Connolly uses ongoing urban redevelopment in Penang in Malaysia to provide stimulating new perspectives on urbanisation, governance and political ecology.
The book deploys the concept of landscape political ecology to show how Penang residents, activists, planners and other stakeholders mobilize new relationships with the urban environment, to contest controversial development projects and challenge hegemonic visions for the city’s future.
Based on six years of local research, this book provides both a dynamic account of region’s rapid reshaping and a fresh theoretical framework in which to consider issues of sustainable development, heritage and governance in urban areas worldwide.
231 9 Ecologies of indebtedness Mark Featherstone Imagining catastrophe In the late 1990s the French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard, wrote a short essay, ‘In the Shadow of the Millennium’ (1998), concerned with the historical significance of the approaching year 2000. Given what has happened since what was called Y2K, it is hard to properly convey the low level panic that accompanied the impending arrival of the new millennium, but Baudrillard captured this through reference to the Beaubourg Clock, housed at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. In his piece, he
the social, cultural and political processes that shape it (Cosgrove and Daniels, 1988; Mitchell, 1996 ). Controversies over the form and function of the urban landscape are important to study from a political ecology perspective because they reflect uncertainties regarding the costs of particular instances of socio-natural transformation on the built environment and are frequent symptoms of rapidly developing urban regions ( Walker and Fortmann, 2003 : 469). Indeed, Mitchell (2007 : 316) has suggested that the central motivation in conflicts over the form of
designing and playing games to enact learning in experiential ways. They are a good example of critical-creative pedagogy that can help students better understand and address complex ecological challenges. I use the term ecologies in a dual sense, encompassing both its narrower environmental meaning and its broader reference to interconnections, especially in relation to the embeddedness of humans in the ‘web of life’ ( Capra, 1996 ). The chapter also takes a reparative stance that is ‘receptive and hospitable, animated by care for the world and its inhabitants’ ( Gibson
one A critical human ecology perspective on rural ageing Norah Keating and Judith Phillips Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to establish and describe the critical human ecology lens that challenges assumptions about growing older in rural areas. This lens is an essential element of the book in which we consider the interactions of older adults with the rural contexts that shape their experiences. Rural communities incorporate many elements of diversity that influence the lives of older adults: climate, landscape, distance from family networks
13 ONE A political ecology of youth Introduction The process of ‘growing up’ or ‘becoming adult’ is highly complex and is shaped and influenced by ideas, relationships and events in the local and national context (Heinz, 2009). Growing up is therefore experienced differently in different environments and settings. However, as will become clear in the discussions that follow in this book, there are similar patterns and outcomes that can create a collective experience of growing up, even across national boundaries. Making sense of how social context
Key messages In recent years, the use of drones in biodiversity conservation has become more common. Drones can be used towards different ends, from reinforcing to resisting exclusionary conservation practices. Political ecology provides a framework for interrogating what drones do in the hands of different operators. Political ecology reveals the deeply political and power-laden nature of conservation drones. Introduction In recent years, the use of unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, in conservation has skyrocketed. Comprising a range
RESEARCH ARTICLE Only connect: ecology between ‘late’ Latour and Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams Catherine Lord* Media Studies and the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Capaciteitsgroep Media & Cultuur, University of Amsterdam, Kamernummer: 21, Turfdraagsterpad 9, 1012 XT Amsterdam, the Netherlands In recent articles and lectures, Latour’s ecological thinking has given a central role to the Gaia theory, in which he develops his own model, often shortened to ‘Gaia’. This recent work on ecology is dependent on An
ARTICLE Re-imagining the left through an ecology of the commons: towards a post-capitalist commons transition Michel Bauwensa and Jose Ramosb aFounder/Director, P2P Foundation; bResearcher, P2P Foundation ABSTRACT Our main hypothesis in this paper is that in the current conjunc- ture, we are moving towards a ‘dominance’ of a ‘commons’ format for societal development. The commons format assumes a ‘third’ mode of development that indicates civil society and community as critical initiators and guardians of common value. The emerging commons model should be
Do the studies reviewed in Chapter Three mean that law and government policy cannot contribute to stopping population growth? In order to answer this question, I must take a detour. I return to the question later in Chapter Four . 4.1 Ecology and sociology The biology-based discipline of ecology focuses on the connections that exist among living organisms and between these organisms and their physical surroundings. 1 Being a branch of biological science, ecology does not concentrate on human societies and the social forces that determine the
