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Coal mining is known for its contributions to climate change, but its impacts on the environment and human lives near mine sites are less widely recognised. This study integrates remote sensing, GIS, stakeholder interviews and extensive review of provincial data and documents to identify patterns of infringement, risk and impact driven by coal mining expansion across East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Specifically, we map and analyse patterns of mining concessions, land clearing, water cover, human settlement, and safety risks, and link them with mining governance and regulatory infractions related to coal mining permits. We show that excessive, improper permit granting and insufficient monitoring and oversight have led to deforestation, widespread overlaps of concessions with settlements, extensive boundary and regulatory violations, lacking reclamation, and numerous deaths. As the world's largest thermal coal exporter, Indonesia's elevated coal infringements, risks, and impacts translate to supply chain, sustainability, and human rights concerns for global coal markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing demand for minerals continues to drive deforestation worldwide. Tropical forests are particularly vulnerable to the environmental impacts of mining and mineral processing. Many local- to regional-scale studies document extensive, long-lasting impacts of mining on biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, the full scope of deforestation induced by industrial mining across the tropics is yet unknown. Here, we present a biome-wide assessment to show where industrial mine expansion has caused the most deforestation from 2000 to 2019. We find that 3,264 km² of forest was directly lost due to industrial mining, with 80% occurring in only four countries: Indonesia, Brazil, Ghana, and Suriname. Additionally, controlling for other nonmining determinants of deforestation, we find that mining caused indirect forest loss in two-thirds of the investigated countries. Our results illustrate significant yet unevenly distributed and often unmanaged impacts on these biodiverse ecosystems. Impact assessments and mitigation plans of industrial mining activities must address direct and indirect impacts to support conservation of the world's tropical forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the mid-2000s, Honduras and El Salvador implemented mining moratoria. By 2017 El Salvador had legislated a globally unprecedented ban on all forms of metal mining, while in Honduras mining was expanding aggressively. These neighboring countries present the explanatory challenge of understanding the distinct trajectories of mining policy and politics. These divergent pathways can be explained by the interactions between the political economy of subsoil resources, national political settlements, and the ways in which diverse actors have taken advantage (or not) of openings in these settlements.A mediados de la década del 2000, Honduras y El Salvador implementaron moratorias mineras. Para el 2017, El Salvador había legislado una prohibición sin precedentes a nivel mundial de todas las formas de minería de metales, mientras que en Honduras la minería se estaba expandiendo agresivamente. Estos países vecinos presentan el desafío explicativo de comprender las distintas trayectorias de la política minera y la política. Estas vías divergentes pueden explicarse por las interacciones entre la economía política de los recursos del subsuelo, los acuerdos políticos nacionales y las formas en que diversos actores han aprovechado (o no) las aperturas en estos acuerdos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mineral and hydrocarbon extraction and infrastructure are increasingly significant drivers of forest loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and threats to the rights of forest communities in forested areas of Amazonia, Indonesia, and Mesoamerica. Projected investments in these sectors suggest that future threats to forests and rights are substantial, particularly because resource extraction and infrastructure reinforce each other and enable population movements and agricultural expansion further into the forest. In each region, governments have made framework policy commitments to national and cross-border infrastructure integration, increased energy production, and growth strategies based on further exploitation of natural resources. This reflects political settlements among national elites that endorse resource extraction as a pathway toward development. Regulations that protect forests, indigenous and rural peoples' lands, and conservation areas are being rolled back or are under threat. Small-scale gold mining has intensified in specific locations and also has become a driver of deforestation and degradation. Forest dwellers' perceptions of insecurity have increased, as have documented homicides of environmental activists. To explain the relationships among extraction, infrastructure, and forests, this paper combines a geospatial analysis of forest loss overlapped with areas of potential resource extraction, interviews with key informants, and feedback from stakeholder workshops. The increasing significance of resource extraction and associated infrastructure as drivers of forest loss and rights violations merits greater attention in the empirical analyses and conceptual frameworks of Sustainability Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mining disrupts: it ruptures the boundary between the surface and the sub‐surface, it upsets pre‐existing modes of living on the surface, it changes biogeochemical, social and economic flows across surfaces, and it transforms imaginations of the future. Mining not only moves mountains, it also moves people – physically, emotionally, politically and economically. Some people leave, some refuse to get out of the way, some carry on, some stay but build new livelihoods, and others arrive in pursuit of the livelihoods made