Unpacking race,party and class from below: Surveying citizenship in the Msunduzi municipality

On the basis of a 2008 survey conducted in the Msunduzi municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province, the paper begins an exploration of the character of popular politics and citizenship in South Africa. Embracing a ‘citizen-centred’ methodology informed by participation literatures, and sensibilities to the ‘work in progress’ character of African cities from urban studies debates, the paper interrogates the mainstream liberal-participatory model of citizenship in South Africa, and the critiques of current South African politics informed by these notions, specifically the ‘racial census’ and ‘dominant party syndrome’ analyses. Taken together these views can be read as characterising South African politics as a game for individual citizens governed by liberal rules, but played by racial and/or partisan groups in exclusionary ways, thus distorting liberal democratic mechanisms of representation and accountability. The paper also examines evidence for an alternative class-based analysis of one aspect of citizenship, namely, protest against poor local governance.The paper looks to unpack this ‘liberal model versus racialised communitarian practice’ imaginary by, on the one hand, demonstrating the ways in which citizenship is not racialised, or is asymmetrically racialised. Indeed, other than party allegiances and trust in key offices, very little by way of what citizens do, believe or think of themselves follows discrete racial lines. Similar points hold for partisanship too. On the other hand, the paper does not redeem the liberal-democratic model as there is also evidence of trust in government when it is not deserved based on performance, but more importantly, evidence that citizens embrace ‘informal’ means to secure their rights. A good example of this is protestors who are also more likely to vote than non-protestors. Taken together, these findings affirm both the way in which the racial and partisan legacy of the past is being undone by new institutions and practices, and suggest the complex intersection of these with networks of personal relations which characterise the local politics of most African cities.     

Strategies for forging and sustaining social movement networks: A case study of provincial food networking organizations in Canada

Social movement organizations (SMOs) play an important role in movement building, however, the particular context and structure of a SMO has a direct impact on its ability to foster and sustain collaboration. In this paper I investigate the unique positioning of provincial networking organizations (PNOs) in Canadian food movements and document their efforts to support alternative food initiatives (AFIs) to interact and act collaboratively for food system change. The research draws on a network survey, over 35 in-depth interviews, site visits, and background information collected in three Canadian provinces to explore the ongoing work necessary for linking together heterogeneous elements without central coordinating mechanisms. I describe the ways that PNOs have established a series of common networking strategies to bring AFIs together across sectors, scales and places: (1) the creation of physical spaces that involve direct contact in particular places; (2) the development of virtual spaces where connections are mediated through digital technologies; and (3) the use of scalar strategies that scale-up local projects to address provincial level policy. I conclude by identifying key areas of contention that arise within the networks, and show that the different structures of the PNOs impact their ability to establish and implement networking strategies. I argue that addressing these challenges must be a preemptive focus in order to sustain networking activity. My contention that contemporary structures of social mobilization require novel strategies and support from networking organizations provides insight for studies of SMOs and movement building more broadly.     

Image spaces and the geography of Internet screen-space

This article aims, first, at the exposition of image space and a scalar model differentiating among its four visual classes: virtual space (visual presentations of real space and material artifacts), cyberspace (digital communications and information media), the Internet (digital communications and informational spaces), and Internet screen-space (ISS) (users’ visual interface with the Internet), thus leading from the wider to the specific. This differentiation is followed by discussions of cyberspace and Internet screen-space geography. Cyberspace has been spatially defined as artificial reality, interactivity, and conceptual and metaphorical spaces. As a spatial experience, cyberspace involves co-presence, low cognitive mapping, and egalitarian and global communications. The article aims further at the development of interpretations for ISSs and their uses along dimensions originally developed for real-space geography. These include: real space parameters (ground; distance; places; scale/regions; boundaries; and flows); user spatial parameters (speed; directionality; circularity; distanciation); and user socio-spatial parameters (proximity; networking; time–space compression).     

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.     

