Journals at the University of Arizona
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Revisiting the wind energy conflict in Gui'Xhi' Ro / Álvaro Obregón: interview with an indigenous anarchist
No full textRevisiting the village of Álvaro Obregón, or Gui'Xhi' Ro in Zapotec, this interview discusses village life since the wind energy conflict of 2012-2015. This interview serves as a companion piece or epilogue to a previously published article in the Journal of Political Ecology (JPE), titled: "Insurrection for land, sea and dignity: resistance and autonomy against wind energy in Álvaro Obregón, Mexico" (2018). The interview discusses the subsequent skirmishes, shootings, debates over state funds, impact of migration, schooling programs and cultural revitalization projects that are shaping the autonomous process taking shape in Gui'Xhi' Ro.Keywords: Wind energy; development; conflict; resistance; schooling; self-defense; post-developmen
Blue Economy threats, contradictions and resistances seen from South Africa
No full textSouth Africa hosts Africa's most advanced form of the new Blue Economy, named 'Operation Phakisa: Oceans.' In 2014, the McKinsey-designed project was formally launched by now-disgraced President Jacob Zuma with vibrant state and corporate fanfare. Financially, its most important elements were anticipated to come from corporations promoting shipping investments and port infrastructure, a new generation of offshore oil and gas extraction projects and seabed mining. However, these already conflict with underlying capitalist crisis tendencies associated with overaccumulation (overcapacity), globalization and financialization, as they played out through uneven development, commodity price volatility and excessive extraction of resources. Together this metabolic intensification of capital-nature relations can be witnessed when South Africa recently faced the Blue Economy's ecological contradictions: celebrating a massive offshore gas discovery at the same time as awareness rises about extreme coastal weather events, ocean warming and acidification (with profound threats to fast-bleaching coral reefs), sea-level rise, debilitating drought in Africa's main seaside tourist city (Cape Town), and plastic infestation of water bodies, the shoreline and vulnerable marine life. Critics of the capitalist ocean have demanded a greater state commitment to Marine Protected Areas, support for sustainable subsistence fishing and eco-tourism. But they are losing, and so more powerful resistance is needed, focusing on shifting towards post-fossil energy and transport infrastructure, agriculture and spatial planning. Given how climate change has become devastating to vulnerable coastlines – such as central Mozambique's, victim of two of the Southern Hemisphere's most intense cyclones in March-April 2019 – it is essential to better link ocean defence mechanisms to climate activism: global youth Climate Strikes and the direct action approach adopted by the likes of Dakota Access Pipe Line resistance in the US, Extinction Rebellion in Britain, and Ende Gelände in Germany. Today, as the limits to capital's crisis-displacement tactics are becoming more evident, it is the interplay of these top-down and bottom-up processes that will shape the future Blue Economy narrative, giving it either renewed legitimacy, or the kind of illegitimacy already experienced in so much South African resource-centric capitalism.Keywords: Blue Economy, capitalist crisis, Oceans Phakisa, resistance, South Afric
Movement and Mobility Between Egypt and the Southern Levant in the Second Millennium BCE
Get PDFIntroductory remarks on this special issue.The second millennium BCE in the ancient Near East saw increased interactions andinterconnections between Egypt and the regions of the southern Levant. Mobility and movement between and among these regions were key factors in the exchange of ideas, technologies, and values and, therefore, were essential components of the evolution of both societies. The archaeological record provides a wealth of material for reconstructing expressions of cultures, identities, status, and economic ways of life based on questions of mobility...
The California Ski Boom: Tourism, Urban growth, Environmentalism, and Social Diversity in Sierra Nevada Ski Areas, 1960-1980
No full textFeeding off booming postwar populations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Reno, and Los Angeles, a ski boom in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains during the long-1970s decade (1960-1980) transformed previously remote mountain areas into a forum for discussing an array of contemporary national topics including urban development, technological innovation, environmental protection, and social diversity.
