165 research outputs found
Spatial Competition and Farm Tourism - A Hedonic Pricing Model
Changes in EU agricultural policies towards additional focus on rural development issues raise questions regarding the economic impact of local/spatial competition. Traditionally, farmers have typically been price takers in markets for major agricultural products. This is, however, not necessarily true in the case of local markets for ânew enterprisesâ. This article examines local/and spatial competition for farm tourism services, specifically âSelf cateringâ in Sweden. The results show that spatial dependences exist and have to be considered in the econometric estimation of the hedonic pricing model. Using spatial econometrics it is shown that the price is affected by the average price, the demand for and supply of lodging in the regional market. Notable is that the results indicate that local competition has a positive effect on the price while regional competition has a negative effect. Marketing channels used as well as size and ranking of the service were found to affect the price of lodging. Diversification does not seem to positively affect prices. The findings illustrate the potential importance of local competition for rural developments studies. It also raises questions concerning policies promoting diversification and multifunctionality as a way of revitalizing urban areas.Community/Rural/Urban Development,
Hardwiring the frontier? The politics of security technology in Europeâs âfight against illegal migrationâ
Migration controls at the external EU borders have become a large field of political and financial investment in recent years â indeed, an âindustryâ of sorts â yet conflicts between states and border agencies still mar attempts at cooperation. This article takes a close look at one way in which officials try to overcome such conflicts: through technology. In West Africa, the secure âSeahorseâ network hardwires border cooperation into a satellite system connecting African and European forces. In Spainâs North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, advanced border fencing has joined up actors around a supposedly impenetrable divide. And on EU level, the âEuropean external border surveillance systemâ or Eurosur papers over power struggles between agencies and states through âdecentralizedâ information-sharing â even as the systemâs physical features (nodes, coordination centres, interfaces) deepen competition between them. The article shows how such technologies, rather than âhalting migrationâ, have above all acted as catalysts for new social relations among disparate sectors, creating areas for collaboration and competition, compliance and conflict. With these dynamics in mind, the conclusion sketches an âecologicalâ perspective on the materialities of border control â infrastructure, interfaces, vehicles â while calling for more research on their contradictory and often counterproductive consequences
Here be dragons: mapping an ethnography of global danger
For a brief post-Cold War moment, it seemed as if global division would yield to connectivity as marginal regions would be rewired into the world economy. Instead, the postâ9/11 years have seen the spread of ever-larger âno-go zones,â seen as constituting a danger especially to Western states and citizens. Contact points are reduced as aid workers withdraw, military operations are conducted from above, and few visitors, reporters, or researchers dare venture beyond the new red lines. Casting an eye on this development while building on anthropologyâs critical security agenda, this article draws an ethnographic map of âglobal dangerâ by showing how perceived transnational threatsâ terrorism, drugs, and displacementâare conjured, bundled, and relegated to world margins, from the sub-Saharan Sahel to the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Mali, it shows how a relationship by remote control has developed as Western interveners seek to overcome a fundamental dilemma: their deep concern with threats emanating from the danger zone set against their aversion toward entering it. As ambivalent sites of distance and engagement, I argue, such zones are becoming invested with old fantasies of remoteness and otherness, simultaneously kept at armâs length and unevenly incorporated into a world economy of risk
The global front against migration
Authorâs note: This is an edited version of an appendix to my book Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe(University of California Press 2014. Illegality, Inc. is concerned with the âfight against illegal migrationâ in West Africa and southern Europe, and follows migrants and border workers through their interactions across the emerging Euro-African borderlands. Focusing on the Spanish case, which has been held up as a âsuccessâ in the âfight against illegal migrationâ, the book looks in turn at the trauma and drama of deportation to Senegal and Mali; Euro-African cooperation in the policing of the frontiers; and activism and aid work in the borderlands as well as in Spainâs North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, tiny EU territories where many migrants find themselves indefinitely retained. While the book drills down into the Spanish section of the EUâs âexternal bordersâ, this article instead looks briefly towards the U.S.-Mexico frontier to unearth some deeper trends in migration controls. Prepared in 2013, it was written at a particular time, just before large numbers of refugees started arriving into southern Europe, and just as the US Senate debated ambitious immigration reforms which have since faded from view. As the article suggests, the reason for this shift away from reform may not be surprising â a politics of fear, concentrated on the border â yet to understand the implications and entrenchment of these destructive border politics, we need to unearth the logics behind âmore border securityâ on both sides of the Atlantic. Exploratory in nature, my comments here are meant to open debate about these logics, as well as about their day-to-day workings and human consequences
