Global South

This paper investigates from a socio-technical and energy justice perspective the lack of coordination of international , national and local developmental priorities and inclusion of local needs in the decision making process of large dam construction in the global South. The paper argues that the analysis of energy infrastructures as socio-technical systems requires an energy justice approach to capture the true environmental and social nature of energy production and consumption. In doing so, this paper proposes a conceptual framework called " The Energy Justice Framework for Dam Decision-Making " as a tool to inform energy decisions on infrastructure development based on energy justice principles and social impact assessment. The proposed framework is used in this paper to analyse distributional, procedural, restorative justice, and power relations throughout the entire dams' energy system in the case of four large dams located in Africa and Asia, namely Kamchay dam in Cambodia, Bakun dam in Malaysia, Bui dam in Ghana and the planned Zamfara dam in Nigeria.

Polish-Moroccan artistic relations during the Cold War are part of
a broader historical phenomenon of the political and cultural rapprochement
between the countries of the Eastern Bloc and those
of the Global South. Ahmed Cherkaoui in Warsaw is a chronological
overview of these relations, initiated by the arrival of Farid Belkahia
in Warsaw in 1955. The book focuses on Moroccan artists who studied
at art schools in Warsaw and Kraków, as well as the Film School in
Łódź. Ahmed Cherkaoui was the first student from the independent
Kingdom of Morocco at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw to receive
scholarship. The book reconstructs his ‘Warsaw period’, offers insight
into the milieu of other Moroccan art students in Poland, as well as
Roman Artymowski’s collaboration with Moroccan artists and students
in Asilah. The publication focuses on socialist art of the 1950s,
matter painting and abstract art of the 1960s, as well as academic
art, experimental film, conceptual practices and the graphic art of
the late 1970s against the background of the artistic and political
transformations of the global Cold War.

For the international conference "North and South: Forms of Inequality within International Politics of Scientific Production International Symposium", to be held from June 29 to July 1, 2020 in Hannover, Germany, we are currently looking for contributions by young researchers (PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers).

Please send abstracts before July 15, 2019.

In this paper, my aim is to elaborate disability movement praxis so that transnational struggles for justice over the production of impairment emerging from the Global South can be represented within the transnational frame of disability politics. The paper seeks to explore the potential of deepening socio-political understandings of impairment as a means to radically democratize disability movement politics at the transnational scale to encompass pluralist, yet subaltern, collective claims for justice. I am guided by the question: if impairment is the place that makes visible invisible debts, can the global disability rights movement begin a process of re-identification to open the boundaries of disability justice claims and develop a strategic orientation which recognizes those collective justice claims for geopolitically produced impairments?

In this essay, I read Puerto Rican pop star Luis Fonsi’s 2017 chart-topping single, “Despacito” (Slowly), as emblematic of dominant global trajectories. While “slowness” is here equated to maximising the pleasures of heterosexual male desire, it becomes in the remixed version with English-language pop star Justin Bieber a symbol of resistance to colonial endeavours. I identify the objectified female in the original version as a “slow mover” in the remixed track, whose stationary positioning can be read as having revolutionary potential for thinking globalisation anew. I continue to read slowness through the social gatherings and collaborations represented in recent tracks by Gente de Zona and Calle 13 and observe that such examples of restricted movement lead to the formation of global networks of empathy, solidarity, and shared struggle. I argue that the work of Franco-Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux and, in particular, her anthem “Somos sur” (We are South), featuring British-Palestine hip-hopper Shadia Mansour, elaborates on notions of collaboration as it derives a poetics of assisted movement as a strategy for resistance and revolution. The stationary positioning of Fonsi’s female object of desire here becomes a stand against global mobility as she is an imagined part of Tijoux’s support system.
Keywords: Pop music, cultural mobility, global circuits, marginal trajectories, disability, assisted movement, collaboration, feminist resistance, Luis Fonsi, Justin Bieber, Gente de Zona, Calle 13, Ana Tijoux, Somos sur, Despacito

Digitalization is exposing developing countries to a growing number of risks as well as opportunities associated with connecting to the Internet. Myanmar stands out as a critical case of both the pitfalls and the benefits Internet connection can bring. Amidst a political transition from military rule to a functioning democracy Myanmar is adding ICT to key areas like banking and e-government. Having been one of the least connected countries in the world only a few years ago the country is now connecting to the Internet at an unprecedented pace, with few institutions in place to ensure the transition goes smoothly. The rapid expansion of Internet connectivity is connecting ever more people to an international world of business, discourse, and entertainment, but also crime, subterfuge, and discord. A crucial aspect for development in the years to come will be the harnessing of the benefits, as well as mitigating the downsides that inherently follow in the wake of Internet access (Schia, 2018). In this chapter, we examine the risks and potential benefits of Myanmar’s embracement of digital technologies.

