Compass Vol.4 Issue 1

NOVEMBER 2018 | VOL. 04 ISSUE 01

THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE GEOGRAPHY MAGAZINE

CLIMATE CHANGE, THE PATRIARCHY & CHILD BRIDES ART AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY MANGROVES IN THE GAMBIA

CONTENTS

A LETTER FROM

THE EDITORS

Welcome to Compass Volume 4, Issue 1!

We hope you enjoy reading the magazine as much as we have enjoyed putting it together. The indisputable highlight of the year so far has been our Sixth Form Essay Competition, to which the response was overwhelming. We received over 150 entries which was more than we ever could have expected, and the quality of the responses was incredibly high. This led us to choose not only one winner, but four runners-up too, who will be featured on our blog. Keep your eyes peeled for the next competition...

Speaking of the blog, the past year has seen it go from strength to strength, with writers from Cambridge Geography and beyond sharing their thoughts, ideas and experiences. We have covered topics from malaria in the UK to the geopolitics of the Arctic Circle, accumulating university advice and dissertation stories along the way.

Many thanks to all who have contributed to Compass, to the department and to CUGS for their funding and support, and to all the writers, editors and designers and administrators for all their hard work. Without them, creating this issue would not have been possible.

Anjali Gupta and Angus Parker Co-Editors-in-Chief EDITORIAL

EDITORS IN CHIEF Anjali Gupta & Angus Parker HUMAN GEOGRAPHY Matthew Geldard & Flora Macgregor PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY Bronwen Fraser & Eswyn Chen TRAVEL Molly Cook & Al Mulroy PEOPLE Florence Wiggins BLOG EDITORS Hannah Mendall & Tesni Clare ACCESS & OUTREACH Alice Bell SECRETARY Tom Birdseye PUBLICITY Yi Hyun Kim DESIGN Harriet Bradnock

CONTRIBUTORS Professor Loo, Tim Marshall, Gaia Mondadori, Alice Bell, Angus Parker, Isabella Kong, Rebecca Ige, Jonathan Lancaster, Flora Macgregor, Matthew Geldard, Michele Sanguanini, Ximena Barker Huesca, Eswyn Chen, Bronwen Fraser, Callum Swanston, Florence Wiggins, George Breckenridge, Rose Jump, Al Mulroy, Sophia Georgescu

FRONT COVER:

Venice, Pascual Gonzalez

BACK COVER:

Italian Dolomites, Hannah Mendall 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 University of Cambridge Department of Geography.

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CURRENT ISSUES

04 CLIMATE CHANGE,

THE PATRIARCHY AND CHILD BRIDES

Analysing the insecurities arising from intersecting societal factors

06 COMPLEX LEGALITIES

Exploring the intersection of law and space at the site of the Embassy

08 PLAYING LIMBO WITH CLIMATE CHANGE

How the latest IPCC report seeks to lower the bar from 2°C to 1.5°C

10 DECRIMINALISING HOMOSEXUALITY IN INDIA The legal and humanitarian implications of the repeal of Section 377.

COMMENT

11 MARIJUANA IN COLORADO

Exploring the legalisation of cannabis in the central American state

14 35 DEGREES IN TOKYO A geographer’s account of her summer abroad in Japan

17 SHUNNING THE CAMP Are refugee camps working?

Are there better alternatives?

Johnathan Lancaster investigates.

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

20 PUBLIC ART

AND THE CITY

Analysing the historical urban geographies of public art

INTERVIEWS

34 PROFESSOR LOO

Exploring Asian ‘geographies of geography’ with one of Asia’s foremost scholars

36 TIM MARSHALL

On his new book, Divided: Why We’re Living in an Age of Walls

22 MISUNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

A scientist’s perspective on Beck’s Risk Society thesis

24 SEISMIC RISK IN MEXICO CITY

TRAVEL

37 CUHELP IN NEPAL

Volunteering and teaching in the mid-Himalayas

A personal account of earthquake threat in the Mexican capital

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

26 THE HUMAN PLANET:

HOW WE CREATED THE ANTHROPOCENE

A review of Lewis and Maslin’s book exploring the Anthropocene

28 RETHINKING

REPLANTING

Analysing the benefits of mangroves in the Gambia

30 THE COMPLEXITIES OF REWILDING

Shifting baseline syndrome in the Scottish Highlands

40 HUSKIES IN LAPLAND

A geographical account of working abroad in an unfamiliar environment THE LAST WORD

42 CAREERS IN

GEOGRAPHY

A positive look to the future

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HOW ARE CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE PATRIARCHY CREATING A GENERATION OF CHILD BRIDES? This summer, Compass launched its first ever outreach competition for sixth form students, asking for essays discussing the geography of an issue or event affecting contemporary society. Below is our winning entry by Gaia Mondadori, a Year 13 student. The whole team were incredibly impressed at her mature engagement with a tricky subject matter, as well as the sophisticated nature of her response encompassing a number of geographically relevant themes and ideas. Well done Gaia!

With the effects of environmental degradation and climate change posing ever more imminent threats, magnified by rising populations and demands on finite resources, the world’s most ‘vulnerable’, marginalised groups, including women, are facing increased insecurity throughout the developing world. These vulnerabilities are furthered by the patriarchal structures which permeate all levels of society, creating gendered societal formulas that perpetuate the patriarchal status quo which recognises women as inferior, thereby creating an unequal and unjust society for adolescent girls throughout the developing world, and specifically in Malawi and Mozambique.

Due to continually high temperatures and variations to rainfall seasonality and quantity in countries like Mozambique and Malawi, drought, land aridity, and desertification have increased. Inevitably, this has 4 / COMPASS / MICHAELMAS 2018

led to dramatic drops in crop yields for nomadic and subsistence farmers, who rely on the land for food, livelihood, and personal security. With already impoverished families experiencing diminished agri-food sources, the one mitigative act which is economically viable and advantageous is selling their daughters for marriage, providing short-term economic relief. Moreover, the husband’s family benefits from the additional female domestic help including collecting resources, and cooking. One such girl, Ntoya Sande, from Malawi, was married at 13, due to her family’s crops being destroyed by flooding. Her parents were forced to marry her off as it meant “one mouth less to feed.” Ntoya’s husband “purchased” her for MWK 25,000 ($34) and 50 kg of sugar. However, Ntoya faces no less hardship or hunger than she did prior to the marriage: “It’s almost the same. We were struggling.

Now that I am married, I am also struggling” (Brides

CURRENT ISSUES Of The Sun, 2018). Ntoya also believes that her parents would have not sold her for marriage had the flooding not occurred. M. B. Mkandawire, director of Youth Net and Counselling based in Malawi, stated that up to 40% of Malawian child marriages like Ntoya’s are caused by climate change-related flooding and droughts (Brides, 2018). However, this figure, although from a reliable source, does not specify how this data was collected or over what time period, leading me to question its reliability.

The discourse of ecofeminism proposes that due to the long-standing dualist and hierarchal nature of mankind - man over woman, humanity over nature - man’s domination and power over both nature and women alike seems ‘natural’, and therefore acceptable (Detraz, n.d.). This belief and societal formula, furthered by religious and scientific symbols which negate womens’ and girls’ potential to exceed their prescribed “feminine” roles, maintain obstacles denying their agency (Garcia Ramon and Monk, 2007). Women in countries throughout the world, and girls like Ntoya, still face limited mobility within the ascribed sphere of “femininity”. This in turn inhibits their access to resources, information, and non-feminine roles, therefore allowing the patriarchy to dominate the global and local social order.

The girls are the “vulnerable” in this cycle, thereby indicating that the effects of climate change are gendered. In this case, the effects are gendered to the extent that girls have their lives, choices, education, (to name but a few) taken from them by their parents or prospective husbands. However, the danger with labelling the girls as the vulnerable group is that it presents these girls as the ‘victims’ of climate change. Victimisation therefore fails to recognise their potential agency in helping to mitigate the results of climate change at both a local and global scale, therefore leading to their exclusion or misrecognition within Global Environmental Political (GEP) discourse. Climate change, natural disasters and hazards magnify the conditions of the already vulnerable and marginalized. This helps to explain gendered experiences of natural disasters, with women more likely to experience greater insecurity (economic, food etc), abuse, and diminished recovery capacity than their male counterparts in the aftermath.

These climate-driven and patriarchally-instigated child marriages have stemmed from unbending male dominance and patriarchal force worldwide, thereby proving that climate justice and gender justice are not only inextricably linked, but also

topics which should be prioritised in otherwise gender-neutral policies and geopolitical agendas.

By acknowledging gender as a key deterministic factor in terms of identifying the most vulnerable to prospective natural hazards and disasters, girls and women can be included in policies and aid relief efforts. Additionally, underrepresentation of women within the GEP sphere and in the political ecology discourse needs addressing: the UNFCC and Kyoto Protocol failed to mention women or gender, while NGOs argued that still after the 2015 Paris Agreement there was little and inadequate action to acknowledge women and girls as key stakeholders in climate change matters.

As hazards and crises caused by climate change, are projected to intensify in coming years, so will the number of girls who are forced into similar situations as Ntoya, as they are forced further into positions of vulnerability. Figures from the UN and UNICEF indicate that more than half of girls in the worst affected African countries will have to be married off due to climate change effects by 2050.

Additionally, as climate change effects worsen, individual and group vulnerability inherent in gender and other marginal statuses, such as caste and ethnicity will be intensified (Gamburd, 2014).

The pre-existing social inequalities that predate an environmental event alter how different groups experience the natural crisis, determining whether certain groups suffer more and have less ability to recover during the aftermath.

Gendered relationships to the natural environment coupled with patriarchal formulas and standards have been dominant throughout the Anthropocene, and this rise in climate-driven child marriages is not simply a problem which can be dismissed as a cultural norm in these African societies.

The assumption of government bodies and policymakers that girls and women are included and the failure to explicitly acknowledge girls as beings with effective agency, and equal rights, has led to their neglect from many policies, thereby nurturing unjust societies.

Creating the infrastructures and the programmes that keep girls in education is the single most important policy that could, in the medium term, reverse this situation: educated girls would lower child birth rates, create new economic agents, allow communities to deal with natural calamities and break the patriarchal status quo.

Essay competition winner: GAIA MONDADORI MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 5

THE EMBASSY The recent news events surrounding the disappearance of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khasoggi, who vanished after entering the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul, once again thrust the role of embassies back into the political spotlight. Far from such places being banal spaces of bureaucracy, embassies are sites of extraordinary legal complexity – but where does this complexity originate and why is it significant?

Embassies are a common feature of the urban landscape within major cities around the world.

They represent a permanent diplomatic legation in a foreign country and they serve as the official missions through which nations conduct their foreign affairs. Although always located within the legal realm and physical space of a particular nation-state, embassies are nevertheless principally subject to the directives of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 – an international agreement that codified customs regulating the conduct of diplomats within a receiving country. The convention provides the basic foundations for diplomatic relations with regard to the legal environment and the recognised concept of diplomatic immunity.

However, it also wraps embassies within a web of legal complexity that generates a plethora of ambiguities and loopholes which complicate embassy space.

Whilst Article 41 of the Convention requests that diplomats ‘respect’ local laws, the concept of diplomatic immunity means that “all agent(s) shall enjoy immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State” which thus renders the enforcing of local laws, and hence, prosecution impossible. Within the space of the embassy the law of the receiving state can apply for certain minor legal requirements or policies such as lease agreements or employment contracts, these are not compulsory requirements and, more significantly, pale into insignificance when one considers the immunity outlined in Article 41. This is only enhanced by the rule of inviolability in Article 22 which prevents any authorities of the receiving nation from even entering embassy space without the consent of the ambassador – in essence creating an enclosed space protected from local legal power.

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Thus, diplomatic embassies are exemplary models of how an international convention can serve to make a space – the embassy – immune from the laws of an apparently pre-determined territory and hence ‘manufacture’ that space to undermine and shape legal practice and local authorities. The picture is further complicated by human rights law which adds an additional legal complexity to this space, especially in cases wherein the embassy is sheltering a person from local authorities – for instance, when there are calls for extradition. In such circumstances, the embassy is obliged to consider whether there is a risk to the safety of this person if they were to be handed over to the local authorities; once again, subjective judgements become interwoven within the apparently objective legal fabrics of the receiving state.

