Social movements in sustainability transitions : identity, social learning & power in the Spanish & Turkish water domains /

Descripció del recurs: el 02 de novembre de 2010Dominant economic growth and nation-state building practices are often based on detaching individuals from other individuals and communities from their natural environment in which their livelihoods used to be based. Water plays a key role in these development strategies as it is the case of the building of dams and large water transfer infrastructures. Social-ecological detachment allows on the one hand, to merge former communities into the abstract idea of national citizenship, while at the same time, has a disempowering effect on individuals who try to protect 'their land' and their identity in contrast to the national identity. In this comparative case study, I look at theconflicts and social-ecological detachment processes observed in two communities of Spain and Turkey, and in particular the social movements against the Itoiz Dam in Spain and the Ilısu Dam in the Turkish Kurdistan. These conflicts are representative in the ways water 'policies' become the arena for multiple identities and interests, such as the claims of the stateless nations of the Basques and the Kurds. The anti-Itoiz Dam movement was integrated with the New Water Culture (NWC) movement which emerged as a response to the large scale threat posed by the Spanish National Hydrology Plan (NHP) 2001. Similarly, the anti-Ilısu Dam movement was integrated with the Turkish water movement which emerged as a social justice platform against the threats posed by the 5th World Water Forum (WWF) 2009 which took place in Turkey. On the one hand, through this multi-level alliance formation, these local movements helped to empower their own communities. But on the other hand, they also demonstrated the larger urban public (who, to a great extent, had already been socially and ecologically detached from their traditional lands) that this particular type of development was destructive, resulted in blatant cases of environmental injustice, and that other ways of development less destructive and fairer could be possible. On many grounds, these movements aspire to find ways of reattaching the detached individuals/people back to their communities and nature or, in other words, to reframe the cultural basis of what they see as an unfair growth development paradigm. New community and nature identities have been used to challenge such paradigm and to recreate a more holistic and inclusive social-ecological identity in which human-nature separation becomes increasingly questioned. Empirical data has been gathered from in-depth interviews and focus group meetings held with key actors of these movements, participative-observation, and analysis of secondary sources. Results showed that one clear strategy apparent in both movements was to try to empower people through practices of multi-level networking and collaboration. This enhanced social learning in a way that they learnt not only about the problem they faced, but also on how to build new collective skills to challenge the dominant cultural paradigms which created those unsustainability problems in the first place. Learning, then, in the face of these pro-growth nation-state building strategies, means not only protecting small communities from market forces and global environmental change, but also, in particular, learning to change this dominant cultural paradigm which sees the detachment of people from their communities and from their natural world a necessary condition of progress and development. In this way, new social movements, by aiming to reconstruct such social-ecological identities, may contribute to sustainability learning

Participatory modelling for the integrated sustainability assessment of water: The World Cellular Model and the MATISSE project

This paper describes the participatory process of developing and implementing a prototype model aimed at supporting the Integrated Sustainability Assessment of water resources and policy options at different scales. The model - called the World Cellular Model (WCM) focuses on the representation of agents’ behaviours and their systemic relationships with their environment. This is achieved by examining the interests, motives, cultural beliefs and structural resources that drive agents’ actions with regard to the use of stocks and flows of water, by looking at the impact of such water behaviours on the environment and on the natural ecosystems at different scales, and by examining in a coevolutionary way the impact of such environmental changes on the behaviours of agents. The WC model takes a ‘total system’, multi-scale, agent perspective. That is, agents operate in a single interrelated system in which each individual or collective agent responds to the availability and use of a set of stocks and flows of rules and/or institutions (S), energy and resources (E), information and knowledge (I) that in turn provokes environmental change (C) or impact on the social ecological system. . This model is being developed together with the use of participatory Integrated Assessment focus groups (IA-fgs) with real stakeholders to get insights about agents’ behaviours and the possible architecture of the model so as to increase its socio-ecological robustness and policy relevance. Our research is part of the EU funded project Matisse (Methods and Tools for Integrated Sustainability Assessment)

