Agreement on water and a watered-down agreement: The political ecology of contested coastal development in Down East, North Carolina

In 2006, land use planning emerged as a contested issue in the rural area known as ‘Down East’, Carteret County, in eastern North Carolina, USA. Down East is experiencing a transition from a commercial fishing to an amenity economy and concerns about related changes led to the formation of ‘Down East Tomorrow’ (DET), a grassroots group that proposed a one-year development moratorium in order to facilitate a community planning process. In this paper, we use political ecology to examine the fate of the moratorium as reflected in the public written record, primarily minutes of meetings of the Carteret County Board of Commissioners. We illustrate how issues of community, science, and governance were linked to an increasing focus on coastal water quality in the debate, and argue that this focus facilitated a switch by the Board from considering a development moratorium to adopting a conservation ordinance, one that fell short of addressing DET’s concerns. This outcome illustrates the power of formal political institutions in ’First World’ environmental conflicts and the difficulties of reconciling competing values associated with land use in areas of transition, especially where historical resistance to planning has been the norm.     

The political economy of alternative trade: Social and environmental certification in the South African wine industry

Despite recent critical analyses of the nature and impacts of social and environmental certification, the increasingly complex landscape of voluntary, industry and third-party codes and certification processes that have emerged in specific sectors is poorly understood. In particular, little is known about the potential threats posed by an increasingly complex and contested ‘ethical’ landscape in undermining radical initiatives designed to bring about improvements to material and social well-being. In response, this paper explores the current dynamics of social and environmental certification in the South African wine industry. Drawing on fieldwork in the UK and Western Cape, the paper analyses the overlapping and sometimes conflictual processes of social and environmental certification, and the role of key drivers in establishing them within the wine industry. It explores whether attempts to capture a portion of the expanding market for ‘ethical’ wines and the expansion of corporate interests in ‘responsibility’ and ‘ethics’ work to depoliticize the meaning and nature of transformation. The implications of the findings are that, in the absence of legislative requirements to transform the wine industry, social codes and civic conventions are likely to remain significant, but that greater understanding is required of the different meanings and outcomes of transformation and empowerment being deployed within the industry. The paper concludes that a significant problem facing transformation and alternative trade in the wine industry, and more broadly, lies in the growing gap between the abstract ethical discourse of corporate actors, on the one hand, and the moral experience of workers on the other.     

Playing the scales: Regional transformations and the differentiation of rural space in the Chilean wine industry

Globalization and industrial restructuring transform rural places in complex and often contradictory ways. These involve both quantitative changes, increasing the size and scope of operation to achieve economies of scale, and qualitative shifts, sometimes leading to a shift up the quality/price scale, towards finer spatial resolution and identification with place of origin. This paper examines the transformation of the Chilean wine industry noting its expansion and orientation towards export production. As the industry has changed, it has become apparent that firms have adopted different scalar strategies, sometimes downscaling by seeking low-cost production, homogenisation of product and a weak identification with place, and sometimes upscaling by improving quality, claiming exclusiveness and fixing products to ever finer definitions of place. Places have been defined, reconstructed, promoted and significantly differentiated as a result.     

The politics of marginality in Wallowa County,Oregon: Contesting the production of landscapes of consumption

The state of Oregon’s (USA) land use planning framework has long been characterized by tensions between state and local authority, between traditionally-defined “urban” and “rural” concerns, and between the competing interests of various landowners. An examination of Wallowa County, Oregon’s implementation of House Bill 3326, a 2001 law giving counties the power to define certain agricultural lands as “marginal,” and therefore exempt from restrictions on subdivision and development, illustrates the ways in which these tensions become magnified as rural communities attempt to govern private land use in the context of rural restructuring. Implementation of HB3326 highlighted the tensions between landowners interested in capitalizing on development opportunities afforded by HB3326, neighboring producers concerned about interference from future amenity migrants, and existing amenity migrants with interests in protecting their rural idyll. Contestations over nonfarm development took place in the context of a strong agricultural community identity, concerns about the effects of economic restructuring on producers, and local resistance to the rural gentrification process. The process of defining marginality came to encompass not only technical issues of land productivity, but also broader community contestations over the continuation of traditional land uses and the legitimacy of various actors to govern private land.     

