DARG is running the following sessions at The RGS/IBG Conference in London in September 2003.
If you would
Friday 5th September 9.00-11.00 and 15.45-18.00
Convenors: Claire Mercer, University of Leicester. Email: ccm2@le.ac.uk or Giles Mohan, Open University. Email: g.mohan@open.ac.uk.
This session will explore what postcolonial theory has to offer to geographers working on development issues. As such, contributions will engage with postcolonial theories and debates rather than focus on research carried out 'in the postcolonial world'. The implications of postcolonialism for development geography are manifold and are only tentatively beginnning to be explored. The module will address issues such as:
- does development geography need to be 'decolonised',. and if so, what would such decolonised geographies look like?
- what is the role of fieldwork within postcolonial geography, and how is it to be oeprationalised?
-what is the relationship between postcolonialism and globalisation, and what does this mean for geographical understandings of development issues?
Session 1, Friday 5th September, 9.00-11.00
1. ‘Decolonising development knowledges’: Claire Mercer, Giles Mohan, Marcus Power
2. ‘Geographies of postdevelopment’: James Sidaway
3. ‘Decolonising development or developing postcolonialism? Debating the politics of labelling and practice in development geographies’: David Simon
4. ‘’Modernity, creativity and urban development policy’: Jenny Robinson
5. ‘What’s so postcolonial about Lusaka?’ Garth Myers
6. ‘When ‘development’ devastates: donor discourses, access to HIV/AIDS treatment in Africa and reconstituting the landscape of development’: Peris Jones
7. ‘Decolonising development and disability: issues in South Africa’: Ruth Butler, Cheryl McEwan
Session 2,Friday 5th September, 15.45-18.00
1. ‘Dancing to the same beat? A dialogue between two ‘postcolonials’ doing development’: Parvati Raghuram, Clare Madge
2. ‘From colonialism to development: oral histories, life geographies and travelling cultures’: Uma Kothari
3. ‘Crisis narratives, colonial policy and subaltern resistance: soil conservation in the Uluguru Mountains, Tanzania’: Samantha Jones
4. ‘Black skins and white masks: reflections on post-colonial discourse’: Rob Potter and Joan Phillips
5. ‘A ‘black critique’ of fieldwork practise in development geography: teaching ‘slavery’ to undergraduates’: Dina Abbott
6. ‘Postcolonial criticism and development research’: Paul Hodge
7. ‘‘Stages of development’ and the colonial present: India’s middle classes and the environment’: Emma Mawdsley
8. ‘Postcolonialism, globalisation and development: a case study of Cuba’s biotechnology industry, 1981-2000’: Simon Reid-Henry
Wednesday 3rd September 15.45-18.00; Thursday 4th September 9.00-11.00 and 15.45-18.00
Convenors: Duncan McGregor, Royal Holloway, University of London. Email: d.mcgregor@rhul.ac.uk. Also convened by David Simon and Donald Thompson.
The peri-urban interface in developing areas is characterised by intense pressure on natural resources in the context of increasing human activity. The modules will address the impacts of rapid urbanisation on livelihoods and poverty in the PUI, and will examine the pressures on the natural resource base of land and water, Presentations should focus on the implementation of sustainable solutions to the problem of reconciling human needs and pressure on resources.
Session 1,Wednesday 3rd September 15.45-18.00
1. 'The work of SCOPE in the peri-urban interface' I. Douglas
2. 'The inevitable illusiveness and relativeness of ‘sustainability’ in the peri-urban zone of African cities: Livelihood options by the urban poor of industrial effluent use in Zambia' T. Bowyer-Bower
3. 'Alternative Strategies in Alternative Spaces: Pastoral Livelihoods in the Peri-urban Interface' E. Aberra
4. 'Livelihoods from dairying enterprises for the landless in the peri-urban interface around Hubli-Dharwad, India.' R.M .Brook, P. Bhat & A. Nitturkar
5. The environmental and social impacts of peri-urban irrigated vegetable production around Jos, Nigeria.' F. Harris, m. Pasquini, J. Dung & A. Adepetu
6. 'Livelihood pattern of peri-urban areas of Kolkata – Policy option for the sustainable development – integrated planning has a valuable role to play' M. Mukherjee
7. 'The Impact of urbanization on peri-urban livelihoods in an African city: A Case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.' D. Mwamfupe
Session 2, Thursday 4th September 9.00-11.00
1. 'The Governance of Infrastructure Service Provision in the Peri-Urban Interface of Metropolitan Regions' J. Davila & A. Allen
2. 'Community-Based Waste Management Strategies: Peri-Urban Interface Kumasi, Ghana' A.M. Bradford, D.F.M. McGregor & D.Simon
3. 'National Highway by-pass and its impact on Hubli-Dharwad Peri Urban Livelihoods' K Shindhe
4. 'Horticulture and Market Information at the Interface' K. Lynch & N. Poole
5. 'Urbanising Amazonia: livelihood dynamics of a peri-urban interface' N. Grist
6. 'Promoting the interests of the poor in the peri-urban interface: The experience of ITDG' L. Stevens & R. Berger
7. 'Development and resource Exploitation in Gampaha, Sri Lanka' A. Narman & N. Dangalle
8. 'Conflict and co-operation in peri-urban Accra' K. Gough & P. Yankson
Session 3, Thursday 4th September, 15.45-18.00
1. 'New Kid comes to the Block: Impact of HIV/AIDS and the crisis of burial land in peri-urban Africa.' B. Mbiba & L.C. Mulenga
2. 'Livelihoods of Rural Poor Absorbed by Urban Growth' M.S. Ashok
3. 'The Peri-Urban Interface: Alternative Sustainable Livelihood Options for St. Lucia' M. Mycoo
4. 'Peri-urban environmental health in India: integrating technical and institutional approaches for addressing environmental threats to peri-iurban agriculture and the livelihoods of the poor' F Marshall
5. 'Sustainable development indicators for peri-urban areas: a case study of Mexico City' D-C Rocio
6. 'A co-management approach to watershed management: peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana' D.F.M. McGregor, D.A. Thompson & D.Simon
7. 'Re-evaluating people-environment relationships at the rural-urban interface: How sustainable is the peri-urban zone in Kano, northern Nigeria?' R. Machonachie & J.A. Binns
8. 'Hidden Livelihoods? Natural Resource Management and Urban Development Policy' C. Twyman
Concluding comments
Convened with the PSGRG
Wednesday 3rd September 9.00-11.00
Convenor: Mark Pelling, University of Liverpool. Email: pelling@liv.ac.uk and Jon Oldfield, Queen Mary, University of London. Email: jon.oldfield@qmul.ac.uk
Environmental risk from industrial and residential sources, or from natural disaster is a constant and pressing concern with financial, human and ecological losses increasing rapidly. Received wisdom on environmental risk management places a strong emphasis on the role of popular participation and of civil society actors. These sessions will draw together work conducted in states that are making or have recently made, a transition from socialist to democratic polities (Russia, China, Eastern Europe and a number of states from Latin America, Africa and Asia). It seeks to identify key environmental risks and the challenges faced by applying risk management regimes that incorporate a strong civil society component in these states.
