Geography

Liberalism is a term employed in a dizzying variety of ways across the humanities and social sciences. This essay seeks to reframe how the liberal tradition is understood. I start by delineating different types of response – prescriptive, comprehensive, explanatory – that are frequently conflated in answering the question “what is liberalism?” I then discuss assorted methodological strategies employed in the existing literature: after rejecting “stipulative” and “canonical” approaches, I outline a contextualist alternative. On this (comprehensive) account, liberalism is best characterised as the sum of the arguments that have been classified as liberal, and recognised as such by other self-proclaimed liberals, over time. In the remainder of the article I present an historical analysis of shifts in the meaning of liberalism in Anglo-American political thought between 1850 and 1950, focusing in particular on how John Locke came to be seen as a liberal. I also explore the emergence of the category of "liberal democracy". I argue that the scope of the liberal tradition was massively expanded during the middle decades of the twentieth century, such that it came to be seen by many as the constitutive ideology of the West. This capacious (and deeply confusing) understanding of liberalism was produced by a conjunction of the ideological wars fought against “totalitarianism” and assorted developments in the social sciences. Today we both inherit and inhabit it.

This book offers a much-needed new political theory of an old phenomenon. The last decade alone has marked the highest number of migrations in recorded history. Constrained by environmental, economic, and political instability, scores of people are on the move. But other sorts of changes—from global tourism to undocumented labor—have led to the fact that to some extent, we are all becoming migrants. The migrant has become the political figure of our time.

Rather than viewing migration as the exception to the rule of political fixity and citizenship, Thomas Nail reinterprets the history of political power from the perspective of the movement that defines the migrant in the first place. Applying his "kinopolitics" to several major historical conditions (territorial, political, juridical, and economic) and figures of migration (the nomad, the barbarian, the vagabond, and the proletariat), he provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary migration.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

'The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea' explores the internal workings of capitalism’s most infamous contemporary offspring by dissecting the diverse interpretations of neoliberalism that have been advanced in academia. Using a critical geographical approach to pierce the heart of neoliberal theory, the book arrives at a discursive understanding wherein political economic approaches to neoliberalism are sutured together with poststructuralist interpretations in an attempt to overcome the ongoing ideological impasse that prevents the articulation of a more vibrant solidarity on the political left. Reading neoliberalism as a discourse better equips us to understand the power of this variegated economic formation as an expansive process of social-spatial transformation that is intimately bound up with the production of poverty, inequality, and violence across the globe. In examining how imaginative geographies are employed to discursively bind neoliberalism’s attendant violence to particular places and thereby blame its victims, this vivisection of neoliberalism reveals the concealment of an inherently bloodthirsty character to an ever-mutating process of socio-spatial transformation that simply refuses to die.

In short, this essay does for the concept of the assemblage what Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben did for Foucault in their essays on the dispositif: it extracts from a large body of work the core formal features of its operative methodology or logic.

Violence is a confounding concept. It frequently defies explanation and lacks an agreed upon definition. Yet geographers are well positioned to bring greater conceptual clarity to violence by thinking through its intersections with space. In setting the tone for this special issue on Violence and Space we highlight some of the key lines of flight that have shaped geographical thinking on violence. While there are a significant number of geographers interested in the question of violence, the field of ‘geographies of violence’ remains an emerging area of research that deserves greater attention and a more rigorous examination. By emphasizing the spatiality of violence, this special issue aims to contribute to a more sustained conversation on the violent geographies that shape our daily lives, our encounters with institutions, and the various structures that configure our social organization. This introduction is but an initial sketch of what we believe needs to be a much larger and unfolding research agenda dedicated to understanding violence from a geographical perspective.