Historically, these legal niches have been significant in a number of instances. For example, during the period before the fall of the Soviet Union, a large number of East Germans travelled to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary and climbed into the compounds of West German embassies to escape the Soviet regime. In fact, one of the longest instances of a dissident exploiting the legal ambiguities and seeking sanctuary in an embassy was that of Hungarian Catholic Cardinal Josef Mindszenty who spent 15 years within the protective realm of the US embassy in Budapest from 1956 to 1971 – thus at the very moment when the Vienna Convention was being formulated.

scales. It is hence informative for our understanding of how law that makes ‘a space’ can simultaneously be undermined or affected by alternative legalities operating at different spatio-temporal scales yet seemingly applying to the same physical ‘space’.

Embassies, therefore, serve as reminders that there are complex ambiguities to the dynamics of law and space situated within the very realms of our society.

They are illustrative of how spaces produced through the manifestation of law are not static, linear and ordered but instead can be complex and uncertain with socio-spatial interactions often serving to complicate sites of legal and non-legal regulation and practice. This complexity is not insignificant – as the recent Jamal Khasoggi case has exemplified – and perhaps should lead to calls for the 1961 Convention to be amended. Otherwise embassies will remain spaces of cryptic complexity, teetering on the edge of becoming enmeshed in wider political disputes.

By ANGUS PARKER

A more contemporary example was the recent disappearance of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi after he entered the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul. The Turkish authorities were initially unable to enter the embassy and the responsibility for investigating the subsequent murder remains somewhat unclear. This recent example has also exemplified how the complex legal webs that are contained within the space of an embassy can have effects beyond simply bureaucratic disputes. It demonstrated how the ambiguities surrounding the spaces of embassies can create frictions between nation-states with the resultant geopolitical effects being felt globally.

It is through the space of the embassy that Santos’ concept of interlegality becomes manifest and the dualism of law making space and space making law is rendered somewhat hazy. This concept of interlegality provides a lens through which one can comprehend the ways in which legal spaces can operate simultaneously and often on different

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PLAYING LIMBO WITH CLIMATE CHANGE: LOWERING THE BAR FROM 2°C TO 1.5°C The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a Special Report in October 2018 to investigate the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and pathways to reduce related global greenhouse gas emissions. Titled ‘Global Warming of 1.5°C’, the report tightens the window to tackle climate change so that “global average temperature rise is well below 2°C above preindustrial levels” as the Paris Agreement of 2014 outlines.

To us, half a degree is like a drop in the ocean in terms of air temperature, however, for Mother Earth, an increase in temperature of only 1.5°C as opposed to 2°C may just prevent the complete disappearance of coral reefs in the marine ocean’s entirety. How different would Earth be if it became 1.5°C hotter compared to 2°C, and with what certainty is this determined? What are the implications for efforts responding to the anthropogenic threat of climate change?

Jane Goodall famously said “what you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” Dramatically, the difference in restricting warming to 1.5°C has large ramifications for natural and human ecosystems.

Scientists predict that, not only will ten percent of vibrant coral reef ecosystems be preserved for the continued support of marine life, Arctic sea ice will remain during most summers, and global sea level rise would be 10 cm lower by 2100, effectively halving the frequency of coastal floods across the tropics. On land, following observations from climate models, Northern hemisphere high latitudes will experience heavier rainfall while the Mediterranean is projected to become drier, and extreme heatwaves will hit 14% of the world’s population instead of 30% at least once per five years. Impacts on marine and terrestrial biodiversity realted to habitat loss and extinction, also affect cultural, provisioning, supporting and regulating services that

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humans benefit from. Despite what these quantitative figures proclaim, what’s crucially missing in the IPCC report is the threat to human health, food and water security and other determinants of the quality of everyday life that climate change poses. Recent advancements in climate technology have opened up new avenues for us to make that half a degrees difference.

The report calls for much stronger international cooperation and a mass scaling-up of undertakings, as current pledges by countries in the Paris Agreement are insufficient to meet the 1.5°C target beyond 2030. Putting aside the sine qua nons of afforestation and reforestation, lifestyle changes, renewable energy, and transport and industry electrification, the IPCC states most scenarios of limiting CO2 emissions rely on the “widespread deployment” of BECCS – Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage. This carbon dioxide removal technology involves the burning of biomass to produce bioenergy, where the CO2 emissions released in its production is captured before reaching the atmosphere and stored in geological formations over long timescales. Gaining prominence in public discourse only in the past decade, the Royal Society estimates BECCS will contribute to a net negative emission of a 50 to 150ppm in global atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

But behind these glamourous numeric promises, lies the largely untested and controversial issue of occupying an area of land the size of Australia to cultivate bioenergy crops. In fact, the ease of estimating a quantitative cost for BECCS is the reason for its eminence in media discussion, as the socio-political barriers of reduced food production, land rights and biodiversity conservation, for instance, can be consequently obscured. Vuuren (2018) in Nature Climate Change suggests alternative scenarios without BECCS including a worldwide adoption of the most efficient livestock systems, which would improve feed digestibility and lower methane emissions through consuming cultured protein grown in labs. Whilst many examples of scientific innovation are historically proven to have delivered change at the rapid speed required today, the vast scale of these necessary transitions is entirely unprecedented.

Climate change is an issue that has a truly global spatial coverage. Extending from the depths of the planet’s soils and oceans to top of the atmosphere, it contains the existence of every human lifeform.

Paradoxically, humanity’s awareness and acceptability of climate change is not universally uniform, which presents opportunities for contestation of the significance of the Special Report and the IPCC generally as an institution.

Whilst “possible within the laws of chemistry and physics” according to Jim Skea, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III, Mike Hulme in ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change’ suggests personal experience and values play a more dominant role in ascribing significance to any risk.

Beyond the scientific remits that inform assessment of climate risks by the IPCC, cultural, political and psychological factors influence the way risks are constructed, perceived and ranked by members of

society. The Inuit, for instance, have a different relationship with risk: a cultural philosophy that considers prediction, planning and forecasting to be impractical or foolhardy. As such, Bates (2007) in Arctic Anthropology notes that accepting the future is unpredictable allows for flexibility, efficient response, positive improvisation and preparation which defines Inuit adaptive management strategies. Negative discursive statements by both the IPCC and media such as “catastrophic” and “irreversible” climate change, fail to recognise the inherent uncertainty of the world and ironically, may thus actualise the danger, creating the bleak scenario described. Exemplified by mainstream Western political discourse on ‘dangerous’ climate change in stark contrast to Inuit performativity, intervening filters affect the objectiveness of the IPCC projected on the different mental maps of individual citizens. If perceptions on the certainty of the climate risks are so heterogeneous and cannot be homogenised by universalising IPCC assessments, what is the agency of the Special Report’s 1.5°C scenario?

Climate change affects us all in some way or another. However, the sheer global effort needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – a goal deemed impossible by many – puts into question whether pushing “the defence line as low as possible” is the best approach to cope with climate change. How much lower must the Celsius bar of hypothetical futures go before we try a new game?

Two other special reports, Climate Change and Land, and the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, will be published in 2019. The three Working Groups’ contributions to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report will be published in 2021.

By ISABELLA KONG

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THE END OF THE BEGINNING

DECRIMINALISING HOMOSEXUALITY IN INDIA India’s supreme court recently ruled to decriminalise homosexual sex, overturning a 158-year-old law which forbade “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”. The judgement, which came after 24 years of legal challenges, was celebrated with rainbow flags and all-night parties in major cities across India. With the judges accepting estimates that up to 8% of India’s population (104 million people) might be LGBT+, it is clear that this historic decision will impact a vast community of people, who have experienced harassment, discrimination and marginalisation because of the law (known as Section 377).

Nonetheless, one must question how the realities of everyday life for LGBT+ people in India will really change. How impactful can a legal judgement be for changing wider discourses surrounding homosexuality? Homophobia still persists in societies with more sophisticated and established legal frameworks to protect LGBT+ rights - so why should this make a big difference in India? Whilst this is an important step forward for the LGBT+ community, the circumstances of the decision make it seem unlikely that acceptance will proliferate in Indian society.

The significance of the judgement is undermined by the fact that Section 377 was rarely prosecuted.

Although it will have hung over people’s decisions to come out and be open about their sexuality, there was little reason for LGBT+ Indians to fear the law itself. Campaign groups report frequent cases of the law being used to blackmail LGBT+ people; but it is widely recognised that the social stigmas were far more dangerous than the potential legal or criminal consequences. It seems that cultural and religious factors have played a more significant role than notions of legality in forming the discourses which legitimise the marginalisation of India’s LGBT+ community. It, therefore, seems unlikely that this judgement will have a great impact on the experiences of LGBT+ people in India.

Nonetheless, it is understood that decriminalisation is a necessary starting point to begin to dismantle such discourses and, naturally, it is wrong for institutions to discriminate. Ideally, this decision 10 / COMPASS / MICHAELMAS 2018

would have been presented as new legal recognition of the rights of India’s LGBT+ community.

This human rights-based argument, however, was proven ineffective, with legal challenges as recently as 2013 being quashed. Instead, the case had to be fought based on a technicality because of completely separate changes to privacy laws in 2017. Arguably, this fraught process has made the new ruling less powerful as it has created mixed messages about why the law needed to be overturned. Rather than portraying a discourse which advocates LGBT+ rights, the case is presented as a technical legal issue. This makes the prospect of further legal changes (such as antidiscrimination laws and equal rights for marriage, adoption and surrogacy) seem unlikely for the near future. Even so, statements by the judges involved in the case emphasised the ruling’s relevance to the struggles of the LGBT+ community, providing more positive discourses. For instance, the Chief Justice, Dipak Misra, said: “Social exclusion, identity seclusion and isolation from the social mainstream are still the stark realities faced by individuals today, and it is only when each and every individual is liberated from the shackles of such bondage … that we can call ourselves a truly free society”.

Evidently, there is still more to be done to break down the cruel homophobic discourses that remain prevalent in India. Campaigners will now focus their efforts on confronting attitudes of those in more conservative regions of the country (particularly in rural areas), whilst pushing for further legal changes. Activist Harish Iyer describes this victory as “the end of the beginning”. Despite its imperfections, Section 377 is a great initial hurdle to overcome, which deserves celebrating and should offer a ray of hope to India’s LGBT+ community. According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), homosexuality is still illegal in 71 countries, some of which carry the death penalty as punishment.

As the world’s largest democracy, it is hoped that decriminalisation in India will promote changes across these nations too.

By ALICE BELL

COMMENT BIG QUESTIONS: HOPE AND DOPE IN ROARING FORK VALLEY “It is a huge question Flora”. A fair response to my probing as to where young people draw hope and inspiration from, especially in a community disillusioned by the education system and turning away from traditional lifestyles. The state of Colorado was recently designated as the third happiest state in the US, a quality long attributed to its mountain-faring, river-rafting, ski-bum residents. This vague-sounding classification is representative of the growing effort to redefine ‘success’ in the 21st century, to rise above “the almighty dollar” and focus on embodied forms of happiness. Economists from Oxford have found that happiness - which they say is critical to economic productivity and longevity - rests on three main measures: good health, economic stability, and a lifestyle involving social ties and time spent outside of work. Economically, the burgeoning cities of Denver, Boulder and their surrounding areas, with their focus on start-ups and the technology industry, have brought renewed growth.

But as this index of happiness states, it is not just the strength of the economy which is key but activity outside of the workplace. The highestranking states in this study were all found in midwestern, mountainous regions where the inspiring landscape lends itself to a culture of adventure and outdoor activity. The health and fitness of Colorado is also renowned: as the seventh healthiest state in the US, levels obesity and diabetes remain lowest in the country as high physical activity and low numbers of children living in poverty reproduces wellbeing, generation to generation. Where these combine in the mountain towns, young people turn their hobbies into full-time gigs, adding to the outdoor recreation industry which stood at $30 billion for Colorado in 2016.

