the perceived environmental conflict can be viewed as part of a larger struggle over social status and recognition. Data have been collected using qualitative methods such as observations, interviews and documents. The subsequent analysis relies on a meta-theoretical framework of justice as recognition using a typology of relations of power. Our findings suggest that relations of power constitute different categories of social actors. Stakeholders like the Sámi population are subordinated to more dominant stakeholders such as the government, the company and media, who have ‘more’ power or ‘different’ kinds of power ‘over’ others. Through these asymmetric power relations, historical state-Sámi relations are continuously reproduced within prevailing institutions, and also in this mining conflict. Interviewees from business and the municipality testified to the discourses driven by a neoliberal and profit-focused worldview. Challenging the neoliberal discourse, other stakeholders, namely civil society and Sámi, expressed an alternative discourse based on a local, traditional, cultural, environmental and anti-neoliberal worldview.     

“Yes to Peace”? Environmental peacemaking and transboundary conservation in Central America

The use of transboundary conservation as tools for improving interstate relations has become a widely supported initiative in nature conservation. The rationale follows the environmental peacemaking hypothesis, which argues that seemingly neutral environmental issues can provide a sound basis for cooperation between states. The paper investigates the hypothesis’ premise through the case of International System of Protected Areas for Peace (Si-A-Paz), a transboundary protected area shared by Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In recent years, both countries have been involved in a number of border conflicts within Si-A-Paz and linked to the use of the San Juan River, contested land areas, and oil resources. The case of Si-A-Paz shows that transboundary environmental issues can provide arguments for maintaining or even strengthening conflicts rather than fostering peace between states. The case also shows the emergence of environmental issues as a new arena for geopolitical play, where actors not only justify their actions through an environmental discourse but also, the environmental discourse is stretched to include a variety of issues through which actors can obtain international support. The events in Nicaragua and Costa Rica raise questions about the role of transboundary conservation as a peacebuilding tool.     

Alternative states: Regions and postfordism rhetoric on the internet

European regions increasingly develop inter-regional and transnational visions. They not only compete with each other on the basis of traditional location factors (transport, taxes, and labour market) but also by calling up the image of an entirely alternative society which is portrayed as both flexible and capable of self-reproduction. In this article the presence of this (postfordist) discourse is investigated in Web sites of four European regions: Baden-Württemberg, Cataluña, Leningrad and Friesland. Baden-Württemberg confirms its reputation as one of the most outspoken representatives of the new regional assertiveness. Its rhetoric relies on a mixture of cultural, individual and technological arguments largely neglecting internal geographical variation. Although this type discourse can be easily emulated – irrespective of real world differences in the regimes of accumulation – not all regions seem to have (yet) succumbed to its formula.     

From new political organizations to changing moral geographies: Unpacking global civil society

The discourse of globalization suggests that territorial and cultural boundaries are increasingly insignificant or even disappearing in today's `world of flows'. More recently, this notion of borderlessness has also suffused broad reaches of the imagination of policy-makers and social scientists in the Western world. Thus, the term `global civil society' was coined to capture the experience and impact of transnational environmental and human rights activism. In this paper, however, it is argued that the concept remains both undertheorized and empirically dubious. In order to analytically `unpack' the concept, I provide a brief summary of an empirical research project on networks of new political organizations in South Asia and the West. The evidence assembled suggests the need to reconceptualize the geographies of transborder solidarity and concern beyond the rhetoric of global civil society.     

Transnational ties and intra-immigrant group settlement experiences: A case study of Indian Bengalis and Bangladeshis in Toronto

Transnational theories have established that, after migrating to a new country, migrants often maintain their pre-existing social, economic, and political ties to their home country. The extent to which however, transnational institutional and social connections may affect the residential location and housing experiences of immigrant and refugee groups, and why and how these experiences differ within broadly defined immigrant groups such as the ‘South Asians’ remains unexplored. Building on transnational theory and previous research on the housing trajectories of new Canadians, this paper examines the housing experiences of two recently arrived ‘South Asian’ subgroups in Toronto–Indian Bengalis and Bangladeshis. By highlighting important intra-immigrant group differences, the study reveals how diverse transnational ties affect their neighbourhood choice and the type, tenure, and quality of housing when they first arrived in Toronto.     

