Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers

 

Cultural and Political Ecology Newsletter

 

(CPEN #41 -- Spring 2003)

 

Last Updated: 15 May 2003

Announcements

Notes from Chair - award winners

Thanks from award winners, Bill Doolittle and Judith Carney

Business Meeting 2003 minutes

Student Awards 2003

Calls: Conferences, meetings, publications

Sussex Environmental History center

PE of Europe

CLAG meeting

Special issue of Historical Geography 

Jobs/scholarships

 UCL anthropology

Meeting Reports

Members' News

LSU

Bebbington, Bryant, Bassett, Butzer, Watts etc.

Hires

Book Reviews & Notes

 


Announcements

The CPESG Listserv (AAG-CESG-L) is for general exchange of information, news, views, debate, questions and answers by the members of the specialty group.All current CPESG members have been subscribed to the list. Go to http://lists.psu.edu/archives/aag-cesg-l.html, select the link to join the list, and follow the instructions. Thereafter, you can manage your subscription and access the archives through the same interface. For all queries, email mstein@usm.maine.edu. Only list members (CPESG members) can post messages. To do so, send your message to the list address: AAG-CESG-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU. Everyone on the list will receive your message so please ensure that the subject line is informative, and the content is appropriate. Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived for posterity.

 

Notes from the Chair - Spring 2003

 

Hi all!

First, I'd like to say what a great meeting it seemed to be in New Orleans. Beyond the crawdads and gumbo, Cultural and Political Ecology was energetic, visible, and represented some of our finest work. Most striking was the healthy range of interests and the apparent efforts towards synthesis on display in sessions throughout. Regretfully, folks could not have possibly attended them all, owing to their number and density (many sessions were up against each other!). Even so, the session titles and organizers emphasize both our diversity and our synthesis, our dedication to work at our roots and the inflorescence at our many branches.

Tim Beach's "Soils in Archaeological and Cultural Context," a feature at AAG meetings for many years, demonstrated the rigorous and integrative work that sits at our core. Both Robert Dull and Michelle Goman's session on "The Paleoecology of Human Agency in Middle America" as well as Joy Fritschle Mason's sessions on "Environmental and Ecological History" demonstrated our ongoing work in diachronic research. Tom Perreault and Patricia Martin's "Geographies of Development and Neoliberalism in Latin America" underlined our participation in debates over fundamental questions in development. Kenneth Young's sessions on "Biogeography and Political Ecology: Possibilities for Engagement" showed the kind of new avenues we can expect to see in the future. Richard Schroeder's epic "Political Ecology in the Regions" sessions demonstrated a terrific effort to make regional sense of case study work. And our co-sponsorship of Gavin Bridge and Karen Bakker's "Material Worlds? the 'matter of nature' revisited" reflected our engagement with theory across the discipline.

This of course hardly scratches the surface and, as noted previously, the vigor of all our activity made it hard to take the time to discuss, reflect, and engage the work of so many good scholars. I would heartily recommend therefore, following urging by AAG council, to make Cultural and Political Ecology sessions a solid part of your regional meetings. It may also behoove us to organize a mini-conference some time in the future, for some CAPE "quality time."

Silences also remain. As Eric Perramond recently pointed out, European work remains surprisingly underrepresented. Eastern Europe, I would add, and the transitional agrarian economies of Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia are begging for Cultural Ecological analyses of the most traditional sort. Work on genetically modified landscapes is also a project to start NOW, if any hope is to be had for tracking their effects through time.

For those of you who missed the meeting, the minutes are attached. Most relevant are the Netting and Blaut awards, the good student base we have in the specialty group, and the proposal for next year's AAG centenary celebration. As noted there, the current idea is to "organize a session, ideally led by Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield reflecting on past decades of scholarship, with graduate student commentary; a "Retrospect & Prospect" theme. Other suggestions included back-to-back sessions, a timeline, and a poster showing watershed moments in political and cultural ecology scholarship."

I will be consulting with AAG on the timing and organization of any such "watershed" event, so if you have ideas and suggestions, please send them to me here. 2003-2004 should be another great year!

