138 research outputs found
Settler Ecologies: The Enduring Nature of Settler Colonialism in Kenya
Settler Ecologies tells the story of how settler colonialism becomes memorialized and lives on through ecological relations. Drawing on eight years of research in Laikipia, Kenya, Charis Enns and Brock Bersaglio use immersive methods to reveal how animals and plants can be enrolled in the reproduction of settler colonialism.
The book details how ecological relations have been unmade and remade to enable settler colonialism to endure as a structure in this part of Kenya. It describes five modes of violent ecological transformation used to prolong structures of settler colonialism: eliminating undesired wild species; rewilding landscapes with more desirable species to settler ecologists; selectively repeopling wilderness to create seemingly more inclusive wild spaces and capitalize on biocultural diversity; rescuing injured animals and species at risk of extinction to shore up moral support for settler ecologies; and extending settler ecologies through landscape approaches to conservation that scale wild spaces.
Settler Ecologies serves as a cautionary tale for future conservation agendas in all settler colonies. While urgent action is needed to halt global biodiversity loss, this book underscores the need to continually question whether the types of nature being preserved advance settler colonial structures or create conditions in which ecologies can otherwise be (re)made and flourish
Settler Ecologies:The Enduring Nature of Settler Colonialism in Kenya
Settler Ecologies reveals how settler colonialism impacts and endures through ecological relations.Settler Ecologies tells the story of how settler colonialism becomes memorialized and lives on through ecological relations. Drawing on eight years of research in Laikipia, Kenya, Charis Enns and Brock Bersaglio use immersive methods to reveal how animals and plants can be enrolled in the reproduction of settler colonialism.The book details how ecological relations have been unmade and remade to enable settler colonialism to endure as a structure in this part of Kenya. It describes five modes of violent ecological transformation used to prolong structures of settler colonialism: eliminating undesired species; rewilding landscapes with species desirable to settler ecologists; repeopling nature to create seemingly more inclusive ecologies and capitalize on biocultural diversity; rescuing injured animals and endangered species to shore up support for settler ecologies; and extending settler ecologies through landscape approaches to conservation that scale wild spaces.Settler Ecologies serves as a cautionary tale for future conservation agendas in all settler colonies. While urgent action is needed to halt global biodiversity loss, this book underscores the need to continually question whether the types of nature being preserved advance settler colonial structures or create conditions in which ecologies can otherwise be (re)made and flourish
Ep025 about writing children's book, and teaching children about history and folklore in fun and exciting ways.
Charis Cotter is an award-winning children’s writer, actor and storyteller who has worked extensively in schools telling Newfoundland ghost stories and encouraging students to collect local ghost stories from their communities. In 2013 she published The Ghosts of Baccalieu, a book of traditional ghost stories by students from Tricon Elementary in Bay de Verde. Her latest storytelling presentation, The Ghosts of Grates Cove, is an hour of ghost stories from one of the most haunted places in Newfoundland, Conception Bay North. We discuss Charis’ work as an author, how she teaches children facts through games and fun, school programs, and ghost stories
Experiments in governance and citizenship in Kenya’s resource frontier
Over the past four years, natural resource exploration and development have rapidly expanded across northern Kenya and, as a result, the region is in the midst of a frontier-making project that may have seemed unimaginable a few years ago. In this dissertation, I use the concept of frontier as an analytical framework to examine processes that are transforming society, the economy, and landscape in northern Kenya. This dissertation contributes to scholarship on resource frontiers by analysing the specific governmental technologies used by both powerful and less powerful actors to produce, negotiate and contest the rules that govern landscapes and people in frontiers.
In Article #1, I examine the use of novel technologies of governance in frontier spaces. I show how transnational corporations use voluntary standards — designed to regulate their social and environmental conduct — to legitimize and consolidate control over land and resources. In constructing my argument, I engage with two examples from Kenya’s northern resource frontier. I trace the specific technologies used by two corporations to secure access to land for the purpose of resource development, focusing specifically on their use of voluntary standards. I frame my analysis using Hall et al.’s (2011) ‘powers of exclusion,’ arguing that voluntary standards serve as one legitimising discourse that corporations can deploy to justify excluding other land users.
