The Ecology of Power: Culture, Place, and Personhood in the Southern Amazon, A.D., 1000–2000
The Ecology of Power: Culture, Place, and Personhood in the Southern Amazon, A.D., 1000–2000
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权力生态：南亚马逊地区的文化、地方和人格，公元 1000 年至 2000 年
DOI：
10.1080/00045600701734976
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发表时间：
2008
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
A. WinklerPrins
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
A. WinklerPrins
前三章将分析置于全球化话语中，特别是全球与地方互动的特殊性。以下关于城市状况的两章中的第二章（由 Swapna Banerjee-Guha 在孟买撰写）也位于同一论述中。巴纳吉-古哈遵循大卫·哈维对资本主义城市经济的描述，批评了孟买的现状，特别是对服务业和城市基础设施集中化的日益重视。她基于单薄且选择性的证据进行无情的攻击，没有意识到孟买的增长——从 1981 年的 800 万增长到 2001 年的 1800 万，这一速度在历史上是前所未有的——以及管理这种增长所需的巨大灵活性。她那种反射性的反市场言论使得批评本身变得无关紧要。它确保了管理孟买现象的通常有能力的人会本能地被解雇。另一个关于城市的章节是斯蒂芬·莱格（Stephen Legg）关于德里发展的论述。莱格使用“政府性”（来自福柯）一词来批评德里的计划制定和计划实施机构，从新德里的建立（1911-1931）到目前的总体规划，从这些努力的明确和隐含的殖民主义角度来看。本章的一个很好的姊妹篇（尽管它没有在书中如此放置）是 Annapurna Shaw 的一篇文章，内容是从西孟加拉邦的一个小镇（钻石港）的角度来看分散规划的现实。本章详细介绍了地方政治的实质以及财政分权“成功”和“失败”的具体背景。令人钦佩的是，肖的不带评判性，与其他几位似乎在进行任何调查之前就知道答案的作者形成鲜明对比。其中有两章是关于生态问题的。格林·威廉姆斯和艾玛·莫兹利调查了激增的印度生态文献，重点批评了马达夫·加吉尔和拉姆钱德拉·古哈的著名作品。保罗·罗宾斯关于“碳群”（我理解为“森林”）的章节似乎是深思熟虑且知识渊博的。我无法对这两章进行进一步评论，因为我对这方面的文献并不熟悉。这留下了两个常见但有趣的章节。克雷格·杰弗里（Craig Jeffrey）、帕特里夏·杰弗里（Patricia Jeffery）和罗杰·杰弗里（Roger Jeffery）撰写的第十二章提出了一个非常有趣的问题：为什么那些没有从相对较高的教育水平中获得物质利益的农村人口仍然重视它？第一作者是一位地理学家，后两位是社会学家，他们的开放式探究读起来很愉快，即使，也许特别是因为，他们没有得出明确的结论。另一章（16）是本卷的最后一章，作者是 Richa Singh 和 Richa Nagar；前者是北方邦农村地区的活动家，后者是美国的学者。他们的章节描述了一本名为《Sangtin Yatra》的书出版后的后果，一半是诗歌，一半是肥皂剧，非常难以理解。很难看出这两章中的任何一章如何适合自定义的“地理学”文本，无论该学科的范围多么广泛。一切都必须发生在某个地方，但这是否意味着一切都是地理上的？套用阿甘正传的话：“经过编辑的作品集就像一盒巧克力。你永远不知道会得到什么。”对于读者来说，很明显，我发现这盒巧克力总体来说很好吃。有一些真正好的作品，也有一些明显平庸的作品。最重要的是，这些藏品传达了印度的多样性——不仅是印度人民和地方的多样性，还包括大量重要的知识问题。这些材料涵盖了不同的地理尺度、规模、地点和时间段。声音的范围从好奇到专家，从冷静到抒情，从清脆到浮夸。我发现大部分材料都很吸引人，有些则很烦人，但参与度与烦恼率是一个健康的整数，这始终是编辑们选择得好的标志。
The first three of these chapters situate the analysis in the discourse of globalization, especially the particularities of global–local interactions. The second of the following two chapters on urban conditions—by Swapna Banerjee-Guha on Mumbai—is also located in the same discourse. Banerjee-Guha follows David Harvey’s characterization of capitalist urban economies to critique Mumbai’s current conditions, especially the increasing emphasis on the service sector and centralization of urban infrastructure. Her relentless attack, based on thin and selective evidence, takes no cognizance of Mumbai’s growth—from 8 million in 1981 to 18 million in 2001, a rate that is historically unprecedented—and the immense dexterity needed to manage this growth. Her kind of reflexive antimarket rhetoric makes the critique itself irrelevant. It ensures just as reflexive a dismissal by the often capable people managing the Mumbai phenomenon. The other urban chapter is by Stephen Legg on the discourse of development in Delhi. Legg uses the term “governmentality” (from Foucault) to critique planmaking and plan-implementation institutions in Delhi, from the inception of New Delhi (1911–1931) through the current master plan, in terms of the explicit and implicit colonialism of these efforts. A good companion piece for this chapter (although it is not placed as such in the book) is the one by Annapurna Shaw on the realities of decentralized planning as seen from the perspective of a small town (Diamond Harbour) in West Bengal. This chapter is richly detailed with the nittygritty of local politics and the contextualized nature of “success” and “failure” of fiscal decentralization. Shaw is also admirably nonjudgmental, in sharp contrast to several fellow authors who seem to know what the answers are before any inquiry is undertaken. There are two chapters on ecological issues. Glyn Williams and Emma Mawdsley survey the proliferating Indian ecological literature, with an emphasis on critiquing the well-known works of Madhav Gadgil and Ramchandra Guha. Paul Robbins’s chapter on “carbon colonies” (which I understand to mean “forests”) appears to be thoughtful and knowledgeable. I cannot comment further on these two chapters because I am unfamiliar with this literature. This leaves two usual but interesting chapters. Chapter 12, by Craig Jeffrey and Patricia and Roger Jeffery, poses a very interesting question: Why do rural people who have not derived material benefits from their relatively high level of education nonetheless value it? The first author is a geographer, the latter two are sociologists, and their open-ended inquiry is a pleasure to read, even if, maybe especially because, they do not arrive at firm conclusions. The other chapter (16), the last in this volume, is by Richa Singh and Richa Nagar; the former is an activist in rural Uttar Pradesh, the latter an academic in the U.S. Their chapter, describing the aftermath of the publication of a book called Sangtin Yatra, is part poetry and part soap opera and quite incomprehensible. It is hard to see how either of these two chapters fits into a self-defined text on “geography,” however broad the circumference of the discipline. Everything has to happen somewhere, but does that mean that everything is geographical? To paraphrase Forrest Gump: “An edited collection is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” It will be obvious to the reader that I found this box of chocolates, on the whole, to be tasty. There are some genuinely good pieces and some obviously indifferent ones. Most important, the collection conveys a sense of India’s diversity—not only of its people and places, but also a good chunk of the intellectual issues of significance. The material covers different geographic scales, magnitudes, locations, and time periods. The voices range from curious to expert, dispassionate to lyrical, and crisp to turgid. I found most of the material engaging and some of it annoying, but the engagement to annoyance ratio was a healthy integer, always a sign that the editors have chosen well.