Cheers,

Paul Robbins probbins@geography.ohio-state.edu

 

February, 2003: The winner of the 2003 Robert McC. Netting Award, in recognition of distinguished research and professional activities that bridge geography and anthropology  is Prof. William E. Doolittle. A testimonial by Andrew Sluyter will be forthcoming on this web site.

Winner of the 2003 James M. Blaut Award in recognition of innovative scholarship in cultural and political ecology, as demonstrated by publication of "Black Rice" (2001: Harvard U.P.) is Prof. Judith Carney of UCLA.


Thanks from Bill Doolittle


I am honored and humbled to receive the Robert McC. Netting Award. I have long been involved in the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group, principally because of my admiration for its members and their varied work. That the Group has decided to honor me is simply overwhelming. At times I feel like an intellectual relict from an earlier era, thinking that archaeologically- and geomorphologically-based research is not as popular and as well recognized in geography as it once was. Receiving the Netting Award tells me otherwise. Again, I am simply overwhelmed.

I regret that I cannot attend either the CAPE SG business meeting or the awards luncheon. A prior commitment has me leading of group of  undergraduates on a Spring Break field trip through New Mexico and Chihuahua. Although I can't be with you, I will be thinking of you all while showing a new generation the complexities of people in relation to the biophysical environments in which they live, and the worlds in which they operate.

Bill Doolittle, University of Texas
 

Thanks from Judith Carney


I am greatly honored to receive this award.

Over a broad region of northeastern South America, there is a legend told by the maroon descendants of enslaved Africans who were brought there five centuries earlier. In remote communities of Suriname, Cayenne, and Maranhão [Mar-an-yow], Brazil the legend describes how they came to grow rice, a crop that remains to this day central to life and community identity. In the legend, an enslaved female ancestor hides grains of rice in her hair as she endures the long, harrowing journey by slave ship. The precious seeds detection. When she flees plantation slavery, she takes the smuggled rice grains and plants them. This, say the maroons, is how we came to grow rice.

One hundred years ago, or perhaps even a single generation ago, this story would have been dismissed as a colorful myth, more suited to studies of folklore than to the fields of cultural ecology and environmental history. But as botanical, archaeological, and historical research has come to show, the maroon legend, like its Promethean heroine, also conceals a seed, a seed of truth which through clever allegory sprouts a remarkably accurate history of African rice in the Americas.

Africans actively shaped the early modern Atlantic world. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean in greater numbers than Europeans (at least through 1820), they were central to the economic, cultural, and ecological shifts occurring over three centuries in the Americas. The African diaspora was one of plants as well as people, but perhaps just as significantly, it was one of knowledge. And as the maroon legend signifies, this knowledge at times was borne by women. Rice promoted cultural identity in bondage and resistance and served as a potent recipe of memory that endures in diaspora communities to this day.

Thirty years ago Berkeley geographer James Parsons published his pioneering article on the botanical 'Africanization' of the New World tropics. His work asked us to consider African landscape legacies in the Americas. For me, this became the starting point for thinking about the African diaspora in new ways. During my graduate education at Berkeley, I learned the significance of mastering the minutiae of agronomic systems and environments as a key to understanding broader level processes. I therefore offer my thanks to my mentors there: Michael Watts, Hilgard O'Reilly Sternberg and the late Clarence Glacken, Jim Parsons, and Barney Nietschmann. Finally, I would like to offer my appreciation to the late Jim Blaut for his enlightened efforts in grounding agrarian change in power, agency, and history.

I also wish to acknowledge my debt to all of you. Your own research has stimulated me over the years, and in many respects, this honor is a shared one. I knew Jim Blaut and deeply respected his scholarship. It pleases me greatly to receive this award in his name. Thank you deeply for your support in presenting me this award.

Judy Carney, UCLA, March 2, 2003

 

CAPE Business Meeting Minutes, 7 March 2003, New Orleans

  1. The Meeting commenced at 7:10 pm.

  2. Chair Paul Robbins introduced last year’s minutes; they were read and approved.

  3. Robbins reported on the Specialty Group Chairs’ Meeting regarding:

a. The sponsorship of sessions by specialty groups. AAG encourages sponsorship but urges that some papers be promoted at regional rather than national meetings. 

b. The new budget system is up and running; the new billing procedures are now in place and have made little difference to CAPE budgeting procedures.

c. The group’s name change is accepted by the AAG and final changes to AAG materials should be finalized this year.

d.  Council endorsed the Blaut Award.

