Territorial Interventions Research Articles

Using social-network analysis to map institutional actors’ links with vulnerable municipalities under climate change in Honduras’ dry corridor. Pathways towards improved cooperation and territorial interventions

The Honduras dry corridor, located in Central America’s Pacific region, has high natural climate variability. Nearly half of the Honduran population depends on socio-economic activities linked to agriculture, making climate-change adaptation crucial for the agricultural sector to ensure food and nutrition security. This research analyzes how institutional structures function and interact as a network to investigate the spatial coherence and relevance of public- and private-sector interventions related to agriculture, climate change, and food security in 153 municipalities of Honduras’ dry corridor. We employed a Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach to examine these interactions over the territories, revealing two network patterns: the first favors a single municipality, observed only in the Central District where Honduras’ capital is located; the second is an egocentric network, favoring a single institution, observed in four cases, particularly in municipalities bordering with El Salvador and Guatemala. The SNA results reveal a spatial misalignment, where only 9% of interventions linked to climate-change adaptation are conducted in the highly vulnerable, outlying zones located farthest from the capital. The study highlights the need for improved coordination and strategic prioritization of interventions in the most vulnerable municipalities within the Honduras dry corridor, specifically improvement in collaborative actions, use of resources, and setting strategic priorities in regions where future demand will require progressively mobilizing institutional capabilities. By identifying the current gaps and misalignments in institutional actions, this research provides valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders to enhance collaborative efforts to ensure that climate-change adaptation measures effectively target the most vulnerable areas.

Transmission and territory: Urban bordering during COVID-19

The governance of COVID-19 has involved the proliferation of territorial practices, through border controls designed to regulate movements not only across national and state borders, but also within cities and city regions. We argue that these urban territorial practices have been significant to the biopolitics of COVID-19 and warrant close scrutiny. Focusing on the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne, this paper offers critical analysis of the urban territorial practices of COVID-19 suppression, which we categorise as practices of closure, confinement and capacity control. We observe these practices in measures including ‘stay at home’ orders, residential building and housing estate lockdowns, closure of and capacity limits on non-residential premises, postcode- and municipality-level restrictions on movement, and hotel quarantine. These measures, we argue, have reinforced and at times exacerbated pre-existing social and spatial inequalities. However, we also recognise COVID-19's real and highly uneven threats to life and health, and therefore ask what a more egalitarian form of pandemic governance might look like. We draw on scholarly writing on ‘positive’ or ‘democratic’ biopolitics and ‘territory from below’, in order to outline some more egalitarian and democratic interventions that have been pursued to suppress viral transmission and to reduce vulnerability to COVID-19 and other viruses. This, we argue, is an imperative of critical scholarship as much as the critique of state interventions. Such alternatives do not necessarily reject state territorial interventions per se, but instead point towards a way of addressing the pandemic by recognising the capacity and legitimacy of biopolitics and territory from below. They point towards ways in which we might see a pandemic ‘like a city’ in a way that prioritises egalitarian care through a politics premised on democratic negotiations among diverse urban authorities and sovereignties.

Emerging agricultural expansion in northern regions: Insights from land-use research

Emerging agricultural expansion in northern regions: Insights from land-use research

LIVING DANUBE LIMES – SPAȚIUL CONSTRUIT CA INSTRUMENT PENTRU RETRĂIREA ISTORIEI

The theme of exploring the built space as tool for living history is part of the project that UAUIM is involved in as partner: “Living Danube Limes - Valorising cultural heritage and fostering sustainable tourism by LIVING the common heritage on the DANUBE LIMES as basis for a Cultural Route”, from the Danube Transnational Programme. The project proposes a contemporary experience on the Roman historical frontier along Danube, that contains, on the Romanian territory, a large number of archaeological sites, many of them still not explored or inaccessible. The Danube Limes could become a new Cultural Route in Europe, in a larger network of frontier systems, from Hadrian’s Wall in Great Britain, till the Northern parts of Africa and the Near East. The Danube Limes represents paradoxically, in the same time, a strong territorial limit, but also an important connection element for Europe. The first part of the research discloses the relationship at a territorial level, at different scales, between the historical sites and natural and anthropic features, in order to configure the future Cultural Route in Romania. A fully reconstructed Roman boat from the IVth century will sail along Danube till the Black Sea. Along the route, several areas and archaeological sites were identified in order to host projects, architectural, urban and territorial interventions as basis for living history scenarios. From iconic urban and architectural interventions, next to the archaeological sites, to new harbours, to the Wine Road, thermal settlements, or in the end, the final point of exile, where the Danube reaches the Black Sea, the projects developed by the Department of Architectural Synthesis, propose living history steps through functions and built spaces that reconstruct scenarios from the Roman life. The contemporary built space enhances the discovery and revival of history and becomes a tool for the Living History concept.

