Suchergebnisse

Science, Faculty of ; Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for ; Reviewed ; Faculty

Analyzing everyday environmental imaginaries from contemporary Turkey through the lenses of postcolonial, emotional-affective, and nature-society geographies, this article offers insights into shifting nature-society relations and possibilities. Based on a series of interviews and focus groups conducted in four sites (Istanbul, Ankara, Diyarbakir, and Sanliurfa), the concept of imaginative geographies of green is offered to highlight social and spatial difference as central to the articulation of green visions and movements. The research foregrounds several social and spatial gradients specific to the Turkish context, including East-West divides both within and beyond Turkey (i.e., Kurdish- Turkish and Eastern-Western Turkey, as well as notions of Turkishness and Europeanness ). The work also suggests that environmental imaginaries have deeply emotional, ambivalent, and power-laden associations. Apart from the implications of the work for enriched understandings of emergent environmental possibilities in this context, the conclusion also touches on ramifications for EU accession debates as well as new directions for work on environmental citizenship and movements in the global South. ; Science, Faculty of ; Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for ; Reviewed ; Faculty

This article draws on recent interventions related to everyday states, state-natures and political ecologies of the state, as well as the "state as effect" idea of Timothy Mitchell, to detail and analyze ongoing changes in southeastern Turkey associated with the large scale Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP). Using interviews and survey data, I detail changing narrations and understandings of the Turkish state among villagers of Turkey's southeast, revealing the importance of social and historical processes, as well as differentiated biophysical conditions and changing access to water resources for these imaginaries. The case study details both ways that state-society relations evolve, as well as ways that the state is expressed as distinct from society, in part in relation to the varied and important changes associated with the ongoing damming and diversion of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Apart from contributions to understandings of the state and state-society dynamics in the long-contested southeastern Anatolia border region, the work also advances state theory. Specifically, I build on arguments related to the importance of political ecology and socio-natural approaches, detailing key analytics related to these approaches the provide important insights for state theory –spatio – temporalities, inequality and differentiated access to resources, scalar dynamics, and materialities of nature. I argue that these analytics have considerable potential to advance state theory and state-nature approaches, particularly to draw out ways that the state emerges as seemingly distinct from society—the 'state effect.' Scale, I argue, may be particularly useful towards this end, and to expose other key processes of importance for states and stateness as they relate to development and nature. ; Science, Faculty of ; Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for ; Reviewed ; Faculty

The aim of this article is to critically interrogate articulations of environmental citizenship in contemporary Turkey. Specifically, I analyse articulations of environmental citizenship through citizen and activist narratives taken from interviews and focus group discussions. I argue that first, scalar focus on local spaces and individuated responsibility for action that emerge from the narratives are crucial to understand future environmental politics and possibilities in this context. Invoking recent discussions related to the politics and performativities of scale, in particular, allows consideration of the politics of visibility and other consequences of these scalar foci. Second, themes from narrative analysis show key convergences with Europeanization- and neoliberalization-related discourses and shifts. The resonance and overlap between these discourses and practices is significant, particularly as it shows citizen receptivity towards broader ideas related to increased citizen responsibility. As such, the research contributes to efforts to move away from theorization of processes such as neoliberalism as top-down, instead enabling examination of ways that these ideals are taken up, expressed, and refashioned by everyday citizens. The third argument that emerges from the analysis, following from the first two, is the need to theorize power more fully in discussions of environmental citizenship. Bridging with neoliberalism discussions is one possible way to move such a project forward. ; Science, Faculty of ; Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for ; Unreviewed ; Faculty

This article provides a critical reading of some of the gendered dimensions of emergent water governance regimes, specifically those related to the privatization, marketization and devolution of water resources management. After first providing an overview of recent nature-society contributions related to neoliberalization processes, the article comparatively evaluates insights with respect to the gender dimensions of recent shifts in water governance. I make several arguments at the intersection of relevant literatures. First, there is a need for gender theorists interested in water resources and nature-society debates to engage more with issues, theories and processes associated with neoliberalization. Second, there is a need for more attention to gender, feminist theory and approaches to inequality and socio-spatial difference in discussions of neoliberalized natures. Third, reading these literatures together reveals that there is a need to be self-reflexive and critical of elements of the gender and water literature that implicitly endorse foundational elements of the neoliberal turn in resource governance. Finally, there are particularities with respect to gender theory and politics, and water materialities that hold importance for understanding recent water governance shifts in the broader context of political and economic changes associated with neoliberalization. ; Science, Faculty of ; Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for ; Reviewed ; Faculty

