Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea Region PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea Region PDF full book. Access full book title Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea Region by William Wheeler. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: William Wheeler Publisher: UCL Press ISBN: 1800080336 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 286
Book Description
The Aral Sea is well known for its devastating regression over the second half of the twentieth century, and for its recent partial restoration. Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea Region is the first book to explore what these monumental changes have meant to those living on the sea’s shores. Following the fluctuating fortunes of the pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet fisheries, the book shows how the vast environmental changes the region has undergone cannot be disentangled from the transformations of Soviet socialism and postsocialism. This ethnographic perspective prompts a critical rethinking of the category of environmental disaster through which the region is predominantly known. Tracing how the sea’s retreat and partial return have been apprehended by diverse local actors in the former port of Aral’sk and surrounding fishing villages, as well as by scientists, bureaucrats and international development workers, William Wheeler draws out the multiple meanings environmental change acquires within different contexts. This study of how people make their lives amidst overlapping ecological and political-economic upheavals is rich in ethnographic detail that is both rooted in Soviet legacies and alive to the new transnational connections that are reshaping the region. Offering a rigorous political ecology of Soviet socialism and after, the book is a major contribution to the nascent environmental anthropology of Central Asia. It will be of interest to environmental anthropologists, environmental historians, and scholars of all disciplines working on Central Asia and the former USSR.
Author: William Wheeler Publisher: UCL Press ISBN: 1800080336 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 286
Book Description
The Aral Sea is well known for its devastating regression over the second half of the twentieth century, and for its recent partial restoration. Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea Region is the first book to explore what these monumental changes have meant to those living on the sea’s shores. Following the fluctuating fortunes of the pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet fisheries, the book shows how the vast environmental changes the region has undergone cannot be disentangled from the transformations of Soviet socialism and postsocialism. This ethnographic perspective prompts a critical rethinking of the category of environmental disaster through which the region is predominantly known. Tracing how the sea’s retreat and partial return have been apprehended by diverse local actors in the former port of Aral’sk and surrounding fishing villages, as well as by scientists, bureaucrats and international development workers, William Wheeler draws out the multiple meanings environmental change acquires within different contexts. This study of how people make their lives amidst overlapping ecological and political-economic upheavals is rich in ethnographic detail that is both rooted in Soviet legacies and alive to the new transnational connections that are reshaping the region. Offering a rigorous political ecology of Soviet socialism and after, the book is a major contribution to the nascent environmental anthropology of Central Asia. It will be of interest to environmental anthropologists, environmental historians, and scholars of all disciplines working on Central Asia and the former USSR.
Author: William Wheeler Publisher: ISBN: 9781800080379 Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan's Aral Sea Region explores how the sea's retreat and partial return has impacted the lives of people living in the area.
Author: Doubravka Olšáková Publisher: Berghahn Books ISBN: 1785332538 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
Beginning in 1948, the Soviet Union launched a series of wildly ambitious projects to implement Joseph Stalin’s vision of a total “transformation of nature.” Intended to increase agricultural yields dramatically, this utopian impulse quickly spread to the newly communist states of Eastern Europe, captivating political elites and war-fatigued publics alike. By the time of Stalin’s death, however, these attempts at “transformation”—which relied upon ideologically corrupted and pseudoscientific theories—had proven a spectacular failure. This richly detailed volume follows the history of such projects in three communist states—Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia—and explores their varied, but largely disastrous, consequences.
Author: Isolde Brade Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1134152841 Category : Architecture Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
In the years since 1989, the societies of Russia and Eastern Europe have undergone a remarkable transformation from socialism to democracy and free market capitalism. Making an important contribution to the theoretical literature of urbanism and post-communist transition, this significant book considers the change in the spatial structure of post-Soviet urban spaces since the period of transition began. It argues that the era of transformation can be considered as largely complete, and that this has given way to a new stage of development as part of the global urban and economic system: post-transformation. The authors examine the modern trends in the urban development of western and post-socialist countries, and explore the theories of the transformation and post-transformation of urban space. Providing a wealth of detailed qualitative research on the Russian city of St. Petersburg, the study examines the changing structure of its retail trade and services sector. Overall, this book is an important step forward in the study of the spatial dynamics of urban transformation in the former communist world.
