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The Refugee Crisis on the Borders of Europe and the Role of the Czech Republic

May 16, 2016
By null

Věra Honusková and Martin Faix, Sylff fellows from Charles University in Prague, initiated and implemented a conference titled “Refugee Crisis on the Borders of Europe and the Role of the Czech Republic” in November 2015 with the support of a Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI) grant. The following article is their reflection on the conference. Having been written in December 2015, it does not take into account events that have transpired since that time. Although the nature of the problem is such that it is greatly affected by ongoing events, the article is nonetheless valuable as it deals with the fundamental aspects of the issue.

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Background

In an unprecedented migration crisis, we are currently facing the largest inflow of people into Europe in many decades. Hundreds of thousands of people are arriving on the shores of Greece and other states, many of whom are trying to reach Germany or Sweden. Europe is acting relatively slowly, and its proposals are not always welcomed by all.

The Czech Republic is neither a state on the external border of the European Union nor a transit or destination country for high numbers of migrants and refugees. The country is small, with only 10 million people, and relatively homogenous. There are approximately 450,000 foreigners in the Czech Republic, including several thousand refugees. The number of international protection (asylum) seekers has been very small thus far—only several hundred people yearly. The numbers are increasing now—still slowly, but the massive influx will impact the country without fail.

Within the EU, the Czech Republic often finds itself in the opposition. The EU, for instance, proposed a plan to “redistribute” migrants and refugees from those countries that have received too many (on the basis of EU asylum laws, mainly Dublin Regulation III) to other countries. The Czech Republic was one of four countries to oppose the plan.

Shifting Attitudes in Czech Society

This negative attitude toward the migrant and refugee issue is not only a matter of the Czech government’s position in the EU. The migrant—and especially refugee—issue has grown into a highly controversial one discussed at all levels of society.

Symptomatic of the debate is a surprising lack of awareness and understanding of the legal underpinnings of the current migrant issue, such as international and European legal obligations of the Czech Republic. This has resulted in resolutely foreigner-unfriendly positions on the issue, which have gained popular support and which, in the long run, have the potential to lead to a xenophobic atmosphere in Czech society. Such tendencies can be seen in the statements of political decision-makers, such as members of government, the office of the president, and parliament, and representatives of political parties. Moreover, they are widely shared by the public.

The language used in the speeches of politicians, in debates in the media, and on social networks has directly corresponded with the rise in xenophobic and anti-democratic sentiments. Heated debates arose in spring 2015, and people marched with model gallows for “traitors”—those who do not oppose refugees—at demonstrations held in June.

Law as a Corrective of the Views of Society

As academics and lawyers, we felt obliged to raise our voice and to speak about the obligations that the Czech Republic holds toward those in need of protection. While the law does not require states to accept all refugees, it still prescribes certain responsibilities toward them.

Furthermore, we live in the cradle of human rights. As such, we must stay human and strive to find solutions to help those in need. Perhaps they should live in countries neighboring their own, or perhaps in Europe, if only temporarily. But we need to talk about all this, about the role of international and European law in the refugee and migrant issue, about the question of a humanitarian approach to the issue, about how the negative attitude of policymakers toward refugees and migrants influences society. We believed that laying out the legal basis for the current debate may help to cultivate the debate, to calm the passions, and to help those in responsible positions to come up with a vision and possible solutions.

We therefore decided to work with the idea of a conference, and we sincerely thank the Tokyo Foundation for believing in our proposal.

The Conference

The conference “The Refugee Crisis on the Borders of Europe and the Role of the Czech Republic” took place on November 12, 2015, on the premises of the Charles University Faculty of Law. There were more than 150 participants, including those from politics, the media, government ministries, and NGOs, as well as students. Among the speakers at the conference were three international speakers who are well-known specialists on refugee law and are also involved in public debate on the issue. There were guests from the judiciary and from the Office of the Czech Ombudsperson, as well as speakers from academia representing different views.

The program of the conference consisted of three parts. The first part focused on legal and institutional foundations and introduced the legal basis for the debate with an overview of current hot topics. The second was aimed at giving a wider perspective by presenting the philosophical and sociological aspects of the issue and the human rights view. The third part sought possible legal answers to the mass influx of migrants and refugees, attempting to show the perspectives of EU law and the law in the Czech Republic.

The speakers presented many interesting facts, arguments, and possible solutions. They had different opinions, some very much in favor of human rights and others more traditional. But they all presented their views with arguments, and the debate was highly sophisticated. The conference provided a solid basis for understanding the role of law in the current situation, and some possible solutions were also discussed.

Impact of the Project

Several speakers mentioned the possibility of temporary protection. The idea seems very worthy of debate; it shows us that there are more approaches that we could take toward the current mass influx. As was also mentioned in the conference, we need to fight the smugglers, help people stay in countries near their countries of origin, and help solve the situation in their home countries by diplomatic means. But we can also offer homes to refugees, even if temporarily. One of the reasons for xenophobic reactions is the fear that an indefinite number of refugees and migrants will come into Europe and stay there for good. The law has a response to such situations as well, which those who are afraid may find acceptable.

The audience of the conference took active part in the debate. Many people told us or wrote us later that they found the conference to be very meaningful, and we daresay that it fulfilled its aims. Attendees had the opportunity to get an overall legal picture of the issues that are currently being debated. But those who were there are not the only ones to benefit from the conference; video recordings of the proceedings are available on the Prague faculty’s website for streaming.

*The report of the same conference by the Tokyo Foundation is available at https://www.sylff.org/16764.

 

Věra Honusková received a two-year Sylff fellowship in 2007–8 at Charles University. The fellowship enabled her to conduct research abroad and use it to finish her PhD thesis on the interpretation of the definition of a refugee. She is now a senior lecturer in public international law at the Faculty of Law, Charles University. Her areas of interest include migration, refugee law, and human rights. She is also a member of the Odysseus Network.

Martin Faix received a Sylff fellowship in 2009 at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, while conducting PhD studies in public international law. He is a senior lecturer in public international law at Palacký University in Olomouc and at Charles University. His areas of interest include human rights, international organizations, and use of force.

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Toward an Understanding of the Medieval Mediterranean World

April 15, 2016
By 19620

Gregory Williams received a two-year Sylff fellowship at the American University in Cairo for the academic years 2011-2012. He has been conducting a series of archaeological excavations in Aswan, Egypt, using an SRA grant. In this article, he argues that archaeological findings from the medieval Mediterranean world are often ignored, and suggests that the region’s Fhistory has much to teach today’s world about living in harmony and appreciating diverse cultures and religions.

