Development Of Geography Research Articles

Affective life, “vulnerable” youths, and international volunteering in a residential care programme in Cusco, Peru

This paper critically engages with the implications of the “affect turn” in the geographies of development and volunteering. By way of considering “affective life” at a residential youth care centre in Peru through an ethnographic study, we aim to contribute to current discussions of “(self‐)transformation” taking place through affectivity in the experience of volunteering. Conceptually, our approach to investigating “affective life” and volunteering involves two steps. First, we critically review this body of work's recent focus on the individualistic mode of volunteer self‐transformation in encountering “vulnerable others.” We identify the need to think about affect and embodiment also from the perspectives of the “vulnerable” groups whose lives are entangled with the presence of international volunteering. Second, we argue for an affect‐informed approach to socio‐politically shaped vulnerability, with a particular emphasis on lived experiences and affective capacities related to enduring social and material conditions. Against the backdrop of marginalisation of adolescent mothers from rural and indigenous backgrounds, many of whom are survivors of sexual abuse, we analyse the experiences of these youths living at a specific residential care centre and interacting with volunteers on a daily basis. In doing so, we employ a series of perspectives from the residents, while taking into account the organisational environment. We also show the complex ways in which resident–volunteer encounters are at play in life‐enhancing affective states, capacities, and relations emerging among the residents. Our findings on the residents' self‐ and shared capacity of transformation highlights the importance of attending to the spatialities of affective life in academic work focused on the contemporary geographies of international volunteering.

Social impact investing, agriculture, and the financialisation of development: Insights from sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract This paper explores how social impact investing (SII)—where financial investments are made with the intention to generate a beneficial and measurable social impact alongside a financial return—is influencing new forms of agricultural development, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The rapid growth of SII is occurring in the context of broader shifts in development towards private-sector led and growth-orientated models. We ask four questions: i) who are the key actors involved in SII in African agriculture (and what motivates their involvement); ii) how is the notion of social impact defined and operationalised; iii) through what practices and narratives is African agriculture specifically constructed as a site for investment; and iv) what are the political-economic implications of the resulting assemblage of actors, metrics and motivations (especially in terms of what and where is rendered investable)? We draw on a cultural political economy approach combining the core interests of political economy (investigating the structures, institutions and power relations of economic processes) with insights from post-structuralist social science into how such economic processes take on particular meanings through historically and geographically specific practices and discourses. We show that SII is driven by commercial interests, shifts in investment in relation to the growth of ethical capitalism, and shifts in philanthropic circles to viewing SII as a mechanism to access alternative sources of funding. SII is thus not simply a tool for creating new sources of funding for existing development activities. It is changing development policy and practice by bringing in new actors (most notably private equity funds and institutional investors); altering the nature and activities of existing actors (for example encouraging philanthropic organisations to blend their activities, rather than simply using investment returns to fund development work); and producing new and uneven geographies of agricultural development.

Infrastructural citizenship: The everyday citizenships of adapting and/or destroying public infrastructure in Cape Town, South Africa

This paper develops infrastructural citizenship as an analytical framework that bridges geography's sub‐disciplinary silos. While urban geography promotes infrastructure as a core lens for understanding the city, recognising that political struggles are mediated through infrastructure, discourses of citizenship are rarely employed. Similarly, while political and development geography promote citizenship as vital in understanding socio‐political life, often framed by citizen‐led action to secure basic rights and services, critical debates on urban infrastructure are typically overlooked. Consequently, despite the growth in studies recognising the politicised nature of urban infrastructure and the centrality of citizenship to urban life, the multiple ways that citizenship and infrastructure relate in diverse urban settings has received limited critical attention. This paper demonstrates how urban dwellers' relationship to public infrastructure in the domestic spaces of the home and settlement, and the temporal scale of the everyday, offers a representation of broader political identities and perceptions, framed through the language of citizenship. In South Africa, despite 25 years of significant post‐apartheid public investment in housing and services, frustration at poor service delivery and beneficiary (mis)use of public infrastructure remains dominant. While citizens adapt and consume public infrastructure in ways deemed “illegal” and “uncivil” by the state, citizens view these actions as a legitimate form of “citizenship‐in‐action” in the context of rapid urbanisation and poverty, and are frustrated by perceptions of state neglect. Using the analytical framework of infrastructural citizenship, the paper reveals how this state–society disjuncture represents a citizenship mismatch that is embodied in infrastructure, rather than a material product of state disinterest or citizen destruction per se.