It’s not what you eat but how and that you eat: Social media,counter-discourses and disciplined ingestion among amateur competitive eaters

This article interrogates how social media can provide a platform for contesting dominant discourses. It does so through the lens of competitive eating, demonstrating that amateur competitive eaters use social media sites to challenge and subvert mass media representations of their sport while concomitantly upholding normative notions of healthy eating and bodies. Competitors consider themselves to be skilful athletes that discipline and train their bodies to eat. They regard their eating practices, which are often depicted in the mass media as uncontrolled and gluttonous, as controlled ingestion, and present an alternative perspective of their ‘sport’ – a perspective that stresses health, physical expertise and a fit, trained body over voracity and insatiability. Social media acts as a ‘precipitating agency’ for the creation of these alternative definitions of disciplined eating, as well as the construction of new digital eating identities. Instead of focusing on the food being ingested and the ‘Carnivalesque’ practice of competitive eating, we draw attention to the performers’ voices and the ways they attend to the mechanics of gurgitation, including methods of chewing, swallowing and stomach stretching, and their ability to manage, regulate and operate ingestivity. As hegemonic discourses align the notion of ‘good eating’ to discipline, order and restraint, competitive eating is thus revealed to be a practice that mirrors and appropriates, yet also ultimately reproduces, conventional narratives. Social media is, in turn, shown to be a political tool for counter-discursive practices that are produced in dialogue with, and concomitantly uphold and contest, normative discourses of mass media.     

New spaces,ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning

This article draws upon two distinct UK case studies to explore how alternative modes of provisioning employ ordinary practices of sharing and circularity. Speaking to debates about alterity, diverse economies (Gibson-Graham, 2008) and emerging literature on the circular and shared economy, these two small and informal based models, one food based, the other clothing, are put forward as examples of the vast array of contemporary ‘alternative’ forms of consumption and provisioning taking place across the UK. The article illuminates how diverse economies are ‘made material’ through their materials and practices. In doing so I make three key arguments: firstly, and overall, that studying materiality is one way to illuminate these new and emerging spaces of provisioning, highlighting their practices, intimacies and ambiguities. Secondly, this material focus illustrates how the practices of provisioning – in particular, sharing and circulating - are not new, but are instead organised in original and novel ways; and this has wider implications for contemporary debates on circular and shared economy. Thirdly, that the materials of provisioning can be both beneficial and troublesome to provisioning organisations’ practices of circulating and sharing and the extent to which they tackle issues of social exclusion, financial hardship and sustainable resource use.     

Drivers of social media use among African Americans in the event of a crisis

Research has examined the role of social media during the time of a crisis in various fields; however, there is a paucity of research in this area as it relates to tourism. Moreover, few studies have examined at-risk populations, such as tourists, in times of crisis. To assess the drivers of turning to social media during a crisis, a national survey of 1,018 African American travelers was conducted. Respondents were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale the likelihood of turning to social media for information “if they were currently in the middle of their trip and heard that a crisis has just occurred within the immediate vicinity of their current location.” Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to determine drivers on African American travelers’ decisions to use social media during a crisis. These drivers were age, perceptions of risk during their trip, and frequency and type of social media use engaged in on a regular basis. Overall, findings suggested that when controlling for age only, crime, financial, and physical perceptions of risk drove social media use during a crisis, while controlling for age and perception of risk, use of social media in one's daily life showed no influence.     

Spatial loyalty and territorial embeddedness in the multi-sector clustering of the Berguedà region in Catalonia (Spain)

The development of clusters of local growth is supported by different processes. Endogenous economic development produced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is based on family firms in which local market characteristics influence the sectorial diversification that emerges within certain regions. In the Berguedà region (Catalonia, Spain), the formation of a successful network of SMEs in three main sectors (food, textile and machinery) in the 1990s demonstrated the importance of grass-roots prerequisites, including industrial tradition, social networks and a sense of spatial loyalty, one of the main concepts studied in this paper. The aim of this paper is to study how institutions, local economic networks and collective social agents generate a propitious economic space that constitutes favourable embedding in Berguedà. However, the key element in this industrial system is the loyalty that entrepreneurs and workers feel towards their industrial region. These two processes, territorial embeddedness and spatial loyalty, appear to be two of the major forces behind the economic dynamism of the region and have led to the formation of a new cluster of firms.     