This paper critically reviews the current status of the concept of distance in human geography in order to argue that recent experimentally-driven work in construal-level theory offers ample opportunities for recasting distance as a key geographical trope. After analysing the four entangled dimensions of distance revealed by construal-level theory (spatial distance; temporal distance; social distance; and hypothetical distance), the paper articulates this research program from experimental psychology with geographical work on non-representational theory, geographical imaginations/imaginative geographies, learning as a geographical process, TimeSpace theorizing, and ontogenetic understandings of space. It is argued that the subjective understanding of distance afforded by construal-level theory can rescue distance from its entrenched association with positivistic geography and spatial analysis. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.07.018

The task of studying the impact of social class on physical and mental health involves, among other things, the use of a conceptual toolbox that defines what social class is, establishes how to measure it, and sets criteria that help distinguish it from closely related concepts. One field that has recently witnessed a wealth of theoretical and conceptual research on social class is psychology, but geographers' and sociologists' attitude of diffidence toward this " positivistic " discipline has prevented them from taking advantage of this body of scholarship. This paper aims to highlight some of the most important developments in the psychological study of social class and social mobility that speak to the long-standing concerns of health geographers and sociologists with how social position, perceptions, social comparisons, and class-based identities impact health and well-being.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.037

This report reviews and categorizes the enormous corpus of knowledge produced by American academic and policy institutions about U.S. relations with the Middle East and other Islamic actors in the international arena. The report identifies five epistemic communities – conservatives, neoconservatives, realists, liberals and the left – and analyzes their discourses and policy recommendations. Finally, the policies that these epistemic communities recommended are evaluated and assessed. The author recommends a mixed-paradigmatic approach that will not only make the United States more effective in the Middle East but also underscore its continuing relevance to the security and the stability of the region and the global order.

Poverty is rooted in the accumulation of wealth, a process that plays out through the dispossession of the many so as to secure excess for the few. While this insight is commonly assigned to Marx and particularly his understanding of primitive accumulation,  Proudhon had worked out the contradictory underpinning of capitalism several decades earlier when he declared “property is theft!” Indeed, the very possibility of poverty, and its expression as famine, is rooted in the institution of property itself. This paper argues that we need to turn to anarchism, to refuse the expropriation of our means to survive under the tenets of property, and to cast off the chains of slavery that we euphemize as wage labour. Only by returning to the principle of mutual aid can famine ever be averted, whereby reciprocity becomes the compass of our collective morality.

The paper aims to reveal one integrated global map which points out the major geographical inequalities in providing basic utilities across the countries using multivariate analysis and thematic cartography. Sixteen indicators with global coverage were selected taking into account the waste collection services, sanitation facilities, drinking water sources, energy, electricity, habitat and demographic conditions. Several data are broken down for the total, urban and rural population in order to outline the rural-urban disparities between and within countries. A special focus is given to waste collection coverage, in order to compute a comprehensive global assessment of this key indicator of public health, which is one of the poorest monitored basic utility. The world countries were divided into 10 classes according to the hierarchical cluster analysis. Each class has particular features outlining the gaps between high, middle and low-income countries with direct impact on quality of life, public health, and environment.

The rising number of non-status migrants is one of the central political issues of our time. This essay argues that if we want to understand the political and philosophical importance of this phenomenon, the contributions of Alain Badiou, his militant group L'Organisation politique (OP), and the struggle of the sans-papiers movement in France are absolutely crucial. This is the case because, I will argue, Badiou, the OP, and the sans-papiers created a new kind of migrant justice struggle in the mid-1990s that in many ways remains at the practical and theoretical roots of much of non-status migrant organizing today. However, this essay also argues that Badiou's theoretical and political work with the sans-papiers also needs to be revised and updated in light of certain developments in more recent migrant justice struggles.

This special issue addresses the possible connections and mutual benefits of examining together two analytic concepts – memory and periphery. These concepts receive much attention in various scholarly discussions, yet they have done so rather independently from each other. The potential applications and utilities of combining memory and periphery and the epistemic insights they provide for various disciplins are presented in the different contributions to this issue.

