Sustainable Communities

Off-grid Mobilities: Incorporating a Way of Life

by Phillip Vannini

Published in Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies

Drawing from sensory ethnography, the present multimodal writing—accompanied by photography and digital... more Drawing from sensory ethnography, the present multimodal writing—accompanied by photography and digital video—documents and interprets the mobilities of off-grid living on Lasqueti Island, British Columbia, Canada. The data presentation focuses in particular on the embodied experience of off-grid inhabitation, highlighting the sensory and kinetic experiences and practices of everyday life in a community disconnected from the North American electrical grid and highway network. The mobilities of fuel and energy are presented in unison with ethnographic attention to the taskscape of everyday activities and movements in which off-grid islanders routinely engage. The analysis, based on Tim Ingold's non-representational theory on place, movement, and inhabitation, focuses on how the material and corporeal mobilities of off-grid life body forth a unique sense of place.

Case study: cool communities| Macquarie University ResearchOnline

by Daniella Tilbury

Exploring Community Sustainability Potential In Nature Based Tourism: The Far South Coast Nature Tourism and Recreation Plan

by Simon Darcy

Schweinsberg, S., Wearing, S., & Darcy, S. (2007, 11-14 February). Exploring Community Sustainability Potential in Nature Based Tourism: The Far South Coast Nature Tourism and Recreation Plan. Paper presented at the Tourism - Past Achievements, Future Challenges, Manly - Sydney Australia.

Often nature tourism development is viewed as a path to changing the economic industry base, security, and by... more Often nature tourism development is viewed as a path to changing the economic industry base, security, and by implication towards creating community sustainability in rural areas. This paper argues that a sole focus on economic growth is too narrow a representation of the linkages between the tourism industry and host communities. It asserts that community sustainability is better seen as an integrating, encompassing concern for the cultural, social, economic and environmental sustainability potential of the community in a particular locality. The objectives of the 2004 Far South Coast Nature Tourism and Recreation Plan are presented as a means of illustrating the challenge in developing a sustainable future for Australian rural communities.
Keywords: Nature tourism, community sustainability, social impact assessment, Far South Coast Nature Tourism and Recreation Plan

Changing Lives to Tackle Climate Change: Why do people adopt and maintain a sustainable lifestyle?

by Sustainable Communities Research Group

A research briefing by Sarah Hards

Climate change and the transition to a “green economy” are major concerns for policy and research. Individual... more Climate change and the transition to a “green economy” are major concerns for policy and research. Individual behaviour change has played an important part in UK environmental policy over the last decade, with attention recently focussing on controversial “nudge” approaches. However, we do not fully understand why people adopt and maintain sustainable lifestyles. This summary report presents findings from recently completed postgraduate research that addresses this issue.

What Is the Environmental (Ecological) Dimension of “Intentional Communities”?

by Dario Abram

Glipses of a Better World: The role of the tangata whenua, community & voluntary sector in the Canterbury Earthquake recovery

by Garth Nowland-Foreman

Paper presented to "Our Future Community and Voluntary Sector Forum" Hosted by Council of Social Services Christchurch & Te Runaka ki Otautahu Kai Tahu, 28 July 2011. 

THE CENTRE FOR MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER

by Owais Rajput

Education as Re-embedding: Stroud Communiversity, Walking the Land and the Enduring Spell of the Sensuous

by Molly Scott Cato

Sustainability, 3/1 (2010): 51-68
Co-authored with Jan Myers

How we know, is at least as important as what we know: Before educationalists can begin to teach sustainability, we... more How we know, is at least as important as what we know: Before educationalists can begin to teach sustainability, we need to explore our own views of the world and how these are formed. The paper explores the ontological assumptions that underpin, usually implicitly, the pedagogical relationship and opens up the question of how people know each other and the world they share. Using understandings based in a phenomenological approach and guided by social constructionism, it suggests that the most appropriate pedagogical method for teaching sustainability is one based on situated learning and reflexive practice. To support its ontological questioning, the paper highlights two alternative culture’s ways of understanding and recording the world: Those of the Inca who inhabited pre-Columbian Peru, which was based on the quipu system of knotted strings, and the complex social and religious system of the songlines of the original people of Australia. As an indication of the sorts of teaching experiences that an emancipatory and relational pedagogy might give rise to, the paper offers examples of two community learning experiences in the exemplar sustainable community of Stroud, Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom where the authors live.