Power,capital, and immigration detention rights: making networked markets in global detention governance at UNHCR

With the expanded use of immigration detention and migration management practices worldwide, detention has emerged as a key issue for United Nations and international human rights institutions. A growing international rights movement seeks to make the practice fairer and more humane, leading to the dominance of a mainstream detention rights agenda and counter‐hegemonic system of governance. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Geneva and elsewhere, this article examines the capital, knowledge, and technological expertise that went into the construction of UNHCR's Global Detention Strategy. I highlight the rational calculation undergirding this global detention rights agenda, including the transnational policy networks of NGOs, INGOs, and academics that facilitate the movement's moral authority and capitalist growth. Their practices have become powerful neoliberal development tools, which give veracity to human rights agendas and attract oppositionally‐figured abolitionist praxis.     

Efficiency, growth, and concentration: an empirical analysis of hospital markets

Taking an evolutionary view, Harold Demsetz hypothesized that firms differ persistently in efficiency and that industry concentration results from growth of efficient firms at the expense of inefficient ones. We test this idea with microdata from the hospital industry. Initial hospital efficiency and subsequent growth (and profitability) are significantly and positively related. Also, greater initial variation in hospital efficiency within local markets is positively related to subsequent growth in market concentration. Our findings support the evolutionary efficiency hypothesis, though they cannot confirm the stronger idea that variation in efficiency is the dominant explanation for changes in concentration.     

Fashion as consumer entrepreneurship: Emergent risk culture,social network markets,and the launch of Vogue in China

China has a reputation as an economy based on utility: the large‐scale manufacture of low‐priced goods. But useful values like functionality, fitness for purpose and efficiency are only part of the story. More important are what Veblen called “honorific” values, arguably the driving force of development, change and value in any economy. To understand the Chinese economy therefore, it is not sufficient to point to its utilitarian aspect. Honorific status‐competition is a more fundamental driver than utilitarian cost‐competition. We argue that “social network markets” are the expression of these honorific values, relationships and connections that structure and coordinate individual choices. This paper explores how such markets are developing in China in the area of fashion and fashion media. These, we argue, are an expression of “risk culture” for high‐end entrepreneurial consumers and producers alike, providing a stimulus to dynamic innovation in the arena of personal taste and comportment, as part of an international cultural system based on constant change. We examine the launch of Vogue China in 2005, and China's reception as a fashion player among the international editions of Vogue, as an expression of a “decisive moment” in the integration of China into an international social network market based on honorific values.     

Use of ecological information in urban planning: Experiences from the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland

This paper studies the use of ecological research information in urban planning focusing on Finland. Research questions addressed the importance and challenges of incorporating ecological information into the planning process, and ways to promote the use of ecological information. Fifteen key professionals from three representative development approval processes in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area were interviewed. The interviewed planners and ecologists considered ecological information important for identifying and preserving valuable urban nature and biodiversity, diminishing negative environmental impacts of construction and for enabling nature-related experiences and services for urban residents. The identified challenges for the use of the information included insufficiency, fragmented nature and lack of adequacy of information, as well as problems with the interpretation and presentation of information. In order to provide more comprehensive ecological information from urbanizing areas in Finland; there should be more coordinated efforts to produce research information that planners really need, ecologists should be more active in the process in providing ecological insights for plans, a proper and simple biodiversity valuation method should be developed, more research on the function on ecological corridors should be conducted, and biodiversity monitoring of implemented planning projects should be developed.     

