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

这个博士论文研究项目将研究城市周边空间，即城市和农村社会、经济和生物物理过程的界面空间，作为南非后种族隔离空间规划、新自由主义经济政策和不平衡发展的结果。为了深入了解政府政策和计划如何影响生计和景观格局，该项目将开发一个不平衡发展框架，以解读在后种族隔离时代的空间如何被重构，从而在资本主义经济体系下产生当前的城郊地区格局。研究的目的是跟踪和解释南非林波波省快速城市化地区的自然和社会变化，该地区经历了种族资本主义下的严重不平衡发展和新自由主义资本主义下的突然半城市化。该研究将通过结合遥感土地覆盖变化、地理信息系统技术、定性人种学访谈和历史档案研究等研究方法，考察林波波省Polokwane周围地区。土地覆盖变化检测将通过支持向量机使用监督分类技术进行。将这些具体观察到的景观变化与基于地点的定性人种学研究相结合，将增强对后种族隔离空间中正在发生的变化的全面理解。档案数据将用于构建种族隔离空间的历史用途，发展倡议和政策，为了解当前的变化提供基础。本研究项目的预期成果是对纠正后种族隔离空间不平等的尝试和城郊扩张地图的评估，以及种族和阶级偏见的搬迁的详细变化。该项目将有助于研究不平衡发展的表现形式，并为理解种族隔离后的空间提供一种新方法。说明后种族隔离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区持续存在的不平等现象，同时提供一个更广泛的框架来理解这些地区如何以及为什么会持续存在。这也将寻求推进较新的分类方法，例如支持向量机，并对其优缺点的知识体系作出贡献。此外，该项目将有助于促进地理空间技术作为社会进程的物理表现之间日益增长的关系。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，并有助于对南非政府发起的政策和计划进行评估。它将说明政策决定如何重新调整而不是消除不平衡发展，并揭示居民和社区如何因此调整其生计。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项将为有前途的学生提供支持，使他们能够建立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.