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1.
There is an emerging literature suggesting that when smallholder households diversify their agriculture, a wide range of food groups will be available, and consequently, dietary diversity will be improved. The present article brings this literature into critical conversation with research in feminist political ecology. Grounded in five years of repeated fieldwork, the article weaves together 70 in-depth interviews, and dietary as well as farm production diversity data from 30 households in northern Ghana. This dataset is analyzed by considering not only the diversity of farming systems, but also household headship, including male-headed, de facto female-headed, and de jure female-headed. Among other findings, the paper suggests that dietary diversity scores are lowest for households who have lost their farmlands to on-going land grabbing in Ghana. Furthermore, the paper suggests that while agricultural diversification is essential, it is not sufficient in itself to address nutritional challenges confronting smallholder households. In the contested and political arena of the household, the gendered politics of access to food can deeply shape how agricultural diversification contributes to dietary diversity. Overall, I do not wish to conclude that there are no benefits of increasing the diversity of farm production. Rather, I wish to stress that farm production diversity might not be the best or only strategy to improving dietary diversity among rural households. Through this case study, I also contribute to emerging research in new feminist political ecologies by demonstrating how the intersection of gender, seniority, marital status, and sexual politics shapes resource access and control.  相似文献   

2.
This paper is based on 6 months of ethnographic, multi-sited research in Malaysia, and investigates the relatively recent phenomenon of edible birds’ nest farming in urban areas (‘swiftlet farming’). Swiftlet farms are typically converted shophouses or other buildings which have been modified for the purpose of harvesting the nests of the Edible-nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus). I use the controversy over urban swiftlet farming in the Malaysian city of George Town, Penang, to examine discourses used by key stakeholders to shape debates over the place of non-human animals in cities. By considering everyday experiences of urban swiftlet farming, I explore how this burgeoning industry is perceived amongst residents, and how it is deemed to be (in)appropriate within the political, economic and cultural landscape of George Town. Yet, I also consider how farmers have sought to contest these discourses on ideological and normative grounds. In so doing, I place the cultural animal geographies literature in conversation with emergent literature on landscape and urban political ecology. Such a framing allows for a critical evaluation of the controversies surrounding this case, and their implications for human-animal cohabitation in cities. The paper reflects on the implications of this case for how we regulate human-animal relations and live in contemporary cities, and the crucial role of animals in altering urban form, aesthetics and everyday life, particularly in non-Western contexts.  相似文献   

3.
Feminist political ecology (fpe) is at a crossroads. Over the last 2 years, feminist political ecologists have begun to reflect on and debate the strengths of this subfield. In this article, we contribute by pointing to the limited theorization of race in this body of work. We argue that fpe must theorize a more complex and messier, notion of ‘gender’, one that accounts for race, racialization and racism more explicitly. Building on the work of feminist geography and critical race scholarship, we argue for a postcolonial intersectional analysis in fpe – putting this theory to work in an analysis of race, gender and whiteness in Honduras. With this intervention we demonstrate how theorizing race and gender as mutually constituted richly complicates our understanding of the politics of natural resource access and control in the Global South.  相似文献   

4.
Through an analysis of Ghana’s political and administrative structure, which established the basis of urban planning practice, this paper shows how urban planning has failed to create liveable and functional cities in Ghana. This paper uses semi-structured interviews and agency consultations to supplement document reviews and news paper articles to address the dearth of research on the subject in Ghana. Findings show that dominant political elites, with little or no urban planning background, control and dictate urban planning activities resulting in chaotic scenes and urban blight across Ghanaian cities. Analyses here reinforce the growing recognition that urban planning outcomes in Ghana, and most African countries are not shaped by professional practice and do not reflect the aspirations of the community, but instead political elites. Urban planning agencies are left vulnerable as their activities are interfered, dictated and hindered by both traditional and mainstream political elites. This paper advocates for independence of urban planning agencies in the performance of their duties.  相似文献   

5.
Including past production, current indicated and inferred resources, Wassa is a 5 Moz poly-deformed early-orogenic gold deposit located on the eastern flank of the Ashanti Belt, in southwest Ghana. It is hosted by metamorphosed volcanic, intrusive and sedimentary rocks of the Sefwi Group (ca. 2260–2160 Ma). Early mineralization has an Eoeburnean age (2164 ± 22 Ma, Re–Os on pyrite) and is characterized by quartz veins, by a carbonate alteration of the host rocks, and by deformed gold-bearing pyrite. Remobilization of this gold occurred during the late stages of the Eburnean Orogeny (~ 2.1 Ga) and is associated with quartz-carbonate veins with visible gold and euhedral pyrites.  相似文献   