1. 'Vulnerable people’s perceptions of disaster and disaster management in Nepal.' Komal Aryal.
2. 'Environmental risk in the Russian Federation.' Jon Oldfield
3. 'Environmental citizenship and environmental justice in Samara, Russia.'
4. 'From battlegrounds to marketplace: political change and environmental decision-making in Cambodia and Vietnam.' Tim Conway, Cecillia Lutterall, Caroline Hughes.
5. 'Risk, regulation and the community ‘right to know’: assessing the impacts of access to information to local structures for corporate environmental governance.' Andy Gouldson.
6. 'Local response to hazards, risk and disaster: communities as complex adaptive systems.' Philip Buckle.
7. 'Dealing with environmental risk under political transition: participatory water resource management in Peru and South Africa.' Jeroen Warner.
8. 'Violent conflict and disaster: the scientific, moral and policy challenges to integrated disaster risk management.' Ben Wisner.
Wednesday 3rd September 9.00-11.00 and 15.45-18.00
Convenors: Nicola Ansell, Brunel University. Email: nicola.ansell@brunel.ac.uk, or Lorraine Young, Brunel University. Email: lorraine.young@brunel.ac.uk.
There has been a burgeoning of geographical research with children and youth in developing areas over the past few years, which has been fuelled from two directions. First,Geography's engagement with the new social studies of childhood, as represented by the recent Limited Life Working Party on Children, Youth and Families; second, a growing awareness among the 'development community' that 'development' has often bypassed the interests and views of young people. It is envisaged that this session will bring together researchers concerned with investigating young people's social/cultural/political geographies with those principally working in areas which impact on children's lives including: demography, health, refugees studies and environmental hazards.
Session 1, Wednesday 3rd September 9.00-11.00
1. 'The Youth of Recife: at home and on the street'. Katherine Gough and Mónica Franch
2. 'Youth, gangs and violence: analysing the social and spatial mobility of young people in Guatemala City'. Ailsa Winton
3. 'Children's mobility and access to transport in low income countries: towards a research agenda'. Gina Porter
4. 'The role of family strategies in pupil mobility in two Zimbabwean secondary schools.' Claire Pooley
5. 'Marginal Youth? Constructed Childhoods for Orphans and Displacees in Kenya.' Elsbeth Robson
6. 'Reverse Migration Of Young Central Americans: Social Consequences.' Denis Becker
7. 'The role of place in the environmental attitudes of children: The case of Jamaica.' Vivienne Vassall
8. 'An exploration of teachers’ and students’ personalised ‘constructions’ of nature, the environment and sustainable development, and the implications for environmental education; a Jamaican case study.' Therese Ferguson
9. 'Educated for Crime: Poverty and Social Exclusion of Youth in the Inner City of Kingston, Jamaica.' Corin Bailey and Elizabeth Thomas-Hope
Session 2, Wednesday 3rd September, 15.45-18.00
1. 'Geography, children’s rights and development: examples from Southeast Asia.' Andrew McGregor
2. 'Childhoods in the Majority World: Miniature adults or tribal children?' Samantha Punch
3.'The Myth of the Lazy Aborigine: Answering Why Orang Asli Children Drop Out of School.' Alice Nah, Young Soon Wong and Yit Mui
4.'HIV related knowledge and the extent and nature of sexual behaviour among young adolescents in Zimbabwe.' Fungisai Gwanzura-Ottemoller and Michael Kesby
5. 'Causes of failure to attend primary school amongst orphans and non-orphans in Tanzania - evidence from survey data and children's drawings.' Ulli Huber and William Gould
6. 'Neither heroes nor demons: the geographies of youth and activism at the University of Harare, Zimbabwe.' Leo Zeilig
7. 'Youth, Gender and Livelihoods in West Africa: Initial findings from Ghana and the Gambia.' Sylvia Chant and Gareth Jones
Discussant: Professor Tim Unwin
Convened with the EGRG
Wednesday 3rd September 9.00-11.00 and 15.45-18.00
Convenors: Roger Lee, Queen Mary, University of London. Email: r.lee@qmul.ac.uk, or Cathy McIlwaine, Queen Mary, University of London. Email: C.J.McIlwaine@qmul.ac.uk
This session will explore the different meanings of globalisation within Geography. Prompted by the realisation that many economic geographers and development geographers often work on similar issues, yet from very different standpoints, it proposes to generate debate on the potential linkages between two inter-related sub-disiplines within Geography. More specifically, the aims of the session are:
- To attempt to identify some unifying themes in terms of the processes and concept of globalisation
- To explore ways of building bridges and creating synergies between the two sub-disciplines in relation to globalisation.
These will be explored through several theoretical/conceptual papers about understanding globalisation, complemented by several empirical papers that actively explore how globalisation processes play out on the ground.
Session 1: Wednesday 3rd September 9.00-11.00
Each presentation is given 15 minutes
1. 'Introduction', Roger Lee and Cathy McIlwaine (Queen Mary, University of London)
2. 'Reworking economic geographies, development geographies and postsocialism: translocal economic practices
in the diverse economy', Adrian Smith (University of Southampton)
This paper addresses one aspect of what the nature of the conversations between ‘economic’ and ‘development’ geographers might be. It does so from a position which is often the ‘other’ of both economic and development geographies – that of a researcher involved in understanding the economic geographies of postsocialism. Never entirely about ‘development’, never fully part of the ‘advanced capitalism’ centricity of much economic geography, I argue that a focus from research from the former ‘second world’ provides certain insights enabling a rapprochement between economic and development geographies. I argue that a fruitful conversation can be had between these three positionalities – development, economic and postsocialist geographies – by drawing upon two main bodies of thought. First, I argue that recent work in critical area studies concerning the nature and transformation of translocal processes enables both an avoidance of essentialising globalisation discourses and an ability to reframe multi-sited, translocal practices in a new and more fruitful way. Second, I argue for an economic geography of multiple and diverse economies situated through the analysis of diverse class practices across and within translocal spaces. In particular, while this framing opens connectivity with ‘old’ development studies debates over the articulations of different modes of production, it instead draws inspiration from non-essentialist understandings of multiple economies and economic practices. I illustrate the ‘developmental’ rendering of this kind of framing through an examination of the postsocialist apparel sector and the ways in which translocal articulations with western buyers have reconfigured the nature of capitalist class processes of commodity production across space. I also argue, however, that the diverse economies of postsocialism are fruitfully understood as multiply articulated economic geographies, and the growth and development of the garment sector has also to be understood within a context of its articulations with the household and domestic economies of postsocialism.
