CALCUTTA'S HAND–PULLED RICKSHAWS: CULTURAL POLITICS AND PLACE MAKING IN A GLOBALIZING CITY*

For more than a century, hand‐pulled rickshaws have been a prominent part of Calcutta's cityscape. Under the veil of modernization, progress, and globalization, however, the government of West Bengal State declared that rickshaws cause traffic congestion and constitute an exploitative use of human labor. Yet, despite the government‐imposed ban, rickshaws continue to ply the streets of central Calcutta. Based on interviews with rickshaw owners, operators, public officials, and local residents, we examine the cultural politics surrounding rickshaw pulling in Calcutta. This article shows that the rickshaw wallahs (pullers), who operate as part of the informal economy, provide an expansive range of services not limited to transportation. Indeed, the rickshaw wallahs form an integral part of Calcutta's social fabric, having made a place for themselves by facilitating social interaction and challenging hegemonic ideas and practices about who belongs where.     

The Domestication of Ginseng

Many students enter classes with a very Orientalist mental map of the region usually called the Middle East. This is understandable considering the information and images of the region that pervade our media landscape. In an effort to teach student how to critically examine media sources themselves, the author utilizes a blog format for student participation and discussion. The article describes how the geographic imaginations of the students involved became more nuanced through the process of finding, analyzing, and critiquing various media sources in a small online community.     

News Notes

Abstract

Santa Claus and His Elves: by Mauri Kunnas, New York: Harmony House, 1981. 48 pp., and illus. $7.95 cloth.

Anno's Journey: by Mitsumasa Anno, New York: Philomee Books, 1983.50 pp., and illus. $10.95 cloth.

The Sea People: by Jörg Müller and Jörg Steiner, New York: Schocken Books, 1982.36 pp., and illus. $14.95 cloth.

The Lorax: by Dr. Seuss, New York: Random House, 1971. 62 pp., and illus. $5.95 cloth.

Continents in Collision: by Russell Miller, Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983. Planet Earth series, edited by Russell Miller and the editors of Time-Life Books. 169 pp., illus., photos, maps, biblio., and index. $14.95 cloth.

South America 2d ed.: by Arthur Morris, Totowa, NJ: Barnes &; Noble, 1982. xii and 276 pp., figs., graphs, tables, photos, maps, biblio., glossary, and index. $17.50 paper.

The Navajo Atlas: Environments, Resources, People, and History of the Diné Bikeyah: by James M. Goodman, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982. x and 109 pp., illus., maps, photos, refs., and index. $22.50 cloth.

The Geography of Multinationals: by Michael Taylor and Nigel Thrift, eds., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982.338 pp., figs., graphs, tables, refs., and indexes. $35.00 cloth.     

Book Review and Doctoral Theses

The article discusses the importance of services as agents of internationalisation. Services are seen as dynamic agents of change, and services and commodities are considered composite in production processes. Modes of entering the global scene such as trade in services, foreign direct investment, forming of alliances, franchising and intrafirm trade are focused on, and limits to globalisation are highlighted. Some services, particularly advanced business services, more easily fall prey to institutional and cultural constraints than others. Empirically, Norway is analysed as an arena of international services against the background of its historical tradition particularly in shipping and affiliated activities. Recently, however, manufacturing has gained in importance, mainly in exports and to a lesser extent in imports, due to the petroleum economy. This appears to indicate that export of services has lost momentum over time. The development profile in shipping is highly negative. The negative picture changes somewhat when not only the trade balance, but also investment abroad is considered. In this respect, services have grown in relative importance, notably in the financial sector and in telecommunications. When juxtaposing outgoing and incoming investments, petroleum-related services have gained an increased export and investment surplus in recent years, from a balance in the mid-1990s.     

After the 1997 financial crisis in Bangkok: The behaviour and implications of a new cohort of street vendors

After the 1997 financial crisis, many retrenched workers preferred not to return to provincial homes but remained in Bangkok to establish informal retail businesses in branded and other consumer products. In contrast to traditional street vendors, who specialized in food items primarily catering for low‐income customers, and focused on high volume, these ‘new generation’ street vendors also adopted more formal business practices. Given their greater sophistication and better education, we hypothesized that they would be more organized advocates of vendors' rights and thus more prone to conflicts with municipal authorities. Based on interviews, however, we found that new generation vendors are adaptive to location and business strategy, and prefer a low profile in dealing with officialdom. By contrast, traditional vendors remained more tied to particular spaces, are more likely to stand up for their rights to use public space and, because they expect more from government, are more prone to conflicts with municipal authorities. Our findings relate to ongoing discussion on the rights and needs of street vendors to access urban public space and the responsibilities of authorities to meet and provide for these informal sector livelihoods that make up a significant share of the national economy in Thailand, as elsewhere in the global South.     