possible by this particular form of development. Development also disrupts: it modifies modes of living and social organization, it alters relations between humans and nature, it deepens the integration of places into broader flows of finance and ideas, and it shifts ideas about the future. Development is also implicated in the forced, voluntary and induced movement of people. Analytically, mining and development are therefore not dissimilar. This paper works from this similarity to suggest concepts for thinking about the relationships between mining, movement and development. These concepts are drawn from literature in Human Geography, Rural Territorial Development and Development Studies. It then uses these concepts to frame the relationships between mining and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: In response to predominantly local and private approaches to landscape change, landscape ecologists should critically assess the multiscalar influences on landscape design.Objectives: This study develops a governance framework for Nassauer and Opdam’s “Design-in-Science” model. Its objective is to create an approach for examining hierarchical constraints on landscape design in order to investigate linkages among urban greening initiatives, patterns of landscape change, and the broader societal values driving those changes. It aims to provide an integrative and actionable approach for landscape sustainability science.Methods: This framework is examined through an ethnographic study of public policy processes surrounding the urban tree initiatives in Boston, MA; Philadelphia, PA; and Baltimore, MD.Results: These initiatives demonstrate the impact of political and economic decentralization on urban landscape patterns. Their collaborative governance approach incorporates diverse resources to implement programming at a fine-scale. The predominant tree giveaway program fragments the urban and regional forest.Conclusion: Spatial and temporal fragmentation undermines the long-term security of urban greening programs, and it suggests reconsideration of the role of state regimes in driving broad scale spatial planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally there is an increasing focus on the private sector as a significant development actor. One element of the private sector’s role emphasised within this new focus has been corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, whereby the private sector claims to contribute directly to local development. There is now a substantial body of work on CSR but it is a literature that is mostly polarised, dominated by concerns from the corporate perspective, and not adequately theorised. Corporations typically do development differently from NGOs and donors, yet the nature and effects of these initiatives are both under-researched and under-conceptualised. In this paper we argue that viewing CSR initiatives through a community development lens provides new insights into their rationale and effects. Specifically we develop a conceptual framework that draws together agency and practice-centred approaches in order to illuminate the processes and relationships that underpin corporate community development initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs) herald a new phase for international development. This article presents the results of a consultative exercise to collaboratively identify 100 research questions of critical importance for the post-2015 international development agenda. The final shortlist is grouped into nine thematic areas and was selected by 21 representatives of international and non-governmental organisations and consultancies, and 14 academics with diverse disciplinary expertise from an initial pool of 704 questions submitted by 110 organisations based in 34 countries. The shortlist includes questions addressing long-standing problems, new challenges and broader issues related to development policies, practices and institutions. Collectively, these questions are relevant for future development-related research priorities of governmental and non-governmental organisations worldwide and could act as focal points for transdisciplinary research collaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We suggest the value of considering Pacific Latin America and the South Pacific in relationship to each other in contexts of climate change and investment in extractive industry. The paper explores the interactions between extractive industry, climate change and environmental governance through the lenses of double exposure, double movements, resilience and risk. The first part of the paper addresses the nature and scope of investments in extractive industries in this 'other Pacific'. The geography of these investments is changing the actual and perceived distribution of exposure and risk in the region. The nature of this risk is also being affected by climate change and its implications for the geographies of water and land-use. Much of the contention surrounding extractive industries can be understood as conflicts over the unequal distribution of this risk, how to interpret its significance and the ways in which resilience might be enhanced to respond to it. The final section of the paper discusses the ways in which mining governance and governance for resilience converge and, on the basis of recent experiences in El Salvador, analyses the difficulties in governing extractive industry in a way that manages risk and builds resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2000s, the Madre de Dios Region of southern Peru has experienced rapid expansion of both licit and illicit mining activities, in the form of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). ASM typically takes place in remote, inaccessible locations and is therefore difficult to monitorin situ. This paper explores the utility of Landsat-5 imagery via decision tree classification to determine ASM locations in Madre de Dios. Spectral mixture analysis was used to unmix Landsat imagery, using WorldView and QuickBird