But Colorado is no longer known solely for its mountains and happiness. This is the state that was first to legalize the recreational use of marijuana - a move which remains in contention even now, almost 5 years since its enactment.

The debate began primarily as a conflict between the ‘socially conservative’ and ‘socially liberal’ that make Colorado the ‘purple’ state that it is (meaning neither Republicans nor Democrats dominate). However, now that the legislation is in place, the dominance of the moral argument has been replaced by a more practical conversation from citizens trying to understand and control the impacts. One example of this is the Roaring Folk Valley’s (RFV) Valley Marijuana Council; a coalition of government, schools, police, business owners (inside and out of the marijuana industry) and NGOs - with the full spectrum of political ideologies held between them.

Central to the work of such coalitions is understanding the impact on youth. So central, in fact, that despite my dissertation research attempting to focus on economic impacts, it was youth that was central to nearly every interview I held. Why the focus on youth? Of course such a policy seems a great risk as it makes the consumption of cannabis products far easier, with parents having stores at home and friends over the age of 21 being access it. This threat and the high levels of school and college drop-out is signal that young people are lacking motivation and at risk of becoming drains on society. What has surprised everyone - policy-makers, parents and the wider public - is that numbers of youth ingesting marijuana have not risen. The Healthy Kids Colorado study that tracks the health of youth, physical and mental, shows that there is a consistent 20-25% of students who use marijuana.

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This number has not altered since the legalization, nor even was there a noticeable bump in the first or second year of legalization. Equally, the number of youth that feel “marijuana is easy/very easy to access” was 55% both before and after legalization.

Yet the concern continues, with a greater focus on the large numbers of young people seeing school councillors and non-profits for struggling youth. While many of the non-profits have been long established, this topic which was previously overlooked and stigmatized has risen to the fore.

Much of the funds risen from sales tax and donated to foundations and NGOs is being channelled into these issues, allowing their primacy. “I think that part of it is that we’re more aware, and we’re not afraid to ask the hard questions” says the Executive Director of one such non-profit program, but “I don’t think marijuana is causing kids to drop out… they’re dropping out because they’re not happy with what’s going on. They might be marijuana users; it’s not helping that at all, but that’s not the reason they’re dropping out”.

So what is causing such discontent, so as to give Colorado its place as the state with the ninth highest rate of suicide in the US? This data, from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, is a paradoxical contrast to its happiness but is mirrored by those other ‘happy’ midwestern, mountain states. For Colorado, the rate amongst youth is also high at nearly double the national average: 50-60 people aged 10-19 commit suicide per year.

What makes people living in and growing up amongst world-class mountains and a secure economy so depressive? In understanding such issues there are 5 areas which seem to make up a healthy state of mind: problem-solving and optimism, delinquency and aggression, substanceuse, self-deprecation, and school and community engagement. Community and engagement are abundant in the RFV, with outdoor activities and sports bringing people together in ways lost to much of the urbanized west, where depression and anxiety often arise from feelings of isolation.

What seems to dominate here is the issue of a “casual culture” in the Valley. This phrase is common parlance of locals whose lives have often involved years of rafting and skiing for a living, a party-culture trickling down from Aspen at the head of the Valley, and more generally, a mantra of “it’s no big deal”.

What sounds like an idyllic environment for young people to be growing up in has resulted in low levels of self-belief and a lack in strength of character. The casual culture leaks into their perception of value in activities and skills, leaving a sense of pointlessness. Further, protected from the injustices of the world as a youth, school and college then brings deep disillusionment. This is increasingly the case as these young people are beginning to push back from such traditional forms of education due to their seeing it as hollow and irrelevant to the social issues of the 21st century.

Caught between naiveté - with many Coloradans having never left their state - and a discourse of university being the only way to make changes in the world, a lack of hope dominates.

Landscape also appears to hold great importance.

The sentiments of awe-inspired tourists who travel around the world to marvel at these youths’ home bring with them a constant stream of comments such as “this is so beautiful”, “how lucky you are to live here”. Those who tend to see the injustices of the world, wonder why they are so unhappy when surrounded by such beauty. And it is here that concerns of youth consumption of marijuana gain traction. It becomes the thing turned to when feeling overwhelmed, and this is not discouraged by parents. Again, the casual culture and feeling of “it’s no big deal” have perpetuated a lack of understanding of the impacts to young brains, even amongst caring parents for whom a cookie or some gummy bears when stressed is the perfect medicine. Prominent to this problem is the vast increase in THC (the psychoactive chemical) concentrations in products; whereas a joint smoked in the 70s had around 3% THC, a bite of a cookie today can deliver 60%. Nevertheless, it is the belief of many of my interviewees that with ever-more research able to be carried out now that it is legal, and increasing awareness through the efforts of coalitions and schemes, the cloud of confusion is lifting.

Words & Photographs

By FLORA MACGREGOR

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35 DEGREES IN TOKYO CITY It’s 7:35am (JST) and I’m welcomed with an unfriendly embrace – it’s stifling and unpleasant. It’s different. I can’t understand it, as it speaks a language that’s unfamiliar to me. I’m confused, but excited nonetheless because I hope to know it well by the end of these 7 weeks. I’m captivated by its beauty – it is radiant and parts of it are almost statuesque. I’ve never met something as well-kept. I look incongruous with its appearance. I’m regretting what I wore to meet it for the first time, I look and feel strange, I’m sweaty and anxious, I want to change, everyone else is dressed more suitably. But I’m here now, in its presence and all I can do is take in everything it has to offer. I’m constantly checking its name, as I’m in shock that this is truly it, but its name tag reads the same every time: ‘Tokyo City’.

For six weeks in the summer, I was fortunate to be working in Tokyo, mentoring Japanese students with the intention of increasing their confidence in speaking English. My experience in Japan was thoroughly enlightening – I was immersed into a culture which initially felt so alien to me, but I grew to feel somewhat at home. To merely say that I was living in Tokyo for over a month is almost a flippant remark. It was rather the realisation that I was in a different continent for the first time which truly burdened me – over 5,900 miles away, and 9 hours ahead in time, I was truly far away from home. I remember kneeling in a konbini (Japanese convenience store) trying to distinguish between the four different types of milk at the bottom of the fridge. Unlike the UK, the colour of the carton gave no indication of what type of milk it was – with at least three different blue cartons present, I was left feeling completely lost and hopeless. My confusion and frustration manifested themselves into a long stream of tears as suddenly, it was no longer about the milk, but the sheer loneliness I

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felt. It was only day four. The anxiety didn’t wear off easily and adapting to my new home was unsurprisingly difficult. I felt judged whenever I would ask for a fork in a restaurant – my chopstick skills were non-existent before the trip and subpar until around week five. Something which may seem so negligible and almost humorous, was in fact a real source of unease.

There were issues that were bigger than my grocery shopping troubles and my incompetence with chopsticks. I had just finished my first year at Cambridge, so as a black woman, I was acquainted with the feeling of being a minority. But the cultural homogeneity of Japan – particularly in comparison to the UK – was unmatched to anything I had experienced. I rarely believed that the stares I would constantly get were malicious in any shape or form, but they were uncomfortable and unsettling nevertheless. Having to dispel the myth for my students that the whole of Africa is locked in poverty at least once a week wasn’t fun either.

It was fascinating to understand the students’ perceptions of their country in connection, and in isolation, to the rest of the world. A huge component of the teaching program revolved around global issues and the mechanisms used to tackle or reduce them. To see how many students failed to acknowledge that homelessness is a huge problem in Japan, particularly in Tokyo, yet quickly jumped to suggest that developing countries – notably ‘Africa’ – are most in need was not completely shocking, but nonetheless problematic.

Similar views are unfortunately still commonly held by many people here in the UK. Perhaps the most fascinating thing I observed was the degree of cultural isolation in some of their opinions and language. The constant use of the term ‘foreigners’ rather than ‘tourists’ – the former being quite politicised, particularly in the context of the UK – implied a sense of separation which seemed far from accidental or due to a mere lack of English vocabulary. Needless to say, these are far from generalisations but simply interesting observations I noticed when working with my students.

As a Geographer, it felt surreal to be working in Japan. Since Year 7, Japan has been a recurrent case study in my study of Geography – its landforms, current ageing population, natural hazards, and rapid economic development are just a few components that have made the country integral to my study of both human and physical geography topics. I was witnessing and living in what I had studied from my AQA and Edexcel textbooks, and unsurprisingly, my experience went much further than the pages of my textbook. My trip to the Odaiba Onsen embodied a multitude of themes I have encountered in my extensive study of Geography over the past nine years. Onsens are hot springs in Japan which are fed by geothermally heated groundwater and replenished by the country’s large amounts of precipitation, particularly during the typhoon season. Their cultural significance arises from the influence of both Buddhism and the indigenous religion Shinto. Akin to many other religions, water symbolises the cleansing and purification of the body. While it’s common now for many Onsens to be gender separated, this was not the norm prior to the Meji Restoration and consequent process of Westernization. The human and the physical are beautifully intertwined in this cultural and popular tradition.

Eventually, the day arrived when I had to say goodbye to the 7/11’s, Family Marts and Lawsons (konbinis). The onigiris, yakisoba, bubble teas and karaage. The scorching heat. My commute on the Tobu Tojo Line followed by the JR Line to Shinjuku

station. My share house in Shimo-Akatsuka.

I returned to London knowing approximately seven Japanese words/phrases, which were of course the most fundamental terms I needed to just about navigate around the city – pitiful, I know.

Stepping back into Heathrow airport felt strange, as I had returned with new customs and etiquettes – I had to remind myself, for example, to stand on the right rather than the left on escalators, or not to bow when saying thank you. I was also reminded of how blunt, impatient and rude British people can be. When one of the staff members lost her patience with a member of the public who couldn’t use the E-passport gates properly, my friends and I laughed in comfort and familiarity – we knew we were home.

My trip to Japan was undoubtedly insightful and exciting, filled with unforgettable experiences and memories. I had spent seven weeks immersing myself into a new culture, trying out new things, debunking myths and assumptions I had, and learning more about a new part of the world that I had only known previously from the media or literature.

Did I want to stay longer? Definitely not, I yearned for my home more than ever. But I can’t wait to return. I’ll hope get a JR rail pass and travel around the country, maybe climb Mount Fuji if my lungs permit and most importantly, drive around Tokyo in MariCars (Marioinspired go-karts) dressed up as Luigi.

Words & Photographs

By REBECCA IGE MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 15

SHUNNING THE CAMP: THINKING BEYOND REFUGEE CAMPS For years, the UN, along with governments around the globe, has endorsed refugee camps as a primary means of managing the displaced, essentially incarcerating many of the most vulnerable people on earth. Today, there are 65.3 million displaced individuals globally, of whom 21.3 million live outside their home country and are recognised as refugees. The camps many are forced to live in are, by and large, spaces of stagnation, wasted opportunity, material poverty and disease. Among international humanitarian organisations there is a growing realisation that alternative means of managing the displaced are required, and with more than half of the world’s refugee population now living in cities instead, it’s about time.

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A FLAWED MODEL Despite their name suggesting a temporary settlement, refugee camps have existed for many decades. During the 1980s they rapidly increased in number as the end of the Cold War brought renewed instability to many former client states, whose political security was no longer of concern to competing superpowers. At this time the UNHCR, established after the Second World War with the aim of resettling millions of European refugees, was also frantically trying to prove its value and cost-effectiveness in the eyes of the USA. Structural Adjustment Programmes further meant that developing states had little money to spend providing for the needs of non-citizens, and thus camps – usually located far from the routine centres of business and society – were established as a cheap means of ‘managing’ refugees. Out of sight, out of mind.

It is important to note the heterogeneity between refugee camps, particularly in their size and the length of time individuals are forced to languish there, as well as the conditions and degree of oversight from the UNHCR. Camps range from relatively small processing centres on European shores, to the vast Dadaab camps in northeast Kenya, home to 600,000 and unofficially the country’s third largest conglomeration. While most UNHCR camps maintain a veneer of impermanence, consisting of tents or caravans, there also exist so-called refugee “camps” which you or I would easily mistake for just another urban area. One such example is Camp Aida in Bethlehem, which was created in 1948 after Palestinians were forcibly removed from their villages (and now allegedly the most heavily tear-gassed location on the planet).