Su Hakkının Peşinde

Bazılarımız hatırlayacaktır, Türkiye 15 Nisan 2008 sabahına İzmir’in kıyı beldesi Dikili’den gelen tuhaf bir haberle başladı. Dikili Belediye Başkanı Osman Özgüven, birkaç meslektaşıyla birlikte halka bedava su verdiği için mahkemeye verilmişti. Söz konusu uygulama şöyleydi. Belediye hane başına aylık su tüketimi 10 m3’ü aşmazsa suyu bedava veriyordu. Ancak, hane bir ayın sonunda örneğin 11 m3’lük su tüketmişse, bu miktarın tamamı normal tarifeden fiyatlandırılıp tahsil ediliyordu. Dikili Belediyesi bu uygulamaya, özelleştirmenin artık belediye hizmetlerinin hemen her alanında kemikleştiği 2000’li yıllarda başladı. Nüfusu 20 bini bile bulmayan bu küçük kent, sadece Türkiye’yi değil tüm dünyayı önüne katmış “özelleştirme akıntısı”na ters kürek çekiyordu

Bolivya ve Güney Afrika'da Su Hakkı Mücadeleleri

Yaşamı var eden en önemli varlıkların başında su geliyor. Yaşam mücadelesinin de en önemli bileşenlerinden biri su hakkı. Yani aslında su hakkı mücadelesi insanlık tarihi kadar eski. Tarih boyunca uğruna savaş ve barışın eksik olmadığı su, günümüzde de dünya toplumlarının en önemli  meselelelerinden biri. Hatta  su meselesi, insanlığı ve gezegendeki tüm yaşamı her zamankinden daha önemli bir dönemecin başına getirmiş durumda

İstanbul'da Kentsel Dönüşüm ve Su Kaynakları

3. Köprü, 3. Havalimanı ve kamuoyunda çılgın Proje olarak da bilinen “Kanal İstanbul” projeleri gündemden düşmüyor. Bunlar kente yeni yerleşim alanları kazandırmaya yönelik kentsel dönüşüm[1] projelerinin parçası. Bu projelerden çoğunun çalışmalarına başlandı bile

Gülbahçe Körfez'indeki çizgili hani balığının (Serranus scriba L., 1758) biyolojik özellikleri üzerine araştırmalar

Studies on the biological features of the painted comber (Serranus scriba L., 1758) in G;uuml;lbah;ccedil;e Bay. The present work consists of the biological features of 315 painted comber (S. scriba) caught monthl,y carried out between the period of July 1999-June 2000 from the commercial fishers in the G;uuml;lbah;ccedil;e Bay. It was determined that the painted comber resembled the age groups of I and VI. Fishes ranged from 8.1 to 23.2 cm in total length and 10.90-197.74 g, in weight. The lenght-weight relationship and condition factor of fishes were estimated as W=0.0127*L3.054, K=1.549;plusmn;0.145 respectively. According to the von Bertalanffy growth parameters for all inviduals were: L;amp;#8734;=31.18 cm, k=0.117 year-1 and to=-1.690 year. The growth performance index value (;amp;#934amp;#8242;) was computed as 2.056 for all specimens. It is determined that the diet of a carnivor fish S. scriba was shown that most of their food consisted of Crustacea.Bu çalışma, Gülbahçe Körfezi’nde 315 adet çizgili hani (S. scriba) balığının biyolojik özelliklerinin incelenmesi amacıyla Temmuz 1999-Haziran 2000 tarihleri arasında yürütülmüştür. Bireylerin I-VIII yaş grupları arasında oldukları saptanmıştır. Bireylerin total boyları 8.1-23.2 cm, ağırlıkları ise 10.90-197.74 g arasında değişmiştir. Boy ağırlık ilişkisi W=0.0127*L3.054, kondisyon faktörü K=1.549±0.145 olarak hesaplanmıştır. von Bertalanffy büyüme parametreleri L?=31.18 cm, k=0.117 yıl-1 ve to=-1.690 yıl olarak bulunmuştur. Örneklerin büyüme performans indeks değeri (??) tüm bireyler için 2.056 hesaplanmıştır. Karnivor bir tür olan çizgili hani balıklarının besininin çoğunluğunu Crustacea’nın oluşturduğu tespit edilmiştir