From economic integration to socioeconomic inclusion: day labor worker centers as social intermediaries

Day labor worker centers have emerged as an important mode of regulatory action in the informal economy of major US cities. Research suggests that these organizations are beneficial in improving employment outcomes experienced by migrant workers engaged in this labor market sector. Yet, the extent to which these organizations impact the social integration of this working population remains relatively undeveloped in the literature. Using data from the National Day Labor Survey, we examine the impact of day labor worker centers on the level of social inclusion experienced by migrant day laborers. We find that worker centers have a modest, but statistically significant, impact on the levels of social integration experienced by this working population and that this varies from city to city. Ultimately we argue that the social intermediary role of these organizations may offer a type of counter mobilization necessary to promote the socioeconomic integration of this working population, but that issues of capacity remain.     

Structuring social data for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive, adopted by the EU, and several other initiatives to improve marine environmental management emphasize the need to integrate environmental and social analyses. This article proposes and tests a general Behavior-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (BPSIR) framework for identifying and structuring environmentally relevant social data. The framework is compatible with the widely applied Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework, but emphasizes actors and their behavior and defines ‘impact’ more specifically. In particular, it distinguishes between: (i) actors directly involved in activities causing physical, chemical, and biological disturbances, and (ii) actors who indirectly affect marine resource use and the pressures on marine ecosystems. Three case studies of chemical and biological disturbances in the Swedish parts of the North and Baltic seas demonstrate the need to balance current ecosystem monitoring with systematically collected and organized data on social factors, i.e., both direct and indirect actors and stakeholders, their adaptation to policy measures, and the role of general trends in consumption and production.     

适应性治理与气候变化：内蒙古草原案例分析与对策探讨

适应性治理通过边学边做,针对各地方的社会经济条件、自然生态系统、地方知识文化等基本特征,基于一个动态、自下而上和自组织的过程不断测试和修正制度安排与知识体系,形成一个旨在解决实际问题的循环过程。通过内蒙古3个地区案例的对比分析研究,基于对其气候变化风险和社会脆弱性的评估,发现其在气候变化影响下形成的不同程度的社会脆弱性正是源于不同的草原利用机制和基于此的社会合作机制。正是因为3个案例地的牧民有着不同的社会资本和社会记忆,所以他们面对极端天气导致的自然灾害时,采取了不同的应对方式,有的牧户可以依赖于社会资本移动牲畜来渡过难关,有的牧户则可以在嘎查范围内重启社会记忆,通过合理安排草场利用和移动牲畜提高自身的抗灾能力,而有的牧户则只能通过买草料独立抗灾。这样不同的结果有力证明了适应性治理在提升这些地区气候变化应对能力方面的必要性和可行性。在地区层面引入适应性治理,可以满足各利益相关方的需求,有利于自然、社会及管理的多学科协同,与“未来地球计划”的协同设计、协同实施和协同推广理念不谋而合,是“未来地球”思想在气候变化适应研究中的实践。     

Values shift in response to social learning through deliberation about protected areas

Salient, long-term solutions to address global environmental change hinge on management strategies that are inclusive of local voices and that recognize the array of values held by surrounding communities. Group-based participatory processes that involve deliberation of multiple stakeholders with varying perspectives—particularly social learning—hold promise to advance inclusive conservation by identifying and creating a shared understanding of the landscape. However, few studies have empirically investigated how the value basis of stakeholder deliberation changes over time in relation to social learning. This study provided a novel platform for local stakeholders from Interior Alaska to deliberate on landscape change and associated management practices in ways that shifted their value orientations. In particular, we used a pre-test, post-test experimental design involving mixed methods to measure how different types of values changed as a result of social learning through an online discussion forum. We found evidence that social learning: 1) activated shared values that were previously hidden through building a relational understanding of others, and 2) shifted values that spanned three levels of psychological stability. As hypothesized, social values that represented expressed preferences for landscape change were most likely to shift in association with social learning. Conversely, shifts in individual values towards self-transcendence required learning to go beyond the discussion forum and be situated within the participants’ broader communities of practice. Overall, this longitudinal study highlights how social learning facilitated through deliberation presents opportunities to identify shared values and spark value shifts across stakeholder groups, thus incorporating diverse viewpoints into decision-making about global environmental change.     

Social justice in coastal erosion management: The temporal and spatial dimensions

Coastal erosion management is primarily based on economic considerations (cost-benefit analysis). From the perspective of social justice (as a particular expression of the wider concept of human rights), however, several arguments can be advanced regarding public intervention in coastal defence management when private property is threatened by coastal erosion. In this paper we examine these arguments at both the short-term local scale and the long-term large spatial scale and consider the merits of inclusion of a social justice dimension in coastal erosion management. The coast provides a range of resources that benefit society as a whole. Coastal residents and property owners face a direct financial loss from coastal erosion but the general public also stands to incur losses other than purely financial if it there is public intervention for the benefit of these property owners. The arguments for public intervention are strongest at the local and short-term scales but they weaken (and even reverse) at geographically larger and longer time scales. At larger scales, the costs to society increase as intergenerational equity, non-coastal residents, climate and sea level change, and the environment are considered. Because of the intensity of interest involved at the local level, we argue that the necessary hard decisions must be made nationally if a sustainable policy is to be adopted. Social justice considerations provide a potential improvement on the traditional economic cost/benefit-based decision-making process of coastal erosion management but they only contribute to sustainability if viewed at the national level.     

