Compass Vol.3 Issue 2

FEBRUARY 2018 | VOL. 03 ISSUE 02

HELEN MARGETTS: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DIGITAL REALM

MAPPING PLASTIC POLLUTION

BHASKAR VIRA: SACRED AND LIFEAFFIRMING WATERS

CONTENTS

A LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

06 / A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR FOOD

Welcome to this year’s second edition of Compass!

The past year has been spectacular for Compass. Our November 2017 edition was the most widely read yet, with 200 print editions and 474 (and counting) online readers. In addition to this, our blog has soared, having been viewed over 5000 times in 50 countries across the globe. Our hope is that this newest edition will continue on in these exciting footsteps bringing new material for those now familiarising themselves with Compass, and all those still just arriving.

Compass is now leaving its third year in print, a bittersweet fact for us. Sweet because of the recognition and growth that the magazine has seen in just these three short years, but bitter because this means that those who have been with the magazine since its beginning will now be leaving the undergraduate course.

As our time with Compass is now drawing to a close, we would like to thank everyone who has made this year so fantastic. Many thanks go to all those who contributed to the magazine with photos and articles, and to the academics both within and outside of Cambridge who have shared their knowledge and advice. In particular, we would like to thank our team of wonderful editors, designers and administrators who have not only brought the magazine so beautifully together, but have also been a delight to work with over the past 12 months.

We hope you enjoy Compass!

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06 12

Isabel Dewhurst and Julia Ganis Co-Editors-in-Chief.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this magazine are those of the individual authors only and do not represent the views or opinions of Compass Magazine as a whole or the Cambridge University Department of Geography.

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A GEOGRAPHER’S PERSPECTIVE A Sustainble Future for Food / Latin American Geopolitics / Plastic Pollution

GEOGRAPHERS IN ACTION Edward Pollard / Racial Banishment and Black Geographies / Helen Margetts

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY Bhaskar Vira / Discovering Ghana through Development Work / Disaster Capitalism / A City of Thorns

GOT AN IDEA? CONTACT US. compass@cugs.co.uk Facebook/@cugscompass

ON THE COVER // PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL MAYERS Guanaco in front of Fitzroy.

13 / ON ‘RACIAL BANISHMENT’ AND BLACK GEOGRAPHIES: A RESPONSE TO ANANYA ROY.

23 / BOOK REVIEW: A CITY OF THORNS: AGENCY AND ACRIMONY

28 / THE IMPACT OF FLOODING ON RIVER FINDHORN

38 / IN-SPIRE-ATIONAL: CUGS TRIP TO PRAGUE

24 32 36

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY New Discoveries in New Britain / Wild for Wildlife / Bats / The Impact of Flooding on River Findhorn

STUDY TIPS Human Geography Fieldwork with Alex Jeffrey / Exam Season with Tom Spencer

TRAVEL: BEYOND THE BUBBLE Hong Kong / CUGS Trip to Prague

EDITORIAL EDITORS IN CHIEF Isabel Dewhurst and Julia Ganis A GEOGRAPHER’S PERSPECTIVE Aoife Blanchard and Bronwen Fraser HUMAN GEOGRAPHY Tesni Clare and Hannah Mendall PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY Fiona Dobson and Franny Schlicke GEOGRAPHERS IN ACTION Nina Grossfurthner and Florence Wiggins TRAVEL Nilufa Ahmed and Callum Swanston LEARNING TIPS Stephanie Andrews and Aidan Thomas BLOG EDITORS Angus Parker and Chloe Rixon

SECRETARY

Lucian Lee

PUBLICITY

Anjali Gupta and Joe Sandall

DESIGN

Catherine Chang

CONTRIBUTORS

Professor Tom Spencer, Dr Bhaskar Vira, Dr Alex Jeffrey, Helen Margetts, Edward Pollard, Alice Guillaume, Pascual Gonzalez, Stephen Hughes, Julia Barton, Jordana Price, Tom Edwards, Jonathan Lancaster, Aimee Lawrence

Facebook: @cugscompass Twitter: @compass_cugs Compass Blog: cambridgecompassmagazine.wordpress.com LENT 2018 / COMPASS / 3

CUGS YEAR IN REVIEW My first encounter with CUGS was barely a few days into Freshers’ Week. It was the Society’s muchloved ‘Freshers Cocktails’ night, taking place a stone’s throw away from the Geography Department in Revs. I got chatting with the committee and heard about the society’s lineup of speakers. I could never have imagined that over the subsequent two years I would have been the society’s Vice-President and then President. It’s been such a privilege and I’d love to share the highlights with you.

The Committee’s tenure began with the CUGS Garden Party in June 2017, taking place in the sunny garden oasis of Hughes Hall. We were fortunate with the weather, and everyone eased into May Week with beers, a barbecue, and live bands performing all afternoon. Fastforwarding through the long summer break, Edgar and Will, our Speaker Officers, were crafting an “amazing” termcard of speakers, in the words of Dr Phillip Howell. The lineup included several nights where the Large Lecture Theatre was packed, including Linda McDowell, Ha Joon Chang, and Guy Standing. A new innovation saw our most popular talks livestreamed, enabling CUGS members to catch up anytime.

Helping bring CUGS into the 21st century was our in-house magician Catherine.

In the new Creative Design Officer role, Catherine could transform my bland emails into something you’d actually

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want to read (her magic didn’t extend to my bad puns, though). The new CUGS brand helped us attract a record 205 students to the Department for Cambridge’s largest society-run careers fair. With over 20 companies presenting, including the likes of Unilever, UNEP-WCMC and PwC, there was something for everyone.

Perhaps one of the real highlights of the year was the most spectacular CUGS Christmas Ball – also a first in the society’s almost century-long existence. On the eve of December, 150 guests graced the Royal Cambridge Hotel. With free-flowing drink, magic, and a photobooth, a fun evening followed. It was a successful ‘first’ for CUGS which will no doubt be replicated in the future.

New for this year was the ‘CUGSCast’ podcast conceived by our Vice-President Esha. The first two episodes have racked up over a thousand listeners. Offering study

tips, dissertation ideas, and interviews from academics, we look forward to seeing the podcast go from strength to strength.

2018 began with our second trip abroad.

Following on from 2017’s successful visit to Amsterdam, this year’s CUGS tour saw 25 geographers head to Prague. Across four days, we explored the city’s wonderful Old Town, riverside walks and, of course, the Prague nightlife (we are geographers after all!).

It would be remiss of me to not mention the stellar year Compass magazine has had.

Julia and Isabel have set the bar incredibly high. The past 12 months have seen the launch of a beautiful new Compass website and blog, racking up thousands of hits from around the world. Behind the scenes we’ve worked hard to secure the financial future of the magazine so that it can continue to be read for years to come.

It has been a real honour to lead CUGS

for the past year. The ascent of CUGS to become one of Cambridge’s most-active societies is a testament to everyone who has helped us along the way. I’d like to thank Emma Mawdsley and Oksana Gerasimova for being the Department’s CUGS cheerleaders! I’d also like to extend a big thank you to Dominic Waughray at the World Economic Forum whose generous funding has helped us reach new heights. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes and I’m thankful to have had such a fun and hard-working committee who have made this possible. Lastly, thanks to you, our members, for being enthusiastic and embracing all the new events we introduced this year!

On behalf of all of us here at CUGS, here’s to more success under the leadership of Will and his team.

James

CUGS President 2017/18

LENT 2018 / COMPASS / 5

A GEOGRAPHER’S PERSPECTIVE

SEARCHING FOR THE SOCIAL IN A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR FOOD

by ALICE GUILLAUME

Y

ou may have read that the predicted big food trend for 2018 is veganism. In January, over 150,000 people committed to Veganuary. Whilst most put animal welfare or health issues as their primary motivator, a significant percentage stated environmental reasons, recognising the significant detrimental impact that intensive animal agriculture is having on our planet. However, a sustainable future of food goes beyond simply giving up animal products.

Anyone who has done GCSE geography knows that for something to be ‘sustainable’, however ambiguously the term is often used, consideration must be given to social, environmental and economic factors. Thus, the problem with food, with regards to sustainability, goes beyond the greenhouse gas emissions of livestock, or the degrading effects commercial agriculture has on the world’s soils. It certainly goes beyond profits and ensuring unending economic growth. It is about endowment and entitlement and the resources to produce or purchase food that people have, linked to factors such as wages, labour and other assets. It is not that we lack enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but that there are structural inequalities in how people are able to access food. These issues are not just relevant to theories of famine, but in how we ensure socially just food provision for all people, including here in Cambridge.

Food waste is a huge environmental problem. In the UK, households throw away over 7 million tonnes of food a year, 4.4 million tonnes of which is deemed ‘avoidable’. This is before we consider the waste from farms and commercial businesses. At the same time, food poverty is on the rise in the UK, with a 2017 study from the Food Standards Agency stating that one in four low-income households does not eat regularly or healthily because of a lack of money. FoodCycle is

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a charity with projects in Cambridge and around the country. It aims to address the issue of food waste, but recognises and exploits the power of food to counter other social ills, particularly loneliness and isolation. Volunteers cook splendid three course meals from food that would have been thrown away by businesses.

The meal is then shared, free of charge, with all members of the community. Many of the people who attend FoodCycle meals may not be able to afford the basics to eat, or will eat meals alone without company.

At these meals, individuals that might not otherwise interact share conversations, make friends and gain a greater understanding of people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Another project seeking to tackle food waste and food poverty is the community fridge at the Edge Cafe, on Mill Road.

Organisations and individuals can make perishable food that would otherwise be wasted available to the wider community, including those that may be struggling to make ends meet. Cambridge Sustainable Food (CSF), who secured the funding for the fridge, have calculated that between 60 and 70 kilograms of food waste is prevented every month. It also helps to connect communities and normalises the sharing of food.

Set up by CSF and the Cambridge Organic Food Company, the Cambridge Sustainable Food Hub is an example of a project in touch will all aspects of sustainability. The project’s vision is to support local farmers that employ environmentally-aware and organic farming methods (such as limited use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, crop rotation and reduced tillage), and make their produce more easily available to the businesses and individuals in Cambridgeshire. However, it is often perceived that organic, vegetarian and vegan food is ‘middle class’ or exclusive in terms of access, a notion that would likely

only be reinforced by a visit to a shop such as Wholefoods. To address the social aspect of sustainably, the Food Hub’s Good Food for All campaign asks: how can we make sustainable, nutritious food available to all people, regardless of their income?

The recent Good Food for All workshop linked institutions such as NGOs, the NHS and the Cambridge universities and used the testimony of individuals affected by food poverty. Participants mapped ‘value chains’ to identify where food poverty causes costs, or lost opportunities, for society, such as health costs, and identifies the value that could be gained if these opportunities were harnessed. It was a step towards identifying potential funding streams for the project, as the project will not be supported by donations or the labour of volunteers. Whilst there is still much work to be done to make the project economically viable, it is a start in creating a future of food that is truly sustainable.

Food isn’t just a way we provide our bodies with nutrients, it is embedded in our culture. It is identity-forming, brings communities together, and, importantly, tastes good. But it also connects us to the rest of the planet and, as with most things we do, the decisions we make regarding the food we eat have a considerable impact. However, these aspects of food are not mutually exclusive. We can have a future of food that is culturally vibrant, delicious and sustainable. As I have sought to suggest here, the future of food can, and must, be a socially just future, with respect and care for all sentient beings, both human and non-human, at its heart.

To find out more about these organisations, including how you can volunteer, visit: www.foodcycle.org www.cambridgesustainablefood.org www.cambridgefoodhub.org

LENT 2018 / COMPASS / 7

A Mayan temple on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City

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A GEOGRAPHER’S PERSPECTIVE

LATIN AMERICAN GEOPOLITICS IN 2018

by PASCUAL GONZALEZ

It

is the start of the year and everyone is making lists about 2018’s geopolitical “hotspots”.

