Thank you Karri O. for putting together a “study vibe” compilation for me. So now I can really get down to reading some *big* books in my *almost* organized office.
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Urry, J. (2007). Mobilities. Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA: Polity.
My human geography professor suggested this book for my seminar topic. Urry sets out to establish a new “cross or post-disciplinary mobilities paradigm” which will apparently produce a distinct social science. From what I can tell, he’s linking the concepts of place and space into networks, and looking at this through the thread of temporality, which is where it becomes quite complex. But he’s a good writer. Rather than sounding confused, or as though he is accounting for a laundry list of considerations, his words convey complex and vivid imagery. I’m able to imagine what it is that this “lens” looks like, and how it actually is different from simply mapping spatial processes, or relating simple, linear movement. Maybe worth reading just for fun too (I mean, for the non-academics out there who might do it for leisure now and again).
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Part III: People and Environments
I will probably use this as a starting point for my human geography term paper. Apparently approaches to studying natural resources in geography are done at the intersection of physical and human geography approaches. I have yet to write the proposal, but will probably write a broad review paper which helps me re-situate myself from economics and policy thinking into a human geography approach to my studies. Since I think I am leaning towards the obscure theory topic rather than the applied research (did I just express a possible decision?!? After a month of homemakering, running, cycling, and farmers markets only, I think my brain is conveying that it loves theory too much) this work will probably be useful for my comprehensive exam, where I will likely be asked to situate my work within geographic thought.
On a side note, Walker delivers a harsh Marxist criticism of Lynn White Jr.’s “The historical roots of our ecological crisis”. I picked up Ishmael a few days later, and I’m pretty sure Daniel Quinn read Lynn White Jr. and wrote it into some of the that storyline, so now I know not to recommend it to Marxists.
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White, L. 1967. The historical roots of our ecological crisis. Science 155, 1203-7.
Quinn, D. (1995). Ishmael. New York: Bantam/Turner Book.
Ishmael is a talking gorilla philosopher. And he’s teaching a disillusioned wannabe do-gooder how to understand the root of the ecological crisis in order to do good. I keep wishing there was more gorilla and less do-gooder, but definitely a fun read and good with a glass of wine.
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Exemplars
Daly, H.E. (1995), On Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s Contributions: An obituary essay. Ecological Economics 13, 149-154.
Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1971) The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press
I have to give a five minute presentation on an exemplar/prominent scholar. I’ll be presenting on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, an economist who studied the laws of thermodynamics, and integrated the second law of thermodynamics (the entropy law) with the economic process, which has become the basis for theory in the field of ecological economics. In one way, his argument was smartly strategic since he was very careful in how he referenced the entropy law, keeping theory and measurement separate in order to limit the types of critiques of his contribution. On the other hand, he decided to make a fourth law of materials, which is essentially redundant since the nature and quantity of matter is governed by the first and second laws, leaving himself open to harsh criticism. But his work still laid the groundwork for ecological economists to insist that physical indicators cannot be substituted by monetary indicators within the economic process and decision making (such as the ecological footprint, which is imperfect in itself, but no need to get into that right now).
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Whose common future? : reclaiming the commons(1993). . Philadelphia, Pa. ; Gabriola Island, B.C: New Society Pub. (Focus on Chapter 5 Mainstream Solutions: Further Enclosure)
McCully, P. (2001). Silenced rivers : the ecology and politics of large dams (Enlarged and updated ed ed.). London ; New York : New York: Zed Books
Rich, B. (1994). Mortgaging the earth : the World Bank, environmental impoverishment, and the crisis of development. Boston: Beacon Press.
Rounding it out for development studies, my “innovative” paper topic idea which will trace the history and significance of electricity delivery in development processes, as well as alternative and critical voices of this delivery, with the intention of moving beyond a technical or institutional perspective and brainstorming how grassroots/livelihoods approaches can intervene through reviewing/questioning (???) the need for electricity itself as intrinsic to development. I just wrote this paragraph after a debate/brainstorm session with my supervisor, and I’m trying to make sense of it myself.
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And speaking of readers, take a look at another reader I know, and if you are in the T.O. area, check out her new poetry series.