3.'Development and Resource-based Transformation: the case of Sakhalin, Russia', Mike Bradshaw (University of Leicester)
The intent of these sessions is to open up a dialog between economic geographers and development geographers. By focusing on the issues of resource-based development (offshore oil and gas) and economic transition in Russia, this paper occupies some of the space between these two constituencies. The paper is in three parts. The first section considers the relationship between ‘development’ and ‘transformation’ and suggests that post-socialist transformation presents are particular type of development challenge. The second section considers the nature of resource-based development and suggests that economic geographers, when talking about globalisation, should be paying more attention to this component of the global economy. The final section grounds some of these more theoretical concerns and reports on on-going research on Sakhalin island in the Russian Far East.
4. 'Development and Transition in the Lao PDR: Making a living in the old and new economies', Jonathan Rigg (University of Durham)
What happens to people and communities living meagre lives when they are progressively integrated into the market? What is the trade-off between subsistence ‘affluence’ and market dependence? Can we usefully draw a distinction between ‘old’ poverty and ‘new’ poverty?
Laos is a ‘least developed country’ and since the mid-1980s has undergone a process of economic transition. Integration into the wider Greater Mekong sub-region, the presence of many hundreds of advisors and scores of agencies, and one of the highest per capita ODA disbursements has drawn Laos into the mainstream of global action even if it is not yet fully integrated into the global economy.
Surveys show that while poverty may be falling, inequality is rising. The benefits of economic growth have been selectively captured by particular population groups living in certain areas of the country. Elsewhere there is a disjuncture between economic growth and development as former subsistence cultivators are drawn into the market on unfavourable terms.
Using material gathered from surveys in nine villages in 2001 and 2002, the paper will unpick the impacts of transition and market integration. The intention is to highlight the trade-offs between ‘economics’ and ‘development’ and the coping strategies employed by people as they struggle to make a living in the new Laos.
5. Discussion
6. 'Limits to Neo-liberalism in Russia: the Political Economy of Tacit Resentment', Anastasia Nesvetailova (University of Liverpool)
The paper analyses the highly uneven and conflictual outcomes of neo-liberal reforms in Russia. Three major deficiencies of the ‘transition economics’ are identified. First, transitology fails to take intro account the influence of the global political economy on change in the countries of the formers USSR. Second, orthodox economics tends to discuss and evaluate the results of reform in terms of two or three macroeconomic indicators, failing to consider the impact and role of the historical, social and political factors on change. Third, the neo-liberal reform blueprint has so far failed to allow for a diversity of ‘transition’ outcomes, assuming that shock therapy methods would transform Russia into a ‘normal’, Western-type capitalist society. Today, however, Russia is faced with the reality of many already established and functioning elements of the new system that significantly deviate and contradict the principles of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. The paper draws on examples from a number of areas and levels of political economy: the state and economy; society and culture; the legal system. The symbiosis of these forces, heavily influenced by Russia’s pre-revolutionary history, Communism and contemporary geopolitics, signify that the country has embarked on the road to capitalism of a distinctly indigenous, non-Western type. Some elements of the new system, such as financial sphere, are unavoidably subject to global imperatives of financial accumulation and thus are similar to the contemporary changes in the countries of Anglo-Saxon and Continental capitalism. At the same time, it is clear that a re-emergence of a strong Russian state, the re-prioritisation of domestic economic production and a restoration of national identity and ideology should constitute the core of an alternative developmental project.
7. 'Dividual selves and the neoliberal corrective to parochial economic learning', Dragos Simandan (University of Bristol)
We might conceive of ourselves not as ‘individuals’ but as archipelagos of dividual selves, spread in time-space and involved in the difficult task of rendering coherent our necessarily distributed agencies and affects. The production of self-narratives resulting from this involvement entails practices of localised learning predicated on abilities that include observation, imitation, improvisation, and expression. It also entails creativities oriented towards the production of ideals of ‘good life’ that mediate our commitment to work and to self-disciplining for hard work. The neoliberal ethics shapes these creativities through a range of encounters with institutions, representations, legacies, rhythms, and events that are not always associated with the fictional ontological domain of the economic sphere. In this paper I will theorise the role of the junction between the economic and the cultural domains in the reproduction of the genealogies of cultural and economic marginality that lurk within poor people’s encounters with the governmental imperatives of economic growth and societal development.
8. 'Globalisation and Latin America: Understanding the Global Links of Colombia’s Capital', Alan Gilbert (UCL)
According to the current conventional wisdom the world has been “globalised.” What precisely this means is less than clear except that the impact of globalisation is highly localised. Clearly, London is not Lima, nor is Tokyo Tehran. Arguably Latin America has long been globalised in an important sense; had the Spanish and Portuguese not arrived in the fifteenth century most Latin American would still be speaking indigenous languages and horses might still be unknown. Things have clearly changed since the time of the Conquest and arguably much more rapidly since 1945. But does this mean that Bogotá, Colombia’s rapidly growing capital, is becoming more and more globalised? Perhaps it does but if it does, what does that mean for people on the ground? The paper will explore some of the evidence that both supports and contradicts the notion that most aspects of life in Bogotá is determined by global forces. The paper will analyse how the presumed forces of globalisation, including changing patterns of world trade, growing volumes of foreign investment, IMF-type economic management, and the internationalisation of culture, have impacted on employment, poverty, social polarisation and housing in Colombia’s capital. It will also explore the ‘informal’ side of globalisation’ – the impact of drugs and illegal migration on both Colombia and Bogotá. Ultimately, the paper will pose the question whether the concept of globalisation can have any real meaning when its form and subsequent outcomes vary so greatly across the globe?
9. Discussion
Session 2: Wednesday 3rd September 15.45-18.00
Each presentation is given 15 minutes
1. 'Introduction', Roger Lee and Cathy McIlwaine (Queen Mary, University of London)
2. 'Inside a Charity Bank: An Ethnographic Account of Risk, Ordering and Performing a Socio-Financial Narrative', Martin Buttle (University of Birmingham)
The Charity Bank (UK), formerly Investors in Society, was launched in October 2002, it is the first ever charity to be granted a banking license, making it unique as the only not for profit bank in the world. With deposits capped at 2% interest, made primarily by supportive individuals, the bank provide loan finance to charities and social enterprises that cannot find support from high-street banks. The emphasis of these investments is to support and create social capital in communities rather than to maximise financial return.
The bank is situated within a wider discourse on alternative forms of banking capitalism, which has its roots in organisations like the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. In practise, development knowledges interact with formal banking knowledges through a number of key staff with a background in development. Charity Bank is therefore an example of development geographies informing practise in the developed world.