Gender, embodiment and reflexivity in everyday spaces of development in Afghanistan

Located at the intersection of feminist geographies of development and embodiment, this paper explores the everyday gendered experiences of international women staff working for an education-related NGO in Afghanistan. Drawing from a larger study, this paper is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with eight international women who have spent extended periods of time working in Afghanistan. It reveals the various ways international staff experienced and managed their western female bodies within and across public, non-work related spaces. Our analysis focuses on the participants’ ethical and cultural considerations of covering, navigation of gendered eye contact, and experiences of sexual harassment in the streets of Kabul. It reveals how women’s embodied experiences within and across non-working spaces of development led to (partial) knowledge, heightened reflexivity, critique of the development industry, and deep questioning about identity politics. Ultimately, this paper offers valuable insights into the corporeality of international women in public spaces in Afghanistan. It highlights the importance of non-work related spaces for cultivating women’s understandings of difference, relationality, and ethical relationships with the Afghan women they work for and with.

Aadel Brun Tschudi Annual Lecture 2017 – efficiency and equity in development geography, the SDGs and the Sendai Framework

ABSTRACTWhat can contemporary geographical research learn from Aadel Brun Tschudi? As a pioneer of development geography, Tschudi emphasised efficiency, equity and the responsibility of geographers to be active in society. While her contributions to development geography were made in the context of nation-building efforts in the mid–late 20th century, the globalising process of the early 21st century raise similar concerns for identity, emergent hierarchies of power and socio-environmental transformation. Using Tschudi’s cardinal principles of equity and efficiency, the paper identifies four action arenas and exemplifies these through interventions aimed at reducing risk and addressing unmet development challenges: (1) high efficiency, low equity (private sector led), (2) low efficiency, low equity (humanitarian sector led), (3) low efficiency, high equity (spontaneous local action), and (4) high efficiency, high equity (collaborative action). The analysis draws out the different ways in which the aspirations and policy communities that own the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 are interacting now and how far these interactions are able to deliver efficiency and equity for the poor in low- and middle-income countries, which is Tschudi’s primary concern.

Sustainable poverty reduction of China in a view of development geography

Sustainable poverty reduction of China in a view of development geography

The genetic profiles and maternal origin of local sheep breeds on Java Island (Indonesia) based on complete mitochondrial DNA D-loop sequences.

Background and Aim:Java Island is one of the islands in Indonesia which has local sheep breeds with specific characteristics and native development geography in certain regions. This study aimed to determine the genetic profiles and maternal origin of six local sheep breeds on Java Island.Materials and Methods:This study was conducted by identifying the profiles of complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) displacement loop (D-loop) region sequences on a total of 22 individual in six local sheep breeds on Java Island, including Javanese thin-tailed (JTT), Javanese Fat-Tailed (JFT), Batur (BTR), Wonosobo (WSB), Garut (GRT), and Priangan (PRG) sheep. The D-loop region was amplified using specific primers, and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed. The PCR products were purified and sequenced.Results:The mtDNA D-loop analysis identified 21 haplotypes in the analyzed 22 animals with 123 polymorphic sites (V) consisting of 60 singleton variable sites (S) and 63 parsimony informative sites (P). Within all breeds tested, the haplotype diversity, the average number of pairwise differences (K), and nucleotide diversity (Pi) were 0.99567, 25.36364, and 0.02153, respectively. The genetic distance (D) within groups and between groups was 0.001-0.006 and 0.004-0.036, respectively. The phylogeny resulted in the presence of two haplogroups (Hap), which are 5 Hap A and 16 Hap B. All JTT, JFT, BTR, and WSB breeds were in the same cluster in Hap B, whereas GRT and PRG breeds were in clusters in both Hap A and Hap B.Conclusion:The high genetic diversity in six local sheep breeds on Java Island suggests that they originated from different genetic sources. JTT sheep have closer genetic relationships to JFT, BTR, and WSB sheep, and they are close to European sheep, whereas GRT sheep have closer genetic relationships to PRG sheep. Both are closer to Asian sheep than to European sheep.