These lists generally include Syria, North Korea, Turkey, the USA, the UK, etc. Yet many fail to mention one of the world’s most dynamic and trouble-ridden regions: Latin America. Besides the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, little attention has been given to this part of the globe despite it containing two of the world’s fifteen largest economies and growing ever closer to the Chinese and European markets.

With presidential and legislative elections in seven countries coming up this year and numerous internal conflicts, Latin America faces crossroads in governance, security, and the economy.

2017 saw Latin Americans grow increasingly discontent with their national governments.

Since the revelation that Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes throughout the continent, thousands of protesters have hit the streets to denounce corruption and call for transparency. The scandal involves high ranking officials, including presidents and ex-presidents, in Mexico, Panama, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, and led to the imprisonment of Ecuador’s vice-president Jorge Glas in late 2017. An increasingly informed middle class has also raised concerns about abuses of power by heads of state.

In a controversial Christmas maneuver, Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori – a polemic figure revered by some for steering the country through an economic crisis but sentenced for human rights violations – on humanitarian grounds.

This led to ongoing public unrest, as many suspect the pardon was part of a deal with the Fuerza Popular party (of which Fujimori’s son is a member) to back Kuczynski during impeachment proceedings.

Exploits of executive power have taken

on more violent forms elsewhere. In Honduras, activists are accusing the police and military of intimidating demonstrators protesting alleged electoral fraud during last year’s presidential elections. Even more shocking, in early January Venezuelan policemen killed Óscar Pérez – who threw grenades at government buildings in Caracas last year and used social media to denounce Venezuela’s authoritarian regime – in a violent siege that involved the use of RPGs and the death of a bystander. If this trend of excessive force continues, there will be a steady loss of public order in the region.

Latin America also faces notable challenges in safety and violence. Despite Mexico’s decade-long war on drugs it saw almost 30,000 homicides in 2017, marking the most violent period in its recent history. Unlike previous violent spurts when crime concentrated on specific regions (like Ciudad Juarez, which was once the world’s most dangerous city), criminality has increased nationwide. Add poorly trained and underpaid policemen as well as widespread impunity to the mix and you get unprecedented levels of fear and contempt amongst Mexicans. In tandem, Colombia faces a security crisis of its own despite having recently signed a peace agreement with Marxist-rebels FARC. Although Colombia’s homicide rate has dropped steadily since 2002, 2017 saw a rise in assaults towards community leaders. The government has failed to fill the power vacuum left by the retreating FARC, so infighting between competing paramilitary and rebel groups has led to the deaths of over 120 social activists, indigenous leaders, and ex-militiamen.

Attempts to create a similar agreement with the ELN – the largest remaining militia in Colombia – are crumbling due to continued violent attacks by the group’s members. Furthermore, the entry of over half a million Venezuelan migrants has led to increased violence in major cities along Colombia’s eastern border.

With presidential elections coming up in May, Colombians are questioning the government’s ability to cater to Venezuelans and ex-FARC members without marginalizing the rest of the country.

2018 is also poised to be a year of great economic significance for Latin America.

Mexico’s economy – the second largest in the region – has contracted significantly since 2014 and shows signs of further aggravation. Over 80% of Mexico’s

exports go to the USA so Donald Trump’s commitments to limit immigration and potentially terminate NAFTA have contributed to an increasingly volatile peso and macroeconomic uncertainty. If Washington walks away from stagnant NAFTA renegotiations – which appears to be the most likely scenario – millions of Mexican workers could lose their jobs and inflation might explode beyond its alreadyhigh levels. Additionally, the increasinglylikely victory of leftist presidential hopeful Andrés Manuel López Obrador could further aggravate tensions across the Rio Grande. Venezuela faces an even more dire economic situation: in 2017, inflation exceeded 2400%, over 80% of people lived below the poverty line, food and medicine shortages were rampant, and hundreds of thousands of people left the country. Most experts predict a worsening trend this year, and the opposition’s inability to coalesce before presidential elections in April will assure this by permitting President Nicolás Maduro to attain re-election. Finally, Brazil – Latin America’s largest economy – faces an uncertain year as former president Lula da Silva, who is fighting a conviction on corruption charges, faces off against far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro. Nonetheless, there are some encouraging signs for the region. The EU and Mercosur (a trade bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) are set to sign a free trade agreement that will boost agricultural exports. Moreover, the Dominican Republic continues to be one of the world’s fastest growing economies, rebounding oil prices are stimulating economic growth in Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina, and the election of market-friendly President Sebastián Piñera is already attracting investors to Chile.

Undeniably, 2018 will be a year of social and intense politico-economic activity in Latin America, although with very uneven manifestations across borders.

Beyond a possible shift in the region’s political leaning, many countries face decisive issues of their own. Mexico might have to plan for a future without NAFTA, Venezuela will continue to struggle against an authoritarian regime, Brazil and Peru will press on with their battle against corruption, and Colombia will have to determine its willingness to be the region’s flagbearer for peace. Whether these situations will be resolved is a topic for next year’s list.

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A GEOGRAPHER’S PERSPECTIVE

MAPPING PLASTIC POLLUTION:

AN ARTIST’S ENTANGLEMENT WITH PLASTIC AND HER JOURNEY FROM THE LITTORAL ZONES OF THE SCOTTISH COAST TO SCOTLAND'S Words and Photographs

by JULIA BARTON PARLIAMENT and learned how to conduct detailed marine conservation beach surveys. I now encourage communities I work with to adopt a local beach and join the MCS annual Beach Clean surveys.

Littoral Zone: the zone between the low and high tide marks.

In 2014, I set off on an expedition to row to Isle Martin – a small, uninhabited Summer Isle situated at the mouth of Loch Broom – to carry out a detailed mapping survey of the main beach. While the beach appeared relatively clean, the process revealed over 100 plastic drinks bottles and 127 caps. To draw attention to the litter, on World Environment Day I laced it all together, creating "litter lines", and invited local community rowing teams to join me in towing them off the island to the mainland a mile away. The litter was all collected and, where possible, recycled.

My aim is to encourage understanding of the threat that beach and marine litter presents by enabling people to see litter in different ways and to consider its long-term environmental impact. The reduction of marine litter pollution poses a complex challenge for humankind, requiring adjustments in our personal behaviour.

In

2012, as I walked onto a beach on the North-West coast of Scotland to examine local rock formations and marine algae, I was shocked to discover that the beach was smothered in thick mounds of discarded plastic. I continued to study seaweed, but my drawings mutated into plastic rope ends.

This was a turning point in my life and changed the focus of my artwork. In 2013 I set up the Littoral Art Project to investigate and visualise the scale of plastic pollution on Scotland's beaches.

To do this I bought a van and set off to explore the coastline of the North-West Highlands in an experimental period of research and development. I began by

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undertaking a series of strand line walks recording each item of litter. Wherever possible I encouraged people to join me on these walks to witness what I was seeing and to learn from their local observations and coastal knowledge. I set up a studio in Ullapool and began processing the information I was gathering.

At first it was the volume of plastic on the beaches that demanded my attention, often hundreds of kilograms; but I quickly became aware of the need to identify the items and their sources, whether land or ocean-based. To do this, I had tutorials with Dr Phillip Cowie, who researches the ingestion of micro-plastics at the Millport Marine Biology Centre on Firth of Clyde; joined the Marine Conservation Society;

In 2016 I re-located the next phase of my beach litter investigation to Shetland, where I set about examining and collecting samples from 60 beaches around the islands, using the samples to construct my exhibition NEO Terra at Lerwick Museum, Shetland. The main installation was a 10m long plastic archipelago map made from over a thousand collected pieces of Plastiglomerate – melted plastic that has bonded with natural substrate grains.

Scientists recognise Plastiglomerate as a geological marker of the Anthropocene.

Of the 60 beaches examined in Shetland, all had some form of plastic on them, and 48 had evidence that plastic litter had been burnt. Burning is often used as a way of controlling persistently large volumes of litter in remote areas where it is difficult to transport out.

Each island was named after the identified litter: Cap Sound, Net Bay, Bottle Bay. Coastal features were named after

A GEOGRAPHER’S PERSPECTIVE littering actions including Throwaway Point or Burn Beach. Descriptive Norse words were devised in collaborative sessions with Shetland communities, such as Smoking Holm, meaning ‘small smoking island’. An important element of the exhibition was an animation named Terra NOVA, which I made in collaboration with Shetland filmmaker JJ Jamieson. Through the eyes of a plastic toy commando, it reveals the dangerous process by which Plastiglomerate is formed, and explores a barren land – an imagined legacy of our overconsumption and uncontrolled disposal of plastic.

In conjunction with each exhibition I set up a Crime Scene Investigation with local schools, encouraging pupils to interrogate familiar litter items. This was a creative tool to consider the rates of degradation and to approach companies

about their commitment to implementing more sustainable environmental policies.

All the information gathered has been compiled and published in a 'Guide to Beach Litter'.

Over 7,000 people visited the exhibitions in Lerwick and Ullapool. Many helped to examine the 120 sand samples I had collected from beaches around Scotland.

Magnification revealed that 71% of the samples contained plastic particles. I presented these findings to MSPs at the Scottish Parliament in the exhibition #CleanBeachesScotland in December 2017, resulting in over 30 MSPs signing pledges to support measures to tackle plastic pollution.

The Littoral Art Project has succeeded in raising awareness and stimulating community action in both Ullapool and Shetland, where pupils lead the

#NaeStrawAtAw campaign to persuade cafes and shops to ban plastic straws. I am convinced that by bringing people together through creativity, art and action can make a difference.

JULIA BARTON originally studied Geography and now works as an artist, environmentalist and activist in Scotland. She received a Shetland Environment Award 2017 for the Shetland phase of Littoral Art Project and is looking forward to taking her work to new locations.

A detailed record of Julia’s journey from the littoral zones to lobbying can be seen on line at www.littoralartproject.com The animation can be viewed on Vimeo Terra NOVA. Current events and wider lobbying can be followed on @LittoralArt. The NEO Terra exhibition and the research and development element of the Littoral Sci-Art Project was partly funded by Creative Scotland.

PUTTING PLASTICS IN THE PAST: GOVERNMENT OPENS 2018 ON AN ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTING

S

ince Michael Gove's appointment to DEFRA, the Conservatives have been busy re-launching David Cameron's modernising efforts to make them 'The greenest government ever'. In a speech in early January, Theresa May unveiled her 25-year long term plan for eradicating plastic waste from the environment.

Aptly delivering the speech at the London Wetland Centre, May pledged to extend the 5p levy on single use plastic bags to all retailers, introduce taxes on single use plastic cups and investigate launching plastic-free shopping aisles. This follows on from the Government’s ban on plastic microbeads last December, with May claiming plastic waste to be 'one of the greatest environmental scourges of our time'.

Plastic waste has steadily grown to become a global environmental crisis, with estimates of 10 million tonnes of plastic entering our oceans every year and throwaway plastics becoming more and more visible on roadsides, street terraces and green spaces across the UK. Clearly then, this string of announcements is welcome news for the environment, particularly so because these are tried and tested policies in the UK. Welsh Labour

pioneered the 5p plastic bag charge in 2011 and to date usage has reduced by 71%, raising £17mn in revenue. Extending the levy to England will only confirm further that progressive, proactive policymaking can genuinely shift consumer habits with minimal impact on standards of living. Moreover, such policies will help to normalise sustainable practice in individual and collective situations, a key prerequisite for sustainable development if we are to decouple our high consumption, high footprint lifestyles from the natural environment.