For anyone visiting, its concrete houses and winding paved streets bear no resemblance to the mental images conjured up by the phrase “refugee camp”.

“Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh, home to over 600,000 Rohingya refugees fleeing state violence in Myanmar, is now the largest camp in the world. Despite its best efforts, the UNHCR has its work cut out in the ramshackled expanse of makeshift shelters. Bangladesh is keen to return the Rohingya as soon as possible; whether the history of temporary camps becoming permanent settlements is to be repeated, only time will tell.”

And yet, residents insist on deploying the camp discourse, arguing that until they are able to return to their historic homes, Aida represents a purely transitory space. The sad irony is that Camp Aida, like other informal or apparently urban ‘camps’, is better served by utilities and life can be lived with greater dignity and opportunity than in many, if not most, official UNHCR camps. It is these camps where reform is most needed – but it will require a paradigm shift.

A VIEW FROM THE GROUND I set out this summer to Jordan to talk to Syrians about their experiences living in refugee camps and what had prompted them to leave. Of course their experiences provide only a snapshot of one particularly large crisis but for the comfortable Cambridge undergraduate, hearing their views from the ground brings the camp closer than an occasional feature found scrolling through the news at one’s fingertips.

Despite being relatively new and high profile UN camps, it is clear that neither the UNHCR nor the Jordanian authorities are fully in control of these spaces. Ethnic divisions are deeply embedded and daily life in a camp like Zaatari, northern Jordan, runs according to who you are and who you know.

Violence can flare up quickly; in 2014, 21 police officers were injured attempting to control a riot – a phenomenon certainly not unique to Zaatari as the recent protests by tens of thousands of Rohingya in Kutupalong Camp, Bangladesh, reminded us. Given the pent-up frustration with daily life – walking 10 minutes to use a squalid latrine, electricity limited to a few hours each day, scorching summer heat, bitter winter cold, limited food and clean water – such events are hardly surprising. When living in “chicken coops” for homes, as one Syrian described, privacy is scarce; rape is common. Repeatedly I was told that escaping the ‘big prison’ is worth the potential repercussions if caught. For widows and those with young daughters in particular, the camp - whilst a near-sight better than the horrific war they have fled – is a space of danger, not safety.

It is true that some refugees are happy to remain in camps – few would deny that it is better than the situations from which they have fled. UN camps generally ensure that education is available both for children and adults, and provide food, water and services free of charge. In well-established camps like Zaatari, entrepreneurial-minded refugees open barbers, grocers and even restaurants. But these are the lucky few, usually early arrivals with connections. For most, refugee camps remain a place of frustration, not opportunity. Rather than being temporary havens for the most vulnerable, MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 17

camps succeed in exacerbating vulnerability, denying generations opportunities for economic and social progression – locking them out by locking them in.

ONE MAN’S TALE

than a whisper – whether as a result of his physical treatment or the emotional trauma, I do not know.

Had Fareed been fit and well, it’s doubtful he would have had much better luck. Unemployment among Jordanian citizens is unhealthily high; opportunities for Syrians who leave the camps are severely restricted. Those who do find jobs generally end up in blue-collar roles like street sweeping or kebab shops that Jordanians are reluctant to take, and often will work 10-12 hour days just to pay the rent.

Unsurprisingly, rent was the primary issue Fareed had to face when the elderly woman died, and he was forced to move city to a more affordable area. He also remarried around this time and now has children. But with no job, he is reliant on UN handouts of 75JD/month and food packages from charities to provide for his family; he hates feeling like a beggar, living off the generosity of others.

Upon escaping Syria, he came to Jordan. Like so many others he was sent upon arrival to the sprawling Zaatari camp whose tangled mess of electricity cables spreads itself across the desert scrubland within earshot of Russian and Syrian bombs across the border. Official pictures of the camp paint an optimistic view of entrepreneurs opening bakeries along the dusty streets, children playing and NGO staff meeting residents in their caravan accommodation. Fareed describes harassment and having to act as chaperone every time his mother needed the bathroom. Despite its monotony, the pace and stress of life was too much, given his severe health issues.

Fareed, like so many other Syrian men - both inside and outside camps - has very little to do. He tells me that he is convinced that Jesus saved his life to give him a second chance and an opportunity to get to know God as his father, and this, he says is what he longs to keep doing: getting to know God more and more. Among his favourite spots in the city is a public garden away from the centre. He told me that unlike the bustle and traffic jams of the main streets, there he is able to sit in peace, among the nature and relax. And if not there, then he likes to go to one of two special coffee shops, though these days he seldom does, what with having to look after his family at home. But on the occasions he does – usually to see his team Real Madrid play – he finds himself reminiscing; many friends he used to meet to drink coffee have either died, returned to Syria or been resettled abroad. And so he sits, still enjoying the welcome and familiarity of Syrian coffee, but silently reflective on all that has passed before.

Looking forward as well to the future? Perhaps. But the future is an elusive dream. Maybe one day he might be able to find paid employment and then save enough to potentially buy his own house. Only then he says, he would be happy with family life. He tells me that until then, he will continue to seek to know God better, depending on the help of others for his survival.

An elderly Palestinian woman provided the payment required for refugees to leave the camp legally and she generously housed him for about two years.

During this time he tried to find work, applying for a job in a coffee shop but was turned away on account of his crippled hands. Every job he applied for, he found himself disregarded as soon as the potential employer saw his awkward limp and heard his broken voice, speaking in no more

SHUNNING THE CAMP Although many refugees are leaving refugee camps and opting for the greater dignity, privacy and opportunity of city life, camps look likely to persist. True, the UNHCR is happy to continue with a model that its 9000 staff have grown used to over the past three decades. However, to lay the blame for the apparent lack of adaptation to the changing nature of ‘refuge’ solely at the smart glass doors of

Sitting with Fareed (not his real name), it is difficult to comprehend that the dark eyes excitedly shining are the same eyes that have seen the barbarism of fighting, torture and losing loved ones that he describes. His treatment at the hands of the Syrian government has visibly left its mark all over him – and yet despite having endured immense trauma, he is also the most radiant of all the Syrians I spoke to during my time learning about experiences of moving into cities from refugee camps, and the motivations for doing so.

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the UNHCR headquarters in Basel would be unfair.

In truth the well-intentioned hard work of many UNHCR staff serving displaced groups around the world should be appreciated.

In their seminal text “Refuge: transforming a broken refugee system”, the authors Betts and Collier suggest that camps fundamentally arise from an underfunded refugee system designed to cope with short-term displacements where refugees are expected to return home. Now, as in the 1980s, governments are reluctant to spend any money on the welfare of non-citizens and thus camps remain a cost-effective means of keeping ‘the other’ at bay. While it may recognise these situations as sub-optimal, the UNHCR can do little more than cooperate with government decisions, since it lacks the resources to propose any alternative: in an anarchic way of operating a system of international government, the UNHCR is totally funded on a yearby-year basis by state contributions. The lack of any guaranteed funding makes it impossible to plan ahead, and thus cheap short-sighted management of unfurling and prolonged crises is unavoidable.

Rather than continue to relegate refugees to effective incarceration, the UN system requires reform so that refugee agencies are able to plan ahead. With greater resources, it would be possible to create real opportunities for the economic and social progression of displaced individuals, in lieu of the denial of formal citizenship. Given the drawn out nature of many refugee situations, initiatives like the Jordan Compact provide ideas of what could be done to transform not only the lives of refugees in camps, but also economic and social integration. In this case, the EU has funded special economic zones where transnational companies build factories to employ Syrians, on the basis that products from these zones are granted access to European markets. This builds up the meagre Jordanian manufacturing base and provides a route for aspiring refugees into greater opportunity, dignifying families, and especially men.

Through such cooperation, camp-based models of segregation appear more obviously obsolete and cruel. By granting the displaced opportunities to work, the UNHCR has the power to unlock not only their potential but to significantly advance the economic development of the host country.

which has always been evaded by the best efforts of refugees seeking life beyond camps anyway – is no longer so important.

As long as people are displaced, whether by conflict, persecution or (increasingly) climate change, settlements to house them will exist. As long as these are temporary spaces, from which refugees are swiftly able to move back home or be resettled permanently, they are not a problem.

However, to change things for the millions who live permanently in “temporary” camps, initiative and commitment from national leaders and the UNHCR will be required. As for those long-term displaced individuals unable to return home, and who shun camps altogether in favour of better social and economic opportunities in cities, research-informed assistance and political reform in host countries, incentivised by the international community is needed to allow assimilation. It is time to stop leaving the most vulnerable out of sight and out of mind for years on end. They are shunning the camp and so should the international community.

By JONATHAN LANCASTER

Further afield, authorities are gradually waking up to the fact that there must be life beyond the camp.

For example, the recently opened Kalobeyei camp in northwest Kenya was designed with integration and interaction with locals in mind, albeit to a limited degree since the camp remains far from urban centres. Nevertheless, attitudes towards refugees may be changing such that segregation – MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 19

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

THE RIGHT TO THE CITY & PUBLIC ART In 1968, Henry Lefebvre made his now infamous argument that public space is where the right to the city is determined. Where individual liberty is expressed, urban space offers different groups the ability to negotiate and contest constructs of society and their agency within it. From this understanding we can therefore begin to see how control over public space and what is permissible in it represents a whole host of power relations. And it is within this framework that one aspect of public space has become increasingly scrutinised: public art.

If we define public art by its most basic precepts – as a piece of art in the public realm – then its roots reach far back in history. Traditionally, public art was a way of conveying messages to a passive public through means such as the war memorial or tribute painting: works designed to garner attention and imprint meaning. However, during the course of the 20th century, public art began to open up.

With widening enfranchisement, public art became seen as a service to the people. It could encourage conversation and debate, foster cultural democracy and participation in the public sphere, in sum, improve civil society.

for the Arts allocated federal tax-based funds for the arts. However, it was the Art in Architecture Program (1934) that most firmly established several philosophical precepts about the nature and function of public art in America: firstly, that truly public art should be literally owned by the citizens, and secondly, the notion of ‘site specific art’, whereby the interaction between the site and the art is a prime determinant in a work’s conception, design and execution. These notions expect artworks to rehabilitate poorly designed public spaces and provide amenities, even when artists make no claims to do so.

This exciting prospect saw an increase in support for public art by authorities keen to promote social cohesion. In the American context, wide-scale government support for public art started with the New Deal. The Public Works of Art Project (1933) paid artists a daily wage to produce work for public buildings. While in 1965, the National Endowment

If this is all sounds rather utopian, that would be because it is. Lefebvre’s framework demonstrates that public space is where the right to the city is negotiated, and with public art becoming an active agent in public space, it also became a primary source of contestation and power politics. And one of the most preeminent examples of this is

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Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc. Commissioned in 1979, Tilted Arc was a 73-tonne, 12-foot high, 120-foot long curved expanse of steel. The work was installed by the General Services Administration (GSA) as part of the redevelopment of Federal Plaza in Downtown New York. Serra conceived the work for its specific site, using pedestrian traffic patterns to determine its form and placement.

However, if you visit Federal Plaza today, you would notice the conspicuous absence of Tilted Arc. This is because, in 1989, just eight years after its installation, the piece was dismantled under the cover of night into three parts which were transported to a warehouse, where it remains in storage indefinitely.

According to Serra, Tilted Arc was designed to forge social function from sculptural space.

The artist hoped to reorient visitor’s perceptual relationships to ‘dislocate or alter the decorative function of the place and actively bring people into the sculpture’s context’. Such knowledge of the artist’s wishes can illuminate our understanding and appreciation of the work, but the artist is not the sole judge of how it is best seen, or even what it means. Concurrently, some viewers did not share Serra’s hopes, describing Tilted Arc as a ‘sullen blade’, ‘eyesore’ and ‘iron curtain’, they saw the piece as overbearing and even menacing. Critics argued that Serra subjugated the plaza to servitude to his sculpture, being more concerned with physical rather than social context.