Europeâs failed 'fight' against irregular migration: ethnographic notes on a counterproductive industry
Despite Europe's mass investments in advanced border controls, people keep arriving along the continent's shores under desperate circumstances. European attempts to âsecureâ or âprotectâ the borders have quite clearly failed, as politicians themselves increasingly recognise â yet more of the same response is again rolled out in response to the escalating ârefugee crisisâ. Amid the deadlock, this article argues that we need to grasp the mechanics and logics of the European âborder security modelâ in order to open up for a change of course. Through ethnographic examples from the Spanish-African borders, the article shows how the striving for border security under a prevailing emergency frame has generated absurd incentives, negative path dependencies and devastating consequences. At Europe's frontiers, an industry of border controls has emerged, involving European defence contractors, member state security forces and their African counterparts, as well as a range of non-security actors. Whenever another âborder crisisâ occurs, this industry grows again, feeding on its own apparent âfailuresâ. This vicious cycle may be broken, the article concludes, once policy-makers start curtailing the economies of border security underpinning it â yet the challenges are formidable as the industry retrenches along with the political response to the drama it has itself produced
âIllegalâ migration is a problem of our own making
LSEâs Ruben Andersson argues that rich nationsâ efforts to quell âirregularâ migration by land and sea are failing spectacularly
Intervention at risk: the vicious cycle of distance and danger in Mali and Afghanistan
In crisis-hit countries, intensive risk management increasingly characterizes the presence of international interveners, with measures ranging from fortified compounds to âremote programmingâ. This article investigates the global drive for âsecurityâ from an ethnographic perspective, focusing on Afghanistan and Mali. By deploying the concepts of distance and proximity, the article shows how frontline âoutsourcingâ and bunkering have generated an unequal ârisk economyâ while distancing interveners from local society in a trend that itself generates novel risks. To conclude, the article asks whether alternative forms of proximity may help to break the vicious cycle of danger and distance at work in todayâs crisis zones
SlÀttens musikanter : en musiketnologisk studie av orkesterspel i VÀstra Vemmenhög
Denna musiketnografiska uppsats beskriver den skÄnska orkestern Wemmenhögs Musikanters verksamhet. Syftet Àr att belysa de bakomliggande krafter som driver deltagarna att spela i orkestern samt se vilken betydelse den har för VÀstra Vemmenhög med omnejd. Det empiriska materialet Àr hÀmtat frÄn intervjuer av orkesterns medlemmar, gÀstande musiker, fÀltobservationer och deltagande observation. Resultatet visar att den drivande kraften har sitt ursprung i en kantor och folkskollÀrares brinnande intresse för musik kopplat till ett musicerande dÀr kontextens huvudtema Àr att tillvara mÀnniskans förmÄga att uttrycka sig musiskt. Resultatet visar Àven att orkesterns har stor social och musisk betydelse för dess medlemmar, och att orkesterns konserter Àr uppskattade inslag i Skurups kommuns musikliv. För dagens nyinflyttade vemmenhögsbor Àr dÀremot orkesterns verksamhet föga kÀnd. Detta till skillnad mot byns Àldre, och till tÀtorten Skurup, utflyttande invÄnare vilka följt orkestern frÄn dess uppbyggnad frÄn början av 1980-talet
Calais migrant response overblown â Ruben Andersson on BBC Radio Scotland
David Cameron recently described the ongoing migrant crisis in Calais as âtotally unacceptableâ and called an emergency cobra meeting. Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland, Dr Ruben Andersson described the reaction to the current scenario in Calais as disproportionate and ineffective. Kris Gulati explains
Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe
Irregular, clandestine or so-called âillegalâ migration by land and sea is rarely out of the political and media agenda in Europe despite its statistically limited significance. Taking this mismatch as its starting point, this thesis explores the industry that has emerged around clandestine migration in recent years â the transnational policing networks, aid organisations and media outlets that all make the âillegal immigrantâ their target, beneficiary and source. It focuses on the migration circuit between West Africa and Spain, where a joint European response to irregular flows was first tried and tested under the umbrella of the border agency Frontex. It is also here that success in âfighting illegal migrationâ has been most readily announced following the brief, spectacular migration âcrisesâ in Spainâs North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in 2005 and in the Canary Islands in 2006.
The thesis explores ethnographically how clandestine migration has been constituted as a field of intervention and knowledge-gathering since this time. In this field, it is argued, the roles of policing, caring for and informing on migrants intermingle while producing shared models, materialities and classifications that impinge upon the travellers labelled âillegalâ. Drawing on the dynamic nominalism of Ian Hacking, the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour and a growing body of critical migration and border studies, the thesis explores the interfaces where specific modalities of migrant illegality are produced. The exploration of these interfaces â in deportation, surveillance, patrolling, rescues, reception and activism â relies on an extended field site, with research carried out in Senegal, Mali, Morocco, southern Spain and European policing headquarters. Throughout, the thesis highlights not just the workings of the migration industry but this industryâs excesses and absurdities, which make the business of bordering Europe a fraught and contradictory enterprise
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