Resource Peripheries and Neoliberalism: the Pilbara and the remaking of industrial relations in Australia

How mining companies overcome the problems faced by the fixity of resources and how they might come to exercise influence in societies which appear to be mostly post-industrial are complex questions of political geography. This is not least the case for a region such as the Pilbara—an iron ore site isolated from metropolitan centres—in Australia—a country isolated from many global centres and markets. At the same time, local struggles in this resources site have been profoundly influential in the making of a national neoliberal industrial relations agenda. Building on other scholarship on the Pilbara, but here re-emphasising the local scale and the details of work and regulation, provides a way to assess the place's wider importance. The Pilbara is a site of thoroughly transformed industrial relations, from a union space when export mining began in the 1960s to an employer stronghold today. Policy makers delivered changes to facilitate the remaking of employer power in workplaces in and beyond mining. This resource periphery has therefore been central to the remaking of national policy regimes.     

What is the Meaning of ‘Social Mix’? Shifting perspectives in planning and implementing public housing estate redevelopment

This paper unravels a variety of perspectives about the concept of social mix, drawing on a case study of the implementation of a redevelopment project in Melbourne. The first part provides a theoretical overview of two internationally predominant academic debates around policy interpretations of this concept, namely social mix as a means for promotion of social inclusion; and as a state-led form of gentrification. These two arguments are usually presented as one, with social inclusion and reductions of concentrations of disadvantage one side of the ‘social mix policy’ coin, and state-led gentrification the other. This paper contributes to the national and international literature on public housing estate regeneration and social mix policies through exploring the question of whether these two ideas about social mix were shared by different stakeholders as the ‘messy’ process of redevelopment unfurled. Interviews were conducted with public tenants, homeowners and homebuyers, private renters and local service providers at the Carlton Housing Estate to explore the diverse perspectives of various stakeholder groups as estate design and implementation shifted. The study identified that as a result of the global financial crisis and the developers exerting pressure on government there was a gradual move away from perceiving social mix as a policy tool for encouraging social inclusion at Carlton, between public housing tenants and private residents, towards a different form of social mix and inclusion. Contrary to intentions, the revised form of social mix at Carlton was perceived as a means to harness market capital and attract higher income residents to the inner city.     

The Demographic Constraints on Future Population Growth in Regional Australia

Concern about rapid population growth in Australia's large cities and slower growth in many non-metropolitan areas has stimulated a range of government policies attempting to lift non-metropolitan growth rates. However, there is relatively little research on which to base these policies. It would be helpful to understand more about the consequences of current demographic trends continuing and the effects of alternative migration patterns. This paper presents sub-national population projections for Australia over the horizon 2011–2041, basing the projections on more socially meaningful Remoteness Areas instead of common statistical geographies. Three sets of projections were generated: a Current Direction scenario in which recent demographic trends are maintained, a Regional Immigration scenario in which more immigrants settle in regional and remote areas, and a Metro Exodus scenario in which there is increased internal migration from metropolitan to non-metropolitan areas. The future of Australia's population geography is shown to be one of spatially varying growth and population ageing, and continued metropolitanisation. In regional areas rapid population ageing will lower natural increase rates and thus reduce overall growth, resulting in a falling share of the national population. Policy measures attempting to increase the share of growth in regional areas will struggle against natural demographic forces operating in the opposite direction.     

Approaches to evaluating model quality across different regime types in environmental and public health governance

A reliance on mathematical modelling is a defining feature of modern global environmental and public health governance. Initially hailed as the vanguard of a new era of rational policy-making, models are now habitually subject to critical analyses. Their quality, in other words, is routinely queried, yet what exactly is quality in this context? The prevailing paradigm views model quality as a multi-dimensional concept, encompassing technical dimensions (e.g. precision and bias), value judgments, problem-framing, treatment of “deep” uncertainties, and pragmatic features of particular decision contexts. Whilst those technical dimensions are relatively simple to characterise, the broader dimensions of quality are less easily formalised and as a result are difficult to take account of during model construction and evaluation. Here, we present a typology of governance regimes (risk-based, precautionary, adaptive and participatory) that helps make explicit what these broader dimensions of model quality are, and sketches out how the emphasis placed on them differs by regime type. We show that these regime types hold distinct positions on what constitutes sound evidence, on how that evidence should be used in policy-making, and to what social ends. As such, a model may be viewed within one regime as providing legitimate evidence for action, be down-weighted elsewhere for reflecting a flawed problem-framing, and outright rejected in another jurisdiction on the grounds that it does not cohere with the preferred ethical framework for decision-making. We illustrate these dynamics by applying our typology to a range of policy domains, emphasising both the disconnects that can occur, as well as the ways that modellers have adapted their practices to ensure that their evidence is brought to bear on policy problems across diverse regime types.     

