More than a ‘blip’: The changed character of South‐East Asia’s engagement with the global economy in the post‐1997 period

Abstract: Through reviewing South‐East Asia’s recent economic engagement with the global economy, this paper points to profound recent transformations in the scope and character of the region’s development. Foreign direct investment was the key driver of regional growth in the pre‐1997 period, yet currently, the region faces a more difficult and multifaceted economic arena from which to attract such funds. Foreign direct investment is more selective, both geographically and by sector, than was the case in that earlier period. This paper explains the confluence of economics, business practices and politics that are giving rise to these outcomes, and concludes from this that development trajectories in South‐East Asia will become more diverse between the countries of the region, with implications for how we understand regional economic performance.     

Power over,power to,power with: Shifting perceptions of power for local economic development in the Philippines

Power has long been recognised as crucial to the sustainability of community development interventions; however, the way in which space affects power relations within such interventions has remained relatively under‐theorised in the development literature. Many practitioners continue to regard power as located centrally and as embedded in particular institutions, networks, knowledge and resources. According to this logic, processes of empowerment involve the redistribution of these resources to marginalised groups through their participation in development interventions such as microfinance and sustainable livelihood initiatives. The danger inherent in such development approaches is that they can discourage the potential for participants to use their own agency by overemphasising an existing lack of resources locally and inadvertently feeding a sense of dependency on formal development interventions initiated by external agencies. This paper suggests that a post‐structural conceptualisation of power as dynamic, multiple and mediated at the local level offers a more productive starting point for thinking about approaches to empowerment. Drawing on data from an action research project designed to initiate community enterprises in a small rural municipality in the Philippines, I suggest how a post‐structural approach to power can be enacted by building on the existing local resources and practices of everyday life.     

Commuting distances to local non‐farm workplaces and out‐migration: The case of Northeast Thailand

The relationship between commuting distances and where people work has been studied for urban contexts in both developed countries and developing countries. However, few studies have examined the situation in rural areas, and none look at commuting distances to non‐farm workplaces in rural areas of developing countries. This paper investigates how commuting distance, and thus accessibility, to local non‐farm work influences non‐farm employment and out‐migration from rural villages in Northeast Thailand. The main issues examined are: (i) the distance that rural residents travel to work in local non‐farm jobs; and (ii) the influence that local non‐farm employment has on the number of outmigrants from rural villages. The study finds: (i) distance between villages and non‐farm work sites impact the number of villagers who are employed in regular wage work; (ii) beyond 20 km villagers are less likely to travel to non‐farm employment using their own means of transportation; and (iii) employment in regular wage work decreases outmigration. The findings from this study contribute to the debates over the drivers of rural out‐migration, rural livelihood changes, and agrarian changes that are taking place in Southeast Asia.     

Evaluation of Flax Genotypes for Cold Tolerance and Yield in South‐East Texas

Flax is an established crop in many parts of the world due to its positive health effects and numerous industrial uses. Due to increasing interest in biofuels, flax has been evaluated throughout the U.S.A. as a potential biodiesel crop. The main purpose of this research was to evaluate current and historical genotypes of flax in different regions of south‐east Texas. Twenty genotypes of flax were evaluated under dryland conditions for their agronomic and yield potential in College Station and McGregor, TX starting in 2008 thru 2011. The results suggest that all genotypes developed in Texas showed acceptable cold tolerance compared with genotypes developed in other locations. There were significant genotype–environment interactions (P < 0.001). A cross between Caldwell/Dillman (Texas genotype) was highly adapted to the environments of south‐east Texas. Nekoma and York (genotypes developed in North Dakota) yielded well in non‐cold years (>28 ^°F) at College Station. Utilization of cold tolerance trait identified in Texas genotypes coupled with high yield potential of modern genotypes would have a significant impact on yield improvement of flax in south‐east Texas. Overall, flax is well adapted to growth in the area surrounding College Station, TX and has potential as an oilseed crop for production in south‐east Texas.     

