Post-welfare city at the margins: immigrant precarity and the mediating third sector in London

The putative post-welfare city is marked by a debate between continuity with previous welfare structures, versus a radical break whereby new, more punitive measures prevail. Seeking to clarify the role of the third sector at the margins of the debated post-welfare city, margins which can be characterized by a stigmatized and abandoned clientele, I focus on organizations serving precarious migrants in London. There were 15 interviews of third sector organizations across well-served, inner boroughs (Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets) and less well-served outer boroughs (Brent, Hounslow). The results indicated a mixed intermediary role for third sector organizations: strong in compensating and filling the gaps from an absent state, yet rather weak in contesting or challenging the overbearing state on behalf of their clients. More generically, the results also underlined the importance of looking beyond the labor market to appreciate the intricacies of social reproduction among precarious populations, as well as recognizing important continuities in support systems that belie a radical break with previous structures.     

State territorialization,neoliberal governmentality: the remaking of Dafen oil painting village,Shenzhen, China

ABSTRACT

After being showcased during Shanghai EXPO2010, Dafen village has been put forward as an example of “best practice” governance that has transformed a backward urban village into an art cluster. Behind this glorified image is a continuously re-constructed social landscape. In this study, we adopt the approach of state territorialization, drawing insights from the Foucauldian concept of governmentality as disposition of things—in particular people and their relations to land. At issue here is how the dynamic process of territorialization, combined with the Chinese version of moral citizenship, serves the remaking of subjects, landscape, and their relations. In Dafen village, the experiment of fabricating conditioned welfare within China’s welfare system conjures up a new hukou arrangement and new forms of inclusion and exclusion. By exercising the technology of self-regulation, the state seeks temporal and fragile alignments with selected social groups. The outcomes are contingent and frequently take the form of new configurations of power.     

Exploring the Impact of Contextual Information on Student Performance and Interest in Open Humanitarian Mapping

The opportunity to engage university students in authentic, open humanitarian mapping raises important questions about how to guide the quality and productivity of volunteer spatial contributions while providing a valuable learning experience. It presents the unique chance to pique new mappers’ interest, satisfaction, and confidence in spatial technologies in particular, and technology in general, as well as pique their interest in the people and places that are served by the humanitarian mapping projects. This article shares the findings of a study that explores the importance of sharing authentic contextual information about the purpose of the humanitarian mapping task. Two groups of beginner mappers were given mapping tasks, with only one group being provided details on the purpose. Comparisons were made on their respective performance and changes in affective response to a series of questions about technology, education, good citizenship, and empathy. Measures of the quantity and quality of spatial data produced; their respective levels of interest, satisfaction, and confidence in technology; and affective responses before and after mapping show the relative effects of contextual information. Results provide insights about the potential effectiveness of authentic instruction on the performance of mapping as well as the potential effect on mappers themselves. Key Words: citizenship, data quality, empathy, humanitarian mapping, volunteered geographic information.     

Human ecology,ethnobotany and traditional practices in rural populations inhabiting the Monte region: Resilience and ecological knowledge