6.
Despite rapid economic growth, India has not seen the improvements in food and nutritional security that other developing countries have had. This “Asian enigma” has generated a wealth of economistic analyses seeking to explain the persistence of poor nutrition, yet few studies have looked at everyday experiences of changing food systems, and how this impacts nutritional practices as well as the processes of subject formation. In this paper, I draw on qualitative research conducted in Uttarakhand, North India and examine how state-led shifts in agricultural production have resulted in changing food consumption practices and diminished perceptions of health. Villagers link this decreased health to increased chemicals in home-produced food, greater dependence on the market for food purchases, and generational changes in dietary preferences. Despite villagers’ cognizance of the negative health effects of these practices, they largely view these byproducts of capitalistic development with an air of inevitability. Following Mansfield (2011) this paper contributes to the political ecology of health literature by employing the concept of food as a “vector of intercorporeality” (Stassart and Whatmore, 2003:449) and bringing this into conversation with a poststructuralist understanding of subjectivity. I argue that within shifting landscapes of agriculture production and food consumption, notions of diminished health are indicative of the complex and always incomplete processes of subject formation. I view shifting health perceptions as intimate bodily resistances to agricultural development, and conclude that within agricultural development programs a focus on bodily health and well-being is a fecund platform for further experimental research that seeks to imagine development differently.  相似文献   

7.
Assigning accurate dates to hypersaline sediments opens important terrestrial records of local and regional paleoecologies and paleoclimatology. However, as of yet no conventional method of dating hypersaline systems has been widely adopted. Biomarker, mineralogical, and radiocarbon analyses of sediments and organic extracts from a shallow (13 cm) core from a hypersaline playa, Lake Tyrrell, southeastern Australia, produce a coherent age-depth curve beginning with modern microbial mats and extending to ~ 7500 cal yr BP. These analyses are furthermore used to identify and constrain the timing of the most recent change in hydrological regime at Lake Tyrrell, a shift from a clay deposit to the precipitation of evaporitic sands occurring at some time between ~ 4500 and 7000 yr. These analyses show the potential for widespread dating of hypersaline systems integrating the biomarker approach, reinforce the value of the radiocarbon content of biomarkers in understanding the flow of carbon in modern ecologies, and validate the temporal dimension of data provided by biomarkers when dating late Quaternary sediments.  相似文献   

8.
This study investigates the hydraulic conductivity field and the groundwater flow pattern as predicted by a calibrated steady state groundwater flow model for the Keta Strip, southeastern Ghana. The hydraulic conductivity field is an important parameter in evaluating aquifer properties in space, and in general basin-wide groundwater resources evaluation and management. This study finds that the general hydraulic conductivity of the unconsolidated unconfined aquifer system of the Keta Strip ranges between 2 m/d and 20 m/d, with an average of 15 m/d. The spatial variation in horizontal hydraulic conductivity appears to take the trend in the variations in the nature of the material in space. Calibrated groundwater recharge suggests that 6.9–34% of annual precipitation recharges the shallow aquifer system. This amount of recharge is significant and suggests high fortunes in terms of groundwater resources development for agriculture and industrial activities in the area. A spatial distribution of groundwater recharge from precipitation is presented in this study. The spatial pattern appears to take the form of the distribution in horizontal hydraulic conductivity, and suggests that the vertical hydraulic conductivity takes the same pattern of spatial variation as the horizontal hydraulic conductivity. This is consistent with observations in other areas. The resulting groundwater flow is dominated by local flow systems as the unconfined system is quite shallow. A general northeast – southwest flow pattern has been observed in the study area.  相似文献   

9.
This paper explores how Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) forges neoliberal subjectivities. CCM, popular music featuring evangelical Christian lyrics, is one of the most widely consumed forms of commercial entertainment for America’s 70–80 million white evangelical Christians. I argue that by synthesizing evangelical individualism and an insular community ethos, the everyday practices of CCM help constitute particularly neoliberal senses of self and power relations with others. These ostensibly apolitical subjectivities sustain neoliberal ventures such as the reinvention of the Social Gospel through Christian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As well as demonstrating the role of religious and musical practices in cultivating neoliberal subjectivities, CCM helps illuminate neoliberalism’s fractures, dynamism, and multiplicities.  相似文献   