Author: Julian Agyeman Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262512335 Category : Environmental degradation Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
An examination of the awareness of environmental and social justice issues in the former Soviet republics--from the Western-style democracies of the Baltic region to the totalitarian regimes of Central Asia--and the resulting activism in those states. The legacy of environmental catastrophe in the states of the former Soviet Union includes desertification, pollution, and the toxic aftermath of industrial accidents, the most notorious of which was the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. This book examines the development of environmental activism in Russia and the former Soviet republics in response to these problems and its effect on policy and planning. It also shows that because of increasing economic, ethnic, and social inequality in the former Soviet states, debates over environmental justice are beginning to come to the fore. The book explores the varying environmental, social, political, and economic circumstances of these countries--which range from the Western-style democracies of the Baltic states to the totalitarian regimes of Central Asia--and how they affect the ecological, environmental, and public health. Among the topics covered are environmentalism in Russia (including the progressive nature of its laws on environmental protection, which are undermined by overburdened and underpaid law enforcement); the effect of oil wealth on Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan; the role of nationalism in Latvian environmentalism; the struggle of Russia's indigenous peoples for environmental justice; public participation in Estonia's environmental movement; and lack of access to natural capital in Tajikistan. Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union makes clear that although fragile transition economies, varying degrees of democratization, and a focus on national security can stymie progress toward "just sustainability," the diverse states of the former Soviet Union are making some progress toward "green" and environmental justice issues separately.
Author: Mikael Sandberg Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1134706413 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 240
Book Description
This book asks whether foreign aid can help post-communist societies to steer their technological innovation systems in more environmentally sound directions. Mikael Sandberg examines the legacy of Soviet-type innovation systems, then looks at opportunities for greener innovations in post-communist Poland, considering:* institutional transformation
Author: Adam Fagan Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317979664 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 178
Book Description
Green activism played a critical role in the downfall of Soviet-style communism in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s. After the revolutions, environmentalists were expected to exert influence within the new democracies and to form the bedrock of the new civil societies that were predicted to flourish across the region; the prospect of EU membership provided activist networks with even greater optimism about their political opportunities. Two decades later what has been the impact of political and economic liberalisation on environmental campaigners and policy advocates? Has access to elites increased with democratisation and Europeanization? To what extent does the realm of environmental politics, within individual states and across the region, continue to represent an optic on change and continuity? Through country case-studies and comparative analysis of national movements, this edited volume addresses each of these questions and provides a different perspective of green politics in the region. This book was previously published as a special issue of Environmental Politics.
Author: Petr Pavlínek Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1134715587 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 385
Book Description
Environmental Transitions is a detailed and comprehensive account of the environmental changes in Central and Eastern Europe, both under state socialism and during the period of transition to capitalism. The change in politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed an opportunity for a rapid environmental clean up, in an area once considered one of the most environmentally devastated regions on earth. The book illustrates how transformations after 1989 have brought major environmental improvements, as well as new environmental problems. It shows how environmental policy, economic change and popular support for environmental movements, have specific and changing geographies associated with them. Environmental Transitions addresses a large number of topics, including the historical geographical analysis of the environmental change, health impacts of environmental degradation, the role of environmental issues during the anti-communist revolutions, legislative reform and the effects of transition on environmental quality after 1989. Environmental Transitions contains detailed case studies from the region, which illustrate the complexity of environmental issues and their intimate relationship with political and economic realities. It gives theoretically informed ideas for understanding environmental change in the context of the political economy of state socialism and post-communist transformations, drawing on a wide body of literature from West, Central and Eastern Europe.
Author: Jennifer Patico Publisher: Stanford University Press ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
What happens when your once-dignified profession no longer supports a dignified lifestyle? In 1990s St. Petersburg, teachers had to find out the hard way. Although the institutions and ideologies of Soviet life situated them as "cultured" consumers, contemporary processes of marketization and privatization left them unable to attain what they now considered to be respectable material standards of living. In this fascinating new ethnographic study, Patico examines the various ways in which teachers have adjusted their activities and interactions as consumers, demonstrating how this has led to dramatic shifts in their assessments of their own lives and of the society around them. Consumption and Social Change in a Post-Soviet Middle Class presents a much-needed look at the lives of ordinary people in Russia today, in the process contributing both to postsocialist studies of social change and to broader anthropological theorizations of consumption and value.
Author: William Wheeler
Author: William Wheeler
Author: Octavian Esanu
Author: William Wheeler
Author: Doubravka Olšáková
Author: Isolde Brade
Author: Julian Agyeman
Author: Mikael Sandberg
Author: Adam Fagan
Author: Petr Pavlínek
Author: Jennifer Patico