Incorporating Māori values into land management decision tools

ABSTRACT

Environmental sustainability and the long-term wellbeing of Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) are interdependent and degradation of landscapes risks the progressive degradation of Māori wellbeing. The present study developed an analysis framework based on Ki Uta Ki Tai (holistic-mountains to the sea- management philosophy advocated by Ngāi Tahu) for exploring relationships between landcover and Māori values to enable predictions of cultural values through space and time. We used this framework to predict how two Māori values (Overall Health and Cultural Land Use) have been altered as a result of landcover change between 2001–2012 in three Canterbury catchments. The area of native vegetation declined while exotic pasture increased between 2001–2012, and there were corresponding declines in both cultural health scores. These results suggest that the change in landcover has reduced the ability of the landscape to support Māori values. This framework for assessing changes in Māori values with respect to changing environmental conditions may identify opportunities for Māori to better engage in land use management decisions.     

Slope instability of San Miniato hill (Florence, Italy): possible deformation patterns

The hill of San Miniato (Florence, Italy) has been repeatedly identified in the past as the site of a slow moving, intermittent landslide. Possible hypotheses regarding the mechanisms responsible for past movements and for cracks and fissures present today are formulated based on the comparison of historical information and processed monitoring data. Although it is not possible to completely exclude a large inactive landslide that involves the entire northern slope, it seems more probable that the slide, if it does exist, is no longer active and that present-day damage is due to separate shallow movements concentrated in man-made deposits. This hypothesis can only be verified with a temporal extension of the monitoring activities, necessary in any case for planning possible safeguarding measures for the cultural heritage in the area.     

梅州市名城文化景观的保护与开发研究

从名城文化内涵出发，着眼于作为客家人文中心和名城文化景观的集中的梅州市区，全面分析了其中丰富多样的文化景观资源的特征及其文化内蕴。揭示了梅州名城文化景观保护与开发过程中的成绩与存在问题。并从文化地理学的视觉，结合旅游开发和城市规划，论证了科学保护与开发梅州名城文化景观的下述对策与途径的必要性与可行性：提升名城办的职能并与相关部门共营名城文化氛围；强化名城轴线与标志性文化景观；抢救与保护“老字号”等一批文化景观景区；适度利用，以积极的开发促其效的保护。     

Competitive Adjustment and Advancement in Global Commodity Chains II: The Case of the Singapore Garment Industry

This is the second part of a contribution to the debate on the possibilities of leveraging economic globalisation — through incorporation in international production networks and global commodity chains (GCCs) — as a strategy for developing countries to industrialise and advance their position in the world economy. In the first part, we analysed the experience of the East Asian apparel industry and addressed the issues of sustaining positions, upgrading to more rewarding roles, and advancing to less dependent positions within production networks and GCCs. We developed an analytical framework at both the firm and industry levels, and subsequently identified alternative firm- and industry-level strategies and trajectories. The present paper deals with these issues in the context of the Singapore apparel industry. Based on extensive empirical research, we demonstrate that although the East Asian experience of upgrading and repositioning within the GCC is to some extent emulated in the case of the Singapore apparel industry, the outcomes have been less favourable in terms of the depth, extent and strength of these trajectories. The differing outcomes can be explained in terms of different (systemic) conditions in the Singapore business environment, including the agency of local players, the geography of sourcing networks, and the role of the state and prevailing business attitudes. Our conclusions merit continued attention in both research and policy circles on the development of capabilities at the firm level, and the role of local business and institutional environments in local industry development processes under globalisation.     

Employment and Socio-spatial Relations in Australia's Cultural Economy

This paper examines the significance and contribution of Australian 'creative' industry activities in light of recent debates on the emergence of the 'cultural economy of cities'. First, census employment data and business location counts are used to illustrate patterns of metropolitan primacy and concentration in the cultural industries both across states and in Sydney. Second, the specificities of the locations of cultural production, and the links between cultural industry activities and wider urban-regional change are explored in more detail. A set of observations of urban-regional change is used to demonstrate how the notion of 'cultural economy' should include complex interactions between the material activities of consumers and producers, and the discursive worlds of image makers and place marketers. Urban renewal, housing market pressures and intra-regional migration all mediate Australian experiences of the 'cultural economy'. Such interactions, in addition to key quantitative data on employment and business activity, suggest important policy considerations.     