How a court, a commissioner and a lobby group brought European transport policy to life in 1985

Until the mid-1980s, transport policy was considered by many as one of the least successful domains of the European integration project. However, from the early 1990s onwards, there are clear signs of a single European transport policy, along with the accompanying implementation of infrastructure projects. What is the explanation for such a change in pace? This paper aims to offer insight in these processes by looking at the mechanisms which form and transform this policy domain. To understand the state of a policy domain and its dynamics over time an institutional approach is taken. Two concepts in political science, ‘policy arrangements’ and ‘supranational governance’ are combined and used as a framework to analyse the European transport policy domain. This analysis describes the development of several elements: organisations, rules, the transnational society, power, resources, and the central transport discourse. It demonstrates that all of these elements have developed from an intergovernmental setting towards a more supranational one. This development was slow in the first decennia when European transport policy was rather passive, but it picked up speed in the 1980s and 1990s. In the pivotal year of 1985, pressure from the transnational society resulted in a rapid change of the rules, the resources and the discourse.     

The security exception: Development and militarization in Laos’s protected areas

Because of the role that peripheral forest landscapes played in postwar nation-building, the Lao military has long played a significant, even if often hard-to-see, role in the administration of the country’s protected areas. This role is becoming increasingly apparent as transnational market-based forest governance efforts begin to threaten military administration of protected areas. As a consequence, the multi-dimensional nature of security – both defensive in the classic military sense, but also increasingly economic and complex – is coming to light through uses of what we describe as the security exception: the invocation of national security, in this case by military actors, to manage the reach and efficacy of emerging forest governance efforts. Projects to reduce climate-related emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) have been especially prone to trigger the security exception due to their focus on forest measurement and change over time, and are examined here in two cases from protected areas in western and southern Laos. We suggest that even as conflicts over forest management may be interpreted through the lens of foreign domination and the loss of domestic sovereignty – indeed the security exception feeds on such interpretations – these conflicts are better understood as struggles within the Lao state and society over the how to manage and use forest resources in a context of economic uncertainty and persistent underdevelopment. In such a context, the role of conservation NGOs and Western donors as gatekeepers to ongoing transnational governance efforts is nonetheless highly significant.     

Beyond environmental frames: The social representation and cultural resonance of nature in conflicts over a Dutch woodland

Frame analysis has been widely employed to understand environmental conflicts. Such studies emphasize the internal dynamics of conflict and focus on how actors discursively struggle with each other in order to gain hegemony over the dominant discourse on the issue. In this paper, we argue that the explanatory power of framing theory could be enhanced by relating issue specific frames to the broader cultural context in which framing efforts are situated. In order to investigate the link between the success of framing strategies and the cultural background of such strategies, we suggest rethinking the concept of cultural resonance. We propose social representations theory as a novel way of understanding this cultural resonance of spatial and environmental frames. Based on a dispute over the management of a national park in the Netherlands, we empirically illustrate how contending stakeholders refer to different social representations of nature in the framing of local conflicts. A local protest group proves to be much more in touch with the views of the local community and is thus more successful in its framing of the dispute than the nature conservation agency involved. While the protest group uses a wide range of locally embedded representations of nature to enhance the currency of its framing efforts, the nature conservation agency responsible for the management of the forest refers to a much more limited range of representations. By making references only to the wilderness representation of nature, the cultural resonance of the agency’s framing efforts remains limited to those residents who adhere to this specific representation of nature. Consequently, this framing is not very successful among groups that adhere to other representations of nature, such as aesthetic or inclusive representations. Our analysis shows that combining framing theory with social representations theory enables one to disentangle the framing of environmental disputes from the more constant cultural values and opinions on which this framing is based.     