10.
Farhana Sultana 《Geoforum》2011,42(2):163-172
This article argues that resource access, use, control, ownership and conflict are not only mediated through social relations of power, but also through emotional geographies where gendered subjectivities and embodied emotions constitute how nature-society relations are lived and experienced on a daily basis. By engaging the insights from feminist political ecology literatures and emotional geographies literatures, the article demonstrates that resource struggles and conflicts are not just material challenges but emotional ones, which are mediated through bodies, spaces and emotions. Such a focus fleshes out the complexities, entanglements and messy relations that constitute political ecologies of resources management, where practices and processes are negotiated through constructions of gender, embodiments, and emotions. Abstractions of ‘resource struggles’ and ‘resource conflicts’ are thereby grounded in embodied emotional geographies of places, peoples, and resources, enabling us to better understand the ways resources and emotions come to matter in everyday survival struggles. This framing can enrich feminist political ecology theorizations and texture our understandings of commonly-used terms such as access, use, control, conflict and struggles vis-à-vis natural resources in any context. In other words, we are better able to conceptualize and explain how and why people access, use, and struggle over resources the ways they do. A case study of drinking water contamination from Bangladesh is used to develop the theoretical arguments in contributing to existing debates in (feminist) political ecologies.  相似文献   

11.
Access to safe and adequate water and to sanitation has been a global developmental priority due to their intrinsic impacts on the achievement of the sustainable development goals. Despite the implementation of several measures to improve access to safe water and sanitation, urban dwellers in Ghana struggle to acquire water and access sanitation facilities. This paper identified and examined the vulnerable conditions of households to environmental inadequacies of potable water and sanitation and measures aimed at reducing the risks associated with them in the Ashaiman Municipality. The study revealed that, access to adequate water supply was not necessarily dependent on the physical location of house units, but on factors such as lack of building permit, financial constraints, rental conditions, administrative procedures and ill-suited housing arrangement. Inadequate solid and liquid waste management practices and poor drainage systems were major problems identified in the Municipality. The paper argues that water, drainage systems and logistics for waste management in deprived communities must be provided by the local government and service providers through public–private partnership agreements. We conclude that, planning rules, regulations and procedures should be strictly adhered to and vigorously enforced by the Municipality in order to have a well-organized and planned urban environment.  相似文献   

12.
Ethnicity is an important factor in the configuration of societies as a whole as well as of the shaping of individual livelihoods. Agriculture remains one of the main livelihood strategies in Africa not only in rural areas, but also in an urban context. However, little is known about the role ethnicity plays in urban and periurban agriculture. The ability to formulate appropriate support policies and intervention strategies depends on the knowledge of the interactions between ethnicity and agriculture in an urban context. In this study, a household survey was conducted (n = 404) in urban and periurban Moshi, a town of about 200,000 inhabitants located at the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania. The guiding research question was: to what extent is belonging to a specific ethnic group a significant determinant of a household’s agricultural activities. The study shows that there are significant differences amongst the various ethnic groups in the overall involvement in agriculture, access to productive resources such as land, and the role of agricultural activities for the households subsistence and income generation. The Wachagga as the traditionally dominant group of the Kilimanjaro area had the most arable land at their disposal, were much more likely to own the land they cultivate, and showed higher levels of subsistence than any other ethnic group. Similar trends could be identified in the involvement in livestock production, marketing, and the degree of social embeddedness. We therefore argue that ethnicity remains a strong factor in agricultural production and marketing, despite the increasing social and ethnic levelling in the course of urbanisation and social transformation of African societies.  相似文献   

13.
Soils from urban areas often contain enhanced pseudo-total levels of potentially toxic elements (PTEs). Considering the expanding tendency of urban agricultural practices it is necessary to understand if these contaminants are available for plant uptake and if they pose risks to animal and human health.This study showed that estimates of Daily Intakes (DIs) of Cu, Pb and Zn for grazing animals were above animal Acceptable Daily Intakes (ADIs) at specific sites under the influence of an airport, an oil refinery and near highways with high traffic rates in the “Grande Porto” urban area (Portugal). These results suggest that there is a potential for dietary transfer of contaminants associated with the ingestion of both contaminated soil and feed by cows and sheep at unacceptably high concentrations.Furthermore, results showed that 40% of variability of ryegrass shoot contents of Cu, Pb and Ni; 60% for Ba; 70% for Zn; and 80% for Cd can be significantly (p < 0.01) explained by the variability of the corresponding chemical available pools in soils. Since the chemical available pools of PTEs in urban soils were rather low when compared with the corresponding pseudo-total pools (median 0.1–5%) and even when compared with the corresponding reactive pools it is advised to perform further research on the conditions and time span for the limited availability of PTEs in urban soils, and to determine under which conditions PTEs on reactive forms may become available.  相似文献   

