BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: Geography and the Third World. International Seminar, 14–18 May 1980, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia . Ishmail Ahmad and Jamaluddin Md Jahi, eds. The Growth Dilemma: Residents' Views and Local Population Change in the United States . Mark Baldassare. Sport and Place: A Geography of Sport in England, Scotland & Wales . John Bale. The Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry . Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison. Selected Essays 1963–1975: Carl O. Sauer . Bob Callahen, ed. Housing and Planning in the Countryside . G. Clark. Conflict, Politics and the Urban Scene . Kevin R. Cox and R. J. Johnston, eds. Thematic Maps: Their Design and Production . David J. Cuff and Mark T. Mattson. Wine: A Geographic Appreciation . Harm Jan de Blij. USSR in Maps . J. C. Dewdney. Political Geography: A Contemporary Perspective . Ramesh D. Dikshit. Rethinking Human Adaptation . Rada Dyson-Hudson and Michael A. Little, eds. Sacred Sands: The Struggle for Community in the indiana Dunes . J. Ronald Engel. Geography of the Biosphere . A. Furley and Walter W. Newey. Disaster and Reconstruction . Robert Geipel. Glasgow: The Making of a City . Andrew Gibb. Design for Arid Regions . Giden S. Golany, ed. Urbanization and Cancer Mortality: The United States Experience, 1950–1975 . Michael R. Greenberg. Geology in the Nineteenth Century: Changing Views of a Changing World . Mott T. Greene. Colonización y Destrucción de Bosques en Panamá . Stanley Heckadon Moreno and Alberto McKay, eds. Urban Geography: A First Approach . David T. Herbert and Colin J. Thomas. The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscapes . Tadahiko Higuchi. Climate from Tree Rings . M. K. Hughes, P. M. Kelly, J. R. Pilcher, and V. C. LaMarche, Jr., eds. The structure of Nineteenth Century Cities . James H. Johnson and Colin G. Pooley, eds. The American Planner: Biographies and Recollections . Donald A. Krueckeberg, ed. Urban Land Policy For the 1980s, the Message for State and Local Government . George Lefcoe, ed. Regional Planning: Evolution, Crisis and Prospects . Gill C. Lim, ed. Relevance and Ethics In Geography . Bruce Mitchell and Dianne Draper. China: The Geography of Development and Modernization . Clifton W. Pannell and Laurence J. C. MA. The Urban Retailing System . Robert B. Potter. Hants. Nonconventional Energy Resources . Philip R. Pryde. Caribbean Migrants: Environment and Human Survival on St. Kitts and Nevis . Bonham C. Richardson. Population and Resources . Harry Robinson. East Los Angeles: History of A Barrio . Ricardo Romo. Integrated Impact Assessment . Frederick A. Rossini and Alan L. Porter, eds. Environmental Aesthetics: Essays in Interpretation . Barry Sadler and Allen Carlson, eds. Earthwatch . Charles Sheffield. Field Techniques and Research Methods in Geography . Robert H. Stoddard. Haiti: Land of Poverty . Robert J. Tata. Weathering and Erosion: Sources and Methods in Geography . Stephen T. Trudgill. Once Beneath the Forest. Prehistoric Terracing in the Río Bec Region of the Maya Lowlands . B. L. Turner, II. The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707 . David Turnock.     

Alternative Economies of the Forest: Honey Production and Public Land Management in Northwest Florida

Within public lands across the United States, “natural” environments are given boundaries, subject to regulation, and managed for various uses. However, the effective and judicious management of these socionatural spaces for the greater good of both long-term sustainability and the mutual benefit of disparate stakeholders remains a challenge. One such stakeholder group includes forest-dependent communities, specifically, harvesters and producers of nontimber forest products (NTFPs). Relying on a case study of honey producers in rural northwest Florida, this article demonstrates how competing notions of forest management create tensions between local resource users and resource managers. NTFP research engages in timely discussions of diverse economic practices, resource politics, and issues of contested land use and access within a post-industrial context.     

渤海海峡跨海通道建设与中国的地缘政治战略

回顾渤海海峡跨海通道建设研究的历史进程基础上,诠释了地缘政治理论与地缘政治战略,梳理了主要的中外地缘政治理论与地缘政治战略,明确指出地缘政治战略决定着大国竞争方向。中国是世界上地缘政治环境最复杂的国家,在中国周边长期存在着一个“V”字型地缘政治热点线,“V”字型地缘政治热点线贯穿中国周边的东南亚、东北亚、南亚、北亚、中亚五大地缘政治战略区,构成了中国的地缘政治“大棋局”。东南亚中国南海之争直接威胁到中国领土安全;目前东北亚已成为中国地缘政治关系热点中的热点;南亚存在着中印陆海长期之争;北亚俄罗斯将会成为战略合作伙伴;中亚复杂的地缘政治因素将长期影响着中国西北边疆的安全。研究表明,渤海海峡跨海通道建设对于中国实施地缘政治战略的重要意义在于：① 对下好中国的地缘政治“大棋局”起着重要的支撑作用;② 是“一带一路”战略破解美国亚太再平衡战略的重要构成要素;③ 对遏制东北亚局部战争、确保国家安全将发挥重要作用。渤海海峡跨海通道建设是一项世界级的大工程,投资建设的成本大,效益也大,同时风险也大。基于此,要汲取国内外世界级大工程建设的经验和教训,认真研究相关问题,不可急功近利草率上马。     

