David Harvey’s theory of uneven geographical development: A Marxist critique

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 511-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raju J Das
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Relations ◽  
State Theory ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The State ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Class Relation ◽  
Internal Relation ◽  
Spatial Dispersal ◽  
Shed Light

The Marxist geographer, David Harvey, has written extensively and influentially about the production of space under capitalism and, in particular, uneven geographical development. This article is a Marxist critique of Harvey’s theory of uneven geographical development. It presents his theory around six interconnected theses: spatial concentration thesis, spatial dispersal thesis, surplus absorption or spatial fix thesis, uneven geographical development-as-ideology thesis, the uneven geographical development and the state connection thesis, and uneven geographical development–associated political thesis. His theory has shed light on certain aspects of the internal relation between capitalist accumulation and uneven geographical development, giving due emphasis to uneven geographical development’s contradictory character. It is, however, problematic on multiple grounds. It under-stresses the class relation, including the value-relation, between capital and labour, and correlatively fetishizes the power of spatial relations. While Harvey connects uneven geographical development to capitalist crisis, his theory of crisis is deeply inadequate. His theory also fails to systematically integrate the insights of state theory into it, and to the extent that the state is present, its essential class character remains under-emphasized. Finally, Harvey draws some conclusions about anti-capitalist political practice from his theory of uneven geographical development which are problematic from a Marxist vantage point. In particular, his view of the concept of the proletariat in Marxism and his scepticism towards the role of the proletariat in the fight against capital are contestable.

The Baluch, Sunnism and the State in Iran

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphane A. Dudoignon
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
Oasis Area ◽  
Shed Light

Since 2002, Sunni jihadi groups have been active in Iranian Baluchistan without managing to plunge the region into chaos. This book suggests that a reason for this, besides Tehran’s military responses, has been the quality of Khomeini and Khamenei’s relationship with a network of South-Asia-educated Sunni ulama (mawlawis) originating from the Sarbaz oasis area, in the south of Baluchistan. Educated in the religiously reformist, socially conservative South Asian Deoband School, which puts the madrasa at the centre of social life, the Sarbazi ulama had taken advantage, in Iranian territory, of the eclipse of Baluch tribal might under the Pahlavi monarchy (1925-79). They emerged then as a bulwark against Soviet influence and progressive ideologies, before rallying to Khomeini in 1979. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, they have been playing the role of a rampart against Salafi propaganda and Saudi intrigues. The book shows that, through their alliance with an Iranian Kurdish-born Muslim-Brother movement and through the promotion of a distinct ‘Sunni vote’, they have since the early 2000s contributed towards – and benefitted from – the defence by the Reformist presidents Khatami (1997-2005) and Ruhani (since 2013) of local democracy and of the minorities’ rights. They endeavoured to help, at the same time, preventing the propagation of jihadism and Sunni radicalisation to Iran – at least until the ISIS/Daesh-claimed attacks of June 2017, in Tehran, shed light on the limits of the Islamic Republic’s strategy of reliance on Deobandi ulama and Muslim-Brother preachers in the country’s Sunni-peopled peripheries.

scholarly journals Veterinarians and Public Health: Food Control in the Professionalization of Veterinarians

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. e1806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kari Tove Elvbakken
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
The State ◽  
Food Control ◽  
Health Food ◽  
Food Inspection ◽  
Core Practice ◽  
The City ◽  
Shed Light

This article explores the role of food control in the professionalization of veterinarians in Norway. Veterinarians became engaged in public health through food control and market inspection, which were the responsibility of Norway’s city boards of health from the 1860s. Food inspection served a double purpose: to ensure honest trade and to maintain the safety of food. I argue that food control, which was associated with cities’ efforts to secure public health and order, was important to the legitimacy of the veterinarian profession. This activity is not what one today sees as a core practice of veterinarians, which is the prevention and curing of animal sickness. Exploring boundary activities at the fringes of a profession, and especially activity connected to the city and the state, may shed light on the more general sources of professional influence and legitimacy in the Norwegian profession state.

