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On Unstable Ground: Issues Involved in Greening Space in the Rocinha Favela of Rio De Janeiro
Full text linkThis paper is based on fieldwork undertaken in conjunction with Green My Favela, a land use restoration project that works with informal and vulnerable income sector residents to reclaim chronically degraded public areas by creating gardens inside the urban favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The paper reveals how government intervention policies employed in the lead up to the 2016 Olympics are destabilizing the fragile social fabric of the city’s largest favela, Rocinha, through military occupation and urbanization activities that threaten an already low and unstable human security threshold
A Piece of Land or Peace on the Land: How Much Is a Peasant's Life Worth in Brazil?
Full text linkLand inequality in Brazil is alarming and several poor individuals living in rural areas do not have enough income to survive decently. The struggle to access land should lead to a paradigm shift with social movements leading this process since democratization. Their strategies vary, but usually focus on complementary activities of mass mobilization that culminate in the occupation of unproductive land that is not fulfilling its social function in order to force expropriation and the creation of new settlements. This study aims to investigate, through empirical evidence, if such strategies are having the desired effect of allowing the poor to access land, without increasing the already high numbers, and potentially aggravating the violent characteristics, of such disputes. During the Cardoso and Lula presidential administrations the relation between the number of new settlements and the number of deaths caused by land disputes increased. However, there is still a long way to go to improve this policy and achieve positive results. Overall, is this struggle for the reduction of inequality in the Brazilian countryside being won? Is the sacrifice paying off? And what is the price regarding the relation between land conflict victims and the creation of new rural settlements
Building Urban Agricultural Commons: A Utopia or a Reality?
Full text linkThere are several categories of urban agriculture which need to be distinguished if we want to efficiently feed urban inhabitants with local agricultural produce while benefiting from other functions filled by urban agricultural landscapes: namely, eco-systemic functions or ecological and social functions. The second function will focus on methods to regulate unbuilt land in urban areas which have virtually no regulations and others which have strict controls preventing construction. The last will consist of possibilities to build, what I would refer to as, urban agricultural commons: in other words, tangible and intangible resources produced with farmers and gardeners for the inhabitants; for their local consumption and for the quality of the living environment, based on a political principle for common action. The concept of common is derived from the works of socioeconomist E. Ostrom (1990; [1]) and French philosophers P. Dardot et C. Laval (2014; [2]): “What is built in common”. It was applied to urban agriculture and landscape (Donadieu, 2012, 2014; [3,4]). The concept of urban agriculture has been used worldwide in the last twenty years by researchers, especially in France by A. Fleury (2005; [5]) and P. Donadieu(1998; [6]), in Mediterranean regions (Nasr and Padilla, 2004; [7]), in Asia, Africa and North and South America—all through the publications of the Resource Centres Urban Agriculture & Food Security (RUAF; [8])
Reflexions on Urban Gardening in Germany
Full text linkThis article reflects on traditional and contemporary gardening movements in Germany. The focus is on forms of gardening, that take place in spaces subject to land lease agreements and similar forms of tenancy or of illegal land take or squatting. The author examines various definitions taking into account the variety of practices, the development of urban gardening over time, and the respective backgrounds or values that users relate to such gardening activities. The examination of definitions led to the drawing up of a timeline of traditional and contemporary gardening movements in Germany and to the tentative approaching of this issue from a semantic perspective. The latter is due to the usage of many different terms mostly as yet undefined in a legal sense. Translation into English or, most likely, to any other language, further blurs the common understanding of the terms used. The author concludes with some considerations on these gardening movements in relation to urban sustainable developments. A presentation at the 5th Rencontres Internationals de Reims on Sustainability Studies, dedicated to Urban Agriculture – Fostering the Urban-Rural Continuum, which took place in October 2015 in Reims/France was the starting point of this article. The basis of this article is a literature review, nourished to a certain extent by observations randomly made over many years and complemented through talks with competent young colleagues. Special thanks go to Martin Sondermann, Leibniz University Hannover, who shared his research experience in various discussions with the author, as well as to Friederike Stelter, internship student at the author’s place of work, who gave highly appreciated support to the preparation of the presentation
Editorial Volume 12
Full text linkDear Reader,As I write this first official reports confirm the existence of gravitational waves which Albert Einstein predicted a century ago. Ground breaking scientific discoveries such as this reaffirm to me the spatial relationships between the universe and human security issues, placing those issues into a new perspective that contrast with perspectives formed by our everyday lives. Nevertheless, for the majority of humanity, human security in its diverse manifestations remains the most significant consideration in their lives whereas the nature of gravity is hardly given a thought until such time when some clever technologist uses such a new insight and ends up revolutionising our lives
Cultivating the Glocal Garden
Full text linkThis paper addresses the question under which conditions small-scale urban agriculture (UA) initiatives can accelerate a sustainability transition of the global food system. It develops the notion of a glocal garden, a large number of likeminded local initiatives with a global impact and forms of worldwide collaboration. Taking a transition perspective, the glocal garden, producing vegetables and fruits, is a niche that has to overcome barriers to compete with the dominant food regime. Since a sustainability transition restructures (policy) sectors, institutional domains including knowledge systems, the paper explores which innovations are needed for the glocal garden to succeed. It discusses the glocal garden as an environmental, a social, an economic and a global project. As an environmental project, the glocal garden will link sustainable production of food with renewable energy production. As a social project, it will be organized into a consumers’ cooperative. As an economic project, it will strive for profit, increasing the yield in a sustainable manner. As a global project, it will enhance collaboration between local cooperatives in the North and the South, as well as with rural agriculture. Under these conditions, the glocal garden can develop into a power, able to resist a possible future food regime that splits societies, in terms of quality standards and food products, into haves and have-nots
Agricultural Land and the New Urban Paradigm: Coexistence, Integration, or Conflict?
