The challenge of sustainable tourism development in the Maldives: Understanding the social and political dimensions of sustainability

Issues of power and politics are central to the development of the tourism sector and its prospects for contributing to sustainable development. This is demonstrated through a case study of the evolution of tourism in the Maldives, a luxury tourism destination where the government has followed a consistent policy of ‘quality tourism’ that has often been cited as a prime example of sustainable tourism. However, recently concerns have been raised about environmental degradation, human rights abuses, connections between the political and economic elite, and huge economic disparities associated with tourism here. Research on sustainable tourism needs to recognise the state's pivotal role in directing tourism development and consider how states balance the competing interests of other powerful tourism stakeholders.     

Building knowledge city in transformation era: Knowledge‐based urban development in Beijing in the context of globalisation and decentralisation

This study examines knowledge‐based urban development in Beijing with the objective of revealing the impact of the ‘synergetic’ forces of globalisation and local government intervention on knowledge‐based urban development in the context of the coexisting processes of globalisation and decentralisation. The findings in this paper show that due to the rapid growth of the cultural industry sector, knowledge‐based urban development has created various kinds of ‘cultural industry clustered areas’, which were recently promoted by the 2008 Olympic Games. ‘Synergetic’ global and local forces are leading knowledge‐based urban development, with the emergence of a local coalition regime in which local government manages local development, considered as ‘enterprises’ in the decentralisation process, while the State retains a significant influence on knowledge‐based urban development. The central and municipal governments tend to emphasise strategies to ‘facilitate the climate for growth’ rather than the centrally planned control they exerted prior to the 1980s.     

Blue Revolution or Red Herring? Fish Farming and Development Discourse in the Philippines

This paper argues that the discourses of development underpinning aquaculture as a development strategy are flawed because they neglect the impacts of fish farming on the local resource base and those social groups dependent upon it. The Philippine government has promoted aquaculture for over two decades, viewing it as a key component of national economic recovery. But field work in the Batan municipality of the Philippines reveals that the ‘common sense’ behind aquaculture is severely undermined when its effects on the physical environment and people in the vicinity of fishponds are examined.     

欠发达地区农民合作社功能发挥及整合研究

2013年国家中央一号文件强调农民合作社是带动农户进入市场的基本主体,是发展农村集体经济的新型实体,也是创新农村社会管理的有效载体。欠发达地区的农民合作社是在生态环境恶化的倒逼、相对匮乏的物质生活资料、传统农耕文化的影响以及欠发达地区的政策导向下成长起来的。随着农民合作社从横向合作向纵向合作深化,其功能也从单一功能向多种功能拓展,对于应对市场失灵、政府失灵和创新农村社会管理具有重要意义。但仍然存在公共产品供给不足、利益分化明显、乡村社会信任缺失等问题,这就需要处理好政府与农民合作社以及农民之间的关系,实现国家与乡村社会发展的利益整合。     

Public intervention,private aspiration: Gated communities and the condominisation of housing landscapes in Singapore

While the proliferation of gated communities worldwide has generated great interests and debates, the emergence of gated communities is by no means a ‘global’ urban phenomenon that displays uniform characteristics and genesis. Drawing on Singapore as a case study, this paper goes beyond the universalising and often polemical discourses on gated communities to provide a balanced account on how gated communities in the form of enclosed condominium estates are locally embedded in the city state where public housing dominates. As will be pointed out in the paper, gated communities in Singapore may be considered as a form of ‘club good’ that exists as part of the state's urban/national developmental agenda and are, arguably, less socially and spatially divisive than those depicted elsewhere. By teasing out the local specificities of gated communities, this paper underscores the need to read beyond the physical form of gated communities in order to understand the complex social and political production of housing landscapes.     

Producer services and growth management of a metropolitan region: the case of Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia

Producer services growth can change the character of a metropolitan region. Achieving that outcome may require the intervention of government, which is not necessarily a simple process as it creates tension between regulatory and developmental roles for government. This paper will address three interrelated issues in connection with the above-mentioned core idea in the context of the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: first, the extent to which the evolution of the Malaysian economy has been felt in the growth of the service sector; second, the way that evolution has led to change in the sectoral and spatial character of Kuala Lumpur; third, government’s responses in terms of spatial planning and management in order to accommodate producer services growth. The experience of the Kuala Lumpur region shows how global market forces and national development policies that influence producer service location and growth can reshape the spatial arrangement of a metropolitan region. Managing the growth of producer services calls for new approaches to manage metropolitan change. An ‘enabling’ model is proposed to replace the present ‘policing’ model of spatial planning.     