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Map of Medieval Egypt and Nubia.

Map of Medieval Egypt and Nubia.

Since 1996, when Samuel Huntington first popularized the term “clash of civilizations,” much of our contemporary understanding of Islam and the Muslim world has centered on a dichotomous relationship between East and West. The international media ―and to some degree the academic community as well― has wholeheartedly accepted this ideology despite its inherently flawed nature. The acceptance of the idea that current political conflicts run along the religious and ideological lines of Islam and Western society greatly underrepresents the importance of historical and cultural factors when trying to understand and resolve those conflicts.

As a Sylff fellow I studied in Cairo, Egypt, and as a PhD student I was fortunate enough to receive a Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) award to continue my field research in Aswan, Egypt. During this time spent in the Middle East I was struck by what seems to be a major lack of understanding of premodern history among today’s policymakers, journalists, and pundits. The medieval history of the Mediterranean, which often helps to explain the diversity of cultures and languages in this part of the world, is often completely ignored. It is hard to read a newspaper, watch the news, or discuss political events without thinking in terms of Islam versus Christianity or East versus West. However, many historians have argued convincingly that Islam and Christianity developed as sibling traditions, with much more in common than we often appreciate or acknowledge. The Mediterranean region should be understood as a single, inter-cultural sphere.

View of the Nile at Aswan.

View of the Nile at Aswan.

Archeology is a field that can make important contributions to our knowledge of daily life and the history of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities in the Mediterranean region. Unfortunately, for most of this discipline’s history, projects have focused on the ancient past, and artifacts from the more recent past have often been ignored—or even removed and destroyed! How can we build a more comprehensive historical and cultural understanding of our recent and medieval past? This effort must begin by making focused, concerted efforts at important multiethnic and multireligious archaeological sites where a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between different ethnic groups and religious communities can be conceived. The SRA award has allowed me to make a start on this kind of study in Aswan, Egypt, a site with a unique setting on the historical border between Christian and Muslim lands in Africa.

Hybrid material culture in the ninth to tenth century CE.

Hybrid material culture in the 9th-10th Century CE.

Fortunately, recent archaeological excavations in Aswan, run jointly by the Swiss Institute for Architectural and Archaeological Research on Ancient Egypt and the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities, have presented a unique opportunity to explore this premodern past. Most previous excavation work in Egypt has disregarded the country’s medieval remains in search of its pharaonic past. In Aswan, the medieval city is treated as an important part of understanding Egypt’s history. While many cities and towns in Europe and the United States employ archaeologists to check that a new construction project will not destroy important cultural remains, this practice has only recently been introduced in Egypt. European and Egyptian archaeologists are working together on joint excavations to protect the city’s cultural heritage in spite of the illegal building and looting practices that sometimes plague Egyptian cities, and the results have made important contributions to our understanding of all periods of Egypt’s history.

During the ninth and tenth centuries CE, Aswan was home to various Arab tribal families, Coptic Christians, and Beja nomadic groups from the Eastern desert. Legal documents discovered elsewhere in Egypt in synagogue storerooms known as geniza suggest that a Jewish population also existed there for some time as well. Today, Aswan continues to be an important center for both Christians and Shi’a Muslims, although the vast majority of Egypt’s population is Sunni. The first cataract of the Nile became a major trading location for goods between Muslim Egypt and Christian Nubia. During this time, pilgrims passed through Aswan on their way to and from Mecca and Medina for the annual hajj, and merchants profited from the products of the Wadi al-‘Allaqi gold mines just to the southeast. Artifacts from excavations in Aswan have begun to highlight these kinds of interactions and the movement of peoples and products that were occurring inside and outside the Islamic world.

Mausoleums in the Aswan Cemetery.

Mausoleums in the Aswan Cemetery.

In other words, Aswan was a highly diverse and “international” center in the medieval period. But this history is disregarded, as so often with medieval history in Egypt, as not ancient enough for the archaeologist and too long ago for the modern-day political scientist or economist. The reality is that these displays of multiculturalism and tolerance are important examples of how people can live together and have done so in the past. We can continue to treat people of other ethnicities and religions as coming from another civilization, or we can look to the not so distant past for a reminder of how “civilization” in the Mediterranean often meant complex, hybrid societies where people of different faiths lived together. Of course this coexistence was not always peaceful and without conflict. But unless we begin to incorporate cultural studies of the past into our modern conceptualizations of social conflict, we will be missing a very important piece of our shared human history.

It is easy to simply follow the national, institutional, and ideological lines that direct academic research in so many areas today. I believe that it is more important, though, to ask questions that transcend these dividing lines and investigate largely unexplored areas, such as the interaction between Muslim and Christian communities in North Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps by contributing to a more complete view of our history and the way in which people of different faiths and ethnicities interacted and lived together in the medieval world, research of this kind will give our current debates on the so-called “clash of civilizations” a much needed pause for reconsideration.

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Anti-immigrant Policies in Arizona and Their Impact on Mexican Families

March 23, 2016
By 19613

As media coverage of the 2016 US presidential election has shown, recent terrorist attacks and the ongoing influx of immigrants into Europe have caused an increase in xenophobia and related phenomena.

Eduardo Torre-Cantalapiedra, a Sylff fellow at El Colegio de México, used an SRA grant to research the impact on Mexican immigrants of the highly controversial anti-immigrant laws passed in Arizona in 2010. Can enforcing immigration laws decrease the number of undocumented immigrants? Should the living conditions of undocumented immigrants be ignored because their stay is illegal? This article reveals the true difficulties they face, as experienced by the immigrants themselves.

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Introduction

In recent years, Arizona has passed some of the harshest anti-immigrant policies in the United States. The Republican Party has adhered strictly to its doctrine of “attrition through enforcement,” and Democrats have done little to stop them. This policy has caused serious damage to Mexican families and to the population in general in that state, (My own estimates based on the American Community Survey suggest that there were approximately 248,000 Mexican households in Arizona in 2010). The doctrine is based on the idea of making everyday life for undocumented migrants so difficult that they will be motivated to go back to their countries of origin. In response to Arizona's anti-immigrant policies and the hostile environment they have generated, Mexican families have developed a set of strategies to make the difficulties more bearable. Some families have also decided to migrate from Arizona to other parts of the United States.

Fieldwork Evidence

Sheriff Joe Arpaio in front of the federal courts in Phoenix.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio in front of the federal courts in Phoenix.