The evaluation of “social risk” due to volcanic eruptions of Vesuvius

A re-evaluation of the demographic risk per number of inhabitants due to volcanic eruptions in the Vesuvius area was made on the basis of the Census data of 2001. We introduced other variables (population density and number of houses) which permit to upgrade the existing models. Using the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and particularly ArcGIS 9.0 software we have elaborated a land use map, an urbanization map and a series of new risk maps which lead us to obtain a map of what we call “social risk” due to volcanic eruptions, derived from the combination of the data used and the overlay of the maps. We have proposed an integrated model which can be easily updated to follow the evolution of the volcanic risk in the overpopulated Vesuvius area, with the aim of supporting the planning of Civil Protection and Local Authorities, for an evacuation scenarios and the possibility of taking into account the potential infrastructural damages. This methodology can be tested in other volcanic regions.     

The interplay between social welfare and competitiveness: The case of Canadian Medicare

Canadian Medicare, the government financed national health care system, is seen by many as enhancing both social welfare and competitiveness. If true, this will broaden and further existing conceptions of competitiveness in Canada and beyond. Moreover, it will have important implications for the ongoing debate in the social sciences about institutional convergence and path dependence. The central focus of this paper is to evaluate this claim: Medicare’s impact on competitiveness, evaluated by using investment attraction as a proxy, is determined through reference to detailed case analysis and the insight into investment behavior gained from interviews. This paper concludes that Medicare makes a difference for certain reinvestment decisions but no difference for location and initial investment decisions. Several implications are drawn from this finding: Medicare’s impact on reinvestment decisions may stop certain Canadian firms from investing elsewhere but likely would not attract new investment into Canada from abroad. Industries with high labor costs will extract a disproportionately large benefit from Medicare; so, this type of institution is a source of competitiveness to certain industries if not an overarching source of regional competitiveness for Canada. I conclude that, no matter the size and scope of the competitive benefit, social institutions such as Medicare must be considered when evaluating regional competitiveness, having thus far been ignored by mainstream academic competitiveness theories.     

Political ecology and the epistemology of social justice

Piers Blaikie’s writings on political ecology in the 1980s represented a turning point in the generation of environmental knowledge for social justice. His writings since the 1980s demonstrated a further transition in the identification of social justice by replacing a Marxist and eco-catastrophist epistemology with approaches influenced by critical realism, post-structuralism and participatory development. Together, these works demonstrated an important engagement with the politics of how environmental explanations are made, and the mutual dependency of social values and environmental knowledge. Yet, today, the lessons of Blaikie’s work are often missed by analysts who ask what is essentially political or ecological about political ecology, or by those who argue that a critical approach to environmental knowledge should mean deconstruction alone. This paper reviews Blaikie’s work since the 1980s and focuses especially on the meaning of ‘politics’ within his approach to political ecology. The paper argues that Blaikie’s key contribution is not just in linking environmental knowledge and politics, but also in showing ways that environmental analysis and policy can be reframed towards addressing the problems of socially vulnerable people. This pragmatic co-production of environmental knowledge and social values offers a more constructive means of building socially just environmental policy than insisting politics or ecology exist independently of each other, or believing environmental interventions are futile in a post-Latourian world.     

Local Governance for Social Sustainability: equity as a strategic response to neoliberal constraints in food security initiatives

Scholarly literature recognises the importance of social sustainability as part of the wider sustainability agenda. A wide array of concepts such as equity, social justice, democratic government, social inclusion, social capital and quality of life are thought to constitute social sustainability. Local governments are charged with delivering social programs and services to their constituency, but market logics and performance-based institutional cultures, along with limited authority and funding, constrain their capacity to respond to new initiatives. We analyse two case studies in Victoria, Australia, to explore how elements of social sustainability are articulated and operationalised within local government. Each case study involved State-level and local government partnerships in health-promotion initiatives to improve food security. Analysis was conducted on 50 primary policy documents, 22 secondary data documents and 27 interviews. Findings reveal that a systems-based or integrated approach to social sustainability was not workable but not completely ineffective. Equity was prioritised by local government in both case studies, and well acknowledged as interconnected with other social goals. Although constrained in its capacity to deliver new initiatives, local government responded to neoliberalising ideologies, as well as its constituency, by strategically focusing on a particular goal, such as equity.     

加强地质科技项目管理 助力新时期找矿突破

找矿突破战略行动自实施以来,取得了一系列成果,重要和紧缺矿种新增资源储量保持较快增长,国内矿产资源保障能力增强。通过近5年的探索和努力,找矿效果显著,新发现一批重要矿产地,新增一批矿产资源,发现并查明了大湖塘钨矿床、大营铀矿床、沙坪沟钼矿床等一批世界级矿床,西藏甲玛铜矿床、多龙铜矿床、青海夏日哈木镍矿床等一批超大型矿床,并有望形成西藏扎西康铅锌矿床、贵州铜仁锰矿床等一批新的资源基地,对于立足国内资源保障,优化矿产资源格局具有重要的推动作用。2015年,全国地质勘查投资总额为899.3亿元,新发现主要固体矿产大中型矿产地144处。