Social conflict and the making of a globalized place at Roşia Montană

Social conflict and the making of a globalized place at Roşia Montană
Author: Filip M. Alexandrescu
Publisher: Pro Universitaria
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2020-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 6062611939

The book provides a theoretically informed case study on the transformation of the experience of place in the two decades old conflict over the Roșia Montană mine in Romania. First, the case study is set within a political economy approach of mining places before and during globalization. The second theoretical approach used to illuminate the transformations of place is anthropological and draws on Clifford Geertz’s (1979) distinction between experience-nearness and experience-distance. Both these theoretical strands are employed to explain transformations in the experience of place and the subsequent making of a globalized place. In contrast to the majority of social-scientific research on Roșia Montană, which has used this case to illustrate broader arguments in political ecology or environmental justice (e.g. moral economies, degrowth or transnationalism), this book explores the shifting discourses and practices of various local and extra-local actors and how these have shaped the meanings of this place. Without claiming to be impartial, the book offers a critical interpretation of both corporate and social movement discourses as they shape the experience of place. The arguments are fleshed out using extensive empirical material (66 individual respondents being mentioned in the analysis) and contextualized interpretations of their views. The book concludes by arguing that Roșia Montană can offer a contemporary version of what Doreen Massey (1991) has called a ‘progressive notion of place’, one which will increasingly render extractive projects, both in Romania and worldwide, as critical nodes in a web of socio-ecological struggles and open-ended change.

Liminality and Critical Event Studies

Liminality and Critical Event Studies
Author: Ian R. Lamond
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-03-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030402568

This book explores and challenges the concept and experience of liminality as applied to critical perspectives in the study of events. It will be of interest to researchers in event studies, social and discursive psychology, cultural and political sociology, and social movement studies. In addition, it will provide interested general readers with new ways of thinking and reflecting on events. Contributing authors undertake a discussion of the borders, boundaries, and areas of contestation between the established social anthropological concept of liminality and the emerging field of critical event studies. By drawing these two perspectives closer together, the collection considers tensions and resonances between them, and uses those connections to enhance our understanding of both cultural and sporting events and offer fresh insight into events of activism, protest, and dissent.

Government–NGO Relationships in Africa, Asia, Europe and MENA

Government–NGO Relationships in Africa, Asia, Europe and MENA
Author: Raffaele Marchetti
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2018-04-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351117483

This volume brings together some of the most recent scholarship on government and civil society. It examines the axis of the relationship between national governments and civil society organisations (NGOs) by highlighting commonalities as well as differences among four key regions in the world. Using the stability vs. instability framework, the book explores a range of pertinent issues, including human rights, development, foreign policy, state-building, regime change, governance frameworks, wars and civil liberties. It studies diverse situations, from those entailing comprehensive cooperation to those involving politically contentious and revolutionary activities. With case studies from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), this volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of political science, global politics, international relations, sociology, development studies, global governance and public policy, as well as to those in the development sector and NGOs.

Microsociological Perspectives for Environmental Sociology

Microsociological Perspectives for Environmental Sociology
Author: Bradley H. Brewster
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317096762

Environmental sociology tends to be dominated by macrosociological theories, to the point that microsociological perspectives have been neglected and ignored. This collection of original work is the first book dedicated to demonstrating the utility of microsociological perspectives for investigating environmental issues. From symbolic interactionism to actor–network theory, from dramaturgy to conversation analysis, from practice theory to animism, a variety of microsociological perspectives are not only drawn upon but creatively applied and developed, making this collection not only a contribution to environmental sociology, but to microsociological theory as well. The authors address such topics as the treatment of waste, human–animal relations, science and industry partnerships, environmental social movements, identities, and lifestyles, eco-tourism, the framing of land, water, and natural resources, and even human conceptions of outer space. Bringing together diverse scholars, perspectives, and topics, Microsociological Perspectives for Environmental Sociology opens the field up to new approaches and initiates much needed dialogue between environmental sociologists and microsociologists. It will appeal not only to sociologists, but to environmental scholars across the social sciences interested in enriching their theoretical repertoire in studying the social aspects of the environment.

Global Insurrectional Politics

Global Insurrectional Politics
Author: Nevzat Soguk
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2018-03-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1315459035

The recent Arab uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East have attracted scholarly attention as popular movements with novel transnational and religious dimensions. What became known as the Arab Spring can be read as part of a broader politics of normative defiance of predominant political and economic orders. From religious militations, to Indigenous sovereign claims, to mobilizations of refugees and migrants in camps and urban settings, it may be possible to speak, more generally, of contemporary insurrectional politics as social movements that emanate from normative positions that pose significant challenges to systemic orders as we know them. The purpose of this book is (a) to identify the material shifts giving rise to insurrectional politics, (b) to reflect on key arenas of insurrection, (c) to map/chart the impact of insurrectional movements on institutions and relations of political governance at national and global levels, and (d) to explore analytics that will advance theorization of insurrectional politics. The book aims to generate new knowledge on systemic institutional transformations spanning the national and global by bringing together scholars whose work combines theoretical inquiry with empirical analysis of contemporary insurrectional politics. This title was previously published as a special issue of Globalizations.