Initially, the GSA stood firm over Tilted Arc. After all, Serra’s previous work was well-known, and Serra was specially sought out for a permanent piece. The commissioning process had included exhaustive project evaluation and approving detailed plans specifying scale, placement, and material, including revisions made on the GSA’s request. They knew what they were getting from Serra. Two petitions seeking the removal of the piece quickly gathered 1,300 signatures after it was first installed, although this was not enough to sway the GSA who argued that this represented a minority given that there were 10,000 employees in the building facing the plaza.

This all changed in 1984, however, with the arrival of a new Republican-appointed regional administrator, William Diamond, who had been vocal over his dislike of Tilted Arc. Diamond arranged for a three-day public hearing in 1985 about the possibility of relocating the work and appointed himself head of a panel of adjudicators.

At the public hearing 180 people spoke, including Serra, who pointed out that the work was sitespecific and provided a social function by encouraging public engagement, flatly denying that it interfered with social use of the plaza. In all, 122 people, including many eminent figures from the art world, spoke in favour of retaining the piece, while only 58, mainly those working in the nearby offices, testified against it.

By MATTHEW GELDARD MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 21

(MIS)UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE IN THE RISK SOCIETY Last month I decided to read Ulrich Beck’s milestone work ‘Risk society: towards a new modernity’, published in 1986. It is difficult to understate the importance of this book in the social sciences, with there now being a broad consensus that our society is a form of risk society—albeit not necessarily the one theorised by Beck. As a student of Chemistry, I have been trained in the body of knowledge, the practice, and the epistemology of science. Thus, I read Beck’s description of our society and science with curiosity and interest (and sometimes a raised eyebrow). Coming from the other side of the barricades, in this article I would like to share some observations on risk society and its account of the scientific enterprise.

Beck defines the modern day as a risk society because, on the one hand, its advanced production processes generate risks (chemical or radioactive contamination, general pollution etc.) and, on the other, the management of risks might produce further, different risks. Beck calls this positive feedback loop the ‘reflexivity of modernisation’, where the risk society needs to fix the risk it constantly produces with new technologies and modern means of production. For example, anthropogenic climate change brings risks upon human communities, that become endangered by extreme weather phenomena or rising sea levels.

However, the ‘solutions’ adopted by governments to mitigate climate change effects are not devoid of their own risks: the sand necessary to build barriers comes from industries that are negatively affecting shores and river beds.

As science-based technologies are the foundation of advanced industrial processes, Beck throws a critical eye upon the scientific enterprise.

Understanding the role of science in society therefore becomes fundamental to sociological analysis of the unfolding and development of the risk society.

Beck sees science as a sort of ‘gatekeeper’ of knowledge and the definition of risk: the political and logistical access to scientific/technical knowledge becomes the major point of influence that research institutes and analogous institutions exert on society. However, the diffusion of the internet and the push towards open data and open science is increasingly changing this dynamic. Raw data and white papers are usually available online, and the major challenge for the public is to know the procedures that generated them and to possess the analytical skills necessary to interpret them.

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An interesting point raised by Beck is that technocratic approaches to pollution–such as tabulations of ‘permissible’ levels of hazardous substances in the human environment–in a sense legitimate the release of pollutants up to that limited degree, and act as a redefinition of risk. This redefinition is linked to two levels of complexity. The first one is properly sociological, that is to determine what is an acceptable level of a potentially toxic substance. This is heavily dependent on cultural and economic conditions. Beck uses the example of the slum of Vila Parisi in Brazil, site of a significant industrial oil spill fire in 1984, to describe how acceptance of health risks caused by industrial pollution is tightly associated with poverty, malnourishment, and substance abuse.

The second level of complexity is related to the method and epistemological tenets of science.

Beck attacks the insistence of scientists on strict proofs of causality and detachment of the individual from the observable as ‘basically inadequate for

modernization risks’ and denying ‘the reality of connections that exist nonetheless’. The latter statement is strongly influenced by Beck’s interest and support of the German environmentalist movement. Yet I believe that Beck’s vision—based too much on grassroots’ environmental issues—led him to some misrepresentations of science and scientific issues.

Beck’s approach to risk and science is strongly realist: (environmental) risks exist as independent entities, pollutants are toxic because of their own nature, and so on. A trivialised consequence of realism is that, when scientists do not acknowledge a potential hazard as such because of

insufficient evidence, the existence of the risk is negated—that is, hidden or even covered.

Science thus naturally becomes an agent of market and/or government (against the environment). Beck’s case against scientific institutions and his calls for a profound reformation of science’s methodological stance are defendable only if a realist stance can be accepted. This is not easy, however, neither from a social nor from a natural sciences point of view. It is above the aim of this article to enter into the discussion between (sociological) realists and their principal opponents, the constructivists. Although it is sufficient to say

that in relation to risk, constructivism stipulates that it is a social construct, so Beck’s position cannot be accepted as self-evident.

Moving on to the STEM side, realism as a form of understanding scientific knowledge is not very prevalent in non-popularised science (that is, the one Bill Nye won’t tell you about). Realism in science states that a scientific theory is, at least to a certain degree, a ‘metaphysically true’ description of reality. This is very problematic, particularly in the light of the many scientific theories that were describing reality with good accuracy—until they were proven wrong. In the scientific graveyard of not-so-real-anymore theories there is a bonanza of tombs: from the ‘caloric fluid’ that once explained how heat is transferred from hot to cold bodies, to ether, the special medium that was supposed to bear light and other electromagnetic waves.

Beck’s analysis somewhat fails to assimilate more than a century of debate in the philosophy of science. Yes, sciences are influenced by funding bodies and governmental policies. Yes, most natural scientists have renounced claims of being the keepers of the true description of reality. However, this does not mean that they are transformed into ‘self-service shops for financially well-endowed customers in need of arguments’. The point here is that science is more about the way we build models that allow us to interact with, understand, and manipulate natural phenomena; the single theory, scientific paper or piece of experimental evidence is just an instrument to keep reality accountable. For example, it is not important whether genes really exist as entities, they are a good model because scientists were able to develop a cure for a rare congenital immunodeficiency assuming that a ‘defective gene’ needed to be replaced.

Regardless of some bold generalisations of issues somewhat valid for environmental and conservation science, Beck’s analysis of the social structure of science and engineering is still sharp and can be of inspiration for natural scientists. Science should acknowledge the fact that its development is not only governed by its pursuit of ‘knowledge’ and needs to interact in an honest, non-dogmatic way with the broader society.

By MICHELE SANGUANINI

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SEISMIC RISK: EVERYDAY IMPACTS IN MEXICO CITY If I were to attempt to sell you a holiday package to Mexico City, I might use the words vibrant, lively, and jostling. However, as someone who is Mexican and also cynical, I am more likely to call it depressing, challenging, and emotionally exhausting. I lived in Mexico City as a child for six years. I blame this for the strange and powerful nostalgia I feel for certain aspects of the city: small details like the windows of the colonial architecture, the graphic symbol designed for each metro station. I have a strong memory for certain tastes: papaya, guanabana, mango, arracherra, chicharron. It is a place I associate with members of my family, some who passed while I lived in England. The reality of Mexico City is less romantic.

My dissertation fieldwork was an ethnographic study using focus groups, interviews, and an online survey. The aim was to explore the experiences of and feelings towards seismic risk of residents.

For contrast, this is illuminated by interviews with experts in geophysics, geology and seismology at the Autonomous National Mexican University (UNAM). Mexico City experienced an earthquake disaster in 1985, and a similar event in 2017. They were both, unsettlingly, on September 19th. In the recent quake, most of the damaged and collapsed buildings were not particularly associated with vulnerable soil, but with lack of attention, purposefully or not, to building regulations put in place after 1985. Regulations were broken in the form of cost-cutting materials, extra floors being built on pre-existing houses, new apartment blocks that had an unauthorised number of levels, and crucially, steel rods of an inappropriate size or number, too thin or too far apart. To briefly explain the city’s geological background, it is built mostly on the dried lakebed of Lago Texcoco, which Hernan Cortes had drained in the 1500s in order to construct grand Spanish architecture. Native Mexicans subsided on crops, notably maize and beans, on fertile floating farms called Chinampas.

This impressive technology used recycled waste to fertilize the crops. The city is roughly split into three geological zones: the lake zone, a hills zone (volcanic zone) and a transition zone between the two. The different characteristics of the soil mean the lacustrine sediments of the lake zone react in a ‘jelly-like’ manner during an earthquake, and accentuate seismic waves. Therefore, buildings built on this soil are objectively more at risk from damage in the event of an earthquake. A recurring phrase, both in interviews, and in chitchat, was ‘me vale madres’. This is a colloquial expression that can be roughly translated as ‘I don’t give a f***’. This really exemplifies some of the paradoxes I observed in Mexican culture; the strangest and most toxic paradox was a tendency to both overestimate and undermine risk. This research, and my stay in my grandma’s house in Reforma Izztaccihuatl opened 24 / COMPASS / MICHAELMAS 2018

my eyes to a conflict-ridden culture of risk a world away from the British standards of safety and security.

Whenever you talk to almost anybody in Mexico City, they seemed to jump at the chance to express their lack of sense of safety. Whether family, friend, or a stranger, people lavished retelling a chilling story about the time they saw or experienced something dreadful: I heard stories of cars being stolen at gunpoint, sly muggings in plain daylight, and frightening warnings from people on the street when someone got lost. In the outskirts of the city towards Estado de Mexico, a family lawyer was robbed by an armed gang.

Objectively crime rates are high, but my experience of a cumulative 8 years of being in Mexico City had resulted in only very minor crimes. I was perfectly safe the whole time, but I noticed a paranoia settle in over time the more I heard my family tell me how dangerous and vulnerable I was. The scariest part was noticing my mother, who was with me every day, become agitated in situations where I felt perfectly fine, as if I she expected something to happen. The feeling of fear is uncomfortably

infectious. I was completely disallowed from going outside alone. I was affected to the point where as if brainwashed, I too felt unsafe by myself. I worried when I knew one of my family members was out doing something or seeing someone. My own grandma would sit at home and do nothing for hours just to ensure our safe arrival. People expressed shock at learning I was using public transport. Multiple people tried desperately to convince me to take an Uber instead. Fortunately my only brush with violence was sitting on a bus with a window that had clearly had a bullet shot through it quite recently; the panes were held together with transparent sticky tape.

On the other side, I noticed an underestimation of many other risks. Driving conduct, for example is terrible. Mobile phones are frequently used, even by bus drivers, and many don’t wear seatbelts.

Cyclists weave through three lane traffic without a care – or a helmet. Then of course, there is the ignored risk of building failure. The ignoring of building regulations established by engineers for one’s safety feeds back into Mexico’s culture of indifference. It’s the ‘me vale madres’ ideology: you look out for yourself and your wallet whatever the cost. This ideology, and its impact on people’s lives, became evident in the focus groups: poorly built infrastructure related directly to people’s experiences of injury and death during earthquakes.

Disdain for regulations, and lack of understanding of why they’re there, seem to be the greatest cause of chaos. Desire to expand your house. Desire to

save money. Corruption, in the government, in the construction companies. Distrust in the authorities.

These were the topics that frequented residents’ thoughts and brought out the most passion and anger. Many spoke about the fear and trauma the earthquakes had left behind, and even though some of this was linked to the physical event and aftermath, the greatest fear came from the threat of being crushed by their own home.

My survey will reveal further details about how affected people are and how great they perceived risk of Earthquakes. I have a feeling the results will reveal a great emotional response to earthquake risk, feelings of resentment towards the authorities, and a lack of basic understanding both about earthquakes and about building regulations.

Certain things about Mexico City will undoubtedly stay with me forever, and they’re part of who I am. I blame growing up between a volcano and a seismic fault for my interest in understanding the Earth and our relationship with it. Thus, culture shock aside, I think I have returned to Cambridge with a rekindled desire to improve the understanding of the environment and its processes, and transfer this knowledge to the bodies and people that need it.

I see unmistakably now that, without it, and without trust, disasters continue.

Words & Photographs

By XIMENA BARKER HUESCA

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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

BOOK REVIEW: THE HUMAN PLANET: HOW WE CREATED THE ANTHROPOCENE The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene analyses the chronology of human history alongside the geological history of the Earth to exemplify how humanity has arrived at an evidently new epoch, the Anthropocene.