A typology of agricultural production systems: Capability building trajectories of three Asian economies

Analysing the agricultural sectors of Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, this paper examines the capability‐building process that encourages productivity and innovation. It describes and explains the origins and subsequent evolution of three forms of agricultural production system, each generating different farming capabilities and distinct forms of competitive advantages. The paper argues that Taiwan's rice‐oriented agricultural production system stimulates both productivity and innovation, helping Taiwanese farmers raise their income level and living standards. The active deployment of state institutions and a malleable labour force, evidenced in the Malaysian palm oil industry, is effective in raising farming productivity but not the ability to innovate. Singapore's aquaculture‐oriented agricultural production system is somewhat useful in stimulating productivity and innovation. Yet the city‐state's inherent lack of space and open international trade regime have circumscribed the potential of its aquaculture industry. It now relies on the regional ethnic Chinese business networks to expand the aquaculture industry's knowledge base and its industrial commons. The principles discussed in this paper provide policy lessons, or at least some initial guidance, for other developing economies aspiring to modernise their agricultural sector.     

Of miracles and crises: (re–)interpretations of growth and decline in East and Southeast Asia

In the last two decades of the 20th century Asia stumbled from miracle into crisis. The crisis not only had manifold social consequences but also demands a reconsideration of the multiple explanations offered for Asia’s miracle years. This paper examines these explanations in the light of the crisis and briefly discusses the ways in which scholars of different orientations have adapted and refined their views. In particular the paper looks back on the influential East Asian miracle report of the World Bank, how it was interpreted at the time of publication, and how the report did (or did not) reflect the dominant Washington consensus. The paper then offers a discussion of the post–Washington consensus concluding that the crisis has seen some convergence of the revisionist developmental state and neoliberal positions. However, this convergence should not be seen as a paradigm shift but rather as a reworking of existing positions in the light of debates that predated the economic crisis.     

Diversity in daytime and night‐time transpiration dynamics in barley indicates adaptation to drought regimes across the Middle‐East

A challenge to breeding drought‐tolerant barley in the Middle‐East is that precipitation and evaporative demand patterns dictate opposite water use strategies (conservative vs. risk‐taking). To characterize these strategies, we examined high‐resolution, whole‐plant transpiration rate (TR) responses to increasing vapour pressure deficit (VPD) and nocturnal TR (TR_N) dynamics among 25 local barley genotypes, using a novel phenotyping system. These traits were specifically selected because they exist under modalities enabling the expression of both strategies. The genotypes were selected from locations spread across a large aridity gradient represented by temperature and precipitation data spanning 30 years. Here, we uncovered a substantial diversity in TR responses to VPD where slopes of the linear responses correlated negatively with local maximal temperatures, pointing to opposite drought tolerance strategies. Low canopy conductance (low slopes) was associated with higher aridity, likely to enable water‐saving, while higher conductance was associated with wetter areas, likely to enable a more aggressive water use to maximize physiological activity. TR_N was highly diverse and represented up to 15% of maximal daytime TR, pointing to the possibility of increasing water‐saving by reducing TR_N. Furthermore, we detected pre‐dawn variation in TR_N that negatively correlated with local precipitation, indicating that a tighter circadian control is associated with adaptation to drought, consistently with a circadian resonance mechanism. These findings indicate that canopy conductance and TR_N are potentially beneficial to design drought‐tolerant barley germplasm adapted to different drought regimes taking place in the Middle‐East.     

Market‐led options to scale up legume seeds in developing countries: Experiences from the Tropical Legumes Project

There are several hurdles to ensure sustainable seed production and consistent flow of improved legume varieties in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA). The unreliable demand, autogamous nature of most of the grain legumes, and slow variety replacement rate by smallholder farmers do not provide strong incentive for private seed companies to invest in legume seed business. Unless a well thought‐out and comprehensive approach to legume seed delivery is developed, current seed shortages will continue, eroding emerging market opportunities. The experiences reported here are collated through a 10‐year partnership project, the Tropical Legumes in SSA and SA. It fostered innovative public–private partnerships in joint testing of innovative market‐led seed systems, skills and knowledge enhancement, de‐risking private sector initiatives that introduced in new approaches and previously overlooked entities in technology delivery. As new public and private seed companies, individual seed entrepreneurs and farmer organizations emerged, the existing ones enhanced their capacities. This resulted in significant rise in production, availability and accessibility of various seed grades of newly improved and farmer demanded legume varieties in the target countries.     