 

 4.Secretary/Treasurer McSweeney gave the CAPE Financial Report:

a.  The group began this fiscal year with a considerable budget surplus of $620.63 +  anticipated member dues ($780) = $1400.63 for the year’s expenses.

b.  After anticipated expenses (including student awards, and certificate production costs), a budget surplus of $650.63 is expected. This may be used to fund a second Field Study Award, depending on the applicant pool.

c.  The $1 increase in the member dues that was approved at AAG 2002 should be reflected in AAG membership/renewal materials for 2004.

 

5. Announcement of Awardees.

a. The 2003 Robert McC. Netting Award was given to Dr. William E. Doolittle of the University of Texas-Austin.  Dr. Doolittle was not present and could not be present at the Awards luncheon; his brief acceptance statement was read aloud.

b. The 2003 James Blaut Award was given to Judith Carney of UCLA for her 2001 book Black Rice. She was not present and could not be present at the Awards luncheon; her statement of thanks and acceptance was read.

6. CAPE Newsletter update:

a.   Editor Simon Batterbury has agreed to stay on as webmaster for two more years.

b.   Members expressed their appreciation of his longtime contribution and ongoing commitment.

c.   Simon encourages those who have received books for review to send their reviews to the Newsletter.

7. Listserv management:

a. The need for a new listserv manager was discussed.  Currently, the CAPE listserv is run out of Penn State, and was managed by former CESG Chair Andrew Sluyter. 

b. Diana Liverman suggested that Arizona act as host, with Simon Batterbury setting up the new listserv.  She will ask him about this.

8. Submission procedures for Student Paper awards were discussed. 

It was pointed out that submissions are not due until after a given year’s AAG meeting (Year I), such that awardees are not honored until the subsequent year (Year II).  The Chair asked about revising the system to fit within Year I, with submissions be due prior to the AAG, and awarded during the meeting.  Oliver Coomes recalled that the current system developed because students rarely had submissions ready prior to the meeting.  The decision was made to maintain the current system, perhaps with revision of deadlines from a fixed date to one relative to the Annual Meeting. 

9. Membership Numbers: 

The Chair reported that CAPE currently counts 149 faculty members and 167 student members.  He pointed out that the share of student participants makes the group unusual among Specialty Groups, and suggests a promising future for the group.

10. Questions were then fielded from group members:

a.  Eric Perramond asked about CAPE’s plans for a special session in honor of the AAG Centennial in 2004.   After discussion, it was recommended that a special session be organized.  Oliver Coomes recalled that the AAG had asked Specialty Groups to assemble a scholarly timeline to showcase the group’s work and historical contributions and to promote the group and project the future of CAPE’s focus within Geography.

b.  After discussion and contributions from Brad Jokisch, Greg Knapp, K. McSweeney, Diana Liverman, and others, it was agreed that the Chair would consult with Specialty Group chairs from the AAG, and would begin to organize a session, ideally led by Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield reflecting on past decades of scholarship, with graduate student commentary—a “Retrospect & Prospect” theme.  Other suggestions included back-to-back sessions, a timeline, and a poster showing watershed moments in political and cultural ecology scholarship.

c.  Paul Robbins raised the issue of “digital democracy” as the emerging primary form of decision-making by the group.  Members voiced approval, and G. Knapp pointed out that planning sessions for next year’s AAG did not require group approval.

d.  Members were reminded to think about potential books for the 2004 Blaut Award, and nominees for the 2004 Robert McC. Netting Award. 

e.  Graduate student Jennifer Blecha (U. Minnesota) pointed out that there is currently no system by which new members to CAPE are electronically “welcomed” to the group.  Such a ‘welcome’ would ideally instruct new members on how to sign up for the listserv, direct them to the CAPE website, and otherwise alert them to the benefits of CAPE membership, including award competitions.  It was enthusiastically agreed that such a system is desirable.  CAPE Executive agreed to try to obtain a list of CAPE members from the AAG that might be maintained over time.  The Chair agreed to look into the possibility of automating the process.

f.  The group was reminded that the term of CAPE councilors runs for 2 years.  

