Weaponizing vulnerability to climate change

As scores of climate change adaptation measures are implemented around the world, there have been growing calls among academics and practitioners to also address the processes that underpin human vulnerability to climate change. However, there is mounting evidence that adaptation and vulnerability are linked, such that ostensibly adaptive responses can have negative consequences and augment people’s vulnerability. We analyzed several climate change responses at various scales and developed a typology of five discrete but related modes by which the vulnerability of already vulnerable populations is being [re]produced. Crucially, this work suggests that for at least one of these modes, the vulnerability of other groups is perversely inverted, such that relatively secure populations perceive themselves to be at risk. The cases we present illustrate that people’s vulnerability is being used against them, or put another way, is being weaponized―exacerbating their precarity by excluding them from much needed and due assistance, while directing resources instead to bolstering the well-being of those already well-positioned to respond to climate threats. Our typology provides a theoretical intervention by illustrating how climate vulnerability and security are co-produced, as well as a practical tool to help decision makers to adopt more just and equitable climate policies.     

Mining conflicts and transformative politics: A comparison of Intag (Ecuador) and Mount Ida (Turkey) environmental struggles

This article argues for an understanding of local socio-environmental struggles as political spaces that present possibilities for the transformation of subjectivities of the social actors participating in them. Relying on Gramsci’s theorization of state and society relations the paper analyzes whether and how these struggles foment challenges to hegemonic understandings and practices of development, environment and democracy. The analysis builds on a comparison between two mining conflicts—one in Ecuador’s Intag region, the other in Turkey’s Mount Ida region. The paper suggests that the two conflicts differ in the ways political subjectivities of the peasants opposing the mining projects were constructed. In Intag, the peasants framed their opposition to the copper mine project as a struggle for their right to have control over their lives and territories. They have participated in the construction of a vision of local development based on the promotion of sustainable economic activities, and of an organized society actively building its future. In Mount Ida, the peasants resisting gold mining have emphasized the distributional inequalities; yet have not linked their concerns to broader rights-based discourses or political and ethical principles. Their opposition has been confined to a particularistic defense of the place. The paper discusses the role of the state in the making of subjects, and the relationships among the resistance actors as crucial factors accounting for these differences.     

Rural restructuring in China: Theory,approaches and research prospect

Rural restructuring is a process of reshaping socio-economic morphology and spatial pattern in rural territory in response to the changes of elements both in kernel system and external system of rural development, by optimally allocating and efficiently managing the material and non-material elements in the two systems. It aims at ultimately optimizing the structure and promoting the function within rural territorial system as well as realizing the coordination of structure and complementation of function between urban and rural territorial system. This paper establishes a theoretical framework of rural restructuring through elaborating the concept and connotations as well as analyzing the mechanism pushing forward rural restructuring based on the evolution of “elements-structure-function”, and probes the approaches from the three aspects of spatial restructuring, economic restructuring and social restructuring. Besides, the authors argue that the study of rural restructuring in China in the future needs to focus on the aspects of long-term and multi-scale process and pattern, mechanism, regional models, rural planning technology system and standard, policy and institutional innovations concerning rural restructuring as well as the impacts of globalization on rural restructuring, in order to serve the current national strategic demands and cope with the changes of rural development elements in the process of urban-rural development transformation.     

关于国土资源经济安全若干问题的思考

国土资源经济安全作为国家经济安全的重要组成部分 ,必须引起足够重视。该文论述国土资源经济安全的基本内涵和特征 ,提出了建立国土资源经济安全保障体系的设想和框架     

农业多功能的地域类型与优化策略——以吉林省为例

中国农业的发展正面临可持续发展、消费者需求变化、全球化的挑战。农业供给侧改革和乡村振兴背景下,应深入研究农业多种功能的空间格局、地域类型和优化策略。论文首先简要探讨了多功能农业的发展过程和农业功能时空差异的理论基础,然后以吉林省为例,构建了农业多功能的评价指标体系,采用聚类分析等方法,对农业多功能的地域类型及优化策略进行了实证研究。研究表明：① 农业多功能具有联合生产和外部性特征,经济社会发展阶段、农业资源禀赋以及两者的组合作用,是导致农业多功能时空分异的关键因素;② 吉林省县域农业各功能的空间分异具有不同特征,农产品供给功能高值县域主要分布在中西部松辽平原,经济发展功能高值县域主要为大农业发达的县域,社会保障功能高值县域主要为东部城镇化水平高且劳均农业产值高的县域,生态服务功能高值县域主要为林地、草地、水域面积占比高的东部和西部县域;③ 吉林省县域农业多功能的地域类型可分为4类,即农产品供给优势区、多种功能并重区、非生态功能弱势区和生态服务优势区;④ 不同农业多功能的地域类型具有不同的功能组合特征和区域发展背景因素的结构性差异,应有针对性地采取差异化的发展策略。     