14.
Cell phones present new forms of sociality and new possibilities of encounter for young people across the globe. Nowhere is this more evident than in sub-Saharan Africa where the scale of usage, even among the very poor, is remarkable. In this paper we reflect on the inter-generational encounters which are embedded in young people’s cell phone interactions, and consider the wider societal implications, not least the potential for associated shifts in the generational balance of power. An intriguing feature of this changing generational nexus is that while many young people’s phone-based interactions, from their mid-teens onwards, are shifting away from the older generation towards friendship networks in their own age cohort, at the same time they are repositioning themselves – or becoming repositioned – as family information hubs, as a consequence of their phone expertise. The paper draws on mixed-methods research with young people aged c. 9–25 years and in-depth interviews with older age-groups in 24 sites (ranging from high density poor urban to remote rural) across Ghana, Malawi and South Africa.  相似文献   

15.
《Quaternary Science Reviews》2007,26(9-10):1416-1431
Accumulating palaeobotanical evidence points to agricultural activity in Central Europe well before the onset of the Neolithic, commonly dated at ca 5500–5200 cal BC. We reinvestigated an existing pollen profile from Soppensee with refined taxonomical resolution by further subdividing the Cerealia pollen type into Triticum t. and Avena t. because the sediments at this site currently provide the highest temporal resolution and precision for the period of interest among all sites in Switzerland. Our new results are in agreement with previous high-resolution investigations from Switzerland showing scattered but consistent presence of pollen of Cerealia, Plantago lanceolata, and other cultural plants or weeds during the late Mesolithic period (6700–5500 cal BC). Chronologically, this palynological evidence for sporadic agricultural activities coincides with a major break in material culture at ca 6700 cal BC (i.e. the transition from early to late Mesolithic). Here, we review possible arguments against palaeobotanical evidences of Mesolithic agriculture (e.g. chronological uncertainties, misidentification, contamination, long-distance transport) and conclude that none of these can explain the consistent pollen pattern observed at several sites. The palynological evidence can, of course, not prove the existence of pre-ceramic agriculture in Central Europe. However, it is so coherent that this topic should be addressed by systematic archaeobotanical analyses in future archaeological studies. If our interpretation should turn out to be true, our conclusions would have fundamental implications for the Neolithic history of Europe. Currently, it is intensely debated whether Central European agriculture developed locally under the influence of incoming ideas from areas where Neolithic farming had already developed earlier (e.g. southeastern Europe) or whether it was introduced by immigrating farmers. On the basis of our results, we suggest that agriculture developed locally throughout the late Mesolithic and Neolithic. Mesolithic trading networks connecting Southern and Central Europe also support the hypothesis of a slow and gradual change towards sessile agriculture, probably as a result of incoming ideas and regional cultural transformation.  相似文献   

16.
The estimation of potentially harmful element (PHE) availability in urban soil is essential for evaluating impending risks for human and ecosystem health. In the present study five single extraction procedures were evaluated based on the analysis of 45 urban top-soil samples from Athens, Greece. The pseudototal (aqua regia), potentially phytoavailable (0.05 M EDTA), mobilizable (0.43 M HAc), bioaccessible (0.4 M glycine) and reactive pools (0.43 M HNO3) of PHEs were determined. In general, geogenic elements in Athens soil (Ni, Cr, Co, As) are relatively less available than typical tracers of anthropogenic contamination (Pb, Zn, Cu, Cd). Results of principal component analysis (PCA) indicate an association between available fractions of Pb, Cu, Zn, Cd and amorphous Fe oxides, whereas amorphous Mn oxides account for the available concentrations of Mn, Ni and Co. Empirical multiple linear regression models demonstrate that pseudototal concentration is the predominant explanatory factor of variability for the available pools of the anthropogenic elements. Major elemental composition and total organic carbon (TOC) improve the predictions for the geogenic group of elements, although the explained variability remains low. Dilute HNO3 is a better predictor of Zn, Ni, As and Mn availability, whereas Pb and Cu available fractions are predicted more accurately by the classical aqua regia protocol. This study contributes to the international database on the environmental behavior of PHEs and provides additional knowledge that can be used toward the harmonization of chemical extraction methodology in urban soil.  相似文献   

