Socio-environmental Processes Research Articles

Hacia una Ecología Política Latinoamericana del Desastre Urbano: Algunos apuntes para su discusión

En este texto, se propone desde la perspectiva de la Ecología Política Urbana (EPU), plantear algunas reflexiones sobre lo que podría considerarse como Ecología Política Latinoamericana del Desastre Urbano. El objetivo es comprender a los desastres urbanos como procesos socioambientales, relacionados con la urbanización de la naturaleza y no como simples fenómenos naturales. Se trata de un primer acercamiento a una caracterización y definición de los desastres en la ciudad como objetos de estudio híbridos, el cual pretende escapar a los estudios tradicionales sobre ecología política y desastres. Finalmente, se concluye que el enfoque de la EPU ofrece una serie de elementos novedosos para la construcción de un futuro programa de investigación sobre desastres urbanos, el cual se necesita poner a prueba en un futuro próximo.

Longitudinal Evidence of Social Influences on Cognitive Decline in South Korea: Focusing on the Joint Effects of Age, Gender, and Education *

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionSouth Korea experiences one of rapid population aging in the world. The proportion aging over 60 year old is about 18.5% in 2015 yet is projected to be 41.5% in 2050. According to UN, Korean population composition is one of the youngest among the 34 OECD countries in 2015 but is projected to be one of the oldest in 2050(Would Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision). Aging population produces increasing number of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer Disease (AD), or diseases associated with cognitive decline (CD). Prevalence of AD, for example, is 9.18% in 2012 and is expected to be 15.06% in 2050. Even higher ratio of increases of AD prevalence relative to composition of elderly population over about 35 years may call for further attention to this issue. Furthermore, the care costs in the domains of finance and emotion, with respect to AD or CD are burdensome both for individuals and society, deserving careful and well-planned policies (Kurz et al. 2003; Toseland et al. 2002). Lastly, the fact that there is no medical cure available for individuals with severely impaired cognition may contribute to widespread notion of regarding AD as mysterious and unpredictable diseases and the ways in which to deal with uncertainty are indeed in high social demand, locally and globally.Aforementioned daunting nature of CD does have received wide range of research interests or attentions investigating (a) genetic influences or biological processes of pathological CD and/or, (b) potential risk factors for such diseases processes. Although these lines of past research are important in many respects, we argue that dynamic social processes underlying such disease process have not been fully examined yet. First, previous research taking risk-factor approach has identified various risk-factors for cognitive decline, such as low education level, female, older age, but it has not been clear how these risk factors come to affect cognitive decline. For example, low level of education has been identified as significant risk factor but it remains to be learned whether such low educational risk even accelerates with advancing age. Second, relatedly, previous research documented inconsistent patterns with respect to female disadvantage in cognitive decline. Is it possible to attribute lack of consistent findings of female disadvantage to lack of considering relevant contexts that might have been responsible for the gender difference? Lastly, besides overall research trend of paying insufficient attention to socio-environmental processes, much of previous work examining social processes underlying cognitive decline relied on cross- sectional or short-term follow up data, rendering caution in the extent of statistical inferences or generalization of findings.We address these shortcomings of previous research on cognitive decline by investigating whether or how multiple risk factors such as low level of education, older age, female come to have effects on cognitive decline. In particular, our investigation is centered on testing the extent of socio-environmental influences on cognitive decline by testing female disadvantage hypothesis. In essence, the process is to validate the existence of such disadvantage and, if so, is furthered assessed by more rigorous contingency of basic association such as age and education. To do this, we employ recent five waves of Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing and follow respondents who have successfully completed all follow-up surveys up to 2014, and use random-intercept approach to appropriately examine long term change in the area of research interest. Lastly, Cognitive health score is measured via MMSE (i.e., Mini Mental State Examination).Background1) Fundamental Causes of Health Inequality and Cognitive DeclineFundamental cause theory posits that one's location in hierarchical social position is a fundamental cause of population health disparities because one's social position affects a range of health outcomes through a host of risk factors. …

Análisis de la problemática socioambiental de ubaque (cundinamarca), desde la gestión institucional y la participación

<p>El conocimiento y el análisis de la problemática socioambiental de Ubaque, es decir, en el vínculo de la base natural con los procesos sociales y la gobernabilidad, uno de ellos la participación, condujeron a que se validara una hipótesis propuesta: “Los problemas socio ambientales del Municipio de Ubaque en Cundinamarca, y por tanto de la microcuenca del río El Palmar, tienen raíces fuertes en las debilidades de la gestión interinstitucional y en las carencias de la participación ciudadana”, mientras que, con el cumplimiento del objetivo “Analizar la problemática socio ambiental del municipio de Ubaque y proponer, a manera de recomendaciones, posibles cursos de acción para mejorar la gestión en pro de su sostenibilidad socio ambiental”, las autoridades locales cuentan con una red general de causalidad y una base sólida de información de los problemas más críticos, originadas desde un proceso que incluyó, además del desarrollo de la hipótesis, la revisión de fuentes de información, retroalimentadas con participación de la comunidad, productores y funcionarios, a través de encuestas y entrevistas. La situación no es muy diferente a la de muchos municipios del país de cara, especialmente, a la gestión de las CARs, situándose una debilidad en la gestión de los procesos socioambientales para el ordenamiento ambiental territorial y que compromete, también, a la administración municipal. De alto impacto sería: adoptar un Plan de Manejo Ambiental para la microcuenca, fortalecer la democratización de la información y la comunicación, y articular los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de la ONU, entre otras recomendaciones propuestas.</p>