中国加入WTO对长江三角洲地区产业发展的影响

加入WTO对中国的经济运行环境和区域经济走势将带来深远的影响。长江三角洲地区是我国最有潜力和条件参与较高层次国际竞争的地区之一，但是该地区计划经济体制的影响较深，区域经济发展的问题和制约因素突出。因此，利用新的视角开展中国加入WTO对长江三角洲地区产业发展的影响的综合研究，对我国21世纪地区经济的发展和走向具有重要的指示意义。本文通过对长江三角洲地区产业发展的现状和主要问题作了探讨，并在此基础上，对中国加入WTO对长江三角洲地区产业的冲击力进行了评估和判断。本文认为，为应对中国加入WT0后所带来的冲击，抓住发展机遇，提高区域整体竞争力，长江三角洲地区各城市有必要形成共识，规范和统一地方政府行为，在充分发挥市场机制作用的条件下，对区域产业调控机制和模式作重新构思，以进行区域产业分工体系和区域产业分布格局跨省市、全区域的合作与协同调整。     

From catfish to organic fish: making distinctions about nature as cultural economic practice

This paper addresses the cultural economy of nature and the material culture of economic practice. Attending to ways that cultural notions about the biophysical world play key roles in political economic conflicts, discussion centers on two recent debates involving the cultural economy of seafood production and trade. The first debate is over whether the label “catfish” should include catfish imported from Vietnam into the United States; the second deals with whether fish and shellfish should be eligible to be certified “organic” under new US regulations. Analysis reveals that the key dynamic in these debates is not necessarily how people think about “nature”, but instead is how people make distinctions about the world. Rather than focusing on what is natural or not, key actors make distinctions among both organisms and environments. The ways that different groups define and enclose the biophysical world works to distinguish places as either appropriate or not for certain kinds of production activities. The overall argument is that significance and meaning of the biophysical become implicated in economic geographies by making distinctions about the world that then become important for how economic activity can work. As such, cultural economic approaches should attend to the ways that the biophysical is involved in relations such as competition and international trade, while nature-society approaches should shift focus from Nature to specific aspects of the biophysical world.     

The Geography of Personal Name Forms

The geographic distribution of formal and informal names is considered. Given names are variable and bearers may identify themselves with one name form or another (e.g., William, Will, Billy, Bill, W. T., “Skip”). The form of name chosen by state legislators was classified as formal or informal and the proportions of each were plotted by state. Three regions are identified by their relative use of name formality: the Northeast, where formal names are the rule, the South, centering on Arkansas, where informal names are common, and the West, also characterized by informal names. The West is divided between the Mountain and Pacific states, with large numbers of informal names and the states which they surround, which tend toward formal names. Some states, especially those of the Midwest, do not participate in this process. Indiana and South Carolina are exceptions to the general patterns. Informal names presume to create solidarity between legislators and voters. The South and West are apparently less formal than the Northeast in general, also in name usage.     

Academic publishing as 'creative' industry, and recent discourses of 'creative economies': some critical reflections

This paper continues recent discussions on the (geo)politics of the production of academic knowledges, in relation to the recent rise of narratives of 'the creative economy'. Creativity and the 'creative industries' are increasingly common components of urban economic development discourse, especially following the release of a set of key books – most notably Charles Landry's The Creative City (2000), and Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class (2002) – that have become popular among economic development planners and cultural policy makers. This paper focuses on the traffic of these books, and their authors, beyond the Anglo-American core. It also briefly discusses policy discourses interpreted from these texts. It is principally, though, a critique of the ways in which academic knowledges circulate, stemming from theorization of academics as creative producers, and of knowledge production as part of the creative economy. The article seeks to critique the means by which particular northern economic knowledges become normative, framed as universal and 'global', and are distributed and absorbed via intellectual 'scenes' and an academic 'celebrity' circuit.