In this study, we looked for insights on how human populations inhabiting the Monte, interact with arid environments and how they use ecological knowledge on wild plants for their subsistence. Rural communities living in the Monte region have been undergoing extreme changes in both social and ecological scenarios. Most of them are agro-pastoral societies living under precarious conditions, and whose land shows marked signs of degradation. Wild plants represent an important part of their dietary components; i.e. these resources probably act as a sustenance buffer in periods of seasonal scarcity. In the present study, we analyzed some ethno-ecological strategies undertaken by these rural communities. The ethnobotanical knowledge of greatest cultural and nutritional significance includes the use of many wild plants such as Prosopis spp., Schinus spp., Ephedra spp., Condalia and Larrea spp., among others. Since ancestral times, these xeric species have been utilized as edible, medicinal, tinctorial, fodder and fuel resources. Many rural populations not only maintain wild plant use, but they also practice cattle transhumance, a tradition which tends to reduce over-grazing, allowing for the recovery of most palatable plants. Cattle transhumance, also an ancient practice, is based on landscape patchiness use. Both practices appear to be associated with an adaptive and resilient natural resource management. We refer to resilience as the capacity to cope with disturbances and changes, prevalent features in populations inhabiting this arid region. We also explore, through a study case in Patagonia, the present use of wild edible plants, its relationship with summer-cattle-transhumance, and the most salient socio-cultural factors affecting these practices. Summer-transhumance contributes to the utilization of a greater richness and quantity of wild edible plants. This activity, which used to be a family tradition, seems to be changing given that nowadays it is mainly carried out by single family members. Wild plant gathering and summer-transhumance traditions tend to be diminishing at present, probably caused by acculturation processes and socio-economic pressures. Consequently, by abandoning these ancestral customs, a negative impact on the resilience capacity of these rural communities might be occurring. This erosion process leads to a decrease in their long-term wellbeing as well as an increase in their socio-ecological vulnerability.     

Citizenship,Community, and Struggles for Public Space

On April 16, 1993, a group of male students at the University of Colorado got into a fight with another group of males not associated with the university; this fight unleashed a broader debate over who should have access to the public spaces surrounding the university. We examine this debate in terms of its implications for citizenship, public space, and community. We discuss conflicts over public space and the role these conflicts have played in defining a citizenship that rejects notions of equal membership in a larger polity. This strategy is examined using newspaper accounts, interviews, and participant observation techniques to understand the conflict over access to “the Hill” in Boulder, Colorado. Central to these conflicts is the issue of how “the public” is constituted. As we detail the actions of agents involved in the Hill, it will become clear that this fight is about competing definitions of who belongs to the public, who is a citizen, and what should be the criteria for membership in the public or community.     

Cancer risks from exposure to vehicular air pollution: a household level analysis of intra-ethnic heterogeneity in Miami,Florida

Quantitative environmental justice (EJ) research has relied on aggregated data from census units to determine disproportionate hazard exposure. Additionally, variables typically used to analyze ethnic inequities in exposure (e.g., percent Hispanic) are too broad and assume a degree of homogeneity that may not exist, given the diversity of ethnic minority populations. We address these limitations through a study that utilizes primary household level survey data and cancer risk estimates from the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) to analyze intra-ethnic inequities in exposure to vehicular air pollutants in the Miami metropolitan area, Florida. Our analysis disaggregates the Hispanic category based on five characteristics (language proficiency, U.S. citizenship, nativity, unemployment status, and national origin) and finds that risk burdens are significantly higher for Hispanic respondents who are foreign-born, unemployed, and of Cuban origin. Findings highlight the advantages of downscaling EJ analyses to the household level and considering intra-ethnic heterogeneity in EJ research and policy.     

全球金融科技产业的分布及其影响因素研究进展

金融科技是技术驱动的金融创新,通过金融与信息和通信技术的深层次融合,深刻改变着金融业的运作模式。当前,金融科技已成为各个国家和地区高度重视的前沿和关键领域,其发展也正在重塑全球和地方的金融格局。金融科技产业的发展及其空间分布引起了学术界和政策领域的广泛关注,本文系统总结了金融科技产业在不同尺度的空间分布特征,并梳理了影响金融科技产业发展的关键驱动因素。总体而言,在全球范围,亚洲和北美洲在金融科技领域发展领先,以中国为代表的亚洲经济体在金融科技领域的崛起对全球金融格局影响深远。传统的国际金融中心是金融科技发展的重要源地,同时科技中心城市也成为金融科技发展的新摇篮,两者共同决定了金融科技产业的地理格局。在城市内部,金融科技产业呈现出集群发展的态势,往往围绕现有的大型金融或科技企业集聚,或者依托加速器和孵化器发展。各级政府的推动进一步加速了金融科技产业集聚区的形成。经济金融发展水平、信息通信基础设施、金融科技的监管环境以及扶持金融科技的产业政策是影响金融科技产业发展的关键因素。最后,本文从区域发展的视角提出了促进金融科技产业集聚的政策建议和未来研究方向。     

