Working papers in Human Geography / Avdelningen för kulturgeografi
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Item On IPBES´ framing of the values of nature(Avdelningen för kulturgeografi, 2024) Stenseke, MarieThe Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), is highly influential when it comes to setting the global agenda for addressing the nature crisis. In the work of IPBES, significant attention is paid to how nature is valued, with one of IPBES recent assessments solely focusing on values and valuations. Fundamental in IPBES approach is the recognition that there are diverse conceptualizations of the multiple values of nature and that these should be considered if the negative trends for biodiversity are to be changed. This report presents an overview of IPBES’ framing of the values of nature from the perspective of financial decision-making. The report ends with some questions and concerns that support pertinent reflections for the continued work of BIOPATH: How are biodiversity considerations framed and contextualized in mapping and evaluation initiatives and exercises? Are nature’s contributions to people, embracing ecosystem services, taken into account in biodiversity considerations? How to compare impacts across geographic ranges? How to bridge between different valuation methods, including between quantitative and qualitative measures?Item Att förstå och undersöka hållbar tillgänglighet(2019-04-29) Gil Solá, Ana; Larsson, Anders; Vilhelmson, Bertil; Göteborgs universitetItem Applying a Community-Based Approach to Tenure Formalization(University of Gothenburg, 2018) Krantz, Lasse; Unit for Human Geography, Department of Economy and Society, University of GothenburgThere is today a growing recognition internationally of the importance of securing tenure rights to land and other natural resources in those regions of the world where a majority of the population depend on these resources for a livelihood. Partly this is related to the escalating global demand for land for commercial investments of various kinds, which threaten to deprive poor rural populations of their most important subsistence resource, i.e., land, unless their rights to it are better secured. Partly it is a result of the climate change and environmental agenda, which, it is now being realized, will not be effective unless tenure rights to forests and other terrestrial resources are clarified. At the same time there has been a rethinking of approaches for securing local tenure rights in practice. Experience has shown that the conventional approach i.e., individual freehold titling, has often not worked well in areas where communal forms of customary tenure predominate, which research has shown is still the case in many parts of the world. This insight, in turn, has led to an interest in what could generically be referred to as the “community-based” approach to tenure formalization, i.e., where rights to own or manage land and other natural resources are formalized at the level of the community as a collective landholding unit. Building land tenure formalization on already existing customary communal tenure systems is not a new idea. This was put forward already in the early-1990s as an alternative to systematic titling and it has been further discussed since the early 2000s. Also The World Bank, otherwise a leading proponent of individual land titling and privatization of land tenure relations in Africa, recognized in its 2003 land policy paper that at least in some situations supporting the institutionalization of customary group rights to land might be a more socially advantageous and cost-effective solution than individual assignment of property rights. More recently, a similar approach to securing Africa’s land has been advocated by the former Lead Land Specialist in Africa Region at the World Bank. So what are the advantages with this alternative approach? Firstly, focusing on the formalization of community lands as collective holdings makes it possible to cover quite extensive areas and populations in a relatively short period of time and at a limited cost. In other words, it is a cost-effective way of providing local rural populations with some basic tenure security over their customary territories, which is especially important in today’s escalating global competition for land. Secondly, at least in principle, this model ensures certain equality in tenure by providing community members with the same legal rights as co-holders of the community landholding. Thirdly, including all types of land, e.g., individual as well as commons, agricultural as well as forest land, under one and the same tenure regime, conforms better with the integrated character of many smallholder