From feeding the locals to selling the locale: Adapting local sustainable food projects in Niagara to neocommunitarianism and neoliberalism

This paper traces attempts to foster local, sustainable food projects in Niagara, Canada as part of community economic development (CED) projects during two distinct periods of provincial governance. In the first period (1990-1995), social democratic government support for local sustainable food projects through CED can be understood as neocommunitarian in nature. During this time there was a concerted attempt to link local people with access to local food and also to support a relationship between local food projects and agri-tourism. I argue that this neocommunitarian policy was an accommodation to a wider and more global neoliberal hegemony and was underlain by a romanticism of petty commodity production and a tenuous link to social and ecological sustainability. In the second period of governance (beginning in 1995) the progressive conservative government led by Mike Harris pursued particularly virulent, revanchist forms of neoliberal governance. With many of their state supports slashed, Niagara NGOs and activists turned, and were pushed, to more market-led, elitist forms of local food projects and agri-tourism. In these latter food projects, the practices of ecological and social sustainability were significantly hollowed out and their local and light green nature was harnessed as accumulation strategies. The paper is based on interviews conducted in the year 2003 with people involved in various urban and rural food projects (including community gardening, community supported agriculture, local/seasonal cuisine, organic/ecological farming and food box programs).     

Local food sovereignty for global food security? Highlighting interplay challenges

The food sovereignty movement proposes a localist approach to meeting food security while delivering broader social, economic and environmental benefits. The movement is spawning multiple local projects of food sovereignty, whereby people are empowered to define their own culturally and environmentally appropriate food systems. As the number of enacted examples increases, the movement is also affecting change at national (and international) levels, with a number of countries creating national strategies or legislation for food sovereignty. We reflect on the challenges created by such scaling up within the existing food system. We propose a focus on issues of institutional interplay in order to identify and critique challenges. We highlight three interplay situations between multiple, diverse enactments of food sovereignty at multiple levels, and between food sovereignty and the broader institutional contexts within which they are embedded.     

Searching for (un)sustainabilty in pangasius aquaculture: A political economy of quality in European retail

Drawing on a political economy of food quality, this paper investigates the main sources of uncertainty over the environmental sustainability of Vietnamese pangasius catfish in European markets and how retailers subsequently respond to these uncertainties. Based on media survey and interviews with supermarket retailers across Europe between 2008 and 2010, the analysis focuses on the claims and counterclaims over the sustainability of pangasius aquaculture, how retailers have dealt with the uncertainty these claims have engendered about the fish, and what effect this uncertainty has had on the potential of marketing ‘sustainable pangasius’ in European supermarkets. The paper concludes that successful claims around new food qualities like sustainability by retailers are dependent on the ability of regulatory networks to overcome any perceived illegitimacy of imported products in the face of continuing uncertainty and the wider politics of market protectionism.     

Civilian monitoring video records for earthquake intensity: a potentially unbiased online information source of macro-seismology

We collected and analyzed 68 civilian monitoring videos recording the scenes of the May 12, 2008, Wenchuan earthquake. These video recordings are shared online by volunteers after the earthquake. Intensity was estimated by visual inspection of the playback video recordings. Comparing to traditional media accounts, these video records have the distinctive unbiased feature in obtaining local intensity due to their dynamic and repeatable nature. We argue that with proper guidance for providing the necessary information of the location and time when sharing these data online, civilian monitoring videos are potentially more and more useful in the citizen-powered macro-seismology.     

The Second World Landslide Forum, Rome, 3�C9 October 2011: state of art at May 2011

The World Landslide Forum (WLF) is a triennial mainstream conference aimed at gathering scientists, stakeholders, policy makers and industry members dealing with the management of landslide risk. The First World Landslide Forum, organised by the International Consortium of Landslides, UNESCO, WMO, Food and Agriculture Organization, UNISDR, UNU, UNEP, IBRD, UNDP, ICSU, WFEO, KU and the Japan Landslide Society, was held in 2008 at the United Nations University, Tokyo. The 1st WLF adopted the 2008 Tokyo Declaration “Strengthening the International Programme on Landslides with UNISDR”. The Second World Landslide Forum has the objective to further develop the outcomes of the First Forum in Tokyo 2008 by providing a global cross-cutting information and cooperation platform for all types of organisations representing academia, United Nations organisations, governments, private enterprises and individuals that contribute to landslide research, practice, education and decision making and are willing to strengthen landslide and other related Earth system risk reduction strategies. The emphasis of this forum will be “Putting Science into Practice” with special attention given to actual implementation of technology and research in everyday applications and procedures with the direct involvement of researchers, engineers, private enterprises, stakeholders as well as policy and decision makers. The abstract submission and pre-registration of participants was quite successful with 649 received abstracts and more than 800 participants at May 2011. The full organisation of the event is now in progress taking into consideration the new figure and interest in scientific community and stakeholders.     

