24 research outputs found
V.I. Vernadsky and the noosphere concept: Russian understandings of society-nature interaction
No full textRecent Russian legislative and policy documentation concerning national progress towards sustainable development has suggested that the attainment of such a state would represent the first stage in the development of the noosphere as outlined by the Russian scientist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863–1945). This paper explores Vernadsky’s model of evolutionary change through a focus on his work on the biosphere and noosphere in an attempt to further understanding of the way in which Russia is approaching the concept of sustainable development in the contemporary period. It is argued that the official Russian interpretation of the noosphere idea tends to obscure the evolutionary and materialist foundations of Vernadsky’s biosphere–noosphere conceptualisation. At the same time, the concluding section of the paper suggests that the scope of Vernadsky’s work can be used to stimulate the search for a more coherent approach to work in areas of sustainable development and sustainability across the span of the social and physical sciences
Totalitarianism and geography: L.S. Berg and the defence of an academic discipline in the age of Stalin
No full textIn considering the complex relationship between science and politics, the article focuses upon the career of the eminent Russian scholar, Lev Semenovich Berg (1876–1950), one of the leading geographers of the Stalin period. Already before the Russian Revolution, Berg had developed a naturalistic notion of landscape geography which later appeared to contradict some aspects of Marxist–Leninist ideology. Based partly upon Berg's personal archive, the article discusses the effects of the 1917 revolution, the radical changes which Stalin's cultural revolution (from the late 1920s) brought upon Soviet science, and the attacks made upon Berg and his concept of landscape geography thereafter. The ways in which Berg managed to defend his notion of geography (sometimes in surprisingly bold ways) are considered. It is argued that geography's position under Stalin was different from that of certain other disciplines in that its ideological disputes may have been regarded as of little significance by the party leaders, certainly by comparison with its practical importance, thus providing a degree of ‘freedom’ for some geographers at least analogous to that which has been described by Weiner (1999. <i>A little corner of freedom: Russian nature protection from Stalin to Gorbachev</i>. Berkeley: University of California Press) for conservationists. It is concluded that Berg and others successfully upheld a concept of scientific integrity and limited autonomy even under Stalinism, and that, in an era of ‘Big Science’, no modernizing state could or can afford to emasculate these things entirely
Landscape science: a Russian geographical tradition
No full textThe Russian geographical tradition of landscape science (landshaftovedenie) is analyzed with particular reference to its initiator, Lev Semenovich Berg (1876-1950). The differences between prevailing Russian and Western concepts of landscape in geography are discussed, and their common origins in German geographical thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are delineated. It is argued that the principal differences are accounted for by a number of factors, of which Russia's own distinctive tradition in environmental science deriving from the work of V. V. Dokuchaev (1846-1903), the activities of certain key individuals (such as Berg and C. O. Sauer), and the very different social and political circumstances in different parts of the world appear to be the most significant. At the same time it is noted that neither in Russia nor in the West have geographers succeeded in specifying an agreed and unproblematic understanding of landscape, or more broadly in promoting a common geographical conception of human-environment relationships. In light of such uncertainties, the latter part of the article argues for closer international links between the variant landscape traditions in geography as an important contribution to the quest for sustainability
Revisiting sustainable development: Russian cultural and scientific traditions and the concept of sustainable development
No full textThe World Summit on Sustainable Development (26 August–4 September 2002), held in Johannesburg on the tenth anniversary of the first Earth Summit, provides the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the sustainable development concept. This paper uses the case study of the Russian Federation to explore the relationship between official interpretations of sustainable development and alternative understandings concerned with the betterment of humankind, which draw on Russia's cultural and scientific heritage. It is suggested that there is much to be gained from reopening the sustainable development debate to incorporate such cultural particularities, both at the national and international levels
Scientific, institutional and personal rivalries among Soviet geographers in the late Stalin era
No full textScientific, institutional and personal rivalries between three key centres of geographical research and scholarship (the Academy of Sciences Institute of Geography and the Faculties of Geography at Moscow and Leningrad State Universities) are surveyed for the period from 1945 to the early 1950s. It is argued that the debates and rivalries between members of the three institutions appear to have been motivated by a variety of scientific, ideological, institutional and personal factors, but that genuine scientific disagreements were at least as important as political and ideological factors in influencing the course of the debates and in determining their final outcome