farming systems in developing countries. Mozambique is one of the countries in Africa that has adopted this approach in its land policy and legislation, based on a land law promulgated in 1997, which is now being implemented at a gradually expanding scale throughout the country. The purpose of this paper is to assess the outcome as well as to identify some critical issues and challenges when implementing this law in practice, based on a case study from the Province of Niassa in Northern Mozambique.Item Degraded and restituted towns in Poland: Origins, development, problems(Copyright 2015 by University of Gothenburg, 2015) Krzysztofik, Robert; Dymitrow, MirekOne of the less known problems in settlement geography is the issue of so-called degraded and restituted towns. This lack of reconnaissance, however, is perhaps less the result of the towns’ scarcity than their specificity of being ‘awarded’ or ‘deprived of’ an urban label by means of strictly socio-political actions. Degraded and restituted towns, hence, are spatial units made ‘rural’ or ‘urban’ instantaneously, irrespective of their de facto state along what is widely considered a gradual path of (de)urbanization. Instead, they become compartmentalized into two constructed spatial categories that have survived the onslaught of material transformations and philosophical repositioning. While ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ are conceptual binaries that certainly need to be treated with caution, their cultural salience may cause tangible consequences within national administrative systems that abide by a formalized rural-urban distinction. This issue becomes particularly important for settlements that clearly transcend any imagined rural-urban divide, i.e. those, whose material and immaterial characteristics seem counterfactual to their assigned category. It is also crucial in formal practices designed to avert such counterfactualities, but whose randomness of approach more creates confusion than helps straighten out a historical concoction. Both processes, nonetheless, lend ‘urbanity’ and ‘rurality’ a resonance of objectivity that justifies their use as guides for a host of developmental endeavors, despite subverting a much more intricate reality. Degraded and restituted towns are direct derivatives of this. Drawing on the above-mentioned irreconcilabilities, the aim of this book is to present and scrutinize degraded and restituted towns through the example of Poland, where these towns occupy a special niche. For one, Poland, due to its chequered and variegated history, is home to a conspicuously large number of degraded (828) and restituted (240) towns; for another, Poland’s relentlessness of formalizing ‘urbanity’ as a category of statistical, political and cultural guidance has a direct bearing on the lives of the towns’ residents. Realizing the intricacy of degraded and restituted towns in the face of commonplace rural- urban ideations, the editors and the 17 contributing Authors of this book have made an effort to capture the towns’ complexity with special foci on their shrouded origins, developmental specificities and incurred problems. Owing to the involvement of researchers from different scientific disciplines and subdisciplines, the undertaken project has helped elucidate the problem from multiple perspectives: spatial, social, demographic, economic, environmental, historical, architectural, cultural, legal and philosophical. Allocated into 17 chapters, not only have the presented interpretations allowed for a first interdisciplinary synthesis on the topic, but they also helped outline some prospective directions for future research. Moreover, collecting materials of such diversity into an amalgamated whole has helped identify specific discourses that enwrap the concept of “urbanity” when seen through its oscillations within formal contexts, and to which degraded and restituted towns serve as expendable game pieces. By combining knowledge arrived at through epistemologically different approaches, the incremental contribution of this book as a whole could be summarized in two attainments: a) extending theoretical frameworks used to study degraded and restituted towns in terms of definition, conceptualization and assessment of predispositions for future development on account of their spatial, legal, socio-economic and historical characteristics; b) initiating an anticipated discussion on a number of important and current topics related to the practices of degradation and restitution that have not received adequate attention, e.g., the urbanity-vs.