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- Aalders, Johannes Theodor
(författare)
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The scale of risk: Conceptualising and analysing the politics of sacrifice scales in the case of informal settlements at urban rivers in Nairobi
- 2018
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Ingår i: Erdkunde. - : Erdkunde. - 0014-0015. ; 72:2, s. 91-101
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper investigates the importance of scale for power dynamics in the negotiation of risks connected to urban rivers in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to unequal distribution of wealth, global inequalities in the distribution of risk become increasingly important. Scale as a significant dimension of inequality is discussed in the context of Nairobi’s urban rivers, as water scarcity and flooding events are expected to increase and can both be observed within the highly heterogenic city of Nairobi. The paper attempts to answer the overarching question: how do contested definitions of scale influence the distribution of risks in the case of informal settlement along Nairobi’s urban rivers? This contains a conceptual, as well as an empirical dimension. Regarding the conceptual part, riskscapes are introduced and subsequently expanded to include an explicitly scalar dimension. At that, riskscapes are understood as a contemporaneous (and often contradictory) plurality of material and ideational relations that connect risks with people and the environment. A relational focus on fluidity and movement interprets scalar levels as contingent and political and thus not inherent to entities but as the product of negotiable relations. This conceptual background interfaces with the methodology of multi-sited ethnography, which inspires the method of following the river through the fragmented city of Nairobi. Applying this conceptual framing to the case of urban slum-dwellers in Nairobi, it is argued that women are discursively and materially framed to the household level, where they face the highest flooding risk. The level of the body is identified as a susceptible but often neglected scalar framing and is therefore placed in the centre of empirical scrutiny. This informs the conclusion to regard the poor female body in the case of Nairobi’s urban rivers as a sacrifice-scale where risks produced elsewhere are ‘dumped’, addressing the empirical dimension of the research question. This paper’s main contribution is the conceptual merging of the politics of risk and scale, the substantiation of this argument by a relevant case study and subsequently the spotlighting of dynamics of marginalisation through scalar negotiations of risk. © 2018, Erdkunde. All rights reserved.
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| 2. |
- Büntgen, Ulf, et al.
(författare)
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SCIENCE IN SILENCE
- 2021
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Ingår i: Erdkunde. - : Erdkunde. - 0014-0015 .- 2702-5985. ; 75:1, s. 61-63
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Intellectual and cultural benefits from extended periods of self-isolation have a long history. The ongoing decline in academic freedom, however, distinguishes the coronavirus disease from previous crises. Despite the unprecedented political and economic challenges, as well as the devastating societal disruptions caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, this study focusses on the fresh opportunities the current coronavirus restrictions offer to question extant academic models and paradigms, in the spirit of creating a more equitable and sustainable research system in the future.
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| 3. |
- Lindgren, Urban, 1966-
(författare)
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Simulating the long-term labour market effects of an industrial investment : a microsimulation approach
- 1999
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Ingår i: Erdkunde. - 0014-0015. ; 53:2, s. 150-162
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this article is to investigate the long-term local labour market impacts of an industrial investment. In the beginning of the 1990s the Swedish forest-based company SCA introduced a new technology for the production of high quality paper (LWC-paper) in the Ortviken papermill, which is situated in Sundsvall (northern Sweden). The regional income injection in connection with the implementation of the investment has previously been investigated empirically by KLINT and LlNDGREN (1992, 1993) and it was shown that a major share of the income injection trickled down locally in the municipality of Sundsvall. The ex-ante analysis of the investment's long-term labour market effect throughout the economic life of the paper machine cannot, however, be carried out empirically. In this study the problem has been approached by means of simulation methodology and the comparisons between different possible future scenarios. The basic hypothesis is that papermills, which are resource-intensive operations and mainly compete by means of high productivity, cannot survive without high investment rates. This implies that the papermill will have to close if the upgrading of the production process is not continued. The long-term impacts are obtained by comparing a baseline scenario, in which the LWC-investment is implemented, and a counterfactual scenario of non-implementation. In order to fulfill this task, a calibrated systems model based on microsimulation methodology has been developed. The model represents the population of Sundsvall individually, i.e. it simulates future life paths of every single person in the municipality. By using micro-orientated modelling the impacts of employment reduction at the papermill can be traced to other partial local labour markets (changed unemployment levels) and to the local population (changed migration and commuting patterns). The microsimulation model is calibrated on a micro dataset that contains a number of attributes on individuals who lived or worked in the municipality at some time between 1990 and 1993 (N = 103,000). The simulation results show that there are substantial indirect labour market effects, i.e. there are many occupation categories, not related to the papermill, that meet with increased unemployment in the case of the closure of Ortviken.
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