Imposição de riscos e estado do licenciamento das Minas Gerais

A mineração de ferro no estado de Minas Gerais (Brasil) é tema central do presente artigo, na perspetiva do neoextrativismo e de decisões de órgãos públicos e instâncias colegiadas com deliberado desequilíbrio de interesses. Apresentamos sucintamente as condições da ocupação territorial do Quadrilátero Ferrífero (e Aquífero) e sua estruturação contemporânea para a exportação de minério de ferro. Expomos como a integração e ampliação de estruturas de extração e beneficiamento do minério de ferro resultam, cada vez mais, na utilização de grandes barragens/reservatórios de rejeitos.Casos destacados das mineradoras Samarco, Vale e Anglo American ilustram as formas tendenciosas da gestão e autorização de intervenções territoriais pelo Estado e conselhos de meio ambiente. Neste contexto, manobras de interpretação de dispositivos legais conduzem à suspensão e protelação da realização de direitos. Como consequência, sob a pressão de megaprojetos minerários e interesses corporativos a estes associados, riscos são impostos, pelas autoridades do Estado, às condições de vida quotidiana de comunidades, que passam a viver situações de desastres sem que estes tenham necessariamente ocorrido.

Território usado e lógicas patrimoniais no Paraguai

Para além da perspectiva hegemônica da patrimonialização, esse estudo traz um olhar geográfico para as heranças que resistem ante intervenções territoriais de caráter excludente, que refletem a colonialidade do poder. Com o objetivo de analisar como interações espaciais oriundas da patrimonialização global ressignificam o patrimônio-territorial no bairro Loma San Jerónimo, Assunção, Paraguai, foram confrontadas estas duas lógicas patrimoniais aplicadas ao continente latinoamericano à luz do conceito de território usado. A pesquisa qualitativa, com aporte em procedimentos de campo sistematizado e realização de entrevista, nos evidenciou que apesar dos impactos da patrimonialização global, o patrimônio-territorial do bairro é persistente e se mostra como uma possibilidade de emancipação da comunidade, bem como para o fortalecimento de novas estratégias de valorização patrimonial e espacial.

Theorizing Territorial Withdrawal: The Need to Think Strategically

This article examines what factors cause states to withdraw from foreign territorial interventions. Scholarly analyses of withdrawal are rare, whilst within the broader research area of territorial conflict, studies are often dichotomized into neorealist or constructivist-inspired works, emphasizing a select few variables and one level of analysis alone. We argue these excessive simplifications of international politics lack utility for understanding territorial withdrawal. Instead, we employ the principles of strategic theory informed by a Clausewitzian paradigm, and construct a framework of three “arenas of bargaining,” spanning multiple variable-types and levels of analysis, to explain territorial withdrawal. In so doing, the analysis delineates a comprehensible and novel theoretical framework for understanding an under-researched policy problem.

Rubber out of the ashes: locating Chinese agribusiness investments in ‘armed sovereignties’ in the Myanmar–China borderlands

ABSTRACTChina’s contemporary cross-border investments in northern Myanmar have been confronted by, and in turn have re-animated, the region’s post-Cold War geographies and associated illicit drug economy. Since the mid-2000s, mainland Chinese companies have invested in large-scale agribusiness concessions in northern Myanmar under China’s liberalized opium substitution programme. Chinese companies have partnered with local armed ‘strongmen’ – many of whom were or still are involved in the illicit drug trade – where they exercise armed authority within a wider landscape of ‘armed sovereignties’. Field case study data demonstrate how China’s contemporary cross-border investments have extended Myanmar’s national political authority within the arc of armed sovereignties. Chinese-backed agricultural estates, whether awarded to paramilitary militias or rebel leaders under ceasefires, acted as state territorial interventions and led to incremental Myanmar state-building outcomes. The state-building effects from contemporary Chinese investments are in contrast to the Cold War period in which China sought to destabilize non-aligned nation-states by supporting armed communist revolutions. The study traces how China’s current land-based investments have reawakened the borderland’s legacy of political violence and reconfigured armed sovereignties closer towards Myanmar’s military state.