Based upon extended participant observation within the bank, the paper analyses how the issues of being simultaneously a charity and a bank are being negotiated on a day-to-day basis. It explores how loan managers assess the risks of lending to charitable organisations that have unconventional funding, minimal reserves and complicated legal structures. Central to the argument is the identification of a narrative that the bank is constructing concerning the social benefits of a loan which is of equal status as financial information. The role of ordering and performance in the construction of a socio-financial narrative is fundamental to the way in which this bank articulates the relationship between its clients and spaces of financial lending.
3. 'Transnational Labour Markets and Filipino-Canadian Connections', Philip Kelly (York University, Toronto)
Economic geographers have made important contributions to our understanding of how labour markets function – emphasizing their social embeddedness and local specificity. I will argue that migration and capital flows result in a local labour market that must be conceptualized not just as a locally constituted system in which regulation and social processes are fundamentally important, but also one that is functionally linked with distant places through various forms of transnationalism. This argument draws upon ongoing research in Canada and in the Philippines. Exploring how labour market processes in both contexts are constituted in a transnational space has broader conceptual implications for our understanding of how space, scale and territoriality are constructed in a globalizing economy. It also speaks to both the application of mainstream concepts from ‘Northern’ economic geography in the global ‘South’, and to the problematic separation of ‘development’ and ‘economic’ geographies.
4. '‘Globalizing’ Regional Development: A Global Production Networks Perspective', Neil Coe et al. (University of Manchester)
Recent literature concerning regional development has placed significant emphasis on local institutional structures and their capacity to ‘hold down’ the global. Conversely, work on inter-firm networks - such as the global commodity chain approach - has seemingly been preoccupied with the organizational structures of global firms’ production systems and their relation to industrial upgrading. In this paper, we argue that more connections should be made between these globalizing processes, as embodied in the production networks of global firms, and regional development in specific territorial formations. Drawing upon the global production networks perspective, we develop a conceptual framework that conceives regional development in a globalizing context. We delimit the ‘strategic coupling’ of the global production networks of firms and regional economies, which ultimately drives regional development through the processes of value creation, enhancement and capture. In doing so, we stress the multi-scalarity of the forces and processes underlying regional development, and thus do not privilege one particular geographical scale. By way of illustration, we introduce an example drawn from recent research into global production networks in East Asia and Europe.
5. 'After the Exit: Entrepreneurial Recycling and Regional Economic Development', Colin Mason (University of Strathclyde)
The sale of a successful independent company by the founding entrepreneur is frequently viewed as detrimental to local and regional economic development, particularly in economically disadvantaged regions. Key concerns are: the loss of senior decision-making responsibilities (on investment, R&D, supply chain management), the consequences for future employment potential, and technology asset stripping where the acquired technology is transferred to other locations within the acquiring company. Much of the mergers and acquisitions and regional development literature supports these concerns. However, this negative view ignores the subsequent entrepreneurial activities of the newly-enriched founders. We suggest that these individuals go on to engage in other entrepreneurial activities: creating new companies (as serial entrepreneurs), joining the management team of other entrepreneurial ventures; assuming non-executive director roles, and becoming business angel investors. If this process of “entrepreneurial recyling” is common then it suggests a very different perspective on takeovers of local entrepreneurial companies. This paper explores the validity of the entrepreneurial recyling scenario through four detailed case studies of technology start-ups in Scotland that were acquired in the 1990s by non-Scottish businesses. In each case we track the subsequent activities of the founding team and key employee shareholders to illustrate the positive side of the acquisition of independent companies on regional economies by freeing up entrepreneurial individuals to engage in other entrepreneurial activities.
6. 'Economy, Development and the Commodity Chain', Alex Hughes (University of Newcastle)
This paper explores the problems and possibilities of dialogue between economic and development geographies through the study of commodity chains and networks. Global supply chains linking retailers and consumers in 'the North' with export producers in 'the South' have received much critical attention from academics and anti-globalisation protestors alike, with accompanying demands for more ethical trading practice. I argue that recent theoretical developments in both economic and development geography are central to an understanding of commodity chain dynamics and the politics of new ethical trading initiatives. First, it is suggested that the metaphor of the network, used widely in geographical studies of the economy, usefully problematises traditional notions of 'core' and 'periphery' in the context of global trading relationships. Second, it is suggested that critical research on the politics of the recent ethical trading movement would benefit from an engagement with debates on post-development and participatory approaches to development. The problems associated with incorporating such concepts and debates, as well as their potential, are discussed in the context of the author's ongoing empirical research on ethical trade.
7. 'Global Agendas and Donor Discourses: The Fijian Case', Paul Hodge (University of Newcastle, Australia)
With the demise of communism liberal democracy has emerged as the dominant ideology shaping contemporary donor discourses. A central tenet of liberal democracy is the ‘good governance agenda’ which has appropriated the language of participation and partnership. Vital to the functioning of the good governance agenda is the strenthening of civil society. Well governed civil society is thought to provide a link between economic liberalisation and democratisation. This paper critically examines these discourses and representations in relation to a PhD research project involving the work of NGO and donor agencies in Fiji. Within this agenda issues of ethnicity, tradition and gender are often subsumed. The emerging international consensus on what should be done has left ‘recipient’ countries in a tenuous position in terms of incorporating locally-specific concerns into development processes. The aim of the paper is to consider these issues in the context of the global policies of donor agencies.
8. Discussion
Convened with the PSGRG and China Group of the AAG
Thursday 4th September 9.00-11.00 and 15.45-18.00
Convenor: Fulong Wu, University of Southampton. Email: F.Wu@soton@ac.uk, or Ping Wang. Email: Y.Wang@eca.ac.uk.
Cities in transitional economies have undergone a phenomenal transformation. To what extent can this transformation be captured by the narrative of so-called 'market-transition'? Or, does the transition present more similarities to what have been seen in the cities under globalisation? The modules present the insights from urban CHina with regard to, but not limited to, urban development and governance, social inequality, spatial restructuring, and socio-economic implications. We particularly welcome comparative studies, both theoretically and empirically, to reposition the cities in transitional economies in a wider context.
Session 1: Urban Transition and the Impact of Globalisation. Thursday 4th September 9.00-11.00
Each presentation is given 15 minutes
1.'The city of transition: globalisation and transitional economies',
Fulong Wu (University of Southampton).
Nowadays, “globalization” and “marketisation” have become
meta-discourses to capture the post-socialist or late-socialist
transition. I begin my inquiry by asking whether there is a
qualitatively different process of urban development before and
after the transition in so-called “transitional economies,” a
concept often implying a thesis of “convergence” under global
forces. Then, I question whether the “city of transition” is so
unique that its study is irrelevant to the mainstream. My argument
is that the socialist extensive accumulation regime has been
transformed to a regime that is relying on greater flexibility and
scopes, in a similar way to the post-Fordist transition. The result
is a familiar re-configuration of urban space, with the emergence of
differentiated residential space, relying consumption as a driving
force and its glamorous landscapes, creation of space of
globalization (e.g. central business district), and contrasted
spaces of people migrated from different areas. In China’s case,
the latter refers to rural migrant settlements. All these cannot
afford to be ignored, or regarded as the “other” category, by
mainstream urban geographers. However, I am against the convergence
thesis, not simply because of geographical differences, but more
profoundly due to the diverse way of globalization interacting
with the city of transition, which is mediated through and
conditioned by historical and intuitional differences.