Russia's involvement in the international environmental process: a research report
No full textThe paper surveys Russia's engagement, both in terms of policy formulation and implementation, with the main initiatives outlined at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Although coverage extends through the entire period from 1992 to present, a particular focus is on recent developments under the Putin administration, a period characterized by an ostensibly utilitarian approach to environmental management. Russia's response to the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) is assessed in the broader context of the country's problems in effecting major environmental policy changes
Interdependence
No full textHow should we respond to the increasingly dense bundle of economic, cultural and ecological interconnections that span the globe and stretch into the future? What kinds of ethical and public engagements are demanded of researchers who work on global environmental, economic and social issues? The term interdependence may provide a powerful framework for advancing thinking and debate both within academia and among wider publics in relation to these questions. Members of the Open University's Geography Department have been working with partners to build the Interdependence Day project. The project combines research, cultural work, communications and public participation in an attempt to make sense of our responsibilities to people distant in space and time, and to the nonhuman natural world. This article reviews nearly a century of deployments of the term interdependence in political and academic writing, introduces the distinctive work that might be done with the term in the critical social sciences, and outlines the Interdependence Day project
Empowering Ni-Vanuatu women: Amplifying Wantok authority and achieving fair market access
No full textThe Republic of Vanuatu (2004) report on Vanuatu’s implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) notes that many urban disenfranchised Ni-Vanuatu women live in poverty and have little access to paid employment. The women who do gain paid employment in formal jobs rarely gain access to positions of authority. The United Nations (UN) offered two strategies to improve the position of Ni-Vanuatu women in Vanuatu. The first is informed by CEDAW in Article Eleven on Employment. The “Equity Desk of the Vanuatu Department of Strategic Management” and the “Vanuatu Department of Women’s Affairs Gender Planner” (The Republic of Vanuatu, 2004, pp. 12-13) have been charged with the responsibility of implementing Article Eleven and developing Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) programmes for the public sector. This strategy aims to increase women’s access to paid employment in the formal employment sector and encourage women to achieve positions of authority. The second strategy offered by the UN is the establishment of microfinance projects aimed at providing disenfranchised urban women unable to find employment with a means to own and run microfinance businesses to earn a living. Both these strategies have the overarching aim of improving the well-being of Ni-Vanuatu women.
This study has investigated the extent to which access to formal sector jobs and the implementation of microfinance businesses in the informal sector addresses the well-being of Ni-Vanuatu women. These programmes are being implemented within a complex historical, socio-political cultural and economic environment (Van Trease, 1995). This complexity includes the continuance of Wantok systems of governance in the form of matrilineality (predominant in Vanuatu) and patrilineality (adopted from Christian influences in 1800s and colonial legacy in 1906) (Van Trease, 1987; Facey, 1981; Allen, 1981 & Macdonald-Milne & Thomas, 1981). Matrilineal cultural values bequeath patrimony and legacy of lineage and land inheritance from mothers to daughters. Matrilineal women share power with men in community affairs (Maltali, Sandy & Tamashiro, 2009). In patrilineal communities, patrimony and legacy of lineage and land inheritance is passed from fathers to sons (Van Trease, 1987). Patrilineal mothers and daughters have no lineage, land inheritance, or power-sharing rights (Stege, Maetala, Naupa & Simo 2008). Both Wantok systems are based on communal values practised primarily in the rural sector. Urban centres are organised around a modern-cash and market-economy and a governance framework based on the British Westminster model and the French Head of State model (ILO, 2006). This European generated governance system is underpinned by values informed by liberal competitive individualism and an assumed commitment to meritocracy. It is, however, a system of governance steeped in patriarchal nuances as a direct legacy of the colonial regime now adapted and administered by the Vanuatu’s ruling elite, referred as Vanuatu’s urban patriarchy throughout this thesis.
The theoretical frameworks used in this research draw on both liberal feminist studies and on an adaptation of subaltern scholarship (Thomas & Humphries, 2010 & 2011). The focus is on the legacy of imperialism and colonisation, the politics of power and hegemony, and the expressions of equal rights, emancipation and empowerment as these pertain to the well-being of women in Vanuatu.