Development on the periphery: A case study of the sub‐national island jurisdiction of Pitcairn Island

This research reports on empirical findings of remote Pitcairn Island, the last remaining British Overseas Territory in the Pacific. It uses a qualitative methodology to discuss the island's potential for tourism development while recognising the issues and challenges faced by many small island developing states. However, as a sub‐national island jurisdiction Pitcairn presents a number of issues unique to its temporal socio‐political development and its centre periphery relationship with the metropole. The concept ‘decolonising without disengaging’ is posited to argue sub‐national island jurisdictions are places/spaces of innovative, creative and differentiated development processes that offer interesting departures from the conventional realms of sustainable discourse and island development. This concept is posited as a strategy of empowerment whereby autonomy without sovereignty does not necessarily hinder the development of tourism industries.     

How transboundary processes connect commons in Japan and Thailand: A relational analysis of global commodity chains and East Asian economic integration

In this paper, with a focus on Japan and Thailand, we outline a relational environmental and economic history of East Asian economic integration (EAEI) and its implication for the commons in both places. We draw attention in particular to global commodity chains as relational processes not only of trade and investment, but also geopolitics and aid, to argue that these transborder processes have connected together commons in distant localities resulting in their simultaneous enclosure, dispossession and (re‐)commoning with implications for community vulnerabilities in positive and negative ways. To demonstrate this argument we analyse three periods of EAEI: the late nineteenth century until World War II, when Japan and Thailand both began to modernise and new trade and geopolitical relations emerged in the context of colonialism; the post‐World War II recovery until the Plaza Accord in 1986, during which time Japan rapidly industrialised, as did Thailand to a lesser extent and regionalism was largely defined by US hegemony; and the post‐Plaza Accord period, when Japan deindustrialised its labour intensive manufacture and heavy industry and Thailand rapidly industrialised and EAEI became defined by new and intensified global commodity chains.     

The peri‐urbanisation of Shanghai: Planning,growth pattern and sustainable development

Abstract: With the increase of global integration, the peri‐urban area (PUA) of megacities in Asia has become a favourite destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). This paper uses the PUA of Shanghai as a case study to investigate the impact of global forces on the urban expansion of the city, and the link between urban growth and sustainable development in this mega‐urban context. Shanghai has grown impressively during the past two decades in terms of economic and physical transformation. Much of this transformation has rested on the unbridled exploitation of land and other environmental resources in its peri‐urban area. This is characterised by the designation of development zones and the concentration of manufacturing FDI, resulting in dispersed growth and environmental degradation. The disruption of the physical environment, combined with the concentration of the urban poor in these areas (in particular ‘temporary migrants’), has turned the PUA into a potential crisis point threatening the social and economic development of the city.     

Post‐displacement community resilience: Considering the contribution of indigenous skills and cultural capital among ethnic minority Vietnamese

Despite an improving regulatory framework and policies governing compensation and resettlement, the majority of the millions displaced worldwide each year by hydropower dam construction continue to experience marginalisation and impoverishment, suggesting that external financial support must be supplemented by strengthened community‐based resilience. In order to understand more about the innate resources of displaced rural communities, we applied a community resilience approach to two resettled Co‐tu ethnic minority villages in an upland area in central Vietnam to identify their community capitals and their application in improving livelihoods and living conditions. We found that weak human and financial capital constrained the ability of the resettled residents to adopt new livelihoods or migrate to seek employment. Reduced forest and river access also problematised responses to a lack of agricultural land. However, traditionally strong village affinity and social networks were retained. In addition, indigenous skills such as housing construction, honed by a highly mobile traditional lifestyle, allowed residents to construct culturally significant structures like community houses and modify or augment received housing stock. These elements of social and cultural capital eased the process of post‐resettlement adaptation. We conclude that governments should reassess current resettlement policies that prioritise financial compensation and should incorporate awareness of the adaptive resilience and limitations fostered by indigenous knowledge and practices in resettlement action plans.     

Introduction: That most remarkable of outside men – Harold Brookfield's intellectual legacy

Abstract: Harold Brookfield's academic career spans more than half a century, traversing small tropical and subtropical islands and mountainous uplands, focusing on people–environment relations and linking to a diversity of institutions and disciplines. His unwavering commitment to fieldwork at the local level and to comparative study is paralleled by a healthy scepticism with respect to academic trends and orthodoxy of any kind, whether intellectual or physical. It is the farmers of the developing world who are the source of much of his inspiration. His theoretical contributions are based essentially on his observations of their practices and his learning from their experiences. His academic insights into the processes of change in rural areas of Melanesia, East and South‐East Asia, Africa and South America, where small‐scale ecological studies are linked to global forces, are of lasting significance.     