Re-conceptualizing (environmental) sociology

Despite decades of activity, environmental sociology has not yet achieved its original goal of reorienting the discipline to account for human–ecosystem interdependence. Here, I review critical assessments of the status of efforts in sociology, and beyond, to understand and communicate about socio-environmental processes. I argue that meaningful advances in environmental sociology are not possible without a more fundamental re-conceptualization of sociology and its core. With reference to Norbert Elias’ work on relations among the sciences, I show that sociology’s disciplinary isolation has been a significant obstacle to advancement. Situating sociology and its subject matter among adjacent sciences and theirs reveals fundamental premises, suggests alternative core concepts, and forms the basis of a general theory of socio-environmental processes, all conspicuously absent to date. I provide an overview of the concepts and theory, offer a visual model to convey it, and conclude by suggesting possible implications for the social sciences.

CAPITAL COMUNICACIONAL SOCIOAMBIENTAL E EDUCOMUNICAÇÃO NA MIDIATIZAÇÃO DE ORGANIZAÇÕES DA SOCIEDADE CIVIL: APROXIMAÇÕES ENTRE SI E COM O CAMPO JORNALÍSTICO

The goal is to compare how different social organizations that deal with the water issue (river basin committees, civil society organizations and those that treat the theme of water) address the topic in the month that it is commemorated the World Water Day ( in March) and based on the disclosure of two digital platforms: the institutional website and Facebook page in order to compare with the pattern followed by commercial journalism. It is discussed if these mediatization processes contribute in the construction of communicational and socio-environmental capital and in educommunication (neologism created from the articulation between the fields of education and communication) socio-environmental processes. The method is descriptive and analytical, quantitative and qualitative and has bibliographic and documentary basis. The conclusion is that none of the analyzed media was established as an actor of educommunication processes and, neither, of construction of the environmental communicational capital, despite all of them put themselves actors of mediation of the environmental information. The study points out the necessary elements for the mediatic discourse approach the citizen of the environmental debate.

Redefining the Refuge: Symbolic Interactionism and the Emergent Meanings of Environmentally Variable Spaces

I utilize ethnographic data to illustrate how the meanings of a National Wildlife Refuge were being rearticulated following a shift in Canada goose migrations that undermined previously established meanings of the space. Beyond highlighting the ability of symbolic interactionism to incorporate a range of interdisciplinary works on space, I illustrate how the Meadian approach to temporality can be useful for understanding how the meanings of spaces are rearticulated in response to variable socio-environmental processes like goose migrations or climate change. Through this analysis, I hope to highlight the usefulness of symbolic interactionism for future research on space generally and adaptations to socio-environmental variabilities specifically.

Place as a boundary device for the sustainability sciences: Concepts of place, their value in characterising sustainability problems, and their role in fostering integrative research and action

Sustainability science is difficult to conceptualise, plan and conduct, given the broad range of epistemological commitments, methodological practices, and approaches to problem-framing taken by its constituent disciplines. This special issue is based on the idea of place as a boundary device for the sustainability sciences, in the belief that it can foster integrative work, guide theoretical reflection, encourage methodological innovation, and inform empirical research. Here we reflect on place concepts, before developing a series of arguments on the relationship of place to sustainability science. We first emphasise that place is not solely an interpretivist or post-positivist perspective on sustainability, as it is also congenial to mechanistic or positivist ontologies. Secondly, we argue that place does not entail a retreat from theory into particularism or thick description; it is coherent with attempts to provide explanations. Thirdly, we claim that it does not imply a sedentary, parochial approach to sustainability science that neglects interactions across scale or location. Fourthly, we caution that public spheres for tackling environmental issues can act to close-down deliberation and marginalise informal knowledge, if institutions retain norms that emphasise abstract, placeless evidence. We highlight how these ideas have been cashed out in the collected papers in this special issue, in domains ranging from biofuels governance, to estuary management, to marine governance, to ecosystem stewardship, to community-led low energy transitions, and to climate change more broadly. We end by suggesting that a place-based approach to sustainability science entails a relentless focus on context. It takes the spatially patterned, heterogeneous, fluid, networked, and contextually moderated form of socio-environmental processes as central points of investigation, rather than as mere modifiers of more general mechanisms.