粤港澳大湾区科技金融耦合度及其影响因素研究

科技创新与金融生态的紧密结合是社会经济取得高质量发展的重要基础和先决条件。粤港澳大湾区作为国家发展战略高地以及经济活力较高的区域之一,在推动科技创新、金融发展和产业融合方面已经取得了一定的成效。本文基于粤港澳大湾区各城市2009—2018年科技创新与金融发展的面板数据,通过测度粤港澳大湾区科技金融耦合协调度,并分析科技金融耦合协调发展的影响因素以及空间溢出效应。研究结果表明：粤港澳大湾区的公共科技金融和市场科技金融呈现了较快的发展态势,公共科技金融投入力度持续增大,市场科技金融形式不断创新,制度日趋完善;粤港澳大湾区各城市的科技金融耦合协调度呈现逐年优化趋势,但区域间仍存在明显的空间差异性;科技金融耦合协调度受到政府科技投入、金融效率、高新技术发展等因素的正向影响,但广东省及香港特别行政区内科技金融耦合协调度的空间溢出效应并不明显。最后,研究从政府机构、金融机构、科技型企业、科技金融服务部门等角度提出了政策建议。     

CITIZENSHIP,PARTNERSHIP AND THE POPULAR RESTRUCTURING OF U.K. URBAN SPACE

For over a decade the New Right philosophy of Thatcherism has directed the political, economic, and social development of the United Kingdom. The pursuit of market-dominated urban policies has marginalized large sections of the population who have remained untouched by the benefits of national economic growth. The concepts of citizenship and partnership are central to the doctrine of Thatcherism. This paper examines the nature of these concepts in the context of contemporary urban development and considers how redefinition can contribute to the formulation of policies to promote the popular restructuring of urban space.     

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND DOWNTOWN RESTRUCTURING: THE CASE OF NEW YORK CITY'S FINANCIAL DISTRICT

Among central-city land-use districts, the financial district traditionally has been the most locationally stable. Advances in building and business technology, such as steel frame contruction, the passenger elevator, and the telephone, have been accommodated through refitting existing sites. The changes in building technology required by modern, global financial companies, particularly the large horizontal footplates that exceed the size of traditional sites, have finally loosened the concentrated business district location. In downtown Manhattan, the result has been a doughnut shape, as large financial institutions have moved to the periphery, leaving Wall Street with back-office functions. The obsolescence of traditional locations imposed by a building technology that favors horizontal over vertical spaces may be offset by the perceived need for face-to-face contact. The degree to which financial institutions in world cities maintain a dispersed but identifiable district in the future may be an accurate measure of the value of urban propinquity.     

Being here and there: in-betweeness, double absence, and the making of a multi-layered academic citizenship

In this commentary I contribute to the ongoing debate about changing conditions of academic labour by sharing my personal experience as a fixed-term scholar dealing with an in-between positionality within the academia. This intervention is intended, on the one hand, to shed light on the condition of an increasing number of early career geographers today, which has not been highlighted by the literature so far; on the other hand, it pursues the more ambitious goal of providing reflections on the potential of a multi-layered academic citizenship in contemporary Europe.     

Smell this: Singapore's curry day and visceral citizenship

In August 2011, many Singaporean citizens grabbed their cooking pots and used the city‐state's national obsession with food to express growing dissatisfaction with immigration and integration trends. The ‘cook and share a pot of curry’ event—a local response to Chinese newcomers complaining about the smell of their Indian Singaporean neighbours’ food—is significant for its use of smell to catalyse a collective citizen reaction and for its reliance on contemporary social media. By analysing this event, we intend to (1) conceptualize the role of smell and viscera in framing citizenship; (2) understand how smells shed light on the city‐state's contemporary ethnic politics and sense of national identity; and (3) reframe the significance of curry day as an expression of visceral citizenship that complements how the state frames Singaporean citizenry. We maintain that curry day sheds light on a specific dimension of Singaporean citizenship, as it uses smell, viscera and embodied activism to mobilize against rationalistic state‐defined distinctions between local and international concerns, economic objectives and social cohesion, inter‐racial harmony and national identity.     