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.     

Conservation costs: Nature‐based tourism as development at Cuc Phuong National Park,Vietnam

Abstract: Local communities are frequently displaced from areas selected for environmental protection. Development of nature‐based tourism, believed to be more environmentally benign than traditional agricultural systems, has been encouraged by governments and national park managers in the hope of providing alternative livelihoods for local people. This paper examines the extent to which indigenous peoples resettled from within one Vietnamese national park have engaged with the nascent tourism industry, thereby providing a perspective on the success of their resettlement, through the eyes of those communities affected. The perspectives of resettled peoples are contrasted with those of villagers who have continued to reside within the national park, using traditional means of survival, along with new initiatives designed to supplement their livelihoods and to reduce their dependence on national park resources for survival. Resettled villagers are unable to survive on agricultural activity alone, tourism has done little to provide an alternate livelihood and the park environment is still threatened by the use of park resources by resettled communities in their struggle to survive.     

Durum wheat varieties in N‐deficient environments and organic farming: a comparison of yield,quality and stability performances

Stability and reliability of yield and quality for 15 durum wheat genotypes (old and modern) were evaluated in a 5‐year experiment (southern Italy) in organic farming. Genotypes were grown at two N levels (0 and 80 kg/ha), with the aim of evaluating ‘genotype × environment’ (GE) interactions and their role on genotype selection in N‐limited environments. Several approaches to stability were used, within the frame of mixed models and additive main effects and multiplicative interaction analysis, and their validity in stressful conditions and organic farming was discussed. Especially for protein and gluten content, results indicate high environmental variability and the presence of crossover ‘N × environment’ interactions, which supports the need for specific breeding programmes in N‐deficient environments. The average response was strongly affected by N availability (on average, yield was 2.95 and 3.42 t/ha, protein content was 11.6% and 12.85%, gluten content was 8.55% and 9.92%, respectively, at 0 and 80 kg N/ha), and few genotypes gave high yield and quality at both fertilization levels. Only ‘Gargano’ and ‘Fortore’ showed a good inter‐year stability at both N levels. The old cultivars gave minimal responsiveness to increased N input, but gave good results in limiting conditions, indicating that they may play a role in organic farming.     

基于核心力量导向差异的贵州乡村旅游开发模式比较与剖析——以贵州天龙屯堡、郎德苗寨和西江苗寨为例

贵州是中国较早开展乡村旅游的区域之一。在众多乡村旅游地中,贵州天龙屯堡、郎德苗寨、西江苗寨因核心力量导向差异而形成3种不同的乡村旅游开发模式,即公司主导型、社区主导型和政府主导型模式。作为贵州乡村旅游开发的典型代表,3种模式各具特色,值得关注。通过对3种不同乡村旅游开发模式下的市场开拓能力、社区居民获益方式与状况、传统文化保护与传承及其乡村旅游开发模式的形成原因进行横向比较分析,为国内乡村旅游开发提供经验借鉴和理论指导,推动乡村旅游研究的深入。     

Productive transformations and bilateralism in the semi‐periphery: A comparative political economy of the dairy complexes of New Zealand and Chile

Abstract: This paper examines the evolution of the dairy complexes of New Zealand and Chile in the context of increasing bilateral interaction between the two countries, and their recent signing of a ‘Trans‐Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership’ (TPSEP) free‐trade agreement. The two economies can be said to occupy semi‐peripheral positions in global markets and have, through the twentieth and into the twenty‐first century, increasingly competed for market share in a range of primary product (particularly agricultural)‐based export markets. Similar sets of historical processes, although variably timed, have shaped the roles of New Zealand and Chile respectively as resource peripheries, and the extent to which the two countries can collaborate for mutual benefit and transcend these roles is uncertain. In taking a sectoral approach this paper questions the compatibility of the two dairy complexes in the context of the TPSEP, and recommends further sectoral and localised studies in order to better appraise the model of ‘co‐opetition’ promoted through the agreement.