Annelies Zoomers

Development geography at the crossroads of livelihood and globalisation

textabstractThis article explores new insights generated by livelihood research with respect to poverty problems in the world and how people deal with global challenges. Through the examination of the changing outlines of livelihood in the present era of globalisation, we unravel the fuzzy relation between globalisation and local development from an actor point of view. First, the article analyses the historical and theoretical context in which the modern livelihood approach developed, followed by a short explanation of its contemporary definition. Then, globalisation trends in livelihoods are considered in order to determine the consequences for local development. The main issues reviewed are: the decomposition of households; the increased diversification of livelihoods; and the emergence of multi-local livelihoods and livelihood networks. In the conclusion it is argued that the future agenda on local development in development geography should include the study of rooted and dispersed livelihoods.

Three Decades of Rural Development Projects in Asia, Latin America and Africa: Learning from Successes and Failures

This article aims to contribute to the discussion about how to make development interventions more effective by analyzing the factors contributing to the success or failure of rural development projects. We made an aggregate level analysis of 46 projects in the field of agricultural research (AR), water management (WM), natural resource management (NRM), and integrated rural development (IRD), financed by the Netherlands’ Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) and carried out between 1975-2005 in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Making a distinction between the successful projects and failures, we showed the possibilities and limitations …/

Global Travelling Along the Inca Route: Is International Tourism Beneficial for Local Development?

Globalization has vastly increased the number of people travelling the globe. More than half a million tourists visit the Andean Highlands each year, many of them following the “Inca route” between Peru and Bolivia in pursuit of adventurous moments and “authentic” experiences. The governments of Peru and Bolivia have embraced cultural tourism as a strategy for economic growth, the alleviation of poverty, the conservation of cultural heritage and the protection of indigenous rights. To understand the long-term implications of tourism in the Andes, however, we need to understand what draws tourists to the area, how local people view the visitors, how locals and outsiders variously understand “poverty”, and how global travelling affects opportunities for local development. Based on a combined analysis of travel guides, interviews with Peruvian and Bolivian Andeanists and fieldwork in the southern Andes of Bolivia, this article explores perceptions of place, poverty, and international tourisms potential for economic development in the Andean region. While cultural tourism has incorporated Andean people in the consumer-oriented global economy, the majority remain socially marginalized and without sufficient access to productive resources.

Co-management of Forests and Forest Land Under Decentralization Process in Central Vietnam

With global concerns over climate change and forest degradation, poverty reduction in and around forest areas seem to be less prominent on the agenda, even though there is an intrinsic link between poverty and deforestation. In this highly complex context, where forests must fulfill roles that range from global to local ecological and socio-economic services, forest policies face new challenges, depending on the institutional, legal and economic conditions in different countries. Vietnam has already taken up this challenge to integrate rural development with issues for sustainable natural resource management from the early nineties onward through their Forest Land Allocation (FLA) policy. After almost 20 years of FLA policies implementation, this chapter analyses the impacts of these decentralization FLA policies have on forest protection and socio-economic improvement of selected rural communities in and around the bufferzone of the Bach Ma National Park (BMNP), Central region of Vietnam. It pays particular attention to the effects of FLA policies on long existing customary institutions at the community level to sustainably use and protect forest resources. The research argues that the policy was a good initiative to create resource use rights as well as co-management for local communities. However, local people do not benefit from the implemented “decentralized” measures, shown by continuous illegal encroachment into the core zone of the BMNP. The main reason is that active participation of local people is absent, and policies do not fit the local needs and priorities. This chapter critically examines the process of decentralization as it has taken place in central Vietnam, focusing on the buffer zone surrounding (BMNP), where the Government and international organizations have implemented projects on decentralized forest land management, following along the policy framework and donor agendas. The study emphasizes that the decentralization process in forest management is to achieve success if participation of local people is given more attention.

Global Circulation and Territorial Development: Introduction to the Special Issue

The circulation of capital, commodities, people, ideas and knowledge has grown and accelerated tremendously over the past decades due to progress in information and communication technologies under conditions of neo-liberal development. That these flows of tangible and intangible products have had profound impact—on our way of life, on interactions between individuals and social groups, on the institutions of societies, and on personal and collective identities—is widely acknowledged (Castells, 1996–1998). In this Special Issue we focus on how various “spaces of flows” have impacted upon the trajectories of urban and regional developments in different social contexts. The contributors are all members and associated researchers in the Urban and Regional Research Group of the Institute for Management Research at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Their reflections upon how global circulations have generated changes and affected development processes concern different levels of scale: from the microlevel of consumption spaces to the macro-level of a region comprising three national states. Development theories often overlook the importance of regions within globalization processes (Scott & Storper, 2003); how the “space of flows” and the “space of place” are connected (Castells, 1996–1998); how the local and the global are intertwined (Swyngedouw, 1997); and how local development can no longer be understood without

Travelling without a helmet: tourists' vulnerabilities and responses to disasters in Indonesia

Tourists are particularly vulnerable when natural disasters occur in regions that they are visiting. It is assumed that they lack awareness and understanding of the actions that they need to take in such circumstances. This study examines the responses of tourists in times of disaster, building on empirical data collected through large-scale surveys conducted in Bali and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 2015. Both are important tourist destinations in the country that have suffered major disasters in recent years. The different types of responses to these events are framed using a grid/group analysis stemming from cultural theory. The study resulted in three key findings: (i) current disaster management planning largely follows a single rationale; (ii) tourists are not a homogeneous group, but rather a complex, diverse, and dynamic body of stakeholders; and (iii) the focus of disaster management planning should shift from a single rationale to a polyrational methodology. Disaster managers need to consider, therefore, these different aspects in the context of preparedness.

13 International Migration Policies And The Fight Against Poverty: Some Final Reflections

This chapter brings together various issues that is hoped to help in the design of migration policies relevant, or beneficial, to development. If we look at international migration from the perspective of the sending countries, however, a different-more diverse-picture emerges. The majority of migration flows are found to be directed not towards the core receiving countries just referred to. Only a limited number of countries are characterised by South-North migration. By far the majority of emigration countries are found to be the subject of South-South migration. International migration is nowadays reshaping the world in a selective way, contributing to a global reallocation of development opportunities for the various countries in the world. Some countries in sub-Saharan Africa benefit from migration as a new source of financial capital, or use it as a source of negotiation power. Keywords:international migration policies; South-North migration; South-South migration; sub-Saharan Africa