The Forest in the Future: A Response to Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Abstract

In this commentary, we highlight some of the strengths of the bibliometric analysis conducted by Qin et al. that examines the relationships between environmental and natural resource sociologies through citation networks, coauthorship, and keyword usage. We also suggest some ways that the analysis could be expanded or built upon, and ideas for further distinct, but related, inquiry. We also reflect on our own identification, training, and mentoring within the two subfields and draw upon responses from a small purposefully selected sample of other early/mid-career environmental and natural resource sociologists to start a conversation about what the relationship between the two fields might look like in the future.     

“It won't be any good to have democracy if we don’t have a country”: Climate change and the politics of synecdoche in the Maldives

Critical attention has recently turned to the climate change “synecdoche”: a place uniquely exposed to the environmental consequences of climate crisis, such as sea-level rise, that becomes a stand-in for the global crisis as a whole and a harbinger of more widespread disaster. The Maldives, which scientists, politicians, and activists predict could be completely submerged by 2100, filled that role between the 2008 inauguration of Mohamed Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected president after years of authoritarian rule, and his 2012 ouster. This ethnography of the Maldivian challenge to climate change asks how claiming a geopolitical identity as the world’s “canary in the coalmine” fostered an emerging internal political culture.I argue that arming climate change solutions became a state-making device in the Maldives, whose fragile coral atoll ecosystem itself became the synecdoche of a young democracy. Between 2008 and 2012, how was environmental knowledge creation understood as a democratic activity? To answer this question, I draw on ethnographic interview testimony and participant-observation in Malé, the Maldivian capital, with politicians, activists, and city residents, as well as an analysis of the Nasheed administration’s public rhetoric. The article centers on the case of Bluepeace, the country’s oldest environmental NGO, which has seen significant international publicity. Following Bluepeace’s efforts to help the Maldives achieve carbon neutrality by 2020—part of Nasheed’s plan to end global climate change through exemplary national sacrifice—this article finds that climate problem solving and democracy were put to work for one another through small-scale mitigation and adaptation experiments.     

Loving Water,Resenting Regulation: Sense of Place and Water Management in the Willamette Watershed

Although the Pacific Northwest is often associated with abundant water and images of wide, salmon-filled rivers, water-related conflicts throughout the region are not uncommon as adequate supplies fall short of increasing demand. This article investigates water stakeholders’ perceptions of local waters and their water-related behaviors within the Willamette watershed of western Oregon. I conducted 25 interviews with key users of the Willamette watershed's water supply. My analyses of these data suggest that stakeholders perceive water as a scarce resource. In addition, the participants indicated strong attachments to local water bodies but demonstrated little incentive in making personal sacrifices to safeguard these “scarce” water supplies. Given that equitable water distribution is a present and growing concern, this case study contributes to a body of knowledge that legitimizes direct experience in shaping resource management, as well as illuminates the complicated relationship between place attachment and environmental behaviors.     

改进IPAT等式的可持续性评价应用——以张掖市为例

综合的可持续评价是对地区经济发展的准确衡量,也是科学指导地区可持续发展的重要凭借。构建了一个基于IPAT等式改进的恒等式评价模型——IPADSEFÍÁ等式,以水资源在农业种植业方面的利用现状作为环境影响因素,综合考虑人口规模、经济增长、农业依赖度、农业产业结构、生产效益和先进农业技术应用等人文因素,结合1990-2014年的地区发展历程,对张掖的发展进程进行了分解和归因,并对发展的可持续性进行评价,得出张掖当前的发展模式对自然环境存在较强的压迫,尤其在水资源利用方面不是可持续的。而进行合理的产业结构调整、发展高附加值农业产业、继续加大应用先进农业技术可以缓解目前的水资源压力,让张掖的发展更具可持续性。     

Belonging in charlotte: multiscalar differences in local immigration politics and policies

In the context of Charlotte, North Carolina's, emergence as a “globalizing” pre‐emergent immigrant gateway, this paper focuses on a complex and multiscalar set of governmental policies and community‐development dynamics that are shaping localized response to Hispanic/Latino immigration. Specifically, we explore how these policies and dynamics play out spatially in the context of two Charlotte neighborhoods, both of which have similar historical roots and have become magnets for Latino settlement, yet display divergent contemporary place‐making paths. Our exploration reveals the ways in which contexts of receptivity and spaces of both exclusion and inclusion are created by the socio‐spatial components of public policy and the localized response to that policy at the intraurban level. Reinforcing the importance of space and place in the construction of receptivity contexts, the compared stories of Eastside and South Charlotte reveal that neighborhoods are never the product of one transformational force but of many—no matter how they may be perceived in the public imaginary.     

