Quantitative assessments of the effects of global change on soil development are mostly focused on soil carbon, some nutrients, pollutants and soil water. Soil however is a complex entity with interacting biological, physical and chemical processes that are rarely modelled in its entirety. Additionally, for the sake of simplicity various soil properties are considered constants whereas in reality they are not. Soil as we observe it is the resultant of many processes driven by varying bound...

Taking the case of Qazaq Pastoralists in Western Mongolia, this book looks at the universal human requirement to balance individual flexibility and strategies designed to make a living with the social expectations that impose particular rules of conduct but also enable mutual trust and cooperation to emerge.Pastoralists in Western Mongolia have experienced dramatic changes in recent decades, including the dismantling of the socialist economy, a series of natural disasters, and an e...

Over the past three decades, Uzbekistan has attracted the attention of the academic and policy communities because of its geostrategic importance, its critical role in shaping or unshaping Central Asia as a region, its economic and trade potential, and its demographic weight: every other Central Asian being Uzbek, Uzbekistan’s political, social, and cultural evolutions largely exemplify the transformations of the region as a whole. And yet, more than 25 years after the collapse of the Sovi...

Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia focuses on how tradition is ‘everyday-ified’ in contemporary Central Asia, including Tatarstan and Tibet, and what people seek to achieve in its name. The case studies range from political demonstrations and industrial workers’ gatherings to institutions of religious education, minority communities, weddings, and the Internet.In this volume we regard tradition as a practice that needs to be explored in its institutional and i...

Trager and her coauthors focus on migration not as a single event but as a dynamic process that responds to and is shaped by broader economic, cultural and social forces. Individual essays consider issues of international and internal migration, of voluntary migration and forced movements due to civil conflicts and environmental degradation, and of macro-level forces and micro-level institutions. The authors investigate a wide variety of types of mobility, describe transnational and multil...

In 1700, Latin America and British North America were roughly equal in economic terms. Yet over the next three centuries, the United States gradually pulled away from Latin America, and today the gap between the two is huge. Why did this happen? Was it culture? Geography? Economic policies? Natural resources? Differences in political development? The question has occupied scholars for decades, and the debate remains a hot one. In Falling Behind, Francis Fukuyama gathers together s...

In the wake of the global financial crisis, and ongoing savage government cuts across the world, Garry Leech addresses a pressing and necessary topic: the nature of contemporary capitalism, and how it inherently generates inequality and structural violence.Drawing on a number of fascinating case studies from across the world - including the forced displacement of farmers in Mexico, farmer suicides in India, and deaths from preventable and treatable diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa, a...

How does globalization work? Focusing on Latin America, Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth show that exports of expertise and ideals from the United States to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico have played a crucial role in transforming their state forms and economies since World War II.Based on more than 300 extensive interviews with major players in governments, foundations, law firms, universities, and think tanks, Dezalay and Garth examine both the production of northern export...

International institutions (United Nations, World Bank) and multinational companies have voiced concern over the adverse impact of resource extraction activities on the livelihood of indigenous communities. This volume examines mega resource extraction projects in Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Chad, Cameroon, India, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines.

A history of the successes of the human rights movement and a case for why human rights workEvidence for Hope makes the case that, yes, human rights work. Critics may counter that the movement is in serious jeopardy or even a questionable byproduct of Western imperialism. They point out that Guantánamo is still open, the Arab Spring protests have been crushed, and governments are cracking down on NGOs everywhere. But respected human rights expert Kathryn S...

The debate on international migration and development currently focuses on South-North migration, transnationalism, remittances and knowledge transfer. The potential positive role of migration for countries and regions the emigrants originate from has recently been acknowledged by, among others, the World Bank, United Nations Commissions and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). This volume addresses the question: to what extent and under what conditions does international mi...

Rural movements have recently emerged to become some of the most important social forces in opposition to neoliberalism. From Brazil and Mexico to Zimbabwe and the Philippines, rural movements of diverse political character, but all sharing the same social basis of dispossessed peasants and unemployed workers, have used land occupations and other tactics to confront the neoliberal state. This volume brings together for the first time across three continents - Africa, Latin America and Asia...