旅游发展对古村落村民公民性建构的影响——以开平古碉楼群为例

中国古村落是一个相对稳定和封闭的微社会,但当古村落作为世界文化遗产地得到旅游开发后,新的经济方式的介入以及大量游客的进入,对古村落村民的思想、生活等产生了重大冲击。研究发现,世界文化遗产地开平碉楼群随着旅游开发程度的不同,所在地村民呈现出公民性的差异。研究借助所建构的“公民性”指标,在证明旅游作为3个已开发古村落的主要经济驱动力的情况下,指出旅游开发越充分的古村落,村民的公民性越强。从而揭示出旅游作为一种改变古村落经济模式的主要驱动力,在中国3个地理位置毗邻、治理模式一致、风土民情相似的古村落中,因其发展带来了“公民性”普世伦理的出现。该研究回答了“公民性”这一普世的人类文明标尺在中国传统社会中产生的过程和机制,研究价值层面或对中国尚显薄弱的道德地理学的发展具有一定裨益。     

“Miss Remington” Goes to Work: Gender,Space, and Technology at the Dawn of the Information Age*

At the end of the 19th century, the financial services sector underwent a technological “revolution” with the invention of the typewriter, dictaphone, and hollerith machine. At the same time, the gender of labor within this sector was also changing, such that by the end of the first quarter of the 20th century, most of the work taking place in white‐collar offices was performed by women. After introducing the broader research project on which this is based, I consider how technology and social relations shaped one another at the level of the body, the workplace, and with broader networks of branch banking, focusing on early 20th‐century Montreal, Canada. I argue that the financial services sector worked to create a system in which men flowed through and women functioned as fixed points. I further argue that this pattern was echoed at different scales within the financial services industry, from the level of the body and the workplace up through spatially dispersed national‐level networks.     

State Transformation,Policy Learning,and Exclusive Displacement in the Process of Urban Redevelopment in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper explores the dynamics behind the changing regimes of urban renewal and its social impacts in Taiwan. Before the 1980s, the state was willing to solely shoulder the job of urban renewal with a wholly supportive financial budget and land appropriation law, while in the 1990s it became financially overburdened due to its renewal policy. Around the year 2000, the state turned towards promoting urban regeneration as a key business model. Through this historical exposition, the Taiwanese story of state transformation in urban renewal policy brings two issues to the fore. The first issue is the learning process concerning the policy of public-private partnership (PPP) initiatives. Trans-border policy mobility connects and constitutes cities, such as Taipei, with other places, such as London, through visits and seminars attended by policy makers and experts. However, policy transferred from abroad is “localized” in the learning process and used to prioritize the regeneration of public lands in the urban area. The PPP model is transformed in the face of domestic political struggles. The second issue is the social exclusion as a result of property-led regeneration. Rather than playing the role of an impartial institutional moderator, the state privileged landowners and developers and sacrificed the rights of tenants to stay put. By doing so, the state secures political support from landowner-cum-citizens and initiates a political culture of property in which local citizenship is predicated on ownership.     

Subversive formalization: efforts to (re)form land,labor, and behavior in a carioca favela

ABSTRACT

State entities in Brazil have rolled out numerous programs to “integrate” precarious settlements into the so-called formal city of Rio de Janeiro. Two of the most visceral integration projects in Rio’s favelas have been infrastructural upgrading and public security via military police occupation. Drawing on participant observation, interviews, and policy analysis, in this paper I trace how these projects attempt to formalize land, labor, and behavior in a complex of favelas called Complexo do Alemão. Inspired by postcolonial urban approaches to formalization, I argue that formality/informality as it operates through these projects is, in part, a performative distinction deployed by the state, echoing elite and popular socio-spatial imaginaries. I add, however, that non-state actors are also involved in their own practices of formalization. Residents themselves are re-making diverse forms of property, employment, and behavior through processes of subversive formalization, informed by their geographically-embedded and historical relationships with one another.     