The making and transnationalization of an ethnic niche: Vietnamese manicurists

The article addresses how Vietnamese immigrant women developed an urban employment niche in the beauty industry, in manicuring. They are shown to have done so by creating a market for professional nail care, through the transformation of nailwork into what might be called McNails, entailing inexpensive, walk-in, impersonal service, in stand-alone salons, nationwide, and by making manicures and pedicures de riguer across class and racial strata. Vietnamese are shown to have simultaneously gained access to institutional means to surmount professional manicure credentializing barriers, and to have developed formal and informal ethnic networks that fueled their growing monopolization of jobs in the sector, to the exclusion of non-Vietnamese. The article also elucidates conditions contributing to the Vietnamese build-up and transformation of the niche, to the nation-wide formation of the niche and, most recently, to the transnationalization of the niche. It also extrapolates from the Vietnamese manicure experience propositions concerning the development, expansion, maintenance, and transnationalization of immigrant-formed labor market niches.     

The effects of urbanization on ant communities and myrmecochory in Manitoba,Canada

With the increase in urbanization globally, there is an increased need to understand the ecology of forest fragments in urban and urbanizing landscapes. Although urban forests are known to be relatively lacking in plants whose seeds are dispersed by ants, little is known about the effects of urbanization on the community composition and behaviour of forest dwelling ants. Ant communities in forest fragments along an urban–rural gradient were described using a rapid quadrat search technique and multivariate analysis. Interactions between the ants and seeds of the myrmecochorous Viola pubescens within a subset of these forests were described using a series of cafeteria experiments. Urbanization was found to be associated with changes in microhabitat characteristics and a concomitant simplification of the ant community. Despite this, the removal rate of V. pubescens seeds actually increased in urban forests, which may be a result of the foraging behaviour of the remaining species.

The social structure of liquidity: Flexibility,markets, and states

Theory and Society -     

The Eugenic Atlantic: race, disability, and the making of an international Eugenic science, 1800-1945

In this analysis the authors fold disability into a cross-national equation by including disabled people as part of a trans-Atlantic discussion of otherness. In naming this new cultural space the 'Eugenic Atlantic', we take up Paul Gilroy's analysis of cultural crossings in order to recognise the social construction of marginalised populations designated by virtue of their presumed biologically-based inferiorities. The analysis of a 'Eugenic Atlantic' seeks to analyse disability and race as mutual projects of human exclusion, based upon scientific management systems, successively developed within modernity. From the end of the eighteenth century to the conclusion of World War II, bodies designated as defective became the focal point of violent European and American efforts to engineer a 'healthy' body politic. While fears of racial, sexual and gender-based 'contamination' served as the spokes of this belief system, disability, used as a synonym for biological (or in-built) inferiority, functioned as the hub that gave the entire edifice its cross-national utility.     

Environmental consequences of exurban expansion in an agricultural area: the case of the Argentinian Pampas ecoregion

Exurban land use growth has been documented for at least thirty years in various regions around the world. Land use planners and land use/land cover change researchers have been concerned about the low-density residential developments scattered on a natural or agricultural matrix, due to their ecological and environmental impacts. In this paper, exurban sprawl in the Pampas ecoregion (Buenos Aires province, Argentina), is characterized and assessments are taken of the magnitude of two important consequences: agricultural land conversion, and excess CO₂ emission resulting from commute. The exurban developments concentrate between 50 and 70 km from Buenos Aires city, mainly at walking distances from compact towns, from 1 to 6 km of main roads, and no further than 25 km from them. Most of the exurban developments are located on the higher elevations in the study area (25 to 30 m above sea level). Even though exurban land use covers a very small proportion of land, the results show a tendency for conversion of land in the highest soil productivity capacity classes. While the best agricultural lands accounted for 29% of the land in the study area, it accounted for 54% of the exurban development. Preference of exurban land use conversion for good quality agricultural soils is observed even in those counties with a scarcity of good soils. However, there are great differences among counties in the relative proportion of land converted to exurban land use in each soil productivity capacity class. At the county level, from 0 to 100% of the highest production capacity lands have been converted to exurban uses, regardless of the proportion of land in each soil productivity capacity class for individual counties. Excess CO₂ equivalents emission was calculated for both the actual and the potencial number of households in the exurban developments. According to the automobile marque, range and fuel type, the actual emission ranges from 81,065 to 190,446 tons/year, and the potential from 296,643 to 696,908 tons/year. The excess emission per household is higher than that produced by domestic energy consumption within the Buenos Aires city during the same time period. The amount of CO₂ emitted in a year by personal vehicle transportation, in the study area, is equivalent to that captured by 16,000 ha of temperate forests or 27,600 ha of temperate grasslands during the same time period.