Responding to David Harvey’s critique of my paper ‘Why a radical geography must be anarchist’, I once again reiterate the importance of anarchist perspectives in contemporary politics and geographical praxis. In challenging Harvey on the limits to Marx, I urge him to think again about the hidden vanguardism, implied statism, and veiled hierarchy that continue to lurk within the Marxist project, and importantly how these specters constrain both our collective political imagination and the possibilities of radical geography. I am admittedly very critical of Harvey, but I nonetheless refuse to close the door on dialogue between the Black and Red, even in the face of ongoing Marxist ridicule of anarchist politics. Accordingly, I propose an agonistic embrace of a ‘postfraternal’ or ‘postsororal’ politics on the left, where we come to appreciate ongoing conflict as a sign of a healthy leftist milieu. In doing so we can move beyond the misguided idea that all disagreements over strategies, tactics, and organizing methods will ever be resolved. Ultimately, what I have dubbed ‘the condition of postfraternity’ keeps us alert to the continually unfolding possibilities of a thoroughly politicized and forever protean space. By embracing this shifting horizon, not as a static limit to our politics, but as a beautiful enabler of visionary possibilities, the rhizomes of emancipation grow stronger.

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"Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary" is a stimulating collection of over 100 essays on transformative alternatives to the currently dominant processes of globalized development, including its structural roots in modernity, capitalism, state domination, and masculinist values. In the post-development imagination, 'development' would no longer be the organizing principle of social life. The book presents worldviews and practices from around the world in a collective search for an ecologically wise and socially just world. It also offers critical essays on a number of false solutions that those in power are proposing in an attempt to 'greenwash' development. The 120+ contributors to the volume include activists, academics, and practitioners, with a wealth of experience in their respective fields of engagement.

The book focuses on the conceptualisation and practice of radical alternatives to ‘development’. It also challenges mainstream or superficial solutions to global crises, including ‘green economy’ and ‘sustainable development’. What has been missing is a broad transcultural compilation of concrete concepts, worldviews and practices from around the world, challenging the modernist ontology of universalism in favour of a multiplicity of possible worlds. This is what it means to call for a pluriverse.

The book follows the structure of an encyclopedia, with short 1000-word entries for each of the key terms. The entries are written by invited authors. In the list of authors you might recognize Vandana Shiva, Serge Latouche, Wolfgang Sachs, Silvia Federici, Nnimmo Bassey, Gustavo Esteva, Katherine Gibson, Maristella Svampa and many more.

FOR BUYING THE BOOK at a discounted rate, please get directly in touch with our publisher AUF at info@authorsupfront.com: https://www.authorsupfront.com/pluriverse.htm

Publisher: Authors Up Front (self-publishing platform for the creative community; Delhi, India). See: http://authorsupfront.com/

License: Creative Commons

EDITORS

Ashish Kothari is with Kalpavriksh and Vikalp Sangam in India, and co-editor of Alternative Futures: India Unshackled.

Ariel Salleh is an Australian scholar-activist, author of Ecofeminism as Politics and editor of Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice.

Arturo Escobar teaches at University of North Carolina, and is author of Encountering Development.

Federico Demaria is with Autonomous University of Barcelona, and co-editor of Degrowth: A Vocubalary for a New Era.

Alberto Acosta is an Ecuadorian economist and activist, and former President of the Constituent Assembly of Ecuador.

This is an essay about the connections between the passage of time and the condition of archaeological knowledge. It revisits Tim Ingold’s 1993 paper ‘The Temporality of the Landscape’, considering its relationship with the phenomenological and interpretive archaeologies of the 1990s and what we learn from it today. Engaged not so much in an ‘ontological turn’ as in a kind of archival return, the essay compares Ingold’s discussion of Bruegel’s painting The Harvesters (1565) with an archaeological photograph from 1993. A discussion of the after-effects of performance follows, and four theses about temporality, landscape, modernity and revisiting are put forward: 1) The passage of time transforms archaeological knowledge; 2) Archaeological knowledge transforms the passage of time; 3) An archaeological landscape is an object that is known through remapping; 4) Archaeological knowledge is what we leave behind. The essay concludes that archaeology is best understood not as the study of the temporality of the landscape, as Ingold had argued, but as the study of the temporality of the landscape revisited.