Encouraging Faculty Adoption of Virtual Reality Tools in Engineering Education
No full textVirtual reality is one of the widely emerging technologies and is anticipated to play a substantial role in the future of education. Though many research studies have been conducted on its application in various disciplines, less investigations focused on its integration in engineering higher education. This work, thus, aims to identify the major opportunities and challenges of virtual reality adoption in various areas of engineering. To do so, solicited engineering faculty participants from four different departments at the University of Idaho attended demos to examine a virtual reality technology – namely Leap Motion desktop controller. They were then asked to respond to a survey that collected their feedback on virtual reality possible applications, educational uses, and challenges in their respective disciplines. The survey also collected responses related to their perception, acceptance, and recommendations on ways to encourage virtual reality implementation. Results show a majority of participants being in favor of adopting virtual reality, suggesting areas and classes/labs that would best benefit from such technology. This paper also proposes professional development activities and suggestions for virtual reality applications’ developers.DOI:10.2458/azu_itet_v7i2_el-mallah
A Content Analysis of the Emergent Scholarship on Digital and Open Badges in Higher Education Learning and Assessment
No full textHigher Education has seen its fair share of innovations, many of which were made possible by digital technologies. Digital and open badges (DOBs) are emergent technologies that many believe could further reform, even disrupt, key tenets in higher education, including learning, assessment and credentialing. This study examined the emerging scholarship and best practices on DOB adoption in higher education through the lens of peer-reviewed publications. A content analysis explored two questions related to publication patterns and research goals (question 1) and assessment practices supported by DOBs and stakeholder perceptions of DOBs (question 2). Findings revealed non-empirical papers were more likely to focus on the reform-related potential of DOBs while empirical applications focused on traditional concerns such as student motivation and engagement, and conventional approaches to assessment. Stakeholder perception of the value and role of DOBs were also mixed. Limitations, implications, and further study are discussed. DOI:DOI:10.2458/azu_itet_v7i2_haughton
From vacant land to urban fallows: a permacultural approach to wasted land in cities and suburbs
No full textWhile vacant land in cities has long been considered a sign of decline, a growing literature now suggests that such land can serve valuable social and ecological functions. In this article, I argue that such approaches advocated to date, while beneficial, operate within a New Urbanist framework that is essentially concerned with filling in vacant land with new 'green' projects. Unfortunately, such approaches are limited by a conceptualization of the city that treats inner city vacant lots as paradigmatic and makes invisible the systematic creation of functionally vacant land through zoning and building practices in low-density residential areas. Inspired by degrowth scholarship, I suggest that permaculture may provide the basis for an alternative approach based in the concept of fallowing more suited to the full range of vacant land present in American cities and suburbs. I explore the implications of such an approach through the practice of two permaculture-inspired intentional communities in the Pacific Northwest.Key words: vacant land, permaculture, New Urbanism, intentional communities, commons, degrowt
AgTech in Arabia: 'spectacular forgetting' and the technopolitics of greening the desert
No full text'AgTech' is the latest discourse about introducing new technologies to agricultural production. Researchers, corporations, and governments around the world are investing heavily in supporting its development. Abu Dhabi, the largest and wealthiest emirate in the UAE, has been among these supporters, recently announcing a massive scheme to support AgTech companies. Given the extreme temperatures and aridity of the Arabian Peninsula, several new start-ups have focused on 'controlled environment' facilities – hydroponics and aeroponics in various kinds of greenhouses. Despite the narrative of novelty touted by these companies, this is not the UAE's first foray with bringing ultra-modern or 'scientific' greenhouses to the Arabian Peninsula – a large University of Arizona project did so in Abu Dhabi from 1969-1974. Yet that project is largely forgotten today, including among today's new AgTech entrepreneurs. This article investigates why this is the case and, more generally, why the systematic failures of high-modernist, spectacular projects like those to green the desert are so routinely forgotten. In analyzing the story linking AgTech in Arabia 50 years ago and today, I show how 'spectacular forgetting' is related to the technopolitics of spectacle, but also rooted in geopolitical discourses and spatial imaginaries particular to each historical moment.Keywords: spectacle; desert greening; AgTech; agriculture; Arabian Peninsula; United Arab Emirate