The backroads of AI: The uneven geographies of artificial intelligence and development

Artificial intelligence is being reconfigured as a set of technologies that can address poverty with precision. The impacts of AI will both exacerbate and ameliorate the conditions of uneven development. Recent debates focus on the disruptive effects of AI, particularly to replication of development trajectories that have had success in reducing poverty. In this paper we further these debates by analysing the backroads of AI. The backroads serve as a metaphor for understanding the ways AI will travel from the sites of incubation to the frontlines of uneven development. We explore dialogues between AI and development in two arenas: the World Bank's Development Impact Evaluation initiative (DIME) and the Government of India's national AI strategy, #AIforAll. We argue that both these arenas serve as hubs from which AI will travel out along the backroads to remote, poor, and fragmented polities. While the World Bank utilises AI as technology to empower experts and mobilise a techno‐political authority, what we refer to as precision AI, India seeks to function as a second‐tier AI hub, making AI cheaper and more accessible domestically and for other developing countries, what we refer to as populist AI. We conclude by discussing the interrelations of precision and populist AI along the backroads, and the potential of backroads research for mapping AI, uneven geographies of development and technology and the impacts of AI's disruptions at different scales.

Escalas Econômicas e Regiões Transfronteiriças na América Latina / Economic Scales and Cross-border Regions in Latin America

Considerando as regiões em sua condição multidimensional e como peças inseparáveis da geografia do desenvolvimento desigual capitalista, o presente artigo tem por objetivo discutir e propor uma tipologia de situações de um das modalidades de regionalização que melhor sinaliza os processos de territorialização neoliberal: as regiões transfronteiriças (RTF) internacionais, especialmente da América Latina. O artigo sintetiza dois exemplos de tipologia de interação transfronteiriça, o do Grupo Retis (2005) e ode Oliveira (2005), que servem como referência de comparação para a nossa proposta de uma nova tipologia, que diferencia regiões a) consuetudinárias, b) autocontidas, c) corredores e d) globalizadas. A partir das características próprias das dinâmicas fronteiriças na região, propõe-se essa tipologia flexível das regiões transfronteiriças latino-americanas, com base em um perfil específico, que deriva das conexões econômicas que regem o âmbito dos intercâmbios comerciais desses espaços.

Private sector development and provincial patterns of poverty: Evidence from Vietnam

Abstract Private sector development and the relationship between private firms and the state-owned sector continue to figure prominently in the debate about poverty reduction. Growth of private firms may generate economic opportunities, but changes of the role of the state in the economy may also carry social risks. The subnational dimension of the link between the private sector’s weight in the economy and poverty remains underexplored. How do changing regional patterns of private sector development shape the geography of poverty? Especially in transition economies, reforms altering conditions for private enterprises and foreign direct investment do not always proceed at the same speed in all regions. This paper examines the link between province-level changes in private firms’ formal employment share and poverty reduction in Vietnam’s provinces during 1999–2009. Particularly since 2000, Vietnam has taken large steps towards an equal administrative treatment of all firms irrespective of ownership. Provincial governments often enjoyed considerable freedom in their interpretation of reforms, contributing to differential province-level patterns of progress in private sector development. The empirical analysis combines data from Vietnam’s enterprise survey, independent poverty estimates, and two rounds of population censuses. Instrumental variable regressions reveal that larger increases of private firms’ employment share are associated with larger reductions in poverty. This finding demonstrates that allowing some regions to move faster or slower than others regarding reforms changing the conditions for private firms and foreign direct investment is likely to leave an imprint on the country’s geography of development. Multinational enterprises, rather than domestic private firms, emerge as drivers of the association identified in our analysis. The Vietnamese case therefore illustrates the poverty reduction potential of export-oriented activities of multinational enterprises, while simultaneously casting doubt on the contribution of small and medium sized enterprises to poverty alleviation.