新型农村社区建设与土地管理若干问题初探

积极推进农村社区建设,健全新型社区管理和服务体制,是中共中央关于构建社会主义和谐社会若干重大问题的决定。文章分析了农村新型社区的建设与土地管理的矛盾,建议必须处理好新型农村社区建设与城乡建设用地增减挂钩的关系,处理好土地权属等关系。     

“This is a Montreal Issue”: Negotiating responsibility in global production and investment networks

While geographers have increasingly focused on how global commodity and production networks create new ‘geographies of responsibility’ there has been little empirical work considering how responsibility is worked into management systems and social activism in such networks. Drawing on literature from global production networks, geographies of responsibility and other literatures, this paper explores the dynamic and contested ways in which concepts of responsibility can play a role in network regulation. Both foreign direct investment and commodity networks (here referred to as ‘global production and investment networks’) are subject to complex negotiations and compromises involving corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives as well as shareholder activist, human rights, labor, and environmental activism. This is illustrated by reference to conflicts in Canada over Alcan, Inc.’s investments from 1993 to 2007 in the Utkal Alumina Project in Orissa, India. The project involved significant socio-environmental conflict. In Canada, Alcan’s investment was met by civil society campaigns that tested the company’s commitments to sustainability and corporate social responsibility. The case study suggests revising theories of geographies of responsibility. While foreign direct investment can create new relationships between distant others, these are fluid and contingent and not necessarily desirable. Rather than see networks as a source of responsibility we should work to ensure that the relationships that networks foster be structured to ensure our deeper values are respected.     

Transnational elites in global cities: British expatriates in Singapore's financial district

Skilled international migration is as an important process of both contemporary globalization and the global city. The establishment of a transnational elite of expatriate labour in international finance plays a vital part in the accumulation of capital within international financial centres (IFCs). Expatriate labour has become a major determinant of the IFC, creating financial capital through complex social relations, knowledge networks, practices and discourses. The principal argument being made in this paper is that expatriates are major agents in the accumulation and transfer of financial knowledge in the IFC, and that such processes are undertaken through expatriate global–local knowledge networks and other social practices. The paper is divided into three major parts. Following a discussion of transnational elites as expatriates in global cities, which also conceptualises their contribution to the spatialization of financial knowledge networks, the empirical study investigates the working, social and cultural knowledge networks and practices of British expatriates in Singapore. Finally, the paper revisits the conceptual work on transnational elites and suggests that expatriates were deeply embedded in global–local relations in the workplace and the business/social sphere through interaction with local ‘western educated/experienced' Singaporeans, but were disembedded from the local in the home and other household social spaces due to the invisibility of the local population in their interactions. Both the theoretical and empirical analyses suggests that expatriates are flow in the Castellian spatial logic of the network society.     

Intrusions and exclusions: Democratization in Thailand in the context of environmental discourses and resource conflicts*

This article sketches the process of democratization in Thailand, focusing on shifting relations between civil society and state actors. Environmental discourse and conflicts about natural resources, specifically forests, during the last two decades, have been one of the main fields of social controversy and change. In the context of these controversies, civil society actors, in resistance to and alliance with state agencies, drove forward democratization by intruding into power domains of the state. State agents, increasingly forced to justify their actions according to democratic norms in the expanding space of public debate, had to search for allies and majorities within civil society. The successful establishment of public debate as an integral part of political decision making, on the one hand, resulted in a diversification of civil society, on the other hand, forced powerful segments of society to organize and defend their interests within the new public political space. Strategies of exclusion, referring to nationalism and ethnicism, have become an important instrument to secure positions and power, threatened in the process of democratization and emancipation of discriminated social groups.     

“Racism in a Melting Pot…?” Trinidadian mid-life transnational migrants’ views on race and colour-class on return to their homes of descent

This paper deals with second-generation, one-and-a-half generation and “prolonged sojourner” Trinidadian transnational migrants, who have decided to ‘return’ to the birthplace of their parents. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, the paper considers both the positive and critical things that these youthful transnational migrants report about returning to, and living in, this multi-ethnic plural society and the salience of racial and colour-class stratification as part of their return migration experiences. Our qualitative analysis is based on the narratives provided by these youthful returnees, as relayed “in their own words”, presenting critical reflections on racism, racial identities and experiences as transnational Trinidadians. It is clear that it is contexts such as contemporary working environments, family and community that act as the reference points for the adaptation “back home” of this strongly middle-class cohort. We accordingly encounter a diverse, sometimes contesting set of racial issues that emerge as salient concerns for these returnees. The consensus is that matters racial remain as formidable legacies in the hierarchical stratification of Trinidadian society for a sizeable number. Many of our respondents reported the positive aspects of racial affirmation on return. But for another sub-set, the fact that multi-ethnic and multi-cultural mixing are proudly embraced in Trinidad meant that it was felt that return experiences were not overly hindered, or blighted by obstacles of race and colour-class. For these returnees, Trinidad and Tobago is seen as representing a 21st century “Melting Pot”. But for others the continued existence of racial divisions within society - between ethnic groups and among those of different skin shades - was lamented. In the views of these respondents, too much racial power is still ascribed to ‘near-whiteness’. But for the most part, the returnees felt that where race played a part in their new lives, this generally served to advantage them. However, although the situation in Trinidad appears to have been moderated by assumptions that it remains a racial ‘Melting Pot’, the analysis strongly suggests that the colour-class system of stratification is still playing an essential role, along with racial stereotyping in society at large.     

