Mass Protests from a Spatial Perspective: Discontent and Urban Public Space in Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow

Mass protests have been an important part of the political environment in Eastern Europe for more than a century. Since the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, people have turned to urban spaces to make their opinions heard and to demand change, with varying degrees of success. This was most notably the case during the 1960s; and from the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, through a wave of what are commonly referred to as colour revolutions in the 2000s, to the Ukrainian Euromaidan revolution of 2013–2014. Contention in urban spaces continues to affect politics in the region. How are such mass protests affected by the urban public space in which they occur? Based on a contextualisation of protest space and a review of the academic literature on protests and urban space, this article-based thesis identifies a gap in the literature and then goes on to describe the development of a theoretical model to analyse city spaces, based on the use of theories from political science, urban planning, and sociology. The approach consists of a mapping of the causal mechanisms between spatial elements, the political environment, and their combined effect on protests. This mapping is applied to three case studies—a prestudy of Kyiv, a transitional study of Minsk and the main test-study of Moscow—written for three different academic journals at three different periods in the study’s development. In addition to the spatial perspective model, this thesis provides new insights as to how the interactions in space occur, and demonstrates how geography can create limitations and opportunities in a large variety of ways. It also contributes a language and a typology for use in the studies of opposition movements and collective actions

Ground-based measurements of total ozone column amount with a multichannel moderate-bandwidth filter instrument at the Troll research station, Antarctica

Combining information from several channels of the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU-UV) irradiance meter, one may determine the total ozone column (TOC) amount. A NILU-UV instrument has been deployed and operated on two locations at Troll research station in Jutulsessen, Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, for several years. The method used to determine the TOC amount is presented, and the derived TOC values are compared with those obtained from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) located on NASA’s AURA satellite. The findings show that the NILU-UV TOC amounts correlate well with the results of the OMI and that the NILU-UV instruments are suitable for monitoring the long-term change and development of the ozone hole. Because of the large footprint of OMI, NILU-UV is a more suitable instrument for local measurements.publishedVersio

Transport in transition: Doi moi and the consumption of cars and motorbikes in Hanoi

The rapid developments in Vietnam since the economic reforms (doi moi) initiated in 1986 have led to a transformation of urban mobility. In less than 20 years, motorbike ownership in the country increased tenfold, and there are now 4 million motorbikes in Hanoi alone. While the two-wheelers dominate traffic, car ownership has increased rapidly in the last decade. This article approaches the consumption of cars and motorbikes in the Vietnamese capital from a social practice theory perspective. It particularly emphasises material conditions for practices in terms of systems of provision, available technology and infrastructure. This emphasis, the article argues, is necessary to account for large-scale changes in consumption in a context of rapid economic development. These conditions, however, have co-evolved with mobility practices and the local geography of consumption. Private cars in many ways represent a break with the dominant two-wheeled conditions and practices, but bring along social distinction, safety and comfort. In turn, a new automobility regime is emerging in the outskirts of Hanoi. The article analyses these material, social and bodily pillars of practices, and based on fieldwork in Hanoi approaches the changing urban mobility in the interplay between development and everyday lif

Negotiating Unsustainable Food Transformations: Development, Middle Classes and Everyday Food Practices in Vietnam

Abstract Amidst calls for making food systems more sustainable, new unsustainable food transformations unfold alongside economic development. Explanations for unsustainable food transformations in emerging economies vary greatly, but there is widespread agreement that demand from new middle classes play a crucial role. Yet this demand is to a large extent co-created by systems of provision, and middle-class consumers are constantly navigating food transformations in a search for healthy and safe food. Focusing on Vietnam’s dramatic food transformations, and combining attention to the political economy of food with a social practice approach to consumption, the paper zooms in on the how middle-class households in Hanoi negotiate the rapid transformations of food systems and food environments. The paper concludes that new thinking on sustainable food systems is urgently needed and argues that vital insights can be gained by studying food practices and their interaction with everyday geographies of consumption

Mass Protests from a Spatial Perspective: Discontent and Urban Public Space in Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow

Mass protests have been an important part of the political environment in Eastern Europe for more than a century. Since the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, people have turned to urban spaces to make their opinions heard and to demand change, with varying degrees of success. This was most notably the case during the 1960s; and from the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, through a wave of what are commonly referred to as colour revolutions in the 2000s, to the Ukrainian Euromaidan revolution of 2013–2014. Contention in urban spaces continues to affect politics in the region. How are such mass protests affected by the urban public space in which they occur? Based on a contextualisation of protest space and a review of the academic literature on protests and urban space, this article-based thesis identifies a gap in the literature and then goes on to describe the development of a theoretical model to analyse city spaces, based on the use of theories from political science, urban planning, and sociology. The approach consists of a mapping of the causal mechanisms between spatial elements, the political environment, and their combined effect on protests. This mapping is applied to three case studies—a prestudy of Kyiv, a transitional study of Minsk and the main test-study of Moscow—written for three different academic journals at three different periods in the study’s development. In addition to the spatial perspective model, this thesis provides new insights as to how the interactions in space occur, and demonstrates how geography can create limitations and opportunities in a large variety of ways. It also contributes a language and a typology for use in the studies of opposition movements and collective actions

