Roy E. Rickson

Agri-Food Restructuring and Third World Transnationals: Thailand, the CP Group and the Global Shrimp Industry

In this paper we concentrate on developments in Souththeast Asia concerning newly-emerging relationships between the nation-state and a globally-oriented corporation. Using an integrated corporate-commodity systems analysis, we examine the nature of the farmed shrimp industry in Thailand and the company (Charoen Pokphand, or the CP Group) most responsible for the vertical integration of production, first in Thailand and subsequently elsewhere in the region. We argue that the shrimp industry, both globally and in Thailand, offers a particularly significant example of the consequences that agri-food restructuring and the intensification of aquaculture has on the possibilities for the participatory control of social resources.

Social impact assessment: Knowledge and development

The role of social impact assessment (SIA) in development decision making is a continual theoretical and practical. Designed as a rational means for improving the intelligence of decision making by communities and government agencies, SIA is fundamental to development. SIA is a learning process contributing to the ability of communities and societies to learn and change. Grounding SIA in sound social theory helps to ensure independence of analysis from political judgments. However, SIA is most effective in structures that allow for political mobilization and should not be seen as a substitute for public participation. Two areas of sociological research (communities and organizations) are important to understanding how assessment data are diffused through a community and used by organizations and decision makers over time.

Institutional constraints to adoption of social impact assessment as a decision-making and planning tool

Abstract Even though most national governments and international donor agencies accept social impact assessment (SIA) as necessary, it is often partially, rather than fully, applied to development projects. Its adoption for planning and decision making is problematic, because some of its basic assumptions can contradict sociocultutural and political traditions. A principle of modern SIA is that publics potentially affected by development should participate in assessing consequences. Because SIA models are heavily influenced by Western social liberal traditions about public participation, for instance, they are sometimes incompatible with the established social and political institutions of Third World countries. Bureaucratic rigidity and disciplinary inertia are two potential barriers to adoption of SIA. Rancorous conflict, extreme poverty, and ignorance are also factors affecting how SIA is used. Barriers to using impact assessment techniques are being overcome by attempts to integrate SIA with the general planning process. SIA therefore assumes a positive role in development planning—to be integrated with economic and natural environment considerations.

Sacred land, mineral wealth, and biodiversity at Coronation Hill, Northern Australia: indigenous knowledge and SIA

This paper is concerned with the role of social impact assessment (SIA) in the resolution of an environmental conflict involving demands for the conservation of an ecologically significant area, a proposal to exploit mineral wealth, and the concerns of indigenous custodians who feared damage to sacred lands. This is a case in which the knowledge claims of key protagonists were deeply politicized and contested, and in which the process of decision-making was itself the subject of controversy and debate. The paper reviews the case, emphasizing the roles of western and indigenous epistemologies in decision- making. It presents an approach to SIA that addresses these epistemological issues and ensures the articulation of indigenous knowledge to governmental decision-makers.

Resource development and resource dependency of indigenous communities: Australia's Jawoyn aborigines and mining at coronation hill

Indigenous people and their communities are often critical actors in resource development networks dominated by large‐scale private and public sector organizations. Development policies and projects have often been contentious in Australia because lands on which development has occurred or been proposed are frequently areas of spiritual and traditional significance to Aboriginal people. Conflicts over development are therefore intense, occur in the context of a history of social and political exploitation of Aboriginal people, and focus on issues of symbolic value, local autonomy, power, and participation in planning. This article applies social assessment models recognizing resource development as a power network to the analysis of the social impacts of development and focuses on the political involvement of local communities as basic to social justice. Research results suggest that social impact assessments should include assessments of community competency to participate in corporate resource developme...

Environmental Studies: Managing the Disciplinary Divide.

SummaryEnvironmental studies has developed as an academic activity over the last 25 years. The area usually calls into play interdisciplinarity and the exploration of values. It also calls for inputs across a range of disparate sciences and humanities. Central to binding together these inputs are needs for commitment and communication between the cultures and philosophies involved.Older and more traditional university cultures are not properly structured to permit the level of communication needed. Several models of environmental activities, and particularly their management, are described, together with their strengths and weaknesses. The lifeboat model as used at Griffith University is also described. This model indicates how the levels of communication can be enhanced by both major structural characteristics, as well as by more minor decisions like the allocation of offices.

Assessing rural development: The role of the social scientist

Abstract This paper discusses the type of information needed for assessment of rural development alternatives, and the importance of establishing and sustaining interdisciplinary research and assessment teams. In this context integrated impact assessment is defined in terms of maintaining relationships between biophysical and social scientists. Assessment of the effect of development on small farms is our specific focus. Impact analyses easily integrate with development plans when they balance goals for economic growth with overall rural community development. Adequate assessment requires information about the equity of economic development alternatives for different types of farms and mitigation of short- and long-term impacts. The role of the social scientist is critical to ensure that these data are properly collected and applied.

Contract farming and rural social change: some implications of the Australian experience.

Abstract Contract farming represents a significant change in the organization of farm production in both the developed and developing worlds. It integrates farmers and farm families into the wider national and global economy by separating land ownership from the power to make land-use decisions. These include cropping, use of chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers), and harvesting decisions, and are no longer the exclusive province of farm owners and operators. The primary benefit for farmers of contract farming is a reduction of economic risk, while contractors are guaranteed a steady source of supply allowing investment in large-scale processing systems. The drawback is that farm families are increasingly marginalized by contract farming. Farmers lose power by dependence upon processing companies for “inputs” and know-how. The spread of contract farming has accelerated a narrowing of the genetic base of western agriculture, which has accompanied the development and widespread use of new crop varieties.

Structural differentiation and size in organizations: A thermodynamic formulation and generalization

Relationships between size and structural differentiation are basic points of analysis by organizational sociologists. Building upon Blaus 1970 theory of size and structure in organizations, we present a thermodynamic model of these relationships that offers a new theoretical perspective on processes central to understanding organizations: structural stability, equilibrium and change. Our method is to adapt Blaus theory to thermodynamic principles that specify relationships between organizational parameters such as size and differentiation and thereby explain stability. The underlying question for analysis, we propose, is the nature of organizational stability rather than temporal direct or indirect relationships between organizational size and structural differentiation. Starting with Blaus formal theory of size and differentiation, we use the model to logically justify and clarify interpretations in his generalizations and the more recent work of others. We start with Blaus theory because of its foc...

Book Reviews : THE ENVIRONMENT: FROM SURPLUS TO SCARCITY, by Alan Schnaiberg. New York, Oxford University Press, 1980. 464 pp.

or indirectly utilized by present societies.&dquo; The point of his argument is that present industrial production systems and the social inequalities they create are at odds with improving or maintaining environmental quality and, at worst, are destroying the very biophysical environment upon which we are dependent. The author argues that the social organisation of our industrial and agricultural system of production is incongruent with the thermodynamic principles upon which our biophysical system is based. Regeneration or maintenance of the biophysical system is therefore seriously threatened by how we use it. Our evasion of thermodynamic principles (primarily the first two laws of thermodynamics) occurs &dquo;... because humans have learned to operate across ecosystems, and to view their sociocultural production as rested in a different set of principles economic, not ecological. The distinctions between these two sets of rules are important in understanding the generation of environmental problems, and the historical development of societal economies&dquo; (p. 15). Understanding pollution and correcting it therefore requires a close study of modem production systems. Social factors maintaining the current social and economic structure of these systems are the basic causes of pollution, or more generally, &dquo;biospheric disorganization&dquo;. The book is divided into two sections. The first deals with the social factors