On the edge: changing geographies of the global city precariat in London and Hong Kong

Global cities are marked by precarity, yet little attention has been paid to the spatial overlap between work precarity among migrants and third sector organizations that sustain them. In this paper, we estimate the location of precarious work migrants in two global cities, London and Hong Kong, for both the 2001 and 2011 censuses, using a variety of spatial demographic and quantitative techniques, and then analyze the spatial overlap between this population and immigrant-serving third sector organizations. The results suggest both similarity, in particular between accommodation and work precarity, and difference, with an increasingly tenuous overlap in London by 2011.     

Invisible homelessness: anonymity,exposure, and the right to the city

The city of Denver, Colorado recently outlawed camping in all open space. Part of a broad effort to accelerate the profit potential of prime urban land through real estate speculation and commerce, the camping ban has dislocated homeless people from the city’s marginal spaces. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in Denver, this article develops a tripartite approach to public space—prime, everyday, and marginal—to analyze challenging ways in which people who are homeless in Denver must now manage their exposure to others in everyday public spaces. In addition to eliminating places of hard-won safety and security, this singular new code disrupts hygiene, mobility, and sociability routines, thus throwing already precarious lives into further disarray by rendering housing status visible. To demonstrate how everyday social justice springs from interaction between different people co-present in public space, we foreground the voices of Denver’s homeless people, those most impacted by quality of life laws. Evicting individuals from marginal spaces and rendering them visibly homeless in everyday and prime spaces, the ban deprives them of a fundamental right to the city: anonymity.     

中国跨国城际技术通道的空间演化及其影响因素

专利转移是国家和地区获取外部技术的重要通道,也是刻画技术流供求关系最直接的方式。基于全球—地方视角,本文建构了技术转移的跨国—国内城际双通道理论框架,融合社会网络、GIS空间分析和空间计量模型,尝试刻画中国城市跨国城际技术通道的空间演化规律及其影响因素。研究发现：① 中国跨国城际技术通道网络的空间异质性显著但随时间逐渐减弱。② 跨国城际技术通道加速东移,从北美和西欧（以美国纽约湾区和硅谷地区技术创新中心、加勒比海离岸金融中心、伦敦全球金融中心等为核心）快速向东亚（以日本东京、韩国首尔科技创新中心为核心）和东南亚（以新加坡科技创新中心为核心）扩展,中国对美国和西欧的专利技术依赖性明显减弱。③ 以北京、上海、深圳—中国香港、台北—新竹为核心的京津冀、长三角、粤港澳大湾区和中国台湾北部四大创新集群成为中国跨国城际技术流的集散地和全球性技术创新枢纽。中国香港凭借跨国公司及分支机构云集及离岸金融低税收优势,技术中介作用不断增强并成为技术转移的首位城市,而中国台湾的核心作用不断减弱。④ 国内通道的规模、强度以及城际紧密度有利于跨国城际技术引进通道的扩展;此外,地方经济实力对跨国联系通道具有正向促进作用,其技术实力和对外经济联系程度则具有多方面的影响。     

新经济背景下金融空间系统演化

金融空间系统指一定区域范围内金融系统各种组成要素在空间中相互作用形成的空间结构,表现为金融机构和金融资本不同程度的空间集聚和分散。金融空间系统的变化通过三种渠道,经济效率、信用需求、信用获得影响地方发展。全球化、网络化、信息化背景下金融空间系统呈现出主流金融空间一体化,粘性金融地方竞争激烈,空间等级化特征显著,另类金融空间出现等发展趋势。金融空间系统演化的原始、微观动因来自金融机构和金融资本对不同空间潜在利润的追逐,同时深受全球化、国家金融制度变迁,信息技术进步、金融危机爆发等外生宏观因素的影响。