How do “numbers” construct social reality in disaster-stricken areas?: a case of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan,China

This article focuses on the dynamics of using numbers to construct an image of social reality in disaster areas. Numbers are neither objective nor value-neutral but are rather generated, transmitted and shared with social signification. In other words, numbers can be thought of as simply socially constructed information. Statistics and other numbers usually work in positive ways. However, it is also possible that using numbers in the media can lead to unintended messages that could produce negative consequences. We conducted field studies in disaster-stricken areas of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China and compared findings to the case of the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan in order to examine how numbers—in terms of the amount of donations, the timeline of reconstruction projects and casualty figures—construct social reality and cause a variety of social dysfunctions.     

Special issue introduction: New research directions and critical perspectives on diaspora strategies

As more countries acknowledge the potential resources represented by their emigrant populations, the diaspora strategies of migrant sending countries are gaining policy and academic attention internationally. ‘Diaspora strategies’ describe initiatives aimed at mobilising emigrants for the purposes of economic development and/or nation building. This special issue in Geoforum identifies new research directions for the study of diaspora strategies. While extant scholarship has focused on state-driven diaspora strategies so far, this special issue introduction suggests that considering a wider range of social actors that engage in diaspora strategising across different spaces and scales will reveal new and productive insights for the study of diaspora strategies. Framing this introduction is an approach that deploys topological analyses as a way of keeping in view the variety of social actors involved in diaspora strategising, their connections to one another, and an evolving constellation of power relations ranging from contestation to collaboration. The special issue introduction draws attention to, first, the subjectivities constituted by diaspora strategies; second, the array of social actors found within webs of diaspora connections; and third, the ethical considerations arising from the power geometries of diaspora engagement. In so doing, it argues for the importance of studying diaspora formations dialogically which means deploying an analytical lens that is attentive to how the actions of different social actors and institutions from one country towards a diaspora population can influence the attitudes and actions of that diaspora towards another country that also claims their loyalty and contributions.     

At what price rice? Food security,livelihood vulnerability,and state interventions in upland northern Vietnam

In the northern uplands of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the state is taking dramatic steps to (re)configure agricultural production through the introduction and subsidisation of hybrid rice and maize seeds. These require yearly cash investments and access to state supplied inputs, a far cry from earlier upland ethnic minority livelihood strategies. In this paper we develop a conceptual framework that brings together an actor-oriented livelihoods approach with concepts from everyday politics and resistance, to examine the relations now at play as ethnic minorities, namely Hmong and Yao households in Lào Cai province, react to the introduction of these hybrid seeds, negotiate with the state over their use, and contest and subtly resist the wholesale adoption of this programme. Our framework takes us beyond an investigation into financial benefits and yields, to focus upon the social, cultural and political aspects inherent in upland farmer decision-making regarding state interventions. Our findings reveal that such agricultural programmes have resulted in new food insecurities and vulnerabilities overlaying more established concerns. Yet in turn, ethnic minority households evaluate these innovations according to their own terms, and have responded by negotiating, accommodating, and also contesting the state’s initiatives using creative and innovative everyday politics and livelihood strategies. In so doing, they have worked to maintain autonomy over choices and decision-making vis-à-vis the economic, social and cultural reproduction of their household units; a delicate balancing act in a socialist state.     

Water Cycle Analysis of Social and Economic System in Tarim River Basin

Water cycle includes natural water circulation and social economic system water cycle. The concept of virtual water provides a new method and means for studying social water circulation. This paper is based on the theory of water circulation in social and economic system, using input-output analysis method quantitatively describes the Tarim River basin of social water cycle paths and analysis of water resources management in Tarim River basin sustainable development process of the key issues. The results show that the main sectors of virtual water export in the Tarim River Basin are agriculture, petroleum, natural gas and food industry. Agricultural water accounts for more than 98% of total water consumption, most of which is transferred to the food and textile industries, and the food industry export water from the agricultural sector. Shandong Province is the largest virtual water transport area in the Tarim River Basin. The main sector of virtual water input in the Tarim River Basin is the metallurgical industry. Finally, in view of the problems arising from the inter-industrial and inter-regional social water circulation in the Tarim River basin, the paper puts forward the ways and strategies of regulating agricultural and industrial water use in the Tarim River Basin.     