The main thesis The Human Planet: How We is that humankind Created the Anthropocene has progressively

by Simon Lewis & Mark Maslin, gained the power Pelican, £8.99 and agency to alter the Earth system, and placed the history of the Earth onto a whole new trajectory in a geological and evolutionary sense. Aiming to answer the central questions of what is meant by a ‘human epoch’ and how one defines the Anthropocene (and when it starts), the book is essentially a synthesis essay: it examines the planetary history of the Earth, and the process of the rise and development of life on Earth, through the interdisciplinary lens of and evidence from Earth system science, geology, anthropology, archaeology, politics, societal history, and economy. The objective of this narrative is that, in order to understand our current position in history, one needs to understand why we are who we are, how we have obtained the daunting power as one single species to change the Earth as an integrated system, the ways we have used that power so far, and the reasons behind our behaviour. The book thus details the full logic behind the identification of the Anthropocene, by illustrating the unfolding of the series of selfreinforcing events that spiralled to our current mode of living, our eventual realisation of our power and its consequences, and the discomfort born out of such realisation and hence the complexity of the Anthropocene debate and narrative.

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The book follows a collaborated effort between Lewis and Maslin to compile an overarching review of the evidence with which to define the Anthropocene that became a featured paper on the front cover of Nature in 2015. Despite both being physical geographers, Lewis and Maslin begin the book by elucidating that fact that the Anthropocene, albeit a geological term, engrosses much more than mere climate change, but also encompasses far-reaching anthropogenic impacts in all domains. They also remind the readers that the Anthropocene as a notion has a much longer history than it is recognised today – both natural and social scientists throughout history have had the common conviction that human actions have been bringing enough irreversible changes to life and the Earth on a geologically significant, even epoch-defining, scale.

The first two chapters are used to set the scientific and historical context and recalibrate the readers’ perspective on the topic, which is necessary given the wide media coverage of the concept in which, unless under critical eye, much of the truth is easily lost. Indeed, common misconceptions and the often unspoken contention surrounding the topic are what the authors also attempt to bring to light.

A much emphasised idea that recurs throughout the book is that the ‘story’ which we choose to tell ourselves about the Anthropocene and the responsibility of the humankind holds a moral value, and that defining the Anthropocene will both reflect our true nature as a species and crystallise that constructed narrative and self-recognition.

This is put into many of their explicit yet highly logically sound statements, such as ‘If we are to understand whether the scientific evidence does show that human actions have changed the Earth to such an extent that we now live in a new epoch, we will need to follow that evidence closely, rather than a pathway to a more politically or ideologically comforting place’ (pp. 15). The authors do take their stance, which is that the Anthropocene is now and that it is useful to formally define it despite the almost uncomfortable weight attached to this monumental decision; this is a book of evidence-based opinions, and yet the reasoning is transparent and the evaluation of the facts in support of their stance are rigorous.

The formal scientific procedure of how geologists section time is described early on in the book to be juxtaposed with the very detailed presentation and analysis of the history of life and civilisation of Earth that show the process of the creation of a ‘human epoch’ in the following chapters. The evidence is constantly being compared against the set rules deployed in formal practice within the industry, such as the search for the GSSP, ‘golden spike’, within the geological timeframes described. Then, in the last chapters, they synthesise the implications of the those historical events into the now self-evident answers to the questions they have posed earlier.

This approach of theirs only became apparent to me upon their return to the original argument on how to define the Anthropocene in the later chapters, as I began to understand some of the unanswered questions from earlier and became able to piece together the blocks of evidence to which I had been exposed all along. This renders the book quite a powerful one, as it is organised in a way in which the readers may ‘see for themselves’ and do the ‘detective work’ over how the Anthropocene should be handled and determined, based on their own ideas formed from learning about the Earth and humanity’s past.

The final chapters of the book further outline the scientific backbone against which geological times

are defined, but also reveal the defects within the current system (for example, they have referred to the defining of the Holocene as a ‘war of words over time’), for the work over the Anthropocene has been ‘messy mechanics in defining time’ that has been charged with agenda and strayed away from the rigour of universally acceptable scientific methodology. Emerging out of this is the authors’ own proposal of the definition for the Anthropocene, utilising the already established template but with full emphasis on the neutrality of evidence and reproducibility of the result.

This book is not a short read, as the authors indeed include a very thorough set of information to fully support their reasoning, and yet this is essential in ensuring that the progression of logic in the writing is trackable, comprehensible and coherent. The book is informative, edifying, and presents material that is necessary, well-weighted, and that effectively undoes any erroneous preconceptions that the readers might have on the topic before reading the book. Ultimately, the book presents a sustained and comprehensively researched argument for the present time being the Anthropocene, by explicating the logic, the background and the evidence for why it is so, how it should be defined systematically, and its implications on human nature and the future of both humanity and the planet Earth. It is a powerful read that would, on top of its compelling discussion of the Anthropocene, renew a beginner Geographer’s understanding of the nature of the subject. It is a true ‘Geography’ book that demonstrates how the ends of physical Earth sciences and social sciences are interconnected, just as civilisational revolutions throughout history alter the Earth system every time, and just as the Anthropocene, with its scientific identity, reflects the complex story of humanity that includes all its politics, philosophy, reflexivity, and consciousness.

By ESWYN CHEN

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RETHINKING REPLANTING:

ARE MORE MANGROVES ALWAYS A GOOD THING?

I spent seven weeks in two rural communities at opposite ends of the west coast of The Gambia over the summer. My aim was to gather data on how local people used the mangrove ecosystems on a small scale, the sustainability of those practices and their link to local identity. However, I stumbled upon a dire need for further research into the biochemical and physical conditions best suited for mangrove growth.

Looking around The Gambia, it is clear to see that the red mangrove (genus – Rhizophora) is the dominant genus of mangrove. Easily spotted by its long and twisting prop roots, it supplies an abundance of direct, indirect, commercial, and environmental services for all kinds of stakeholders in mangrove forests. This is why I was so excited to be invited to harvest and then replant Rhizophora propagules with government park rangers during my last week in The Gambia. There are a number of types of Rhizophora seeds, which differ in size based on their species. Rhizophora harisonii are viviparous plants, which means that their seeds – known as propagules – begin to germinate while they are still attached to their parent plant, hanging off like huge green beans. Once fully ripe, as indicated by a transition from a lighter green to a green-brown colouration, propagules will drop from the parent plant either into water, or directly into the soft, organic matter-laden black mud substrate that the mangroves are rooted in, depending on the tide. Surprisingly, ripe propagules are weighted to float vertically in saline water, standing upright until they become lodged in soft sediment, or more likely one of many thousands of small holes formed as fiddler crabs dig their burrows underneath the surface.

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Once ‘planted’ in this way, roots will grow from the base of the propagule, although only on one side, so as to anchor it to the soil. Once anchored, simultaneous growth of the shoot from the top of the plant, and roots on the other side of the propagules will occur, ensuring that it grows upwards and is uprighted at the same time.

Over the course of three fairly strenuous days of wading barefoot through knee-high thick, black mud and climbing mangrove branches to reach the best propagules, we collectively had accumulated 175 -50kg rice bags full of ripe Rhizophora propagules, which were to be planted in the neighbouring region of Jokado National Park, near the village of Tambana. This site was chosen to help establish the conservation efforts of this newly established national park, as well as to prevent the further encroachment of wind-blown sandy sediments that are unsuitable for mangrove establishment.

The government funded this planting exercise, covering the rangers’ salaries as well as a monetary token of 200 Dalasi (just under £5) for every man, woman and child who helped out. When I asked a few of the community members why they came to help, each one cited the importance of mangroves for the breeding of fish, the complex network of R. harisonii prop roots, providing a safe haven for juvenile tilapia, bonga fish and sometimes barracuda; in mangroves they are safe from larger predators. People valued mangrove forests as natural fisheries, and primarily this was due to their commercial value - though the fishing can also be used for subsistence.

closable air holes in the roots allow for both oxygen and carbon dioxide to enter the plant even during partial inundation, or in anaerobic soils.

These pneumatophores are excellent at trapping sediment and litter as well as hosting fiddler crabs by the hundreds. However, they are often undervalued because of their lesser commercial value. Although they provide very similar environmental services to Rhizophora, Avicennia, are becoming an increasing minority due to the commercial planting exercises involving only Rhizophora which reduces the biodiversity and areal extent of mangrove forests.

Though I may be somewhat concerned about the discrimination against non-Rhizophora mangrove species, the red mangrove provides a multitude of benefits for local communities, not just through providing excellent fishing grounds, but also for the empowerment of women who have lost husbands or need to supplement household income through the harvesting and sale of oysters and cockles. In addition, the plentiful birdlife in residence around dense mangrove forests is fantastic, and they are useful in preventing the erosion of muddy coastal wetlands. It is not an ideal scenario, but replanting can be helpful, so long as they are done in suitable environments and at sensible times of year.

Words & Photographs

By CALLUM SWANSTON

This, along with the fact they can host oysters in their prop roots, may be why Rhizophora. are almost exclusively replanted, with no planting exercises involving Avicennia africana, Conocarpus erectus or Laguncularia racemosa to my knowledge. The next-most prevalent genera of mangroves in The Gambia is Avicennia africana, which is more tree-like in appearance and is characterised by pneumatophores, rather than prop roots. Both prop roots and pneumatophores share a similar purpose in allowing mangroves to breathe, and therefore survive periodic inundation. Their miniscule, MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 29

REWILDING AND SHIFTING BASELINE SYNDROME:

THE PARADOX OF THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

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‘Rewilding’ is a controversial term these days. Like ‘sustainability’ in the 1990s and ‘biodiversity’ in the 2000s, it has become the buzzword of the decade, championed by environmentalists the world over as a solution to the havoc humanity has wreaked on the natural world.

However, the term itself, once you start to unpick it, is rife with inconsistencies. For a start, in order to re-wild, we need to decide what a ‘wild’ environment looks like – and in western culture, which conceptualises humanity and nature as fundamentally separate, this means total exclusion of human interference. But humans have been influencing the global biosphere for millennia: the last time that the natural world was in an untouched

state, Earth was in the grip of an ice age. We do not actually know exactly what a ‘natural’ environment would look like in today’s climate. Therefore, it is we humans who must decide what a ‘wild’ ecosystem constitutes today, and do the work to make it a reality. And herein lies the problem: if a wild landscape is one that is free from human interference, surely a rewilded landscape is not wild at all?

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The Scottish Highlands have been stripped of 99% of their tree cover,

This major conceptual flaw has not stood up to closer inspection, and has created misunderstandings that lead to controversy when implementing rewilding schemes. Rewilding is often associated with the reintroduction of large, charismatic mammals such as wolves and lynx, which creates political uproar due to their reputation as dangerous predators. Although there is evidence that predator reintroduction can have a ‘cascade’ effect through the ecosystem, exemplified by the astonishing results of wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park, there is often a secondary agenda of bringing back such species simply for their charisma and for maximum publicity.

The wolf alone is not enough; putting back one piece of the jigsaw is pointless if the rest of the pieces are still missing.

Nowhere is this more evident than the UK, one of the most ecologically impoverished countries in the world. Not only have we lost the wolf, the bear, and the beaver, but abundance of insects and birds has plummeted and we have destroyed 99% of our pine forests. Although I have known for years that Britain is a biological desert – even those parts of Scotland that we cherish and enshrine in law as ‘wild land’ – it hit home hard when I visited the Alps for the first time this summer. Although far from pristine, Triglav 32 / COMPASS / MICHAELMAS 2018

National Park, Slovenia, retains far more of its native flora and fauna than the UK. And it showed. Hiking through a high alpine rock garden, surrounded by marmots letting out shrill alarm calls and with miles of forest spread out beneath my feet, I was nearly brought to tears to think just how much we have lost in the UK. A week later, I was back in the Scottish Highlands – a landscape that I have loved for my entire life – and was surprised to find that my Alpine experience had not altered my joy at being in the bare Scottish mountains at all. To me, they are wild and they are beautiful, despite the ancient pine stumps emerging from open bog that was once lush forest.

