329 research outputs found
Space-Travelling in Herodotus 5
No full textIn this chapter we integrate the data-capture and visualization results with more discursive and analytical approaches based on a close reading of Book 5. Book 5 begins by picking up the story of those ‘Persians whom Darius had left in Europe’, immediately locating the reader in a world that looks both forwards and backwards, recalling the high-level clash between East and West in the opening chapters, even as it seems to mark a decisive shift too in those relations—but in what way, and with what consequences for our understanding? The formalist question of the qualitative analysis—what counts as a proxy for a place?—can now be seen to mirror larger interpretative questions, especially regarding civic identity and ideology. Movement is another issue whose importance has already been identified by the previous two chapters: in the close textual analysis of chapter 9, movement can be seen as something of a running sore. The book begins with the forced movement of the Paeonians by the Persians; but even its more peaceable forms, such as immigration, can be equally destabilizing of categories, particularly when claims of autochthony are at stake (as in Athens). Thus Pelling and Barker suggest a more complex picture of East-West relations than a polarizing view allows: it is not that there is no division between Asia and Europe—after all, as Book 5 unwinds we see the battle-lines being drawn up; rather, the divisions are frequently temporary or partial or are subject to constant revision or challenge. The picture that emerges is of a world not rigidly and schematically divided into distinct territories—a model which Herodotus directly criticizes—but one that is interconnected in various ways on various levels at various times. The way Herodotus gets to his representation of war, on a meandering path that leads us through a series of overlapping and increasingly complex networks to depict a world in flux, challenges the notion of an abstract, mappable topography. Instead, it is in the realm of discursive narrative that readers might be better able to grasp the multi-dimensions of the space around them
Shadow spaces for social learning: a relational understanding of adaptive capacity to climate change within organisations
No full textRecent UK government policy on climate change, and wider policy movement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, emphasise the building of adaptive capacity. But what are the institutional constraints that shape capacity to build adaptive organisations? The authors synthesise theory from social learning and institutional aspects of multilevel environmental governance to help unpack the patterns of individual and collective action within organisations that can enhance or restrict organisational adaptive capacity in the face of abrupt climate change. Theoretical synthesis is grounded by empirical work with a local dairy farmers group and two supporting public sector bodies that are both local actors in their own rights and which also shape the operating environment for other local actors (the Environment Agency and the Welsh Assembly and Assembly-sponsored public bodies). Providing space within and between local organisations for individuals to develop private as well as officially sanctioned social relationships is supported as a pathway to enable social learning. It is also a resource for adaptation that requires little financial investment but does call for a rethinking of the personal skills and working routines that are incentivised within organisations
L’adaptation selon la typologie conceptuelle de Mark Pelling et sa pertinence pratique dans l’évaluation du projet Agriclimat
No full textDans le contexte actuel des changements climatiques, l’adaptation est une nécessité pour faire face à la crise climatique. Beaucoup d’auteurs, de décideurs publics et d’organisations abordent l’adaptation, multipliant les attentes que nous avons envers celle-ci et les formes qu’elle peut prendre. Face à cette situation, l’auteur Mark Pelling a tenté d’organiser le concept de l’adaptation dans une typologie à trois chemins : la résilience, la transition et la transformation. Cette recherche vise non seulement à mieux saisir la démarche de Pelling, mais aussi à considérer sa valeur pratique dans des cas concrets. C’est le cas au Québec du projet Agriclimat, qui vise à rendre les exploitations agricoles québécoises plus résilientes face au climat de demain. La question de recherche de ce travail est la suivante : À quel chemin de l’adaptation, selon la typologie de Mark Pelling, le projet Agriclimat correspond-il le mieux ? La méthodologie pour répondre à cette question repose essentiellement sur l’utilisation de la typologie de l’adaptation de Pelling pour analyser les mesures et discours provenant du projet Agriclimat. D’ailleurs, plusieurs questions conceptuelles émergent face à cette typologie. Par exemple, qui décide quels chemins de l’adaptation est les plus approprié et qui doit l’appliquer ? Quels sont les seuils précis qui séparent les différents chemins de l’adaptation ? Ensuite, le projet Agriclimat soulève également des interrogations quant à sa stratégie de volontariat pour regrouper des petits groupes d’agriculteurs qui en principe représentent au sein du projet l’ensemble des agriculteurs régionaux. En outre, nous constatons que la réponse à la question de recherche est plus nuancée que l’hypothèse. Il est faux d’affirmer qu’Agriclimat se positionne uniquement dans le chemin de la transition comme cela est postulé dans l'hypothèse de départ. En effet, le projet couvre surtout la résilience et certains éléments de la transition. La typologie reste pertinente, néanmoins elle mériterait des clarifications et surtout un approfondissement de la transformation qui semble délaissé. Finalement, Agriclimat demeure un projet qui propulse le secteur agricole vers des initiatives intéressantes d’adaptation aux changements climatiques. Le projet aura plusieurs défis à relever, notamment de parvenir à faire réaliser ces initiatives à grande échelle
The antiquity of the Protestant religion [electronic resource] : with an answer to Mr. Sclater's reasons, and the collections made by the author of the pamphlet entitled Nubes Testium : in a letter to a person of quality : the first part.
