Boundary Making and Regional Identities in a Globalized Environment: Reordering the Nariva Swamp, Trinidad

10.1068/d325 ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjørn Sletto
Keyword(s):  
Local State ◽  
Critical Geopolitics ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Boundary Making ◽  
Bounded Space ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Nariva Swamp

The recent work in critical geopolitics problematizes the notion of boundaries and interrogates the narratives, ideologies, and institutions that inform processes of boundary making, or ‘reborderings’. From the perspective of critical geopolitics, boundary making for conservation purposes is understood as an act of power embedded within a discourse of environmental geopolitics. Through reborderings, environmental geopolitics thus reflects and informs everyday practices and relations of power between local, state, and international actors. In this paper I illustrate a process of rebordering in Trinidad, the West Indies, in which local, state, and international actors engaged in a contest to define conservation boundaries and produce bounded identities within the Nariva Swamp. Rebordering in the Nariva Swamp reflected and influenced state and local practices in complex ways, altered relations of power on multiple levels, and led to the production of a bounded space that is simultaneously local and global.

scholarly journals Locating Activist Spaces: The Neighbourhood as a Source and Site of Urban Activism in 1970s Calcutta

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrike Donner
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Student Movement ◽  
Local State ◽  
Recruitment Strategies ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Urban Activism ◽  
Urban Neighbourhoods ◽  
The Way

This article analyses the meaning of urban neighbourhoods for the emergence of Maoist activism in 1970s Calcutta. Through ethnography the article highlights the way recruitment, strategies and the legacy of the movement were located in the experience and politics of the urban neighbourhood. As a social formation, the neighbourhood shaped the relationships that made Maoist subjectivities feasible and provided the space for coalitions and cooperation across a wider spectrum than the label of a student movement acknowledges. The neighbourhood appears here as an emergent site for Maoist epistemologies, which depended on this space and its everyday practices, intimate social relations as well as the experience of the local state in the locality.

The biographical approach in (post-) subcultural studies: Exploring punk in China

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 707-723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
Biographical Approach ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Twentieth Anniversary

While the biographical approach is widely employed in applied and theoretical social research, it is less fully developed in the specific field of (post-) subcultural studies. The article demonstrates the utility of the biographical method for (post) subcultural studies by presenting research on the punk phenomenon in an authoritarian social context within China. The discussion draws upon a qualitative study based on interviews with 34 Chinese punk musicians. Although the article focuses on one of these musicians in particular, the arguments are informed by broader research findings. Specifically, emphasis is placed on examining how the punk musician experiences the gradual process of deepening commitment to the punk scene and, through this, the multiple levels of power relations in his life. It is argued that the biographical approach can highlight the subjectivity of individual participants in their everyday practices and the wider social context in which they are actors. This article forms part of ‘On the Move’, a special issue marking the twentieth anniversary of the European Journal of Cultural Studies.

scholarly journals Cities of "others" : public space and everyday practices

2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Vaiou ◽  
A. Kalandides
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Material Space ◽  
A Site ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
The City

Abstract. This paper deals with the concept of «public space». It works with the ambiguities embedded therein, contrasting material space/s – the streets, squares, parks, public buildings of the city – with the other spaces created through the functions and institutions of the «public sphere» as a site of public deliberation. Focussing on the ambiguities of the concept allow questions of access, interaction, participation, cultural and symbolic rights of passage to be posed. Public space is approached here as constituted through the practices of everyday life: it is produced and constantly contested, reflecting – among other things – relations of power. Differences in gender, ethnicity or sexuality often lead to binary thinking, such as inside/outside, inclusion/exclusion, local/stranger. The way that such categories intertwine in everyday life, though, unsettle easy categorisations and force a questioning of strict lines of division. It is in this context that a proposal is made to discuss the city of «others», drawing from research examples which cross over such lines.

scholarly journals Social representations of trust among teachers and principals in Cameroonian, Indian, and Finnish schools

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Maija Pirttilä-Backman ◽  
Rusten Menard ◽  
Jyoti Verma ◽  
Raul Kassea
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Ecological Validity ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Workplace Trust

Quantitative studies on trust often attempt to measure levels of trust, while neglecting local meanings of trust. These studies are usually based on Eurocentric models in Western cultures, though the models may have limited ecological validity. As a result, this study sought to investigate trust as locally produced structures and practices in Cameroon, Finland and India. In each country, teachers and principals were interviewed individually, while nineteen focus groups among teachers were also conducted (N = 111). The theory of social representations provides the methodological framework for the study. Our analyses suggest that in Cameroon understandings of trust were anchored in complementarity, in Finland in contracts, and in India in social hierarchies. We suggest that the Cameroonian representations were more fluid than in the other two countries, which may be due in part to the working arrangements there. In all of the national contexts, numerous metaphors and imagery helped to solidify trust as phenomena built in everyday practices. Cooperation was an important element in the data from all of the country contexts, although it had particular and varying meanings in each. Finally, we interpret culturally embedded dichotomies, or themata, that participants draw upon to imbue workplace trust with meaning. We discuss the analyses and interpretations in terms of local practices and the concrete conditions in which the participants worked.

scholarly journals Social Inclusion and Local Practices of Belonging

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 84-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Garbutt
Keyword(s):  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Team Sports ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
Regional Community ◽  
Key Aspects

Social inclusion has been conceptualised as having two key aspects: distributional aspects relating to access to resources including employment, and relational aspects which concern the connections between people and the wider society. While both are important, the emphasis in Australian social inclusion policy has been on distributional aspects. This paper focuses on the relational aspects of social inclusion, and argues that it is critically important to include relational considerations in social inclusion policy. Central to the relational aspects of social inclusion is achieving a sense of belonging, particularly at the everyday, local level. Belonging in this everyday sense can be thought of as an ongoing project achieved through everyday practices, rather than solely in terms of membership of a group. While many such practices, for example regularly engaging in team sports, are accepted ways of establishing and maintaining belonging, for others in a community practices of belonging may necessitate disrupting or at least broadening the established norms of how one belongs. To ground this discussion of inclusion and belonging, this paper draws on practices of belonging in a regional community. Established norms of belonging are examined through the idea of ‘being a local’, a way of belonging that appears to be based on membership. The paper then turns to two local projects which disrupt the exclusive bounds of local membership and establish new and inclusive practices of belonging. To conclude, parallels are drawn between the boundaries which define ‘the social’ in social inclusion and ‘the local community’ in being a local, to argue for the importance of including relational aspects of social inclusion within social inclusion policy debates and program formulation.

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