The long-term plan will also hold future governments to account on environmental standards, which will be a key priority for Remain voters warning against a Post Brexit 'bonfire of red tape'. A greater emphasis on recycling will likely be a core theme of many governments to come, especially in light of China recently banning imports of unsorted waste from many Western countries.

This will increase the workload faced by British recycling centres by 500,000 tons a year. Although Wales has shown that significant decreases in waste are possible after becoming the 4th best recycling nation in the world, the UK wide challenge is much steeper. Logically then, a move

by STEPHEN HUGHES

away from plastic usage altogether will help to prevent an escalation in landfills and over burdened local councils.

Although they are ambitious, the Labour Party criticised the lack of urgency in the Prime Minister’s plans; meanwhile Greenpeace questioned the lack of any mention of introducing deposit return schemes for plastic bottles. What's most apparent from this government’s recent upsurge in environmental policies is the emphasis on the long term. The ban on plastic mirrors and the ban on petrol/ diesel cars are also scheduled for the beginning of the 2040's. Again, this can be seen as either entrenching commitment on key environmental issues or offloading the clearly urgent problem we face today to future generations.

Conservative think tank Bright Blue reported that the environment was one of the key areas young voters emphatically swung to Labour on in the 2017 General Election. Rather than an obituary to Cameron's Hug a Husky efforts, the election does seem to have rejuvenated the environmental agenda in Whitehall.

Complete with binding targets to be held to account against, the government have opened 2018 on a positive environmental note.

LENT 2018 / COMPASS / 11

GEOGRAPHERS IN ACTION

IN CONVERSATION WITH EDWARD POLLARD EDWARD POLLARD works as the Senior Principal Consultant at the The Biodiversity Consultancy on King’s Parade - one of a team of experts who aim to manage biodiversity risk and establish a sustainable basis for development across the academic, NGO, private and public sectors. Edward graduated from Oxford in 1996 with a B.A. in Biological Sciences before studying for his masters in Anthropology and Ecology of Development at UCL. Edward Pollard on a dune in Namibia.

How did your interest in conservation develop?

I have always had a passion for wildlife, spending time as a child bird watching, and loved being in the great outdoors.

Travel and expeditions while at school and university developed my interest and as an undergraduate I took part in volunteering work with PHD students to help with their research in the field.

I’d recommend that anybody interested in a career in conservation keeps an eye out for any volunteering work like this to gain an insight, and get involved with lectures, seminars and workshops outside of the curriculum - there’s some amazingly interesting stuff happening on our doorstep.

You work with leading corporations in the mining oil and gas industry who have a controversial input into the processes that might be threatening our ecosystems the most. How do these big corporations approach policies for biodiversity conservation - is there any concern for the intrinsic nature of an environment?

Corporations are generally most concerned about the growth of their company and there are some key incentives for the big companies to seek advice on a sustainable approach: government regulation – a requirement to meet laws and restrictions and reputation – an apparent concern for the environment is viewed positively by consumers. In practice, most of our policies won’t harm the economic growth of these corporations and are far more likely to open up opportunities for growth - there is an important feel-good factor in that consumers ultimately prefer to buy

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by FLORENCE WIGGINS products that they believe are having a positive impact, which corporations are increasingly beginning to recognise.

We see huge fluctuations in the money spent on conservation, dependent on things like oil price. While the abolishment of social development programmes will often be met by protest and resistance, chimpanzees are fundamentally not going to start fires outside of headquarters and so investment here is often the first to go in times of economic stress.

How much does environmental risk influence a corporation’s willingness to invest in a particular area - does resource value outweigh environmental impact?

Increasingly, the bigger and more responsible companies are turning down investment in vulnerable areas, despite the potential value of a resource. While this might initially seem positive and a step towards a more environmentally conscious society, in reality the resource is likely to only be subsequently exploited by a less well established, unreliable corporation who will probably have a much more detrimental impact on the environment than the original investors.

There is a fine balance between value and risk, and sometimes the counterintuitive approach may be more positive.

How do local communities respond to investment by big multinationals in their area? How are they affected?

The prospect of investment raises hope in communities - which are often poor, remote and environmentally sensitive - but a ‘resource curse’ often means that the proposed, or imagined, benefits don’t manifest. In-migration is a huge problem

as companies rarely provide enough jobs for the populations moving in: where people once had a basic, but relatively stable livelihood in agriculture they are increasingly living in slum conditions, with no work, poor sanitation and impoverished conditions.

How important is data collection in forming policies for sustainability and how easy is it to form these policies from data collected in the field?

There is a big lack of funding for field data collection; money invested in science, data collection and law enforcement doesn’t have the same public appeal, leading to a real lack of evidence-based approaches.

The equipment needed to survey these environments is expensive and NGOs need to be more science-informed in order to bridge this gap between science and policy.

Where is the most influential or inspirational place you have visited and how has it influenced what you do today?

When working in the field in Indonesia, I spent a long period of time collecting data in Peat Swamps. One afternoon, I decided to venture out on my own, following only a compass bearing. After some time trekking through boggy, damp, dirty conditions I came to a natural change in gradient in the forest, which rose out of the swamps into the most beautiful lowland Bornean forest. I was suddenly surrounded by colossal trees with huge crowns and a vast, open understory in the company of Orangutans, flying squirrels, hornbills and the most amazing array of wildlife. I often think back to that moment today.

ON ‘RACIAL BANISHMENT’ AND BLACK GEOGRAPHIES: A RESPONSE TO ANANYA ROY

by NINA GROSSFURTHNER a black woman who had been evicted days after landing in hospital at the hands of an abusive boyfriend. The cause of eviction was excessive calls to 911 which classified the rented property as a ‘nuisance property’ –which under nuisance ordinances was a viable cause for eviction. This ‘criminalisation of innocence’, as Roy refers to it, is yet another tactic by which the poor and vulnerable, often consisting of non-white ethnic groups, are disproportionately targeted by state legislation.

B

Painting by Kerry James Marshall entitled ‘Better Homes, Better Gardens (1994)

lack Geographies. It was a term I had never formally heard of before. Yet, on the 18th of January, in a public lecture hosted by the Geography Department, these two words became the basis of a thrilling talk given by Ananya Roy. Visiting from the University of California Los Angeles, Roy’s second lecture in a two-part series was entitled Racial Banishment: old and new forms of urban transformation in the United States. The argument that Roy presented was that the urban processes of gentrification, eviction and displacement were forms of state-sanctioned violence centralised around racial discrimination - though this is a significant reduction of what was a deeply thought-provoking lecture.

As a third year Geographer whose main attention has been in Human Geography, urban theory is somewhat unavoidable.

Whether this is due to heated debates in contemporary urban theory or due to the attention cities receive as the loci of urbanisation, theorising the urban space is an interesting pursuit for most Geographers who are curious about the shifting demographics of populations across space. What was so surprising about Roy’s talk however, was how she cast urban theory in a new light using critical race theory. Many of us in the Geography tripos are familiar with Roy’s work on theorising the urban from the South. In this vein, she argues that the new geographies of urban theory can

be understood by looking at cities in the Global South, rather than concentrating on Euro-American experience as the sole basis for knowledge production on the urban.

This lecture, however, was different. It looked at how brown and black bodies are embedded and made vulnerable in the making and taking of property, challenging the very terminology we use to describe urban processes. Words like neoliberalism, gentrification, capitalism and displacement were exposed and took on a whole new meaning. Roy called them out on their violent and racialized histories of exclusion and discrimination, which their normative applications fail to acknowledge. Using the example of Boyle Heights, a neighbourhood in downtown Los Angeles, Roy revealed how gentrification has had a disruptive effect on the predominantly Hispanic and Latino residents. In 2017, a series of protests erupted in the neighbourhood that opposed the process of gentrification which threatened to displace ethnic communities that had found their home in Boyle Heights since the late 1950s.

Roy drew from Katherine Beckett and Steve Herbert’s work in ‘Banished’, which defines banishment as a legal displacement of populations through zero-tolerance policing tactics. She explained how these policies often affect those already most vulnerable to homelessness and discrimination. The heart wrenching example used was of

In Boyle Heights, the violence of displacement has not transpired without resistance from the local community. Art galleries and hipster coffee shops have become targets of graffiti artists and protesters calling out the appropriation of these spaces for economic gain of incoming white populations. Tag lines such as: ‘F*** White Art’ and ‘Keep Beverly Hills out of Boyle Heights’ are the war cries of a community defending itself against ‘urbanicide’- the deliberate death of a city, which Roy takes from its imperial meaning to insert into this contemporary context.

It is impossible to do Roy’s lecture justice in a single article. She brought a number of challenges and critical question to the audience and combined it with a spectacular presentation. Kicking off with the song ‘We the People’ by A Tribe Called Quest, the lecture was a medley of artistic references from J. Cole to Kerry James Marshall. Marshall’s paintings featured as a powerful and emotive display of the Black experience in the US and footage from J.Cole’s L.A. concert (filmed by Roy herself ) took over the lecture theatre to highlight the extent of racial prejudice embedded in property and wealth. The whole thing was a testimony to Roy’s continuous questioning of representation and performance. Her final challenge was to the audience: us, in effect. It was one that spoke to our position of power when it comes to academia and the bodies of knowledge we legitimise, appropriate, reproduce and obscure in our careers. It extended beyond the urban into the very lecture theatre, calling for us to see these invisible bodies.

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GEOGRAPHERS IN ACTION

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DIGITAL REALM:

HELEN MARGETTS EXPLAINS HOW DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND THE INTERNET ARE INCREASINGLY SHAPING OUR LIVES HELEN MARGETTS is Director of the Oxford Internet Institute and Professor of Society and the Internet at the University of Oxford. As a political scientist specialising in digital era governance, she has conducted research into the relationships between government, politics and information technology for over two decades. She has published various books concerning political behaviour in the age of the internet - most recently examining “Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action”.

by ANGUS PARKER

T

here can be little doubt that we have entered an era whereby the digital and physical realms are interacting in unprecedented and novel ways. Any scepticism that technology or virtual platforms operate in vacuums distinct from their economic, cultural and political contexts has vanished as social media, information technologies and digital networks have increasingly permeated our society.

In the context of these developments, Professor Helen Margetts’ position has perhaps never been more salient. “When I started in the 1990s, it was an important area but absolutely nobody apart from me was interested in it – early information technologies merely automated aspects of political life that were functioning already. But now almost everybody interacts with huge digital platforms and that means what I think about is of concern to everybody.”

However, despite the relative importance of digital technology in our societies, there appears to be an apathy within government and public policy circles to embrace the opportunities on offer – partly generated by an anxiety of repeating previous disastrous attempts by governments to amalgamate the realms of policy and technology. “I think it generates a lot of fear,” Professor Margetts says, “which is partly historical as policy makers and civil servants have had bad

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experiences in the past with information technology contracts that have failed or cost overruns. If you look at a new policy like universal credit – possibly the biggest change to the welfare system ever – even that has been paralysed by an inability to understand technology and these bad associations have meant that some governments avoid it.”

The importance of digital platforms should certainly not be underestimated.

As information technologies become ever more influential and important, permeating the fabric of society, questions of authority have surfaced, and concerns have been raised relating to safety and security. The corollary of this is the question of regulation which many fear

is transcending government purview. But what can be done? Should the emphasis fall upon the individual in a virtual form of governmentality or are governments responsible for protecting their citizens?

“It has to come from all levels. Any solution to the question of overseeing the role that digital platforms play in our lives is going to be messy and impartial. These platforms are completely intertwined with our daily lives and we haven’t caught up with that yet. It is not just a matter of regulating the big platforms it is a question of updating regulation that is not fit for a digital world. There are things that can be done – working in partnership with the companies or even public pressure.”

GEOGRAPHERS IN ACTION Public pressure has, itself, been facilitated by the internet which has changed the dynamics and landscapes of political participation as Professor Margetts notes.