CITIZEN PARTICIPATION, QUALITY OF LIFE AND TERRITORIAL TRANS-REGIONAL JUSTICE: A SOCIAL BASIS FOR COMMON GOOD

Abstract For globalized local worlds undergoing transformation, territorial interventions are increasingly producing larger social and environmental impacts. Macro-interventions profoundly alter the functioning of ecosystems and human habitats or communities, becoming inclusive in extreme situations of exploitation or extraction, risking their very existence. Therefore it is necessary to develop a system or Social Baseline that clearly establishes the philosophical bases, restrictions and criteria that regulate and curb the negative impacts of such interventions. This implies defining methods for citizen participation. This article focuses on defining a basic framework with criteria and indicators that regulate the impact of macro-interventions - of different natures - on human territories and communities.

Rede de cuidado a crianças e adolescentes em sofrimento psíquico: ações de promoção à saúde

<p>Este artigo se propõe a investigar a rede de cuidado de crianças e adolescentes em sofrimento psíquico e a descrever ações que visam à promoção da saúde mental, a partir de uma intervenção territorial. Trata-se de um estudo qualitativo, baseado no desenho da pesquisa-ação, cuja amostra foi constituída por seis crianças e nove adolescentes residentes no território adscrito de quatro Unidades de Saúde da Família. Utilizou-se uma entrevista semiestruturada contendo dados socioeconômicos, demográficos, e as relações na rede familiar e de cuidados. Também foi utilizado o diário de campo para transcrição das observações de intervenções realizadas no domicílio e na comunidade, na perspectiva da atenção primária à saúde. Foram identificadas falhas na efetivação do brincar, no desempenho do lazer, dificuldades escolares e alterações comportamentais; tais aspectos têm sido prejudicados por relações familiares conflituosas e precárias condições de vida. Verificou-se que a escola e os vizinhos são elementos de apoio na rede de cuidados das crianças e adolescentes, sendo focos das intervenções territoriais. O cuidado em saúde mental requer uma rede integrada, com ferramentas efetivas para a promoção da autonomia e participação social destes sujeitos.</p>

L’action territoriale des grands groupes : coopérations, effets induits et patrimonialisation

This article exposes a full action-research process about French big companies’ territorial interventions. This action-research allowed us to stress the heritage concept as it gave an empirical content to the territorial resource concept. At last, mobilizing an analysis in terms of heritage opens new questionings about conditions required to increase companies’ capacities to take responsibility for territorial issues.

Los problemas de la implementación TOP-DOWN a nivel local. Un estudio de caso sobre seguridad ciudadana

The critics to the top-down model are consistent with the observed reality in one of the largest towns in Chile. Municipal public officials in charge of the execution of the policy carry out an implementation that could be described as «perfectly imperfect» by applying security policies based on subjective criteria and without keeping themselves passive or neutral. This state of affairs can be explained by the neglect of the security policies' designers regarding previous territorial interventions.

Pavimentando Roraima: a BR-174 como exemplo das lógicas neoliberais de transnacionalização do território na Amazônia Ocidental

Este artigo discute a pavimentação da BR-174 na metade da década de 1990 e as suas consequências socioespaciais no estado de Roraima. O caso é apresentado como um exemplo da transformação das intervenções territoriais na Amazônia no contexto da neoliberalização do Estado e da produção de um espaço econômico transnacional. Os investimentos federais para o desenvolvimento rodoviário e infraestruturas auxiliares trouxeram conectividade sem precedentes para o estado de Roraima, além de gerar crescimento econômico. Todavia, o artigo argumenta que, além dos novos discursos de desenvolvimento regional sustentável, as lógicas dominantes dos projetos, tais como o melhoramento da BR-174, são as de um neoliberalismo em expansão transnacional, no qual o Estado empreendedor torna-se um parceiro para o estabelecimento de mercados externos mais do que o principal agente da integração do território nacional. Assim, no desenho da BR-174, Roraima aparece, principalmente, como um espaço estratégico de conexão transfronteiriça que liga a Amazônia brasileira aos portos do Caribe. Entretanto, passada mais de uma década desde a conclusão do projeto, a concentração territorial tem se aprofundado ao passo que emergem novas desigualdades socioespaciais intimamente atreladas às funções e fluxos que a integração rodoviária criou.