Characterizing agricultural drought in the Karamoja subregion of Uganda with meteorological and satellite-based indices

Karamoja is notoriously food insecure and has been in need of food aid for most years during the last two decades. One of the main factors causing food insecurity is drought. Reliable, area-wide, long-term data for detecting and monitoring drought conditions are critical for timely, life-saving interventions and the long-term development of the region, yet such data are sparse or unavailable. Due to advances in satellite remote sensing, characterizing drought in data-sparse regions like Karamoja has become possible. This study characterizes agricultural drought in Karamoja to enable a comprehensive understanding of drought, concomitantly evaluating the suitability of NDVI-based drought monitoring. We found that in comparison with the existing data, NDVI data currently provide the best, consistent, and spatially explicit information for operational drought monitoring in Karamoja. Results indicate that the most extreme agricultural drought in recent years occurred in 2009 followed by 2004 and 2002 and suggest that in Karamoja, moderate to severe droughts (e.g., 2008) often have the same impact on crops and human needs (e.g., food aid) as extreme droughts (e.g., 2009). We present in a proof-of-concept frame, a method to estimate the number of people needing food assistance and the population likely to fall under the integrated food security phase classification (IPC) Phase 3 (crisis) due to drought severity. Our model indicates that 90.7% of the variation in the number of people needing aid can be explained by NDVI data and NDVI data can augment these estimates. We conclude that the biggest drivers of food insecurity are the cultivation of crops on marginal land with insignificant inputs, the lack of irrigation and previous systematic incapacitation of livestock (pastoral) alternatives through government programming. Further research is needed to bridge empirical results with social–economic studies on drought impacts on communities in the region to better understand additional factors that will need to be addressed to ensure livelihood resilience.     

Navigating the future of tsunami risk communication: using dimensionality,interactivity and situatedness to interface with society

Two-dimensional paper maps are well-established tsunami risk communication tools in coastal communities. Advances in GIS, geovisualization and spatial interface technologies suggest new opportunities to deliver tsunami risk communication using 3D, interactive and situated risk visualization. This paper introduces a set of geovisual interface constructs—dimensionality–interactivity–situatedness (DIS)—and evaluates their presence, absence and distribution in 129 examples of existing academic and public visual tsunami risk communication. The resulting analyses reveal structural differences in the distributions of DIS found in each of academic and public risk communication literatures, and opportunities for interactive location-aware risk communication. The second half of this paper reports on three new tsunami risk visualization interfaces informed by and developed to demonstrate how we might explore new undeveloped risk communication territory revealed by the DIS cube analysis. We discuss the design, rationale and implications of: EvacMap; ARRO3D; and Tsunamulator. These risk visualization interfaces deliver location-aware, user-centred risk maps, as well as virtual risk maps and tsunami simulations that can be viewed while standing in situ in coastal environments. This work is a first step intended to help the risk communication community systematically engage an emerging territory of interactive and location-aware 3D visualizations. This work aims to facilitate and encourage progress towards developing a new strand of interactive, situated geovisual risk communication research, by establishing these guiding constructs, their relationship to existing works and how they may inform the design of future systems and usability research.     

A genetic algorithm-based grey method for forecasting food demand after snow disasters: an empirical study

Determining the food supply after natural disasters is necessary to ensure the safety and social stability of people in disaster areas. An accurate prediction of food demand can help in the creation of a rational food supply program after natural disasters. This study proposes a grey prediction method to deal with irregular fluctuations in food demand after snowstorms. A GM(1,1) model with adaptive background values was established, and the Fourier series was applied to describe the irregular fluctuations in residuals. A genetic algorithm was designed based on GM(1,1) and Fourier series to optimize model parameters and to minimize the mean absolute percentage error. An optimal predictive function was also constructed by using the combined GM(1,1), Fourier series, and optimal parameters. The proposed forecasting method was used to predict three vegetables demand after the 2008 Chinese winter storm and was compared with the traditional GM(1,1) model. Results show that the proposed method has superior forecasting performance over traditional grey methods.