2.'Globalization & Urbanization in the China Triangle: Structural
Adjustment & Functional Differentiation of Shanghai, Taipei &
Hong Kong' Yin-Wang Kwok (University of Hawaii at Manoa)
This paper investigates the convergence of the development of
these three metropolises as they engage in the globalization process.
Competition and pragmatic adjustment direct the three metropolises
into different but complementary roles.Historically, these cities
found their modern origins in western colonialization of China in
the 1840s to 1870s. The initial internationally led development,
which made the city blossom into an industrial, business and social
center, gave Shanghai its economic prominence and glamorous sheen.
Taipei, a small remote provincial capital, started as a Japanese
colonial capital functioning as a military and administrative center
for the island colony. It was a political command post for
commercial control to advance the expanding imperial power. In
contrast, the fishing village under British rule, emerged as an
entrepot specializing in trade, and steadily attracted migration
from its adjacent province. Hong Kong started its development as a
struggling Cantonese town. With disparate beginnings, socialism and
the UN embargo of China, and separation of mainland China and Taiwan
in early '50s further diverted the development of the three cities.
After the re-opening and Economic Reform in China in late '70s, the
three cities joined the transnational developmental mode and were
brought into direct competition through globalization. Even with
very diverse growth paths, all now are cosmopolitan metropolises of
commerce, trade, finance, professional service and migration.
For almost two and a half decades, international investment, enterprises, professionals, once flooding Hong Kong, are now converging into Shanghai. Hong Kong's building boom in the '70s to '90s is now echoed in Shanghai. Taipei, developing through export industrialization, prospered as a major production and political center. Following Hong Kong's lead, its production plants were steadily transferred to China, now targeting the Shanghai region as their investment destination. The Asian Financial Crisis, which affects both Taipei and Hong Kong, shakes their confidence and swagger. In contrast, Shanghai regains its prominence as China's undisputed economic and production center and is poised for global challenges. The awakening of Shanghai, the Pearl of the Orient of the '20s and '30s, seems to be ready to takeover its southern and eastern upstarts. Taipei and Hong Kong have developed their respective global roles in technological development and financial professional services. Though under different political economic systems, the three urban economies intertwine and adjust, exploiting each other's comparative advantages for its own benefits.
The paper reviews the brief historical narrative in three periods - 1840s to late 1940s of initial separate growth, late 1940s t0 late 1970s of independent growth, and post 1980s of linked growth. With the earlier two periods as the context of the current development, the emphasis of the paper is in the latest period. The paper will trace the domestic and global causes and the spatial effects of the structural adjustment of the three metropolises. The political economy of functional differentiation of these cities is reviewed through the mutual utilization of each other's economy.
3. 'Globalization and the growth of Chinese cities' Cecile Batisse,
Jean-François Brun, Mary-Françoise Renard (Université d’Auvergne)
Since the beginning of the reform, China experienced a growing
urbanization process. This phenomenon is common to many countries.
But there are some specificities to the Chinese case, notably because
of the strong industrialization of rural areas, thanks to the TVEs.
One interesting question is to understand if urbanization is the
result of domestic variables and/or of international influences.
This paper will try to understand how openness may affect
urbanization, either directly or through its impact on other
variables. In a previous paper, we found a negative relationship
between openness and urbanization and this paper will go a step
further with a new data set at the city level.
We will use panel data econometrics. The control variables will include structural variables, as for instance the importance of State Owned Enterprises and variables assessing domestic policy, for instance, infrastructure, education…. The impact of the international environment will be captured through FDI and foreign trade. The main sources for data are Urban Statistical Yearbook (different years) and Cities China 1949-1998.
4. 'Beijing as an ‘Internationalised Metropolis’ Ian G. Cook (Liverpool
John Moores University)
In 1995 at the Symposium on International Urbanisation in China,
Yan Mingfu noted that ‘Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Tianjin all
have the possibility to be developed into internationalised
metropolises’. This paper focuses on how far Beijing has realised
this possibility, and on what lessons can be learnt from this
process of transformation. Features of a truly international
metropolis, or global city, would include some or all of the following
characteristics:
· headquarters of TNCs
· international banks,
stock exchange and international accountancy firms
· elite retail facilities
· world-class hotels
· international communications infrastructure
· significant government ministries and/or NGO headquarters
· international renown and tourist attractions which include
global events
· elite property market
· effective environmental strategy
· world-class universities and R&D
· diverse ethnic base, multicultural
· effective place marketing strategy
· good governance including citizen participation
· policy to tackle social polarisation via community
involvement.
Beijing has, or is developing, many of these features, becoming a
city of consumption rather than the mainly producer city of the
Maoist era. Much of its international prominence comes from being
the seat of government of this huge country, while it also benefits
from the related historical legacy of the Great Wall, Forbidden
City, Temple of Heaven and other international-class tourist
attractions. The successful bid for the Olympics of 2008 will
further boost the international recognition which China’s rulers
crave, and a bid for the World Cup of 2010 is also under way.
The Lufthansa Centre in North East Beijing and the World Trade
Centre on Jianguomengwai Dajie offer global facilities, as do the
Sun Dong An Plaza and the Oriental Plaza in Wangfujing. As regards
human resources, Pannell (2002) has recently noted the focus on
‘advancing knowledge-based technologies through the creative use of
highly skilled human capital’. Meanwhile, serious efforts are
being made to tackle such environmental problems as air pollution,
water shortage and the impact of dust storms caused by
desertification to the West of the city. All such features suggest
that internationalisation has progressed markedly, and I am aware
via my frequent fieldcourses to the city in the last decade that the
city is much changed since my first visits (twice) in 1992,
coincident with the designation of Beijing as one of those 6 cities
(plus 5 SEZs) which could encourage limited FDI
(Wang and Jones, 2002).But what issues remain? There are
concerns about the intrinsic quality of new developments.
In their study of Beijing’s retail structure for example, Wang and
Jones note that while in retailing the city has attracted overseas
capital, it ‘has not necessarily obtained state-of-the-art,
retail-oriented information technology, merchandising techniques,
and management expertise’. In my own work and that with Geoff Murray
(Cook 2000, Cook and Murray 2001, Murray and Cook, 2002) I have
explored a range of political, social, economic and environmental
limitations on China’s urban trajectory, including that for Beijing
itself. For example, we quoted an official with the North Star
Shopping Centre who complained that expansion has been hampered by
credit facilities having ‘Bureaucratic procedures that forces
applicants to undergo strict, time-consuming personal credit
evaluations, as well as unappealing interest rates’. In similar
vein, concerns about reforms of SOEs and of medical and old-age
insurance for example, combine with traditional norms of thrift to
introduce a note of caution among Beijingers to limit their
personal expenditure. Then there is the perennial question of
governance, and attitudes of outside investors, perhaps especially
US investors, to China’s one-party state, with the question of human
rights abuse looming large. China may well be in transition, but
as far as Urban China is concerned we must ask, transition to what?
