scholarly journals Dimensions of Urban Blight in Emerging Southern Cities: A Case Study of Accra-Ghana

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8399
Author(s):  
Sally Adofowaa Mireku ◽  
Zaid Abubakari ◽  
Javier Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Global South ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
City Development ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Population Loss ◽  
Land Transfer ◽  
Urban Blight ◽  
Global North

Urban blight functions inversely to city development and often leads to cities’ deterioration in terms of physical beauty and functionality. While the underlying causes of urban blight in the context of the global north are mainly known in the literature to be population loss, economic decline, deindustrialisation and suburbanisation, there is a research gap regarding the root causes of urban blight in the global south, specifically in prime areas. Given the differences in the property rights regimes and economic growth trajectories between the global north and south, the underlying reasons for urban blight cannot be assumed to be the same. This study, thus, employed a qualitative method and case study approach to ascertain in-depth contextual reasons and effects for urban blight in a prime area, East Legon, Accra-Ghana. Beyond economic reasons, the study found that socio-cultural practices of landholding and land transfer in Ghana play an essential role in how blighted properties emerge. In the quest to preserve cultural heritage/identity, successors of old family houses (the ancestral roots) do their best to stay in them without selling or redeveloping them. The findings highlight the less obvious but relevant functions that blighted properties play in the city core at the micro level of individual families in fostering social cohesion and alleviating the need to pay higher rents. Thus, in the global south, we conclude that there is a need to pay attention to the less obvious roles that so-called blighted properties perform and to move beyond the default negative perception that blighted properties are entirely problematic.

scholarly journals Indicators, security and sovereignty during COVID-19 in the Global South

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-260
Author(s):  
John Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
Third World ◽  
Global South ◽  
Governance Mechanisms ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
The Face ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Government

AbstractThe spread of COVID-19 has seen a contest over health governance and sovereignty in Global South states, with a focus on two radically distinct modes: (1) indicators and metrics and (2) securitisation. Indicators have been a vehicle for the government of states through the external imposition and internal self-application of standards and benchmarks. Securitisation refers to the calling-into-being of emergencies in the face of existential threats to the nation. This paper contextualises both historically with reference to the trajectory of Global South states in the decades after decolonisation, which saw the rise and decline of Third-World solidarity and its replacement by neoliberalism and global governance mechanisms in health, as in other sectors. The interaction between these modes and their relative prominence during COVID-19 is studied through a brief case-study of developments in Kenya during the early months of the pandemic. The paper closes with suggestions for further research and a reflection on parallel trends within Global North states.

Urban Politics and Policy in a Southern Urban Planet

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-178
Author(s):  
Garth Myers
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Global South ◽  
City Government ◽  
New Towns ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Global North ◽  
Policy Mobilities ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation Strategies

This chapter examines the urban studies literatures on urban politics and policy mobilities, from postcolonial southern perspectives. Analysis of urban politics is in flux within global urban studies. For years, the predominant focus of global North urban studies in analyzing urban politics resided with understanding growth machines and urban. Recently, there has been a general change in focus from discreet units at scale (i.e. a city government) to a ‘relational’ approach. What does this work look like, viewed from the global South? How do urbanists from the global South or those focused on its cities approach these arenas of scholarship? The chapter seeks answers to these questions with specific policies in mind. specific policies examined include participatory budgeting, bus rapid transit, enclave urbanization (new towns or satellite cities), sister city relationships, and climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. Case study material from Hartford, San Juan, Zanzibar and Dongguan helps to show different ways in which South-South connectivities shape politics, governance and urban cultures at both ends.

scholarly journals Truth and Method in Southern Criminology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Brown
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Ethical Conduct ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Penal Reform ◽  
Global North ◽  
Critical Social Science ◽  
Truth And Method

AbstractWhat does it mean to “do” southern criminology? What does this entail and what demands should it place on us as criminologists ethically and methodologically? This article addresses such questions through a form dialogue between the Global North and the Global South. At the center of this dialogue is a set of questions about ethical conduct in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding in human relations. These develop into a conversation that engages South Asian scholars working at the forefront of critical social science, history and theory with a foundational text of European hermeneuticist theory and practice, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method, published in 1960. Out of this exercise in communication across culture, histories and knowledge practices emerges a new kind of dialogue and a new way of thinking about ethical practice in criminology. To give such abstractions a concrete reference point, the article illustrates their possibilities and tensions through a case study of penal reform and the question of whether so-called “failed” Northern penal methods—like the prison—should be exported to the Global South. The article thus works dialogically back and forth through these scholars’ accounts of ethical conduct, research practice, the weight of history, and the work of theory with a very concrete and common criminological context in sight. The result is what might be understood as a norm of ethical engagement and an epistemology of dialogue.