The paper highlights the changes in the energy paradigm in the developing nations of Global South, comparing the prominent countries within the regions in terms of energy transition towards renewable and sustainable energy sources. The study has primarily twofold objectives, first to evaluate the energy security of Global South on the basis of 4 A definition of energy security. Secondly, to investigate the interdependence of economic growth and consumption of renewable energy using the granger causality test which reinforces the case for energy transition to renewable sources of energy in these developing nations. The results reveal that High income countries are much worse off in terms of deterioration in status of energy security as compared to other categories which improve in status of energy security in this region. The paper highlights the significant role of acceptability dimension of 4A definition of energy security implying policy implications of investing more on renewable energy and carbon reducing technologies. The Granger causality test fortifies existence of no relationship between economic growth and renewable energy consumption in case of high income, upper middle, low income countries but in case of low middle income countries renewable energy consumption granger causes economic growth. Energy transition towards renewable energy sources which involves time lag in realizing socioeconomic benefits is strongly recommended by the study.

Geography research and teaching have a long history in South Africa, and Geographers are well placed to engage with issues affecting South Africa in the twenty-first century, including climate change, resource scarcity, poverty reduction and sustainable development. Although different research topics have been investigated previously, others represent some new areas of departure for research in physical and/or human geography, and opportunities for future research growth in South Africa. This chapter identifies and discusses the significance of some of these new topic areas for South African Geography, and the application of such research to address twenty-first century local to global issues.

Better integration of resilience and climate change adaptation can help building climate-resilient development. Yet, resilience and adaptation to climate change have evolved largely along parallel paths with little cross-fertilization. Conceptual vagueness around resilience makes it challenging to ascertain what elements of resilience thinking have the greatest potential to enhance climate change adaptation and contribute to broader sustainable development goals. This article distills nine principles from the resilience literature to build a framework to assess 224 climate change adaptation strategies proposed by researchers and practitioners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Our analysis concludes that adaptation strategies in this data set emphasize initiatives that increase social and ecological diversity, strengthen learning processes, build functional redundancy, enhance connectivity between social and ecological elements, pay attention to the management of slow variables, and provide mechanisms for increasing participation and polycentric governance. At the same time, the adaptation options examined generally lacked a system’s perspective, suggesting that there is still important work ahead to move toward a climate-resilient development model.

The idea of jugaad, or frugal innovation, has gained wide popularity within policy circles and business schools as a breakthrough formula – from a quick-fix solution grown in adverse conditions to a six-point business principle – for economic growth generation. I argue that the new jugaad innovation narrative offers an uplifting, potentially emancipatory discourse of mobility in a setting where even after two decades of economic reforms wealth gap and poverty stubbornly persists. Central to this shift are two processes. First, a dramatic re-signification of the aam aadmi, within a new conceptual scaffolding of India in relation to modern science and technology where the ability to innovate is portrayed as a natural gift, a deeply ingrained collective Indian trait that even the unlettered common man possesses. Second, the conditions of adversity and absence of public services for Indian citizens is turned on its head to position India as an ideal laboratory condition within which a culture of innovation takes birth. In short, jugaad enables dramatic transformation of what was once considered unchanging, static and immobile mass into a source of innovation, inspiration and ultimately socioeconomic mobility.