Feinman, G.M., 2015. Settlement and Landscape Archaeology. In: James D. Wright, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Vol 21. Oxford: Elsevier. pp. 654–658.

Settlement pattern archaeology and the investigation of ancient landscapes, especially when systematically implemented, have been some of the most significant archaeological innovations of the last half century. These studies have shed new light on the emergence of hierarchically organized and urban societies in regions around the world, while also providing new perspectives on the history of human–environmental interactions. This article reviews the roots of these regional archaeological approaches, their theoretical underpinnings, and some of the key empirical contributions.

Calvert K and Simandan D (2010) Energy, space, and society: a reassessment of the changing landscape of energy production, distribution, and use Journal of Economics and Business Research XVI(1), pp. 13-37.
ABSTRACT: While geography has always mattered for the energy sector, the relative effects of location and distance on the economics of energy regimes are increasing as we begin to deploy more renewable energy technologies. This reintroduction of the friction of distance is leading to an energy landscape that is far different from fossil-based regimes. The new energy paradigm, based as it is upon the physics and the economics of renewable energy, is being reflected in the landscape as distributed, decentralized, and diversified patterns of energy generation. Because the increased use of renewable energy technologies is beginning to change the spatial patterns of political and socioeconomic activities, a thorough understanding of these patterns is crucial to increasing the socio-political acceptability of new technologies and to avoiding the socially costly unintended consequences of policy and investment decisions.  This paper proposes a theoretical foundation upon which economists and economic geographers could scaffold their analyses of the spatial characteristics of the economics of energy use.  To this end, we bring together two complementary conceptualizations of economic geography: firstly, as the study of the effects of location and distance on energy economics, and secondly, as the study of the ways in which political, economic, and technological energy-related practices give rise to particular spatial patterns of socio-economic welfare. We end the paper by developing the concept of energy rationality and showing how it relates to discussions of metarationality, common sense, and wisdom.

The current text locates the anthropological study of roads within the wider context of studies on mobility and modernity. Besides introducing the articles of this special issue of Mobilities on roads and anthropology, this introduction also addresses some of the broader theoretical and epistemological implications of the anthropological perspective on roads, space, time and (im)mobility

Should women see a relationship between patriarchal oppression and the destruction of Nature in the name of profit and progress? How can they counter the violence inherent in these processes? Should they look to a link between the women's movement and other social movements?

The authors offer an analysis of such issues from a unique North-South perspective. They critique prevailing economic theories, conventional concepts of women's emancipation, the myth of 'catching up' development, the philosophical foundations of modern science and technology, and the omission of ethics when discussing so many questions including advances in reproductive technology.

In constructing their own ecofeminist epistemology and methodology, they look at movements advocating consumer liberation, subsistence production and sustainability , and argue for an acceptance of limits and reciprocity and the endless commoditification of needs. A book as relevant today as when it was first published.

Vandana Shiva is an Indian environmental activist and anti-globalization author. She has received honors around the world for her work.

Maria Mies is a Professor of Sociology in Cologne, Germany, and author of several feminist books.

Series: Critique. Influence. Change.
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Zed Books; Second Edition,New Edition,New edition (April 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1780325630
ISBN-13: 978-1780325637