COMMODIFIED SPIRITUALITY: TOURISM AND INDIGENOUS HERITAGE PRACTIES IN HUAUTLA DE JIMENEZ, MEXICO

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Sustainable Tourism Development ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
The World

With the rapid emergence of ever more diverse forms of cultural tourism, sacred indigenous practices around the world are increasingly becoming part of the repertoire of experiences available in the global travel market. Particularly, the growing tourist use of sacred plants with psychoactive properties in shamanic contexts is a sensitive issue that is still under-researched. By implementing an ethnographic case study approach in the Mazatec town of Huautla de Jimenez (HDJ), Mexico, this study analyses the effects of the touristic commodification of sacred-plant ceremonies in the social capital of indigenous communities. Findings reveal that tensions and disputes based on differing aspirations between traditionalists and modernists residents of HDJ have emerged as a result of the commodification of sacred-mushroom rituals or veladas. The lack of trust relations among local stakeholders diminishes the collective capacity to implement community-based initiatives of cultural heritage conservation and sustainable tourism development, which is indicative of a fractured social capital. Although the effects of neo-shamanic tourism in HDJ match those of more traditional forms of tourism in rural and indigenous settings, the case study of HDJ exemplifies how the touristic commodification of culture has reached the most sacred and intimate cultural practices in the most remote corners of the world. Findings are placed on a global context to enhance a holistic understanding of how touristic commodification of intangible cultural heritage affects structural relations of social capital in destination communities.

Diaspora engagement policies and transnational financialisation in Colombia

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110453
Author(s):  
Gisela P Zapata
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Global North ◽  
The One ◽  
Migrant Households ◽  
Diaspora Engagement

Although the debate on the migration–remittances–development nexus in Latin America has advanced considerably in recent years, the literature has yet to analyse the socio-political implications of the process of Financialisation of Remittances (FOR) in the region. This paper sheds light on the relationship between the FOR and diaspora engagement policies in Colombia, thus contributing to a growing body of critical analyses on diasporas as agents of development and processes of financialisation beyond the global north. Since the turn of this century, Colombian governments have invested in consolidating part of the state apparatus to capture and maintain the diaspora and their resources connected to the motherland. The paper uses a case study approach centred on a systematic examination of the political–institutional apparatus developed to engage the diaspora and financialise remittances in Colombia over the past 20 years, incorporating a temporal and historical perspective of the triad migration–development–financialisation trends at the national level. It argues that the FOR is a centrepiece of the state's broader strategy for the symbolic and material redefinition of (transnational) membership, in which both, embracing – by extending social and political rights – and tapping – into migrant households’ connections to global circuits of capital and finance – elements co-exist This case is illustrative of how a growing number of states are adopting models of diaspora engagement that, on the one hand, feed into the dominant financialised model of development; and on the other, serve as an instrumental strategy in the emerging architecture of the global governance of migration.

The Global South and Norm Advocacy at the United Nations Human Rights Council

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 728-764
Author(s):  
Michael Joel Voss
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Global South ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Global North ◽  
Negative Role ◽  
International Issues ◽  
The United Nations

Historically, critics of the United Nations Human Rights Council commonly focus on the perceived negative role that states from the Global South play in Council proceedings. These ‘Western-centric’ assessments fail to consider the Global South’s role in advancing their own human rights preferences. This article describes the Global South’s norm advocacy at the Council from 2006 through 2017 using thematic resolutions, an understudied but preferred tool of the Global South at the Council. This article divides thematic resolutions into three possible motivations for Global South advocacy – in response to domestic issues, international issues, and cultural differences between regions, and includes an exemplary case study from each category. The article shows the Global South is very active in human rights promotion but chooses to focus on human rights that differ from the Global North.

Peculiar responsibilization? Exploring a governing strategy in an atypical prison in the Global South

2020 ◽  
pp. 146247452097246
Author(s):  
Fernando Avila ◽  
Máximo Sozzo
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
National Context ◽  
Strong Link ◽  
Global North ◽  
Prison Studies ◽  
Cultural Developments

Based on an ethnographic study of “Punta de Rieles” prison in Uruguay, where more than 600 prisoners coexist with increased levels of autonomy in a relatively peaceful environment, and that heavily relies on responsibilization as a strategy of governance, we seek to contribute to the analysis of the characteristics and boundaries of responsibilization in prison settings beyond the Global North. Considering the strong link between responsibilization and neoliberalism in recent prison studies, we describe the loose, lay and informal nature of responsibilization and the elements of collectivism that are present in our case study, connecting this strategy with broader political and cultural developments in this national context.

scholarly journals The Impact of Salient Cultural Practices on the Outcome of IS Implementation

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mumin Abubakre ◽  
Crispin R. Coombs ◽  
M. N. Ravishankar
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Implementation Process ◽  
Organisational Culture ◽  
Case Study Approach ◽  
Is Implementation ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Research Philosophy ◽  
The Impact

Some information system (IS) studies have adopted organisational culture (OC) theory to investigate IS implementations. The studies highlight that members will reach consensus or agreement in the use of an IS but also experience inevitable tensions and ambiguities in the utilization of the IS. However, literature related to IS implementation/OC has rarely examined the influence that the saliency of specific cultural practices may have on the success or failure of IS implementations. Using a case study approach, we adopted the “soft positivism” research philosophy to collect data, underpinned by Martin's (1992) integration and differentiation perspectives of OC to study the organisational implementation of an IS. These perspectives served as interpretive lenses through which to explain how members' salient behaviours towards an IS evolved during the implementation process. Our study augments the IS implementation/OC literature by demonstrating how salient cultural practices influence the outcome of IS implementation.

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