The persistent water problems of Lima,Peru: Neoliberalism,institutional failures and social inequalities

The contingent relation between water governance and nature neoliberalization has defined most interventions in the water sector around the world in recent years. In the case of the Peruvian capital Lima, the provision of water and sanitation services in the last two decades has been the object of investments and institutional reforms strongly influenced by economic neoliberalism. This essay examines the evolution of these neoliberalizing tendencies, noting the internal disputes, necessary adjustments and underlying problems of water sufficiency in the metropolitan region. The empirical results suggest that, rather than a straightforward process, the neoliberalization of water in Lima has advanced according to political opportunities and technico‐operational constraints. The water reforms implemented in the 1990s – when the goal of privatization met political opposition – can be contrasted with the more recent phase in the 2000s, when more flexible mechanisms, such as public‐private partnerships, have facilitated public acceptance. Despite the renovation of the infrastructure, the modernization of the water sector has failed to address persistent water management problems, namely the discriminatory treatment of low income residents, the chaotic expansion of the metropolitan area and the risk of future water shortages.     

玛纳斯河流域人工绿洲扩张对社会经济和生态环境的影响分析

 利用2007—2009年的实地调查资料,结合1958—2006年的5期遥感影像解译数据,从干旱区内陆河流域典型绿洲的演变进程出发,分析了新中国成立以来近60 a玛纳斯河流域人工绿洲快速扩张的影响,强调了保持绿洲适宜规模的重要性,并从可持续发展的角度探讨了绿洲今后发展的方向。主要结论为:①近60 a玛纳斯河流域耕地和绿洲分别以107.756 km2·a-1和122.401 km2·a-1的速度迅速增长,二者扩张的方向基本一致;②绿洲的快速扩张对社会经济产生一定推动作用的同时,也带来了一系列的环境问题。如地表水利用率超过90%,地下水过度开采并以0.5~1 m·a-1的速度下降,水质污染增加,防护林大量死亡,森林破坏严重,草地从1958年到2006年减少4 316.39 km2,土地荒漠化威胁严重等;③从可持续发展的角度看,控制绿洲规模,适度开采地下水,转变产业结构,建立生态补偿机制等是今后本区发展的关键。     

Economic Change in Africa

Abstract

The Geographer at Work by Peter Gould Boston: Routledge &; Kegan Paul, 1985. x and 351 pp., figs., photos, maps, and index. $39.95 cloth; $16.95 paper.

Recollections of a Revolution: Geography as Spatial Science by Mark Billinge, Derek Gregory and Ron Martin, eds. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. viii and 235 pp., figs., tables, refs., and index. $25.00 cloth.

The Role of Place in Literature by Leonard Lutwack Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1984. viii and 274 pp., refs., and index. $24.95 cloth.

The Essential Landscape: The New Mexico Photographic Survey with Essays by J.B. Jackson. by Steven A. Yates, ed. New Mexico: The University of New Mexico Press, 1985. vii and 147 pp., and photos. $45.00 cloth.

Latin America: Case Studies by Richard G. Boehm and Sent Visser, eds. NCGE Pacesetter Series. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1984. x and 300 pp., figs., tables, photos, maps, apps., refs., and index. $24.95 paper.     

Media Institute on Geographic Concepts

Abstract

A new political geography has emerged that stresses the political conflict behind the production of space. This orientation in the subdiscipline constitutes a turn away from traditional political geography, where the emphasis had previously been on the spatial distribution of political phenomena. The “new” political geographic theory has been applied to the study of environmental issues, turning the attention of scholars to the political struggle behind the construction of nature as well as space. This article reviews how the new political geography of the environment (NPGE) perspective has impacted the study of such environmental phenomena as hazards, siting issues, human-land relationships, resources, development, and international environmental governance. It concludes by suggesting how the NPGE perspective can inform pedagogy in environmental education.     

Contextualizing other political ecologies: Japan's environmental aid to the Philippines

This paper argues for the utility of a focus on contextualized sources of environmental change to address the ever more diverse contexts of political ecology. In order to overcome the conventional approach to contextual sources that has tended to be analytically one‐dimensional and limited, I seek to provide a more nuanced account, notably by examining the neglected case of green aid of a nonwestern aid donor, Japan. Using conceptual tools that are both conjuncture‐based and multiscalar, the paper examines the way in which a post‐Rio international policy drive to promote so called green aid during the 1990s was translated into and conditioned by the historically and geographically specific contexts of Japan and the aid recipient featured herein, the Philippines. This focus on contextual sources helps to elucidate (i) how the ambiguous nature of international aid criteria combined together with Japan's own domestic political economy to render problematic an ostensibly environmental project, (ii) the manner in which neoliberal economic restructuring was translated into one of Japan's key policy initiatives in the 1990s and formed the backdrop to the specific aid case project discussed here, (iii) how Japan's environmental aid process in the Philippines was shaped through a repoliticization of various green discourses, and (iv) how the complex dynamics among stakeholders ended up compromising the very nature of the case study project.