DAYLIGHTING AND URBAN FORM: AN URBAN FABRIC OF LIGHT

by Mark DeKay

Two Different Scales of Bioclimatic Design: 1 City-1 House (greek version)

by Sofia Tsagkera

«Ένα σπίτι ή μία πόλη είναι ένα οικοσύστημα το οποίο παρέχει ένα βασικό τοπικό βιότοπο για τους ανθρώπους,... more «Ένα σπίτι ή μία πόλη είναι ένα οικοσύστημα το οποίο παρέχει ένα βασικό τοπικό βιότοπο για τους ανθρώπους, δημιουργώντας το δικό του μικροκλίμα, ενώ θα πρέπει να τους παρέχει, όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερο, άνεση και τροφή… Σε
κάθε επίπεδο, ο σχεδιαστής ή όποιος παίρνει αποφάσεις
θα πρέπει να προσπαθεί να μεγιστοποιεί το ποσοστό της
αυτονομίας του οικοσυστήματος, ενώ ταυτόχρονα, θα βελτιώνει τις ποιότητες που ενισχύουν τη ζωή».
(Barton et al, 1995)

Η παρακάτω ερευνητική εργασία εκπονήθηκε με σκοπό να
παρουσιάσει δύο εκφάνσεις της αειφορίας σε διαφορετικές
κλίμακες. Από τη μία μεριά, είναι οι αποφάσεις που πρέπει
να ληφθούν κατά το σχεδιασμό ενός αστικού κέντρου και,
από την άλλη, οι αρχιτεκτονικοί χειρισμοί που πρέπει να γίνουν κατά το σχεδιασμό μιας κατοικίας.

Community-based cultural tourism: Issues, threats and opportunities

by Noel B. Salazar

Salazar, Noel B. 2012. Community-based cultural tourism: Issues, threats and opportunities. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 20(1):9-22.

In community-centered cultural tourism, the encounter with the ‘Other’ is central and the role of professional... more In community-centered cultural tourism, the encounter with the ‘Other’ is central and the role of professional intermediaries in facilitating this experience crucial. Tour guides are often the only ‘locals’ with whom tourists spend a considerable amount of time. These tourism service workers have considerable agency in the image-building process of the peoples and places visited. They not only shape tourist imaginaries but indirectly influence the self-image of those visited too. Using ethnographic examples from long-term fieldwork in Tanzania, this paper scrutinizes how local guides handle their public role as ambassadors of communal cultural heritage and how communities variously react to their tourismifying narratives and practices. Selected modules from the well-established and award-winning Cultural Tourism Program (CTP) are taken as an instructive case study. Findings reveal multiple issues of power and resistance that help us grasp what is at the root of many community-centered tourism conflicts and how these can be overcome.

Proposal: Partnership for Healthy Watershed Management Training in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico (Funded at $500,000)

by Brian Kermath

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) through the TIES program managed through Higher Education in Development (HED). Written by Brian Kermath with Wes Halverson. Submitted in April 2005.

According to a number of basic economic indicators, the policies that followed the signing of the North American Free... more According to a number of basic economic indicators, the policies that followed the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by Canada, Mexico, and the United States in 1992 appear to have boosted Mexico’s economy. Yet, despite its recent successes, Mexico is plagued by development challenges. Its income distribution is among the world’s worst, a steady stream of migrants from the countryside continue to flood Mexico’s larger cities and the U.S., thereby causing urban and foreign relations challenges, its forests are being depleted, its water resources are being degraded, and its rich biodiversity is seriously threatened.