l imagery to aid spectral endmember selection and validate AMS maps. The ASM maps had an overall area-weighted accuracy of 96% and indicated a large proportion of illicit ASM activity (~65% of all ASM in the study area) occurring outside the permitted concessions. Holistic visual comparison of ASM output maps with reference imagery showed that these methods produce reasonable, realistic maps of mined area extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability science has grown as a field of inquiry, but has said little about the role of large-scale private sector actors in socio-ecological systems change. However, the shaping of global trends and transitions depends greatly on the private sector and its development impact. Market-based and command-and-control policy instruments have, along with corporate citizenship, been the predominant means for bringing sustainable development priorities into private sector decision-making. This research identifies conflict as a further means through which environmental and social risks are translated into business costs and decision making. Through in-depth interviews with finance, legal, and sustainability professionals in the extractive industries, and empirical case analysis of 50 projects worldwide, this research reports on the financial value at stake when conflict erupts with local communities. Over the past decade, high commodity prices have fueled the expansion of mining and hydrocarbon extraction. These developments profoundly transform environments, communities, and economies, and frequently generate social conflict. Our analysis shows that mining and hydrocarbon companies fail to factor in the full scale of the costs of conflict. For example, as a result of conflict, a major, world-class mining project with capital expenditure of between US$3 and US$5 billion was reported to suffer roughly US$20 million per week of delayed production in net present value terms. Clear analysis of the costs of conflict provides sustainability professionals with a strengthened basis to influence corporate decision making, particularly when linked to corporate values. Perverse outcomes of overemphasizing a cost analysis are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses scholars' relationships with government and public institutions' policy of providing international economic assistance towards economic development. The social boundaries between scholars and governments' policies on international economic development are discussed. An overview of the role that scholars' ideas play in government policy implementation is provided. An overview of relationship between government policy implementation and the knowledge derived from government policy research is also provided.

Copyright of Peripherie is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We compare conservation outcomes between a protected area (PA) and four indigenous common-property regimes (CPRs) under differing degrees of market integration in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We first assess how market forces and common-pool resource institutions governing processes of forest conversion affect biodiversity and forest cover, and whether institutions mitigate the effect of market forces. We then analyze how biodiversity and forest cover differ between a PA, and communities with different market access. Finally, we link biodiversity and forest cover changes within communities to differences in land-use practices. While we show similar levels of forest cover and biodiversity between the PA and large CPRs with little access to local markets, institutions appear not to attenuate market effects on conservation outcomes in our case studies. We discuss results within a common-property theory context and highlight the importance of disentangling how market integration, common-pool resource institutions, and resource health interact over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indicator taxa are commonly used to identify priority areas for conservation or to measure biological responses to environmental change. Despite their widespread use, there is no general consensus about the ability of indicator taxa to predict wider trends in biodiversity. Many studies have focused on large-scale patterns of species co-occurrence to identify areas of high biodiversity, threat or endemism, but there is much less information about patterns of species co-occurrence at local scales. In this study, we assess fine-scale co-occurrence patterns of three indicator taxa (epiphytic ferns, leaf litter frogs and dung beetles) across a remotely sensed gradient of human disturbance in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We measure the relative contribution of rare and common species to patterns of total richness in each taxon and determine the ability of common and rare species to act as surrogate measures of human disturbance and each other. We find that the species richness of indicator taxa changed across the human disturbance gradient but that the response differed among taxa, and between rare and common species. Although we find several patterns of co-occurrence, these patterns differed between common and rare species. Despite showing complex patterns of species co-occurrence, our results suggest that species or taxa can act as reliable indicators of each other but that this relationship must be established and not assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the literature on common-pool resources has focused on elucidating the social mechanisms and local institutions that lead to the regulation of common-pool resources. There is much less information about how management regimes translate into environmental impacts or how environmental impacts influence the emergence of management decisions. We use quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the link between forest condition, agricultural change and the emergence of common-pool resource management regimes in two indigenous Kichwa communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We