Overview: Restructuring Chinese space in the new millennium

This collection is concerned with understanding the nature of China’s spatial development during the transition to a socialist market economy. It does so primarily by questioning the applicability of the ‘desakota’ model and extended metropolitan region (EMR) concept to the contemporary Chinese space economy. Yu Zhu’s contribution extends the ‘desakota’ model by applying it to rural areas without the attraction of large cities. Wing‐Shing Tang and Him Chung’s contribution discusses illegal land use and construction to highlight the rural‐urban transition’s negative and disintegrative aspects glossed over by the ‘desakota’ model, which stem from the extension of urban administration to former rural areas and the redistributive effects of land use reform. Andrew Marton sees the original ‘desakota’ model being rejuvenated by introducing the notion of rural agglomeration, a clearer recognition of local administrative structures and an appreciation that development issues now take place within a global‐local framework. George Lin explores the lingering effects of rural origins on Chinese identity and how this affects subsequent social and commercial groups within the Chinese diaspora. Peter Rimmer and Claude Comtois show how changes in China’s transport and telecommunications industry underlie, to a significant degree, the restructuring of China’s space economy and the country’s links to the rest of the world. Overall the contributions highlight that a new consensus will be required for any revised model of the Chinese space economy if this is to provide guidance for planners engaged in restructuring Chinese space in the new millennium.     

Who are the future farmers? Media representations of youth in agriculture,food security and ‘modern’ farming in Indonesia

In Indonesia, state and non-state actors frame youth attrition from agriculture as a food security concern and propose policy solutions focused on ‘modern’ farming techniques. Using a critical framing analysis of five national Indonesian news media sources from 2010 to 2020, we examine how government, development and private sector actors portray youth in agriculture, and the underlying assumptions that inform related policy and development agendas. Our analysis reveals contrasting portrayals of youth in agriculture. Youth are often depicted as averse to farming, while also being innovative adopters of modern farming techniques, equipment, and digital technologies. We argue that media frames reflect and reinforce the dominant discourses of state and non-state actors, which have a productivist orientation, proposing technical, capital-intensive agricultural solutions to food insecurity and related issues. News media pays comparatively less attention to structural barriers to youth entry and success in agriculture, such as limited access to land and finance and unfavourable terms of trade.     

Resource periphery,corridor, heartland: Contesting land use in the Kalimantan/Malaysia borderlands

The long borderland in Kalimantan between Indonesia and East Malaysia is partly mountainous and environmentally unique, its three national parks forming the core of a tri‐nation ‘Heart of Borneo’ initiative proposed by environmental NGOs and ratified in 2006. More accessible lowlands in West Kalimantan and the north of East Kalimantan constitute a typical ‘resource periphery’ in which strategic considerations, persisting through the Suharto years, now intersect with a range of new political, economic and cultural demands. A perception by the central government of increasing lawlessness in the borderlands arose in the turbulent years following Suharto's fall, during ‘reformasi’ and the beginnings of decentralisation. In addition to smuggling and illegal logging, contests over land use erupted at various scales. Proposals to construct an oil palm corridor along the border, begun by the Megawati government and extended by some sectors of the Yudhoyono regime, were part of a quest for greater legibility and control on the part of the central authorities. The paper specifically examines the power struggles that arose over that project and its inevitable outcome, a central government back down. However, the current palm oil boom is bringing new corporate planting, which may eventually succeed in ‘taming’ the borderlands.     

Twenty‐first century nomadic city: Ger districts and barriers to the implementation of the Ulaanbaatar City Master Plan

Since the early 1990s, Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, has experienced rapid rural to urban migration and population growth resulting in the growth in informal settlements across the city. The informal settlements are known as ‘ger’ districts. In response to these pressures, since the 1990s, the central government has adopted a programme of land reform and metropolitan planning. These new reforms take place in the context of a unique, post‐socialist political, economic and institutional context. The land reform process has attempted to privatise land ownership, which has traditionally resided with the state. The privatisation process was initiated under the new Constitution of Mongolia, which initiated reforms in all sectors of social and economic development, and since 2003, targeted land reform in ger districts. Running parallel, a series of urban land‐use planning schemes have been introduced to frame the development of Ulaanbaatar in the context of an emerging market economy. Although master plans for urban development have been established since the 1950s, urban land‐use planning is a new concept in this emerging market economy. The aim of this paper is to trace the rationales and challenges of implementing master plans and land privatisation processes in Ulaanbaatar. Drawing on interviews with city, national and local government officials conducted in 2009, the paper focuses on the implications of these reforms for both the government and the residents of ger districts.     

