Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency

Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency
Author: John D. Kelly
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2010-04-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226429954

Global events of the early twenty-first century have placed new stress on the relationship among anthropology, governance, and war. Facing prolonged insurgency, segments of the U.S. military have taken a new interest in anthropology, prompting intense ethical and scholarly debate. Inspired by these issues, the essays in Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency consider how anthropologists can, should, and do respond to military overtures, and they articulate anthropological perspectives on global war and power relations. This book investigates the shifting boundaries between military and civil state violence; perceptions and effects of American power around the globe; the history of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice; and debate over culture, knowledge, and conscience in counterinsurgency. These wide-ranging essays shed new light on the fraught world of Pax Americana and on the ethical and political dilemmas faced by anthropologists and military personnel alike when attempting to understand and intervene in our world.

Constellations of Inequality

Constellations of Inequality
Author: Sean T. Mitchell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2017-12-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 022649943X

Winner of the 2018 Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Brazil Section Book Prize In 1982, the Brazilian Air Force arrived on the Alcântara peninsula to build a state-of-the-art satellite launch facility. They displaced some 1,500 Afro-Brazilians from coastal land to inadequate inland villages, leaving many more threatened with displacement. Completed in 1990, this vast undertaking in one of Brazil’s poorest regions has provoked decades of conflict and controversy. Constellations of Inequality tells this story of technological aspiration and the stark dynamics of inequality it laid bare. Sean T. Mitchell analyzes conflicts over land, ethnoracial identity, mobilization among descendants of escaped slaves, military-civilian competition in the launch program, and international intrigue. Throughout, he illuminates Brazil’s changing politics of inequality and examines how such inequality is made, reproduced, and challenged. How people conceptualize and act on the unequal conditions in which they find themselves, he shows, is as much a cultural and historical matter as a material one. Deftly broadening our understanding of race, technology, development, and political consciousness on local, national, and global levels, Constellations of Inequality paints a portrait of contemporary Brazil that will interest a broad spectrum of readers.

Militarism and International Relations

Militarism and International Relations
Author: Anna Stavrianakis
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0415614910

Militarism and international relations in the 21st century -- Twenty-first century militarism : a historical-sociological framework / Martin Shaw -- Challenging cartographies of enmity : empire, war and culture in contemporary militarization / Simon Dalby -- Militarism, "new wars" and the political economy of development : a Gramscian critique / Nicola Short -- War becomes academic : human terrain, virtuous war and contemporary militarism: an interview with James der Derian / Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby -- From Oslo to Gaza : Israel's "enlightened public" and the remilitarization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict / Yoav Peled -- From political armies to the "war against crime" : the transformation of militarism in Latin America / Dirk Kruijt and Kees Koonings -- The global arms trade and the diffusion of militarism / David Kinsella -- Wilsonians under arms / Andrew J. Bacevich -- The political economy of EU space policy militarization : the case of the global monitoring for environment and security / Iraklis Oikonomou -- Producing men, the nation and commodities : the cultural political economy of militarism in Egypt / Ramy M.K. Aly -- The Chinese military: its political and economic function / Kerry Brown and Claudia Zanardi.

Reluctance in World Politics

Reluctance in World Politics
Author: Sandra Destradi
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2023-07-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 152923025X

Why do international actors, including powerful states, often fail to develop clear foreign policies and instead adopt indecisive, ‘muddling-through’ approaches? This book develops a concept and a theory of reluctance in world politics. Applying it to the study of regional crisis management by leading powers, it finds that reluctance emerges when governments fail to devise clear foreign policy preferences and face competing international pressures. The study of reluctance in world politics sheds new light on some of the most pressing problems of our time, from weak crisis management to cooperation deficits in global governance.