“Before the mid-2000s, if you wanted to participate in politics you would have to do something quite costly in terms of time or effort – join a political party or a canvassing campaign, for example. There was a ladder of participation with dying for your cause at the top and signing a petition in the street at the bottom. But there wasn’t anything below that.

“Now, just by existing on Facebook or owning a phone there are opportunities to do very small things that hardly cost anything – just reading Donald Trump’s tweets, I would say, is a political act, it is an involvement in politics that just wasn’t available in a pre-social media age.”

The extent to which these acts of participation act as a fillip for collective action has, however, been questioned.

Whilst information technologies have enabled an increased swathe of the public to engage in political life, this has been dismissed as ‘slacktivism’, but Professor Margetts disagrees. “Those small acts of participation can scale up to something very important. They did scale up to the revolutions of the Arab Spring and they can scale up to very large campaigns for policy change or substantial movements such as we are seeing against sexual harassment and [for] gender equality.”

The claim for mobilisation may therefore seem strong but there is no guarantee that such campaigns or movements will succeed. “Almost all campaigns for change fail but we never see them, we only see ones that succeed and that gives us a selection bias which explains why early work was limited to focussing on reasons for success rather than why the majority failed.

“Even when movements do succeed, they may not be sustainable. You might be able to use social media to coordinate, for example, the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong or the 2014 protests in Brazil or indeed the Arab Spring, but you might not be able to sustain it as these mobilisations don’t necessarily have the usual organisational trappings of a movement. 99.99% of mobilisations fail – only a very few succeed, and we believe that that is what is causing politics to be so unpredictable these days – that’s why the book is called Political Turbulence.”

Despite the benefits that the internet can offer, social media has the potential to both

“Now, just by existing on Facebook or owning a phone there are opportunities to do very small things that hardly cost anything – just reading Donald Trump’s tweets, I would say, is a political act, it is an involvement in politics that just wasn’t available in a pre-social media age.”

unite and divide. The popular perception that citizens are increasingly residing within ‘echo-chambers’ has increased concerns that digital technologies and the internet are facilitating contemporary forms of political polarisation. However, Professor Margetts believes such concerns are open to question.

“People have always created echo chambers in the offline world – it’s not proven that we exist in echo-chambers any more than we used to. There could be no better echo chamber, for example, than just reading the Daily Mail and not accessing social media at all. The links between social media and political polarisation also need questioning; I would argue that social media do more to puncture echo-chambers, than they get credit for.”

Yet digital technologies are not simply changing citizen-state relations but are similarly serving as an increasingly influential instrument in shaping the landscapes of international relations. The concept of ‘cyber-warfare’ has developed in light of recent accusations about nations intervening in other states’ affairs and geopolitical concerns surrounding the penetration of digital infrastructures have subsequently become more prevalent.

“Our digital infrastructure is as important as any other part and there are countries which feel very vulnerable precisely because of cyber warfare. But the term ‘cyber warfare’ has been overused and somewhat glamorised – as war is always glamorised so we shouldn’t be surprised.

Of course, it is going to be important – one country’s propensity to mount cyberattacks or involve themselves in another country’s affairs is changing the whole face of international relations.”

Whether it be influencing public policy, altering the nature of citizenship and political participation or serving to enhance geopolitical tension, there is immense saliency in studying information technologies and the internet. The rapid rate of change and the polyvalent nature of digital platforms is reducing certainty over the future and it is perhaps quixotic to attempt to predict how, where or what aspect of society will become embroiled or affected next. However, we are still in a liminal stage of the process and as more facets of civilisation are folded within the virtual realm, it is certain that the saliency of Professor Margetts’ research will only intensify.

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SACRED AND LIFE-AFFIRMING HIMALAYAN WATERS: AN INTERVIEW WITH BHASKAR VIRA [PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: TOBY SMITH]

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HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

Men taking an evening shower in a stream.

[PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: TOBY SMITH]

BHASKAR VIRA is a Professor of Political Economy, Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, and Director of the University’s Conservation Research Institute. Bhaskar Vira, alongside colleagues DR ESZTER KOVACS and photojournalist TOBY SMITH, recently created an exhibition titled ‘Pani, Pahar: Waters of the Himalayas.’ This explored the changing landscapes and escalating water crises of the Indian Himalayas. TESNI CLARE and HANNAH MENDALL interviewed Bhaskar Vira about his recent project and exhibition.

PHOTOGRAPHY AS A FORM OF COMMUNICATION How do you select images to illustrate your chosen narrative in the exhibition?

It’s a complex process, and involves quite a lot of discussion amongst the team, as well as some choices about what might make for a compelling visual narrative which still remains true to the research. We’ve been doing the research for about four years, alongside my colleagues Eszter Kovacs and Toby Smith, who saw a visual potential with his creative eye.

So, some of the choices were made on the spot during that first trip. We also had some fantastic archival images from the collections in Cambridge to tell the ‘before-after’ story about places.

This still left us with several hundred stunning images. From this, we had to extract a coherent narrative, while also being aware of the amazing creative

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quality of some of the photographs. We worked together on this making some compromises to reflect both perspectives that of the research, as well as the aesthetic beauty of the photographs. We’ve now tested this narrative in a few places, including the 2017 Cambridge Festival of Ideas … and, it seems to work.

So do you think it is right to photograph striking, thought-provoking or revealing images to elicit a public reaction?

In this context, photographs are trying to tell a story, and to provoke a reaction. So, yes, this is very much what the purpose is - it is less subtle than text, but equally leaves room for the viewer to interpret the message from their own perspective … How people react also varies, some look, think and move on; others might be provoked to react more strongly, or motivated to investigate further on their own.

Did yourself and Toby Smith do much

editing of the photos? How do you think this encodes visual material with new meanings?

The photos were not ‘touched up’. Some were taken using time lapse and other techniques, such as the stunning night vision shot of Mussoorie. The others are ‘raw’, and try to capture what we saw in the landscape. But, of course, the lens tells the story which the photographer chooses to tell - the viewer can never really know what was visible just out of shot of the camera. It is is ‘their’ narrative, imbued with all their values, prejudices and perspectives, not necessarily some objective ‘truth’ about the people and places that are visible through these mediums. Equally, we have tried to keep the commentary in the captions fairly minimal - still leaving room for the viewer to interpret the image.

An image in the exhibition pictures a makeshift, local water system - the

Above: The Tehri Dam on the Bhagirathi river, in Uttarakhand, as the highest construction in India. It was built despite huge opposition.

Top Right: Kempty Falls – In the last 5 years, the picturesque falls have seen an explosion in domestic tourists, development and unregulated construction.

Right: A young woman washes her clothes in a spring in Dhulikhel, Nepal.

[PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: TOBY SMITH]

caption indicates that it is affordable and accessible water supply for locals. Do you think large-scale, modernist construction projects are entirely harmful in the rural Himalayan region? Should people instead devise their own infrastructures?

It is never black or white. Large-scale modernist construction projects have a poor track record in the region, but it would be wrong to suggest that these have failed. In fact, one real problem is that most administrators and engineers believe that the only option is large scale projects.

By showing that there are alternatives, part of what we are trying to do is to encourage a more open conversation about what might be appropriate in different circumstances, and for whom.

At present, decisions are often dictated by a technocratic rationality that does not engage much with local realities.

One of the photographs in the exhibition captures a vulnerable woman doing laundry in a stream, from a makeshift pipe system. Do you think, as Western researchers, we have a right to portray the struggles of others?

It is interesting to see your reaction to this image, which actually captures the

daily reality of life for the majority of women in the rural developing world. Is it appropriate to call this a ‘struggle’? It is probably good to recognise that there is still a world out there in which the washing machine is not (yet) ubiquitous, and this image shows what everyday life looks like.

More importantly, it is trying to make the connection between the availability of flowing water, and these essential parts of life in the region. It tries to show how different people use water, and for what different purposes.

DEVELOPMENT ISSUES Do you think more can be done to capture socio-cultural and environmental implications when quantifying and justifying the impacts of large-scale

modernisation projects development ‘indicators’?

through

The cost-benefit issue is far from simple.

Even if infrastructure does improve, these improvements are not always equally distributed, and the poor often miss out (and these may also be the people who bear the highest costs). So, these projects can reinforce inequality.

Large-scale development has captured the imagination of the bureaucrat and the engineer, motivated by demonstrating impact at scale. Taking local people’s needs, knowledge and aspirations into account while designing these interventions is, surely, a good idea, even if this does not necessarily go all the way to a postdevelopment approach. In many cases, it is more about respectful engagement

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HUMAN GEOGRAPHY Left: The Dhobighat community downstream of Mussoorie provides laundering services to the upstream town’s schools, hotels and government institutions. Washing is done in laong, a natural stream that flows through the settlement, first inhabited by the dhobi (washing) community over 80 years ago.

The livelihood of the dhobi community depends on clean, fast-running water. In recent times, they have been asked by local governments to ‘share’ their stream with other nearby settlements. This has given rise to a decline in water flow to the community, as well as a breakdown in communal water-collection activities, disrupting both physical flows and social interactions. With youth out-migration and the advent of mechanised washing machines, the demand for washing services is declining, so these livelihoods look increasingly vulnerable.

[PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: TOBY SMITH]

Right: A very common sight throughout the Himalayas are the daily interactions that women and young people have with the endpoints of infrastructure, such as the local standpipe, spring spout or sunken well. Amongst the communities in which we have worked, in rural areas as well as within small towns, people always expressed their preference for ‘pure’ spring water to drink, to wash and cook with, because of customary practices as well as perceived taste.

Water collection, while usually time consuming and undertaken by women, is also a time for families and children to come together, and for social interaction.

[PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: TOBY SMITH]

and meaningful partnership, as water does flow across a large landscape, and it is important to think beyond just local needs. On what we measure, yes, our lens of evaluation is very limited.

Should people who have no relation to places, such as the Himalayas, still get involved and try to help local people communicate their stories? Is it our place to do so?

PERSONAL QUESTIONS

Yes, of course; but to do so in ways that are respectful of local perceptions, and open to the possibility of other narratives.

Is anyone really a complete insider, anywhere, in a world that is mobile?

Everyone is shaped by their experiences and context, and stories have always been told by the great travellers. I’d hope that by visiting a place, a stranger becomes someone who does have a relationship to that place, even if it is somewhat ephemeral and fleeting. The story that emerges is a story of that encounter, and it is likely to be worth telling, as it (surely) enriches our cultural landscape and our knowledge of places.

How do you feel your positionality, especially growing up in the Himalayas, affected your research and exhibitionmaking?

A lot, inevitably. I have a real love for these landscapes and the people who live here, and they are so much a part of what motivates me. The choice of what I study, the ways in which I think and write about it, and the visual images that strike me as worth displaying - these are all influenced by my personal history and engagement with these places over (now) almost forty years!

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If you could make one change in the world, what would it be and why?

I’ll limit my response to this context, maybe, and save my plans for global domination for a different conversation!

I think I’d love to see more people willing to embrace a spirit of open enquiry, which I hope I’ve tried to convey through this interview, and the exhibition. To use all of our senses, and our mind, to interpret and interrogate the world around us … and then, to tell stories about these worlds to enrich the conversation about the human condition … surely, this is the essence of geography?

For more information about the project, visit: https://www.panipahar.com/

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

DISCOVERING GHANA THROUGH DEVELOPMENT WORK

Figure 1: Camfed Women

Words and Photograph by JORDANA PRICE

O

ver the Christmas holidays, I was one of 16 university students to participate in the Chief Rabbi’s ‘Ben Azzai’ Programme to Ghana. This initiative aims to promote greater awareness of international development and poverty issues amongst young people in the Jewish community. The trip aimed to provide us with a greater insight into the power of sustainable development, and to allow us to then come back and share our experiences with others.