A formação de um espaço de civilidade em Natal [RN], Praça Augusto Severo (1845-1913)

Durante o século XIX a centralidade de Natal foi ameaçada por outros entrepostos comerciais, surgidos para contornar os obstáculos naturais que dificultavam o escoamento da produção da província do Rio Grande do Norte pela capital. Chega-se a conjecturar a mudança da capital em 1873 ao se buscar novas soluções para esse embate. No final do século XIX um novo ciclo de investimentos se esboça. Ele é marcado pela introdução de um novo meio de transporte que alterava drasticamente a escala espaço-temporal. Esse equipamento marcava a chegada da modernidade nas intervenções territoriais, em que as redes urbanas ganhavam um caráter cada vez mais deliberativo. As novas políticas territoriais eram claramente orientadas para a centralização dos fluxos na capital.Seja para aperfeiçoar os lucros de uma ferrovia particular, ou para obedecer a um plano nacional de fortalecimento das capitais portuárias o objetivo era o mesmo: concentrar em um único ponto – a capital – os meios de transporte. O controle do território deixou marcos físicos muito visíveis na Capital. Este trabalho tem por objetivo demonstrar como essas políticas territoriais se evidenciaram no espaço urbano da capital do Rio Grande do Norte, contribuindo para construir uma nova centralidade na cidade, que se firmou posteriormente como seu principal espaço de representação da civilidade.

The Impact of Territorial Re-Organisational Policy Interventions in the Republic of Macedonia

This paper attempts to analyse territorial reorganisation policy interventions in Macedonia, first in 1995 and again in 2004, which overreached their aims and objectives; and where economic viability and institutional reform were trumped by ethnic factors in defining local government boundaries. The core argument is that through territorial reorganisation, opportunities are provided to major ethnic political parties, both Macedonian and Albanian, in order to exercise more power by increasing their ‘market share’ in local governments. This paper argues that this political approach adds to a higher level of segregation among ethnic communities. Further, this paper clearly explains how balancing political, economical and institutional qualifications for the two territorial policy interventions posed challenges in Macedonia due to its citizens perceptions and demographic profile. In understanding the need for territorial re-organisations in Macedonia, one must not ignore historical legacy and developments around the region in the last decade. Immediately after Macedonia became a sovereign and independent state in September 1991, the new Macedonian constitution was drawn up and later adopted in November 1991. This revealed tensions between two major ethnic groups over constitutional nationalism and the principle of democracy. It was not until 2001 when the Ohrid Framework Agreement was signed through mediation of the international community that the country's political leadership recognised the need for a new political discourse in order to bring more social and economic progress to the country.

Damage scenario of the earthquake on 23 July 1930 in Melfi: the contribution of technical documentation

As regards the 1930 Irpinia earthquake a detailed research both on the institutional response to the seismic event in Vulture area and reconstruction of the damage scenario for the town of Melfi has been performed. This study was carried out by an analysis of coeval dossiers drawn up by the Special Office of Civil Engineers, which was set up after the earthquake. The research brought to light the typologies and the modalities of the institutional actions taken during the post-seismic period. In general, these territorial interventions had a notable effect on urban systems, especially those involving both the partial shifting of urban areas and the construction of earthquake-proof buildings. The research also identified the damage pattern in Melfi by a deeper study on about 2400 archive files. A preliminary analysis of the damage pattern indicates probable seismic amplification phenomena due to the lithological and geomorphological features of the site. Moreover, the analysis of time-dependent activities of reconstruction has shown that almost all the buildings of the town (90%) were repaired or reconstructed within five years after the seismic disaster.

The Visibility of (In)security: The Aesthetics of Planning Urban Defences Against Terrorism

Urban defences against terrorism have traditionally been based on territorial interventions that sought to seal off and surveil certain public and private spaces considered targets. Lately, though, a much wider range of crowded and public spaces have been viewed as potential targets and thus have been identified as requiring additional security. This has immense implications for the experience of the ‘everyday’ urban landscape. Drawing on contemporary notions that incorporate the study of aesthetics and emotions within critical security and terrorism studies, this article discusses the visual impact of counter-terrorism security measures. It analyses the ‘transmission’ of symbolic messages, as well as the variety of ways in which security might be ‘received’ by various stakeholders. The analysis takes place against the backdrop of concern that obtrusive security measures have the capacity to radically alter public experiences of space and in some cases lead to (intended and unintended) exclusionary practices or a range of negative emotional responses. The article concludes by outlining a ‘spectrum of visible security’ ranging between traditional obtrusive fortified approaches and approaches that embed security features seamlessly or even ‘invisibly’ into the urban fabric.