Unfortunately, these trends are likely to continue unless Mexico succeeds at forging sustainable, land-based livelihoods in underprivileged regions, especially those with large percentages of indigenous people. In 1996, Mexico amended its environmental legislation (LGEEPA) making sustainable development a national priority. Later, under the U.S./Mexico Partnership for Prosperity, U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox committed an action plan to promote economic development in the parts of Mexico where growth has lagged and fueled migration.

This partnership between the Global Environmental Management Education Center (GEM) at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP), the Oaxacan based NGO Estudios Rurales y Asesoría Campesina (ERA), the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM, or Monterrey Tech), and the Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo (UACh) was conceived in response to the above challenge and to the USAID Mexico Country Plan’s focus areas #1) Economic growth (including natural resource management) and #4) Educational exchange and scholarships. The partnership specifically addresses the TIES II focus area III (Environment) program area 2 (Community Based Watershed Management) in recognizing the importance of maintaining healthy watersheds as a prerequisite for sustainable development. This partnership will address these development needs especially in the areas of non-consumptive forest utilization through watershed management, agroforestry, and the valuation of ecosystem services in 10 small indigenous communities of the Río Grande watershed in the underprivileged Sierra Norte region of Oaxaca in southern Mexico.

Coming Soon to a City Near You! Learning to Live 'Beyond Growth' In Japan's Shrinking Regions

by Peter Matanle

Co-authored peer reviewed journal article.

Matanle, P. and Sato, Y. (2010) Coming soon to a city near you! Learning to live 'beyond growth' in Japan's shrinking regions, Social Science Japan Journal, 13 (2): 197-210.

This article analyses rural depopulation in Japan and its implications by means of a case study of Niigata Prefecture... more This article analyses rural depopulation in Japan and its implications by means of a case study of Niigata Prefecture and Sado Island. In the first part of the article we present population maps to show that rural demographic shrinkage is both deepening as well as broadening to include urban centres. We focus initially on Niigata Prefecture in the national context and then discuss migratory patterns in Sado. The data show that Sado, and now Niigata Prefecture as a whole, have entered what we call a 'double negative population disequilibrium', whereby both the migratory and natural reproduction population contributions have turned negative. Recent evidence also indicates that Niigata City itself may also have begun to shrink. In the second part we discuss the implications of depopulation for Sado Island via extracts from qualitative interviews gathered from local residents. We found that many residents now accept the inevitability of continued shrinkage and, rather than seeking to re-establish growth, many institutional and social and environmental entrepreneurs are instead working towards achieving community stability and sustainability. We conclude by suggesting that the example of Japan's rural communities presents Japan's regional cities with the occasion to consider life 'beyond growth', as their populations also begin to shrink in the years to come.

Dissertation: Shaping Topographies of Home: A Political Ecology of Migration

by Carylanna Taylor

Final version submitted to ProQuest.

Even from afar, transnational migrants influence how their households and communities of origin use natural resources.... more Even from afar, transnational migrants influence how their households and communities of origin use natural resources. This study depicts the circulation of people, funds, and ideas within transnational families that extend from a Honduran village to the United States.  Developing a “political ecology of migration” approach, I show how these circulations can reshape resource use practices and the socio-economic and bio-physical topographies of emigrants’ former homes. The project advances anthropological thought by linking rich literatures on political ecology and transnationalism through a multi-method ethnography of transnational families. The study is also relevant to emigrants, community members, and practitioners interested in incorporating emigrants and remittances into development and conservation projects.

