Nunavut Urban Futures: Vernaculars, Informality and Tactics (Research Note)

The Canadian Arctic, and Nunavut in particular, is one of the fastest-growing regions per capita in the country, raising the question as to what might constitute an emerging Arctic Indigenous urbanism. One of the cultural challenges of urbanizing Canadian North is that for most Indigenous peoples, permanent settlement, and its imposed spatial, temporal, economic, and institutional structures, has been antithetical to traditional ways of life and culture, which are deeply tied to the land and to seasons. For the past seventy-five years, architecture, infrastructure, and settlement form have been imported models serving as spatial tools of cultural colonization that have intentionally erased local culture and ignored geographic specificities. As communities in Nunavut continue to grow at a rapid rate, new planning frameworks are urgently needed. This paper outlines three approaches that could constitute the beginning of more culturally reflexive planning practices for Nunavut: (1) redefining the northern urban vernacular and its role in design; (2) challenging the current top-down masterplan by embracing strategies of informal urbanism; and (3) encouraging planning approaches that embrace territorial strategies and are more responsive to geography, landscape, and seasonality.

Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE – 1500 CE)

When analyzed systematically, Tropical Africa megalithism appears to have emerged in contexts of friction between different lifeways, agriculturalists versus foragers, pastoralists versus hunter-gatherers-fishermen, or agriculturalists versus fishing folks. The monuments built were clearly part of actual territorial strategies. Research conducted by the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (2002-2012) frontally addressed the “Why” of the emergence of megalithism in that part of the world, and probes the reasons for the performance of the elaborate burial practices preserved in the archaeological record. This paper emphasizes the diversity and complexity of burial protocols invented by Senegambian “megalith-builders” communities from 1450 BCE to 1500 CE. Senegambian megalithism is shown to have proceeded from territorial marking imperatives, shaping a multi-layered cultural landscape through the implemented mortuary programs anchored on the construction of Ancestorhood. Keywords: Megaliths; Senegambia; Cultural landscape; Mortuary program; Burial practice; Monolith-circle; Sine-Ngayene;

Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE – 1500 CE)

When analyzed systematically, Tropical Africa megalithism appears to have emerged in contexts of friction between different lifeways, agriculturalists versus foragers, pastoralists versus hunter-gatherers-fishermen, or agriculturalists versus fishing folks. The monuments built were clearly part of actual territorial strategies. Research conducted by the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (2002-2012) frontally addressed the “Why” of the emergence of megalithism in that part of the world, and probes the reasons for the performance of the elaborate burial practices preserved in the archaeological record. This paper emphasizes the diversity and complexity of burial protocols invented by Senegambian “megalith-builders” communities from 1450 BCE to 1500 CE. Senegambian megalithism is shown to have proceeded from territorial marking imperatives, shaping a multi-layered cultural landscape through the implemented mortuary programs anchored on the construction of Ancestorhood. Keywords: Megaliths; Senegambia; Cultural landscape; Mortuary program; Burial practice; Monolith-circle; Sine-Ngayene;

The Pivotal Position of the Citizen in The Concept of Territorial Governance

The aim of this research is to examine how local authorities, and more particularly municipalities, should focus on the local population in order to develop their territorial strategies.

Distinct foraging strategies generated by single-action behavioural flexibility

Animals respond to a changing environment by adjusting their behaviour. This behavioural flexibility often involves choosing between multiple potential actions. However, little is known about how a single action can be used to achieve strategically distinct functions. Here we show that the omnivorous nematode, Pristionchus pacificus, optimizes its mixed-resource diet by prioritizing either predatory or territorial outcomes of biting the bacterivorous nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans. To determine biting incentive, P. pacificus assesses success probabilities and net energetic gains of treating C. elegans as prey, and alternatively as a competitor for bacterial food. Considering both predatory and territorial biting outcomes enables P. pacificus to pivot to territorial aggression when predation is difficult. In addition to using these outcomes to valuate biting incentive, P. pacificus designates the more lucrative outcome as its objective for biting. This biting subgoal then recruits a search subgoal that specifically promotes predatory or territorial biting, thereby unifying behaviour towards a singular foraging strategy. Furthermore, we identified the invertebrate norepinephrine analogue, octopamine, as critical for switching between predatory and territorial strategies. Collectively, our results demonstrate that behavioural flexibility on the single-action level is achieved by a hierarchy of goals and subgoals that valuate and choose from various outcome choices.

ANALYSIS OF THE INFORMATION COMPONENT OF MARKETING TERRITORIAL STRATEGIES

The purpose of the article is to analyze the effectiveness of the information component for popularizing the territory brand. In modern conditions, the mobility of people and capital has reached such a level that a well-thought-out branding of the territory allows it to actively compete for resources, investment, skilled labor, partners, and so on. Therefore, the territories need to have their own identity and actively promote it. The importance of creating and promoting a brand is confirmed by both international brand ratings and the results of the development of territories after the implementation of a successfully developed brand. Territory branding helps to transform a country or a separate region from a ge-ographical unit into a full-fledged product that has its own value. The work shows that the creation of an effective brand of a territory is a com-plex mechanism that includes a system of principles, adherence to which allows one to create a brand that reflects the unique characteristics of the territory, its features and attractiveness. Additionally, a successful brand of a territory can become the ba-sis for effective brands of goods and services. The article analyzes the effective and ineffective brands of territories around the world. Based on this, it was concluded that for the marketing strategy of the territory to be successful, it is necessary to equally involve representatives of government, business and citizens themselves. An important component of promoting the brand of the territory, like any other product, is the effective dissemination of information about it to the target audience. The Internet has huge opportunities for this as one of the cheapest and easiest ways to disseminate information. The analysis of data for 2000-2020 carried out in the work showed that the share of Internet users in the world is constantly growing. In developing countries, it tends to have accelerated growth, that according to the prognosis will continue its being in the nearest future. At the same time, the main users of the networks are able-bodied and paying people aged 20 to 39 years, whose share is more than 50% of the world's population. Therefore, promoting the brand of territory using Internet technologies has undeniable advantages over other methods of promoting goods. In order to attract solvent buyers, the territory must be recognizable, have a competitive and attractive Internet portal. The analysis carried out in the work showed that the websites of the Ukrainian territorial units have a number of short-comings in comparison with the leading European practices. Therefore, the authori-ties should actively involve professional marketers to develop competitive brands, which will ultimately help the Ukrainian territories to fight equally for resources and capital. In addition, the development of the official site of the territory with the popularization of working enterprises and industries can give an impetus to attracting investment in business.

Locating Discourses and Narratives for Intervention

This chapter, Locating discourses and narratives for intervention, argues that planners and designers engaging in “critical” landscape planning need a proactive, rigorous and reflective approach to assembling the discourses in their projects. Drawing from a selection of articles on the recent political economy and ecology of Laos from post-development theory, cultural anthropology, sociology, political science, political geography, and political ecology, we survey four areas that function as conceptual drivers of the strategic planning proposals featured in Part Two of this book. These areas are (1) The politics of land-use planning and its deployment in the state’s territorial strategies; (2) A brief recounting of origins, since the 1980s, of the paradigm of sustainable development as it was imposed on regulatory institutions of the Global South; (3) The ways large-scale resource extraction is reproduced at capitalism’s frontiers via complex and overlapping patchworks of relations between large-scale infrastructures, state land concessions, and their administration at various scales; and (4) Discourse on “infrastructure” as a concept and our capacity to plan and assess it. These sections are held together by their constructivist and critical theory approaches, focus on the means and ends of neoliberalism, and undercurrents of authority, expertise and the politics of intervention.