The fieldwork I carried out in Phoenix, Arizona, has allowed me to make a diagnosis of the situation. I now have a clearer idea of the problems that these anti-immigration policies have caused for Mexican families and for the social environment in Arizona. The main results of my fieldwork will be incorporated into the central chapters of my dissertation. My basic finding is that these state policies have not achieved the goal of making immigrants "without papers" leave the state. However, they have meant the systematic violation of civil rights of the migrant families. The police have been one of the largest sources of abuses and violations. US District Judge G. Murray Snow issued a sweeping decision finding that that Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his agency (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office) had relied on racial profiling and illegal detentions to target Latinos during immigration sweeps and traffic stops (ACLU, 2015). Most of the people I interviewed told me they had been stopped while driving simply because of their skin color and physical appearance. Most had been subjected to heavy fines or had had their vehicles confiscated for a month. Several were subjected to deportation proceedings, even though they had never been convicted of any crime.

Undocumented migrant workers have also been pushed into the informal economy and have been forced to take increasingly precarious jobs. Manuel1 preferred to work as a day laborer rather than work without papers because he was afraid of being accused of identity theft if he used another person’s social security number. José was fired from the restaurant where he worked when the chef started to use the E-Verify system. (Arizona has required that most employers use the E-Verify system to verify the migration status of employees since 2007.) Because of this same system he could not find a new job in another restaurant. He now spends his time cleaning yards and does not earn enough money to support his family. Ramón spent two years unemployed, occasionally working small jobs for friends and acquaintances to get by.

In addition, family members are often afraid to contact the police to report crimes—even when they witness felonies, of which in many cases they are also victims. Marta's car was stolen in front of her house, but she never ventured to report the crime to the police. Manuel, an undocumented immigrant, was too afraid to go to the police to report an attempted rape of his daughter (still a minor) for fear that the police would ask about his immigration status. He was finally able to report the incident to the police with the support of a family member who is a US citizen.

Mural showing a Latina student, Phoenix.

Mural showing a Latina student, Phoenix.

The entire state has been affected by the implementation of the anti-immigrant policies. Underutilization of labor, strengthening of racist and xenophobic groups, the breakdown of the social fabric and severe economic losses are just some of the major problems that these policies against undocumented immigrants have caused.

Young people have also been affected by anti-immigrant policies. One law decided that undocumented immigrants must pay out-of-state tuition for their education. Some of the students I interviewed told me they were finding it very difficult to continue their studies because the tuition had increased by 300%. Others had already given up their studies. Only when President Barack Obama approved a new policy that deferred action for certain undocumented young people who came to the United States as children did some of them decide to continue their studies.

Protest against anti-immigrant policies, Phoenix, April 23th 2015

Protest against anti-immigrant policies, Phoenix, April 23, 2015.

My study also documented the adaptation and mobility strategies that families have developed to deal with the anti-immigrant policies in Arizona. These strategies have included staying away form public spaces to avoid the risk of deportation, using members with some kind of legal status to attain certain benefits, seeking measures that allow them to circumvent the prohibitions on driving and working in the state, and others. María was so afraid of being deported and separated from her family that for many months she refused to leave her house except when it was absolutely necessary. Some families decided to emigrate from Arizona to other part of the United States. Some of those who had emigrated told me that enforcement of immigration laws by police in other states is different: they do not stop your car in the street simply because you look Latino. Interstate migration of foreign-born migrants is therefore not motivated only by social networks and economic issues. The varying immigration policies of different states provide another powerful incentive for some families to move.

New Policies

To reverse these adverse effects, changes on two levels are necessary. The first step must be to get rid of all laws based on the doctrine of “attrition through enforcement.” The economic boycott, international and domestic pressure, protests against the unconstitutionality of these laws, and other measures, have been partially effective in fighting these laws in the medium and long term. While many local migration initiatives have been repealed, many remain in force today and continue to damage Mexican migrant families in the state. Second, the continuing daily struggle of families against the anti-immigrant policies is essential. Although this struggle stands a good chance of reversing the current policy framework in the long run, it is also needed as a means of empowering migrant families through information about their rights and participation in social movements and organizations that fight for the civil rights of migrants, regardless of their legal status in the United States. We must not forget that “undocumented” status does not mean that migrants have no rights according to United States laws. Among other constitutional rights, for example, an immigrant has the right to due process when he or she is arrested. An immigrant can be indemnified if he or she is a victim of a crime. Undocumented migrant children (K-12 or less) have the right to attend school according to the Supreme Court.

The logo of the Comités de defensa del Barrio.

The logo of the Comités de defensa del Barrio.

During my stay in Phoenix I had the opportunity to participate in activities organized by the Barrio Defense Committees (Comités de defensa del Barrio, or CDB for short). I was able to observe the important work being done by this and similar organizations in mitigating the adverse effects of the policies against migrants "without papers" and their families. CDBs are a genuinely grassroots movement that emerged in response to the attack against resident Mexican families represented by the 2010 Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, or Arizona SB 1070. The ongoing hard work of the CDB has allowed many Mexican families to move out of a position of isolated defense to take actions in defense of their rights along with other family units. As its members argue: Unity is strength ("la unión hace la fuerza").

In short, I am hopeful that the fieldwork I conducted with the support of Sylff Research Abroad will produce valuable information for policymaking in both Mexico and Arizona that will serve to defend the civil rights of Mexican families in Arizona and improve their living conditions, and to repair the broken social fabric by allowing closer links between Mexican and American families who live in the state.

References:
American Civil Liberties Union (March, 2015). Ortega Melendres, et al. V. Arpaio, et al. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/cases/ortega-melendres-et-al-v-arpaio-et-al

1Names have been changed to preserve the anonymity of the people interviewed.

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Internet Policymaking and the Case of Brazil’s Marco Civil

March 7, 2016
By 19622

Guy Hoskins, a Sylff fellow at York University, traveled to Brazil to study the implications of a new civil law on Internet freedoms with huge implications for privacy, freedom of expression, and network neutrality for Internet users around the world.