show that forest condition is linked to agricultural production and that the perception of common-pool resource scarcity influences the emergence of management regimes. We argue that population pressure, market forces and resource scarcity, which are usually associated with measures of agricultural change can also promote the emergence of common-pool resource management regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing environmental change is often constrained by time, money and expertise. Community-based monitoring schemes attempt to address these limitations by providing local communities with the skills to measure changes in natural resources and contribute locally relevant information for local and regional management decisions. Despite the increasing popularity of community-based monitoring schemes, there is little information about the accuracy of the data they produce. In this study we use visual guides and hands-on training to teach groups of leaders from local communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon to measure the species richness of ferns. We compare their results to data obtained by experienced field biologists and show strong positive correlations in species richness estimates between the results obtained by groups receiving visual guides, groups receiving hands-on training and biologists. Our results show that, even with relatively little training, communities can use simple and cost-effective methodologies to yield data that accurately reflect levels of species richness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen increasingly aggressive expansion of extractive industry in the Andean-Amazonian region. Reminiscent of the film Avatar, this expansion drives conflicts over land, territory and political control of space. This expansion is occurring in both overtly neoliberal regimes and in self-consciously post-neoliberal ones. This essay documents the convergence among the different regimes' ways of governing extraction and socio-environmental conflicts. We draw on Executive level statements and policy positions as well as on statements by indigenous peoples' organisations. Among the reasons for this apparent convergence are: long-standing resource curse effects; the need to generate resources to finance social policy instruments that are integral to the governments' overall political strategies; power and information asymmetries among companies and governments; and international relations. The convergences among Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru regarding the governance of extraction and the conflicts that it catalyses suggests the need for great critical caution before using the terminology of post-neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2008, the Department of Tarija became the epicenter of national political struggles over political autonomy for lowland regions at odds with the Morales administration. In September, following a series of regional referenda on autonomy and a national recall election, citizen committees in Tarija mobilized urban-based sectors and organized a general strike against the central government. It is unhelpful to understand the strike as simply an act of political sabotage orchestrated by racist regional elites. The factors driving protest and interest in autonomy are varied and deeply related to patterns of hydrocarbons extraction in the department that have allowed for the mobilization of grievances and the cultivation of resource regionalism at departmental and intradepartmental scales. Alongside class and ethnicity, identities of place and region can be equally important in processes of mobilization, and the resonance of these spatialized identities is particularly important in resource-extraction peripheries [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Global consumption continues to generate growth in mining. In lesser developed economies, this growth offers the potential to generate new resources for development, but also creates challenges to sustainability in the regions in which extraction occurs. This context leads to debate on the institutional arrangements most likely to build synergies between mining, livelihoods, and development, and on the socio-political conditions under which such institutions can emerge. Building from a multiyear. threecountry program of research projects, Peru, a global center of mining expansion, serves as an exemplar for analyzing the effects of extractive industry on livelihoods and the conditions under which arrangements favoring local sustainability might emerge. This program is guided by three emergent hypotheses in humanenvironmental sciences regarding the relationships among institutions, knowledge, learning, and sustainability. The research combines in-depth and comparative case study analysis, and uses mapping and spatial analysis, surveys, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and our own direct participation in public debates on the regulation of mining for development. The findings demonstrate the pressures that mining expansion has placed on water resources, livelihood assets, and social relationships. These pressures are a result of institutional conditions that separate the governance of mineral expansion, water resources, and local development, and of relationships of power that prioritize large scale investment over livelihood and environment. A further problem is the poor communication between mining sector knowledge systems and those of local populations. These results are consistent with themes recently elaborated in sustainability science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the World Bank's 2009 World Development Report (WDR), which focuses on the spatial transformations that must happen for countries to develop. It discusses several concerns and social issues to be considered in reshaping economic geography. Moreover, the report provides several argumentation on re-energizing geography's place in understanding economic and human development.

