Strategies of Successful Anti-Dam Movements: Evidence from Myanmar and Thailand

Scholars are rarely able to examine anti-dam movements that result in project suspensions or cancellations since these cases are rare empirically. Yet, they are central to understanding how anti-dam movements can succeed. This paper analyzes the movements against Myanmar’s Myitsone Dam and Thailand’s Kaeng Suea Ten Dam. Likely the most successful anti-dam movements in Southeast Asia in recent years, they achieved suspension over 6 and 37 years, respectively. The research is based on 60 semistructured interviews carried out over a period of 8 months. Leveraging thinking from both the constructionist and structural schools within the field of social movement studies, it is found that the framing of the Myitsone Dam as a project threatening the national cultural heritage of Myanmar (in combination with political change in the country in 2010/2011) largely explains the movement’s success. Meanwhile, the set of sophisticated tactics (including inter alia demonstrations, Thai Baan research, 24/7 monitoring of the dam site, and spiritual activities) was decisive for the efficacy of the movement against Thailand’s Kaeng Suea Ten Dam.     

隧道开挖地表移动计算软件SASMD的开发

从随机介质理论出发,简述了隧道开挖引起地表位移与变形计算所采用的理论与方法,介绍了基于随机介质理论而研制的隧道开挖引起地表位移与变形计算软件SASMD的设计思想、整体结构和主要特点,列举了若干个用SASMD软件所计算的工程实例。通过与实测值的比较,证明了基于随机介质理论而研制的SASMD软件具有精确度高、结果可靠、使用方便的特点,适于科技人员在分析隧道开挖引起地表位移与变形时使用。     

皖浙赣相邻区中生代以来构造活动及古应力场特征

皖浙赣相邻区位于中国东南大陆边缘,中生代以来经历多期强烈构造作用,是研究中生代以来构造运动的理想区域。本文以皖浙赣相邻区中生代以来的脆性断层为研究对象,通过系统的野外构造观测和运动学研究,在区内划分出了4期主要断裂构造,确定了各期断裂的运动学特征,恢复了古构造应力场。第一期构造大致发生于早侏罗世-中侏罗世末,应力场为近南北向挤压,可能与华南板块与华北板块碰撞最后阶段的挤压作用相关,第二期构造出现在早白垩世,应力场为近北东-南西向挤压,可能与太平洋板块向南-南西俯冲有关,第三期构造大致发生在晚白垩世末,应力场为北西-南东向挤压,与太平洋板块向欧亚大陆的北西向正向俯冲有关,第四期构造应力场为东西向挤压,可能与太平洋板块弧后扩张产生的向西侧向挤压及印度板块俯冲碰撞产生的向东挤出共同作用有关。     

Three‐dimensional finite element analyses of passive pile behaviour

Piles may be subjected to lateral soil pressures as a result of lateral soil movements from nearby construction‐related activities such as embankment construction or excavation operations. Three‐dimensional finite element analyses have been carried out to investigate the response of a single pile when subjected to lateral soil movements. The pile and the soil were modelled using 20‐node quadrilateral brick elements with reduced integration. For compatibility between the soil–pile interface elements, 27‐node quadrilateral brick elements with reduced integration were used to model the soil around the pile adjacent to the soil–pile interface. A Mohr–Coulomb elastic–plastic constitutive model with large‐strain mode was assumed for the soil. The analyses indicate that the behaviour of the pile was significantly influenced by the pile flexibility, the magnitude of soil movement, the pile head boundary conditions, the shape of the soil movement profile and the thickness of the moving soil mass. Reasonable agreement is found between some existing published solutions and those developed herein. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of the construction process on the deformation behaviour of diaphragm walls in soft clayey ground

Conventional numerical predictions of deep excavations normally neglect the construction process of the retaining structure and choose the earth pressure at rest as initial condition at the beginning of the simulation. The presented results of simulation and measurements during the construction process of the Taipei National Enterprise Center show, that such an assumption leads to an underestimation of the horizontal wall deflection, the surface ground settlements as well as the loading of the struts in case of normally to slightly over‐consolidated clayey soil deposits. The stepwise installation process of the individual diaphragm wall panels results in a substantial modification of the lateral effective stresses in the adjacent ground. Especially the pouring process of the panel and the fresh concrete pressure causes a partial mobilization of the passive earth pressure and a distinct stress level increase in the upper half of the wall. As a consequence of the increased stresses prior to the pit excavation, up to 15% greater ground and wall movements are predicted. Moreover, the increased stress level due to the installation process of the diaphragm wall leads to substantial higher strut loadings during the excavation of the pit. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