-rurality paradox, the changeability of human settlement forms vs. the consequences of rigid spatial categorizations; the role of various actors in shaping the socioeconomic reality under the guise of an ossified binary; or identifying spatio-conceptual conflicts as future challenges for local, regional and national policy.Item Stationers roll för mindre orter och dess omland(2016-03-03) Selnes, Terje; Institutionen för ekonomi och samhälle, Avdelningen för kulturgeografiDenna del av projektet ”Stationers roll för mindre orter och dess omland” består av en empirisk studie av tre mindre orter. Orterna är Lödöse, Floby och Kode som valdes utifrån hur orternas respektive stationsområden representerar olika tradition, reseutbud och lokalisering. De utvalda orterna har studerats främst som platser för boende där stationsområdet diskuterats utifrån både vardagsliv och utveckling av orten. Studiens inledande och teoretiska del belyser platser utifrån dess olika egenskaper och hur förhållandet till andra platser, som bildar en rumslig omgivning, är centralt för hur en plats används. Utifrån denna teoretiska ingång presenteras fyra olika platsdimensioner som valet av bosättning i mindre orter antas grunda sig i. De fyra platsdimensionerna, specifik, karakteristisk, kontrasterande och regional är centrala i analysen av resultatet från studiens intervjuer. Den empiriska studien baseras på sammanlagt femton intervjuer med boende i de tre orterna. Intervjuerna behandlar frågor om hur de ser på sin boendemiljö i orterna och vad som värdesätts med platsen utifrån förväntningar, motiv och aktiviteter i vardagen. Utifrån en bred ingång om vardagslivet i mindre orter närmade sig intervjuerna ortens tågstation som plats i orten och funktion i deras vardag. Förutom en vardagsmässig relation till ortens stationsområde diskuterades även stationens roll i en framtida utveckling av orten. I studiens resultat framträder hur betydelsen av tillgänglighet till omgivande region är avgörande för bosättning i mindre orter. Betydelsen av regional tillgänglig hänvisas främst till arbetsmöjligheter men skiljer mellan orterna. Valet av boende i den specifika orten hänvisas till ekonomiska begränsningar och respondenterna värdesätter regional tillgänglighet och allmänna karaktärsdrag i mindre orter och omland framför orten i sig självt. Orternas stationsområden anses bidra positivt till de boendes tillgänglighet. Stationens roll är dock mycket varierande och framträder starkast för boende i Floby medan respondenterna i Lödöse och Kode i högre grad använder närbelägna motorvägar vilket minskar stationsområdets roll för deras regionala tillgänglighet. Intervjuerna visar även på en positiv inställning till bebyggelseutveckling i nära anknytning till stationsområdet. I Lödöse och Kode finns tydliga förhoppningar om utveckling där främst boende med lång erfarenhet betonar betydelsen att utvecklingen bidrar till en bättre blandning som tillgodoser orternas unga och äldre befolkning. Flobys större avstånd till Göteborg ger tåget ökad betydelse men minskar samtidigt respondenternas optimism kring stationens potential att bidra till lokal utveckling. Bland få visioner hos boende i Floby framkommer ändå vikten av att skapa mervärden i förhållande till boende i stad framför att planeringsmässigt eftersträva förtätning. Ortens och näromgivningens prägel och karaktär framträder som ett eftersträvat sekundärt värde/inflyttningsmotiv efter att ortens uppfyller god tillgänglighet till en regional omgivning. Karaktärsdrag värderas främst utifrån barnens möjligheter till trygga och inspirerande miljöer. I omlandshushållen finns dock även ett starkt eget motiv kring boendemiljöns karaktär som ofta kopplar till någon aktivitet i omgivande natur. Uppskattning av boendemiljöns kontrast gentemot övriga platser i vardagen uttrycks av främst av respondenter som lämnat småbarnslivet och funnit nya värden med boendet och orten. Dock hänvisar även ett större antal boende i omlandet till hur tidigare erfarenhet av boende i stad varit en drivkraft bakom inflyttning till den mindre orten.Item Monitoring and managing outdoor recreation in coastal and marine areas – what do we know and what do we need to know?(2015-02) Skriver Hansen, Andreas; University of Gothenburg. Department of Economy and Society. Únit for Human GeographyItem Geografisk tillgänglighet(University of Gothenburg, 2014-02) Larsson, Anders; Elldér, Erik; Vilhelmson, Bertil; Human Geography Unit, Dept. of Economy and SocietyItem Securing Customary Land Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa(University of Gothenburg, 2015) Krantz, LasseItem Tillgänglighet, mobilitet och IT-baserade tillgänglighetsverktyg för kollektivtrafikplanering.(2014-03) Larsson, Anders; Elldér, Erik; Vilhelmson, Bertil; Avdelningen för kulturgeografi, Institutionen för Ekonomi och samhälle. Göteborgs Universitet