“They want to live in the Tremé, but they want it for their ways of living”: gentrification and neighborhood practice in Tremé, New Orleans

In this study, I deploy an ethnographic approach to analyze the detrimental effects of gentrification on longstanding residents in New Orleans’ Tremé neighborhood. I focus on conflicts between long-established residents and gentrifiers over the use of neighborhood space on a day-to-day basis as a means for examining the consequent changes in neighborhood life. As their neighborhood gentrifies, long-term residents of Tremé must contend with greater policing, the erosion of place-based knowledge, practices, and cultural traditions, the loss of social networks, and the closure of vital neighborhood institutions. These changes in neighborhood life provide a starting point from which to begin to understand the broader effects (beyond displacement) that longstanding residents experience as a result of gentrification.     

Identifying synergies and trade-offs in the sustainability–security nexus: the case of the Israeli–Palestinian wastewater treatment regime

ABSTRACT

The literature on environmental security often stresses the complementarity between sustainability and broader security goals. Less emphasis has been placed on possible trade-offs between security objectives and aspects of sustainability. This study examines the conditions under which these synergies and trade-offs are likely to occur, and how the trade-offs can be reconciled, especially during times of peacebuilding. As a case study, we analyse the effect of Israeli security concerns on environmental infrastructure designed to treat wastewater in the West Bank. This study identifies several sustainability–security trade-offs: (1) economic—in which security concerns raise costs of wastewater infrastructure, thereby crowding-out other potentially productive investments; (2) equity—in which security concerns result in disproportionate exposure of populations to environmental hazards; and (3) environmental—in which security concerns increase ecological footprints. Yet, our case study also indicates that both sides used a variety of creative measures to reconcile these trade-offs.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis GUEST EDITOR K. Aggestam     

Depoliticizing water conflict: functional peacebuilding in the Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance project

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the nexus of technocracy–peacebuilding and its implications on water conflicts and hydropolitics. It is a conceptual exploration which advances an interdisciplinary approach by combining theories from two distinct research fields: peacebuilding and transboundary water management. It probes the argument that synergies between water management, development and peacebuilding frequently lead to technocratic and functional solutions. As empirical case illustration, the transboundary project, the Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance (RSDSWC) is analysed regarding its peacebuilding and peace promoting potential. Three concluding remarks are drawn from the conceptual and empirical analysis. First, strong emphasis on technocratic solutions is inclined to favour supply-oriented options rather than solutions based on ethics of sustainable development and rights-based distribution. Second, functional solutions to water conflicts downplay at times complex hydro-political and asymmetrical relations between adversaries. Third, wider trends of privatization in the water sector coincide with similar developments in the field of peacebuilding, where new transnational actors are gaining influence as “new peacemakers”, which are likely to have long-term consequences on power relations and the resolution of water conflict.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis; ASSOCIATE EDITOR not assigned     

How Collaborative Governance Practitioners Can Assess the Effectiveness of Collaborative Environmental Governance,While Also Evaluating Their Own Services

Abstract

Collaborative governance applied to environmental issues is becoming more common, and evaluation of such efforts can provide useful information for multiple audiences. However, due to a variety of challenges, collaborative governance practitioners rarely evaluate the outcomes of collaboration and their contributions to these efforts. With these challenges in mind, the William D. Ruckelshaus Center designed an evaluation framework that can meet multiple parties’ objectives, be integrated into practitioners’ existing services, and balance flexibility and practicality with rigor and replicability. The Center conducted a pilot of this framework on a collaborative watershed management effort in southeastern Washington State, where the Center had previously assisted with organizational development. The resulting evaluation highlights a variety of social, knowledge-based, and economic outcomes for the collaborative, as well as lessons for practitioners and evaluators of collaborative governance. We suggest that this methodology can be useful for practitioners interested in evaluating similar collaborative efforts.     

Conflicts at sea between artisanal and industrial fishers: Inter-sectoral interactions and dispute resolution in Senegal

Conflicts between artisanal and industrial fishermen—targeting increasingly scarce resources in Senegal—are posing a serious threat to human security and are only symbolically addressed by the country's fisheries governance regime. Severely outmatched in terms of political influence and size, artisanal fishermen are more vulnerable to the fallout of conflicts at sea. The loss of fishing materials threatens the livelihoods of fishermen and their families; collisions and violence between members of the two sectors often result in injury and death. This study examines at-sea interactions between Senegal's artisanal and industrial sectors and the formal and informal mechanisms in place for managing them. Conflictive interactions are found to co-exist alongside cooperative ones and both emerge in response to changes in marine resource abundance and management. Formal systems in place to mediate at-sea conflicts are ineffective and seldom used by artisanal fishermen, who either accept their losses, attempt to informally resolve conflicts with industrial actors or resort to violence.     