11.         The motion to adjourn was seconded at 7:35 pm.

 

Submitted by CAPE Secretary and Treasurer K. McSweeney, 11 March 2003.

 

Student Award Winners 2003

 

Student Paper award: Lydia Breunig, PhD student, University of Arizona for "Landscapes of Work to Landscapes of Leisure: Mexico's Natural Protected Areas in the Context of Neoliberalism" (a prize of $100 was awarded)

Student Field Study Award: Bonnie L. Kaserman, PhD student, University of British Columbia,  for "Scientific Citizenship in the U.S. Context" ($500 will be awarded for field expenses)

Congratulations to the winners.
 


Calls; conferences, meetings, publications


Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton UK. The Centre for World Environmental History was launched in May 2002 under the aegis of the School of African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex.  It is currently  part-funded  for an initial three year period by the Research and Development Fund of the University. The initative developed as a logical development of  specialist courses and research conducted by Sussex faculty for over nine years in tropical and 'Southern' environmental history at AFRAS and elsewhere in the University and within the Institute of Development Studies. Sussex  University has a long research tradition  focussed on environment and development problems in the tropics and a close relationship with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) located on its campus. IDS is Britain's leading organisation carrying out research on development problems of poorer countries. The University also has a solid tradition in radical history and the history of material culture and peasant society in the  third world, exemplified in the work of Professor Ranajit Guha and theSubaltern Studies School. The Centre has a Director, Research Director,  Faculty Associates, Visiting Research Fellows and Associates. It has a close collaborative relationshipinvolving frequent staff exchanges with the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India and the CNRS French Institute in the Union Territory of Pondicherry, India. Aims and background: Although global in its expertise and aims the CWEH specialises in the environmental history of the tropics.  It is the only Centre in Britain and Europe with the capability to do so.  As a distinctive named discipline Environmental History is a relatively young subject, which has roots in historical geography, historical ecology, the history of material culture and some other subjects. It draws widely from sciences, social sciences and the humanities.  The first course in "Environmental History" taught as part of a history syllabus  appears to have been that taught at Strawberry Hill College in London in 1969 by Henry Bernstein, a Californian who specialised in research on forests and shipbuilding in the Indus-Ganges basin. Much of the subsequent growth in the subject took place in the United States.

In the last decade however the centre of gravity of the subject has started to move eastwards to Africa, South Asia, Australia, all regions where environmental historians have become increasingly active and productive. The environmental history of the tropics, subtropics  is an area of growing interest  to scholars, many of the resident in in those regions. It is to date, however, a research area in which American and European expertise is extremely limited, but which we believe is a vital research priority. CWEH aims to reflect these shifts in direction. Its advent is part of a recognition that the new discipline is especially relevant to acquiring perspectives on the growing environmental crisis and analysing the disproportionate serious impact of that crisis in the poorer countries of the tropics, particularly in terms of the connected problems of soil erosion, salinisation, water deficit, deforestation, species losses, pollution and climate change.

CWEH runs a programme of workshops and conferences. Past meetings include a workshop in June 2002 on Science, Empire and the Environment  and a major conference on the Environmental History of Asia in Delhi in December 4-7 2002. CWEH is also the base for a new journal on the subject, the International Journal of Environmental History, launching in 2003. CWEH Projects currently planned or in progress include:- A long-term ongoing study commenced  in 1991 on the environmental history of South Asia. This has been associated with two conferences on the environmental history of South Asia and Southeast Asia in February 1992 and December 2002 run in collaboration with the Indian CSIRO National Institute for Science, Technology and Development Studies in New Delhi, the Forest Research Institute at Dehra Dun (Uttar Pradesh) and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A research project on water, disease and history. This study is especially concerned with the connections between extreme climate events (especially El Nino episodes) and malarial episodes in South Asia, and with the comparative history of colonial irrigation projects in India, Australia and the Sudan. The main researchers on this project are Dr Elizabeth Whitcombe, Dr Rohan d'Souza and Dr Richard Grove. A five-year  micro-study of the environmental and ethnological study of the Chotanagpur plateau in Jharkhand State, northeast India. Main researchers: Dr Vinita Damodaran; Dr Daniel Rycroft. A major study of  the environmental history of the British Empire and Commonwealth entitled The British Empire and the natural world. This project will be  run in collaboration with a number of partner institutions including  the Jawaharlal Nehru University, The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Oxford Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine. Some component parts of this project are already the subject of pilot studies while other parts are related to work. We focus particularly  on  the forest, water and botanical history of the empire, together with a substantial commitment to understanding artistic and literary representations of the colonial environment. A conference on the topic is planned for 19th-21st March 2003.