Culture and the commodification of water in Samoa

While ‘solutions’ to challenges of water supply in the Pacific may seem obvious to hydrologists, engineers and planners, their implementation may not be straightforward. Water is embedded in cultural, religious and political contexts, and what seems obvious to planners may seem neither obvious, nor acceptable, to citizens. However, these contexts change continuously, and opportunities arise for changes in narratives around ownership, supply and management of water. Citizens' beliefs about the state's ‘rights’ will vary with societal context, and will shape the ways in which ownership and management of water is worked out in specific locations. This paper outlines thinking and discourses around ownership and management of fresh water in Samoa, and the constraints which culture has imposed on water supply over time. Water discourses have shifted from questions about ownership of specific sources to general discussions about conservation and management of natural resources. This shift has resulted, in part, from the ways in which government has managed the process and, in part, from growing public awareness of water within the larger environmental context. The paper focuses on Samoan material, but some of the generic issues have wider significance in the Pacific because similar variables combine in similar ways.     

Mobility in Melanesia: bigman bilong circulation

Murray Chapman's reputation as a researcher on population movement in Melanesia is enormous – in the parlance of Melanesians, he is undoubtedly a ‘bigman bilong circulation’. This paper traces Chapman's journey into Melanesian mobility and outlines some of the major contributions he has made to our understanding of population movement in what was known until the late 1980s as the ‘Third World’. The journey begins with Chapman's own recollections of intellectual challenges he faced at the University of Auckland as a graduate student writing a thesis in 1960 and then as a Junior Lecturer in Social Sciences at the Victoria University of Wellington. The debates between Cumberland and Buchanan about the nature of geography were to have a profound influence on Chapman – he was to become a severe critic of attempts to impose a ‘western’ logic and way of thinking on processes which were at the heart of the livelihoods of peoples who had very different belief and value systems. This paper does not contain a critique of Chapman's arguments and findings; its purpose is to celebrate those contributions which have come into print so far from a geographer who has really tried to ‘make geography matter’ in the discourses about population movement and development.     

Progressive spaces of neoliberalism in Aotearoa: A genealogy and critique

In this article, we will argue that any investigation of the ‘progressive spaces of neoliberalism’ needs to maintain a critical stance on the neoliberal project. In particular, we suggest that it is important to see the ways ‘progressive spaces of neoliberalism’ are troubled by discourses of colonisation which in turn are themselves disrupted by genealogies of Indigenous struggles. Spaces of neoliberalism are embedded in discourses of colonisation, as space is ultimately grounded in somewhere, in a ‘place’. In Aotearoa, the discourses of colonisation and place are in turn entangled with a genealogy of Maori struggles to maintain and create political, economic and social structures and frameworks. These struggles are also productive, and have the potential to encourage, diverse political economies of production, trade and enterprise distinct from neoliberalism, its progressive spaces, and colonisation. We will investigate two cases to highlight that the ‘messy actualities’ of neoliberalism cannot be extracted from the genealogy of colonisation. Any attempts to start an analysis of progressive space as located in a neutral ‘now and here’ are therefore problematic.     

以“支部+”平台为核心的农村利益联结机制研究——以江苏省句容市唐陵村为例

基层党组织是农村最主要的领导力量,村域经济发展要充分发挥党组织的领导、凝聚和协调作用。针对很多地区产业不断发展而农民依然贫困、集体经济实力依然薄弱、基层党组织引领经济发展能力不够等问题,本文基于我国基层党支部的发展历史,结合各地区党组织的经济发展实践,提出了打造“支部+”平台为核心的利益联结机制设想,并以江苏省句容市唐陵村“支部+”为例进行具体分析。研究发现,唐陵村通过构建“支部+”平台利益联结机制,很好地促进了当地的经济发展,当地村民对党组织和经济发展效果具有很高满意度。以“支部+”平台为核心形成的利益联结机制,为我国村域经济发展提供了新路径。通过“支部+”平台整合各方面资源,激发各经营主体积极参与产业发展,而且通过党组织把握村级产业的性质与发展方向,使经济发展成果惠及广大农民群众,达到乡村振兴的目的。     

Participatory natural resource management in rural China: Making and unmaking environmental narratives

Environmental and development discourses in China can be categorised into three narrative motifs framing human–nature relationships: peasant, indigenous, and community. Indigenous and community narratives have been widely adopted by environmental NGOs (eNGOs) in China in promoting community‐based natural resource management projects, but there has been very limited critical research on such phenomena. Analysis of socio‐economic change in two ethnic minority communities in Yunnan shows that neither narrative theme is fully internalised by the relevant communities. Instead narratives may be strategically modified or even rejected by local communities. This is due to different agendas being held by local communities and eNGOs, and two factors pertinent to rural China: the incompatibility of concepts of ‘community’ in Chinese and international contexts results in confusion, and a lack of recent territorial and cultural claims by rural communities since the collectivist era makes it difficult to construct the identity of a community. It remains challenging for eNGOs in China to advocate either community or indigenous narratives in contexts of rapid socio‐economic change.     