典型村域乡村重构的过程及其驱动因素

乡村重构是实施推进乡村振兴战略的重要手段,一个完整的乡村重构过程通常由初始期、发展期、趋稳期、稳成期等不同阶段组成。本文在构建乡村重构过程分析的理论框架基础上,探索引入乡村发展指数、乡村重构强度指数和乡村重构贡献率的概念,选取大都市郊区和平原农区典型村域开展乡村重构过程的定量研究和驱动因素的对比分析。研究表明：① 20世纪90年代以来,伴随产业结构由传统农业向工业采矿业、旅游服务业转型,黄山店村社会经济形态和地域空间结构发生了剧烈重构,乡村重构过程依次经历了初始阶段、发展阶段,目前处于趋稳阶段;杨桥村产业发展经历了传统农业主导、农业兼业化生产阶段,自2000年以来开始出现社会经济重构迹象,近年来在地方政府推动下生活空间发生重构,但经济形态尚未发生明显改观,目前村域整体上仍处于低水平发展阶段。② 黄山店村快速的乡村重构是市场需求牵引、政府宏观政策引导等外源性因素及资源环境、区位条件、行为主体、经济基础、文化特质等内源性因素综合作用的结果;杨桥村的重构历程主要受城镇化、工业化、技术进步等社会经济发展进程以及“新农村建设”“增减挂钩”等外源性政策因素主导,缺乏内生发展动力是导致其重构速度相对缓慢的根源。     

Queer Farmland: Land Access Strategies for Small-Scale Agriculture

Farmers struggle to afford farmland because competing land uses raise prices higher than what farmers earn, especially in small-scale and sustainable agriculture. Farmers often depend on an intimate partner’s income or labor to access land, yet few studies investigate sexual relationships in farmland access. I interrogate how sexuality shapes land access for small-scale agriculture through participant observation and interviews with 25 queer farmers in New England. I find that queer farmers’ sexual identities and relationships influence where they farm, who they live and work with, how they afford the land, and how they learn to farm. I argue that finding land, labor, credit, and knowledge are intertwined, heteronormative processes of capital accumulation shaped by racism and sexism. Queer farmers’ experiences navigating heteronormativity suggest the relevance of sexuality to land conservation and food justice, limits of organizing land access through sexual relationships, and alternatives to the “family farm.”     

江苏省乡村地域功能与振兴路径选择研究

乡村振兴战略背景下,探索乡村振兴的差异化路径成为研究热点。乡村地域功能具有空间的差异性,明晰乡村地域功能的空间格局对于准确定位乡村发展模式、实施差异化的乡村振兴路径具有重要意义。本文以江苏省为例,采用定量评价方法,构建了包含生产发展、生活保障和生态保育为核心的乡村地域多维功能评价指标体系,以县级尺度识别了乡村地域功能的空间格局和地域类型,在此基础上探索各类型区差异化的乡村振兴路径。结果表明：江苏省乡村生产发展功能尚需完善、空间集聚程度低;生活保障功能空间格局和社会经济发展的地带性规律基本一致,呈现由苏南向苏北渐进衰退的趋势;生态保育功能高值区的区县数量较少,大部分区县的生态保育功能还有待加强;乡村地域总体功能由苏南向苏北呈现先行发展区、优化升级区、转型提升区和滞后欠发达区四种地域类型。此外,根据乡村地域总体功能呈现的差异化地域类型分别提出了相应的乡村振兴路径。     

空间正义与新型城镇化研究的方法论

在经济社会转型和进入新常态的背景下,以往重数量、规模扩张和经济效益的快速城镇化模式引发的许多空间不公正问题开始突显出来,如何实现土地资源配置、空间发展权利等方面的公平,亟需用空间正义的理论思维去反思和重构中国的城镇化发展模式。空间正义理论具有社会空间、多尺度性、批判建构三个主要特征,它们对城镇化研究和实践产生重要影响。西方地理学界对空间正义已有较充分的理论讨论,实践案例亦很丰富,国内还处在初步了解和探索的阶段,缺少适合中国体制和社会发展需求的理论。通过对空间正义思想与理论的梳理,提倡综合运用多种方法,进行多尺度、多主体综合分析和案例比较,探讨和总结基于空间正义的中国城镇化演化机理与发展模式。在社会空间辩证法的指导下,运用定性、多尺度、多智能体的方法,揭示中国城镇化进程的演变机制,寻找改善途径进而实现城市空间正义。将空间正义思想用于城乡发展与规划,可为城镇化研究提供新视角,并引导城镇化转型,实现经济社会及城乡的常态发展。