Spatio-temporal migration patterns to and from an upland village of Mindanao, Philippines

Movement of groups of people is closely linked to environmental, agricultural and cultural change. Gaining an understanding of these changes in a local context is a vital prelude to the construction of a viable predictive model. We carried out a study in the Philippines to better understand the association between migration and these types of changes at a village scale and to build a picture of how the associations changed in time and space. The study area was located in the uplands of Mindanao. Migration to the village began in the late 1970s. As of 2010, the population is made up of indigenous people (~57 %), people who migrated from elsewhere in the Philippines (~29 %), and descendants of indigenous/non indigenous parents (~14 %). Face-to-face interviews in the village and in the places of origin/destination were used to collect qualitative information on the migrations made by the current and past village inhabitants. The main results relate to the reasons for migration, the socio-environmental processes that induced the decision to move and the description and explanation of more recent moves. The local findings are discussed in the context of existing published models of migration in frontier areas.

Entre la conservación del bosque y el crecimiento de la ciudad: las localidades rurales en el espacio periurbano del Huitepec en San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México / Between Forest Conservation and the Growth of the City: Rural Localities in the

El crecimiento urbano afecta las áreas agrícolas y forestales situadas en sus inmediaciones y transforma las formas tradicionales de control y uso de la tierra. Se cuenta con poca información acerca de las modalidades que toma este proceso en las ciudades medias, y menos aún si se le enfoca desde la perspectiva de los actores locales. Aquí se presenta un estudio de caso que analiza el crecimiento de la ciudad de San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, sobre un espacio rural aledaño y sus efectos sobre las áreas forestales y agrícolas. Aun cuando existe un fuerte proceso de urbanización, marcado por el aumento de la población, la fragmentación de la propiedad de la tierra y la llegada de los servicios urbanos, se mantienen algunas áreas forestales en reservas naturales y en espacios asociados a usos agrícolas y urbanos, las cuales forman un paisaje agroforestal que provee recursos naturales y servicios ambientales a la población local y urbana, entre ellos sobresale la recarga de agua. Lo anterior parece corresponder a una nueva ruralidad en que se presenta la integración espacial de procesos socioambientales urbanos y rurales, donde el bosque y la agricultura tienen un sentido y un valor distintos para los actores ahí presentes, que en no pocas ocasiones están en contradicción. AbstractUrban growth affects the agricultural and forest areas located in its immediate vicinity, transforming traditional forms of land control and use. Very little information is available on the patterns of this process in medium-sized cities, particularly if the information is provided from the perspective of local actors. This article presents a case study that analyzes the influence of the growth of the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, on an adjacent rural area and its effects on forest and farm areas. Although there is an intense process of urbanization, marked by a population increase, the fragmentation of land ownership and the arrival of urban services, some forest areas have been maintained in nature reserves and spaces associated with agricultural and urban uses, forming an agro-forest landscape that provides natural resources and environmental services for the local and urban population, foremost among which is recharging the aquifers. This appears to correspond to a new rurality in which urban and rural socio-environmental processes are spatially integrated and where the forest and agriculture have a different meaning and value for the actors there, which often contradict each other.

Desafios ambientais e estratégias para condução da investigação e programas de intervenção social

Este trabalho discute os desafios que se colocam à sociedade contemporânea no âmbito do combate à vulnerabilidade social, realça a importância da abordagem holística dos problemas socioambientais através da integração transversal e simultânea das dimensões social, ambiental e económica da sustentabilidade e exorta para a necessidade do uso combinado de métodos qualitativos e quantitativos como forma de compreender o fenômenos ambientais e sociais e implementar programas de intervenção sustentáveis.

Tropical forest recovery and socio-economic change in El Salvador: An opportunity for the introduction of new approaches to biodiversity protection

During the last few decades El Salvador has been considered as one of the most deforested countries in Latin America. Nevertheless, recent studies have pointed out the important forest recovery process currently occurring, which is favoured by socio-political changes recently experienced in this country. The latest research on forest recovery has been done at the level of the entire country; however, socio-environmental processes at the local level have not yet been examined. This article discusses the forest regrowth process at the local level in the natural area of Cinquera during the period from 1942 to 2004. It also illustrates how the effort made by local communities becomes an opportunity for the introduction of a new approach to biodiversity protection in El Salvador.

Environmental psychology and tourism

The relationship between environmental psychology and tourism is outlined. Relevant research from environmental and social psychology is reviewed and implications for understanding tourism behavior are discussed. A five-phase recreation travel framework is applied to tourism and socioenvironmental processes are discussed for each phase. The five phases are anticipation, travel to the destination, on-site behavior, return travel, and recollection. Topics discussed include proxemics, environmental perception, environmental imagery, behavior settings, perceived authenticity, and secondary explorations. Some future research questions are suggested for each tourism phase.