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When the revelations made by former US government contractor Edward Snowden emerged regarding his country’s practice of dragnet surveillance of global digital communications, the repercussions were manifold. Some of the consequences, such as diplomatic tensions and a heightened public awareness of data privacy issues, could have been foreseen. Others, however, were much less predictable. One such outlier was the passing into law in Brazil of a bill called the Marco Civil da Internet (the Civil Framework for the Internet) enshrining a substantive set of civil rights for the country’s more than 100 million Internet users, built upon the three pillars of privacy, freedom of expression, and network neutrality. Having been subject to abandoned votes on 29 separate occasions in the country’s lower chamber, the success of this partially crowdsourced, multi-stakeholder policy document was far from assured. The public and executive outrage generated by news of the National Security Agency’s practice of intercepting sensitive Brazilian communications proved to be the tipping point. President Dilma Rousseff signed the bill into law on April 24, 2014.1

Within a global media environment marked by almost daily stories of government infiltration of digital communications, threats against the neutrality of the Internet by telecommunications companies seeking to impose a tiered system, and state and corporate suffocation of freedom of expression online, it is little wonder that a bill of online civil rights in one of the most populous countries on earth should attract the interest of the world. That story, at least for English-speaking audiences, has yet to be fully told. It is the purpose of my doctoral dissertation to address that shortfall. By undertaking a detailed analysis of the development of this world-first bill of rights for Internet users, my hope is that a viable framework can be developed for other countries to follow and to safeguard an Internet legislated according to civic logic. It is not enough to hold aloft the bill itself and point only to the provisions contained therein. In isolation they cannot provide a cogent and replicable model for the rest of the world if the means of their resolution are not properly chronicled and understood.

With an undergraduate degree in Latin American studies, fluency in Portuguese, and experience living and working in the region, I had always attempted to integrate developments in Latin America into my graduate research in communication studies. So when I first read reports about the Marco Civil at the outset of my doctoral studies, it was immediately clear that this would make an excellent object of study. I first traveled to Brazil in March 2014 on a preliminary fact-finding mission while the Marco Civil was still in development. I had the immense good fortune not only to establish a network of contacts among civil society organizations that were promoting the bill but also to be granted access to the Brazilian Congress on the evening of March 25, 2014, to bear witness to the historic successful vote.

Buoyed by these experiences, and with financial assistance from SRA, I planned a period of formal field research in Brazil to coincide with the one-year anniversary of that first vote in March 2015. My primary objective was to interview some of the main protagonists who had participated in the open contribution phase of the bill’s development initiated by the Ministry of Justice. These people represented some of the major stakeholders in the Brazilian Internet, including telecommunications corporations, government bureaucrats, members of Congress, civil society leaders, traditional media companies, and web service companies. In gathering firsthand testimony from these individuals, I sought to discover how different groups of social actors were guided by particular logics with regard to the future direction of the Internet—profit, state security, surveillance, civic engagement, innovation, etc.—and how these were tied to the social values of privacy, freedom of expression, and economic freedom that ultimately form the technical and legal operating environment of a national Internet.

Network neutrality has received much media and public attention in recent months as the subject of major regulatory decisions in the United States, India, and the European Union, as well as of course in Brazil. It was fascinating to observe how what might appear at first glance to be a rather arcane technical premise—that all the data that flows on the Internet must be treated equally without any attempt by network administrators to allow data from certain sources to travel faster than any other—was articulated and interpreted by the different stakeholders in the Marco Civil case.

Traditional media companies, dominated in Brazil by the ubiquitous Globo Group, saw net neutrality as a means to ensure mass access to their commercial content. Web companies interpreted it as a safeguard for innovative new online services. Telecommunications companies opposed it on the grounds that it would stifle the potential for new business models. Civil society organizations generally viewed the legislation as essential to both consumers’ rights to digital services and citizens’ rights to freedom of knowledge. Identifying and charting these diverse interpretations of one element of the technical architecture of the Internet can allow us to better understand why these details are so fiercely contested and to appreciate the deeply social process that underpins these apparently neutral technological considerations.

Another essential facet of the Marco Civil process that I was able to appreciate much better after speaking with my interviewees was the way in which the object of the policymaking process—the Internet itself—had influenced how the various groups were able to “operationalize” their agendas or logics. The Brazilian government’s use of an online consultation forum opened the bill to large-scale public scrutiny and input. This made the legislative project much more democratically legitimate—a fact that helped considerably to overcome partisan opposition in Congress. Civil society groups took advantage of the same mechanism to raise public awareness of the substantive issues under discussion while the telecommunications companies, with no little irony, were the group most disadvantaged by the transparency and ready coalition-building facilitated by the Internet and continued to pursue their traditional tactics of backroom lobbying rather than exposing rational arguments to the oxygen of (online) publicity.

I am now in the early phases of data analysis as I translate, transcribe, and codify the hours of interview footage I gathered during my fieldwork in Brazil. As I work, I seek the insights that will allow me to portray as accurately as possible how, in spite of a concentration of forces applying logics of profit and control online, “another Internet is possible” (Franklin, 20132)—one premised on safeguarding freedom of expression, data privacy, and network neutrality.

1http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25467-brazils-internet-gets-groundbreaking-bill-of-rights.html
2Franklin, M.I. (2013) Digital Dilemmas: Power, Resistance and the Internet, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Chinese Investment in Central and Eastern Europe

February 25, 2016
By 19675

Ágnes Szunomár, a 2015 Sylff fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, summarizes her research on the recent trend of Chinese investment in Central and Eastern Europe. In her article, she describes how it differs from investments by other Asian and European countries.

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Introduction

Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) is one of the most spectacular developments in recent international economics in terms of its rapid growth, geographical range, and takeovers of established Western brands. Chinese firms mainly invest in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where they search for markets and natural resources. They have also been active in the developed economies of Western Europe and the United States, however, that offer markets for Chinese products and assets that Chinese firms lack, such as advanced technologies, managerial knowledge, and distribution networks. Chinese firms are also increasingly investing in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). These investments are quite a new phenomenon and still constitute a small share of China’s total foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe (10%), but since 2006 we have seen a growing influx of Chinese investments into the region, which is expected to increase further in the future (see the figure below).

The aim of my research was to analyse the motivations and location determinants of Chinese FDI in the largest recipient countries within the CEECs, with a special focus on the role and impact of host country macroeconomic and institutional factors.

Background

China’s rise is often compared to the postwar “Asian Miracle” of its neighbors. An analysis of the internationalization experiences of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese companies reveals several common features as well as some differences. One of the main common characteristics shared by all three is the creation and support of the so-called national champions, that is, domestically based companies that have become leading competitors in the global market. In fact, during their developmental period, both the Japanese and Korean governments gave strong state financial support to their companies in order to protect and promote them as well as to strengthen them for international competition. China has followed this example in subsidizing domestic industries and supporting their overseas activities, for example in the form of government funding for OFDI.

Although the CEECs differ in many respects, they do have some features in common as possible locations for East Asian investors. Their economies have been in the process of catching up over the last decades, defined mainly by European powers. FDI has played a key role in their restructuring. Investment from East Asian countries in the CEECs began as early as the 1990s (with a Japanese Suzuki factory in Hungary).