Where exactly is Beijing heading, and how far does it still have
to go to become a truly international metropolis?
5. 'To Build a World City in Semi-periphery: Can Shanghai Make it?'
Qiyu Tu (Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai)
Just within several years, Shanghai, the economic engine of China, rises as a new star in international arena. Shanghai’s economic record is impressive so as her cultural life. After the successful bid of EXPO 2010, the whole world is looking for the next move of this Oriental Pearl.According to China’s national development strategy, China will build a well-off society, whose per capita GDP reaches $2400 by 2020. And by 2050 China is supposed to reach her long-term objective of high-income country with GDP ranking of the 2nd largest economy in the world. Then, only by building a world city and acting as a key basing point of globalized economy, should Shanghai keep contributing impetus.However Shanghai’s dream as World City faces at least 2 challenges. Firstly it has been introduced as a principle that no world city has ever been built in developing countries. And the world cities network belongs to a globalized economy and post-industrialized society. Secondly the national context of Shanghai’s World City dream is that the urbanization and industrialization are the main themes of China for at least another decade. And Shanghai herself still depends mainly on the manufacture sector for profit so far.Therefore to climb along the world cities hierarchy onto the tope level and serve China’s national objective, Shanghai needs to find a scaling ladder of extremely height.
6. 'The Limits of Globalization in the Development of Macau as
a Space for Transition.' Philippe Foret (Swiss National Science
Foundation, Zurich)
Macau provides a very interesting case for the empirical study of urban processes in a setting that is neither national nor regional. I am exploring in Macau an alternative to the present market economy in China proper. My paper discusses the strategy followed by the Harbour Works Department of Macau and other government agencies as the city has sought to reposition itself as an international trade center. I examine Macau's spatial transformations since the opening of the Porto exterior facilities, in 1928, review the tactics used to promote a new global image, and seek explanations for results that most developers would have found disappointing. I am testing the validity of assumptions on progress, modernity, globalization, and the local cost of urban development, with the hope that I may thus add a counter-point to the recent literature on China.
7. 'Shanghai: a globalized golden ghetto in a Chinese garden'
Guillaume Giroir (Université d'Orléans)
Particularly in metropolis. Chinese space globalization actually involves a wide cultural dimension. However, as a great civilization, China is not the passive receptacle of external influences. China transforms outside influences according to its own traditions, values and representations. (Fengdanbailou bieshu), near Pudong airport (Shanghai). We will firstly try to identify outward signs of western influence, mainly through villas architecture. We will next bring out the chinese elements of this landscape, especially garden art and fengshui practices. Lastly, we will propose different interpretations of this culturally mixed landscape.
8. 'Consumerism and Citizenship in New Public Spaces: China’s
Global Cities.' Steven W. Lewis (Rice University, Houston).
As recent research has demonstrated, each wave of liberalization in the global economy provides opportunities for parallel transformations in the political and economic structures of major metropolitan centers. “Global cities” London, New York and Tokyo have responded to the current wave by creating similar, new forms of organization that centralize their control over much of the international flow of capital, commodities, labor, technologies and ideas. Scholars of many disciplines have speculated that these cities will continue to command the heights of the global economy because they possess unique, network-oriented forms of economic organization that can adapt rapidly to capture the benefits of trade in information and information services.
And yet as urbanization accelerates, other urban populations are coming to serve as influential mediators living and working at new crossroads of national and global circulations, and some of these are forming among people who already share such cultural institutions as language, religion, philosophy, ethnicity and social norms of organization. This trend is particularly clear in Asia, where China’s economic growth has seen both the explosive development of Beijing and Shanghai, and their increasing integration with Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei, regional “global cities” that are home to their most intimate trade, investment and production partners.
At the same time, the decentralization of nation-state authority in the context of globalization has created new incentives and organizational structures for urban governments and political actors to experiment with new media of communication. Through advertising in such new public spaces as subways, local political and commercial leaders are working together to shape a distinctly cosmopolitan image of “consumer citizenship” in order to elicit popular support for official and private local development agendas.
This paper examines the interplay of the production of images of transnational, national and local lifestyle identification by political and economic actors among global cities in China and Asia. I draw upon surveys of political and commercial advertisements from subways in Beijing (1998-2001), Shanghai (1998-2001), Taipei (1999-2001), Singapore (1999-2001) and Hong Kong (2001), and then examine the degree to which they share common form, content and language. I conclude with speculation about how this interplay between political and economic consumerism will affect future public discourse among Asia’s global cities.
9.'Study on the new economic sector development in Second tier
Big Cities within the Metropolitan region: Case study of Suzhou,
Wuxi, Changzhou' Chen Wen (Nanjing Institute of Geography & Limnology)
& Xiang Junbo (Qinghua University, Beijing).
The second tier big cities within the metropolitan region, just ranking after the primary city in the size, are the most active and innovative new industrial agglomerating areas. The big cities such as Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou within the Shanghai Metropolitan region have given priority growth to manufacturing expansion, nevertheless, with the shortage of local R&D and service system and much dependence on Shanghai’s R&D and service system,thereby have weakened the city industrial employment supply, as well as the urban competitive ability due to the high transaction cost. . Withal, the paper has analyzed the impacts of the industrial change on the urbanization capacity and sustainable ability with the demand-supply equilibrium models. Then, the paper has applied the industrial organization theory in the industrial division among cities and put forward that the second tier cities and primary city would share the development of the new economic sectors, such as high tech industry and modern services with differential-supply horizontal division, so as to promote the second tier cities to management/control level. Final the paper analyzed the development condition, feasibility and foreground of the high tech industry and modern service development in Cities of Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou.
Session 2: Economic, Social and Cultural Transition. Thursday 4th September, 15.45-18.00
1. 'Poverty and social segregation in China' Ya Ping Wang (Heriot-Watt University)
2. 'Using Fuzzy Urban Sets to Characterize Urbanization in
China' Eric J. Heikkila (University of Southern California)
From the perspective of the Chinese government, continued urbanization is a top priority for China’s economic development. A central question in this regard concerns the appropriate spatial form and distribution of urbanization. The desakota land use pattern that is characteristic of Southeast Asia, China, and other rapidly urbanizing regions is notable for its urban-rural ambiguity. While much work has been done by urban geographers to understand and to document this phenomenon, less has been accomplished by way of systematic measurement of peri-urbanization. Indeed, the very nature of the phenomenon defies ready categorization and measurement and renders conventional measures obsolete.