We visited a series of projects run by ‘Tzedek’, a Jewish charity which aims to provide a response to extreme poverty through international development work, including in Tamale in northern Ghana.

The three key areas of development upon which Tzedek focuses are: female empowerment, education, and youth training.

The trip was extremely impactful in three main ways:

SHOWING A DEDICATION TO OTHERS The trip emphasised how Tzedek’s projects empower children, young people and women, through positive and participatory initiatives with others.

One woman, Fatijma (in the right-hand side of Figure 1), was supported through her education by Tzedek and is now determined to help other girls and women to have the same opportunities. She has trained as a midwife and set up a series of clinics, as well as a midwifery teaching centre. This helps to reduce rates of infant and maternal mortality, providing emotional, medical and psychological support during pregnancy. Altruistic dedication by people like Fatijma is incredible to witness, and the fact that she struggled to pursue her education is taken for granted.

THE IMPACT EMPOWERMENT

OF

YOUTH

Youth are the key to the future. All too often in less-developed countries, a youthful population is considered to be a burden. One of Tzedek’s projects provides leadership training to 16 to 19 year olds,

some of whom ran summer camps for local children last year. The youth leaders explained the importance of this training in boosting their aspirations; many of them will now enrol in a vocational mechanics programme, funded by Tzedek.

They clearly understand the societal problems their community needs to overcome for a better future. One boy, Sadik, believes that the improvement of sanitation and the maintenance of peace in the region are fundamental. He explained how a better water system would allow more study time, since the time taken to collect water each day is greatly reduced. Another boy, Iddrisu, disagrees with this, and feels that an end to FGM (female genital mutilation) and forced marriage are the greatest issues to solve in the future. Through these programmes, Tzedek encourages confidence and independent thought, challenging the assumption that development in Africa is limited by the ‘youth bulge’.

IS AID THE RIGHT RESPONSE TO POVERTY? The question of whether or not aid is moral and an appropriate response to development arose during a lunch break in a primary school, when two lunch boxes were leftover. Sitting across the playground were two school girls studying.

One person in the group suggested that we offer the meals to the girls, but others felt it would reinforce a differential power relationship between the school visitors and Ghanaian pupils themselves. Some felt it patronising to assume the children needed our food, or more broadly ‘aid’, despite attending a good school in one of Tamale’s best neighbourhoods.

Eventually, two people did go over and spoke with the girls before offering them the meals. One of the girls didn’t like the look of the food and the other said she was going home for lunch anyway but would take it with her. Neither response was out-of-place in this country. The outcome proved that education and skills give people power to make their own choices, removing dependency. Although the lunch box is a very small-scale example,

it still emphasises the fact that these girls develop their own independence through their education.

Will education soon put an end to the tradition of the ‘developed’ giving aid to the ‘developing’ world? The Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo, whose presidency slogan is “Build a Ghana beyond Aid”, discussed this very matter at a recent conference in France. He stated that “[aid] has not worked and it will not work … our responsibility is to charter a path about how we can develop our nations ourselves”. He emphasises that Ghana and all African nations should be choosing how and where they spend their funds, rather than the ‘European taxpayer’. According to him, if Africa “change[s] that mindset of dependence, that mindset contingent on aid and charity, we would see that in the decades ahead of us a full flowering of African people would take place and that African personality that was talked about at the time of our independence will become real and imminent in our times.” Widening currently small-scale projects to a larger scale will facilitate this independence. But if these projects are supported by NGOs, must we still consider them as ‘aid’? Tzedek argues that their work is not ‘aid’ because it is removing, not creating, dependency. Indeed, how we define ‘aid’ is no doubt a question which we must confront in the years to come.

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HUMAN GEOGRAPHY [PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: WIKIMEDIA COMMON]

DISASTER CAPITALISM IN PUERTO RICO

by TOM EDWARDS

O

n September 20th 2017 the category 4 storm known as hurricane Maria made landfall on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. Four months on and the U.S. territory is still reeling from the devastating effects of the hurricane, with an estimated 40% of the population still without access to a reliable source of electricity, 30,000 households without roofs and many public services such as schools remain closed. However, despite this situation, there are those who see the vast destruction left in wake of the tropical cyclone as a unique opportunity that can benefit Puerto Rico and help cut the $70 billion debt owed by the island to its creditors.

Hurricane Maria substantially damaged Puerto Rico’s electricity distribution lines with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) with an estimated 80% of transmission lines downed during the hurricane. Prior to the storm, the publicly owned PREPA had already been struggling with a huge burden of debt and an unreliable, outdated grid system. This had led to calls for PREPA to be sold off and privatised in a bid to improve services and provide a quick injection of cash into the municipal budget. Since the hurricane, the voices calling for privatisation have only gotten louder with the cash-strapped PREPA struggling to restore power to the whole of the island. Hence the governor for Puerto Rico has recently announced the privatisation of the utility authority and is seeking potential buyers. This desire is reflected by the island’s Education Secretary who has shown herself as an advocate for privatisation in the past, and since the hurricane has publicly stated her intention to use the destruction caused by Maria as chance to restructure the school system and attract investors.

In a bid to achieve the privatisation of Puerto Rico’s public services there have been calls from within the U.S. government to make the island more attractive to potential investors. Since the hurricane this rhetoric has been advanced further with deregulation of

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various sectors, such as the removal of the ‘National Environmental Policy Act’ (meaning reconstruction will be exempt from previously strict environmental law) and the creation of special ‘economic freedom zones’ that would offer tax exemptions. The intention of Puerto Rico’s government can be seen manifested in the multi-million-dollar contracts they have awarded to private contractors to aid postdisaster restoration. Puerto Rico is also a particularly juicy target for the fossil fuel industry with a 2013 geological survey revealing large reserves of untapped oil and natural gas south of the island.

This rush for privatisation and deregulation in the wake of such a devastating natural disaster is what Naomi Klein (2007) describes as the ‘shock doctrine’; where unpopular economic policies are quietly pushed through during a crisis while the population is still reeling from the shock of the disaster.

Such strategies recognize that citizens will be too preoccupied to actively protest said reforms.

The use of the ‘shock doctrine’ is a recurring theme in the Caribbean region, with many similar disasters and subsequent deregulation offering parallels with the situation in Puerto Rico. After the 2010 earthquake hit nearby Haiti, many of the state assets - such as the water and energy utility - were sold off to private investors, surviving schools were privatised and various ‘free trade’ zones were created. This restructuring has left Haitian citizens slipping further into poverty, with the lowest wages in the western hemisphere.

Hurricane Maria does not, however,

have to provide opportunity solely to large multi-national interests. Since the hurricane, many Puerto Ricans have banded together and shown true innovation in light of the devastation of their island, with reports of local communities taking matters into their own hands after being continually let down by false promise of disaster relief.

A group of volunteers that call themselves the ‘Pepino Power Authority’ have taken it upon themselves to repair the electricity transmission lines in their area - albeit outside the authority of the local government. A number of communities have also banded together to clean up their local schools and open them as unofficial community and relief centres. Further grassroots efforts can be seen in ‘Resilient Power Puerto Rico’, an organisation that is attempting to distribute solar-powered generators to isolated communities. The ‘Just Recovery’ movement is attempting to organise a more sustainable and community-orientated approach to the reconstruction of the island, promoting long-term, participatory changes that empower locals through the recovery process, rather than just slap on a ‘bandaid’ solution.

Although the ‘shock doctrine’ is being brought to bear upon the people of Puerto Rico, lessons learnt from observing its application upon its neighbours give a stark warning to Puerto Ricans, and along with the innovation and solidarity of its grassroots movements, the devastation left in hurricane Maria’s wake may provide a golden opportunity for a more ecological and just transition to materialise in Puerto Rico.

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

BOOK REVIEW:

CITY OF THORNS: AGENCY & ACRIMONY

Rawlence, B., 2016 City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp London: Portobello.

B

en Rawlence’s absorbing account, City of Thorns, is an impressive tapestry which masterfully weaves together refugees’ experiences of displacement and camp life with wider issues of power in Dadaab – the world’s largest refugee camp. This critical ethnography combines with Rawlence’s time working in East Africa for Human Rights Watch to enable him to give voice to those largely forgotten by the international community, whilst simultaneously exploring the power dynamics and political struggles that keep them in Dadaab.

Much has been written within the academy about the space of the refugee camp, building on Agamben’s dual theorisation of homo sacer (1995) and the state of exception (2005), to argue that current norms of refugee management foster homogenous, disembodied and passive representations of the displaced.

It is refreshing then to read a pragmatic account, light on theory, concerned with conveying the reality of life centred in the refugee camp. Rawlence traces the lives of individuals like Guled – an avid Manchester United fan who lives for football and who arrived in Dadaab after fleeing conscription by al-Shabaab Islamist militants in Mogadishu. Then there is Kheyro, an aspirational young woman raised in the camp, clinging to the hope of foreign resettlement; and others, like Tawane, who as a youth leader is charged with securing services for camp residents after timid NGOs retreat to their fortified enclaves in the face of violent attacks.

Framed by the renewed Somali conflict from 2009-2015, the reader justly gets a sense of the hopelessness of nomadic peoples driven from their land and cooped up in the desert. Kenyan antipathy towards Somalis is expressed in the language of the war on terror; following Agamben (2005) anyone who looks Somali becomes a ‘terrorist’, to be harassed, herded up and contained in the remote

desert camp, or better still to be purged from Kenyan soil and society altogether.

A police officer puts it to a woman frankly: “This is Kenya: we can rape you if we want.” Refugees are forced to depend on the provision of NGOs and UNHCR as they are legally prevented from working, except for in incentive jobs. Even these constitute little more than slave labour, paying $90 per month for work which Kenyan officials and international NGO staff receive $9000 for per month. In the face of UN ineffectiveness, incompetence and ration cuts the reader starts to see an element of truth in al-Shabaab’s claim that the West hates Somalis, and wants to hold them in “camps, like animals.”

Notwithstanding the real desperation unblinkingly conveyed by Rawlence, the reader is also struck by the dynamism of camp life and how, despite being in a permanent state of exception, Dadaab remains embedded in global flows of people, goods, and capital. In contrast to Agambenian portrayals of homo sacer as one who lacks agency, residents of Dadaab find themselves at the centre of illicit trade in imported sugar and exported UN supplies, with markets turning over $25m a year. As always there are winners and losers, but for the former the prizes can be big: refugees-turned-dollar-millionaires (paying for their children to resettle in the USA but, in an interesting expression of place-based identity, choosing to remain in the camp themselves), politicians lining their own pockets, police extorting anyone and everyone. Reflecting on Kenyan government promises to shut down the camp, Rawlence suggests that Dadaab is unlikely to ever disappear now that it has a population of 600,000. Like any other city the size of Glasgow, it has become an essential part of the regional economy, as well as part of the coping strategies of both Kenyans and Somalis in times of drought.

Far from merely being a silo of “surplus humanity” (Davis, 2007), City of Thorns demonstrates that the refugee camp is a dynamic, interconnected environment in which individuals with limited choices

by JONATHAN LANCASTER can and do maintain an element of agency over their own lives.

The reader of this book will quickly perceive that Rawlence is a realist.

His portrayal of the intricate web of power, dependency and politics which entangles Dadaab does not shy away from lambasting Kenyan officials, international politicians, the UN, NGOs, or the media for their inconsistent, ignorant and inconsiderate approach to the issue of forced migration. Nevertheless, one does wonder whether he could demonstrate more pointedly how Western publics are also implicated in the side-lining of the people of Dadaab through their relations with elected politicians.