In the past decade most of these countries became increasingly interested in boosting trade and attracting investments from East Asian economies. The global economic and financial crisis of 2008 intensified these ambitions. The largest recipient countries of East Asian investments within the CEECs are Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Around 90% of foreign investments in the four countries are from Europe, with an average of only 7.4% of FDI from other countries, mainly from the USA, South Korea, Japan, and China.

Utility of the Research

Typically, the international literature examines the motivations of Chinese OFDI on a global basis, and most previous studies have focused on China's growing investments in the developing world. Studies dealing with the characteristics and motivations of Chinese FDI in Europe rarely deal with the Central and Eastern European region. Although significant research has been done on FDI flows to the CEEC region, most of these studies do not include Chinese investments. The literature is thus incomplete, and detailed description and analysis of this issue is lacking. The primary aim of this research was therefore to complement the literature.

Besides complementing the literature, my results also have an inherent message for CEEC corporate decision makers and policy makers. For the CEECs, the Chinese relationship is increasingly a priority, especially since the economic and financial crisis of 2008. Most countries in the region see a closer relationship with emerging economies such as China as a promising way of recovering from the recession. The further development of corporate or government strategies in this regard may be supported by the results of this research.

Methodology

Given the broad concept and geographical scope of Central and Eastern Europe, instead of focusing on the relations of all the region’s countries with the main East Asian investors, the research concentrates on a fair sample of CEEC countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. These countries were selected in consideration of their size, reflecting their proximity, growing business ties, and geographic location, as well as their political and economic relations with China. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia are the most developed and most important players in the CEEC region and are members of the Visegrad Group as well as the EU and the Schengen Area.

At the beginning of the research I reviewed theories and literature on FDI location determinants with a special focus on FDI determinants in the CEECs. The next step was to analyze the changing patterns and motivations of Chinese and other East Asian OFDI as I tried to find similarities and differences between the characteristics and motivations of Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean FDI in the CEECs. In addition, I provided a detailed description of the impact of both macroeconomic and institutional factors based on case studies and interviews with East Asian firms established in the CEECs.

To continue this research in the near future I also prepared an online opinion survey on East Asian companies' investment patterns, which will be sent out to several Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean companies operating in the CEECs to collect more information on their activities, motivations, and strategies.

Research Results

My investigation into the motivations of Chinese OFDI in the CEECs shows that Chinese investors mostly search for markets (market-seeking investment). Investors are attracted by the relatively low labor costs, skilled workforce, and market potential. EU membership allows Chinese investors to avoid trade barriers, and the countries serve as an assembly base due to the relatively low labor costs (efficiency-seeking investment). However, in parallel with the increasing number of mergers and acquisitions in the region, strategic asset-seeking motives have become more important for Chinese companies in recent years. Chinese investments are also motivated by the search for brands, new technologies, or market niches that they can fill in European markets. For example, in early 2012 Liugong Machinerys acquired Huta Stalowa Wola’s construction equipment division and its distribution subsidiary, Dressta. Secondly, in 2013 China’s Tri Ring Group Corporation acquired Polish Fabryka Łożysk Tocznych (the biggest Chinese investment in Poland so far), a producer of bearings for the automotive sector.

Chinese investment has flowed mostly into manufacturing (assembly), but over time services has attracted more and more investment as well. For example Hungary and Poland are home to branches of the Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, as well as offices of some of the largest law offices in China (Yingke Law Firm and Dacheng Law Offices). Regarding the Chinese entry mode, there are examples of greenfield or quasi-greenfield investments (Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo), as well as mergers and acquisitions (Wanhua) and joint ventures (Orient Solar, BBCA).

Having examined the CEEC-East Asian economic ties, my conclusion is that while Japan and South Korea previously had larger roles, China has increasingly come to the fore in recent years. Analyzing the difference in motivations before and after the global economic and financial crisis suggests that although the crisis did not have a direct impact on East Asian investments in the CEECs, there was an indirect impact since it was in the aftermath of the crisis that the CEECs started to search for new opportunities to help them recover from the recession. For example, Hungary's “Opening to the East” policy was initiated after (and partly as a result of) the crisis, but the crisis also made Poland look eastward. China took these opportunities and has increased sectoral representation of Chinese firms in the CEECs in recent years.

The results of my research suggest that the characteristics, motivations, and location determinants of Chinese investments in the CEECs differ somewhat from Western as well as other East Asian investors’ motivations. While macroeconomic factors, such as labour costs, market size, and corporate taxes, had and continue to have a decisive role in selecting FDI locations for investors from other countries, Chinese firms seem to attach greater importance to institutional factors. Country-level institutional factors that impact Chinese companies’ location choice within the CEECs seem to be the size of the ethnic Chinese population, as well as investment, privatization and public procurement opportunities, but also good political relations between the host country and China. One example is Hisense’s explanation of the decision to invest in Hungary. Besides traditional economic factors, this decision was apparently motivated by the “good diplomatic, economic, trade, and educational relations with China, the sizable local Chinese population, Chinese trade and commercial networks, and associations already formed.” Another example is the Nuctech company, which established its subsidiary in Poland in 2004 and participated in public procurement.

My research also suggests that the CEEC region is not homogeneous and that there are differences in the economic relations between the CEEC countries and China. Moreover, the CEECs often view each other as competitors rather than working together to achieve shared goals (that is, to attract more Chinese investment). This is unfortunate, since according to the literature on the perceptions of the CEEC region among Chinese, many Chinese business investors consider the region to be a unified bloc.

Conclusion

To conclude, I found that:
(1) The role of Chinese investments within the CEE region increased significantly after the crisis, and investment from China will be increasingly important for the countries of the region in the future, as the Chinese share of total inward FDI in the CEECs increases.
(2) Chinese investments in the CEECs differ somewhat from other countries’ investments in the region in terms of motives, which in the Chinese case are driven by both political and economic factors.
(3) The level and warmth of political relations with the host country have an increasingly important influence on Chinese companies’ investments in the region. And (4) the CEE region tends to be seen more as a unified block than as a group of countries by the Chinese. Greater cooperation among the CEECs might therefore help to increase the chances for successful economic relations with China.

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[Report] The Refugee Crisis in Europe and the Role of the Czech Republic

February 10, 2016
By null

Martin Faix and Věra Honusková, Sylff fellows from Charles University in Prague, organized a conference on the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe that was supported by an SLI grant. Tokyo Foundation director Mari Suzuki and program officer Keita Sugai attended the conference as observers. The following is a report by Keita Sugai.