Available on JSTOR:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/complitstudies.56.3.0487

ProjectMuse:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/735021

This article illustrates through a data analysis of “the archive” and of what Jordan A. Y. Smith has recently defined as translationscapes, the way in which “the planetary world-as-world” emerged in Romania through translation only as late as 1948. Since translations of literature, as defined by the polysystem theory, are “a most active system within a polysytem,” one can assume that local production in certain cultures is strongly dependent on imports.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/complitstudies.56.3.0487

If it is likely that there are various forms of modernity, the concept of modernity can  be disaggregated−that is, its constituent features can be taken apart and imaginatively re-examined in new combinations in different social and cultural contexts. Mohanty’s notion that the components of modernity may be reformulated can be read into the goals of the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization (AAPSO). Formed after the Bandung Conference of 1955 in Indonesia, the AAPSO became one of the most vibrant and contentious forums for the creation of solidarity links−economic, political, and cultural−within a rapidly decolonizing Third World. Alternative modernities, understood as intricately connected to questions of alternative paths of development, became one of the main issues during these conferences.

This book presents the contemporary history and dynamics of Mexican midwifery - professional, (post)modern or autonomous, traditional and Indigenous - as profoundly political and embedded in differing societal stratifications.

By situated politics, the authors refer to various networks, spaces and territories, which are also constructed by the midwives. By politically situated, the authors refer to various intersections, unsettled relations and contexts in which Mexican midwives are positioned. Examining Mexican midwiferies in depth, the volume sharpens the focus on the worlds in which midwives are profoundly immersed as agents in generating and participating in movements, alliances, health professions, communities, homes, territories and knowledges. The chapters provide a complex panorama of midwives in Mexico with an array of insights into their professional and political autonomy, (post)coloniality, body-territoriality, the challenges of defining midwifery, and above all, into the ways in which contemporary Mexican midwiferies relate to a complex set of human rights.

The book will be of interest to a range of scholars from anthropology, sociology, politics, global health, gender studies, development studies, and Latin American studies, as well as to midwives and other professionals involved in childbirth policy and practice.

In the last two decades, major cities in Malaysia have witnessed a spate of urban redevelopment including commercial and retail complexes, and residential estates. The current urban transformations taking place in Malaysian cities are mainly market-driven and characterized by fast-track development with a strong priority on the road infrastructure. This is a typical example of an intensive property-led development that is becoming a central driver of the national economy. This article provides a deeper understanding of the complexity of urban development in Malaysia. Here, the major aim is to understand the Malaysian cities' transitions in the trajectory of their colonial past, national identity, multi-cultural community, culture, and religion. Focusing on South East Asian urbanism, this article determines how internal and external forces and global trends such as neoliberalism and property-led development affect the transformation of urban landscapes and expansions in Malaysia. The outcomes of this paper will indicate how much property-led development and globalisation have affected the traditional and tropical climate-responsive urban environment in Malaysia. It will also identify sustainable design and planning measures that should be implemented in the cities of Malaysia to combat the ill-effects of globalisation.

This article looks at the heightened role of universities in the global knowledge age. Flows of people, ideas, and also capital in the academic realm continue to multiply, propelling global connectedness and contributing to the reshuling of the hitherto prevailing political orders. Universities are understood as places where these lows are instigated and controlled. The article adds insight to the ield of global higher education by emphasizing universities in the Global South, to better understand their role in shaping processes of globalization. Four arguments guide the reader, the irst of which explains how universities have been discursively rescaled. The second argument looks at university-state relations and increased institutional power. Differentiation in the higher-education landscape and academic hierarchies are examined in the third part, while section four reveals shortcomings of mobility igures aggregated at national level.

Der Artikel thematisiert die zunehmende Bedeutung von Universitäten im Zeitalter der glo-balen Wissenslandschaft. Akademische Mobilität, der Austausch von Wissen und die damit verbundenen Kapitalströme tragen erheblich zur globalen Vernetzung und zur Neuordnung der Weltpolitik bei. Universitäten werden als Orte verstanden, an denen diese grenzüberschrei-tenden Prozesse initiiert und kontrolliert werden. Im Fokus stehen hier Universitäten im globa-len Süden, was Diskussionen über deren Rolle in Globalisierungsprozessen anregt und somit das Spektrum der globalen Hochschulforschung erweitert. Der Artikel gliedert sich in vier Teile, wobei sich der erste mit einer diskursiven Neuausrichtung befasst. Zweitens werden die Bezie-hungen zwischen Universität und Staat vor dem Hintergrund einer Portalperspektive skizziert, bevor im dritten Teil die Relevanz von Diferenzierung und akademischen Hierarchien erklärt wird. Das letzte Argument stellt die Aussagekraft von nationalen Mobilitätsstatistiken in Frage.

