Doctoral Dissertation Research: Rescaling Uneven Development: Examining Peri-Urban Landscape Change in Limpopo, South Africa

这项博士论文研究项目将考察城市周边空间，即处于城市和农村社会、经济和生物物理过程交界处的空间，作为后种族隔离时代空间规划、新自由主义经济政策和南非不平衡发展的结果。为了深入了解政府政策和项目如何影响生计和景观格局，该项目将开发一个不平衡的发展框架，以解读后种族隔离时代的空间是如何重组的，以在资本主义经济体系中产生当前的城市周边地区格局。这项研究的目的是跟踪和解释南非林波波快速城市化地区的自然和社会变化，该地区在种族资本主义下经历了严重的不平衡发展，在新自由主义资本主义下经历了突然的城市化。这项研究将通过遥感土地覆盖变化与地理信息系统技术相结合的研究方法、定性的民族志访谈和历史档案研究等相结合的研究方法，对林波波波罗克瓦内周围地区进行调查。土地覆盖变化检测将使用监督分类技术，通过支持向量机进行。将这些在景观中观察到的具体变化与基于地点的定性人种学研究相结合，将加强对种族隔离后空间正在发生的变化的全面了解。档案数据将被用来构建种族隔离空间、发展倡议和政策的历史用途，为理解当前的变化提供基础。这一研究项目的预期成果是对纠正种族隔离后空间不平等的努力和城市周边扩张地图以及种族和阶级偏见搬迁的详细转变进行评估。该项目将有助于编写关于不平衡发展表现形式的文献，并为理解种族隔离后的空间提供一种新的方法。说明种族隔离后空间发展不平衡的研究尚未纳入地理知识体系。同样，该项目将解决南非某些地方继续存在的不平等问题，同时提供一个更广泛的框架，以了解这些地方如何以及为什么会持续下去。这也将寻求推进较新的分类方法，如支持向量机，并有助于了解其优点和缺点。此外，该项目将有助于促进地理空间技术之间日益增长的关系，将其作为社会进程的实物表现形式。该项目有可能影响南非和其他发展中国家的空间规划政策，并有助于评估南非政府发起的政策和方案。它将说明政策决定如何重新调整不平衡发展的规模，而不是消除不平衡发展，并揭示居民和社区如何因此重建他们的生计。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究事业。

This doctoral dissertation research project will examine peri-urban spaces, which are spaces at the interface of urban and rural social, economic, and biophysical processes, as an outcome of post-apartheid spatial planning, neo-liberal economic policies, and uneven development in South Africa. Seeking to gain insight into how government policies and programs affect livelihoods and landscape patterns, this project will develop an uneven development framework to decipher how post-apartheid spaces have been restructured to produce current patterns of peri-urban areas within a capitalist economic system. The research objective is to track and explain the physical and social changes in rapidly peri-urbanizing areas of Limpopo, South Africa, an area that experienced acute uneven development under racial capitalism and abrupt peri-urbanization under neo-liberal capitalism. The research will examine areas around Polokwane, Limpopo, through a combination of research methods including remotely sensing land-cover change combined with GIS techniques, qualitative ethnographic interviews, and historical archival research. Land-cover change detection will be conducted using a supervised classification technique, through support vector machines. Combining these concrete observed changes in the landscape with qualitative ethnographic research based upon location will enhance comprehensive understanding of the changes ongoing in post-apartheid spaces. Archival data will be used to construct the historical uses of apartheid space, development initiatives, and policies to provide a base for understanding current changes. The expected outcomes of this research project are an evaluation of the attempts to redress the inequalities of post-apartheid spaces and maps of peri-urban expansion as well as detailed shifts in both race- and class-biased relocation. This project will contribute to the literature on manifestations of uneven development and provide a new approach to understanding post-apartheid spaces. Research illustrating the uneven development of post-apartheid spaces has yet to be incorporated into the geographical body of knowledge. Similarly, the project will address the inequalities that continue to persist in certain places of South Africa while providing a broader framework for understanding how and why such places endure. This also will seek to advance newer classification approaches, such as support vector machines, and contribute to the body of knowledge of their strengths and shortcomings. Furthermore, this project will help foster the growing relationship between geospatial technologies as a physical manifestation of social processes. The project has the potential to affect spatial planning policy in South Africa and other developing countries, as well as to contribute to the evaluation of the policies and programs initiated by the South African government. It will illustrate how policy decisions have rescaled uneven development instead of eliminating it and reveal how residents and communities are restructuring their livelihoods as a result. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.