Moreover, given Rawlence’s acquired expertise, City of Thorns is disappointingly bereft of possible alternatives to the current situation. Although the book seeks to end on a positive note, the reader is left feeling that the cycle of displacement and encampment is bound to be repeated – as during 2017 due to famine in the Horn of Africa – not just concerning Dadaab but across insecure situations the world over. City of Thorns is positioned within a particular set of politico-cultural circumstances, but there are clearly lessons to be learnt from it, not least that universal approaches fail to appropriately address the everyday needs and concerns of the subaltern.

The international community needs people with Rawlence’s insight, capable of restructuring failing institutional approaches to forced migration – one hopes Rawlence follows City of Thorns with a text to address these wider issues.

Overall, City of Thorns is not only a fascinating read but a damning indictment of our collective failure to seriously engage with forced migration in an equitable or locally appropriate manner. Rawlence has done a superb job of bringing refugees’ voices out of the camp and into our everyday lives. Their question to us: “will you care enough to listen?”

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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

Papua New Guinea

(Photograph Credits: Public Domain Pictures)

NEW DISCOVERIES IN NEW BRITAIN

by FIONA DOBSON

P

erched on the outer edge of the Malay Archipelago and sheltered from the vast expanse of the Pacific by only the thin strip of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea’s New Britain boasts an impressive diversity of fauna and flora.

The island’s volatile colonial and volcanic history have made it almost accustomed to upheaval. However, the most recent disturbance is to its forest landscape, with over 20% of its lowland forest being lost between 1989 and 2000. The culprits are palm oil plantations and industrial logging, which are threatening to turn New Britain’s rich biodiversity into a monoculture reflecting our consumerism – or worse, a barren deforested wasteland.

New Britain and its small satellite islands are of vital importance to 14 endemic bird species. Together with New Ireland, it forms an Endemic Bird Area1, which is home to 38 restricted-range species.

Despite the importance of this habitat and the ever-encroaching threat of its destruction, New Britain’s bird fauna is among the least known to science. A group of researchers from several universities in Australia ventured into this exotic and unforgiving wilderness to find out more, with the aim of updating the status of New Britain’s birds on the IUCN Red List.

The expedition was by no means your average trip to a Pacific paradise island; the team had to battle oppressive heat and humidity, two weeks of torrential rain and flooding, and even a case of malaria. This is without even mentioning the difficulty of actually finding the birds during more than 400 hours of surveys.

Rob Davis, a member of the research team, explained that they had to spend two weeks becoming familiar with the birds, some of which few people have ever laid eyes on. He also stated that Papua New Guinea is “arguably the hardest place to see birds well,” not just due to the nearly impenetrable forest, but because many birds are very wary thanks to a history of being shot at with slingshots.

With hard work and perseverance, the team were able to successfully carry out the most extensive survey to date of the island’s bird fauna. Their findings were published in Bird Conservation International (the journal of BirdLife

International) in July 20172. What was expected to be a depressing story of dwindling populations turned out to be a far more positive one. Davis told The West Australian that “despite our expectations, a lot of species were doing better than we anticipated.” Six species were found to be less dependent on the old-growth forest than previously thought, and seemed to be using the palm oil plantations as a new habitat. This is a promising discovery.

Coupled with the fact that the rate of lowland forest loss has slowed in recent years, it has led to the suggestion that seven species be reclassified on the IUCN Red List from Near Threatened to Least Concern.

One such species, the Red-knobbed Imperial Pigeon Ducula rubricera – endemic to the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands – had the highest encounter rate of any species in the study.

This species was actually found to be twice as abundant in the degraded forest as in the old-growth forest. However, logged forest and plantations might not support breeding populations of species such as the Blue-eyed Cockatoo Cacatua ophthalmica, which depends on large hollow-bearing trees unlikely to be found there.

New Britain’s other restricted-range bird species – such as the New Britain

1 An Endemic Bird Area (EBA) is an area of land identified by BirdLife International as being important for habitat-based bird conservation because it contains the habitats of restricted-range bird species.

2 Davis, R., Dutson, G. and Szabo, J. (2017) Conservation Status of threatened and endemic birds of New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Bird Conservation International, 1-12. doi:10.1017/S0959270917000156

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Map of Logging in Papua New Guinea. adapted from Bryan and Shearman (2015)

Red-knobbed Imperial Pigeon.

(Photograph Credits: Charles Davies)

Goshawk Accipiter princeps – remain at levels of elevated concern, since they were found to be highly dependent on the diminishing original forest habitat.

It has been suggested that one species, the New Britain Kingfisher Todiramphus albonotatus, should be reclassified from Near Threatened to Vulnerable due to reduced population size estimates.

While the overall rate of forest loss has slowed in New Britain over recent years – partially due to the main palm oil

New Britain Kingfisher.

(Photograph Credits: Nik Borrow)

company beginning to address consumer concerns, and partially due to the reduced availability of accessible forests to log – the threat of habitat destruction remains potent. There has been an increase in the use of helicopters to reach formerly inaccessible areas for logging, and the forest is being fragmented by new roads that carve their way through the precious habitat.

Due to past habitat loss and these emerging threats, the researchers call for

urgent attention to be directed towards improving our understanding of the ecology of New Britain’s special birds.

It’s becoming increasingly important to find out more about how they’re adapting, or in other cases, failing to cope. This unprecedented survey has laid the foundations for the next generation of intrepid naturalists to venture out to the fringes of the Pacific to uncover Papua New Guinea’s secrets before it is too late.

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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

WILD FOR WILDLIFE

by BRYONY YATES

Drone survey.

(Photograph Credits: Bryony Yates)

T

his summer I spent eight weeks as a voluntary intern with the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.

The charity manages 126 nature reserves across these counties for the benefit of wildlife and local communities. I was based at their head office in Cambourne with the Monitoring and Research Team.

They’re responsible for conducting ecological surveys, in order to monitor wildlife population trends and assess the success of habitat management. Those eight weeks were fun, educational and surprising in so many ways.

One of my favourite parts was helping to organise and conduct surveys of the nature reserves, which meant working with drones. These flying machines are earning a mixed reputation as their use becomes more widespread, but for ecology and wildlife research, drones can be an invaluable resource. In our case, a drone was used to produce detailed maps of the nature reserves, which we subsequently analysed using QGIS (a Geographical Information Systems programme) to map the vegetation cover. As with all technology, it’s brilliantly efficient when it works, but a bit of a pain when it doesn’t.

Despite being rather temperamental, we managed to use our drone to not only carry out useful mapping work, but also to film a video to be used for the Trust’s communications work. I also employed some more traditional monitoring

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methods, such as using good old-fashioned quadrats to survey vegetation at Cooper’s Hill Nature Reserve in Ampthill. Here, the Trust is trialling methods for promoting heather growth.

Getting involved in the management of sites was good fun too. I particularly enjoyed ‘Balsam bashing’ in Bourn Brook, a tributary of the River Cam; in other words, removing invasive Himalayan Balsam which is outcompeting native plants. In complete contrast, I learned and employed some new creative skills: after completing some online courses, I designed logos and posters, and created a video from the drone footage we shot at Great Fen in Ramsey.

I certainly learned a lot. In particular, I realised this when performing a botanical survey at a County Wildlife Site, halfway through my placement: while still no expert botanist, I could name a good number of plants, most of which I wouldn’t have known four weeks previously. It was really satisfying to see how much I managed to pick up.

Perhaps the best part of the internship was all the wildlife encounters! I worked alongside kingfishers, newt larvae, crayfish, tigers (well…green tiger beetles) to name but a few. Others were more elusive, particularly the mammals; I found otter spraint, water vole latrines and badger tracks but unfortunately no glimpse of the animals themselves. Even the dormouse box checks yielded no actual

You don’t have to travel to far flung places to get your hands dirty and do your part for nature. In fact, there are some fantastic opportunities for environmental volunteering right on your doorstep! Cambridge University collaborates with some of the UK’s most prominent conservation charities to run the Biodiversity Internship Scheme, which offers a variety of summer placements for students.

Here’s the story of one such intern, BRYONY YATES, a second year Biological Natural Sciences student - FIONA DOBSON. mice! I did manage to get up close to some bats, however. We caught six different species during a single trapping session at Brampton Wood. As a bat-lover, getting to see the bats face to face and learning about them from the experts on hand was very special.

However, as with any job, some parts were less enjoyable. Many activities involved unfortunate encounters with thorny plants and nettles, whilst the bat surveys entailed late nights and biting insects. But it’s a price I was happy to pay since it meant a chance to help protect wonderful wildlife and habitats, for the benefit of both nature and people. Plus, it’s exciting to know that even though I was only an intern, some of the projects I produced such as the drone maps were actually used by the Trust to develop reserve management plans and funding applications.

I really can’t think of a better way to have spent my summer holiday. Not only was the experience hugely beneficial to me, but it makes me very happy to know that I’ve contributed to the Trust’s important work. I am very grateful to everyone at the Wildlife Trust BCN and to the Cambridge Biodiversity Internship Scheme for giving me this chance. I can’t recommend getting involved enough!

For more information on how to apply for the scheme, head to the Biodiversity Internship Scheme page on the Cambridge Careers Service website: http://www.careers.cam. ac.uk/sectors/intdev/CamBioDiversity.asp

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

LET SLEEPING BATS LIE! NORTH EAST SCOTLAND RANGERS

by FRANNY SCHLICKE

B

ats are mysterious creatures and there is still a lot we don’t know about them. This means there is a lot of scope for studying them during the winter, while they hibernate.

There are 17 bat species in the UK, nine in Scotland. They feed by eating huge numbers of insects during night-time forays. But in Scotland the short summer nights make it particularly hard for bats to have enough time to feed, and in poor weather this is even more difficult, meaning they must be hardy to survive.

Unsurprisingly, most species are to be found in the south of Scotland while only one – the hardy Pipistrelle – is to be found on the Orkney Islands off Scotland’s north coast.

In the UK, all bats hibernate. This is partly because they all feed on insects which are in short supply in the cold winter months, and partly because they are so small that they lose body heat rapidly. They may choose caves, walls, or trees, or settle in old buildings, including those managed and owned by the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland. The bats seek out deep cracks and crevices in attics and cellars. These locations must be cool, frost-free and, crucially, undisturbed.

Each year, surveys are conducted for the National Bat Monitoring Programme to check numbers. These must be done carefully and sensitively, using a licensed bat worker, as any disturbance could

(Photograph Credits: North East Scotland Rangers)

endanger the bats by causing them to wake up, and use up valuable energy supplies. This can mean a conflict between the interests of bats – which should be subjected to minimal disturbance – and possible remedial works to historic buildings. These are often scheduled to be carried out in the quiet winter months when they are most usually closed to the public.

Very little is known about how much disturbance bats can tolerate while they are hibernating. But a case study in one of Scotland’s oldest castles provides valuable new information about how bats may react to potentially noisy and intrusive restoration work. Scottish Natural Heritage provided a licence to permit courtyard resurfacing work to go ahead at a twelfth century keep. This was issued under strenuous monitoring conditions, but considered a valuable piece of research as any results could then be used to help inform future projects elsewhere.

An initial bat survey was done at the hibernaculum within the keep in the autumn, before resurfacing works started. Regular surveying then continued right through the duration of the contract.

Bats were counted, and their entry/exit crevices were marked with chalk so it was obvious if they moved. A qualified ranger entered the hibernaculum while the work was ongoing, to see if there was any evidence of bats becoming agitated

or if they had moved. The results were remarkable. Considering the noise and inevitable vibrations produced by the heavy machinery within the courtyard, the bats appeared not to be disturbed. Indeed the numbers of bats in the hibernaculum slowly grew into the winter.

The survey also included monitoring exactly when the bats started to leave their hibernaculum at the approach of spring, to start roosting in their summer roosts.