This paper introduces the notion of fuzzy urban sets, a very natural formulation for desakota settings, the constituent parcels (or pixels) of which may exhibit varying degrees of inclusion in the set of urban parcels. This approach leads to three distinct yet integrated measures of urbanization for any given study area, represented by a fuzzy set U:1. extent of urbanization -- the aggregate level of membership in the fuzzy set U;2. level of fuzziness -- the overall degree of ambiguity regarding membership in U;3. degree of entropy – uniformity of membership in U.Characterizing (remote sensing images of) urbanizing regions as fuzzy urban sets provides a single integrated perspective from which these three distinct measures are simultaneously defined. Building on recently published work in this area, this paper proposes a systematic program to document and characterize emerging urbanization patterns as they unfold in China. This in turn should provide a more solid empirical platform for scholars in this field to probe more deeply into the underlying issues pertaining to urbanization.
3. 'Segregation and Integration in Chinese Urban Labour Market'
Yunyan Yang (Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, Hubei)
In Chinese urban labour market, Hukou system has long been an important institutional barrier to protect the displaced rural labour from entering scarce urban occupations, most of them can only find jobs in the low end of occupation queues, forming Hukou segregated labour market. As the market-oriented reform expands further to most of urban industries, more and more jobs are open to competitors both from rural and local residents, employment conflict emerges in the transitional urban labour market. This paper aims at exploring the degree of job replacement in the urban sector by the rural labour, assessing the situation of segregation and integration process in Chinese urban labour market, and examining possible policy implications. As a empirical study, our study will compare two major groups alone the Hukou status. We choose Wuhan, a major city in central China as our study case and use the year 2000 census micro-data to analyze the pattern of occupational structures and the roles of institutional and human capital factors in the process of job-channeling. The preliminary results show that the scale of outside labour has accumulated to considerable scale, but the segregation pattern keeps unchanged. Rural labours face not only strong institutional barrier, but high human capital threshold in their efforts of integration into urban world.
4. 'Institutional Reform in the Provision of Public Services
in Hong Kong: An Efficiency Evaluation' Richard M Walker (Cardiff
University) and Lin Hing Li (Hong Kong University)
Management reform in Hong Kong has intensified over recent years (e.g. HKSAR, 1999, TFRCSPPS, 2002). The aim of this paper is to explore the extent to which efficiency frameworks, previously rejected as offering explanatory power in Hong Kong (Cheung, 1996a, b) are now able to do so. The efficiency frameworks of public choice theory and new institutional economics are drawn upon.
The paper focuses on the public policy arena of housing, land and planning services, where two major reforms have been promulgated, the Private Sector Involvement (PSI) initiative and the ‘Report on the Institutional Framework for Public Housing’ (RIFPH). The PSI has transferred the management of around 400,000 existing public rental units to the private sector (Walker and Li, 2002) through a process of competitive tendering and reduced the size of the Housing Department. The recently published RIFPH proposes to shift the balance for low cost housing provision towards the market whilst restructuring the government departments that co-ordinate the provision of housing, land and planning services to the people of Hong Kong.
Evidence presented from a longitudinal study that commenced in 2000 to suggest that efficiency theories now explain the types of reforms adopted. In particular, emphasis is placed upon the introduction of competition to break up public monopolies, reducing the size of large bureaucracies and taking advantage of the skills and resources of the private sector. These efficiency-seeking reforms now reflect those adopted elsewhere in the world. It is argued that these reforms have been introduced in the early twenty-first century because Hong Kong has faced its first sustained economic downturn in its history whilst its boarder with China has become more open allowing a freer movement of people and goods. Conclusions highlight the layers of theories and factors driving reform, which leave the previous conditions and institutional arrangements discussed by Cheung and Lee still in place—efficiency reforms are the newest layer.
5. 'Urban Health Care Reform in China: The Impact on Vulnerable
Groups' Chen Jiaying (Nanjing Medical University), Henry Lucas
(Institute of
Development Studies, UK), Gong Youlong (Fudan University, Shanghai),
and Gerry Bloom (Institute of Development Studies, Uk)
China has implemented radical reforms in health finance and social security systems. Health facilities have much greater autonomy than in the past and rely primarily on user charges. The cost of services has risen rapidly. People with inadequate insurance no longer have access to health services on the basis of need. This paper presents findings from a three-year project aimed assessing how changes in health finance have affected access to services in urban areas.
The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of reforms on four social groups that the government has identified as of specific interest to social policy: poor households, laid-off workers, the elderly, and migrant families.
The research was based on a geographically based sample survey of around 500 households in each of two middle-size cities, Nantong in Jiangsu Province and Zibo in Shandong Province. A questionnaire based study looked at two-week sickness episodes and chronic health problems and health service utilisation amongst the sample households. The analysis focused on the influence of age, sex, household income, employment and health insurance arrangements on access to health care and the financial burden of chronic disease.
There were considerable differences in access to health services between the groups. Poor and elderly households had the highest illness rates and prevalence of chronic disease. They had high health expenditures in both cities but paid less out of pocket in Nantong because most of the elderly had health insurance. Illness rates among the poor were highest in all age bands. Poor households, particularly those not officially classified as poor, faced the greatest difficulties in gaining access to health care. Migrant families almost always had to pay directly for health care, but were typically young and healthy and in many cases were earning incomes that allowed them to meet health care costs. Laid off workers usually had notional membership of health care schemes but these often failed to assist or delayed payment for long periods. The study did not find major differences in access to health care between men and women.
6. 'Revivification of Shrines —Urban Planning And The Rise of
Religious Civil Society in Contemporary Shanghai.'
Tao Jiang (University of New South Wales)
This proposed article is to research the existence of a civil society made up of religious groups in contemporary Shanghai, and its capacity to provide various social services. The competitive and cooperative relationship between the state and religious civil society with regard to the delivering of these services will also be studied to examine the relation between the formation of urban social and physical landscape. It also examines the roles economical, political and ideological factors fulfill in the urban transformation against the background of vehement cultural confliction between different religious traditions. The organizational structure, collective behavior and social effect of different religious congregations, mainly constituted with Buddhism, Christian and Taoism groups will be examined to research the spatial implication of religious practice of human to urban landscape and urban planning. The cooperation and contradiction among different religious institutions in Shanghai will also be studied and the state intervention through spatial configuration and planning regulation examined.
As religious civil society developed and its relationship with the state evolved in Shanghai, various spatial requirements emerged, original urban structure cannot accommodate the activities of the religious congregations anymore. The state controls the provision of urban space and the procedure of urban planning, make use of these tools to configure the spatial thereby social relations between different interest groups, including religious civil society. During this process, there is cooperation between the state and religious civil society to deliver certain municipal services, which lightened the burden on the state to fulfill these tasks alone as before. But the state is also aware of the subversive potential and political energy of the religious groups, especially those with western links. So the state at the same time by the means of urban planning and space control limits the activities of religious civil society to its own ends. In this article I will take the development of Falungong Movement as case to study how the state control religious civil society by means of urban planning.