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Introduction

The migrant and refugee crisis in Europe has the potential to precipitate social and geopolitical changes that could prompt the European Union to thoroughly reexamine its border policy from political, pragmatic, and humanitarian perspectives. Today, news of refugees fleeing from war-torn, failed states or oppressive dictatorships reaches readers around the world every day, and the issue has elicited both sympathy and hostility toward the migrants within the EU. While EU ministers voted for a plan to relocate 120,000 migrants and refugees in September 2015, central European countries, including Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, voted against the plan. The issue has been highly divisive.

In an attempt to gain a fuller understanding of this issue through objective, impartial discussion, Sylff fellows Martin Faix and Věra Honusková organized a one-day conference in Prague—supported by a Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI) grant—that focused on the legal dimensions of the debate. As an observer at the conference, I became acutely aware that the legal foundations of the refugee issue were often completely overlooked in the discussions intended to consider and articulate the plight of the refugees.

The SLI-funded conference on the “Refugee Crisis on the Borders of Europe and the Role of the Czech Republic” was held on November 12, 2015, at Charles University in Prague, from whose Faculty of Law both Faix and Honusková received their PhDs. The fellows have profound legal knowledge of refugee-related issues, with Honusková having substantial practical experience through her career at an NGO and in academia.

In this report, I will first provide background information and then summarize the main arguments for the legal foundations of this issue, along with other topics covered at the forum. I will also share my observations on how the two Sylff fellows succeeded in fulfilling the purposes of the conference.

Background Information

Věra Honusková

Věra Honusková

In my conversations with the fellows, I learned that the refugee issue has been politicized in their country and that attempts to stir up public sentiment have resulted in strong anti-refugee opinions and policies. When the number of refugees entering the EU increased dramatically in spring 2015, discussions oriented toward accepting them were difficult to initiate because the political environment was very negative. This was challenged by humanitarian groups on several occasions, and a groundswell of sympathy emerged when the photo of a Syrian boy found dead on the southern Turkish coastline caught worldwide attention. Arguments were made calling for a more flexible policy, and stakeholders became more willing to listen to different viewpoints.

Dr. Martin Faix

Dr. Martin Faix

Faix and Honusková carefully timed the conference to coincide with this shifting mood. Their primary objective was to examine the legal foundations of the refugee issue, and waiting until November was quite fortuitous, as policy stakeholders became more interested in different perspectives and were in need of objective policymaking guidelines.

They were successful in laying out the legal foundations in the presence of diverse stakeholders: Speakers included academics from the Czech Republic, Belgium, Hungary, and Austria; administrators from the Czech Ministry of the Interior and the Office of the Public Defender of Rights; and a judge from the Czech Constitutional Court. Their presentations stimulated intense debate, which, as planned, sometimes became very heated. Audience members included academics from domestic and other EU universities, Czech public officials and administrators, and media personnel. This diversity of participants enabled information to be conveyed from a broad spectrum of viewpoints and facilitated multifaceted discussions.

Legal Foundations

This report will not delve into the technical details of the debate, and I will only provide the essence of the legal foundations presented and discussed during the conference.

Schengen Agreement and Dublin Regulation

Legally speaking, the refugee crisis has seriously diluted the effectiveness of two important EU agreements signed by most member states. One is the Schengen Agreement, which abolished internal border controls to allow individuals to move freely within the Schengen Area. In response to the massive influx of migrants, however, some countries closed their borders to prevent their entry. These countries point to national security concerns. Many experts believe that the Schengen Agreement is no longer working and that it needs to be reconsidered.

The other is the Dublin Regulation, under which almost all migrants seeking asylum in the EU must apply to the first country of entrance—which then is responsible for reviewing the application. This convention is being questioned from the viewpoint of practicability, as it forces coastal states like Italy and Greece to be inundated with applications. Germany’s announcement in August 2015 that it will accept applications from Syrians who had neither applied for refugee status nor had their applications reviewed was seen as the moment that made states give up on the strict enforcement of the Dublin Regulation.

It is important to note, though, that the massive scale of the migration in 2015 was totally unforeseen by these two agreements. This is not to say that they are flawed but that emergency, intervention measures are needed.

Convention on Refugees

The 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees is a UN multilateral treaty that contains a definition of a refugee, the rights of individuals granted asylum, and the responsibilities of nations granting asylum.

According to the definition that was amended in a 1967 protocol, a refugee is a person who is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable or unwilling to return owing to a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” Refugees are protected by the principle of “non-refoulement,” or forcible return, which the parties to the convention must observe. It is a safeguard to prevent refugees from being returned against their will to territories where their life or freedom could be threatened.

The speakers talked of the convention as something like a Magna Carta, serving as the basis of all other legal documents on the rights and entitled protections of refugees.

European Union Law

Article 67 of European Union law (Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) states: “[The Union] shall ensure the absence of internal border controls for persons and shall frame a common policy on asylum, immigration and external border control, based on solidarity between Member States.” Article 77, meanwhile, states: “The Union shall develop a policy with a view to: (a) ensuring the absence of any controls on persons, whatever their nationality, when crossing internal borders; . . . [and] (c) the gradual introduction of an integrated management system for external borders.” And Article 78 states: “The Union shall develop a common policy on asylum, subsidiary protection and temporary protection with a view to offering appropriate status to any third-country national requiring international protection and ensuring compliance with the principle of non-refoulement.”

The provisions concerning asylum for refugees thus reaffirm the Refugee Convention’s protocol regarding the rights of refugees and responsibilities of member states. It is notable that EU law upholds a “common policy” on the protection of refugees. This is a strong argument for EU member states to undertake necessary measures collectively, especially if the Schengen and Dublin agreements are not fulfilling their originally envisioned common policy goals.

What emerged from the conference was a message that member states are required, under the Geneva Convention and EU law, to provide relief measures for refugees to some extent but that they can fulfill those requirements in a number of ways. There is a need to respond to the humanitarian crisis, but states do not necessarily have to allow all people who come to Europe’s shores to settle in the EU. The issue is made more legally complicated by the fact that many of those entering Europe are not refugees in the conventional sense. The most difficult and controversial aspects of the issue are how the legal foundations should be applied in enabling practical policy measures when political interests and orientations dictate a different response. EU member states were divided over their policy choices, as the actual number of migrants in 2015 far exceeded levels envisioned under the current policy framework.

Many of the EU members opposed to allowing the entry of refugees, including the Czech Republic, pointed to national security concerns. The tone of the debate was dominated by a sense of crisis, and political emotions ran high, fostering negative views toward the acceptance of refugees.