Military Orders in Nineteenth-Century Brazil: Portuguese Tradition, the Holy See, and the Independent Nation

2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camila Borges Da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
Holy See ◽  
Pedro I ◽  
Military Orders ◽  
Shed Light

This article is a study of the controversial role of Portuguese military orders in Brazil, starting from that nation’s independence in 1822 and continuing through the nineteenth century, under both the first Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro I, and his son, Dom Pedro II. The debates around the presence of the orders, whose mission was rooted in both Portuguese colonial power and the authority of the Holy See, on Brazilian soil are important because they shed light on the process and nature of the growth of that nation’s independence. The government’s struggle to maintain the orders in Brazil, in spite of ongoing criticism, and only with the exertion of great diplomatic effort, demonstrates how necessary they were to the functioning of the state. The orders constituted an important source of income, yes, but they were valuable even more as ways of granting honor and prestige. Their presence allowed Dom Pedro I to unite the empire of Brazil by decorating local elites, thus securing their services and loyalty.

scholarly journals O Turismo de Base Comunitária em uma comunidade ribeirinha da Amazônia: O Caso de Anã na Reserva Extrativista Tapajós-Arapiuns, Santarém (PA)

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elcivânia de Oliveira Barreto ◽  
Maria Goretti da Costa Tavares
Keyword(s):  
Third Sector ◽  
Field Work ◽  
The State ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Extractive Reserve ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Tourism Community

EstEste artigo visou analisar a relação do turismo de base comunitária e o uso do território na comunidade ribeirinha de Anã no município de Santarém, estado do Pará. Sendo assim, neste artigo, trazemos uma breve análise do turismo de base comunitária desenvolvido em Anã, uma comunidade ribeirinha situada em uma unidade de conservação localizada no município de Santarém, denominada de Reserva Extrativista Tapajós-Arapiuns. Neste estudo, ainda levamos em consideração o papel do Estado e da ONG Projeto Saúde e Alegria na produção do espaço para o TBC. Desta forma, realizamos uma revisão bibliográfica sobre TBC, Estado e Terceiro Setor, fundamental para subsidiar a realização do trabalho de campo. Destarte, partimos da premissa que o turismo de base comunitária é uma contraponto ao turismo convencional, por assim dizer uma contra-racionalidade hegemônica. E é dentro dessa abordagem, que identificamos que o turismo de base comunitária desenvolvido em Anã, ainda não se configura como uma contra-racionalidade, uma vez que a ONG PSA atua com hegemonia frente ao turismo de base comunitária, e isso se perpetua principalmente pelas ações e inações do Estado na comunidade ribeirinha de Anã. The Tourism Community Based on a riverside community of the Amazon: The Case of Anã in Extractive Reserve Tapajos-Arapiuns, Santarém (PA, Brazil) ABSTRACT This article aimed to analyze the relationship of community-based tourism and the use of land in the riverside community of Anã in the municipality of Santarém, state of Pará (Brazil). So in this article we bring brief analysis of community-based tourism developed in Anã, a riverside community located in a protected area in the municipality of Santarém, called Extractive Reserve Tapajos-Arapiuns. This study also took into account the role of the state and the NGO Projeto Saúde e Alegria – PSA in the production of space for TBC. Thus, we conducted a literature review of TBC, State and Third Sector, critical to support the preparation of field work. Thus, we assume that the community-based tourism is a counterpoint to conventional tourism, so to speak a hegemonic counter-rationality. And it is within this approach, we identified that the community-based tourism developed in Anã, is not yet configured as a counter-rationality, since the PSA NGO operates with front hegemony to community-based tourism, and this is mainly perpetuated by actions and inactions of the State in the riverside community Anã. KEYWORDS: Community Based Tourism; Riverside Community of Anã; State; NGO Projeto Saúde e Alegria.

scholarly journals „Christianopolis“ als Utopie der Bildung, Erziehung und Wissenschaft nach Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654)

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Franz ◽  
Dietrich-Eckhard Franz
Keyword(s):  
17Th Century ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Science And Education

Education and sciences, that are accessible to all, is the focus of several complex and remarkable utopian visions from the 17th century. Particularly the life and work of Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654) shows the relation between the critique of social conditions and the idea of a better society. As many others at that time he favours a type of state marked as enlightened governance. However, his detailed description of the state “Christianopolis” from 1619, in which he addresses primarily the role of science and education in a society, shows significantly more independent concepts and implications. In his comprehensive explanation he specifies that science and education have certain responsibilities and importance for a better society. Those thoughts are meaningful and considerable both for philosophical and historical reflections of science and the vantage point of the present and shall therefore be the main focus of this article.