7. 'Urbanisation in West China: High and New Technological Industry
and Human Resource Structure'
Wu Bin (Seafarers International Research Centre, Cardiff University)
and Li Janqun (Xian Jiaotong University)
Urbanisation in west China is different from other regions due to many factors (e.g. geography, resources, history, economy and political factors), of which high and new technology (H & N technology) and industrialisation cannot be underestimated. Regarding the irrational distribution of human resources in the past, this paper draws attention to the impacts of H & N technology industry in the adjustment of regional human resource reconstruction. Many questions rise in this regard: related to the impacts of planed economy in the past, what characteristics of human resource distribution can be distinguished between West and East China? How has the H & N technology changed the route of urbanisation in west China in general, and reshaped local human resource systems in particular? What experience and lesson can be learnt from H & N technology development in west China? To address above issues, a tailored survey will be conducted in Xian, a modelling city in west China. Besides secondary information collection, fresh data includes: the contrast between traditional and high technology employment; the distribution and trend of H & N technology relevant employment in last ten years; cases studies of two emerging industries (agriculture and IT). Linked with the regeneration of western municipalities, the implications for both policy inducement and foreign investment are discussed.
8. 'Towards an understanding of Chinese urban landscapes:
a morphological perspective' Kai Gu and J.W.R. Whitehand
(University of Birmingham)
Social and economic changes associated with the 1978 reforms have contributed to rapid urbanisation in China. Much has been written about the recent development of Chinese cities, but there has been little systematic investigation of their urban landscapes. By applying urban morphological thinking, this study examines the transformation of the physical form of the Chinese city and refers to preliminary findings of a study of the city of Haikou.
In the analysis of spatial structure, the fringe-belt concept provides a means of putting order into the complexity of urban development.Among the forces influencing the urban landscape, the political and economic policies initiated by central and local government and changes in global and regional economies are of major significance. This study suggests that the discrepancy between planning and reality is a pressing problem.
The findings will contribute to urban morphological theory by extending the range of application of concepts developed in the Western World to a markedly different cultural region. They will contribute to the modelling of Chinese urban landscape changes during rapid urbanisation and to the incipient body of thought about urban planning reform and urban development management in China.
9. 'From public housing to social housing: the housing reform
of in transitional China'
Tao Wang (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
The twenty years of housing reform in China have been studied extensively from the perspective of commercialisation. In most of the studies, the housing reform in China was described as a continuous approximation to a market system. Accordingly, the focal point has usually been the incompleteness of marketisation; interpretations of and suggestions on the problems have been mostly given in the perspective of perfecting the market system.
It is argued in this article, the transformation from public housing system to a new social housing system is equally important to the commercialisation process. The historical contexts before the economic reforms and the consequent social impacts have imposed increasing demands on affordable housing which could not be met by the young housing market. Therefore, the development of housing policies is interpreted as a process of recognising these questions and changing the old public housing into a social housing system to answer these needs.
The start point of the analysis is the widely recognised phenomenon of the ‘work-unit housing welfare’ in the literatures on the housing reform in China. Different from the explanation that state intervention is reluctant to withdraw, the argument of this article is that work-units are the substitutional housing providers for the unmet social housing needs which neither a new housing market nor a withdrawing state intervention can provide at certain stages of the housing reform. A study on the key policies of the housing reform is conducted to illustrate the gradual recognition of the social housing demands and the muddling through to an appropriate answer.
Convened with the PGF
Wednesday 3rd September 15.45-18.00
Convenor: Ben Page, UCL. Email: b.page@ucl.ac.uk
Across Africa access to reliable safe drinking water and sanitation facilities remains a pressing challenge in both urban and rural contexts. Current development policy sees private sector participation in water supply as key to raising levels of investment in infrastructure and transforming the quality of water management. This has brought water to the forefront of political debates in many African states. This conference session will look at the early results of private sector participation through a range of case studies from across the continent. It will address the influence of the history of water management on contemporary institutions and on the privatization process. It will look at the ways in which water policies articulate with politics (conceived in a variety of ways) at different scales and from a variety of perspectives.
1.‘Water Liberalisation and the Humanitarian Crisis in Northern Uganda’ Simon Addison (University of Oxford)
2.‘Water privatisation in sub-Saharan Africa: Progress, problems and policy implications’ Kate Bayliss (University of Greenwich)
3.‘Water by Qualification: Unravelling Differential Ser
4.‘The South African Free Water Commodity’ Alex Loftus (University of Oxford)
5.‘Examining Links between the Urban Poor Communities and Sanitation Agencies: A Study of Zambia and South Africa’ Martin Mulenga (University of Southampton)
6.‘Petrifying Communities: water, chieftaincy and ‘local reality’ in Lagos’ Ben Page (University College London)
7.‘Water Policy and Integrated Water Resource Management in South Africa’ Ilse Steyl (University of Southampton)
8. Discussant Richard Taylor (University College London)
Wednesday 3rd September 15.45-18.00
Convenors: Dr Jenny Hill, Dr Wendy Woodland, Dr Alan Terry (UWE, Bristol). Email contact: Alan.Terry@uwe.ac.uk
1. 'Decentralised Governance and the Authoritarian state: community forestry management in Myanmar (Burma) as a case study.' Smrithi Talwar (Department of Geography, University of Cambridge)
2. 'Frameworks for Community-based Rangeland Degradation Assessment for the Kalahari Botswana.' Andrew Dougill and Mark Reed (School of the Environment, University of Leeds)
3.'Participatory Non-formal Education in the Annapurna Conservation Area Project: promoting local level sustainable development.' Sara Parker (School of Social Science, Liverpool John Moores University)
4.'The Diversity and Dynamics of Gendered Natural Resource Investment in West African Rural Livelihoods: the case of Niger.' Henry Osbahr (Department of Geography, University of Sheffield)
5.'Subterranean Settlements in Southern Tunisia: environmental and cultural controls on sustainability.' Wendy Woodland, Jenny Hill and Alan Terry (UWE, Bristol)
6.'Land Cover Outcomes over 20 years of Post-resettlement Experience in Zimbabwe.' Jennifer Elliott (University of Brighton), Dominik Kwesha (Zimbabwe Forestry Commission) and Bill Kinsey (Free University of Amsterdam)
7.'Does High Indebtedness Increase Natural Resource Exploitation?' Eric Neumayer (Department of Geography and Environment, LSE)
8.'Sustainability, Green National Accounting and Deforestation.' Giles Atkinson (Department of Geography and Environment, LSE) and Kirk Hamilton (Environment Department, The World Bank)
This page was last updated on 17 July 2003 by
Dr Katie Willis
Email: kwillis@liv.ac.uk