1,720,981 research outputs found
Reviewing 15 years of research on neoliberal conservation:towards a decolonial, interdisciplinary, intersectional and community-engaged research agenda
No full textIn this paper, we undertake an extensive review of the neoliberal conservation literature with the aim to explore and substantiate the principal ways in which conservation is neoliberalized in practice as well as who has studied these processes and through which collaborative patterns. Using descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis, we explore selected characteristics of the peer-reviewed scholarship, including most commonly used concepts, methods and topics, geographical and co-authorship patterns, critical readings of key processes of neoliberalization, including commodification, privatization, dispossession, governance rescaling, governmentalities, and its engagement with the economic crisis, austerity politics, and social struggles. Our analysis shows the breadth of the literature in unraveling the unequal social, spatial and environmental impacts of neoliberal conservation policies as well as a significant degree of novelty in terms of topics and theories. Nonetheless, it also unravels some key gaps, including a limited engagement with quantitative methods and community-engaged social sciences and humanities approaches, a lack of focus on urban areas and urbanization, some important gaps in the theorization of the commodification of nature, a domination of Global North scholarship that contradicts the clear empirical focus of the field on the Global South, a limited engagement with social movements and grassroots activism, and a conspicuous lack of attention to the dynamics of class, gender and race. We conclude by identifying key directions for future research to address current gaps in the literature, and initiate a shift towards a decolonial, interdisciplinary, intersectional, community-engaged approach and an in-depth encounter with everyday practices of resistance
Biodiversity and green infrastructure in Europe: boundary object or ecological trap?
Get PDFThe concept of green infrastructure is widely used in environmental planning, but so far it has no standard definition. Planners, conservationists and scientists tend to welcome the term because it can serve as a boundary object, providing links among policy makers, developers and different academic disciplines. However, the concept of green infrastructure creates risks for biodiversity conservation in its adoption. It can be used to water down biodiversity conservation aims and objectives as easily as it can be used to further them because of the different ideas associated with it and the multiple interests pursued. In this paper, we address such risks by looking, among others, at the European Union’s Green Infrastructure Strategy and we suggest how planners and conservationists might deal with its growing importance in environmental policy and planning to enhance its value for biodiversity conservation
Governance rescaling and the neoliberalization of nature: the case of biodiversity conservation in four EU countries
No full textIn this paper, we investigate how processes of rescaling biodiversity governance downwards, upwards and outwards are interlinked with the increased global and European trends toward the neoliberalization of nature conservation. We furthermore explore who wins and who loses from this interrelationship. We focus on the European Union and specifically on England, Finland, Greece, and Poland, and we pay particular attention to the effects of the ongoing economic crisis. We draw on Marxist-influenced political ecology and geography literatures and use primary empirical data obtained through focus groups and interviews as well as analysis of legal and policy documents. Our analysis shows that EU states have mobilized a range of political strategies intended to expand and intensify the alignment of conservation with capitalist interests within a distinctively neoliberal framework. However, the variation in governmental strategies in the case study countries reveals that variegated neoliberalizations are intertwined with variegated rescaling processes. Thus despite the increasing homogenization of conservation, the historical evolution of governance forms and their legacy as well as differing socioeconomic and political contexts play a pivotal role in current dynamics. We argue that unraveling the different roles of the rescaling of biodiversity governance is crucial in exposing the contradictions inherent in the relationship between conservation and capitalism and in showing that the consensus-driven neoliberal rhetoric is increasingly lapsing into authoritarian governance in the era of one of the most severe capitalist crises
Recommended from our members
Green infrastructure and landscape connectivity in England: a political ecology approach
No full text'Conservation is about people, not just animals' argued Prince William in a letter to The Financial Times, written to gather support for ending ivory poaching and trading. This truism is often repeated by conservationists; we are frequently reminded that what we do - as humans - influences nature 'out there'. Nevertheless, conservation science often hesitates to interrogate what we do as
organised human societies. Time and again, that leads to somewhat simplifying analyses of humanity's enormous power in shaping the whole Earth System currently argued to surpass the power of geological forces. A case in point could be the isolation of corruption in Africa as the main driver for ivory market explosion in the last decade. Without considering the political-economy not just of ivory, but of the global-to-local societal organisation that allows for thousands of elephants and rhinos to be killed - for something of so low use-value such as ivory -little understanding can be shed on this alarming trend. I argue, and hope I have shown in this thesis, that we should aim towards enriching what conservation understands as
its field of vision and allow the latter to encompass not just human and nonhuman nature and societies, as Prince William rightfully argues, but also the political and
societal. I would be satisfied if by going through this thesis the reader would be convinced of just this argument.
