Urbanizing Islands: A Critical History of Singapore's Offshore Islands

While Singapore is often considered an island city in the singular sense, the city-state actually consists of many islands, with the Singapore mainland being by far the largest. While most of these islands traditionally had thriving indigenous communities, all have since been displaced over time as the islands were developed to service Singapore's economic and metabolic needs as a rapidly urbanizing and developing nation. Some of the islands have also undergone considerable transformation (through reclamation) which has had significant impacts on the ecologies of the offshore islands. This simultaneously allowed for the ‘ruralization’ of mainland Singapore to provide more green space for nature conservation, recreation and leisure. This paper will provide a brief history of these transformations, drawing on specific examples which serve to illustrate how Singapore's offshore islands have been redeveloped over time to service the nation-state and in response to the changing needs of the urban core. In doing so, the paper examines how spaces on the urban periphery are deeply bound up with processes of ‘urbanization’, given their important role in processes of urban metabolism. In this way, the paper contributes to recent work in urban political ecology which has sought to trace processes of urbanization beyond the city and render visible the socio-environmental inequalities produced therein.

Rethinking Border Studies: Participation and Social Innovation in Border Zone Development

The study of emerging forms of public engagement and collective action is crucial for understanding the ongoing democratic dynamics, citizenship, and the constitution of the city's public problems. To recognize how the field of frontier studies is inseparable from the processes of experience of actors, this study focuses on the importance of the social innovation ecosystem (SIE) for the development of frontier zones. Specifically, this study revisits the main instruments of public management and border development policies to emphasize figures of civil society and their collective mobilizations on the Brazil-Bolivia border, recognizing social innovation initiatives and the main challenges they seek to solve. This path of public investigation allowed us to understand the territorial dimension of borders and expand their meaning as a living space by giving light to the actors' practices, identifying how they mobilize to repair socio-environmental inequalities.

Repensando os Estudos Fronteiriços: Participação e Inovação Social no Desenvolvimento das Zonas de Fronteiras

The study of emerging forms of public engagement and collective action is crucial for understanding the ongoing democratic dynamics, citizenship, and the constitution of the city's public problems. To recognize how the field of frontier studies is inseparable from the processes of experience of actors, this study focuses on the importance of the social innovation ecosystem (SIE) for the development of frontier zones. Specifically, this study revisits the main instruments of public management and border development policies to emphasize figures of civil society and their collective mobilizations on the Brazil-Bolivia border, recognizing social innovation initiatives and the main challenges they seek to solve. This path of public investigation allowed us to understand the territorial dimension of borders and expand their meaning as a living space by giving light to the actors' practices, identifying how they mobilize to repair socio-environmental inequalities.

Social environmental vulnerability approach on the COVID-19 epoch: a case study in Blumenau (SC), Brazil

There is a strong correlation between poverty indicators and the occurrence of diseases associated with environmental inequalities; therefore, it is highly necessary to explore the linkages between these inequalities and COVID- 19. This article describes a research designs made to study aspects of social environmental vulnerability that underlies the linkages between inequalities and COVID-19. This article aims to address this linkage. The objective is to explore aspects of social environmental vulnerability that underlies a case study at Blumenau, Brazil. The analysis is based on the critical question: Is there a relationship between social environmental vulnerability and COVID-19 at Blumenau? In Blumenau, where the study was carry out, the poor people are more likely to be affected from the risks arising out of the location of their homes, and this situation increases their vulnerability to floods, landslides, lack of water and exposure to open sewage. The methodology was divide into two steeps: (i) analysis of multi-temporal spread pattern of COVID-19 around the site; and (ii) analysis of the social environmental vulnerability and COVID-19 relationship. Results have shown that in Blumenau, there is a relationship between social environmental vulnerability and COVID-19. It can be said that COVID-19 emphases’ the social environmental situation in Blumenau. Based on our experience, we contend that an effective way to examine the linkages between inequalities and COVID-19 is to employ concepts and theories drawn from existing research to support guidelines, indicators and methods.

Unexpected Effects on Some Spanish Cultural Landscapes of the Mediterranean Diet

The declaration of the Mediterranean Diet as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in order to preserve a cultural and gastronomical legacy included the protection of lifestyles, knowledge, sociability, and environmental relationships. However, the patrimonialization, popularization, and globalization of a certain conception of this diet have turned it into a de-territorialized global phenomenon. As a consequence of this process, it has been necessary to notably increase the production of its ingredients to satisfy its growing demand, which, in turn, has generated “secondary effects” in some Mediterranean environments of Southeastern Spain. If, on the one hand, their wealth has increased and population has been established, on the other hand, the continuity of certain cultural landscapes linked to local knowledge and particular lifestyles has been broken, replacing them with agro-industrial landscapes exclusively at the service of production. This, at the same time, has caused social and environmental inequalities

Strategies for adapting to hazards and environmental inequalities in coastal urban areas: what kind of resilience for these territories?

The ongoing phenomenon of climate change is leading to an upsurge in the number of extreme events. Territories must adapt to these modifications in order to protect their populations and the properties present in coastal areas. The adaptation of coastal areas also aims to make them more resilient to future events. In this article, we examine two strategies for adapting to coastal risks: holding the coastal line through hard constructions such as seawalls or ripraps and the managed retreat of activities and populations to a part of the territory not exposed to hazards. In France, these approaches are financed by a solidarity insurance system at the national level as well as local taxes. These solidarity systems aim to compensate the affected populations and finance implementation of the strategies chosen by local authorities. However, the French mainland coast generally attracts affluent residents, the price of land being higher than inland. This situation induces the presence of inequalities in these territories, inequalities which can be maintained or reinforced in the short and medium term when a defense strategy based on hard constructions is implemented. In such a trajectory, it appears that these territories would be less resilient in the long term because of the maintenance costs of the structures and the uncertainties relating to the hazards (submersion, rising sea levels, erosion). Conversely, with a managed-retreat strategy, inequalities would instead be done away with since property and populations would no longer be exposed to hazards, which would cost society less and would lead these territories towards greater resilience in the long term. Only one social group would be strongly impacted by this strategy in the short term when they are subjected to a managed retreat to another part of the territory.

Rationalizing environmental decision-making through economic valuation?

Environmental economic valuations of biodiversity are an increasingly active field of academic inquiry, often presented as a prominent means to rationalize decision-making on environmental issues. However, the meaning of this argument is unclear, because it uses the term “rationalize” in a loose way. This argument, as it is typically formulated in the literature, makes it look as though economic valuations do not involve any value-judgment by economists: by emphasizing rationalization, this argument silences value-judgements. This blind spot is critical, since environmental inequalities are pervasive in economic valuations and their applications, and environmental decision making hence unavoidably involves value-judgements. In this article, we identify conditions upon which environmental economic valuations can truly contribute to rationalizing decision making, despite environmental inequalities. We review the main arguments found in the literature to entrench the credentials of economic approaches to rationalize decision-making, and argue that these approaches fail, at a fundamental level. We then argue that the key for economic valuations to truly contribute to rationalization is that their usage should be embedded in the deployment of what we will call a justificatory task. We then take advantage of an analysis of the notion of rationality, when applied to decision-aiding processes, to translate this reasoning in the concrete terms of applications of environmental economic valuations. According to the argument that we articulate here, standard economic valuations, just like any other application of economic tools, can indeed play a role in rationalizing environmental decisions, in spite of the inequalities that they (re)produce. But this possibility is conditioned by the requirement that the economist implementing them should produce justifications.