No full textAttributed to Edward Pelling. Cf. Halkett & Laing (2nd ed.)Errata on prelim. p. [2].First edition.Reproduction of original in the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign Campus). Library.WingElectronic reproduction
Disaster Risk Creation in Nairobi, Kenya: Influence of Institutional-Actor Relationships
No full textUrban growth, much of which is anticipated in Sub-Saharan Africa, presents a time-limited opportunity to build widespread transformative adaptation and resilience into urban development planning and decision-making, effectively addressing both development and risk issues. However, this opportunity is constrained by limited knowledge, financial and institutional capacities, and weak governance at the city level, impeding effective management of rapid urban growth and risk reduction. This study aimed to investigate the relationships between institutions and actors that contribute to disaster risk creation in Nairobi, and considers the implications for advancing foresightful, risk-sensitive, and inclusive pro-poor urban development. It examines how disaster risk is actively produced through urban development decision-making processes in contexts of institutional complexity and messiness. In doing so, it unpacks how actors, institutions, and power dynamics interact to shape urban development decision-making spaces and resultant urban trajectories, and how these processes influence new inputs. At the same time, the thesis engages with the transformative aim of foresightful, risk-sensitive and inclusive, pro-poor urban development, highlighting how extant decision-making environments often exclude the urban poor and thereby contribute to the disaster risk creation. The objectives of the study are to: identify the dominant voices shaping Nairobi’s evolving urbanity; examine how institutional pluralism constrains the opportunity to break cycles of risk creation and explore the opening for urban development policy so that it supports the transformative aim of foresightful, risk-sensitive and inclusive, pro-poor urban development. Drawing on institutional bricolage, African urbanism, and urban risk scholarship, the study employs a qualitative approach to explore the dynamics and social relationships shaping Nairobi's urban development decision-making and implementation spaces and resultant urban trajectories. The methodology includes document analysis, 44 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with over 46 national and city-level policy actors from various sectors, community actors from an urban poor settlement, and field notes. This thesis is one of the first to apply institutional bricolage in empirical urban research, offering novel theoretical contributions and advancing discussions on institutional bricolage, urban transformation, as well as who owns the city. To guide these theoretical contributions, the following questions are answered: How do processes of institutional bricolage occur in urban development decision-making and action? Who are the bricoleurs? What are the characteristics of transformative urban practices, and finally what enables longer-term urban transformation? The findings link varying levels of vulnerability, exposure, and capacity to break cycles of risk creation and accumulation to the multiplicity of city visions and actors and their limited coordination power. The thesis reveals how the capture of decision-making by powerful bricoleurs across levels constrains local actors' agency in shaping their urban futures, and negotiating acceptable risk, and choosing their preferred adaptation actions. It highlights how project-bound decision-making spaces and distrust redefine national and city-level actors’ relationships, limiting sustainable transformation opportunities. Further, it reveals how inclusive, people-centric decision-making spaces create openings for new understandings of risk and safe spaces for DRR or adaptation actions. The findings show that top-down politics heavily influence urban transformation. However, they also reveal that transformative institutional processes and physical transformation do not align well, inhibiting large-scale transformation that is sustainable. The study seeks to advance theory and influence policy and practice
The vulnerability of cities: natural disasters and social resilience
No full textMark Pelling.xi, 212 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm
The future of pornography - panel debate. Speakers | Finn Mackay, Rowan Pelling, Peter Tatchell
No full textMany believe that porn's dark fantasies risk corrupting relationships and society. Has this arisen because pornography is largely created by men? Could feminist pornography featuring authentic sex, diverse bodies and female perspectives offer a truly liberating alternative? Or is porn fundamentally incompatible with intimacy and a problem for all of us until its abolished? Feminist thinker Finn Mackay, author of Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl Brooke Magnanti, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and Erotic Review editor Rowan Pelling imagine the future of pornography.In association with the New College of the Humanities
Does global environmental change cause vulnerability to disaster?
No full textWe have experienced natural hazards since the beginning of history. To those who have experienced them the world has appeared to cave in when a natural catastrophe occurs. It is only with the advent of economic, social and environmental globalization that we have, in effect, created the ability to actually make our world cave in and to change it irrevocably. At the same time, globalization makes us more aware of the impacts of natural hazards, and our perceptions of risk from them cannot be divorced from its social setting. The physical basis of many natural hazards is assumed to be periodic but essentially in equilibrium. Some elements of the natural world that wreak havoc when they occur do so with unpredictable timing, but are in themselves predictable after a fashion and at other timescales. But some hazards are changing in nature due to global environmental change. In this chapter we seek to elucidate what global environmental change might mean in the context of globalization, to outline some examples of global environmental change and the implications for exposure to natural hazards, and to examine some evidence of whether there has been a change in the scale and scope of environmentally ‘triggered’ natural hazards in the past century
Disasters, Humanitarianism and Emergencies: A politics of uncertainty
No full textThe Politics of Uncertainty: Practical Challenges for Transformative Action is an Open Access book exploring the theme of uncertainty in the science-society nexus.
This chapter, written by Tomorrow's Cities Co-Directors Mark Pelling and John McCloskey, with Detlef Müller-Mahn, explores Disasters, Humanitarianism and Emergencies. Long-standing research on disaster risk has tended to focus on physical science and directly connected and observable cause and effect between hazard and impact. More recently, work has extended into questions of complex causation and social construction, where cause and effect are disarticulated over space and time and coloured by an observer’s viewpoint and perception. This has drawn in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, including recognition of local or traditional knowledge. The chapter explores this transition and the ways in which the search for a more complete understanding of risk production and human action has brought both increased understanding and greater uncertainty to those who seek to use science for action. By drawing together viewpoints from social and physical science perspectives the chapter identifies four fundamental properties of knowledge production in the context of disaster risk and international development: (1) uncertainty is prevalent throughout disaster research; (2) as knowledge has grown, so awareness of the uncertainties that constrain this knowledge has also grown; (3) uncertainties are likely to remain into the future and so must be embraced; and (4) managing the presentation of uncertainty is a challenge for scientists working with policy-makers and the public, who look to science to reduce uncertainty.
The Politics of Uncertainty book, which can be found in full here, is a result of an international academic symposium of the same title, organised by the STEPS Centre and held at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK
- …