The conference highlighted the point, though, that EU member states cannot avoid their responsibilities. The fellows explained to me that many participating political and government officials, as well as the mass media, came away from the conference with a heightened interest in the legal dimensions of the issue. There is no doubt a need to keep political emotions in check and encourage more objective discussions; this conference could be the first step toward that goal.

The fellows were thus very careful about downplaying the influence of emotion and creating an environment conducive to objective, sober debate. For example, speakers were discouraged from using visual images of refugees, particularly of children, which could trigger a sympathetic, humanitarian response.

Other Issues

These discussions raised more fundamental questions about the nature and role of the European Union. The EU was established to consolidate certain functions of national governments and promote solidarity. Member states must act as one on a broad range of policy issues. The refugee crisis alone will not erode the EU’s spirit of solidarity, which is required in addressing the many challenges it faces, including financial crises, economic stagnation and unemployment, conflict with Russia over Ukraine, and Britain’s possible withdrawal. But a critical mistake in a key policy area could produce seeds of fragmentation. The fact that the conference addressed the refugee problem with reference to fundamental aspects of the EU was an excellent idea.

Another insight into the fundamental aspects of the refugee crisis was gained through the introduction of historical documents from about a hundred year ago, which showed that sovereign states did not have a key role in maintaining migrant controls. Culture was, in some ways, a bigger factor in human mobility, not only leading to a reexamination of the status quo but also prompting major changes. Adapting to changing circumstances enabled cultures to grow stronger, thereby facilitating their continued and sustainable development. Discussions of the refugee crisis thus shed new light on the fundamental role and historical significance of the EU process.

Conclusion

The Sylff Leadership Initiatives program is intended to support fellows wishing to address socially relevant issues. Honusková and Faix were well aware of the aims of SLI and had a shared interest in taking an objective look at the influx of migrants into Europe. Their efforts to promote thorough debate from a legal point of view—whose importance had often been overlooked—contributed to the success of the conference. Honusková and Faix are both experts on the legal aspects of the refugee issue; the two worked effectively as a team, with Honusková taking the lead in shaping the substance of the discussions, while Faix was mainly responsible for administrative matters.

There was no time to bask in the afterglow of their success, however. On November 13, 2015, only one day after the conference, terrorists launched coordinated attacks in Paris that killed over a hundred people. This tragedy has negatively impacted on efforts to protect and accept refugees, making it all the more imperative to promote levelheaded, legally grounded debate. I have invited Faix and Honusková to write about the conference and the refugee crisis in their own words in a forthcoming Voices article.

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[Report] An Initiative to Nurture Young Musicians in Lithuania

January 25, 2016
By null

A national music festival to promote the training of young Lithuanian musicians was organized by Dalia Dedinskaite and Gleb Pysniak, Sylff fellows who attended the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Called Ars Lituanica, the forum was held between December 3 and 7, 2014, at Balys Dvarionis Music School in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius as a Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI) project.

* * *

Young Lithuanian musicians have considerable trouble acquiring high-quality music instruments that will allow them to adequately improve their skills. Violinist Dalia Dedinskaite and cellist Gleb Pysniak were no exceptions, who faced this difficulty when they moved from their native Lithuania to Vienna to receive professional music training. Prices for fine European instruments start at around 10,000 euros for violins 18,000 euros for cellos. These are far too high for many Lithuanians, whose average monthly salary is just 531 euros, according to official government statistics.

Dedinskaite and Pysniak were able to overcome this challenge thanks to their professors’ support and their own determined efforts, but the experience left a deep impression, making them realize the acute need to help young musicians in their own country. It was through this experience that the idea for Ars Lituanica—a national forum and competition for violinists and cellists—was conceived. The idea eventually came to life through their strong initiative, passion for music, and love for their country.

Dedinskaite, left, and Pysniak

Dedinskaite, left, and Pysniak

They first succeeded in gaining the cooperation of famous and acknowledged craftsmen of stringed instruments—Wolfram Ries of Germany and Valdas Stravinskas of Lithuania—who agreed to lend their instruments as competition prizes and for exhibition during the forum. They also secured the patronage of President Dalia Grybauskaitė of Lithuania, who sent a message of encouragement to forum participants. They also gained the support of the Lithuanian Council for Culture, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, and a number of private businesses. Thanks to these efforts, the forum attracted many outstanding young Lithuanian musicians and the interest of a broad segment of the general public.

The main aim of the forum was to draw the attention of young musicians—along with their teachers and parents—to the importance of musical instruments in the development of their skills and to give the best young Lithuanian musicians the opportunity to use world-class stringed instruments and to perform at concerts in Lithuania.

National Competition

The highlight of the four-day forum was a national violin and cello competition, in which the winners were given the privilege of using top-quality violins and cellos for one year. In the first round, held on December 4 and 5, 18 musicians competed in two age categories, and in the final round on December 7, eight finalists competed for a chance to use the four valuable instruments.

In the 14–17 age group, the winners were awarded the use of a violin and cello made by Lithuanian luthier Valdas Stravinskas. The violin is valued at approximately 5,800 euros and the cello at 10,000 euros. The winners in the 18–22 age group were given the opportunity to use a violin and cello made by German luthier Wolfram Ries, valued at 12,000 euros and 22,000 euros, respectively.

The winning contestants also performed at the Kaledinis Vilnius (Christmas in Vilnius) festival at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum.

A Festive Atmosphere

An exhibition of the first modern string instruments in Lithuania was held as a side event, which was full of visitors over all four days. Luthiers were also on hand to speak with students, teachers, and professional musicians; make small adjustments and new bridges for violins and cellos; and rehair bows.

On December 6 luthiers held a workshop on the history of string instruments, answering questions and giving tips on the proper care of their instruments as well as on how musicians can improve their sound and comfort during performances.

Also on December 6 Dedinskaite and Pysniak joined violin virtuoso and professor Christian Altenburger to give masterclasses to competition participants and other young Lithuanian musicians.

The forum concluded on December 7 with a concert by the competition winners and an awards ceremony.

Major Impact

Ars Lituanica was a tremendous success. The event attracted great media attention, with over 30 articles appearing in major Lithuanian newspapers. Fellows Dalia Dedinskaite and Gleb Pysniak were interviewed by Lithuanian National Radio, and Lithuanian National Television aired footage of the Kaledinis Vilnius festival concert by the prize winners on the main evening news.