Most theorists understand gender geographies as highly differentiated and shifting, in terms of both time and space. If gender is historically and geographically contingent then the analysis of gender should be attentive to the particular conditions that materialize the very idea of gender, giving it the appearance of being fixed and natural. The physical landscape, or waterscape in the case of southeastern Turkey, is potentially central to the ways that gender is invoked and lived in particular settings, with important effects. Using case-study work on irrigation-related changes in southeastern Turkey, I consider gender in relation to livelihoods and work practices, landholdings, and ethnicity revealing that, in addition to conditioning differential outcomes for residents of the plain, these categories of social difference are themselves fundamentally renegotiated and recast in relation to waterscape change. I argue that explicit consideration of environmental conditions and practices is central to understanding the operation of gender in certain contexts, as well as to understanding the lived experiences of women and men, providing insights for gender theory and politics. ; Science, Faculty of ; Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for ; Unreviewed ; Faculty

Science, Faculty of ; Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for ; Reviewed ; Faculty

This paper analyzes water services in relation to trust in government, with insights for broader state–society relations. The work is based on a multi-year and multi-sited case study of underserved areas of Cape Town, South Africa and Accra, Ghana. The analysis reveals that water quality and satisfaction are statistically linked to trust in government in South Africa, but not in Ghana. As well, while indicators of water access and quality appear to be very good in South Africa, there is nonetheless deep contestation and ongoing dis-enfranchisement. For Ghana, water access and quality are important for people's daily lives, but are less strongly connected to senses of governmental responsibility—although for both countries there is a strong sense that government should be "doing more." Features of history and context are emphasized in the Discussion and Conclusion sections to understand key differences between the sites and other results.

Resumo: Sob o viés do feminismo multicultural, os conceitos de relacionalidade, de posicionamento dos discursos e das interseccionalidades de opressões são instrumentais para um melhor entendimento das múltiplas perspectivas que norteiam as práticas feministas atuais, ancoradas em saberes e estéticas pós e descoloniais. Nosso objetivo é colocar em pauta as práticas e estéticas políticas adotadas por mulheres de lugares geográficos e sociais bastante diversos. A produção artística que desenvolvem através de linguagens e narrativas variadas promove possibilidades de fomentar poéticas de resistência e descolonização de gênero que desafiam nossa compreensão tradicional sobre o estético, o político e o epistemológico.

This article draws on recent interventions related to everyday states, state-natures, and political ecologies of the state, as well as Timothy Mitchell's concept of "state as effect," to detail and analyze ongoing changes in southeastern Turkey associated with the large-scale Southeastern Anatolia Project (Guneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, or GAP). Using interviews and survey data, the essay details changing narrations and understandings of the Turkish state among villagers of Turkey's southeast, revealing the importance of social and historical processes, as well as differentiated biophysical conditions and changing access to water resources for these imaginaries. The case study explains both ways that state-society relations evolve as well as ways that the state is expressed as distinct from society, in part in relation to the varied and important changes associated with the ongoing damming and diversion of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Apart from contributions to understandings of the state and state-society dynamics in the long-contested southeastern Anatolia border region, the work also advances state theory. Specifically, the article builds on arguments related to the importance of political ecology and socionatural approaches, detailing key analytics related to these approaches that provide important insights for state theory—spatiotemporalities, inequality and differentiated access to resources, scalar dynamics, and materialities of nature. Harris argues that these analytics have considerable potential to advance state theory and state-nature approaches, particularly to draw out ways that the state emerges as seemingly distinct from society—the "state effect." Scale, Harris argues, may be particularly useful toward this end and to expose other key processes of importance for states and stateness as they relate to development and nature.