Understanding the dynamics of sustainability transitions: the Home Insulation Program

The Home Insulation Program (HIP) in Australia is an outstanding example of a contemporary attempt to intervene in a socio-technical regime. The program, implemented in 2009 under the then Australian Labor Party government led by Kevin Rudd, was targeted at stimulating the retrofit insulation industry. The objective was to both improve the energy efficiency of homes and thereby contribute to Australia’s emissions reduction targets by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to stimulate the Australian economy at the time of the global financial crisis. The program ended early following a number of economic issues and health and safety concerns. Despite previous investigation into the HIP reviewing its design and implementation, the focus has been on economic issues and health and safety concerns. To date there has been no investigation of the HIP as a sustainability transition. This article integrates socio-technical transition theory (STTT) and political ecology (PE) approaches to analyse the HIP and identify lessons for future sustainability transition initiatives. This is achieved by illustrating the effect of regime management (RM) on the orientation of niche governance (NG) which highlights the importance of considering the RM and NG aspects of STTT with a PE approach in symmetry, in order to adequately account for political and economic contest and power relations, which are ubiquitous in environmental management governance.     

西方尺度研究进展：概念化框架、实践路径及启示

通过梳理西方尺度研究的内涵和主要内容,发现尺度主要包含尺度本体论、尺度隐喻和尺度实践3个主要要素。尺度的本体论认为尺度是静态的等级化的物质实体,尺度的隐喻体现在尺度可通过话语进行多样化的解构和表达,尺度实践表示尺度通过不同行动者间的互动进行社会建构以实现尺度的再创造。尺度的3个要素之间既有统一性又有对立性：在统一性上,尺度本体论为尺度隐喻与尺度实践的实现创造了前提,尺度隐喻及尺度实践发展了尺度本体论;在对立性上,尺度本体论是实在论立场,尺度隐喻和尺度实践是建构论的产物。西方尺度研究主要经历了2个典型的阶段：将尺度物化为固定的空间实体;不同行动主体运用尺度进行社会实践或话语表达。这启示中国化的尺度研究需要将两者结合起来,既要承认物质空间实体的作用,也要接受行动者的能动性,将尺度看作是人、物相互作用的关系网络。文章展示了尺度概念化框架并实现了尺度的应用路径归纳,具体体现在尺度化、尺度解构及尺度政治3个方面。同时提出将资源配置效果纳入到尺度实践的分析要素之中以实现尺度的政治经济,这不仅扩充了尺度的理论内涵,还增加了尺度的实践应用效果和范围。     

Beyond techno-science: Transgenic maize in the fight over Mexico’s future

Disputes about genetically engineered crops are linked to wider debates about the globalization of agro-food systems and its consequences for food security, social equity, and rural life. Biotechnology expert discourse rarely addresses these wider issues. An exception is the assessment of transgenic maize by the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC), which recommended a moratorium on Mexican imports of US-grown maize. Controversy about “contamination” of indigenous maize varieties by US-grown transgenic corn has been intensified by rising Mexican discontent with the terms of regional economic integration. In this context, scientists and officials were pressured to consider not only risks to maize biodiversity but also the ecological, and cultural characteristics of maize in its Mexican settings and the implications of asymmetric power in North American agricultural trade. In contrast to most narrowly-framed biotechnology risk assessments, the review took account of interventions by rural social movements. While the new moratorium was not adopted by the state, continuing conflicts over GMOs in Mexico have blocked introduction of transgenic maize and have enlarged the political space for debate over Mexico’s development direction. These conflicts reflect the differing interests of various state actors and economic sectors with regard to trade liberalization. They also reveal contrasting food-system paradigms: further agricultural modernization, export competition, and food-import dependence versus an alternative vision of revitalized rural life, farmers’ rights, and national food sovereignty.     

Sociotechnical imaginaries of urban development: social movements around “traditional” water infrastructure in the Kathmandu Valley

This article examines the role of so-called traditional stone waterspout technologies in struggles over urban modernization in Lalitpur, Nepal. In doing so, this article questions the status of tradition in urban theorizing and mobilizes the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries as a framework for understanding the contested spatial visions of urban development. In advancing this approach, this article analyses infrastructure as a visual discourse of materials, practices, and texts, including the label “tradition.” Findings indicate that stone spouts represent material and symbolic sites for residents to express discontent with hegemonic visions of modernization, legitimize certain cultural practices, and make claims on urban space. We argue that an alternate imaginary of urban development has emerged through the prism of traditional infrastructure. This article forwards sociotechnical imaginaries as a framework for situating the multiple and contested trajectories of urban modernization, particularly the ways in which past technologies come to shape desired urban futures.     

The city,the (Member) state,and the European Union

This contribution to a Debate on “The Nation-State and the city” foregrounds the recently adopted Urban Agenda for the European Union. It discusses the new role of cities in the European policy making process and its relevance for relations between State and City in the light of EU membership.     

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.