环青藏高原盆山体系东段新构造变形特征——以川西为例

介于扬子板块与青藏高原之间的川西前陆冲断带是环青藏高原盆山体系东段的重要组成部分,它是研究喜马拉雅构造运动对青藏高原东缘沉积盆地构造作用的重要场所。本文分别选取川西南段、川西北段和川北西段米仓山前的区域构造地质剖面来研究沉积地层在喜马拉雅运动中发生的构造变形特征。通过前陆冲断构造变形带的宽度、水平缩短量,山体隆升、盆地沉降,新构造对早期古构造的叠加与改造关系的研究,揭示出在环青藏高原盆山体系内,造山带与盆地边缘的冲断构造变形从造山带向克拉通盆地内扩展的同时受欧亚大陆与印度板块碰撞及其远程效应的空间位置限制,靠近青藏高原的川西南段到远离它的川北西段,新构造变形强度、新构造变形范围、盆山耦合程度具有依次降低等特征。这种受环青藏高原盆山体系控制的前陆冲断带构造变形具有明显的资环效应,特别是对油气资源的聚集与分布有重要的影响,控制了川西南段晚期次生气藏发育,川西北段和川北西段的早期原生气藏的发育。     

Detecting the dynamics of urban structure through spatial network analysis

Urban spatial structure in large cities is becoming ever more complex as populations grow in size, engage in more travel, and have increasing amounts of disposable income that enable them to live more diverse lifestyles. These trends have prominent and visible effects on urban activity, and cities are becoming more polycentric in their structure as new clusters and hotspots emerge and coalesce in a wider sea of urban development. Here, we apply recent methods in network science and their generalization to spatial analysis to identify the spatial structure of city hubs, centers, and borders, which are essential elements in understanding urban interactions. We use a ‘big’ data set for Singapore from the automatic smart card fare collection system, which is available for sample periods in 2010, 2011, and 2012 to show how the changing roles and influences of local areas in the overall spatial structure of urban movement can be efficiently monitored from daily transportation.

In essence, we first construct a weighted directed graph from these travel records. Each node in the graph denotes an urban area, edges denote the possibility of travel between any two areas, and the weight of edges denotes the volume of travel, which is the number of trips made. We then make use of (a) the graph properties to obtain an overall view of travel demand, (b) graph centralities for detecting urban centers and hubs, and (c) graph community structures for uncovering socioeconomic clusters defined as neighborhoods and their borders. Finally, results of this network analysis are projected back onto geographical space to reveal the spatial structure of urban movements. The revealed community structure shows a clear subdivision into different areas that separate the population’s activity space into smaller neighborhoods. The generated borders are different from existing administrative ones. By comparing the results from 3 years of data, we find that Singapore, even from such a short time series, is developing rapidly towards a polycentric urban form, where new subcenters and communities are emerging largely in line with the city’s master plan.

To summarize, our approach yields important insights into urban phenomena generated by human movements. It represents a quantitative approach to urban analysis, which explicitly identifies ongoing urban transformations.     

Locating a Politics of Knowledge: struggles over intellectual property in the Philippines

Intellectual property is increasingly a key item on the US–Japanese–European trade agenda, and the globalisation of the US patent standard, which includes patents on plants and processes, has become a key objective of ‘information-rich’ corporations and countries. While social movements act against the legal structures and spaces of knowledge associated with privatised knowledge, they also work to construct alternatives both through the development of practical alternatives such as seed-saving networks and the articulation of new discourses such as Farmers’ Rights. In doing so, farmers’ organisations are actively creating and maintaining spaces of alternative knowledges and formulations of property. The articulation of Farmers’ Rights by social movements as a response to intellectual property is a way both of resisting regimes of intellectual property and of creating a normative framework within which claims to intellectual property are made obsolete. Drawing from empirical work based in the Philippines, I propose a concept, woven space, which refers to the diverse and overlapping alternatives and resistances that emerge from the situated and embodied struggles taking place around the world to form a differently imagined and realised global. This is a decentralised, networked space, rich with experience, shared belief, and possibilities for shared action.     

The rise and transformation of the Brazilian landless movement into a counter-hegemonic political actor: A Gramscian analysis

The Brazilian Landless Movement (MST) is widely acknowledged as one of the most organized, dynamic, and influential social movements in Latin America. The MST has increasingly inserted the struggle for land within larger political contestations for broad social change, leading conservatives and leftists alike to describe it as a “first class actor” in Brazilian politics. What explains the move from corporatist struggles for land to broader counter-hegemonic contestations; put differently, how did the MST come to acquire ‘global ambition’? Much of the literature on the MST analyzes its external actions but without explaining what drives these actions. This paper utilizes a Gramscian political ecology approach to comprehend the MST’s political actions and its rise and transformation into a counter-hegemonic political actor. Specifically, I evaluate the development of the MST’s organizational praxis from corporatist struggles for land in the late 1970s to ‘global ambition’ and changing nature-society relations by the early 2000’s. Such an approach brings to light the role of organization building, political education, alliance building, and subaltern agency in propelling the MST’s political mobilizations. In so doing, this paper contributes to the literature on the MST and collective action. This paper also engages with a ‘politics of scale’ since the conquest of geographic scale is critical to understanding the MST’s national growth and political actions. This paper concludes by arguing that the rise and transformation of the MST into a vibrant counter-hegemonic actor in Brazilian politics was a gradual process that matured as it territorialized into a national movement.