Incubators at the Frontiers of Capital: An Ethnographic Encounter with Startup Weekend in Khayelitsha, Cape Town

Technology incubators are one of the infrastructural ends at the urban frontiers of capital. When built in areas of poverty in cities of the Global South, these hubs cultivate entrepreneurialism and opportunities for profit at the intersection of development and technological innovation. They promise to address the social challenges of urban marginality with remunerative market solutions. In Cape Town, Africa’s so-called Silicon Cape, the largest technology incubator of the city ventured into its most marginal township—Khayelitsha—in 2015, pledging to lay the infrastructural groundwork for fruitful entrepreneurial innovation. This article recollects, ethnographically, an important moment at the outset of this incubator: a fifty-four-hour franchised hackathon, Startup Weekend, which took place in September 2015 as an inaugural event. The argument of this article is that such an incubator was a sociotechnical formation meant to create the conditions for entrepreneurship in a deprived urban area, relying on a web of material and immaterial connections; that it materialized the rationalities of millennial development as well as alternative goals; and that, as infrastructure, it was patched with diverse aspirations and improvised forms of sociality. The article thus contributes to an urban geography of development that acknowledges its uncertainties and singularities as political openings. Key Words: Cape Town, infrastructure, millennial development, technology incubator.

Transforming rural light and dark under planetary urbanisation: Comparing ordinary countrysides in India and the UK

Contemporary global lightscapes are becoming increasingly complex and varied, creating an unusual geography of technological development and diffusion that defies many easy narratives of global interconnectivity. Specifically, new LED lighting technologies are being created through rural experimentation in both Global North and Global South. This makes lighting, and darkness, an interesting lens through which to intervene in debates on the relationship between city, countryside, and planet, specifically addressing the theoretical developments of comparative urbanism and planetary urbanisation. Heading calls to develop conceptual material from both Global North and Global South, we use case studies from Bihar (India) and the North Pennines (UK) to argue that the changing lighting technologies and practices show how “ordinary countrysides” are contributing to new planetary ways of living. We argue that while there are differences in how darkness and the implementation of artificial lighting are perceived in these sites, there are similarities that reveal an ongoing rural form of planetary living, outside the claims of urbanisation. Particularly, rural lives are marked by a closer connection to the planet, as expressed through experiences of rural darkness. Furthermore, in both sites the tenuous grasp on infrastructure and state services seems to reveal a shared rural experience. These findings suggest shared rural experiences of globalisation, but that the socio‐spatial contexts of places remain important in understanding their location within global systems. Furthermore, we join recent calls to suggest that further exploration of the difference between “global” and “planetary” might add nuance to theoretical trends in urban studies, rural studies, and geography.

“Techno-market fix”? Decoding wealth through mobile money in the global South

The use of mobile phones for financial services in the global South has gained prominence in the last decade. These financial technology (FinTech) services, popularly known as mobile money (MM), offer an avenue for financial inclusivity, a recurring theme in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This paper, largely conceptual but interlaced with empirical examples from Ghana and Bangladesh, critically examines the rise of mobile money in the global South. Specifically, it employs David Harvey’s adaptation and redeployment of the laws of accumulation to relate the economic phenomenon of MM to the capitalistic relationship between capital and labor. We argue, among other points, that MM emerges as a techno-market fix to make visible, bankable, and taxable the hitherto invisible, unbanked, and untaxed urban sub-proletariat who are mostly engaged in the informal sector. Thus, whether in sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, the underlying laws of accumulation through MM are the same: make informality visible in order to decode wealth, and accumulate for the sake of accumulation. We conclude by briefly reflecting on how our arguments contribute to the literature on economic, digital, and development geographies of postcolonial economies in the global South.