I am fully aware that I myself am a victim of what Daniel Pauly calls ‘Shifting Baseline Syndrome’: a gradual lowering of standards, with each new generation growing to accept increasingly poor environmental conditions as normal or ‘natural’, so that our expectations of the natural ecological state shift lower and lower. For example, those who grew up in post-war Britain remember driving on summer evenings through moth ‘snowstorms’ so thick that the abundance of insect life had to be sponged off the windscreen the following morning. Such a phenomenon is unheard of and unknown by our generation – what we do not know we do not miss.

An Alpine biodiversity paradise: flowers and forests stretch for asfar as the eye can see in the Julian Alps, Slovenia

This explains why Britain, one of the world’s most nature-loving countries, is also one of the most nature-depleted, ranking 189th out of 218 countries according to the 2016 State of Nature report. The British cherish their countryside, their hedgehogs and songbirds, largely unaware that more than half of their wildlife species have declined drastically over the past 50 years, or that 20% are in danger of extinction within the next decade.

The tragic state of the British countryside is why rewilding has gained such traction amongst many conservationists; countless projects are already underway. Many parts of the Scottish Highlands are being fenced off to keep out a deer population that, lacking natural predation from wolves, has spiralled out of control. This rewilding technique artificially removes grazing pressure, allowing regeneration of Scotland’s ancient pine forests.

However, the fences create new problems; not only do they look ugly, but they are expensive to build and maintain. They also pose a risk to rare birds such as the capercaillie who may fly into them.

They also create isolated pockets of woodland, leaving the remainder to the mercy of the deer.

This proves that rewilding is in fact an artificial process in which humans designate separate areas of ‘wild’ and ‘non-wild’ land. Increasingly there

are calls for an alternative plan to reintroduce the wolf, which in theory could reforest Scotland on its own – a recovery story to rival that of Yellowstone.

However, this is not a popular policy. For a start, there are sheep farmers whose already precarious livelihoods could be ruined by the reintroduction of top predators. In a country still deeply scarred by the eighteenth century Highland Clearances, where thousands of subsistence farmers were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands, separating people from the land to make way for rewilding can arouse strong negative emotions. And finally, there is the question of our relationship with the land.

Perhaps because of Shifting Baseline Syndrome, there are many people, myself among them, who love the Highlands the way they are – barren, treeless, and what some would call bleak – but beautiful nonetheless. For most of the British population, Scotland is already wild, and without witnessing the vibrant biodiversity that still remains in places like the Slovenian Alps, how could we be expected to think otherwise?

Words & Photographs

By BRONWEN FRASER

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INTERVIEWS

ACADEMIA IN HONG KONG: IN CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR LOO To explore the Asian ‘geographies of geography’, and to probe the state of the discipline in Asia, Compass writer George Breckenridge interviewed Prof. Becky P.Y. Loo – Head of Geography at the University of Hong Kong. Her work specialises on the urban geographies of East Asia, especially integrated transport systems, urban planning and the environmental impact of such city-oriented frontiers.

More generally, Prof. Loo declares that “I think geography is on the up. Look, we’ve been on the decline for a while, including in the UK”, but as the undeniably geographical issues of global urbanism and sustainable living increase their presence on the international agenda, she anticipates a reversal of this downward uptake. With respect to cities, she is confident to point out that geographers can provide the coherent research that will discover policy solutions. Referring to Prof. Mike Batty’s (2013) influential work on ‘The New Science of Cities’, she says geographers are well equipped to “study the societal response” to the increasingly complex urban landscapes brought by technology.

It’s 3pm on the 4th August and I’m in an elevator to the 10th floor, heart racing. After reading the night before that the University of Birmingham once described her as “one of Asia’s foremost scholars” on urban geography, I couldn’t help but be pretty nervous. I’d never talked to an academic in Asia before too, and I wasn’t sure how much that would be a bearing on the style of conversation.

Having been shown into an office with the best view I’ve ever seen, I started by asking her the seemingly obvious: how does academic research in Hong Kong differ from that in the West? Surely there was a difference. To my surprise, Prof. Loo had different ideas: “in many ways, I consider Hong Kong to have the most western style of academic inquiry, especially compared to the rest of Asia”.

She credits this to the British legacy, the “true academic freedom” that being in Hong Kong allows, and the benefits of the “advantageous intellectual exchange” that the internationalism of the territory accepts. Being so international “makes a huge difference” in fostering “mutual understanding and unity at a time when there is a lot of global divide due to misunderstanding”. Overall similarity was not the response I was expecting, I have to say, even if it did seem less surprising that the British academic culture is having its legacy in Hong Kong.

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As an example, she explains that urban areas, in their contemporary form, are synonymous with the use of connective technology. As researchers, we should aim to “make the best of this”, and “keep up with the positive side of this trend”. In elaborating, she poises that active geographical research is now moving beyond describing to shaping future cities.

Prof. Loo emphasises, although the technology may be the same, the local contexts make the difference. Hence, “getting involved and talking to people is very important” in being able to provide an “authentic, accurate synthesis of the issue”.

Academic geography can’t be an ivory tower, if it is to succeed”, she argues.

Quick to stress the reality of the matter, Prof. Loo poses that “geographers are good at synthesis”, and therefore scholarship which targets realistic impact. At that point, I took the opportunity to delve into this, by asking her if she felt her own work had influenced real-world urban planning in Hong Kong. Her initial reaction was to point out that it’s often not just a single research paper, and that it’s the series of research outcomes that cause the dots to connect amongst policymakers.

In thinking further, she suggests that her holistic research on ‘urban walkability’ is perhaps a good example. Her General Evaluation Mechanism (GEM) has countered conventional cost-benefit analyses to quantify the overall enhancements to

society that walkability can bring. It’s “adoptable to any city, globally”, but is especially useful in Hong Kong – “the 3D city without legs”. Having been formally adopted by the Development Bureau of the Hong Kong Government Secretariat, it is now applied at the forefront of land premium decisions about footbridges, with it’s implementation directly leading to the construction of elevated pedestrian footbridges in the ‘Admiralty’ area of the city CBD. The connection of these to the underground ‘MTR’ metro stations has improved the integration of public transit in the city. Prof. Loo is optimistic for the future in this regard, with commitments to improve the city’s walkability included in the Hong Kong Chief Executive’s 2017 Policy Address.

Prof. Loo broadened the scope of this research by arguing that scholarship on the urban and transport systems are “fundamentally intertwined”, and “don’t make sense without the other”. When I asked her if it was possible for urban transport infrastructure to prompt sustainable urban citizenship, she agreed, at least so far as personal behaviours of transport choices were concerned. This was because, she argued, they are derived from the design of the build environment in which they are formed. She argued that if we want to harness the potential for infrastructure to influence cultures of performative citizenship, through promoting sustainable norms of transit behaviour, solutions must be found at the stage of planned urban development. Put simply,

we must provide deliberately integrated, planned transit services to citizens, and be prepared to “remodel the urban fabric”. Indeed, in an age of ever-increasing demographic size, density and age, it has never been more important to “seek denser opportunities” in urban development.

Prof. Loo put it to me that the compactness of infrastructure not only affords convenience, but also accessibility; this is especially relevant to the most vulnerable members of society, such as the elderly and children. Once more, China is the country to provide an example of these future demographic demands in Asia.

In October 2018, advances in these urban fields were showcased at The International Conference on Smart Mobility and Logistics in Future Cities.

With the Chief Executive of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region welcoming the conference as “an excellent platform to inspire innovative breakthroughs and solutions amidst the growing challenges in our transport system and logistics sector”, it is clear senior policymakers are interested in smart city developments. Across my own experiences of teaching at the University of Hong Kong, I have to agree with Prof. Loo: here, “Geography is on the up”.

Words & Photographs

By GEORGE BRECKENRIDGE

PHOTOGRAPH: CATHERINE CHANG

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AN INTERVIEW WITH: TIM MARSHALL Tim Marshall, long renowned by geographers, is becoming an increasingly popular household name. Following a successful career as diplomatic editor and foreign news correspondent for Sky News, Tim made the shift towards writing and analysis. His experiences as a journalist, working in areas of extreme conflict and political unrest, have given him valuable insight and a unique perspective on some of the most pertinent issues of today. His new book, Divided, gives Tim’s perspective on the rise of nationalism, the threat of globalisation, and the divisions that increasingly shape our 21st century environment. Divided has been met with enthusiasm by academics, the media and the public alike. I spoke with Tim about his career, his book and his perspectives on the future of our politically turbulent times.

Tim’s journalistic pathway was intense and somewhat harrowing. Working far from the realms of comfort, he reported for over 24 years on conflicts ranging from the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, The Kosovo Crisis in Belgrade and Israel’s 2005 Gaza disengagement. When asked why he stopped reporting, it is no wonder Tim admitted to being ‘tired’ of the work. Writing and analysis provided the opportunity for a career that was still active: communicating with influential academics, politicians and policy makers, while making use of the broad foundation of knowledge he had built up from his work in the field. Tim’s primary aim when writing is to get his audience to understand the importance of perspective and recognise nuance in the world - their are two sides to every story and, in many instances, it becomes vitally important to be on the ‘right side’ of the wall…

Divided builds on the growing existence of wall as physical barriers in the 21st century. From the Israel-Palestine border to Trump’s infamous Mexican barricade, walls are being constructed across our world at an unprecedented rate. While Tim’s book immediately focusses on walls as material borders, his arguments have symbolic resonance when considering political, cultural, racial, economic (the list goes on…) divisions that arise following the growth of nationalism. Tim admits that the fall of the Berlin Wall did not mark globalisation and the rise of free borders, but instead led to global anxiety about the threats that a united world would bring. He argues that the only way to mitigate the problems of mass migration, automation and rapid cultural change is to promote equality across the globe. ‘We need to incentivise people to stay in their countries, with access to equal opportunities and quality of life. This has to come from investment, 36 / COMPASS / MICHAELMAS 2018

aid and stable democratic structures.’ Does this advocate a global shift towards capitalism that so many criticise? What about the dangers of mass consumption and the perpetual inequalities?

Tim argues that ‘these problems, while they are not superficial, are not enough to counteract the benefits that capitalism has bought to our society. Our societal structures have bought us huge improvements in our quality of life - we have qualified doctors, educational institutions, nourishment and comfort that we would never have had in our historic agrarian lifestyles.’ While we might advocate the resourcefulness of indigenous lifestyles that exist in (increasingly fewer) parts of the world today, Tim argues he would ‘never go back’ to our native lives in the UK, which were full of hardship, illness, disease and drudgery.

The walls of today ultimately represent a ‘failure of mankind’. Tim by no means wishes to move towards homogenisation of society, nor does he believe that globalisation itself is to blame. ‘The problem ultimately lies in our inability to distribute resources, to learn not to harm and to collaborate between our units in a way that does not exploit, but empowers one another.’ Our withdrawal from the European Union might therefore represent a desire for nationalism, power hunger and maybe even a return to imperialist ideals…

Tim’s ideas highlight how collaboration, tolerance, friendship and freedom are fundamental for our futures. We need to learn to break down the walls that divide us, structural or symbolic, in order to live at peace with one another and with the world as a whole.

By FLORENCE WIGGINS

TRAVEL

A CUHELP SUMMER IN NEPAL It was only once we were on our second flight, surrounded by men in suits huddled under their blankets and eating congealed egg, did I ask Sophia what she thought about the prospect of us being away for a month. Terrifying, was her response. We were going to Nepal with the charity HELP to stay with a family in a rural village in the mid-Himalayas, where we would teach English in a local school.

Our village, Haibung, was very small and located across the side of a hill, with houses varying from tin shacks to concrete buildings, and many of these were being built whilst we were there. The houses all had their own farms for subsistence - growing maize, chillies, cucumbers, pumpkins, potatoes, okra, and rice - as well as rearing chickens and goats - which often came in and joined my lessons!