scholarly journals Fishing for Leviathans? Shifting Views on the Liberal State and Development in Peruvian History

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL GOOTENBERG
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
Political Turn ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractThis essay examines the shifting conceptions of the state and development through recent waves of Peruvian historiography. The broad structuralist-dependency interpretations of the 1970s and 1980s gave way to a more diffuse and creative ‘political turn’ during and after the 1990s. These changing historical ideas, which still defy synthesis, relate to distinctive global conceptions and phases of economic liberalism, the changing perceived role of states in development, and the integration and social disciplining of a vastly unequal Peruvian nation. Aspects of these Peruvian historical debates may help to shed light on similar controversies through much of the region.

scholarly journals Nation-building, not “Resistance Radio”

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shayna Plaut
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Financial Independence ◽  
Saami People ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Saami media are an important, if not invaluable, part of Saami society recognized as both a right and a service to the Saami people. In fact, the role of media and media outlets has often been referenced as a manifestation of self determination. However, whereas other Indigenous and ethnic minority media often seek clear financial independence from the state, my research shows that the Saami have a more nuanced and complicated approach. Based primarily on 25 in-depth interviews with Saami journalists, journalism educators and others who have been involved with communication I shed light on the evolving, robust and at times contested understandings of self determination as articulated, justified and practiced by Saami media makers. I argue that by not conflating self-determination with financial independence, Saami media practitioners are engaged in an evolving understanding and practice of media and self determination

scholarly journals Queering Justice: States as Machines of Oppression

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (Summer) ◽  
pp. 48-59
Author(s):  
Nour Abu-Assab ◽  
Nof Eddin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Arab State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Recent Attention ◽  
Shed Light

In light of the recent attention to the incarceration, surveillance, and policing of non-normative people in the Middle East and North Africa, this article does not seek to offer alternatives to systems of justice. Instead, our argument revolves around the need to turn the concept of justice on its head, by demonstrating that justice within the context of the nation-state is in its essence a de facto and de jure mechanism of policing and surveillance. To do so, this article draws on Michael Foucault’s notion of state-phobia from a de-colonial perspective, intersectional feminist theory, and Hisham Sharabi’s conceptualisation of the Arab-state as neo-patriarchal. This article highlights the need to move away from the post-colonial benevolent imaginary of the state, as a result of people’s desire for self-determination, to a more realistic de-colonial conceptualisation of nation-states that emerged post-colonisation, as sites of oppression. This article will also shed light on the role of civil society in reinforcing the unjust justice sought within nation-state frameworks by drawing on the examples of the recent crackdown on non-normative people in Egypt, and the example of non-normative Palestinians living under occupation. The Egyptian and Palestinian cases are, respectively, one of an allegedly sovereign state that overtly restricts gender and sexual freedom, and another of an occupying state that nominally guarantees gender and sexual rights. These examples are used to demonstrate the theoretical underpinnings of this article, through which we seek to problematise and break binaries of justice versus injustice, and the state versus civil society, in an attempt to queer the concept of justice.

Concerns About the Quality and Influence of Proxy Advisors, and Its Implications for the Preparations of the Shareholders Meeting

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 794-819
Author(s):  
Albert F. Verdam
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Institutional Investors ◽  
Listed Companies ◽  
The State ◽  
Advisory Services ◽  
Proxy Advisors ◽  
Shed Light

After highlighting the importance of the votes cast by institutional investors in shareholders meetings of listed companies, and the role proxy advisors play in this respect, this article turns to the points of criticism that are strongly emphasized in American literature, as well as to the state of regulation on both sides of the Atlantic, also including the stern action the SEC has been taken recently with respect to proxy advisors. On the basis of a questionnaire issued to Dutch listed companies, I shed light on the perception of listed companies of the actions of proxy advisory services. I will conclude with a few reflective remarks, also about the consequences of the growing role of proxy advisors for the preparation of the shareholders meeting dynamics surrounding the shareholders meeting.

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