This groundbreaking work remains as relevant today as when it was when first published. Two of Zed's best-known authors argue that ecological destruction and industrial catastrophes constitute a direct threat to everyday life, the maintenance of which has been made the particular responsibility of women. In both industrialized societies and the developing countries, the new wars the world is experiencing, violent ethnic chauvinisms and the malfunctioning of the economy also pose urgent questions for ecofeminists. Is there a relationship between patriarchal oppression and the destruction of nature in the name of profit and progress? How can women counter the violence inherent in these processes? Should they look to a link between the women's movement and other social movements? Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva offer a thought-provoking analysis of these and many other issues from a unique North-South perspective. They critique prevailing economic theories, conventional concepts of women's emancipation, the myth of 'catching up' development, the philosophical foundations of modern science and technology, and the omission of ethics when discussing so many questions, including advances in reproductive technology and biotechnology. In constructing their own ecofeminist epistemology and methodology, these two internationally respected feminist environmental activists look to the potential of movements advocating consumer liberation and subsistence production, sustainability and regeneration, and they argue for an acceptance of limits and reciprocity and a rejection of exploitation, the endless commoditization of needs, and violence.

The most original and shocking interpretation of Lucretius in the last 40 years.

Thomas Nail argues convincingly and systematically that Lucretius was not an atomist, but a thinker of kinetic flux. In doing so, he completely overthrows the interpretive foundations of modern scientific materialism, whose philosophical origins lie in the atomic reading of Lucretius' immensely influential book De Rerum Natura.

This means that Lucretius was not the revolutionary harbinger of modern science as Greenblatt and others have argued; he was its greatest victim. Nail re-reads De Rerum Natura to offer us a new Lucretius--a Lucretius for today.

Radical geographers have been preoccupied with Marxism for four decades, largely ignoring an earlier anarchist tradition that thrived a century before radical geography was claimed as Marxist in the 1970s. When anarchism is considered, it is misused as a synonym for violence or derided as a utopian project. Yet it is incorrect to assume anarchism as a 'project', which instead reflects Marxian thought. Anarchism is more appropriately considered a protean process that perpetually unfolds through the insurrectionary geographies of the everyday and the prefigurative politics of direct action, mutual aid, and voluntary association. Unlike Marxism’s stages of history and revolutionary imperative, which imply an end-state, anarchism appreciates the dynamism of the social world. In staking a renewed anarchist claim for radical geography, I attend to the divisions between Marxism and anarchism as two alternative socialisms, wherein the former positions equality alongside an ongoing flirtation with authoritarianism while the latter maximizes egalitarianism and individual liberty by considering them as mutually reinforcing. Radical geographers would do well to reengage anarchism as there is a vitality to this philosophy that is missing from Marxian analyses that continue to rehash ideas–such as vanguardism and a proletarian dictatorship–that are long past their expiration date.

The aim of writing this paper is to analyse the impact of the growth of e-commerce for businesses, consumers and society as well as the extent to which the growth of the e-commerce pushes the growth of regional economic in Indonesia. The methods used in the writing of this paper is literature study using literature from experts both from Indonesia and overseas country as well as in establishing the framework of thought is supported with interviews against the businessman of the e-commerce i.e. clothing online as well as consumers who bought goods online. In developing a framework also supported by the data from the survey institution which published in the credible mass media as well as data from institutions that are related to e-commerce. In brief, the concept of e-commerce is trade transactions using electronic devices that connected each other in a virtual space. E-commerce has significant positive impact both for businesses, consumers or society. These impacts will push the regional economic growth either directly or indirectly, but it potentially caused the economical lag due to the some region which has no electricity INTISARI Tujuan dari penulisan paper ini adalah untuk me 1 nganalisis dampak dari perkembangan e-commerce bagi pebisnis, konsumen dan masyarakat serta sejauh mana perkembangan e-commerce tersebut mendorong ekonomi wilayah di Indonesia. Metode yang digunakan dalam penulisan paper ini adalah studi literatur dengan menggunakan literatur dari para ahli baik dari dalam maupun luar negeri serta dalam membangun kerangka pemikiran didukung dengan wawancara terhadap pelaku e-commerce yaitu penjual pakaian online serta konsumen yang pernah membeli barang secara online. Dalam membangun kerangka pemikiran juga didukung data dari lembaga survei yang dimuat dalam media massa kredibel serta data dari instansi yang terkait dengan aktivitas e-commerce. Secara singkat, konsep dari e-commerce adalah perdagangan yang transaksinya menggunakan perantara perangkat elektronik yang terhubung satu sama lain dalam ruang virtual. E-commerce memiliki dampak positif yang signifikan baik bagi pebisnis, konsumen maupun masyarakat. Dampak-dampak tersebut pada akhirnya akan mendorong pertumbuhan ekonomi wilayah baik secara langsung maupun tidak langsung, akan tetapi juga dapat menyebabkan kesenjangan ekonomi terutama ketertinggalan karena belum adanya listrik di suatu wilayah.