Our role as volunteers was not to transform the children into fluent English speakers in a month, nor to take over the teacher’s lessons and tell them they were doing it wrong, because they weren’t. Instead, we tried to teach different skills, which weren’t normally taught, such as thinking imaginatively and being confident, as well as helping them and the teachers with their English pronunciation. When we weren’t teaching, which was very often due to the number of festivals that necessitated school holidays, we had a lot of time to explore. There MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 37

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were a plethora of weird and wonderful things to experience in Nepal but these were my personal top 5 memories…

5) The Stars: As we went in monsoon season, there was frequently extensive cloud cover. This was pointed out to me every day on the walk to school when I told my host the mountains were beautiful.

She would reply that it is cloudy, you cannot see the mountains, despite them appearing to be very high to me. However, the cloud cover often meant that at night we couldn’t see the stars but on nights when the clouds cleared, the lack of artificial light meant that the resultant view was stunning as you could see thousands upon thousands of stars.

4) The Dinner Time Conversations: Sophia and I could not speak much Nepali, but as a very good linguist, she could pick it up quickly to the delight of our hosts, who celebrated every word uttered. Each dinner time would be announced by a “Soapia, cazza canne billa boyo?”, “Canna Aunous”. And once all the items of food were labelled religiously “Daal”, “Baaht”, “Tourcurrie,” we were allowed to begin, careful of the “Tatto Paani” and once we had “Cassa Cai Sukio,” “Cassa- Cai-Sukio” we left with an “Auba Cortama Djanay”. We did this three times a day, every day, for a month. Our learning made easier by the eating of only Daal Baaht and Tourcurrie, with the occasional SousSous. It turns out I was better at Tamang, the caste language, introduced to us when we had sufficiently learnt enough Nepali to become tri-linguists in our host’s eyes.

3) The Chilli: Our family ate chillies with everything, labelling them lollipops and biting into them whole as their treat. So when I noticed a stray chilli (normally removed) on my plate I thought I would give it a go. To the delight of my hosts this did not go down well for me. Swiftly, my nose and eyes were streaming, not aided by the density of smoke in the room from the open fire and the only refreshment being boiling water. The story was joyously relayed multiple times in the staffroom the following week.

2) The Ceremony: One day we were passing a shrine where some people sat around holding candles, When they invited us over to join them, we thought ‘why not?’. After sitting down, the festival got more and more strange. It was swiftly noted that we had been invited over by an extremely drunk man, who tried to get us to stand upon the shrine, amongst burning candles and incense and offerings, to take a photo. We were at the anniversary of his mum’s death. It just seemed that this particular anniversary celebration involved

the chanting of songs improvised by the Buddhist priest, the taking of selfies, and the enforced drinking of three bowlfuls of Mountain Dew before one could leave!

1) The Bus: Our village was only 25km from Kathmandu, but do not be fooled, this distance takes hours. The roads in Nepal are dirt tracks, often with foot deep ditches either side, and about a bus width between the mountain and a very steep drop. The buses on the other hand are very old, driven by drivers too busy gossiping to look straight ahead, and feature seats, which are not screwed down. Combining this with a bus over capacity both inside and on the roof, with people climbing out of windows to get off, you get a relaxing and comfortable ride to your final destination!

So despite sometimes wondering if we would survive the month, I had a fantastic trip and can’t wait to return to visit our hosts and all the lovely people we met along the way. I would definitely recommend volunteering with CUHELP to anyone who wants to go on an adventure and spend time meeting new people from different cultures, whilst also making a difference to children’s days.

Words & Photographs

By ROSE JUMP

MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 39

HUSKIES IN LAPLAND I never thought I’d be sharing a pack of liquorice allsorts with a retired Swiss German lady whilst singing along to James Blunt’s ‘You’re Beautiful’ on the way to pick up husky puppies in Norway.

But there I was. Having signed up to WorkAway – an online platform offering opportunities to work in exchange for food and board – I connected with Martina, who runs a husky farm training dogs for sledging competitions. The next thing I know I am on a bus to Dusseldorf, then a carshare to Hamburg, then a night train to Copenhagen, then a bus to Stockholm, and finally a flight to Swedish Lapland.

I

Upon arriving I am picked up by Martina, who drives us home to the farm which is nestled in the Taiga forest. Once there I am greeted by a Dutch man the volunteer that I am taking over from. He asks me how long I have been working with dogs, and when I reply that I’ve never even had one as a pet, he calls me brave… I begin to wonder what I’ve let myself in for. He shows me to the enclosure where 10 Siberian huskies live.

I face a wall of noise as I enter - making me feel like a gladiator entering the Colosseum. Fortunately I am mounted by all the dogs rather than killed by them. I imagine they are testing my limits, so act in a dominant manner; I am their chief now. We play for a while before putting the dogs in their straw-laden cages for the night. The cages serve two purposes: providing a tight place to sleep in, and protection from wolves.

The day that followed serves as a microcosmic representation of my month there: Rudi the rooster wakes me up at around half-past six Let the dogs out of their beds Let the chickens out of their night shelter and check for eggs Give the dogs their breakfast. They need to be chained up for this to ensure each dog can get some one-on-one time with me.

Getting mounted by Finlay again wouldn’t be very helpful. I give especially good belly rubs, so the competition can get quite fierce.

Have some breakfast: coffee and homemade dandelion marmalade on toast General farm-work, for example haymaking, fence repair, or building a shelter for future puppies Spend some time playing with the dogs, checking for infections, cleaning out their living area Barbecue lunch Have the “afternoon off” to ‘walk the dogs’, i.e. jog 15km around the local lake and have a swim.

Explore abandoned stuff in the forest.

Collect shed antlers to be fashioned into slingshots.

Feed the dogs and put to them bed around sunset Have some supper or just an ice cream depending on hunger levels Finally, bedtime for us Orri (right) was one of the less academically inclined of the group and usually took a few minutes to figure out how to eat his biscuit. Nova (left) on the other hand was the most intelligent of the group and would often start a scuffle then sit back and watch it develop.

40 / COMPASS / MICHAELMAS 2018

Sunday afternoons could be spent going to the local (a mere 20km away) secondhand shop where one could find a scale model of a certain Tory politician.

Alternatively, we could go to the local campsite for some Swedish delicacies.

Nothing quite beats the feeling of indulging in surströmming – fermented herring, so pungent that it’s illegal to open it inside – whilst being devoured by mosquitoes. A meal at the campsite would be incomplete without a tour (i.e. getting on a trolley hooked onto a golf buggy) of the “town”, to enjoy the sights and sounds of the four houses in the village as well as a new drainage ditch being dug on the main road.

Towards the end of my time there, I am told that we need to make a short trip to Norway to pick up some puppies. 17 hours go by like a flash as Martina and I have a great time chatting, eating liquorice allsorts, and listening to a James Blunt album (the only decent CD in the car) on repeat. Passing through the most amazing Finnish and Norwegian landscapes to the Norwegian-Russian border takes us to a remote Sami farm. Sami are the indigenous people in the region, they make their living by herding reindeer and breeding Siberian husky puppies.

We checked out the puppies we were picking up and gave them a snack: porpoise that had been frozen in a vintage ice cream deep freezer. I am put in charge of cutting it into bite-sized piece. I’d never seen a porpoise before, let alone beheaded one and cut it into chunks. There’s a first time for everything I guess. I am given an axe and half hour later the puppies are having a grand time eating semi-defrosted flesh and lapping up porpoise blood.

Once we are home I sarcastically offer to sleep in the shelter with them overnight as they’ve just been separated from their mother. My Swiss German hosts gloss over the sarcasm and agree, passing me a sleeping bag and a wooly hat.

Waking up to both your ears being licked by 2-month old puppies is a pretty surreal experience.

In fact, the whole trip was pretty surreal. Coming back everyday life was pretty depressing after playing with animals and being a farmer. However, my experience in Lapland wasn’t just pure pleasure and relaxation, it also brought up a few geographical issues: The dichotomous living circumstances of native tribes in modern society where the Sami people herd their animals with quad bikes yet still hunt porpoises and dolphins?

The romanticising of the rural agricultural landscape on which I was working. It was incredibly beautiful, but I felt like the work I was doing, such as scything the meadow, was contributing to an ‘unnatural’ landscape.

The amazing community bond in remote areas.

Many neighbours would drive for an hour to come for coffee and cake. How many people would we be willing to travel so far just to chat with?

The importance of transnational citizenship in forming this bond - many inhabitants of the area had “escaped” from Central and Northern Europe.

I guess the conclusion of the trip is that if you want to do something whacky and different in your time away from Cambridge then get on the interwebs and have a look around - there’s bound to be something out there to tickle your fancy that is probably very low-cost. Also remember that what we learn shouldn’t stay in the lecture theatre/ supervision room, as the nature of geography is that it is inherent everywhere, if you look with a critical enough eye...

By AL MULROY MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 41

THE LAST WORD

NAVIGATING THE SEA OF CAREERS AS A GEOGRAPHER Michaelmas of my Second Year. It’s almost Week 5 and the excitement of returning to Cambridge is starting to wear off. Supervision essays are piling up and everyone’s tone is becoming a bit more serious.

Someone mentions the phrase “Halfway Hall” and suddenly you’re thrown into reality: this time next year I’ll be in my final year as an undergraduate.

Earlier this term, CUGS hosted a Careers Fair in the department, both reinforcing those oh-wow-we’realmost-in-the-REAL world-feelings and providing some guidance for the confusing journey that is life after university. At times I feel a bit like I’m floating on a big wide ocean (LIFE) holding onto a small but interesting flotation device (DEGREE). How long can this blissful suspension last before I have to choose a real route across the waters?

Geography is an incredible degree for sparking interest in the world and thinking about it critically.

The president of my college’s JCR told me in my first year that “a geography degree will change the way you think and see everything in the world,” and that has really stuck with me, as my experience here is increasingly characterized by observation and questioning. What’s my college’s carbon footprint?

What is identity and privilege? Why do spaces of resistance and activism arise in Cambridge and how do they link to the rest of the world? All of this questioning is brilliant but it can make it pretty tough to make decisions regarding what to do in life, what career to choose and where in the world to live.

During the CUGS fair I picked up as many brochures and free pens as possible, debated the ethics of business employment with company representatives, and had a chat with a Financial Times employee that left me feeling passionate about public mediating but rather confused as to how to land a stable, “real” career in journalism.

Perhaps we should all just be freelancers and entrepreneurs in our neoliberal world…? That buzzword ‘neoliberalism’ brings me to yet another difficult intersection of career choices and geographical knowledge. Anyone who has been attending lectures in our department will have heard the many critiques of neoliberalism; whether you agree or not, you have surely been left with an unfailingly questioning view of our current economics. It can be incredibly difficult to reconcile these morals with entering the employment sector – constantly wondering whether to sacrifice 42 / COMPASS / MICHAELMAS 2018

stable employment and income (especially if you are bound by London rent prices) for a morally fulfilling job. I suspect it’s a classic toss-up for most geographers.

Speaking of London, a recent incident on the King’s Cross-Cambridge train brought some light into the tunnel of ‘The Future’. Upon overhearing a conversation I was having on the phone to my mum, in which I was expressing frustration over wanting desperately to pursue my passion of journalism but worrying that this would not provide stability, the man sitting next to me told me that he had studied the Geography Tripos at Cambridge as well, and that I had no reason to worry. He completed his degree and was immediately hired by a software engineering company; he now works full time in a startup called Simprints, developing biometric apps to measure and aid development in the Global South. While this isn’t something that personally appeals to me, it reassured me and reminded me that there are a wide range of options and that, as geographers, we truly have the world at our fingertips. This degree gives you a plethora of useful transferrable skills, not to mention passion and interest in a huge range of topics.

Ultimately, what I’ve learned from my dilemmas about my future this week is that we have the privilege to apply ourselves to something we truly love to study, whilst spending time on any number of incredibly fulfilling interests. Us geographers are interesting, widely read, and eminently employable people.

Enjoy your time here and try not to get caught up in whether you are employable or not; we will all find our paths through life. In any case, as we are so often told in our degrees, the world around us is transforming, and as geographers it is our responsibility to critically assess and harness those changes.

By SOPHIA GEORGESCU

MICHAELMAS 2018 / COMPASS / 43

compass@cugs.co.uk