The article discusses economic geography and economic development in Latin America. The extraction of natural resources such as gold, silver, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, bauxite, tin, petroleum, cacao, cotton, rubber, coffee, fruit, and wool are examined in a historical context. International financial institutions, risk management for private investors, and the development of infrastructure such as roads, waterways, and airports are also mentioned. The South American Regional Initiative for Infrastructural Integration (IIRSA) is mentioned as one of the major initiatives in terms of coordinated infrastructural transformation on the continent.

The article focuses on the interplay of politics in mining project conflicts. It discusses relevance of Betsy Olson and Andrew Sayer's article, which according to the author provides a perspective of government endorsement of mining activities in Piura, Peru to generate revenues. Issues on what constitutes "good" development are examined since it tries to rationalize legal arguments on the consequences of mining to the environment and the defined rights of the locals to secure property. Moreover, the author agrees with Olson and Sayer in saying that one cannot identify anything as oppressive unless he or she determines what constitute well-being or justice.

The last decade and a half has witnessed a dramatic growth in mining activity in many developing countries. This article reviews these recent trends and describes the debates and conflicts they have triggered. The authors review evidence regarding debates on the resource curse and the possibility of an extraction-led pathway to development. They then describe the different types of resistance and social mobilization that have greeted mineral expansion at a range of geographical scales, and consider how far these protests have changed the relationships between mining and political economic change. The conclusions address how far such protests might contribute to an ‘escape’ from the resource curse, and consider implications for research and policy agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the impacts of water and mining conflicts in Peru's water quality and quantity. It notes One mine site in the country where water has become an issue, the Rio Blanco Project in the Department of Piura, along the border with Ecuador, involving a British-registered company Monterrico Metals PLC. that causes local livelihood sustainability to the solvency of national government, thus, it has been monitored by various organizations. In response, the article provides a detailed proposal for a monitoring plan to recovery trust among the organizations involved and ensuring the local's water quality and quantity.

The article offers the author's views regarding the relationship of social capital and the state of Peru. It talks about the ways in which debates on social capital have handled state-society relationships and gives an account of how and why social conflicts and mobilization creates a discussion on state building. It presents insights on the social problems experienced by the extractive industry and its impact to the state. The factors that explain the change in state building, as well as suggestions on how to enrich social capital discussions of the state, are also offered.

Discussions of chronic poverty emphasize the extent to which poverty endures because of the social relationships and structures within which particular social groups are embedded. In this sense chronic poverty is a socio-political relationship rather than a condition of assetless-ness. Understood as such, processes of social mobilization become central to any discussion of chronic poverty because they are vehicles through which such relationships are argued over in society and potentially changed. This article explores the ways in which social movements, as one form of such mobilization, might affect chronic poverty. Four domains are discussed: influencing the underlying dynamics of the political economy of poverty; challenging dominant meanings of poverty in society; direct effects on the assets of the poor; and engaging with the state. The inherent fragilities of social movements limit these contributions, the most important of which is to destabilize taken-for-granted, hegemonic discourses on poverty and its reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Bank's recent concern for 'empowerment' grows out of longer standing discussions of participation, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society. While commitments to empowerment enter World Bank texts with relative ease, their practice within Bank-funded projects is far more contingent, and the meanings they assume become much more diverse. This paper considers the relationship between such texts and the development practices which emerge, using an analysis of the 'organisational cultures' of the Bank and the many organisations on which it depends in the implementation of its rural development programmes. The paper presents a framework for analysing these organisational cultures in terms of (a) the broader contexts in which organisations and their staff are embedded; (b) the everyday practices within organisations; (c) the power relations within and among organisations; and (d) the meanings that come to dominate organisational practice. A case study of a development programme in Bangladesh is used to illustrate the ways in which cultural interactions between a variety of organisations - the World Bank, government agencies, NGOs, organisations of the poor, social enterprises - mediate the ways in which textual commitments to empowerment are translated into a range of diverse practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author explores the possibility of working with the concept of social capital within more general analytical approaches grounded in notions of cultural and political economy like sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He notes that Bourdieu's take on social capital has been recognized as offering promising ways forward by various scholars of development. He mentions the suggestion of Bourdieu that one must understand agents' habitus, a set of assumptions, habits, taken-for-granted ideas and ways of being that are the vehicles through which agents engage with, understand and move on through the world.