As the use of qualitative inquiry increases within the field of social work, researchers must consider the issue of establishing rigor in qualitative research. This article presents research procedures used in a study of autoethnographies that were written regarding the experience of being Jewish. In this project, the researchers utilized reflexivity, audit trail, triangulation by observer, peer debriefing, member check and prolonged engagement in order to manage the threats to trustworthiness as discussed by Padgett (1998). Implications of the project suggest that research procedures utilized by qualitative researchers to establish rigor are an important way to increase our confidence that the voice of the participants is heard, therefore fitting the mission of the social work profession.

With the recent development of the Occupy Movement, public criticism of neoliberalism has climaxed since the onset of a global financial crisis in late 2008. The mobilization of protesters in cities throughout the world was preceded by much speculation in the media and blogosphere over the past few years, where commentators have been quick to suggest that the end of neoliberalism is upon us. The validity of postneoliberalism, however, remains tenuous, as its advocates continue to treat neoliberalism as a monolithic, static, and undifferentiated end-state. Despite the desire to move beyond neoliberal strictures, there is an undeniable continuity to neoliberalism that must be appreciated if we ever hope to leave this unforgiving version of capitalism truly in the past.

This essay, in two parts, argues for the centrality of historical thinking in coming to grips with capitalism’s planetary crises of the twenty-first century. Against the Anthropocene’s shallow historicization, I argue for the Capitalocene, understood as a system of power, profit and re/production in the web of life. In Part I, I pursue two arguments. First, I situate the Anthropocene discourse within Green Thought’s uneasy relationship to the Human/Nature binary, and its reluctance to consider human organizations – like capitalism – as part of nature. Next, I highlight the Anthropocene’s dominant periodization, which meets up with a longstanding environmentalist argument about the Industrial Revolution as the origin of ecological crisis. This ignores early capitalism’s environment-making revolution, greater than any watershed since the rise of agriculture and the first cities. While there is no question that environmental change accelerated sharply after 1850, and especially after 1945, it seems equally fruitless to explain these transformations without identifying how they fit into patterns of power, capital and nature established four centuries earlier.

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

The book " Tourism Studies and Social Sciences" covers the thematic studies and includes a wide range of information, results of own studies of the authors in the social sciences. It is presented in 6 sections and 40 chapters, which can be divided into the following main areas

Schooling is a form of misopedy and a fundamental structure in conditioning societal acceptance of domination in other registers. The subordination of children begins with the misguided notion that they are incapable of autonomy, reinforcing a dichotomous understanding of adult/child or teacher/student. Schooling should not be confused with education. The former represents the interests of oppression, molding societal consciousness to accept the conditions of subjugation. In contrast, education in its idealized form is a process of self-discovery, an awakening to one’s potential, and a desire to see such abilities realized. To ensure the absence of coercion in education children need to explore for themselves, making their own decisions about what their interests are, and how those curiosities might be fulfilled. Presenting a broad range of opportunities is crucial, but the decision about what path to follow should be determined by the child. When bound to a classroom we often mistake obedience for education. Yet learning, as geographers recognize, best occurs 'through the soles of our feet' and when children explore the world through unschooling, they live into their creative potential, opening an aperture on alternative ontologies. Unschooling is, in short, one of the most powerful forms of anarchism we can engage.