In Article #2, I shift my focus to how frontiers are governed ‘from below’. This article focuses on the spectrum of different, sometimes competing, reactions to mega-infrastructure development in northern Kenya among rural land users. The central aim of this article is to examine how rural groups draw upon different forms of expertise — ranging from ecological science to international legal frameworks — to frame and legitimize their reactions to frontier-making projects. The analysis in this article contributes to wider debates about rural agency in frontier spaces, by demonstrating how rural land users can strategically deploy different forms of expertise to negotiate the rules that govern access to land and resources.
In Article #3, my co-author and I analyse changing social and political relationships in northern Kenya in light of oil exploration and development. This article demonstrates how some northern Kenyans are seeking protection of their rights from oil companies, in light of the Kenyan government’s hands-off approach to governing northwestern Kenya. We argue that new expectations around corporate social responsibility are drawing oil companies and rural communities into an uneasy citizen-state-like relationship, altering the experiences and practices of citizenship in the region. This article contributes to discussions about new political spaces and new forms of political subjectivity in frontier spaces.
Combined, these articles use northern Kenya as a case study to illustrate how the rules that govern access to land in resource frontiers are shaped through experiments in governance and innovative acts of citizenship. I frame my conclusions using recent literature on post-frontiers
Infrastructure projects and rural politics in northern Kenya: the use of divergent expertise to negotiate the terms of land deals for transport infrastructure
In 2012, construction began on the Lamu Port–South Sudan–Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor in northern Kenya. Once complete, LAPSSET will connect Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia with a new transport infrastructure, including a highway, railway and pipeline. Authorities promise that LAPSSET will drive economic growth by improving trade and attracting investors while also stimulating development in rural areas surrounding transport routes. Despite this promise, many rural land users remain concerned about how LAPSSET stands to alter their access to and control over land. This contribution reflects on how these rural groups are attempting to negotiate proposed land-use changes for LAPSSET by creating and deploying expertise that challenges authorities’ claims about the costs and benefits of the corridor for rural landscapes and communities. The analysis shows that just as expertise can be constructed and circulated ‘from above’ to legitimise land deals for transport infrastructure, counter-claims can be produced and mobilised by rural land users to unsettle these land deals. This paper contributes to recent research that examines the specific strategies used by rural actors to influence proposed land-use changes, as well as research that considers how power inequalities shape and constrain the ability of different rural groups to negotiate the terms of land deals to their own advantage
Mobilizing research on Africa's development corridors
Across Africa, development corridors – networks of roads, railways, pipelines and ports that facilitate the movement of commodities between landlocked production areas, processing zones and global markets – are being built at an unprecedented pace. In mainstream development discourse, these mega-infrastructure projects have been framed as an effective way of creating conditions that are attractive to investors while simultaneously driving inclusive economic growth and development. Yet, recent geographic research on new development corridors has revealed certain tensions and inconsistencies in this win–win narrative, drawing attention to cases where the spatial reorganization of land that has accompanied corridor development has introduced new patterns of spatial exclusion and immobility. This article shows how approaching the study of development corridors using the new mobility paradigm – paying attention to uneven and conflicting mobilities along new corridor routes – stands to generate important empirical and theoretical insights about peoples' lived experiences with corridors, as well as about the trajectories of power enacted through corridor development. Ultimately, it is argued that applying the new mobilities paradigm in future research on development corridors may help researchers to better understand emergent forms of spatial exclusion and immobility created by new corridors
Dante's Beatrice ("dolce amica") and Petrarch's Laura ("dolce nemica") : "charis" and poetry
