pennsylvania state university press jun 2012 (3 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Development studies has not yet found a vocabulary to connect large structural processes to the ways in which people live, love, and labor. Producing Knowledge, Protecting Forests contributes to such a vocabulary through a study of 'local knowledge' that exposes the relationship between culture and political economy. Women's and men's daily practices, and the meaning they give those practices, show the ways in which they are not simply victims of development but active participants creating, challenging, and negotiating the capitalist world-system on the ground.Rather than viewing local knowledge as something to be uncovered or recovered in the service of development, Light Carruyo approaches it as a dynamic process configured and reconfigured at the intersections of structural forces and lived practices. In her ethnographic case study of La Ciénaga-a rural community on the edge of an important ecological preserve and national park in the Dominican Republic-Carruyo argues that Dominican economic development has rested its legitimacy on rescuing peasants from their own subsistence practices so that they may serve the nation as 'productive citizens,' a category that is both racialized and gendered. How have women and men in this community come to know what they know about development and well-being And how, based on this knowledge, do they engage with development projects and work toward well-being Carruyo illustrates how competing interests in agricultural production, tourism, and conservation shape, collide with, and are remade by local practices and logics.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - There has been much concern about rising levels of income inequality in the societies of advanced industrial democracies. Commentators have attributed this increase to the impact of globalization, the decline of the welfare state, or the erosion of the power of labor unions and their allies among left-wing political parties. But little attention has been paid to variations among these countries in the degree of inequality. This is the subject that Vicki Birchfield tackles in this ambitious book. Differences in political institutions have been seen by political scientists as one likely explanation, but Birchfield shows institutional variation to be only one part of the story. Deploying an original conceptualization of political economy as applied democratic theory, she makes the compelling case that cultural values-particularly citizens' attitudes about social justice and about the proper roles of the market and the state-need to be factored into any account that will provide an adequate explanation for the observable patterns. To support her argument, she brings to bear both multivariate statistical analyses and historical comparative case studies, making this book a model for how quantitative and qualitative research can be effectively combined to produce more complete explanations of political and socioeconomic phenomena.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Much has been written about how civil society challenges authoritarian governments and helps lead the way to democratization. These studies show that neoliberal economic policies have harmed many sectors of society, weakening the state and undermining clientelistic relationships that previously provided material benefits to middle- and low-income citizens, who are then motivated to organize coalitions to work for greater social justice and equality. Recognizing this important role played by civil society organizations, Jon Shefner goes further and analyzes the variegated nature of the interests represented in these coalitions, arguing that the differences among civil society actors are at least as important as their similarities in explaining how they function and what success, or lack thereof, they have experienced. Through an ethnographic examination extending over a decade, Shefner tells the story of how a poor community on the urban fringe of Guadalajara mobilized through an organization called the Unión de Colonos Independientes (UCI) to work for economic improvement with the support of Jesuits inspired by liberation theology. Yet Mexico's successful formal democratic transition, won with the elections in 2000, was followed by the dissolution of the coalition. Neither political access for the urban poor, nor their material well-being, has increased with democratization. The unity and even the concept of civil society has thus turned out to be an illusion.