Development is embedded in networks that extend across space and time. These networks—maintained, reworked, and given meaning through the practices of the actors who constitute them—bring together assemblages of institutions, knowledges, and commitments that make possible and shape the ways in which development is done through them. The authors explore the usefulness of concepts of network and assemblage for conceptualizing development, elaborating their ideas through two case studies. In the first they discuss colonial officers' experiences of living and working outside the United Kingdom, the ideas and practices that informed this mode of being, and their influence on the development work they did both in colonial and in postcolonial contexts. In the second they discuss the embeddedness of nongovernmental aid networks in religious, political, and other institutions, and the ways in which these institutions fashion the flows of such aid and the types of intervention linked to it. Though distinct, the two cases each show the ways in which social networks sustain particular intersections between institution, practice, and knowledge in informing development. They also suggest different methodological tactics for exploring these intersections. The nature of these tactics and their implications for producing knowledge about development networks are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) involved in international development has been case-study-based, with questions about the broader geographies of NGO intervention rarely asked. This paper explores the factors that drive such NGO geographies and considers how they relate to the uneven geographies of poverty and livelihood produced under contemporary processes of capitalist expansion and contraction. Explanations of NGO presence and absence must of necessity be historicized and contextualized, and particular attention should be paid to the influences of the politics and political economy of aid and development, the geographies of religious, political and other social institutions, the transnational networks in which these institutions are often embedded, and the social networks and life histories of NGO professionals and allies. The resulting geographies of intervention pattern the uneven ways in which NGOs become involved in reworking places and livelihoods, though this reworking is also structured by the dynamics of political economy. The paper closes by drawing out implications for geographical research on NGOs, as well as for efforts to theorize the relationships between intentional development interventions and immanent processes of political economic change, and their effects on inequality and unevenness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first in a series of short notes on social capital in development studies. Departing from three recent critical interventions (Fine, 2001; Harriss, 2002; Studia Africana, 2002) this first note reflects on the nature of the debate about the concept, for I think that the tone of the debate tells us much about the issues at stake. The second note will take a more theoretical focus, reflecting critically on the adequacy of recent efforts to use social capital as an analytical category in development studies and addressing the potential for bringing Bourdieu into these discussions – a move that several critical interventions imply is essential if the concept is to have any utility. The third report will discuss one of the core claims made by proponents of the concept, and consider whether there is any evidence that it fosters cross-disciplinary conversation, research and action. In this opening note, I argue that there is a danger that current critical debate on social capital – in particular its clever and at times not-so-clever acrimonies – might be read as playing the fiddle while Rome burns. I suggest that it is important for all involved to be modest, reflexive, self-critical and, on these bases, creative. I comment first on questions of tone and engagement, then on questions of conceptual choices in framing research programmes and finally on the far larger and longstanding challenges at hand that are raised by these debates on social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governance arrangements often reflect culturally charged struggles for power as well as culturally motivated efforts to gain access to power. Yet current discussions around community-driven and decentralized development pay little attention to this nexus, at best reducing power to questions of material difference but overlooking the ways in which governance arrangements are contested. On the basis of research across three sites in Indonesia, this paper explores ways in which tensions between different cultural forms at a village level affect local governance arrangements. The conclusions explore implications for so-called community-driven approaches to development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways in which discussions of social capital have emerged within the World Bank,and how they interacted both with project practices and with larger debates in the institution. These debates are understood as a 'battlefield of knowledge', whose form and outcomes are structured but not determined by the political economy of the