Driving development? The problems and promises of the car in Vietnam

The private car comes with promises of modernity and comfortable mobility for the growing middle class in Vietnam. Vietnam’s government has also targeted the domestic automobile industry as a “spearhead industry” in an attempt to achieve industrial upgrading. Paradoxically, the government is simultaneously restraining the market for this industry through imposing high taxes and fees on cars, making them available only to a limited number of people. This article discusses the promises and problems of the automobile in Vietnam. It analyses policies related to the development of the automobile industry, and discusses the reasons for the relative failure of the project. The article argues that the failure is linked to weaknesses in Vietnamese development strategies, but also to the potential problems an expansion in car ownership in Vietnam would lead to. The article contends that the car represents a development dilemma between industrialisation and urban mobility, and that environmental, energy and social concerns add to the rationale for limiting car ownership. Furthermore, although forces promoting car-driven industrialisation appear to be gaining ground, the requirements for regional economic integration may challenge the future of the infant automobile industry. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Contemporary Asia on 26 Feb 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00472336.2016.1151916

Meat consumption and capitalist development: The meatification of food provision and practice in Vietnam

The global consumption of meat and animal products has increased dramatically in recent decades, particularly due to rising consumption in so-called developing countries. This increase has popularly been explained as part of a “nutrition transition” driven by rising income, urbanisation and foreign culinary influences. From the supply side, the increase has been approached as part of a “livestock revolution”, or alternatively as the outcome of capitalist agricultural processes. This paper argues, however, that these explanations have given insufficient attention to how and why consumption of meat changes. The paper analyses the case of Vietnam, where meat consumption has increased very rapidly since the initiation of market reforms in 1986. In understanding how meat consumption and development have co-evolved, the paper argues that consumption should be approached at the intersection between systems of provision and everyday practices. With this backdrop – and partly combining, partly going beyond standard explanations – the paper locates four main contributing factors towards increasing meat consumption in Vietnam: (1) changes in systems of provision for meat, (2) the meat intensification of traditional meals and the import of meat-intensive eating practices from abroad, (3) the increasing prevalence of eating out; and (4) the positive social connotations attached to meat as a symbol of development and progress. The paper goes on to argue that the dramatic meatification of food provision and practice in Vietnam should be understood as the result of capitalist development processes and their associated economic and social changes, rather than the ‘natural’ and inevitable outcome of development

Majdan 2013–2014: Plassen, protestene, drivkreftene.

This thesis examines the Ukrainian revolution (2013-2014) in Kyiv: Where did the discontent come from? What functions did the Maidan (Independence Square) have? What motivated and organised the protesters? What was behind the violence? Ukraine is more diverse than often presented by the media. Discontent comes from two main problems: poor economy and a corrupt elite. Maidan’s physical attributes and symbolic value makes it suitable for protests, the latter particularly against Russia. The opposition had little influence on Euromaidan, mainly because the protesters organised themselves and disliked politics. They were motivated more by the governments actions during the protests, than by the authorities discontinuation in EU-integration. The authorities are largely to blame for the violence, but the flat structure of Maidan opened up for more extreme groupings. Ultranationalists played a role in the revolution. Euromaidan, however, was not for ultranationalist ideals, it was an expression of anger against the regime

Maidan Nezalezhnosti: Symbolism and Function

Much has been said and written about the Ukrainian revolution of 2013–14, yet research on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the protests’ most iconic location, has thus far been rather limited. This article analyses the history, attributes and symbolism of this particular city space. What function does Maidan have in the Ukrainian society? In the cause of my fieldwork in Kyiv 2013–15 on the recent revolution, I found that Maidan has many features that make it a particularly suitable site for protests. In the current article I argue that several factors related to the square’s physical space, from its location between the religious, historical and political centres of Ukraine, to its proximity to important landmarks, as well as its infrastructure, shape, architecture, and size, make Maidan both a symbolic and a practical space to occupy for people demanding change. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Maidan has acquired a special significance for Ukrainians. The name of the square itself could be interpreted as a protest against Russia, and the many protests and three revolutions on Maidan have given it a particular revolutionary meaning. I argue that Maidan functions as a socio-political safety valve – a place people turn to and turn up at to demand change when the formal political institutions fail to deliver