Research Staff of the Centre Director:   Dr Vinita Damodaran. Research Director:  Dr Richard  Grove. Visiting Research Fellow:  Dr Vimbai Kwashirai  (Zimbabwe and University of Oxford). Senior Research Associates:  Dr Elizabeth Whitcombe; Dr Rohan D'Souza; Dr Daniel Rycroft;  Professor Brian Morris (Goldsmiths College); Dr Richard Drayton (University of Cambridge); Professor  Deepak Kumar (Jawaharlal Nehru University); Dr Mark Harrison (Wellcome Institute). Associated Sussex Faculty:- Dr Alan Lester, Professor James Fairhead, Professor Saul Dubow, Professor Melissa Leach (IDS), Dr Lyla Mehta (IDS), Dr Grace Carswell, Dr Maya Unnithan, Professor Brian Short, Professor Alun Howkins, Professor Partha Mitter. Graduate Student Associates include:- Pauline Von Hellerman (Forest history of Nigeria) Jessica Schaeffer (Conservation history of colonial Mozambique). 

For further information on the Centre, its research or on its conference programmes contact Dr Vinita Damodaran (v.damodaran@sussex.ac.uk) or Dr Richard Grove (richardhughgrove@hotmail.com) on 01273 606755 ext 2222 Postal Address:-  CWEH, Arts C246, AFRAS, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN, UK.

Political Ecologies of European Landscapes - proposed AAG 2004 session  This session will explore the rich and varied cultural-political-ecological nexus of landscapes in Europe (or "greater Europe" if need be).  If political ecologists have, traditionally, been more at home (and at play) in rural landscapes, this is no longer the case and was never really defensible in the first place. Papers for the session(s) may contribute to a diachronic (historical) or synchronic (contemporary/ethnographic) perspective on these issues:

  • political ecology of the EU
  • imagined communities of political ecology
  • rural to urban political ecology
  • political ecologies of resistance to globalization in Europe

This is only a start; if you would like to participate, please write me directly at: eperramo@stetson.edu.  I am likely to present on the political ecology of rural to urban migration in the 20th century Catalan Pyrenees, and what depopulation has meant in terms of landscape degradation.  Should we get enough participants or interested parties, we may break this into several sessions, in which case I will ask for help in chairing sessions. best, Eric Perramond  Stetson University

2003 CLAG Meeting The annual meeting of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers was held January 6-7 in Tucson, Arizona, organized by Diana Liverman and a team of graduate students and staff from the University of Arizona.  The meeting involved over 100 participants from 48 universities, including 65 presenters in 19 different sessions.  Special sessions included a discussion on the essay "1491" by Charles Mann in the March 2002 issue of Atlantic Monthly, a discussion on teaching Latin American Geography, presentations on Current Issues in Social and Economic Geography in Mexico, and remembrances of the late Robert C. West. Sally Horn (University of California-Berkeley) and Daniel Arreola (Arizona State University) received the 2002 and 2003 Carl O. Sauer Distinguished Scholarship Award. David Robinson (Syracuse University) received the 2002 Outstanding Service to CLAG Award. Pedro Pinchas Geiger (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) received the 2002 Enlaces Award. Photos.  The 2004 CLAG Meeting will be in May in Antigua Guatemala in the Casa Santo Domingo (http://www.casasantodomingo.com.gt).   Organizers: Mike Steinberg (mstein@usm.maine.edu) and Matthew Taylor (University of Denver).      Text from CLAG Newsletter

Indigenous Peoples: Contested Lands, Contested Identities - Special issue of Historical Geography  30, 2002 edited by Douglas E. Deur, with articles by Doug Deur, Cole Harris, Steven Silvern, Robert Bone, Evelyn J. Peters. For details and ordering see here.