Finding the appropriate balance between diversity and social cohesion is a common concern in constitutional design, particularly in societies divided along ethno-linguistic and religious lines. Constitution drafters have often addressed this quest through federalism: in fact, federal arrangements seek to facilitate a balance between unity and diversity to curb tensions typical of highly diverse societies.
Aside from designing the institutional architecture and power division within a state, constitutions are also repositories of shared values (...)

The 1965 disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka in Paris, the catalyst of one of the greatest political scandals in the history of post-war France, is still shrouded in mystery several decades later. Newly declassified documents from Czech archives have shed light on the final years of the Moroccan politician’s life, revealing that Ben Barka had cooperated with Czechoslovak intelligence from 1961 until his abduction. The aim of this study is to assess the nature of this partnership and demonstrate the activities, methods, and aims of Czechoslovak intelligence in the Third World during the 1960s.

This paper evaluates a pioneering project to introduce a gender-sensitive approach to working with women completing probation and community service orders in Kenya. The intervention consisted of context-specific research with women throughout Kenya, leading to adaptations to existing probation tools, followed by pilot implementation of a gender-sensitive approach. The evaluation explores the relevance, effectiveness and sustainability of the intervention and presents opinions of implementing probation officers and sector experts. Findings suggest that the project genuinely broke new ground in terms of research on gender-sensitivity and quality of pre-trial reporting for women. Close adherence to the UN Bangkok Rules means the model and lessons are applicable both domestically and globally.

This essay explores the idea of cultural hybridity in the hill town of Cuetzalan, Mexico. It focuses on two entities within the town: the tianguis, or informal Sunday market, and the Santuario de Guadalupe, also known as the Iglesia de los Jarritos, or "Church of the Clay Pots." Hybridity, the essay shows, is not a facile outcome of the intermingling of different cultures, but the result of historical political struggle-in this case between the indigenous Nahua Indian population and the mestizos who moved to the Sierra Norte de Puebla during the nineteenth century. I conclude that by embodying socio-political and aesthetic oppositions, in tension with one another, hybridity creates stimulating places and facilitates the survival of marginal cultures.

The Lutheran World Federation released Understanding the Gift
of Communion in 2014 to allow churches who hold differing views
on homosexuality to remain in fellowship with one another. This paper explores how the churches in the Global South who do not accept homosexuality are considered "colonialistic" related to socio-ethical concerns.

Published in the Journal of Lutheran Mission

Collver, Albert B. “Colonialism in the Global South: The Imperialism of Western Sexual Ethics.” Journal of Lutheran Mission 3, no. 1 (April 2016): 34–39.

http://blogs.lcms.org/2016/journal-of-lutheran-mission-april-2016

Big data is a misnomer. While the field is relatively young, much thought has already been churned on critiquing the term, particularly on how we cannot equate the scale of data with diversity. Thereby, in the name of diversity, we should look at big data from the angle of the global south. After all, majority of the world’s population reside outside the West. Yet, when we pay attention to the debates on surveillance, privacy and net neutrality and the demand for alternative models and practices to sustain the digital commons, they are primarily driven by western concerns, contexts, and user behaviors from these privileged domains. This undoubtedly provides a thwarted view of the internet. [click the link for the full article]

There are two political-economic outlooks (both driven by a desire to correct an inequitable distribution of wealth) gaining momentum today, each failing to account for the role of land in sustainable human development, subsequently offering an incomplete prognosis of critical next steps America needs to take that it may prosper (with or without economic growth!).  These are the degrowth and the recovering liberal-professional-class-useful-idiot movements expressed, respectively, by Kallis and Andersen.  Whereas the Kallis critique’s raison d’etre flows from a movie-theater-fire-escape-rush-scream of climate change, Andersen fails to carry his to a logical conclusion.  Although both fault the economics profession’s blind devotion to efficiency to the exclusion of any sense of General welfare effects, neither admits familiarity of the economic philosophy of pre-20th century (ante-neoclassicism) Henry George and his zero-price land thesis.  True, George did not specifically phrase his theory in this way, but that is the best way to express it now that it may break the logjam of left-radical-liberal alternatives to the dominant themes of both American political parties.