I am not claiming to be the first to identify this contradiction within conservation, but contra a sizeable number of scientists who work on similar subjects, I am
normatively for conservation. A wealth of research has been published on conservation-society relationships that interrogates wider political, societal and economic constrains and opportunities as they relate to conservation. Usually though, research on what could be called critical conservation studies is (a) published in journals that conservationists do not read, and (b) is conducted by non conservationists, often critical of conservation as a science and praxis per se. Thus all this wealth has little import to wider discussions about the future of conservation science and practice, and is even considered by conservationists as hostile to their agenda. I hope it is obvious from the above that I place this piece of research within the wide field of conservation science - despite drawing from a variety of disciplines. In essence, this piece of work looks at the relation between political-economic transformations and the way societies think about, manage and regulate nature. Geographically, my focus is on England, but with a sideways glance to developments at the EU level. Historically, the scope is circumscribed by two years: 1981, the year of the Toxteth riots in Liverpool, and 2015, the year I submitted. Naturally, in this country-wide, 24 year study I have not even attempted to include
'everything'. I focused on what after examination of empirical data I considered to be key moments and places in the evolution of English conservation. I begin with a section that introduces the reader into the area of study, followed and a brief literature-based summary of conservation in England from the beginning of the 20th century. The next three chapters should be read as a small trilogy that discusses the general trends in conservation policy and governance in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis (Chapter 3), followed by two smaller chapters (vignettes) that study post-financial crisis landscape scale conservation from: (a) a policy and
governance perspective (Chapter 4); a use of science and scientific metaphors perspective (Chapter 5). The following two chapters try to reconstruct the where and when (geography and history are important) specific conservation policies and practices emerge, always in relation to economic and political changes. Chapter 6 is
a genealogy of green infrastructure, from its emergence in the post-riot Liverpool landscape of 1981, to its current amalgamation with ecosystem services and monetary-valuation-of-nature milieu. Chapter 7 looks at biodiversity offsetting and argues that changing economic and transport geographies are crucial in understanding why biodiversity offsetting emerged as a solution to wildlife development
conflict in this instance and in the South East of England in particular. I conclude with a proposal for a new conservation that places utopia at the centre of
its methodology (Chapter 8)
Green infrastructure and landscape connectivity in England: a political ecology approach
No full text'Conservation is about people, not just animals' argued Prince William in a letter to The Financial Times , written to gather support for ending ivory poaching and trading. This truism is often repeated by conservationists; we are frequently reminded that what we do - as humans - influences nature 'out there'.
Nevertheless, conservation science often hesitates to interrogate what we do as organised human societies. Time and again, that leads to somewhat simplifying analyses of humanity's enormous power in shaping the whole Earth System -currently argued to surpass the power of geological forces. A case in point could be the isolation of corruption in Africa as the main driver for ivory market explosion in the last decade. Without considering the political-economy not just of ivory, but of the global-to-local societal organisation that allows for thousands of elephants and rhinos to be killed - for something of so low use-value such as ivory - little understanding can be shed on this alarming trend. I argue, and hope I have shown in this thesis, that we should aim towards enriching what conservation understands as its field of vision and allow the latter to encompass not just human and nonhuman nature and societies, as Prince William rightfully argues, but also the political and societal. I would be satisfied if by going through this thesis the reader would be convinced of just this argument.
I am not claiming to be the first to identify this contradiction within conservation, but contra a sizeable number of scientists who work on similar subjects, I am normatively for conservation. A wealth of research has been published on conservation-society relationships that interrogates wider political, societal and economic constrains and opportunities as they relate to conservation. Usually though, research on what could be called critical conservation studies is (a) published in journals that conservationists do not read, and (b) is conducted by non-conservationists, often critical of conservation as a science and praxis per se. Thus all this wealth has little import to wider discussions about the future of conservation science and practice, and is even considered by conservationists as hostile to their agenda. I hope it is obvious from the above that I place this piece of research within the wide field of conservation science - despite drawing from a variety of disciplines.
In essence, this piece of work looks at the relation between political-economic transformations and the way societies think about, manage and regulate nature. Geographically, my focus is on England, but with a sideways glance to developments at the EU level. Historically, the scope is circumscribed by two years: 1981, the year of the Toxteth riots in Liverpool, and 2015, the year I submitted. Naturally, in this country-wide, 24 year study I have not even attempted to include 'everything'. I focused on what after examination of empirical data I considered to be key moments and places in the evolution of English conservation.
I begin with a section that introduces the reader into the area of study , followed and a brief literature-based summary of conservation in England from the beginning of the 20th century. The next three chapters should be read as a small trilogy that discusses the general trends in conservation policy and governance in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis (Chapter 3), followed by two smaller chapters (vignettes) that study post-financial crisis landscape scale conservation from: (a) a policy and governance perspective (Chapter 4); a use of science and scientific metaphors perspective (Chapter 5). The following two chapters try to reconstruct the where and when (geography and history are important) specific conservation policies and practices emerge, always in relation to economic and political changes. Chapter 6 is a genealogy of green infrastructure, from its emergence in the post-riot Liverpool landscape of 1981, to its current amalgamation with ecosystem services and monetary-valuation-of-nature milieu. Chapter 7 looks at biodiversity offsetting and argues that changing economic and transport geographies are crucial in understanding why biodiversity offsetting emerged as a solution to wildlife-development conflict in this instance and in the South East of England in particular. I conclude with a proposal for a new conservation that places utopia at the centre of its methodology (Chapter 8)
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
The Science-Practice Interface of Connectivity in England
Get PDFContext: A disconnect has been identified at the interface between landscape science and practice. More commonly, it is assumed that better or more targeted science would lead to better practice. Others argue that such a view is partial, and propose an understanding that foregrounds how social and political factors shape the sciencepractice interface. Objectives: In this study we explore how (the combination of) different conceptualisations, novel governance architectures, and political-economic conditions shape the science practice interface between landscape ecology and practice, using connectivity conservation and enhancement initiatives in England as a case study. Methods: We conducted interviews (n=36) with practitioners involved in connectivity-related projects (predominantly Nature Improvement Areas and Green Infrastructure initiatives). We transcribed and analysed the interviews using standard methods of qualitative analysis. We also conducted a desk study of green infrastructure strategies (n=58 documents). Results: Enhancing or maintaining connectivity is perceived positively by conservation and planning practitioners in England. Quantitative assessments are rare on the ground. Conceptual ambiguity, lack of resources (time, personnel, software and hardware), novel governance architectures, and changing economic and political conditions are implicated. Conclusions: We find that the co-articulation of conceptual ambiguity and resource issues with novel forms of governance in changing economies is diminishing opportunities and creating challenges for (ecological) connectivity conservation. This is particularly true in relation to large scale operationalisation that requires multi-scale and multi-partner coordination
- …