The role of private corporations in regional planning and development: Opportunities and challenges for the governance of housing and land use

There is a broad consensus that the corporate sector has an active role in facilitating community development through corporate-community investment. However, there remains uncertainty as to how much the sector should invest without taking on responsibilities and influencing decisions which are traditionally within the realm of the state. This paper explores the contemporary role of mining companies in regional governance through a case study of housing and residential land use planning and supply within the Bowen Basin coal mining and coal seam gas extraction region in Queensland, Australia. Mining companies were found to have a broad role in planning and development with far-reaching implications for land use and the wider regional community. These arrangements have emerged in response to corporate sensibilities, some recent policy requirements and most importantly, in pragmatic response to the institutional void apparent in many regional communities. In the absence of an effective regional framework with a clear and defined role for governments and corporations, powerful corporate interests risk effectively ‘capturing’ the regional development agenda within a framework that works on short-term paternalism rather than long-term regional partnerships. This also has implications for the efficiency of governance. Stronger institutional arrangements need to be developed to strengthen the capacity of the state to oversee these relationships. Regional governance and planning theory also needs to address this deficit.     

College students,shared decision making,and the appropriate use of antibiotics for respiratory tract infections: A systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

Objective: This systematic review examines shared decision making to promote the appropriate use of antibiotics for college students with respiratory tract infections. Participants/Methods: CINAL, Cochrane, PubMed, EBSCO, and PsycNET were searched in October 2014 using the following criteria: English language, human subjects, peer-reviewed, shared decision making for respiratory tract infections, adult patients or college students, and antibiotic use for respiratory tract infections. Twelve articles were selected for final review. Results: College students and younger, more educated, adults prefer shared decision making. Shared decision making shows promise for decreasing antibiotic use for respiratory tract infections. Education, understanding, and provider-patient communication are important to the shared decision-making process. Conclusions: Shared decision making shows promise to promote the appropriate use of antibiotics for respiratory tract infections in college students and could be considered for future studies.     

The making of an egalitarian elite: school ethos and the production of privilege

Research on privilege and education often focuses on institutions that are elite in a rather traditional way, for example schools that instruct the children of the upper classes according to a reproductive logic that reinforces existing inequalities. The present article addresses the fostering of advantage from the angle of a more ambiguous case. The Global College, a municipal Swedish upper secondary school specialized in environmental issues and global justice, offers an empirical prism for discussing the cultivation of elite identification through the formative potential of an egalitarian ethos. The relation between ethics and class is examined, not only in terms of how moral stands are classed, but also by investigating into the productive capacities of such orientation. Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork, the study unfolds how a possible tension between egalitarianism and elitism resolves into a productive relation whereby the students’ incarnation of ethico‐political ideals becomes a means for developing agency, confidence, entrepreneurial skills and an overall sense of ease.     

Rural residential properties in China: Land use patterns, efficiency and prospects for reform

Rural residential land represents one of the most important land use types in China. However, the literature so far has paid insufficient attention to the patterns and efficiencies of this type of land use. To fill in this gap, this paper uses a national survey to analyze the institutional setups for rural residential land use, to assess the effectiveness of existing regulations, and to evaluate the efficiencies in rural residential land use. Farmers’ subjective receptiveness toward rural residential property regulation reform is also investigated. We find that rural residential properties are inefficiently utilized under the existing land use regulations, that those who are younger and who had previous migration experiences are more likely to support the free trading of rural residential properties while the village cadres are more likely to oppose it. A coordinated policy reform package that includes free trading of rural residential properties and Household Registration System to facilitate permanent migration out of the countryside is proposed to address the existing efficiencies in China’s rural residential land use.     