Three sets of qualitative empirical observations were collected: i) a focus group discussion with 20 employer and employee representatives; ii) 36 conversations with women employed in the formal employment sector who held positions of authority within their respective organisations; and iii) 39 conversations with women who owned a microfinance business. My field notes were analysed thematically using a point and counterpoint framework crafted from my interest in the work of Huxley (cf Baker & James, 2000a & 2000b & Dawson, 2009). The point is informed by a liberal feminist lens (Gamble, 1999 & Heywood, 2000). A counterpoint to this liberal feminist interpretation is generated from a post-colonial feminist perspective through an adaptation of subaltern studies (Thomas & Humphries 2010 & 2011; Gamble, 1999 & Spivak, 1988). I draw on my Matrilineal Wantok Feminist Voice (MWFV) to form a standpoint in the discussion and to frame insights drawn from the ideas associated with the solidarity economy (Allard, Davidson & Matthaei, 2009; Harvey, 2006 & Harding, 2004).
Point/counterpoint/standpoint for the research as a whole
Point: Liberal feminist strategies for the emancipation of women (and the intended improvement and well-being of their families associated with this perspective) encourage women to pursue better living standards, achieve empowerment in the home, and seek formal jobs or other market-based income opportunities. If in formal jobs, women are encouraged to seek positions of authority. For these women, the major transition in orientation is the move from Wantok-related patterns of responsibilities and opportunities to those made available in the formal Western-generated economy. These Western ways, with emphasis on individualized opportunity, appear to offer financial gain and familial influences, particularly to women born into patrilineal lineage descent groups.
Counterpoint: Viewed through the adaptation of subaltern perspectives that I have applied to the liberal feminist remedies for the enhancement of well-being for the women of Vanuatu, it appears that the women of Vanuatu are involved in multiple and simultaneous complex master/slave relationships (Kohn, 2005 & Honderich, 1995). These relationships are exemplified in salaried/professional occupations held by women, between the women and their employers and work-place cultures, between women and rural and urban patriarchal hegemonies, and between women and the cash and market economy. While EEO activities can be seen to make a difference in the lives of some women, taken together, these interventions are reducing the overall well-being for Ni-Vanuatu women more generally. For the Vanwods microfinance women entrepreneurs, master/slave relationships could be discerned between the Vanwods MFI’s social control of the Mamas, the Vanuatu Government’s imposition of high business licence fees to the Mamas, the Mamas and their greater dependence on the cash and market economy, and the Mamas and their relationship with rural and urban patriarchal hegemonies (Thomas & Humphries, 2010 & 2011). These forms of systemic subservience interpreted from the women’s narratives provide a caution against the uncritical adoption of Western liberal feminist ideals (DeVault, 1990). It is matrilineal women; however, who appear to suffer the most from their move into the urban centres as there they must contend with an urban patriarchal hegemony, an impediment which they had not encountered in their former rural communities governed in accordance with matrilineal Wantok values.
Standpoint: The research findings suggest that all women in this study worked long hours, experiencing discrimination and oppression, received low pay, and experienced increased financial obligations as a result of their engagement in formal and informal jobs. As well as being increasingly dependent on inadequate and unsustainable livelihoods in the urban areas, family and Wantok social relations were challenged and diminished as a consequence of their necessary commitment to their jobs and the demands of urban living. Access to traditional forms of authority and sustenance was undermined.
I conclude that, overall, the implementation of CEDAW-EEO programmes along with the establishment of microfinance projects devised for the emancipation of the disenfranchised women of Vanuatu, while apparently proving beneficial from a liberal feminist interpretation in granting urban women with access to incomes, property and power-sharing, may provide an element of liberation for women of patrilineal descent groups but add new dimensions of patriarchal inhibitors for women of matrilineal descent groups who take up employment under the Westminster rules of governance. The remedies taken as a whole, while promising improved well-being through market-based income generation, remove women from the Wantok kinship social support networks embedded in their indigenous Wantok governance frameworks causing complex problems and hardships for them. Drawing on my Matrilineal Wantok Feminist standpoint position, I suggest that the Solidarity Economy, which combines aspects of market access while still engaging in the traditional systems of social organization, offers an alternative organisational and economic framework for developing and enhancing community well-being in both the rural and urban areas of Vanuatu