 


Jobs/scholarships

 

Job at UCL, UK. The Department of Anthropology at UCL proposes to appoint a lecturer in Environment and Development from September 2003. Candidates should possess a PhD in a relevant subject as well as proven research and teaching abilities. Applicants should have a science background in human / environment interactions with research interests that involve less developed regions in any part of the world.  Specific research areas could include, but are not restricted to, nutrition, food systems, health, disease ecology, climate and land use change and/or conservation. The successful candidate will  be based within the Biological Anthropology section of the Department and should  be interested in integrating multidisciplinary approaches to human environment and development within the broad based ethos of  UCL Anthropology. Applications including CV with names of three referees and a personal statement on research and teaching should be submitted by 2 May 2003 to the Departmental Administrator, Anthropology, University College, Gower Street London WC1E 6BT, a.kocourek@ucl.ac.uk.  Further particulars are available at www.ucl.ac.uk/Anthropology or from the Departmental Administrator. The salary range is  £19,681 - £28,602 plus London Allowance  £2,134 (Lecturer Scale)


Members' (or those who should be..) News

 

News from LSU

 

LSU's Dept of Geography & Anthropology is very pleased to announce that Andrew Sluyter, past CAPE chair, will be joining us in the fall in a tenure-track position. The position Andrew will be filling was previously held by Bill Davidson, who retired last year. The addition of Andrew should significantly strengthen both our department's Latin Americanist and cultural/political ecology foci. He will join several anthropologists and geographers with ongoing research and teaching interests in Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, he brings important new skills and perspectives to our anthropogeography concentration within the geography PhD program. Anyone interested in finding out more about the anthropogeography concentration can contact me (kentm@lsu.edu), or Miles Richardson (gamile@lsu.edu).

 

Kent Mathewson

 

 

 

 

Tony Bebbington (Colorado) spent January to March 2003 on a Visiting Expert Fellowship with the Latin American and Caribbean regional office of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, where he conducted research on rural social movements in Latin America.

 

Tom Bassett (Illinois) has recently published  "Dangerous pursuits: Hunter associations (donzo ton) and national politics in Côte d'Ivoire," Africa 73(1): 1-30 (2003) and "Women's cotton and the spaces of gender politics in Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Gender, Place and Culture 9(4): 351-370. A version of his 2001 book on cotton has come out in French - Bassett, T. 2002. Le coton des paysans: une revolution agricole (Côte d'Ivoire, 1880-1999) Paris:IRD. The following new book was listed in CPEN 40: Tom Bassett and Donald Crummey (eds.) 2003. African Savannas: Global Narratives and Local Knowledge of Environmental Change Oxford & Portsmouth: James Currey and Heinemann.

 

Ray Bryant (King's College, University of London) has been promoted to Reader in Geography.

Karl Butzer (University of Texas at Austin) received the 2002 Preston E. James Eminent Latin Americanist Career Award from the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers.

Diana Davis (University of Texas at Austin) received an NEH summer fellowship for her project, "Desert Wastes of the Maghreb: (Re)Writing French Colonial Environmental History of North Africa".

Susanne Freidberg (Dartmouth College) has been awarded an ACLS fellowship for 2004-5 and 2005-6 for her work on food systems.

Patrick Hurley (Ph.D. Student, University of Oregon) has been awarded an Environmental Public Policy and Conflict Resolution Fellowship from the Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation.

Sally P. Horn (University of Tennessee) was awarded the 2002 Sauer award from the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers.

Karl Offen (University of Oklahoma) has been awarded a Harley Fellowship, for 'Mapping Mosquitia: Miskitu identity and the geographical imagination in Northeastern Nicaragua'. The Fellowship supports work in map collections in London, UK.

Billie Lee Turner II (Clark University) was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Fall 2002.

Mike Watts (University of California, Berkeley) has been awarded a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship for "Petroleum and economies of violence in Nigeria". 184 scholars were selected from a pool of 2,845 applicants, and three geographers were successful.

Hires

Christian Brannstrom (lecturer, ILAS, University of London) has been appointed Assistant Professor, Geography, Texas A&M University, from August 2003, and Wendy Jepson (PhD student, UCLA) has been appointed Research Scientist in the same department.

