Connections, Mobilities, Urban Prospects and Environmental Threats


Book Description

This volume provides specialized insights into selected Mediterranean geographies, such as info-communication technologies, tourism, urbanization and climate change threats, with a focus on emerging and often overlooked issues, in light of the impact of current trends of globalization and the financial ‘crisis’, in the broader context of contemporary world processes of environmental change and accelerated human mobility. Specifically, the book contains sections on emergent and increasingly significant or highly innovative issues specific to the Mediterranean, often providing alternative perspectives on various pressing issues, such as the northward shift of climatic types; littoralisation processes and urbanization trends; tourism growth problems; human exposure to environmental stresses; and the boom in info-communication technologies. As such this book provides new insights into a region that has absorbed the sustained impact of human growth in precarious environments, often at the interface of many worlds, co-existing at various states of development and inter-scalar or cross-border interrelationships. This volume does not cover every aspect of the human and physical geographies of the Mediterranean region, but rather addresses contemporary issues of increasing significance to the Mediterranean, with an emphasis on emergent and pressing issues, as well as new perspectives or methods of approach, of special relevance to the Mediterranean. The core of contributions to this volume originated from an initiative undertaken by the International Geographical Union (IGU) Mediterranean Renaissance Program, now the Commission on the Mediterranean Basin (COMB). Most papers are authored by members of the latter Commission and additional papers are included, in order to cover more aspects of contemporary Mediterranean geographies.




International Residential Mobilities


Book Description

This book assesses the drivers and impacts of new international residential mobilities by considering a range of mobilities in different countries across the globe from investment, amenity and retirement mobilities to those of the new global middle class and the transnational elites. It examines the intersection of these mobilities with the increase in the volume of global tourism, the advent of the sharing economy and peer-to-peer platforms, and the effects of transnational property investment. The consequent transformations are considered in urban environments where tourism pressure coexists with gentrification, increasing house prices and processes of social and ethnic segregation. By offering a broad perspective based on different case studies, the book portrays the contradictory consequences of international residential mobilities both favouring local opportunities for development and disrupting housing markets through the disassociation from local demand. As a result this book is a great resource for academics and students in tourism, urban and migration studies as well as policy-makers and practitioners involved in urban planning, social affairs and tourism management.




Landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean between the Future and the Past


Book Description

Landscapes have long been viewed as ‘multifunctional’, integrating ecological, economic, sociocultural, historical, and aesthetic dimensions. Landscape science and public awareness in Europe have been progressing in leaps and bounds. The challenges involved in landscape-related issues and fields, however, are multiple and refer to landscape stewardship and protection, as well as to the development of comprehensive theoretical and methodological approaches, in tandem with public sensitization and participatory governance and in coordination with appropriate top-down planning and policy instruments. Landscape-scale approaches are fundamental to the understanding of past and present cultural evolution, and are now considered to be an appropriate spatial framework for the analysis of sustainability. Methods and tools of landscape analysis and intervention have also gone a long way since their early development in Europe and the United States. Although significant progress has been made, there remain many issues which are understudied or not investigated at all—at least in a Mediterranean context. This Special Issue addresses the application of landscape theory and practice in the Eastern Mediterranean and mainly, but not exclusively, reports on the outcomes of an international conference held in Jordan, in December 2015, with the title “Landscapes of Eastern Mediterranean: Challenges, Opportunities, Prospects and Accomplishments”. The focus of this Special Issue, landscapes of the Eastern Mediterranean region, thus constitutes a timely area of research interest, not only because these landscapes have so far been understudied, but also as a rich site of strikingly variegated, long-standing multicultural human–environmental interactions. These interactions, resting on and taking shape through millennia of continuity in tradition, have been striving to adapt to technological advances, while currently juggling with manifold and multilayered socioeconomic and climate–environmental crises.




Handbook of Research on Cultural Tourism and Sustainability


Book Description

The process of globalization based on major forms of entertainment consumption has promoted the interest of enlarged social actors toward cultural experiencing. Disseminated by social media, new forms of information and knowledge about exotic tourism destinations have endorsed an increasing interest in forms of cultural tourism. This cultural tourism turnout results from a significant change in the traveler’s demands and behaviors and has led to a new and renovated interest in cultural heritage that must be studied further. The Handbook of Research on Cultural Tourism and Sustainability explores theoretical concepts related to cultural tourism and cultural routes and provides original viewpoints and empirical research with case studies and best practices for the future of cultural tourism. Covering a range of topics such as creative tourism and sustainable tourism, this major reference work is ideal for academicians, practitioners, professionals, policymakers, government officials, instructors, and students.




