DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin
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Refusing ‘bare life‘ – Belo Monte, the riverine population and their struggle for epistemic justice
Full text linkDurch die Installation des Wasserkraftwerks Belo Monte im brasilianischen Amazonasgebiet wurden mehr als 40.000 Menschen vertrieben, darunter zahlreiche Flussbewohner*innen, die als solche nicht anerkannt wurden. Ihre Vertreibung führte zum Verlust ihrer Territorien und zur erzwungenen Aufgabe ihrer Lebensweise. Im Kampf gegen ihre Prekarisierung und um Anerkennung gründeten die betroffenen Flussbewohner*innen einen Rat als politisches Organ, über den sie sich selbst organisierten und diskursive Macht über ihr Dasein zurückerlangten. Über die Rechtskategorie der traditionellen Völker versuchten sie, ihre epistemischen und ontologischen Perspektiven einzubringen und auf diese Weise den Staat und das Baukonsortium zu zwingen, ihre Rechte anzuerkennen, den Zugang zu ihren Territorien zu gewährleisten und damit Umweltungerechtigkeiten auszugleichen. Dieser Artikel fokussiert auf die epistemische Dimension sowohl innerhalb der Implementierung von Belo Monte als auch innerhalb des Widerstandkampfes der Flussbewohner*innen. Zu diesem Zweck verwenden wir eine dekoloniale Konzeption von Agambens (2002; 2005) Perspektive auf den Ausnahmezustand und die Zuweisung von nacktem Leben, die den epistemischen Charakter der darin wirkenden coloniality of power berücksichtigt (siehe Mignolo 2005; Quijano 2009). Dies bildet die Grundlage für das Auftreten epistemischer Ungerechtigkeiten (siehe Fricker 2007), die im Zusammenhang mit der Debatte um Umweltgerechtigkeit diskutiert werden. Um die Mechanismen der Produktion von verfügbarem und nacktem Leben und die Möglichkeiten des Widerstands im Kampf um epistemische Gerechtigkeit besser zu beleuchten, fügen wir schließlich die Idee der Prekarisierung und des performativen Widerstands hinzu (siehe Butler 2009; Butler und Athanasiou 2013).The installation of the hydroelectric power plant Belo Monte in the Brazilian Amazon displaced more than 40,000 people, among them numerous riverine families who were not recognized as such. Their displacement resulted in the loss of their territory and the forced abandonment of their way of life. Struggling against their precarization and for recognition, affected riverine people founded a Riverine Council as a political body through which they organized themselves and reclaimed interpretative power over their ‘being riverine’. Discovering the category of traditional people as a legal shell to introduce their epistemic and ontological perspectives, they tried to force the state and the construction consortium to recognize their rights, guarantee access to their territories and, hence, compensate for environmental injustices. This paper focuses on the epistemic dimension both within the installation of Belo Monte and within the resistance struggle of the riverine population. For this purpose, we use a decolonial framing of Agamben’s (2002; 2005) perspective on the state of exception and the assignment of bare life that considers the epistemic character of the coloniality of power working within (see Mignolo 2005; Quijano 2009). This forms the basis for the occurrence of epistemic injustices (see Fricker 2007), which is discussed in connection with the environmental justice debate. In order to shed more light on the mechanisms of the production of disposable and bare life and the possibilities of resistance within the struggle for epistemic justice, we finally add the idea of precarization and performative resistance (see Butler 2009; Butler and Athanasiou 2013)
Book review: Das Wetter der Nation. Meteorologie, Klimatologie und der schweizerische Bundesstaat, 1860–1914.: Franziska Hupfer. Zürich 2019
No full textCharacterization of soil structure in Neuras, a Namibian desert-vineyard
Full text linkSoil plays an important role in the context of vine growth and wine production; particularly soil structure which governs plant water uptake. Therefore, soil physical and hydrological properties were studied at Neuras vineyard, located near the Namib Desert. Water is scarce in this environment and wine production is limited to few vineyards in Namibia, overall. Managed plots and unmanaged nearby sites were investigated using field and laboratory methods. Viticultural techniques were noted and management related aspects were gathered in an interview. Datasets from two sampling trips in 2014 and 2016 were generated. In 2014, older vineyard soils displayed different properties than unmanaged soils or a younger vineyard, showing lower bulk densities and higher total porosities, with increased organic carbon and nitrogen contents. In 2016, the unmanaged reference plot differed from managed plots mainly in terms of lower electrical conductivity and higher cation exchange capacity. In managed soils contents of Smectites and Vermiculites were higher, while those of Chlorites and Illites were lower. Soil water retention properties were also altered, in line with structural changes indicated by bulk density and total porosity. These differences were more pronounced in vineyards of different ages than in those with even ages and indicate overall very different soil and soil structural conditions for the older versus the younger vineyards affecting vine growth
Book Review: Störungsökologie. : Thomas Wohlgemuth, Anke Jentsch und Rupert Seidl. Bern 2019
No full textClimate Variability in Indonesia from 615 ka to present: First Insights from Low-Resolution Coupled Model Simulations
Full text linkWe analyse the dynamics of Indonesian waters using the results of a set of 13 time-slice experiments simulated by the CCSM3-DGVM model. The experiments were carried out to study global climate variability between and within the Quaternary interglacials of Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 1, 5, 11, 13, and 15. During boreal summer (June-July-August-September), in most of Indonesia, seasonal surface temperature anomalies can largely be explained by local insolation anomalies induced by the astronomical forcing. However, for some time slices, climate feedbacks may modify the surface temperature response in Indonesia, most pronounced in open water close to the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The warmest boreal summer sea-surface temperature (SST) anomaly compared to Pre-Industrial (PI) conditions of up to 1 K was found in the Banda Sea at 125 ka (MIS 5) and 579 ka (MIS 15). The coolest boreal summer SST anomaly down to –2 K at 495 ka (MIS 13) is equally distributed in Indonesian waters. During boreal winter, most of the moderate cooling over large portions of the land and the waters of Indonesia is also associated with local insolation. The most interesting finding in this study, a dipole and tripole precipitation pattern with up to 3.6 mm/day of rainfall anomaly during boreal summer is identified in the western part of the Indonesian waters, Indian Ocean to Banda Sea, and the eastern part of Indonesian waters. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic information to predict the climate in Indonesia for the present and future. This may add to the assessment provided by the IPCC for a better understanding of future climate change in the region, which is a prerequisite for alleviating its impacts