Bank. Understanding the debates this way has implications for research on the ways in which development discourses are produced and enacted, as well as for more specific discussions of the place of social capital in development studies. The article concludes with a reflection on implications of these debates for future research, policy, and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract It can be argued that development geography has left few traces either on the broader canvas of development theory or on the thought and practices of social actors engaging with material processes of change typically framed within the language of development. This paper argues that this is because the sub-field has been somewhat too case study oriented, and because its prac-titioners have, with some exceptions, kept themselves – or at least their identities – at the margins of debates within and among development actors. Yet development geography has much to con-tribute to on-going reflections on the nature of development. The paper explores themes that might be at the centre of an empirically grounded but theoretically oriented development geography that might speak to contemporary processes of globalisation and local change. It suggests that comparative case study work exploring the ways in which the development of capitalism and processes of intervention are both linked and vary across space still offers fruitful terrain for theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture has received increasing attention in critical development studies, though the notion that there are important cultural differences within and between development organizations has received less consideration. This paper elaborates elements of a framework for studying organizational culture in multi-agency development projects. It draws on selected writings in anthropology and in organizational theory and suggests that these two bodies of literature can be usefully brought together, as well as on insights from ongoing fieldwork in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso and Peru. At the centre of this framework is the analysis of context, practice and power. Where development projects involve multiple organizations (such as donors, government agencies, non-governmental organizations and grassroots groups) an analysis of cultures both within and between organizational actors can help explain important aspects of project performance. The paper argues that organizational culture is constantly being produced within projects, sometimes tending towards integration, often towards fragmentation. This fragmentation, indicative of the range of cultures within development organizations, is an important reason why some projects fail, and why ideas stated in project documents are often not realized, especially in the case of the newer and more contentious objectives such as ‘empowerment’. © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary globalization in the Andes challenges the sustainability and quality of rural livelihoods. However, it is also the case that rural people have often addressed these destructive dimensions of economic globalization through a progressively deeper engagement in other types of globalized relationship. They have done this by organizing, through engagements with networks linking them to international actors, and through participation in new product and labor markets. While such global entanglements do not guarantee local development and empowerment, they offer one of the few ways to confront the demise of rural localities.This paper discusses such sets of globalized relationships in four localities in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the emergence and activities of local organizations and social movements have been affected by the nature of their relationships with wider transnational development networks, and the constraints and possibilities that come with these relationships. The cases demonstrate how forms of global entanglement vary greatly across sites, and so suggest that the effects of globalization on livelihoods and landscapes are not easy to judge normatively or ex ante. Instead they imply that rather than speaking of globalization generically, it is important to consider the types and sequences of globalized relationships in which people and places have been enmeshed. This suggests the need for historically situated studies of ‘glocalization’ in order to understand both the actual processes of livelihood change under conditions of globalization, and the conditions under which more sustainable and locally governed rural livelihoods and landscapes might be built. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on a type of structural social capital embedded in second-tier indigenous peasant federations in the Andean countries. Shift in the focus of rural development policies; Dimensions of social capital in the federation system; Uses and abuses of social capital.

Focuses on rural development in the Ecuadorian Andes. Complexity of rural transformations in the Andes; Views on development by poststructural critiques; Interpretations of development according to the neoliberal; Agent of dominating modernization; Question on the accuracy of arguments on cultural destruction and nonviability.