As far as the females are concerned, this means a move to their warm maternity roosts – 500 or more bats may be recorded in these. The keep re-opened at the end of March, and the study established that most of the bats had vacated by then, with only a few tucked into cracks and crevices in the ceiling and the cellars.

Old properties like this are the perfect locations to observe bats flying outside, as dusk draws in. If one visits such places at first light, one sees the small creatures form themselves into a large moving ball of bats before returning, one at a time, through the broken slates into the attics.

Mysteries remain – for example, we still do not know where all the bats go to hibernate over the winter – but the evidence of this research suggests that at least bats and humans may manage, with care, to co-exist within the context of heritage conservation.

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THE IMPACT OF FLOODING ON THE RIVER FINDHORN Words and Photographs by FRANNY SCHLICKE LENT 2018 / COMPASS / 29

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

Dulsie Bridge

T

hroughout Scottish history, the most extreme flood ever recorded is the Muckle Spate of 1829, on the River Findhorn. Fields of crops were lost; a wool-house and its contents were washed away; dams, mills, houses, bridges, roads, forests – none were left unaffected. One bridge ‘was lifted up like the lid of a chest’ by the water. Rain poured down chimneys, through windows and doors. Floodplains filled like lakes. A farmer’s meal-chest travelled 27 miles downstream. Hillsides were undercut and crashed down into the churning river. The Findhorn was rendered a whole ‘world of mischief ’.

Although nothing of such magnitude has since occurred, flooding remains a grave concern to all those who live and work by the so-called “river of beauty” which flows from the highest point of the Monadhliaths – 942m at Carn Ban – northeast to Findhorn Bay. In 1911 historian George Bain wrote that the upper Findhorn was ‘weird, impressive, and romantic in the extreme’.

Known as the Streens, it is part of Cawdor Estate. Land use includes fishing and shooting. Bain identified it as ‘one of the most famous sporting regions in the

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The Rock Walk Highlands in the present day, as in … the time of the old Scottish Kings’.

The river is central to Cawdor Estate’s income. Lucrative beats attract fishermen – but danger from flooding and even drowning is ever-present, on this, reportedly Scotland’s fastest-flowing river. The river path is frequently damaged by floods and avalanches. Water volume increases erosion and undercuts the river cliffs. With nothing to support it, saturated soil gives way and slides down sheer banks into the river.

Flooding impacts on fish numbers: the Findhorn’s source is in the glacial till of the Monadhliaths and debris carried downriver in solution suffocates the fish.

The fertile alluvial soils of the floodplains are planted with fodder crops and commercial timber. But if the river level rises by 2m, all this would be lost. And that’s perfectly possible: eyewitnesses of the Muckle Spate saw levels rise here up to 7.5m.

The river’s middle course is a gorge beginning just before Dulsie Bridge, commonly cited as a reference point for the Muckle Spate. Sir Thomas Dick

Eroded gorge on the River Findhorn Lauder observed that ‘The flood was very grand at Dulsie Bridge … within three feet of the key-stone: it was no less than forty feet perpendicular above its usual level’.

Dulsie Bridge is a popular tourist spot today – people swim and dive 12m from the parapet, kayakers and canoeists shoot the rapids, fishers and walkers risk the steep footpaths to the rocky gorge.

The middle gorge section downriver from Dulsie Bridge leads to the Rock Walk, part of Glenferness Estate. Carved into the 60m-high wall of rock on the eastern side is a path so beautiful that it is said that the Earl of Leven, bidding to buy Glenferness, upped his offer by several thousand pounds.

The Findhorn is particularly powerful here, undercutting the steep gorge walls.

During heavy rainfall the rock and any overlying soil become saturated, causing rock rapidly to slide rotationally down a concave plane into the river.

The Rock Walk’s beauty varies from the river’s upper section. Here, the gentle meanders are replaced by a roaring force of water made up of rapids, and soaring rocky walls. So when water levels

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

rise here, flooding in this section of the Findhorn appears the most dramatic.

point reached by the river is marked by an inscribed stone.

Farther downriver is the South Church at Ardclach. The Church sits close on the bank of a distinct meander – during the Muckle Spate it was believed that the church had been saved only by God’s intervention.

Climate change suggests that this historic stone may well be engulfed again, unimaginable though that seems. With

rising Scottish rainfall levels, more rapid snowmelt and more frequent storms, the Findhorn – with its source high in the Grey Mountains and its considerable drainage basin – will find itself far more susceptible.

Here, a broken iron bridge is a very visible example of flooding. Built in the 1890s by Glenferness Estate, it was washed away in 1958. Successive floods have removed the broken remains; eventually, even foundations on a rocky buttress will vanish.

Nearest to the river’s end lies Randolph’s Leap, a meltwater gorge formed of precipitous cliffs and deep pools.

Hydraulic power or ‘cavitation’ erodes this gorge: pockets of air are trapped in cracks in the rock, compressed by the sheer force of the water, and due to the resulting increase in pressure, force cracks in the rock. Randolph’s Gorge is particularly susceptible to this type of erosion due to its geology: it is well jointed.

During the Muckle Spate the level of the Findhorn rose here by 15m. This highest

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STUDY TIPS

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FIELDWORK WITH ALEX JEFFREY AIDAN THOMAS talks to DR. ALEX JEFFREY, Reader in Human Geography and Fellow of Emmanuel College to discuss tips for human geography fieldwork.

How should a student undertaking fieldwork abroad prepare in advance before visiting a place with a different culture, language and social norms for the first time?

I think it’s a constant struggle, because of course what we’d all like is the time to be able to learn a language and to fully embed ourselves in the norms and mores of any society. So, in terms of the undergraduate dissertation where you have a restricted period of time, it’s about building contacts and recognizing that you can’t do it alone and thinking about the ways in which your work is perceived by people in the place you’re travelling to. Use the institutional structures available both in Cambridge and in wherever you’re visiting. In Cambridge, it might be learning enough of the language to build some sense of rapport and being able to communicate in some ways, which points to the fact that

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you see value in learning the language and building connections. It’s also about the institutions and networks available in wherever you’re visiting, so that may be in civil society, it might be NGOs or in organizations and social movements that you’re seeking to work with and learn from. It might also be living with a family and embedding yourself in a particular cultural context and being open to learning and experiencing their culture. I think the overarching message is that you’re not alone and that there is a collaborative element to this that you need to embrace. The most valuable part of doing my PhD research when I was in northern Bosnia was living with a family and experiencing the annual cycle of family life within their home. I’d certainly always endorse trying as much as possible to live alongside a particular community.

We talk a lot about ‘positionality’ in

geographical theory – but how can this actually be addressed in practice in the field?

I’ve constantly struggled with this question about positionality because fundamentally the one intervention that I really agree with is Gillian Rose’s comment that “we are never in possession of perfect self-knowledge”. If we work from that assumption, then it’s very difficult to theorize or ‘think away’ issues of positionality because clearly, we are immediately embedded in a position which we can’t fully explain. I think the most important disposition in terms of positionality is openness to others, to receiving feedback from others about how the research is being perceived, about what their fears or concerns are around the research, about how the research could be changed or be more participatory or collaborative. These are the kinds of

STUDY TIPS

dispositions we need to be open to if we’re going to take positionality seriously – not to think it’s a ‘view from nowhere’ but to realize we’re always carrying with us a whole set of assumptions and baggage related to our identity and past experiences. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an easy route to theorizing away positionality, but there is a sense in which we need to be open to its persistent role in shaping the production of knowledge in our research.

What should researchers avoid doing when carrying out an interview?

This is a question that’s very difficult to answer – there’s a lot of things that should be avoided! One of the first things I would say relates to ethical conduct. The most important thing in an interview is to uphold the ethical values you’ve set out in any form of participation agreement.

From my own research experience, the easiest one to break is to start talking about the content of interviews you’ve already held in the presence of another interviewee. This is very problematic because often you want to build rapport, you want to show you’ve talked to other people, you want to say you understand an issue, so you start revealing things you’ve said in a previous interview even if you feel they’re not contentious. The problem is that you’re breaking the confidentiality and potentially the anonymity of the previous interviewee, so it’s important to remember that however informal they become – because they’re often carried out in social settings where you’re relaxed and putting the interviewee at ease – that there are certain lines that mustn’t be crossed in terms of disseminating information from previous interviews.

Another point about interviews which often comes up in human geographical research is that you’re often interviewing people that actually aren’t particularly nice. They’re not people you would generally have a rapport with and there’s a lot of reflection going on in human geography about what is to be done in terms of relating to particular informants when they come from a political position that may be very different to your own.

When I was interviewing Serbian war criminals, often my approach was just to be cordial but not be overly familiar. Those sorts of scenarios were the most difficult for interviewing because often they would be in situations that were attempting to be very sociable. So, when I was doing

research and interviewing war criminals it was often that they would be drinking, that it would be in very informal settings – you might be out at a barbecue and there would be attempts to try and build rapport with me as a foreign researcher. I found that very uncomfortable so I created my own set of guidelines for how I was not going to be drawn into this as a socially validating engagement. But it is hard, it’s not straightforward.

What tips do you have for note-taking in fieldwork?

The key piece of advice that I have is to always, regardless of what fieldwork you’re undertaking, keep a field diary.

You keep a field diary not simply to note down what observations you’re making, you do it as a means of narrating your inner monologue, of working out how you feel about the whole research process.

It’s a means of psychologically having somewhere you can create a space of reflection that allows you to test out ideas, test certain interviews or research encounters. Always, always keep field notes. I still keep field notes whenever I conduct research – they’re helpful intellectually and psychologically in terms of processing the events you’re engaged with.

My other piece of advice is about how you take notes in an interview. This is a fraught and difficult question – of course if you can record an interview it’s fine – but if you can’t record an interview then you simply have to take as many notes as you can then set aside time afterwards to write up those notes and fill in the gaps.

I’d say that having time after an interview to write up notes is a good idea regardless of whether or not it’s been recorded. It’s good practice to sit down and reflect on what the interview did, because we’ve all been in situations where the interview is problematic and not quite achieving what you wanted it to achieve. It’s important after an encounter like that to sit down and think “why didn’t it achieve what I wanted it to?” – was it the wrong participant, the wrong questions, the wrong setting?

Note taking can be very distracting and it’s important to tell an interviewee this beforehand, because if your eye contact is broken and you look distracted then you may miss some elements of the interview.

How do you look after your own mental health and wellbeing when working in the field, particularly when researching

sensitive topics or working in difficult environments such as post-conflict states?

I recognize this is a growing and significant issue in discussions about fieldwork – and rightly so! – because when I was doing my PhD there wasn’t a flicker of discussion about thinking about mental health. It’s a really serious issue. The first reason is that it’s a very lonely exercise conducting research like this, which brings us back to the issue of building your network and having strong and durable contacts that you can talk to throughout your research. Don’t think you can do this alone – building your network before you go is so important, as it’s very solitary, which can be quite destabilizing. The other point is that you are often the very lowest priority for the people participating in your research, and rightly so. These are people who are extremely busy or working in extremely fraught and difficult circumstances. You wandering up with a voice recorder and a clipboard is a disruption from their work so you need to think of yourself in those terms. Participation in this research isn’t something people are going to be leaping to do, which can of course affect your mental health because it’s quite exhausting constantly trying to convey the significance of your research which you can see the value of but is very difficult to communicate to others.

I think what we do in terms of coping mechanisms is clearly an individual thing. We’re very lucky here in Cambridge because there’s a strong network in colleges, between students and within geography which is a very friendly discipline, so make sure you’re building contacts that you can communicate with while you’re overseas. Reach out to your supervisor and make them aware of where you are and what’s going on. It’s also important to think about what your communication strategy is going to be generally when you’re in the field – how are you going to keep in contact with your friends and family? Finally, another point about keeping a field journal, is to make sure you’re checking on how you’re feeling, and not letting things build up into a wall of silence about whether or not you’re struggling in the field. Write about it and have a sense of your own narrative and think about if you need to get more support and if it’s available. It’s all about recognizing that you need that support.