Tematem artykułu jest analiza dwóch najsłynniejszych postaci kobiecych w literaturze włoskiej, Beatrycze i Laury i roli, jaką ich charis, rozumiana jako uroda, wdzięk, ale także piękno wewnętrzne, czy nawet łaska w – przypadku Beatrycze – oraz pełen sprzeczności obraz wewnętrzny Laury rzutujący na stosunek poety do niej, odegrały w twórczości Dantego i Petrarki i w pojmowaniu przez nich celów poezji. Przedmiotem zainteresowania nie są historyczne cechy osobowości Beatrycze i Laury (nie wiemy nawet, czy ta ostania istniała naprawdę), a jedynie ich wyobrażenie literackie, obecne w różnych dziełach obu twórców. W analizie o charakterze interpretacyjnym autorka artykułu odwołuje się do "Vita Nuova" i "Divina Commedia" Dantego oraz do "Secretum" i "Rerum vulgarium fragmenta" Petrarki. Auto-dekonstrukcji miłosnej iluzji młodszego poety zostaje przeciwstawiony ewolucyjny wymiar miłości Alighierego: oba te zjawiska decydująco wpłynęły na rozwój ich twórczych osobowości.The article contains an analysis of two most famous female characters in Italian literature: Beatrice and Laura and the role which their charis performed in the oeuvre of Dante and Petrarch. The author also analyses the poets’ understanding of the functions of poetry. Charis was described as beauty, grace, but also internal beauty, or even mercy – as in the case of Beatrice, and an internal image of Laura full of contradictions which affected the relation of the poet to her. The object of the research is not the historical attributes of Beatrice and Laura (we even do not know whether the latter actually existed), but their literary representations existing in different works of both authors. In the interpretative analysis the author refers to "Vita Nuova" and "Divina Commedia" by Dante and "Secretum" and "Rerum vulgarium fragmenta" by Petrarch. The auto-destructive amorous illusion of the younger poet has
been juxtaposed with the evolutionary dimension of affection by Alighieri: both phenomena decisively influenced the development of their artistic work
Implementation of a class-wide intervention to teach behavioral expectations in Head Start
Children and teachers were recruited from two Head Start programs in a Midwestern city to participate in this study focused on behavioral expectations. Using a multiple probe design across four classrooms, the impact of scripted stories, role play, and prompts was examined. Teachers were trained on how to implement effective strategies to teach behavioral expectations to young children. Although a functional relation was not established, teachers implemented the evidence-based strategies with high fidelity which resulted in adherence to behavioral expectations for two child participants.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2017-12-01The student, Charis Price, accepted the attached license on 2015-11-19 at 16:13.The student, Charis Price, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2015-11-19 at 16:36.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2015-11-30 at 11:13.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #8812 on 2016-03-02 at 14:06:00Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-02T20:23:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
PRICE-DISSERTATION-2015.pdf: 1328030 bytes, checksum: 85367f1655a900257f6686b3a1fcdb87 (MD5)
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Previous issue date: 2015-11-30Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 91320
Lift date: 2018-03-02T20:24:31Z
Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemU of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 91320 on 2018-03-03T10:15:18Z
Enclave oil development and the rearticulation of citizenship in Turkana, Kenya:Exploring 'crude citizenship'
Turkana County, located in the arid region of northwestern Kenya, has long been imagined as backwards and unproductive. As a result, successive governments have neglected to provide adequate social services and investments in the county, leaving Turkanas to rely on humanitarian organisations for access to rights and protections traditionally associated with citizenship. Yet when oil was discovered in Turkana in 2012, the county was thrust into the international spotlight. The oil exploration and development activities that followed the oil discovery have already begun to impact life in Turkana. Accordingly, this paper focuses on changing social and political relationships in light of emergent spaces of enclave oil development in Turkana. Our analysis draws from key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and field observations carried out in Kenya between October 2014 and May 2015. Specifically, we demonstrate that the Kenyan state’s historically hands-off approach to governing this region has led some Turkanas to seek recognition, legitimization, and fulfillment for their rights from oil companies, rather than the state. We argue that this is drawing oil companies and rural communities into an uneasy citizen-state-like relationship, altering the experiences and practices of citizenship in Turkana. We conclude that while the presence of oil companies in Turkana may benefit some, it also works to the detriment of others, introducing new forms of inequality and marginalization – a process we refer to as ‘crude citizenship’
Infrastructuring zoonoses:Zoonoses, infrastructures, and the life giving and taking politics of pandemic prevention
This article critically reviews geographical scholarship to develop five categories for conceptualising the plurality of zoonotic disease situations configured through infrastructure. These are infrastructures that (1) unmoor zoonoses, (2) mobilise zoonoses, (3) immobilise zoonoses, (4) leak zoonoses, and (5) surveil zoonoses. Our analysis of these categories complicates notions that infrastructure either spreads or stops zoonoses and reveals the varied bio- and necro-politics associated with zoonotic disease situations configured through infrastructure. Before concluding, we review principles of infrastructuring zoonoses otherwise to help mobilise geographical scholarship in support of anti-anthropocentric, care-full, and probiotic approaches to modulating zoonoses in the (post)pandemic era
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