Examines the development of social capital framework in relation to sustainability of livelihood and resource access in highland Ecuador. Description of the framework; Formation of the organizations and institutional networks of the indigenous people; Impact of the social capital on household and community development.

Examines NGO-GO relationships in agricultural development using mainly the Latin American experiences as sources. Differentiation of NGOs; Areas where GOs and NGOs collaborate; Advocacy work and resource accessing; Redefining roles of NGO-GO partnerships; Strengths and weaknesses of NGOs; Future trends in the NGO-GO relationships.

At a time when public sector agricultural and rural development administration is changing quite profoundly, and when farmer organizations are being asked to assume more significant roles in rural and agricultural development, in-depth analysis of these organizations is an important input into policy and programmatic discussions. This article is an analysis of one type of small farmer organization, a regional economic organization called El Ceibo in Bolivia. It is one of the most successful cases of small farmer organization around technology generation and product transformation and marketing in the Andes. El Ceibo has been able to open new markets for its products, adapt product transformation techniques appropriate for these markets, and develop technology in support of its marketing strategy. Factors favouring Ceibo's success include long-term financial and technical support from external agencies, isolated location, and a cash/export crop specialization. The impacts of Ceibo are significant, although it is not clear how far Ceibo's activities foster a more broadly based regional development in the Alto Beni area. The article also compares the strategies and impacts of economically based organizations such as El Ceibo with those of more traditional, representative and politically oriented small farmer organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents some of the reactions to the article `Seeking Common Ground: Petroleum and Indigenous Peoples In Ecuador's Amazon,' published in the June 1998 issue of `Environment.' Impact of resource extractive industries on local economies and environments; Social and environmental stakes of oil operations; Approach to resource extraction.

In the search for alternatives to state-managed agricultural research and extension, there has been much interest in assessing the pros and cons of, and the mechanisms for, varying forms of private sector involvement. One experience of privatization that has received much attention has been that of Chile, which has the most privatized and market-oriented national system for technology transfer in Latin America. This paper suggests that this Chilean experience reveals both advantages and also limits of voucher and contract-based forms of privatization of rural services, and demonstrates that there continues to be an important role for state investment and co-ordination alongside private sector involvement. It also suggests that there is only limited evidence that this form of privatization has had a positive impact on farm incomes or on enhancing the extent to which services are demand led. The paper also notes that there have been very special circumstances in Chile that have helped consolidate this model. Attempts to transfer the model elsewhere ought therefore to be made with caution. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the support given by bilateral donors to non-governmental organizations (NGOS). Reasons behind the direct funding of NGOS; Role of NGOS in strengthening the civil society; Use of grassroots support organizations and membership organizations in delivering aid within the context of the bilateral aid programme.

The International Agricultural Research Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research comprise a system for interdisciplinary work on Third World agrarian systems combining the physical and the social sciences. While economics and anthropology have represented the vanguard of social sciences in the Centers, recent years have witnessed increasing interest in geographic research. This interest reflects the Centers' growing concern for sustainable agriculture and agroecological mapping. It also suggests a somewhat narrow conception of geography. We address the possible origins of the limited representation of geography in these Centers to date, and the context of this emerging interest. We argue that geographers have a responsibility to draw out the practical implications of their research and suggest that the Centers afford one means of doing so. Potential contributions from the physical, biogeographical, cartographic and social fields of our discipline are considered, and the importance of teamwork combining these different specialties is suggested. Particularly significant, both for applied agricultural research and the theoretical study of Third World agriculture, could be a critical development of the concept of "sustainability." Several thematic and conceptual building blocks for such development are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the economic conditions in the Andes, while highlighting the country's refusal to implement sustainable intensification of rural land use and livelihoods. Details on some of the environmental transformations which can be made in the Andes.

Compares conceptions of `indigenous agriculture' and alternative agricultural and rural development as used by academics. Relationships among agricultural technology, ethnic identity and rural politics in the development programs of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); Social constraints in local development strategies.