Dislocation: Awkward Spatial Transitions

Dislocation: Awkward Spatial Transitions
Author: Philip Cooke
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2021-05-18
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 100038781X

Today, the world is in the most serious turmoil it has experienced for many centuries. These multiple crises arise from the fundamental mistreatment by capitalist competition of the carrying capacity of the planet. Even before coronavirus, evidently morbid symptoms of over-development led many spatial planners to write of the threat of a new Dark Age. Many advocated a return to policy decentralisation as the Covid-19 crisis demonstrated once again the failure of ‘global controller’ mindsets to manage complex systems successfully. Dislocation: Awkward Spatial Transitions is a critical exploration of where spatial development processes and rules have gone wrong across many economies. The chapters lay out which mindsets have been responsible for this and gives pointers to new practices that aim to ameliorate the effects of past failings. In the first nine chapters, a mapping of key elements of the prevailing omni-crisis are summarised. These range from an exegesis of the Anthropocene, the rise of populism, the transition to neoliberalist anti-planning, and migration as planning issues with pleas for evolutionary change in spatial policy and process dynamics. Finally, a group of chapters explores the flailing as territorial governances tried to plot the rise of creative cities, 4.0 era industry and services, and in the built form, the role of 'starchitects' in city renewal. In the last part, attention is devoted to territorial innovation, knowledge recombination, sustainable mobility and, finally, green entrepreneurship, as necessary elements of a post-coronavirus, climate change mitigation and sustainable mobility set of survival strategies. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal European Planning Studies.

Elgar Encyclopedia of Ecological Economics

Elgar Encyclopedia of Ecological Economics
Author: Emilio Padilla Rosa
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 559
Release: 2023-09-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 180220041X

With diverse contributions from over 100 authors around the globe, this comprehensive Encyclopedia summarises the developments of ecological economics from the fundamental contributions to the more recent methodological debates in the field. It provides an expansive list of topics including sustainable development, the limits to growth, agroecology, implications of thermodynamic laws for economics, integrated ecologic-economic modelling, valuation of natural resources and services, and renewable and non-renewable resources management. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

Protests as Events

Protests as Events
Author: Ian R Lamond
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2014-11-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1783480785

Can activism be considered a leisure activity? Can the Occupy movement, local campaigns for change and lone acts of personal resistance be understood as events? Within the field of Events Management the content of events is generally analyzed within three categories—culture, sport or business. Such a typology can be helpful as a heuristic for interpretation and analysis within a commercial paradigm. However, this framework overlooks and depoliticizes a significant variety of events, those more accurately construed as protest. Protests as Events is the first book to explore activism as a leisure activity and protests as events; using a fresh interpretation of event to develop a new critical politics of events and leisure. Bringing together a range of cutting edge research from around the world, it explores a variety of protests through the lens of events studies and leisure in order to understand how the study of events management might be conceptualized in the protest space.

Corporate Diplomacy

Corporate Diplomacy
Author: Witold J. Henisz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2017-09-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351287869

Managers of multinational organizations are struggling to win the strategic competition for the hearts and minds of external stakeholders. These stakeholders differ fundamentally in their worldview, their understanding of the market economy and their aspirations and fears for the future. Their collective opinions of managers and corporations will shape the competitive landscape of the global economy and have serious consequences for businesses that fail to meet their expectations. This important new book argues that the strategic management of relationships with external stakeholders – what the author calls "Corporate Diplomacy" – is not just canny PR, but creates real and lasting business value.Using a mix of colourful examples, practically relevant tools and considered perspectives, the book hones in on a fundamental challenge that managers of multinational corporations face as they strive to compete in the 21st century. As falling communication costs shrink, the distance between external stakeholders and shareholder value is increasingly created and protected through a strategic integration of the external stakeholder facing functions. These include government affairs, stakeholder relations, sustainability, enterprise risk management, community relations and corporate communications. Through such integration, the place where business, politics and society intersect need not be a source of nasty surprises or unexpected expenses. Most of the firms profiled in the book are now at the frontier of corporate diplomacy. But they didn’t start there. Many of them were motivated by past failings. They fell into conflicts with critical stakeholders – politicians, communities, NGO staffers, or activists – and they suffered. They experienced delays or disruptions to their operations, higher costs, angry customers, or thwarted attempts at expansion. Eventually, the managers of these companies developed smarter strategies for stakeholder engagement. They became corporate diplomats. The book draws on their experiences to take the reader to the forefront of stakeholder engagement and to highlight the six elements of corprate diplomacy.