Geographical indications, terroir, and socioeconomic and ecological sustainability: The case of tequila

In this paper, we use the case of tequila to examine the potential for geographical indications (GIs) to contribute to socioeconomic and environmental sustainability. GIs are place-based names (e.g., Champagne, Roquefort) that convey the geographical origin, as well as the cultural and historical identity, of agricultural products. The GI for tequila was established by the Mexican government in 1974, making it the oldest GI, and one of the best-recognized, outside of Europe. Here, we examine the social, economic, and ecological impacts that the agave–tequila industry has had on one community in tequila's region of origin, the town of Amatitán. We show that persistent cycles of surplus and shortage of agave and changing production relations in the agave–tequila industry have led to: (1) economic insecurity among farm households; (2) increased use of chemical inputs, at the expense of more labor-intensive cultivation practices; and (3) overall declines in fertilizer application, especially during periods in which there is a surplus of agave. We argue that the negative effects of the agave–tequila industry on the local economy and environment are due to the failure of the GI for tequila to value the ways in which the terroir of tequila's region of origin have contributed to its specific properties. We conclude by using this case to discuss more generally the relationship between the protection of place-based products (known collectively as geographical indications) and social and environmental sustainability.     

Assessing the effects of land use and land cover patterns on thermal conditions using landscape metrics in city of Indianapolis,United States

Direct applications of remote sensing thermal infrared (TIR) data in landscape ecological research are rare due to limitations in the sensors, calibration, and difficulty in interpretation. Currently there is a general lack of methodology for examining the relationship between land surface temperatures (LST) derived from TIR data and landscape patterns extracted from optical sensors. A separation of landscapes into values directly related to their scale and signature is a key step. In this study, a Landsat ETM+ image of Indianapolis, Unites States, acquired on June 22, 2000, was spectrally unmixed (using spectral mixture analysis, SMA) into fraction endmembers of green vegetation, soil, high albedo, and low albedo. Impervious surface was then computed from the high and low albedo images. A hybrid classification procedure was developed to classify the fraction images into seven land use and land cover (LULC) classes. Using the fractional images, the landscape composition and pattern were examined. Next, pixel-based LST measurements were correlated with the landscape fractional components to investigate LULC based relationships between LST and impervious surface and green vegetation fractions. An examination of the relationship between the LULC and LST maps with landscape metrics was finally conducted to deepen understanding of their interactions. Results indicate that SMA-derived fraction images were effective for quantifying the urban morphology and for providing reliable measurements of biophysical variables. LST was found to be positively correlated with impervious surface fraction but negatively correlated with green vegetation fraction. Each temperature zone was associated with a dominant LULC category. Further research should be directed to the theoretical and applied implications of describing such relationships between LULC patterns and urban thermal conditions.

Reshaping the Social: A Comparison of Fasu and Kubo-Febi Approaches to Incorporating Land Groups

In Papua New Guinea, local communities increasingly strive to render themselves ‘visible’ to the state as entities entitled to control and claim benefits from developments on their land. When people commit expressions of social form to paper they inevitably reshape previously operative social and political forms. This article compares ways in which two groups of Papua New Guineans have gone about the process of forming Incorporated Land Groups. Different histories of resource extraction, associated differences in engagement with state and companies and different pre-existing social forms are all reflected in the negotiations described. We discuss people's motivations for drawing up lists of members, the ways they went about this and implications for the communities themselves and for ILG registration more generally. Our analysis draws attention to how outcomes are shaped by scales of differentiation and emergent inequalities within the legal entities being imagined.