农村经济发展状况和生活环境对流动决策的影响

本文运用Tobit模型和调查数据,考察了农村经济社会发展状况对农村劳动力流动行为决策的影响。结果发现：农村经济发展状况整体上对农村劳动力流动产生显著的负向作用;农村基础设施对农村劳动力流动也产生负向影响。在中国城乡二元结构长期作用下,即便在惠农、强农的政策体系和促进城乡经济社会一体化发展的制度框架已初步建立,县域经济和乡镇企业发展迅速的大环境下,农村经济和生活环境的改善,并不能从根本上阻挡农村劳动力向城市流动的趋势。建议政府切实贯彻“一号文件”,以社会主义新农村建设为契机,将有限的资源重点投入到既能促进农民外出打工又能增加劳动力在本地转移的公共事业和基础设施建设上。     

Global Integration and Local Identities: Engendering the Singaporean Chinese

Forces of global integration and local autonomy have impacted on debates over the definition and redefinition of gendered ethnic identities among the Chinese in Singapore. These discourses are examined in two historical contexts: contemporary government policy­making on gender issues; and the Chinese cultural reform movement at the turn of the century. Linking contemporary and historical discourses are themes of gendered identity formation in response to tense interactions between globalising forces and moves to assert local autonomy. Striking parallels are shown between gender constructions in the two periods in which engendering discourses were central to redefinitions of Chinese ethnic identities.     

运用参与式发展方法建立西藏新农村建设的发展机制刍议

参与式发展理论起源于对传统发展模式的反思,成长于对发展中国家援助的国际发展实践中,为解决农村发展问题提供了一个新的理论视角。党的十六届五中全会提出建设社会主义新农村的重大历史任务,这是一项长期而艰巨的社会系统工程,需要社会的广泛参与和支持。通过借鉴参与式发展理论的合理内核,探讨西藏新农村建设中面临的新问题,从两个方面提出了如何建立西藏新农村建设的参与式发展机制。     

Worlding aspirations and resilient futures: Framings of risk and contemporary city‐making in Metro Cebu,the Philippines

In the Philippines, calls for creating ‘global’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘resilient’ cities are placing urban poor communities in increasingly precarious positions. These communities have long been the targets of urban development and ‘modernisation’ efforts; more recently the erasure of informal settlements from Philippine cities is being bolstered at the behest of climate change adaptation and disaster risk management (DRM) agendas. In Metro Cebu, flood management has been at the heart of DRM and broader urban development discussions, and is serving as justification for the demolition and displacement of informal settler communities in areas classed as ‘danger zones’. Using Kusno's (2010) interpretation of the ‘exemplary centre’ as a point of departure, this paper interrogates the relationship between DRM, worlding aspirations (Roy and Ong, 2011) and market‐oriented urbanisation in Cebu, and considers the socio‐spatial implications of these intersecting processes for urban poor communities. Through analysing the contradictions inherent in framings of certain bodies and spaces as being ‘of risk’ or ‘at risk’ over others, I argue that the epistemologies of modernity, disaster risk and resilience endorsed and propagated by the state are facilitating processes of displacement and dispossession that serve elite commercial interests under the auspices of disaster resilience and pro‐poor development.     

Marginality and environment in Papua New Guinea: the Strickland River area

Mining in Papua New Guinea has caused considerable controversy, largely due to its environmental impact. This paper examines the debate around the downstream environmental impact of the Porgera gold mine, located in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. It is demonstrated that the greatest international concern and environmental protest is focused on an area that has, by the scientific accounts, the lowest environmental risk. In seeking explanations for this, attention is drawn to the marginality (in absolute and relative terms) of the affected communities, the intermingling of pre and post‐colonial discourses of environment and development, and the role of both international mining companies and environmental non‐governmental organisations in ‘re‐colonising’ rural Papua New Guinea. The communities are seeking to reduce their marginality by actively reworking the material and imagined landscapes (social, environmental, political and economic) they inhabit, drawing on a range of resources, both old and new.