The multi-sited project is anchored in a 380-household Honduran village, located in Cerro Azul Meámbar National Park, and encompasses the movement and practices of its residents and emigrants, including two secondary study sites in the United States. Research began with four focus groups. These formed the basis for 51 household village-wide structured interviews on experiences, practices, and beliefs related to remitting, migration, communication, farming, and natural resource use.  I worked closely with four of these families in Honduras and at their emigrant family members’ homes in south Florida and Long Island, New York. Through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and diaries tracking remittances and discourse through phone conversations, the multi-sited project traces transnational flows of funds, people, and ideas within the families.
The ethnography highlights factors that shape, encourage, or impede emigrants’ participation in natural resource management and development activities, as well as unintended socio-economic and environmental consequences of their actions.

Study participants spend remittances not only on more commonly documented health, education, housing, and food, but also on a number of areas that directly impact the socio-natural landscape:  farm inputs, cattle-ranching, land, labor, firewood collection, and a village-wide potable water project.  How money is earned, sent, and spent is affected by emigrants’ perceptions of home – perceptions shaped by phone calls, visits, nostalgia, precarious economic and immigration status, plans to return, and dreams of a better future for themselves and their children. Some environmental impacts are directly related to spending decisions, such as the decision to buy agrochemicals. In other cases, impacts arise from  nonmonetary relationships, such as lending land.

The study’s political ecology of migration approach shows how emigrants’ remitting and communication practices within transnational family networks translate into material, landscape impacting practices in their households and village of origin.
The study contributes to a more nuanced treatment of material practices and places in migration research and provides political ecology with a network based approach to capturing transnational dynamics impacting local livelihoods and landscapes. Ethnographic understanding of these dynamics has the potential to assist researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to take migrants into account in development of interventions and as well as to understand how their practices and beliefs shape and reshape the topographies of their current and original homes.

Mutualism, Eco-Design, Political Ecology, Climate Change Talk given to the 'Design after the Gift Symposium' Parsons, The New School for Social Research, New York, April 1st 2011

by Damian White

Talk given to the Design after the Gift Symposium at the New School, Parsons. An attempt to think about the gift,... more Talk given to the Design after the Gift Symposium at the New School, Parsons. An attempt to think about the gift, mutualism, political ecology, Bookchin, Colin Ward, eco-design, humanism after post-humanism and post apocalytic modes of eco-design. All work in progress but comments (+/-) more than welcome.

Damian F.White Bookchin - A Critical Appraisal Pluto Press 2008 (Introduction)

by Damian White

Introduction to my book on Bookchin. Introduction to my book on Bookchin.

Hierarchy Domination Nature Critical Theory Social Ecology and Historical Inquiry

by Damian White

Historical social theory, nature and the domination of nature debate - Bookchin, the production of space/nature (Smith/Lefebvre) and beyond...bits on stones and bones and the early environmental histories of early humans....issues I am still very interested in......The paper posits a natural affinity between Neil Smith's production of nature thesis and much of empirical work emerged in archeology and anthropology on early humans and their environment....It would seem to me that we have been involved in the production of nature much longer than is commonly recognized (it didn't just start with capitalism/modernity) and this has real implications for how we think critical theory & critical ecological theory.

D White, Alan Rudy, C.Wilbert Anti Environmentalism -Promethians, Contrarians and Beyond 21st August 2005.doc

by Damian White

A review/summary/appraisal of the thinking of anti-environmental/ecoskeptic/contrarian currents.

A Political Sociology of Socionatures

by Damian White

Getting stuck into the grow or die/treadmill of production/ecological modernization, political ecology/new ecology/skepticism debate around political economy. Wrote this five years ago and I'm still amazed by how little US environmental sociology and political ecology engage with each other. It's almost as if they live in different worlds.....

Post Industrial Possibilities and Urban Social Ecologies

by Damian White

Thinking about the legacy of Murray Bookchin after his death for environmental social theory and politics. Yes, he could be a big pain in the ass. However, his focus on urban ecology, post Malthusian social ecological politics, post scarcity focus, ecological humanism and attempt to initiate a discussion about the need for a 'green industrial revolution' was seminal and still unacknowledged and much of his broad aspirations were proposing an much more interesting agenda than anything being proposed in much environmental sociology, cultural geography or political science.