Children's motility in an informal settlement in Cairo and parental influence: implications for de-motorization
Full text linkThis paper investigates actual and potential mobility of children as enabled by themselves and their parents in a case study of one informal settlement in Cairo called Ezbet El-Haggana. Results aim to contribute to the discussion about possibilities for such settlements to avoid the typical trajectory of increased car-dependence observed in other parts of Cairo as with global trends. It is based on five Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with children and four FGDs with mothers, together with field observations. A philosophical approach based onVincent Kaufmann’s notion of motility (potentiality of mobility) was employed to elucidate subjective factors influencing mobility. Based on results, the study argues that an informal settlement can contain not only physical prerequisites, but also behavioral and socio-cultural prerequisites that may facilitate a direct transition (leapfrogging) to a future of sustainable mobility and associated behavior and norms. An observed ingenuity, behavioral adaptation, and various means of compensation for resource scarcity enable both parents and children to exhibit travel behavior that is coincidentally sustainable and resilient, thereby positioning the inhabitants to better adapt to introduced sustainable transport interventions. Findings led to a conceptualization of a framework for analysis based on motility, which is expanded to account for the dynamics of motility enhancement found in the case study, where aspects of one’s skills, access, and appropriation are altered to mutually compensate for each other to maintain motility, or otherwise exhibit deficiencies that can be identified and addressed
Neighbourhood research from a geographical perspective
Full text linkThe neighbourhood has a very multi-faceted history in geographical research. For a long time, it was the framework for descriptions in Regional Geography and later a normative concept for a ‘better’ society. Today, neighbourhood research has become a laboratory where social problems and their local consequences are identified, analysed and to a certain extent resolved. Essentially, the evolution of geographical neighbourhood research has proceeded in harmony with the development of geography and its epistemological intentions. Thus, the neighbourhood in geography has not been narrowed down to a territorial scale, but rather it is also interpreted as a framework for social interactions, as a place of emotional relationships and, more fundamentally, as a discursively dissolvable category. This article is intended to clarify the contours of neighbourhood research from a geographical perspective in order to foster a further step towards a (critical) reconstruction of the object neighbourhood as an object of study and the discipline of geography in its positioning
How did Swiss forest trees respond to the hot summer 2015?
Full text linkCentral Europe experienced an exceptionally hot summer in 2015. The area of investigation in the Central Alps in Switzerland faced the second warmest summer since the beginning of measurements in 1864. As a consequence, agriculture suffered from considerable production losses. But how were forests affected by the hot summer? We analyzed stem growth data, measured by automated point dendrometers, from 50 trees across nine sites covering the four main Swiss tree species spruce (Picea abies), fir (Abies alba), beech (Fagus sylvatica) and oak (Quercus spp.) in the years 2014 (relatively wet and cool) and 2015 (hot and dry). Annual growth and environmental conditions were determined by, and related to, the growing period based on daily resolved growth data. Our multi-species approach revealed a wide range of responses. Radial growth of spruce was largely reduced during the hot summer 2015 for sites located below 1500 m a.s.l.. Growth of beech responded even positively at several sites on the Swiss Plateau. Fir and oak did not significantly deviate from their respective average growth rate. We conclude that one hot summer actually matters for stem growth, but its effect is not a priori negative. The timing of the heat wave is of highest importance. A relatively wet previous year, a wet spring and the relatively late occurrence of the heat wave in the wood growth period led to a less strong growth reduction than what could have been expected from agricultural plants. Endogenous effects like mast fruiting and legacy effects from past conditions are suggested to further play an important role for stem growth
The politics of artificial dunes: Sustainable coastal protection measures and contested socio-natural objects
Full text linkWorldwide, an emerging trend can be observed towards coastal management that works “with nature” – and not against it. A growing “community of practice” (Wenger 1998) is getting involved into projects of so-called “soft” coastal protection. The paper localises the emergence of this “sociotechnical imaginary” (Jasanoff 2015) at the Aotearoa New Zealand coast. It provides an ethnographic analysis of soft coastal protection as a socio-material practice, focusing on coastal dune reshaping. This technique promises a sustainable approach to coastal management that overcomes dualist meanings of coastal protection, understood either as erosion control and property protection, or as nature conservation (Cooper and McKenna 2008). Two examples from the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand are analysed: a successful project in Whangapoua Beach (Coromandel Peninsula), where dune reshaping has been used by local houseowners as a temporary alternative to a seawall, and the “dune enhancement” part of a contested, Council-commissioned seawall construction project in Waihi Beach (Western Bay of Plenty), which has been perceived as utter failure. The cases show that when soft coastal protection projects are put into practice, the recognition and inclusion of local stakeholders can have manifest material consequences. The paper therefore argues that sustainable coastal protection is not only a technical question, but has a sociomaterial dimension. In order for artificial dunes to “work” as socio-natural objects, local understandings of the rights and responsibilities to care for the coast need to be considered