Latin America and the Global Cold War analyzes more than a dozen of Latin America’s forgotten encounters with Africa, Asia, and the Communist world, and by placing the region in meaningful dialogue with the wider Global South, this volume produces the first truly global history of contemporary Latin America. It uncovers a multitude of overlapping and sometimes conflicting iterations of Third Worldist movements in Latin America, and offers insights for better understanding the region’s past, as well as its possible futures, challenging us to consider how the Global Cold War continues to inform Latin America’s ongoing political struggles.

Contributors: Miguel Serra Coelho, Thomas C. Field Jr., Sarah Foss, Michelle Getchell, Eric Gettig, Alan McPherson, Stella Krepp, Eline van Ommen, Eugenia Palieraki, Vanni Pettinà, Tobias Rupprecht, David M. K. Sheinin, Christy Thornton, Miriam Elizabeth Villanueva, and Odd Arne Westad.

The tropical urbanism of coastal East Africa has a thousand-year-long history, making it a recognized example of sustainable urbanism. Although economically dependent on trade, the precolonial Islamic towns of the so-called Swahili coast did not feature markets or other public buildings dedicated to mercantile activities before the European colonial involvement. In this regard, Swahili urban tradition differed from other tropical Islamic cities, such as in Morocco, Mali, Egypt or the Middle East, where markets fulfilled the role of social and economic hubs and, in terms of movement, major transitory/meeting spaces in the trading towns. Yet, the Swahili urban tradition thrived for centuries as a well-connected cosmopolitan type of tropical urbanism. As research has suggested, the public role of spaces associated with trade might have been fulfilled by houses. Using approaches of space syntax and network analysis, this article studies the morphology of the houses considering whether it could have been the courtyards that simulated the role of markets thanks to their transitory spatial configuration. The results are discussed reflecting on other models of houses with courtyards, especially the modern Swahili house appearing later in the colonial era when markets began to be established, and Islamic houses known from elsewhere.

The higher education sector in Ethiopia has witnessed an epochal transformation against the backdrop of the so-called global knowledge age. Expansion and internationalization unfold simultaneously and are deeply intertwined. This article analyzes how an economically and politically stronger global South changes the higher education landscape in Ethiopia. We focus on cooperation programs of the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and GIZ (German Corporation for International Cooperation) and show how these are adjusted to the new global political conditions. Cooperation with traditional partners from the global North remains important but is increasingly combined and complemented with actors from the global South.

This article examines five dominant conceptualizations of “the Global South” in the field of media and communication studies, and more specifically in the subfields of (1) comparative media studies, (2) international communication or global media studies, and (3) development communication. Engaging with the broader calls made by a number of scholars since the early 2000s to “dewesternize,” “decolonize,” or “internationalize” the field, I argue that the Global South continues to be theorized from the vantage point of the Global North. Instead of understanding the Global South on its own terms, scholarship frequently appreciates the role of media and communication only insofar as it emerges from, represents the negative imprint of, or features the active intervention of the Global North. Such accounts have failed to acknowledge the agency of the Global South in the production, consumption, and circulation of a much richer spectrum of media culture that is not a priori defined in opposition to or in conjunction with media from the Global North. In advocating for a shift from media systems to media cultures, I hope to contribute to an approach that practices media and communication studies from the Global South, grounded in the everyday life experiences of ordinary people but always situated against the background of crucial processes such as neoliberalization, which have not only had drastic implications for the division of labor between the state and market in the area of media and communication but have also produced radical changes in the lives of the majority of people living in the Global South.

Interdisciplinarity has experienced cyclical fluctuations. Even though it is currently gaining popularity again, the contours of the notion of interdisciplinarity often remain blurred. For a Research Unit that is adopting an interdisciplinary perspective it is therefore imperative to reach a consensus regarding the underlying concept and its implications. We therefore explain how the interdisciplinary setup and interconnectedness of the DFG Research Unit 2757 contribute to approaching a complex research agenda that lies beyond the scope of individual disciplines. To this end, we first elucidate the fundamental terms, theories and methods, developed and selected through interdisciplinary reflection, and present the basic ideas of our Research Unit. Furthermore, we describe the organizational structure and explain how the subprojects are connected both in terms of content and methodology. This allows us to more precisely define our understanding of interdisciplinary cooperation in the...