Geographers


Book Description

Geographers is an annual collection of studies on individuals who have made major contributions to the development of geography and geographical thought. Volume 39 celebrates the contribution of Hugh Clout to the discipline. The thirty-ninth volume of Geographers Biobibliographical Studies adds significantly to the corpus of scholarship on geography's multiple histories and biographies; each chapter includes a select biography of its chosen figure, and a brief chronology of their work. In this edition Hugh Clout memorialises the forgotten, those who had made an important local contribution which went unnoticed on the national stage, or those who continued along the intellectual path blazed by one of the discipline's major figures and thus helped to secure the reputation of that major figure. In this collection of essays, Clout draws from used literary works, reviews in the scholarly and other press, obituaries in newspapers and geographical publications, funeral orations and papers in a large number of archives. Each study includes a select bibliography and a brief chronology. The work includes a general index, and a cumulative index of geographers listed in volumes published to date. As with other volumes in the series, the purpose is not to evaluate, but to present individuals and their contributions as they really were and in the context of their time. Published under the auspices of the International Geographical Union.




Water and Land Security in Drylands


Book Description

This book presents recent lessons learned in the context of research and development for various dryland ecosystems, focusing on water resources management, land and vegetation cover degradation and remediation, and socioeconomic aspects, as well as integrated approaches to ensuring water and land security in view of the current and predicted climate change. As water and land are the essential bases of food production, the management of these natural resources is becoming a cornerstone for the development of dryland populations. The book gathers the peer-reviewed, revised versions of the most outstanding papers on these topics presented at the ILDAC2015 Conference in Djerba, Tunisia.




The Geography of Greece


Book Description




World Urbanization Prospects


Book Description

The report presents findings from the 2018 revision of World Urbanization Prospects, which contains the latest estimates of the urban and rural populations or areas from 1950 to 2018 and projections to 2050, as well as estimates of population size from 1950 to 2018 and projections to 2030 for all urban agglomerations with 300,000 inhabitants or more in 2018. The world urban population is at an all-time high, and the share of urban dwellers, is projected to represent two thirds of the global population in 2050. Continued urbanization will bring new opportunities and challenges for sustainable development.




Mediterranean Mobilities


Book Description

This book critically assesses mobilities across the Mediterranean Basin and explores the implications of changing European relationships in the light of observations of the intersectional formation and evolution of identities, behavior and ideas. Further, it discusses the timely topic of a new diversity of migration and mobility practices (personal and virtual mobilities in terms of gender, motivations, emotional geographies, impacts, and circulation) from conceptual and empirical perspectives, providing new insights for scholars and policy makers in the context of urgently needed national and European policies. Mediterranean Mobilities is based on fieldwork in European and non-European countries and on mutual learning and transfer of knowledge among scholars from nine universities in Morocco, Algeria, Israel, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, as well as stakeholders in Europe and North Africa. The results stem from the FP7 Marie Curie IRSES project MEDCHANGe coordinated by the book editor. The project comprises fieldwork conducted by distinguished scholars in Europe, Morocco, Algeria and Israel, generating original data and findings on fast changing realities. This book appeals to researchers but also serves as a basic or complementary text in advanced undergraduate, graduate or master’s courses on mobilities/migration, regionalization, cooperation, international relations and Mediterranean studies as part of teaching programs in geography, sociology, international political sciences, as well as programs focusing on regional studies (e.g., European integration). It is also of interest to the professional and institutional community in the wide area of Mediterranean politics, economy and society as well as a general readership.




The Art of Connection


Book Description

The Art of Connection narrates the individual stories of artisans and traders of Kenyan arts and crafts as they overcome the loss of physical access to roadside market space by turning to new digital technologies to make their businesses more mobile and integrated into the global economy. Bringing together the studies of globalization, development, art, and communication, the book illuminates the lived experiences of informal economies and shows how traders and small enterprises balance new risks with the mobility afforded by digital technologies. An array of ethnic and generational politics have led to market burnings and witchcraft accusations as Kenya’s crafts industry struggles to adapt to its new connection to the global economy. To mediate the resulting crisis of trust, the Fair Trade sticker and other NGO aesthetics continue to successfully represent a transparent, ethical, and trusting relationship between buyer and producer. Dillon Mahoney shows that by balancing revelation and obfuscation—what is revealed and what is not—Kenyan art traders make their own roles as intermediaries and the exploitative realities of the global economy invisible.