The Alta case: Learning from the errors made in a human ecological conflict in Norway

This paper explores the historical, geographical and human ecology aspects of an extreme conflict between development and conservation in northern Scandinavia. Development of hydro-power projects not only affects the physical environment but also conflicts with the culture of a distinct ethnic community, the Sami Lapps. Over one hundred power and mining projects have now been constructed in Sami territory, the cumulative effects of which have focused opposition to the Alta—Kautokeino Waterway. The long- and short-term origins of the conflict are analysed in the light of Sami ecology and Norwegian administrative principles. How the Sami ecology has affected the national frontiers and recent resource management issues are described. Finally, the importance of environmental protests and public hearings in the resolution of fundamental resource/land use conflicts is discussed. The author concludes that the basic aspects of land use conflict may be analysed by using a symbiotic ecology model and applying this to technical human activities.     

Radioactive waste management policies in seven industrialized democracies*

This paper provides an inventory of radioactive waste management policies in seven industrialized democracies: the U.S., France, Japan, West Germany, Canada, the U.K. and Sweden. Collectively, these countries account for almost 75% of the world's installed nuclear power capacity and over 61% of its spentfuel production. Special emphasis is given to siting procedures for both high- and low-/intermediate-level waste repositories. Although several low-level repositories are operating or under construction, only West Germany has selected a site for high-level waste disposal, at Gorleben. It is expected that siting decisions will be highly conflict-laden in each country except for pro-nuclear France. The procedures for resolving potential siting conflicts are briefly reviewed. Sweden's strategy of siting its low-level repository near Forsmark offshore beneath the Baltic seabed minimizes conflict and may become attractive to other nations. Also, transnational agreements may eventually be sought as radioactive waste disposal is an international problem. This paper concludes with a comparative discussion of siting policies and their potential impacts.     

The Upper Adriatic borderland: From conflict to harmony

The paper presents an overview of the Upper Adriatic as a contact area between different cultural, social, economic and political entities, producing potential conflicts in the last century. The first part of the 20th century represented a classic example of geopolitical conflict through two World Wars and their related Peace Conferences that deeply impacted the region. Conflicts arising from the mid-century solution of the Trieste question transformed the Upper Adriatic into a laboratory of contemporary political geographic transformation. Changing geopolitical patterns have also modified the political, social and ethnic construction of the Upper Adriatic. The process of creating new international boundaries in the region ended in 1991 with the independence of Slovenia and Croatia. Through these geopolitical transformations in the Upper Adriatic, new political geographic attitudes evolved. Early on, Ratzel's geopolitical principles of defining borders as power barometers between neighbors dominated. More recently, attitudes have reflected modern integrative ideas with a focus on looking for harmony and the elimination of international conflicts. Greater attention has thus been given to the political geography of `everyday life', inter-ethnic relations, and cross-border contacts. Hence, `new' borderlands of the Upper Adriatic are more receptive to integration because they seek to overcome conflicts caused by the division of traditionally homogeneous spaces as local level political and ideological hindrances disappear. The region divided among Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia is becoming a new and special type of European borderland in the new century.     