Tony Bebbington (associate professor, University of Colorado) has been appointed Professor of Development Management, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, UK, from July 2003.

 

Gavin Bridge (Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma) has been appointed Associate Professor, Syracuse University from Aug 2003, and a Ciriacy-Wantrup Fellow, University of California-Berkeley in 2004.

 

David L. Carr (post-doc and PhD, North Carolina) has been appointed Assistant Professor, Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara from July 2004.

 

Rinku Roy Chowdhury (PhD student, Clark University) as been appointed Assistant Professor, Geography, University of Miami from Aug 2003.

 

Ed Carr (visiting assistant professor, St. Louis University, Madrid campus: PhD Anthropology, Syracuse: PhD Geography,  Kentucky) has been appointed Assistant Professor, Geography, University of South Carolina from Aug. 2003.

 

Leila Harris (PhD student, Minnesota) has been appointed Assistant Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

 

Diana Liverman (professor, University of Arizona) has been appointed Professor of Environmental Science and Director of the Environmental Change Institute, Dept. of Geography & Environment, University of Oxford, UK, from Nov. 2003.

 

Mark Pelling (lecturer, University of Liverpool, UK) has been appointed senior lecturer, King's College, University of London from Jan 2004.

 

Andrew Sluyter (assistant professor, Penn State) has been appointed Assistant Professor, Geography, Louisiana State University from August 2003.

 

Matthew Taylor (PhD student, Arizona State University) has been appointed Assistant Professor, Geography, University of Denver from August 2003.

 

Joel Wainwright (PhD student, University of Minnesota) has been awarded a Killam postdoctoral fellowship in Geography at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

 

Emily Yeh (PhD student, University of California, Berkeley) has been appointed Assistant Professor, Geography, University of Colorado from August 2003.
 


Book reviews & book announcements

 

All CPESG members, and others, are invited to submit reviews of books that would be of interest to our Specialty Group. Publishers are invited to send books to the Editor, and willing reviewers are sought.

 

Reynolds J.F. and D.M. Stafford-Smith (eds.) 2002. Global Desertification: do humans cause deserts? Berlin: Dahlem University Press. ISBN 3934504 10 8. Euros 40,50 (US$ 40.00) + Postage. Order: http://www.fu-berlin.de/dahlem/DWR_88%20Desert/DWR_88%20blurb.htm

Contents: (members highlighted) 1. Do Humans Cause Deserts? JF Reynolds and DM Stafford Smith. 2. Spatial and Temporal Scales for Detection of Desertification 23 SD Prince 3. What Are the Key Components of Climate as a Driver  of Desertification?  SE Nicholson. 4. Under What Conditions Does Land-cover Change Impact  Regional Climate? Yo Xue and Mojo Fennessy. 5. A Framework for the Determinants of Degradation in Arid Ecosystems. BH. Walker, N. Abel, DM Stafford Smith, and Jo Langridge. 6. Toward a Unified View of Biophysical Land Degradation Processes  in Arid and Semi-arid Lands. GS Okin. 7. Land Degradation and Secondary Production in Semi-arid and Arid Grazing Systems: What Is the Evidence? AJ Ash, D.M. Stafford Smith, and N Abel. 8 The Influence of Farmer and Pastoralist Management Practices on Desertification Processes in the Sahel 135 P. Hiernaux and M.D. Turner. 9. Building Social Resilience in Arid Ecosystems 149 C.H. Vogel and Jo Smith. 10.  Dimensions of Desertification in the Drylands of Northern China. JE Ellis, K.Price, F Y, Christensen, and M Yu. 11. Culture, Ecology, and Nature's Changing Balance: Sandification  on Mu Us Sandy Land, Inner Mongolia, China 181 H. Jiang. 12. Evaluating and Assessing Desertification in Arid and Semi-arid Areas of Tunisia: Processes and Management Strategies 197 A. Mtimet, R. Attia, and H Hamrouni. 13. Regional and Global Assessment of the Dimensions of Desertification R. Leemans and A. Kleidon. 14. International Desertification: Social Geographies of Vulnerability and Adaptation TE. Downing and M Liideke 15. What Is the Role of Markets in Altering the Sensitivity of Arid Land Systems to Perturbation? P.A. Harou. 16. Addressing Desertification at the International Level:  The Institutional System P.S. Chasek and E. Corell. 17. Degradation and Recovery in Socio-ecological Systems:  A View from the Household/Farm Level R.J Fernandez, E.R.M Archer, A.J Ash, H Dowlatabadi, P.H Y: Hiernaux, JF. Reynolds, C.H. Vogel, B.H Walker, and T Wiegand. 18. Desertification at the Community Scale: Sustaining  Dynamic Human-Environment Systems P.F. Robbins, N. Abel, H. Jiang, M. Mortimore, M Mulligan, G.S. Okin, D.M. Stafford Smith, and B.L. Turner II 19. Responding to Desertification at the National Scale: Detection, Explanation, and Responses 357 S.P.J Batterbury, R.H Behnke, P.M Doll, JE. Ellis, P.A. Harou, TJP. Lynam, A. Mtimet, S.E. Nicholson, JA. Obando, and JB. Thornes  20. The Interplay between International and Local Processes affecting Desertification. E.F. Lambin, P.S. Chasek, T.E. Downing, C. Kerven, A. Kleidon, R. Leemans, M Liideke, S.D. Prince, and Y: Xue. 21. The Dahlem Desertification Paradigm: A New Approach to an Old Problem. D.M Stafford Smith and JF. Reynolds.