Post-scriptum sobre desarrollo regional: Modelos reales y modelos mentales

Fifty years of public policies in benefit of territorial development in Latin America has produced a rich experience for academic analysis, but few practical results measurable in terms of economic and demographic hiperconcentration in the territory, reduction of territorial disparities in people levels of life or reduction of the institutionalized Latin American centralism, which expresses itself also through organizations established on the few “modernity focus” which exist in the territory. This paper, prepared by a tireless believer on the democratization potential involved on the territorial development, does not worn out on the mere revision of failures. Handling out a double - category analysis: the concept of real model and, on the other hand, the concept of mental model, the author studies the situation shown by real models of regional development in Latin America, on the bases of its basic components (regionalization, decentralization, and regional development). Being evident that failure, ambiguity and scarcity are the major characteristics that has accompanied those processes. More important than mere confirmation of those results, is author’s explanation effort regarding to the mental model, described as the “previous rational representation of the action”. In this paper it is sustained that structural factors have set impediments for the construction of mental models adequated to support successful territorial interventions. These factors in fact are related with methodological, epistemological, practical and ideological matters, which its significative lacks must be healed to turn into practice the justice potentiality of regional policies.

Urban Rhetoric and Embodied Identities: City, Nation, and Empire at the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument in Rome, 1870–1945

This essay examines the monument constructed by the Italian state in the center of Rome to commemorate Vittorio-Emanuele II, first king of united Italy. Opened in 1911 and constructed in the Beaux-Arts architectural style popular at that time as appropriately “imperial” for urban monuments throughout the West, the Vittoriano's symbolism and iconography produce a “memory theater” through which the official rhetoric of a united and imperial Italy was intended to be conveyed to the nation.Yet despite attempts by succeeding governments to promote it as a dignified and sacred center of the city, the nation, and the short-lived Italian empire, the monument has been derided throughout its history. Concentrating on “official culture,” we analyze the form and iconography of the monument, trace the various planning interventions made by both Liberal and Fascist governments between the wars that emphasized the Vittoriano's centrality within urban space and Italian territory, and comment on its use by the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, to promote an imperial spatiality through his performative rhetoric, which often unfolded while facing the monument in the Piazza Venezia. While urbanistic and territorial interventions emphasized horizontal axialities, burial and construction of a crypt for Italy's Unknown Soldier at the monument produced a vertical axis that linked military sacrifice and past heroism to aerial flight and future victory within the Fascist cult of male youth.

Regional planning and territorial interventions in Italy, 1880–1940

The period chosen runs from 1880 to 1940, when the productive structure of the country was first defined in its present disposition. The special meaning of ‘regional planning’ in the Italian situation is underlined; in fact, it can be identified with the policies of some public works, that transformed the Italian territory (and landscape) in many ways, without a real planning concept. These 60 years of interventions and territorial transformations can be divided into four phases: the period of first attempts at a modern capitalism in the countryside and in the urban structure, under the so-called ‘left’ government, Crispi and the reactionary governments of the eighteen-nineties; the Giolitti era, up to 1914, a period of reorganization and industrial taking-off; a transition period after the war up to the 1929/1930 crisis, with the first steps of the fascist regime; and the period of the totalitarian state, under Fascism. Within these different phases there are many common features, in some way the ‘constants’ of Italian ‘regional’ planning: the centralization of initiatives by the state government and by a small number of private trusts never gave way to local authorities; the interventions were generally carried out sector by sector (roads, railways, ports, etc.), without trying to unify them in organic, complex, intersectorial comprehensive regional programmes; intentions, instruments and results were always disproportionate; the policies of public works depended on electoral and private interests of some lobbies. The subjects of ‘regional’ interventions can be schematically described as the following: the state (for that which concerns the programmes more relevant to the ‘public’ interest); local bodies, special boards or agencies; and, over all, private operators who acted as agents of the government. The principal interventions of this period concerned four sectors: the railway network, that was completed; the road network, that was entirely rebuilt in its modern structure; the navigable canal system, that could not to be reorganized from its old structure; and the ports, renewed in different ways. For what concerns the countryside specifically, two categories of interventions are considered: land reclamation and the organization of certain rivers. Particular attention is devoted to the problems of land reclamation, which up to 1920 had only the character of a hydraulic work, drying some lands (many marshes and lagoons disappeared); afterwards, under Fascism, it was carried out with new intensive methods in many (not necessarily wet) areas under the so-called ‘integral reclamation’, to which Mussolini's propaganda gave enormous importance for political and economic reasons (autarchy, etc.). In that period the Italian landscape was greatly transformed, while urban growth was increasing. Finally, it is pointed out how all these different interventions in ‘regional’ planning were carried out with no care for the environmental alterations which would ensue. A new interest in landscape protection can be found only in some attempts at a more careful plan during the nineteen-thirties. It led to the 1939 act on natural beauty that remains in force today.