An Island in Transition – A Review on Recent Development Geographies of Jeju –

본 논문은 제주도의 개발 지리를 검토하면서, 최근 대규모 개발 사업의 계획과 실행에서 개발 행위자들이 구조적으로 개입된 방식을 분석하는 데에 목적을 두었다. 이에 본 논문에서는 우선 제주도 개발에 영향을 미친 법률적 규제를 포괄적으로 조사했고, 중앙정부의 지역 개발 전략이 국가 주도의 통제 정책에서 지방정부로의 권력 이양으로 전환되고 있음을 제시했다. 다음으로 2000년대 이후 제주도 개발 관련 특별법이 제정된 배경, 과정 및 내용을 검토하면서, 중앙정부와 지방정부 간의 파트너십이 어떻게 국제화, 자유화, 규제완화 등의 신자유주의적 개발 정책을 정당화했는지 검토했다. 둘째, 최근 제주도의 개발 지리 변동의 중요 행위자인 제주국제자유도시개발센터의 개발 전략을 분석하면서, 최근의 개발 과정이 급격한 부동산의 교환가치 증식을 야기하였음을 문제점으로 지적했다. 마지막으로 제주도의 최근 개발 지리 변동이 긍정적 기회를 가져오는 것처럼 보이지만, 실제 개발 과정에서 불확실성과 상당한 비용을 대가로 하기 때문에 제주도의 회복력을 위험에 빠뜨릴 수 있음을 지적하였다.The purpose of this paper is to trace out recent development geographies of Jeju Island, and to investigate the ways in which a series of large-scale development projects have been planned and implemented structurally in conjunction with key development actors. First, it examined comprehensive legal regulations that impacted on Jeju’s development. It investigated the key development schemes of Jeju implemented by the South Korean national government, and distinguished their political characteristics into dirigisme and devolution. Subsequently, it analyzed the national-local governmental partnership and its development discourse presented in a series of special acts on Jeju in the 2000s. Second, it analyzed the structural framework of the Jeju Free International City Development Corporation (JDC) with particularly focusing on its internationalization, liberalization, and deregulation policies. The JDC acts as a powerful neoliberal development actor dedicated to increasing the exchange values of local properties. Finally, the paper reviewed JDC’s several development projects and examined whether they brought in positive opportunities for Jeju, or generated uncertainties and costs that could endanger Jeju’s resilient capacity.

The politics of development in Palau

Purpose The Republic of Palau in the Micronesian region of the Pacific illuminates the complexities of how the political geography of development is shaped through diplomacy, defense and migration policy. The Compact of Free Association (COFA) between Palau and the US has been a topic of debate and for some resistance. Design/methodology/approach Through discursive analysis of grey literature and post-development and political geography frameworks, this paper analyzes the way in which development, through unconventional pathways, is used to exert power by Palau’s largest donor, the US. Findings The donor–recipient, government-to-government framework fails to explore the ways in development is used as power through military operations, zonal capitalism, redefined citizenship and tourism as new aid modalities. These graduated sovereignties in Palau show that political geography is taking shape through new pathways of development, which has resulted in more actors, institutions and discourses. Originality/value With limited research on the region of Micronesia and particularly the politics of development, this paper contributes important analysis to the lead up to the COFA renewal negotiations between the US and Palau in 2024.

Una visita eclesiástica en zona de misiones: control y gobierno en el obispado de Maynas a inicios del siglo XIX

The bishopric of Maynas, which in general comprised the extensive northern Amazon of Peru, was the last created in the viceregal period (1802), with clear strategic, missionary and political objectives. An attempt was made to establish a strong diocese in a territory that had been distant both from the viceregal administration and from the collective imaginary in terms of population, geography and possibilities of development. In this context, the Bishop of Maynas, Hipolito Sanchez Rangel, through the ecclesiastical visit he made to his bishopric in the first decade of the 19th century and many other actions, was a political figure of great importance in the absence or distance of political instances that guaranteed the administration and control of one of the regions in which «Western civilization» had made little impact, a situation that was exacerbated by the process of independence of Peru. Sanchez Rangel is also a key figure for our understanding of that space; with his proposals for reform, he is one of the political actors –within the civil and ecclesiastical sphere– that sought to promote an improvement in different areas of Maynas and other areas within the Peruvian Amazon jungle.