地理学视角下的出国旅居研究综述

近年来, 随着全球一体化的不断深入, 出国旅居现象正逐步升温。本文通过梳理国外关于出国旅居问题的研究文献, 总结出其主要关注以下几个方面:海外留学、跨文化冲突与融合, 及旅居者启程前与归国后的适应。相关文献显示, 虽然以往的出国旅居研究没有地理学背景的学者介入, 但其中却存在或隐含了一条明确的地理学“人—地—时空”研究脉络, 旅居者随着空间改变对新地区文化的适应甚至认同, 就是旅居者产生“地方感”的过程。由此提出, 应将出国旅居明确纳入文化地理学的研究范畴, 从地理学视角来关注这一现象。     

尼泊尔用于缓解人与野生动物冲突之电篱笆经济效用分析

人与野生动物冲突是全世界自然保护工作所面临的最大挑战之一。为降低这些冲突的影响,各国采取了各种保护策略,但这些策略常常得不到足够的监测,其效力也得不到充分的评估。近年来,作为降低人与野生动物冲突的一项措施,尼泊尔各保护区周围建起了电篱笆。到目前为止,未见有其他针对保护工作中采用电篱笆的成本效率及其功效开展分析的研究。本研究的目的是检验尼泊尔近年来设立于旺国家公园东区的电篱笆的成本效率。印度犀牛（Rhinoceros unicornis）、野猪（Sus scrofa）、亚洲象（Elephas maximus）、老虎（Panthera tigris）是该国家公园周边缓冲区涉及人与野生动物冲突的主要物种,这里建有电篱笆。电篱笆使庄稼受损减少78%,家畜损失减少30%-60%。研究区的人类死亡数未表现出显著下降,而是继续维持较低数值。我们的分析表明,至2009/2010财政年度,电篱笆成本的总净现值,卡根社区（KMUC）为1 517 959尼泊尔卢比（21 685美元）,姆瑞加社区（MKUC）为3 530 075卢比（50 429美元）;而净现收益,卡根社区为16 301 105卢比（232 872美元）,姆瑞加社区为38 304 602卢比（547 208美元）。至2009/2010基准财政年度,电篱笆的成本-效益比率,卡根社区为10.73,姆瑞加社区为10.85。这些结果表明,在大型哺乳动物出没的保护区周围,电篱笆计划在降低人与野生动物冲突方面,既有经济效益,又有很好的社会效益。     

2009年后缅甸国内冲突的地缘政治学视角解读

缅甸建国后的数十年里,中央政府与各地少数民族武装之间的冲突一直处于打打停停的战乱状态。然而2009年后缅甸国内冲突开始走向国际化,其未来形势变得异常复杂多变。2015年缅甸国内冲突的规模和持续性更进一步印证了这点。文章从地缘政治学视角,结合实地调研所做的访谈和问卷,得出一个基本观点：缅甸国内地缘冲突已经不再是单纯的国内民族问题,而是全球地缘政治经济格局变化下的大国博弈的焦点之一;全球地缘格局变化导致大国地缘战略在缅甸汇聚,从而导致缅甸在全球地缘区位的变化。缅甸不过是大国全球博弈的一个新战场,再加上缅北和缅甸东部的地理特征和缅甸少数民族武装的地缘关系成就了当前和未来的冲突,乃至缅甸的国内局势走向。     

基于问卷和访谈的中缅边民交往探究 ——以南红坝―南伞镇―尖坪村段为例

以2015-02-09果敢冲突后大量缅甸难民进入中国云南省这一事件为背景,结合实地调研所做的问卷和访谈,从交往的基础、交往的形式、交往的频度以及影响交往的因素等方面探讨了中缅边民交往状况。结果发现：1）中缅边民交往的基础有历史渊源、地理空间和政策的支持;2）交往的形式和内容有商贸、教育和情感等;3）中缅边民交往的频度和强度非常高;4）影响中缅边民交往的因素有中缅国家间关系、中缅之间边境贸易政策和两国对外开放政策等。     

EIAs,power and political ecology: Situating resource struggles and the techno-politics of small-scale mining

Academics across disciplines are increasingly employing political ecology lenses to unpack conflicts related to resource extraction. Yet, an area that remains under-researched and under-theorised is how environmental impact assessments (EIAs) are embedded in politics and imagined as sites of power relations. Drawing on long-term fieldwork in Zimbabwe engaging small-scale gold miners, EIA consultants and government officials, this article examines the changing social significance of EIAs during and after a nationwide police operation that was framed by authorities as targeting non-compliance with environmental policy, illegal mining and illicit trading. Among other articulations of dissent, small-scale miners associations protested that EIA enforcement rhetoric served unjustly as a rationale for halting livelihoods and extracting rent from miners in times of economic difficulty. The article challenges EIA narratives that focus narrowly on risk management or governance failure, exploring technocratic obfuscations and how enforcement rhetoric was perceived in relation to criminalisation and coercion, expert environmental consultancy cultures and adapted legacies of colonial practice in contemporary dynamics of rule. Heavy-handed policing under the banner of enforcing order impinged on livelihoods and had counterproductive effects in addressing environmental problems, while complying with expensive EIA report-producing requirements was far beyond the means of most small-scale miners. The article rethinks how technical EIA rhetoric becomes entangled in spaces of contentious politics, the perils of looking only at particular scales of relations to the exclusion of others, and what it means to re-engage Donald Moore’s notion of “shifting alignments and contingent constellations of power.” Suggesting future directions in political ecology theorising in relation to extractive sectors, it calls for careful attention to the situated politics of EIAs – situated in time and space, amid varying relations of power – and how multiple hegemonic practices are conceptualised and challenged.