17.
A detail investigation was carried out to improve the current knowledge of groundwater salinisation processes in coastal aquifers using hydrochemical and isotopic parameters. Data of major ions for 40 wells located in the Salalah plain aquifer, Sultanate of Oman, were collected during pre-monsoon 2004 and analysed. The groundwater changes along the general flow path towards the coast from fresh (EC < 1500 μS/cm), brackish (EC: 1500–3000 μS/cm) and saline (EC > 3000 μS/cm). Results of inverse modeling simulations using PHREEQC show that dissolution of halite may be the main source of Cl and Na in the study area. Ionic delta calculation indicates that the depletion of Na and K and enrichment of Ca and Mg in groundwater were probably attributed to reverse ion exchange reactions. During a sampling campaign conducted in October 2015, 11 groundwater samples were collected for Cl, Br and isotopic analysis (2H/18O). Molar Cl/Br ratios in fresh groundwater were higher than those of seawater, indicating the impact of halite dissolution on the groundwater quality. For saline groundwater, these ratios were less than those of seawater, showing the influence of anthropogenic input from agriculture on the same. Relatively depleted isotopic signature of all groundwater samples show that the monsoon precipitation is the main source of groundwater recharge in the study area.  相似文献   

18.
Agricultural (Ap, Ap-horizon, 0–20 cm) and grazing land soil samples (Gr, 0–10 cm) were collected from a large part of Europe (33 countries, 5.6 million km2) at an average density of 1 sample site/2500 km2. The resulting more than 2 × 2000 soil samples were air dried, sieved to <2 mm and analysed for their Hg concentrations following an aqua regia extraction. Median concentrations for Hg are 0.030 mg/kg (range: <0.003–1.56 mg/kg) for the Ap samples and 0.035 mg/kg (range: <0.003–3.12 mg/kg) for the Gr samples. Only 5 Ap and 10 Gr samples returned Hg concentrations above 1 mg/kg. In the geochemical maps the continental-scale distribution of the element is clearly dominated by geology. Climate exerts an important influence. Mercury accumulates in those areas of northern Europe where a wet and cold climate favours the build-up of soil organic material. Typical anthropogenic sources like coal-fired power plants, waste incinerators, chlor-alkali plants, metal smelters and urban agglomerations are hardly visible at continental scales but can have a major impact at the local-scale.  相似文献   

19.
《Applied Geochemistry》2006,21(11):1955-1968
Elemental Hg–Au amalgamation mining practices are used widely in many developing countries resulting in significant Hg contamination of surrounding ecosystems. The authors examined for the first time Hg contamination in air, water, sediment, soil and crops in the Tongguan Au mining area, China, where elemental Hg has been used to extract Au for many years. Total gaseous Hg (TGM) concentrations in ambient air in the Tongguan area were significantly elevated compared to regional background concentrations. The average TGM concentrations in ambient air in a Au mill reached 18,000 ng m−3, which exceeds the maximum allowable occupational standard for TGM of 10,000 ng m−3 in China. Both total and methyl-Hg concentrations in stream water, stream sediment, and soil samples collected in the Tongguan area were elevated compared to methyl-Hg reported in artisanal Au mining areas in Suriname and the Amazon River basin. Total Hg concentrations in vegetable and wheat samples ranged from 42 to 640 μg kg−1, all of which significantly exceed the Chinese guidance limit for vegetables (10 μg kg−1) and foodstuffs other than fish (20 μg kg−1). Fortunately, methyl-Hg was not significantly accumulated in the crops sampled in this study, where concentrations varied from 0.2 to 7.7 μg kg−1.  相似文献   

20.
In 2008, an 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck southwest China less than 100 km north of Chengdu, the booming capital of Sichuan Province. The city government undertook a massive reconstruction project in its rural hinterlands that was guided by existing policies to develop rural areas through coordinated urban and rural planning. Planners sought to avoid replicating urban settlements in rural areas by developing recognizably “pastoral” villages, an approach that is being widely echoed in the relatively new discipline of rural spatial planning in China. This paper argues that such design concessions evade the key feature of the new villages: the concentration of rural residents. The Chengdu government, though this symbolic and actual de-peopling of rural landscapes, has recast rural space as an environmental amenity and an abstract stock of arable land. Drawing on interviews, site visits, and policy and media documents, the paper analyzes the metropolitan plans that provided the framework for rural reconstruction in post-quake Chengdu, and connects these to a model village site in Chengdu’s rural periphery. The case illustrates the need to understand site-level village planning in the context of regional political economies of land, and highlights the new role that metropolitan governments are playing in rural development strategies.  相似文献   

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