Export Expansion and Regional Diversification: Learning from the Changing Geography of China’s Exports

How will export expansion alter the internal geography of industrial development? Does it develop core regions at the expense of periphery regions? From an evolutionary point of view, this study investigates the effects of export expansion on the local capabilities for developing new industries (i.e., regional diversification). Using statistical data from China Customs and China’s Annual Survey of Industrial Firms, covering 334 prefectures during 2003 to 2013, this study examines the role of export openness and new exports in promoting regional diversification. Empirical results demonstrate that export openness can promote economies of scale and improve the already existing capabilities. New exports can introduce extraregional inputs and promote economies of scope. It will encourage the development of new industries regardless of the preexisting local capabilities. This mechanism works for both the core and the periphery. As such, export expansion is likely to open an opportunity window for lagging regions. Our findings also offer insights into development policies for lagging regions in response to export growth. Key Words: export expansion, global–local linkage, path dependence, regional diversification, trade geography.

On not being European enough. Migration, crisis and precarious livelihoods on the periphery of Europe

ABSTRACT This article argues that the concept of differential inclusion, as it is generally used in studies of migration, does not fully explain precarious lives and livelihoods of migrants on the southern periphery of Europe. By centring immigration legislation as the main cause of precarious migrant livelihoods, the concept of differential inclusion implicitly assumes a homogeneous national space, into which migrants are differentially included. However, these nation states are strongly marked by geographies of uneven development. Thus, the specific location into which migrant workers are inserted is highly significant on their lives and livelihoods. Drawing on an analysis of the livelihoods of Tunisian migrants and of people of Tunisian descent in Sicily in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, this article argues that – in order to explain their precariousness – it is necessary to combine an analysis of their differential inclusion into Italy with an analysis of Sicily’s subordinate incorporation into Italy and Europe. By analysing the interplay between these two forms of marginalization, the article suggests that the notion of differential inclusion may be spatialised to describe both social and territorial relations of simultaneous inclusion and marginalization.

„The House of Geography Education“ – an Example Model

All processes and phenomena have geographical dimensions which justify the presence of geography science as the main subject of study in Bulgarian school system. As such the role of geography in development of specific competences and patterns of behavior is with undeniable value for students. Against the background of growing public demands for education (and geographic one in particular), it is necessary to develop a new educational paradigm, respectively new educational models that set the student's personality and their needs, interests and responsibilities in the center of geography training process. In this regard, we are taking a step forward by presenting an exemplary educational model of geography education. We construct it on the basis of current interpretations from contemporary geography didactics in Bulgaria and in countries with developed educational systems. We present it through a metaphor having in mind that "severe" theoretical issues may be broken and examined from a different perspective and give us the possibility for further researches of the issue.

Trading Sand, Undermining Lives: Omitted Livelihoods in the Global Trade in Sand

Sand is a scarce resource, extracted from rivers and coasts at rates that exceed its natural renewal. Yet, little is understood about the political economy of sand extraction, the livelihood vulnerabilities produced, or why sand grabbing is occurring at unprecedented rates in particular locations. Drawing together literature on global production network approaches in economic geography and debates on sustainable livelihoods in development geography—two literatures rarely in conversation with one another—we reveal the links between new, globalized, cross-border articulations of poverty and prosperity and the sand trade. We situate our sand case in Southeast Asia across three sites, namely, in Singapore, the world’s top sand importer; Cambodia, a top-ten global exporter of sand; and an emerging exporter, Myanmar. We examine how sand mining affects, directly and indirectly, a range of livelihoods, specifically fisheries in Cambodia, riverbank agriculture in Myanmar, and migrant labor in Singapore. Drawing on our empirical work, we argue that linking these two literatures with empirical data on sand provides an approach that is broad in its connections and simultaneously grounded in specific practices, places, and people. This enables us to better account for often overlooked aspects in the production, erosion, and transfer of value. Key Words: global production networks, livelihoods, precarity, sand mining, Southeast Asia.