Full text linkThe relation between "urban" and "rural" has changed and developed over the last few decades. The present contribution focuses on how the relationship between these two entities has developed, highlighting how it corresponds to a growing complexity and interdependence among the two. Awareness has increased that to the extent that proper management of these interdependences can contribute to solve problems, increase economic performance and also make a contribution to a higher quality of life in and around urban areas. In this framework, green infrastructures and agriculture practices in urban areas are discussed. The contribution concludes by suggesting strategies and actions for the proper implementation of green infrastructures and urban agriculture practices at regional and local scales
Action Research: An Essential Approach for Constructing the Development of Sustainable Urban Agricultural Systems
Full text linkHow can research contribute more directly to promoting and leading to sustainable solutions and projects? This article suggests that one of the most important research approaches capable of achieving this is the Action Research approach. This involves the researcher taking on a number of roles when working with other actors (e.g. citizens, farmers, local elected officials, citizen associations, government representatives. . . with the specific set of actors depending upon the nature of the subject being investigated and for which solutions are sought). The roles that the researcher can play involve providing appropriate information to the other actors, providing counseling to them, organizing and animating meetings with the actors, and accompanying the whole process involving all the actors. These roles are essentially played out by the researcher when the other actors request the researcher to assume whichever roles they consider to be significant. The fundamental notion is that through this process the actors appropriate the sustainable solutions as their own, and the researcher helps them achieve this. This article is based on: a) a synthesis of pertinent research using the Action Research approach (specifically in relation to sustainable agricultural systems in periurban territories), and b) specific research undertaken by the two co-authors of the article, all in the context of periurban agricultural systems during the last 8 years, as well as on some of their publications. The necessary characteristics of Action Research and the researchers involved are identified, namely: a) patience; b) an emphasis on process; and c) an emphasis on participation on the part of multiple actors
A Review of 'Law's Impunity: Responsibility and the Modern Private Military Company'
Full text linkThe mercenaries and mercenarism are two points of concern for scholars studying the rules of war throughout history. Both in jus ad bellum (JAB) and jus in bellum (JIB) we can find a framework of international law crafted to impede the participation of individuals motivated to take part in hostilities to get private gain. Nevertheless, paradoxically, the problem is when corporations are supported by domestic law to perform serviced in ground combats abroad. In the latter case, Human Rights Law (HRL), International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Criminal Law (ICL) present numerous gaps that make it difficult to incriminate corporations, which perpetuate the impunity among private organizations involved in human rights violations in conflict zones
A Review of 'New Explorations into International Relations: Democracy, Foreign Investment Terrorism and Conflict'
Full text linkAuthor and Scholar Seug-Whan Choi's "New Explorations into International Relations: democracy, foreign investment, terrorism and conflict" serves as a nexus of interdisciplinary analysis and findings rooted in evidenced based research. Indeed, the author set out to challenge and test traditional international relations (IR) theories by implementing rigorous scientific methods in an attempt to produce policy recommendations and encourage a frameshift in methodological approaches. One underlying theme that recurs throughout this work is the requirement for rigorous statistical analysis and education in the field of political science. This has already begun and a re-emphasis is encouraged and greatly welcomed