Environmental diplomacy in South Asia: Considering the environmental security,conflict and development nexus

Environmental security concerns have broadened the national security agenda and discourse of international relations. Yet environmental insecurity issues have endured impacts on livelihood, human security, social equity, human rights, internal security, political stability, economic growth and development of the state. Environmental challenges, such as climate change, water scarcity and energy security are shaping development and consumption patterns, which are possible causes of inter-state conflict in South Asia. This paper is an attempt to evaluate the nexus of climate change, energy and water security with conflict and development. Furthermore, we argue for the need for environmental diplomacy in Pakistan within the South Asian context. The argument is that integration of development with environmental factors and peacemaking has potential to achieve sustainable development in South Asia.     

Digging into Google Earth: An analysis of “Crisis in Darfur”

Google publicists have suggested the Crisis in Darfur is an example of the Google Earth software’s “success at tangibly impacting what is happening on the ground.” Yet whether or not Google Earth’s interface, along with a medley of other media representations of the conflict, have impacted events on the ground or led to coherent policies of humanitarian intervention remains open to debate. This article draws upon critical approaches from media studies—namely discourse analysis—to analyze several aspects of the Google Earth/USHMM Crisis in Darfur project. While this project was no doubt developed with the noble intention of generating international awareness about widespread violence that has recently occurred in the Darfur region, it is important to evaluate how representations of global conflicts are changing with uses of new information technologies and whether such representations can actually achieve their desired impacts or effects. The article begins with a discussion of the Crisis in Darfur project’s history, proceeds to analyze some of the press coverage of the project and then moves to a critique of the layer using four categories of analysis: (1) the shifting role of satellite image; (2) the temporality of the interface; (3) the practice of conflict branding; and (4) the practice of “information intervention.” Throughout the article, I explore how the presentation of Darfur-related materials through Google Earth reproduces problematic Western tropes of African tragedy and misses an opportunity to generate public literacy around satellite images. I also consider how humanitarianism is intertwined with digital and disaster capitalism, and suggest that this instance of “information intervention” makes patently clear that high visual capital alone cannot resolve global conflicts.     

Contested diamond certification: Reconfiguring global and national interests in Zimbabwe’s Marange fields

This study examines the political uses of “conflict diamond” discourse in global debates about commodity certification and socially responsible mining in Zimbabwe. Engaging critical literature on “conflict-free” corporate branding initiatives, the study focuses on representations of conflict in Marange, in Zimbabwe’s eastern highlands. In 2006, a diamond rush in Marange drew in tens of thousands of artisanal miners from across Zimbabwe as well as foreigners, and the government initiated military crackdowns in 2008. In a highly contested vote in 2009, the international government delegates who comprised the voting members in the Kimberley Process Certification System (KPCS) ruled that conflict in Marange did not meet the KPCS definitions of “conflict diamond.” The study examines discourses of key stakeholders in the multinational diamond industry, human rights organizations, policymakers as well as artisanal miners in Zimbabwe between 2006 and 2014. The article argues that advocacies against diamond certification as well as advocacies favouring certification both tended to overlook the interests of artisanal miners, focusing narrowly on certain forms of conflict while associating artisanal mining with illicitness. The Marange case illustrates how conventional discourses on “conflict diamonds” not only obscure the complex nature of conflicts in contemporary capitalist accumulation processes; they also risk contributing to new forms of structural violence. This analysis highlights the need to pay careful attention to how global commodity certification discourses inter-relate with political agendas at multiple scales. The study draws attention to dilemmas for geographers when portraying the interests of marginalized groups in – and affected by – the diamond mining sector.     

“Where is home?” Here and there: transnational experiences of home among Canadian migrants in the United States

Using structured telephone interviews this research focuses on how Canadian migrants living in the United States experience and describe home. We argue that the globalisation of peoples’ lives, transnationalism and the concomitant creation of transnational social spaces have greatly affected the meaning of home for migrants. The understandings of home that result reflect the reality of living in social worlds that span two countries and the development of decentred multiple attachments and feelings of belonging in more than one place. In response to these circumstances Canadian migrants experience home as multi-dimensional, pluri-local, and characterized by regular movement across the U.S.–Canada border. When asked specifically about feeling at home upon re-entry to the U.S. many respondents answered yes. However, many interviewees qualified their answers by describing home in different ways and associating different aspects of their lives with each country. Canada as home was most often described in terms of family, while home in the U.S. was associated with work. Respondents also differentiated between feeling at home once they reached their residence as opposed to feeling unwelcome at the U.S. border.