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STUDY TIPS

EXAM SEASON: DIM PANICO AS THEY SAY IN WALES Director of Studies and Physical Geography extraordinaire PROFESSOR TOM SPENCER talked to Compass about his top tips for the upcoming exam season. Of course this all comes with a health warning: these are Prof S’s own thoughts and other DoS may not agree or may give different advice. That’s OK – we all know that there is no right and wrong answer to anything in the world of Cambridge Geography.

REVISION TIPS In terms of how to actually revise, advice is hard to give. Unfortunately, revision is very individual, and there is no set method which works for everyone. If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably doing a pretty good job, so just keep going.

Make sure you take breaks so you’re prepared as well as rested. Revision can be stressful, and when you’ve spent all day inside, the amount of work can seem overwhelming. If you need a break, don’t feel guilty taking one (unless you’ve had 5 consecutive hour breaks, and it’s turned into procrastination). It’ll be better in the long term – you don’t want to burn out before the big days come around.

Don’t underestimate how helpful your friends can be (for revision and to keep you sane) – share and exchange notes and supervision essays with your friends in college and across your course. College parents might also have material they’re willing to share. Organising group revision sessions can be helpful; take the time to discuss your reading, share your notes and ideas. Bring snacks and suddenly it won’t even seem like revision!

PREPARING FOR EXAMS Exam preparation requires you to be disciplined and manage your time well. Do some timed essay questions so you know how much you can write in an hour, and you get accustomed to writing without supporting material in front of you. This way, by the time you get to the exam hall

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by STEPHANIE ANDREWS

you won’t break out in cold sweat because you’ve seen plenty of exam questions, and know you’re capable of writing a good answer under time constraints.

unstuck. That’s not to say that you need to learn every single thing you’ve been lectured on, just don’t be too selective with your learning.

Wider reading is vital; you need to go further than just your lecture notes and the intranet powerpoints. Make sure you read up on major theories and key research, but other supplementary material is great too. In the exam, you do not need a massive list of references. The risk with having too many references is that you stop answering the question and just start showing off how much you know about a topic.

EXAM TIPS

Badger your DoS to go through past exam questions with you. As important as it is to do timed questions, just talking through questions is also a good approach. You can do this with supervisors, or friends.

Be forensic: consider what the question is asking (take it apart…), and how you would go about answering it. Similarly, if you’re offered revision supervisions, take them. They might mean you have to work to a deadline, which may disrupt your revision schedule, but they give you an hour to pick your supervisor’s brains, and ask any nagging questions you may have about the course or any extra reading you’ve done. Sometimes, the answering of a seemingly small query opens up understanding of a whole lot more of the course. Don’t be shy!

One way NOT to prepare for exams is to question spot. This is a very dangerous strategy and you can come horrendously

There are some really simple ways to minimise stress on the exam day. The most obvious things include making sure you know where your exam is and when it is, having a healthy supply of stationery and being well rested.

Read the question slowly and dissect it.

Reading the question is half the battle.

The worst answers are those which get 20 minutes into an answer and then realise what they’ve written is not what the question is asking and then you start on a different answer, and 20 minutes later decide this isn’t right either… – your answer needs to be a coherent argument which has a start, middle and end. And above all, engage CRITICALLY with the question.

Don’t be flustered by the person next to you or in front of you who starts writing furiously as soon as the exam has started.

As long as your time management is good in the exam (an hour for each essay), it doesn’t matter what the people near you are doing.

SOME WISE AND REASSURING WORDS You’re here to learn, not to be examined.

Good learning will show through in your examinations. Don’t panic – and ANSWER THE QUESTION/S.

Torres del Paine National Park, Chile (Photograph Credits: Daniel Mayer)

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TRAVEL

HONG KONG: THE SILENT SECRET BEYOND THE CITY

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Hong Kong: high-rise buildings, bright lights and a global financial hub. Yet beyond the bustling city centre lies the opposite – deserted beaches, mountains and silence.

Words and Photographs

by AIMEE LAWRENCE

In

the summer of 2017 I flew to Hong Kong to teach English to children in one of the busiest cities in the world. I envisaged skyscrapers, rooftop bars and the cacophony that accompanies it all. Indeed, the airport welcomed me with crowds of people and a high speed train to my accommodation, which was buried deep within an array of markets, shopping centres and blocks of flats. But something surprised me. As the train left the airport my eyes met the sea and a vast mountain range. For a second, all I could see was nature; gliding along the track, our train seemed to disappear into insignificance, surrounded by water. Somehow, this sudden immersion in nature calmed my anxieties about entering the city alone to meet and live with a group of new people.

The sense of surprise did not cease at that moment. For five days, I was engulfed by the city. Modern architectural masterpieces, polished floors, swanky cocktail bars and the underground, which seemed to transport the entire population from A to B in record speed – none of these were surprising. Road rage, polluted air, littered streets, leaking roofs, markets selling anything and everything, the putrid smell of waste, and bedrooms just big enough to lay down; all this had been anticipated. Hong Kong so far had entirely met my preconceptions of what a thriving East Pacific city would be like. Until, that is, I boarded a boat.

As I watched Victoria Harbour disappear from view, I noticed the scenery beginning to change. Uninhabited, luscious green islands seemed to spring up in the middle of the South China Sea. When the boat came to a stop, it faced a sandy bay which was being swallowed up by the incoming tide. Once the engine was switched off, the only sound was that of the waves lapping

up against the shore and the side of our boat. The so-called Pearl of the Orient seemed a world away. I spent the day breathing in the fresh air, swimming in the cool waters and sunbathing on what felt like my own private beach. A strange sense overcame me that day, a sense of being nowhere. This place was not comparable to how I had thought of Hong Kong; it was not comparable to anywhere I knew. Yet I did not feel lost, but free. I could explore anywhere in reach and it was liberating.

This feeling remained with me over the following days of teacher training, meetings, lesson-planning and equipment checks. Back in the familiar shadows of the buildings, I tried to connect the boat trip with my current location, reliving the journey in my mind and trying to make sense of how I had arrived in that nowhere land. I was intrigued by what I had discovered, and this encouraged me to try a new adventure. I took the opportunity to join a night hike.

At 2am in pitch darkness on a beach in the Sai Kung Peninsula, Hong Kong, I was preparing to climb Sharp Peak. All the signs pointed against the expedition: locals had told us the weather was unsuitable, and notices read ‘this trail is very treacherous and difficult. For this reason, you are advised not to proceed’.

But something drove us on. We made good time climbing to the top of the mountain and waited for the sun to rise. Gradually, the view emerged through the darkness: we were standing amongst the clouds on a summit in the middle of the sea. Never before had I experienced such a sense of amazement. This place was unique.

do so. Eventually we approached a steep gravel slope; the only way forward was to traverse across it. By this point, the shorter hikers amongst us were slightly weary, but after watching our long-legged friends skip easily across a series of boulders lodged into the slope, we were lulled into a false sense of security. My friend and I were the last two to attempt the traverse; there was not another soul in sight. A final leap brought me to safety but as I turned back, my heart jumped for an entirely different reason. My friend was standing on the rock I had just left behind, but it was moving down the slope. The serene silence became stunned panic.

The only words spoken for the next sixty seconds were ‘grab my hand.’ After a failed first attempt, our fingers met, and a second later my friend was by my side.

Neither of us spoke, nor could we hear the others. But from that point onwards, nothing phased us. The final trek across the beach in torrential rain was elating.

Having survived a near-death experience, we had never felt so alive.

The city of Hong Kong is one of the most densely-populated you can find, crammed full of people and alive with noise. And yet it was in the silence of the deserted mountains that I felt the strongest human connection. Running along the beach in the rain, I realised that we had been on a journey and discovered Hong Kong’s silent secret: if you know where to go, place connects people.

The sun lit our path of descent, which took a different route. We ran up hills, gazed towards the horizon, then scrambled back down, simply because we were free to

LENT 2018 / COMPASS / 37

TRAVEL

IN-SPIRE-ATIONAL:

CUGS TRIP TO PRAGUE, THE CITY OF A THOUSAND SPIRES

Words and Photographs

by CALLUM SWANSTON

P

rague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, is hailed as a cornerstone of Eastern European culture throughout Europe, and it certainly lived up to its reputation as an affordable destination filled with sights to see and things to do.

Unlike some other destinations that I have visited, or am aware of, Prague is one destination where four days is barely enough to fully experience the diversity of cultures, activities and sights that are available. The so-called ‘city of a thousand spires’ may have even been underestimated! On the first day alone, bearing in mind that we had been travelling since the early hours of the morning, we were greeted by what seemed like two different cities. The drive from the airport to our hostel took us through a very commercial side of Prague, with high-rise offices, flats and other strangelyshaped, modern, sleek glass constructions.

It is hard to believe that this part of Prague was in the same city as what we came to see over the next four days. The preservation and restoration of Prague’s history is astonishing: once you pass the busy motorway and enter the old town, you are instantly immersed in history. Sights to see range from the John Lennon Wall – a piece of private wall on the west bank of the River Vltava that since the 1980s has been decorated with graffiti art, slogans and messages of peace (if you look hard enough you might even see a tag from CUGS!) – to the enormous gothic cathedral which lies within the walls of the Prague

Castle.

A visit to the Castle District could take a whole day in itself. To make the most of your time would be to climb the South Tower of the cathedral. As a geographer, I’m partial to a panoramic view where I can take more than a couple of photos.

Prague did not disappoint on this front.

In addition to the impressive view over Prague provided by the cathedral tower, there were so many other highup viewpoints that it was possible to see Prague from every angle. I struggled to limit them to one a day!

If you were looking for something a little more unique in terms of experiences, Prague yet again does not disappoint! One of the major sights which attracts a sizeable audience every hour is the Astronomical Clock which lies in the Old Town Square.

An impressive, if a bit confusing, display,

the clock does not tell the exact time as we understand it, but manages to track the 12 astrological Zodiac signs, different times within the harvesting calendar, and the position of the Earth in relation to the Moon and the Sun (albeit the clock shows its age with the sun depicted revolving around the Earth…). From the 14th century clock, there is equal novelty in many of the smaller cafes and restaurants around the city, including one where snacks and drinks are brought to you on the back of a model train, which runs through the restaurant! A unique location, and one with so many sights and activities to offer, Prague was a busy, if not satisfying four day break!

Having travelled to Budapest previously, it is easy to see some key similarities between the two popular Eastern European tourist hotspots. Both embody extravagance on almost every street corner, with gargoyle-esque stone sculptures and other embellishments decorating unmarked and otherwise unimportant buildings. Shared histories and a nottoo-dissimilar geography explains some of the commonalities between the two, and I’m sure other, keystone cities in Eastern Europe. Studying geography does tend to enhance the ability to draw links and acknowledge patterns on a wider scale, even when on holiday! It is this, I believe, that gives geographers an edge when it comes to truly appreciating the composition of a city landscape.

Whether you have an interest in history, culture, travel, or are just a die-hard geographer, Prague is definitely one to add to the bucket list.

38 / COMPASS / LENT 2018

THANK YOU We would like to thank our sponsors: the Cambridge University Geographical Society, the University of Cambridge Department of Geography, Research Europe, and the Cambridge Societies Syndicate.

We would also like to thank everyone who has contributed to Compass and helped make it possible.

INSIDE COVER PHOTOGRAPH: CATHERINE CHANG OUTSIDE COVER PHOTOGRAH: ALICIA COOKE

LENT 2018 / COMPASS / 39

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