Knapp, G. (ed. ) 2002. Latin America in the Twenty-First Century: Challenges and Solutions. University of Texas Press. (Special issue of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers Yearbook - the last one, now superceded by the Journal of Latin American Geography).

This book showcases the achievements of geographers in helping understand and solve major problems facing Latin America. Chapters cover a variety of topics from conservation to transportation to gender.  The chapters include case studies of recent problems or issues in Latin America, and provide examples of geographic research that has helped illuminate or solve these problems.

Turner, B.L.II, J. Geoghegan, and D.R. Foster (eds) 2003. Integrated Land-Change Science and Tropical Deforestation in the Southern Yucatan: Final Frontiers. Oxford University Press.  ISBN 0199245304. $85.00.

A study of tropical deforestation - the first phase of a large, integrated, multi- institutional, and team-based study. Based in Mexico, it is designed to understand and project land changes in a development frontier that pits the rapidly growing needs of smallholder farmers to cut down forests for cultivation against federally sponsored initiatives committed to various international programs of forest preservation and complementary economic programs. Contents. 1. Three Frontiers of the Southern Yucatan Peninsular Region and SYPR Project, B. L. Turner II, David R. Foster, Jacqueline Geoghegan. 2. The Long View: Human-Environment Relationships 1000 BC - AD 1900, David R. Foster and B. L. Turner II. 3. Forest Extraction to Theme Parks: The Modern History of Land Change, Peter Klepeis.4. Forest Types and their Implications, Diego Perez-Salicrup 5. Recovery of Nutrient Cycling and Ecosystem Properties following Swidden Cultivation: Regional and Stand-Level Constraints, Deborah Lawrence and David R. Foster 6. Land Cover and Land Use: Classification and Change Analysis, Rinku Roy Chowdhury and Laura Schneider, with Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Pedro Macario Mendoza, and Sergio Cortina Villar. 7. Institutions, Organizations, and Policy Affecting Land Change: Complexity Within and Beyond the Ejido, Peter Klepeis and Rinku Roy Chowdhury. 8. The Ejido Household: The Current Agent of Change, Colin Vance, Peter Klepeis, Birgit Schmook, and Eric Keys. 9. Subsistence Sustained: Swidden or Milpa Cultivation, Peter Klepeis, Colin Vance, Eric Keys, Pedro Macario Mendoza, B. L. Turner II. 10. Jalapeno Pepper Cultivation: Emergent Commercial Land Use, Eric Keys. 11. The Semi-Market and Semi-Subsistence Household: The Evidence and Test of Smallholder Behavior, Colin Vance. 12. Spatially Explicity, Statistical Land-Change Models in Data-Sparse Conditions, Jacqueline Geoghegan, Laura Schneider, and Colin Vance. 13. The SYPR Integrative Assessment Model: Complexity in Development, Steven Manson. Retrospective: The Three Frontiers Revisited



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