怀旧消费空间地方建构的比较研究——以广州怀旧餐厅为例

在全球化深入发展的今天,都市怀旧消费风潮已渗透至社会文化生活诸多领域。许多怀旧餐厅也应运而生,形成以城市怀旧为主题的特殊消费空间和文化空间。全球与地方在消费文化转化中相互促进,地方文化形态正在发生变化,不同怀旧消费空间的地方建构是否存在差异?本文选择广州太平馆、巴打怀旧茶餐厅两个不同特点的怀旧餐厅为案例,通过参与式观察、深度访谈、问卷调查和文本分析等研究方法,收集相关媒体报道和网上讨论作为研究的文本资料。从物质空间和情感空间两个方面对比分析了怀旧餐厅的地方建构和认同。研究表明,透过记忆的呈现和展示,记忆凝视下的传统再造和怀旧消费导向下的再造传统都是适应全球文化潮流过程中不同的消费物质空间建构形式。从消费者角度来看,怀旧地方又是其情感空间的建构和地方记忆的再生产,表现在地方依恋和地方认同等方面。由于怀旧地方建构中"真实地方"和"构想地方"交集的差异,其地方认同感也存在不同,在很大程度上受到地方根植性、市场机制和后现代消费特征等因素的影响。本文有助于从新文化地理学视角理解怀旧消费空间的地方建构,对指导怀旧消费空间生产和实践有积极的现实意义。     

体制与认同：高校地理院系调整的启示

地理院系调整研究旨在通过对地理学认同产生不利影响的高校地理院系调整的解析,揭示地理学发展存在的学科与体制认同问题。基于对高校地理院系调整的回顾,分析地理院系调整的原因及影响,并结合当前地理院系发展态势阐明其启示。结果显示：学科认同与院系调整互为关联,尽管地理院系调整导致的解体并不表明地理学的终结,一般意义的调整也存在积极影响,但不同类型地理院系调整对地理学（特别是人文地理学）学科认同的不利影响仍然明显,并影响着体制层面的学科再生产。地理院系调整的发生是多因素共同影响的结果,复杂多样的因素及其影响表明地理院系面临竞争,需要地理学者既“正名”（塑造科学性、统一性的学科形象）又“指实”（完整的院系体制建设）;既“向内”（地理院系及地理学家的努力）又“向外”（维护地理学及地理院系的完整性认同）的集体努力,在强化地理学综合性基础上形成“多轨发展”机制,强化地理学学科与体制认同。“跨学科典范”的塑造或许是当前地理院系应努力的现实目标。     

艰难时世中的地理创造——张相文的地学生涯与学术贡献

张相文是中国近代地理学先驱。在时局动荡的清末民初时期,他将家国情怀与学术追求相结合,在不断转换的身份之中谋求地学报国。其地理学家的主要身份与革命家、历史学家、教育家、实业家等多重身份交织在一起。他是“中国地学会”(中国地理学会的前身)的主要创建者和组织者,是中国第一本地理学学术期刊《地学杂志》的主要创办者。他明确提出“秦岭—淮河”南北地理分界线,创编较为完整的地理学教材,积极投身洪水治理、田野考察为主的地理实践,强有力地推动了中国近代地理学的迅速发展。论文通过广泛的资料比对重新归纳提炼了张相文的学术思想、主要活动及其现实意义。包容与专业精神、卓越的组织领导力、积极投身实践与治理、长期的坚守是他能够获得开创性成就的主要原因,也非常值得现今地理学者及团体发展借鉴。     

流动群体跨地方饮食适应的多元策略及身份协商——广州案例

流动性语境中,流动群体因其承载的源地文化基因与在地饮食文化的碰撞,不可避免地陷入维系源地饮食与融入在地饮食的两难境地,从而引发了饮食调适与身份焦虑等问题。尽管学界探讨了流动群体在不同饮食文化影响下的调适策略,但大多将固守源地文化与接纳在地文化进行对立,忽视了个体能动的协商过程。论文基于文化地理学视角,以广州流动群体为研究对象,分析他们在跨地方饮食适应过程中采取的多元策略及身份协商。研究发现,在不同地方饮食文化的影响下,流动群体跨地方饮食适应的策略包括饮食同化、饮食融合、饮食隔离与饮食边缘化。在不同策略之下,流动群体的日常饮食实践呈现出差异化的特征,并使得原本单一的源地身份认同趋于复杂化。论文提出了跨地方饮食适应的分析框架,讨论了饮食适应的多元策略与身份协商之关系,为文化地理学视角下的移民与饮食研究提供了新的理论视野,在实践层面上有利于促进流动群体的饮食适应与社会融入。     

Pass the passport! Geographies of the Rugby World Cup 2011

The Rugby World Cup, held in New Zealand in 2011, was a showcase for a rapidly globalising sport involving competition between twenty national teams, comprising over 600 players. This paper analyses the geography of the players’ team affiliations and reveals patterns of labour mobility that disrupt and render complex concepts and definitions of ‘national’ identity. We see that the dominance of professional rugby, particularly by European clubs, is concentrating player resources and revenue generation in ways that suggest an evolving core–periphery relationship. We suggest that the players themselves exercise agency by finding, manipulating and exploiting cracks and opportunities in the complex regulatory framework of the sport. We build a case for a research agenda that maps out these geographies of rugby and traces their implications for understandings of identity and the political economy of globalising sport.