Technological capability and transfer for achieving South Africa's development goals

Technological capability and technology transfer both play important roles in achieving low-carbon development targets and the concepts of both have appeared in national development and climate policy debates. Yet, they differ. Improving capabilities and transfer mechanisms are two differing approaches to technological development. Technology transfer is associated with a key political dynamic within international climate policy, in that developing countries request support from industrialised countries. Whereas technological capability focuses on building internal capabilities and is often framed in the context of national industrial policy plans rather than relying on external support. We argue that technology development, a combination of these approaches, can contribute to South Africa's low-carbon development through innovation and technology-based mitigation actions that increase domestic technological capabilities. Technological capability needs to become a determinant of mitigation action to effectively contribute to achieving South Africa's low-carbon development goals. International technology transfer and cooperation should contribute to boosting domestic capabilities to advance technological development. Technology transfer based on pure sales will not contribute to achieving long-term low-carbon development goals.     

Enhancing the effectiveness of policy-relevant integrative research in rural areas

There has been much debate about the importance of policy-relevant research in geography over the last decade. There has also been an increasing recognition by policymakers of the importance of integrative (interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary) approaches to policy-relevant research. However, geographers have been more reluctant than their colleagues in other social and natural sciences to embrace integrative research collaborations. For integrative research to achieve its full potential and to encourage greater participation from the geographical research community, we need to increase our understanding of its potential value, but also some of the challenges that it poses, and how these can be overcome. In this paper, we consider the processes involved in conducting successful integrative research from the perspective of researchers involved in these projects. We base our analysis on the results of a questionnaire survey of international integrative research programmes on environmental issues in rural areas, combined with our own experiences of working in integrative research. We conclude that effective integrative research depends on the establishment of a clear conceptual framework, the use of appropriate temporal and spatial scales in the research, effective language and communication, time and commitment, and trust and respect. We also highlight the value of stakeholder involvement in integrative research to ensure the policy relevance of the work and provide a mechanism to assist with effective knowledge transfer of the results.     

It's good to talk: performing and recording the telephone interview

This paper explores the transition of talk to text in the process of performing and recording semi-structured interviews over the telephone. In particular, it considers the ways respondents and the materials enjoined in the process of interviewing exceed their role in the research process. Drawing on my experience of conducting telephone interviews in the UK, I position the interview as an uncertain encounter: one framed by earlier narrations as much as the aims and objectives of the research project; and an orientation towards 'talk' as much as the reduction of performance to text. Far from losing track of these uncertainties I argue that tape-recorders are well equipped to document these in/audible realms.     

Producer responsibility in a sustainable development context: ecological modernisation or industrial ecology?

The concept of producer responsibility has become a major tenet of EU waste management policy. It forms part of an effort to set a regulatory context for firms supportive of sustainable development. Two contrasting notions of the theory and implementation of sustainable development are ecological modernisation and industrial ecology. Ecological modernisation emphasises economic development and technological advances, within a suitable policy framework. Industrial ecology, by contrast, emphasises inter-firm cooperation and voluntary compliance inspired by eco-efficiency savings. Recently, however, industrial ecologists have shown greater interest in the potential for policy implementation. With aims such as increasing recovery of value from waste, creating a demand for recycled materials, and decreasing the potential harmful effects of waste, the producer responsibility directives can be seen as attempts to implement industrial ecology principles. This paper examines interrelationships of ecological modernisation and industrial ecology to understand the potential and shortcomings of the producer responsibility regulations as a means to promote waste minimisation through eco-design.     

欧美城市滨水区研究的新视角:政治生态学转向

欧美城市滨水区的再开发实践促进了滨水区研究的多维观察与思考,其中一个重要共识就是:在全球化与新技术革命的推动下,城市滨水区的变化是一个具有高度复杂性的现象,不仅涉及自然生态环境,更有着经济、社会和政治层面的深刻内涵;同时,还反映着从社区、地方到国家、甚至全球尺度的社会政治变迁.因此,研究发生在滨水区范围内各种变化的同时需要关注更大尺度的一些因素.需要对发生在城市中的自然生产、社会网络关系模式及政治经济结构等进行重新审视.欧美学者基于政治生态学空间与社会关系、尺度的政治学等视角对城市滨水区变化的思考,无疑为城市滨水区研究提供了一种新的理论工具.