Worlding Brazil

Worlding Brazil
Author: Laura Lima
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2014-12-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317984269

This book looks at the development of thinking about security in Brazil between 1930 and 2010. In order to do so, it develops a new framework for thinking about intellectual history in Brazil and applies it to the development of knowledge on security in that country. Building on the Gramscian literature on ‘late modernization’ and ‘conservative revolution’ and drawing on the idea of ‘Emotional Theory of Action’ proposed by Brazilian sociologist Jessé Souza, this book sets out to establish an innovative framework with which to analyse the development of ‘thinking about security’ in Brazil in three specific historic contexts. This theoretical framework is then used to argue that one specific discourse of Brazilian identity has been the main source of knowledge production in that country since the 1930s. In doing this, the book offers thought-provoking arguments about the role of intellectuals in Brazil and reassesses the exclusionary ideas embedded in the politics of identity and security. This book not only introduces a novel framework to analyse intellectual production outside the core, it also sheds light on how security has been historically thought of outside the core and will be of interest to students and scholars of International Relations, Critical Security Studies and Latin American Studies.

Biotic Diversity in Agroecosystems

Biotic Diversity in Agroecosystems
Author: D. Pimentel
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2012-12-02
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0444596763

The preservation of biodiversity is a high priority among biologists, ecologists and environmentalists. The impact that human activities have on biodiversity is clear; however, few studies have focused on the importance of biodiversity to natural and agricultural ecosystems. In fact, many natural species are essential to sustainable agricultural programs. A new school of thought is appreciating the ecological principles and benefits that diversity of natural biota have for humans and the environment. Landscape ecology and agroecology can play a major role in protecting the environment and conserving biological diversity. The practical opportunities for improving the sustainability of agriculture and making it more environmentally sound were discussed at the Symposium on Agroecology and Conservation Issues, from which 22 papers were collected for this volume. Strategies for increasing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes are provided alongside discussion that agriculture will continue to spread into forests, to meet the growing need for food. Although humans recognize the value of crop and livestock species, few really appreciate the fact that agriculture and forestry cannot function in a productive sustainable way when significant numbers of species in natural biota are lost.

Extractive Reserves in Brazilian Amazonia

Extractive Reserves in Brazilian Amazonia
Author: Catarina A.S. Cardoso
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2018-02-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1351733281

This title was first published in 2003: Despite their growing political significance, the linkages between local resource management and the global political economy are often poorly understood. This book addresses these linkages in a grounded analysis of extractive reserves : areas in Brazil set aside for local populations who depend on natural resources for their livelihood. Extractive reserves are the result of the struggle of the rubber tappers for control over their natural resources and worldwide concern with the conservation of the Amazon Rainforest. The author examines their significance for Brazil as a pioneering legislative and policy initiative to combine conservation with productive use of natural resources, to recognize common property rights to natural resources, and to support traditional populations’ modes of production. Extractive Reserves in Brazilian Amazonia examines the formation and institutional sustainability of the reserves, and in so doing provides a valuable insight into the relationship between local institutions and the wider socio-political and economic context with regard to forest management.

Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist

Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist
Author: Larry Rohter
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2023-05-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1324021276

“Rohter’s crisp biography is a welcome addition to the new, more inclusive canon.” —Rachel Slade, New York Times Book Review A thrilling biography of the Indigenous Brazilian explorer, scientist, stateseman, and conservationist who guided Theodore Roosevelt on his journey down the River of Doubt. Cândido Rondon is by any measure the greatest tropical explorer in history. Between 1890 and 1930, he navigated scores of previously unmapped rivers, traversed untrodden mountain ranges, and hacked his way through jungles so inhospitable that even native peoples had avoided them—and led Theodore Roosevelt and his son, Kermit, on their celebrated “River of Doubt” journey in 1913–14. Upon leaving the Brazilian Army in 1930 with the rank of a two-star general, Rondon, himself of indigenous descent, devoted the remainder of his life to not only writing about the region’s flora and fauna, but also advocating for the peoples who inhabited the rainforest and lobbying for the creation of a system of national parks. Despite his many achievements—which include laying down a 1,200-mile telegraph line through the heart of the Amazon and three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize—Rondon has never received his due. Originally published in Brazil, Into the Amazon is the first comprehensive biography of his life and remarkable career.