Understanding the culture of an Appalachian woman is integral to the conversation between women of the global North and women of the global South.  The following paper will introduce the Appalachian ethnicity and the women reared in this culture.  A brief review of the region’s history and its calamitous interaction with the global North will serves as a premonition of the greater assault on subsistence living seen in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  Finally, through cross-cultural comparisons, I will demonstrate how the lives of Appalachian women and Appalachian migrant women can serve as a bridge with which the global North can approach the global South with regards to women’s rights in subsistence culture.

Please see: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cultural-code

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Video games are becoming an ever more ubiquitous element of daily life, played by millions on devices that range from smart phones to desktop computers. An examination of this phenomenon reveals that video games are increasingly being converted into cultural currency for a variety of purposes across the globe. For video game designers, culture is a resource that can be incorporated into games; for players, local gaming practices and specific social contexts can affect their playing experiences. In Cultural Code, Phillip Penix-Tadsen shows how culture uses games and how games use culture, looking at examples related to Latin America. Both static code and subjective play have been shown to contribute to the meaning of games; Penix-Tadsen introduces culture as a third level of creating meaning.

Penix-Tadsen focuses first on how culture uses games, looking at the diverse practices of play in Latin America, the ideological and intellectual uses of games, and the creative and economic possibilities opened up by video games in Latin America—the evolution of regional game design and development. Examining how games use culture, Penix-Tadsen discusses in-game cultural representations of Latin America in a range of popular titles (pointing out, for example, appearances of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue in games from Call of Duty to the tourism-promoting Brasil Quest). He analyzes this through semiotics, the signifying systems of video games and the specific signifiers of Latin American culture; space, how culture is incorporated into different types of game environments; and simulation, the ways that cultural meaning is conveyed procedurally and algorithmically through gameplay mechanics.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Toward a Cultural Ludology

Part I: How Culture Uses Games
1 Play
2 Persuasion
3 Potential

Part II: How Games Use Culture
4 Semiotics
5 Space
6 Simulation

Afterword: Decoding Culture

Notes
Index

Increasingly, the relevance and clamour for transit solutions that integrate the first and last mile commute infrastructure has assumed increasing relevance in the discourse of sustainable urban transport and social inclusion in cities. As evident in several past studies, critical deficiencies in transit solutions have been exemplified by transit systems which majorly over-emphasize intervention that stops at transit hubs without cognizance to infrastructure linking these hubs to final phase of commute of passengers. Rethinking and re-inventing the position of last mile commute infrastructure within urban transport fabric may become even more imperative especially when the environmental, social, economic costs and impacts of the fragmented,inconvenient and unsafe access to transit hub that predominates this phase of passenger commute is analyzed. First and last mile commute infrastructure in cities is posited by various studies as a concrete theme with potentials to reforming cities faced with the risk of commuters’ preference for cars usage and importantly to reverse social exclusion.
This paper is premised on qualitative and quantitative data sets which were triangulated to generate arguments that are consistent with the suggested disconnect between last mile commute and transit solutions in rapidly urbanizing cities using Abuja Nigeria as an exemplar illustrative case of global south cities. The findings provided evidences towards making explanation of how the existing transport network and intervention paid less consideration to the cost-saving, social inclusiveness and environmental efficiency impacts attributable to the integration of last mile commute infrastructure within public transport network. The absence of a safe and convenient last mile commute infrastructure emerged in the analyses as a strong explanatory variable for increased passenger transportation costs.

This article looks at the contemporary situation of the Hotels Alimentation du Bas-Congo in Kinshasa and Mbanza Ngungu (Democratic Republic of the Congo). The distinctive iron frameworks of these colonial buildings were manufactured in Belgium between circa 1904 and 1911 and sent to the Congo to serve as hotels. I analyse the corporeal state of these remainders of early Belgian colonialism according to the evident manner in which they are entangled with their contemporary surrounds. I pursue the idea that the hybrid identities of buildings that are still very much in use are constructed in an on-going process of interaction with various human and non-human agents. Particular ways in which the former luxury hotels affect—and are affected by—the local networks in which they are embedded allows for speculation regarding what they can tell of long lives spent bearing the weight of their past.