“During the Forum, a very cozy, fancy, festive atmosphere could be felt,” commented Pysniak in an article published by 15min.lt, a popular web-based newspaper in Lithuania. “It is a great pleasure to help young talents to pursue greatness in music by improving their performance technique and playing characteristics. And it is good to know that there are so many gifted and promising musicians in Lithuania.”

In the same article Dedinskaite said she was very happy that renowned violin virtuoso and educator Christian Altenburger visited Lithuania and gave his first concert in the country.

“Young musicians were able to not only learn from Mr. Altenburger’s experience but listen to his music as well,” she noted. “The most important thing is that this project was a success and that four young, talented artists were granted the chance to use top-class instruments. I hope that this event will become an annual tradition.”

Going Forward

Dedinskaite, second from right, and Pysniak, third from right, with the prize winners and juries at the ceremony.

Dedinskaite, second from right, and Pysniak, third from right, with the prize winners and juries at the ceremony.

Pysniak and Dedinskaite are themselves outstanding performers, but they were not satisfied with striving only for personal success. Displaying strong leadership, they sought to make a contribution to raising standards of musical performance in their country in a creative and imaginative manner. Their passion and enthusiasm persuaded government organizations and private businesses to offer their support, significantly enhancing the impact of the event. The Tokyo Foundation hopes that their SLI project will inspire and encourage other fellows with similar aspirations to launch a project aimed at bringing positive changes to society.

We hope that the young musicians who participated in the forum will become leaders of the classical music scene, emerging as role models for the next generation of young artists in Lithuania and around the world.

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Rising India: When and How?

December 10, 2015
By null

Joyashree Roy, the Sylff Programme Director at Jadavpur University since 2003, is researching multidisciplinary approaches to understanding developmental and climate challenges, and is among the network of scientists who shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). She provides an Indian perspective on climate challenges.

* * *

I often hear debates about how India might rise over the course of the next two and half decades, by which time the country’s population growth will be peaking. Should India reinvent the wheel of progress or should it try to catch up? Thirty percent of human settlements in India have already followed the path of progress that has proved successful in improving individual quality of life and are on the way to adopting solutions for improving social and environmental quality. So the real question is about the remaining 70% of settlements, where people do not have adequate access to basic necessities like energy for cooking, lighting, cooling and heating, safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, shelter from natural calamities, access to good healthcare service, sufficient skills to participate in mainstream discourse, and so on.

Through hard work, knowledge, wisdom and scientific endeavour, humanity has made tremendous progress over the past centuries in its ability to take care of personal hygiene, health, and to protect the social and natural environment. India is already on that pathway. There is no reason why the Indian population in poor settlements will not rise, taking advantage of the proven knowledge embedded in advanced technology, infrastructure design, and the energy service supply. If we talk of equality and justice there can be no denial of progress for the rest of India, given that no difference exists in human aspiration levels. The faster we move to bridge the gap, the faster peace and harmony will arrive, along with a society that can wisely deliver environmental good. Urban green spaces, urban agriculture, and urban biodiversity are boosting the growth of a new service sector.

Millions must bathe and cook in villages with no private water access arrangements and no modern fuel and technology access due to supply constraints and poverty.

Millions must bathe and cook in villages with no private water access arrangements and no modern fuel and technology access due to supply constraints and poverty.

Political arguments and scientific literature focused exclusively on rather simplistic interdependencies like “poverty as a driver of environmental degradation” or “indoor air pollution and rural women’s health” have failed to achieve more than incremental changes over the past three or four decades. Besides some fuel subsidy programs, these political arguments could generate some philanthropic extensions, NGO activities with government support for improved cooking stove programs involving the public distribution system, and some solar lantern distribution systems, in addition now to some solar-based micro grid system demonstration projects. But no transformative change can yet be seen. The debate has been rejuvenated in the context of “energy poverty and climate change.” Now is the time for questioning the past experiments that have involved a confused search for unknown alternative growth paths which are sometimes questionable from the point of view of both efficiency and justice.

How can India deny what we know to be the most efficient examples of land use patterns in human settlement design, in which a strip of road provides space for multiple basic service delivery infrastructure, including water supply pipelines, transport and mobility, telecommunications, drainage and sewerage, a grid-based electric supply, T&D network, street lighting, and avenue plantation? How can we not keep options for vertical and horizontal living patterns for Indians, while the rest of the world is enjoying these options and not discarding them?

Typical drinking water access technology requires no electricity, but it can often deliver arsenic-laced water leading to health hazards for millions of people in Rural Bengal (Roy and Das , 2015).

Typical drinking water access technology requires no electricity, but it can often deliver arsenic-laced water leading to health hazards for millions of people in Rural Bengal (Roy and Das , 2015).

Today there is no mystery about how to effectively purify water for safe drinking. Nevertheless, people still die of water-borne diseases in 70% of settlements in India. Lack of an adequate power supply is the major reason for a lack of safe water. How can there be any debate about extending the grid to supply power to all settlements? Why should there be policies or actions taken in favor of not extending the grid-based electric supply over larger parts of India in the name of a dream of an alternative developmental trajectory? This dream involves solar lanterns, solar power–based domestic lighting systems and micro grids, but does not lead anywhere except back to the initial state of affairs. Such experiments may have satisfied some philanthropists and enriched solar technology research outcomes. But ultimately their main result has been to delay progress in the quality of life of those communities by two or three decades.

Today, when frustration is leading to social conflicts over lack of access to basic facilities and competition for better facilities in local communities, the first step to be adopted is the establishment of grid power connectivity. It is grossly wrong to say that Indians need three bulbs to light their houses and no more, on the assumption that their aspiration levels are low. Do Indians have to consume less as latecomers in development while food waste is a way of life in many rich communities and countries? These are questions of justice.

It is easy to see that lack of adequate infrastructure kills aspiration. Potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, onions, and other vegetables and fruits are left to rot in many villages because of a lack of cold storage facilities. Food-processing industries are not able to move to the point of produce because of lack of adequate power connections. Life therefore remains stuck at subsistence level, and the day ends with sunset. This has nothing to do with aspiration levels. Hot summer days of 40 degrees Celsius and 98% humidity take a toll on life and labor productivity. It is not that simple Indians do not want air-conditioned spaces. Nor can any ethical consideration be put forward to say that Indians should not aspire to have space cooling as they become affluent enough to afford it, on the grounds that it will mean increased global warming. These are the minimum aspirations for good living and for productive thinking.

It was proved fifty years ago how India can achieve food security using modern tools and techniques and scientific research. Today, thanks to improved irrigation facilities and advanced agricultural equipment, India produces no fewer than a dozen top-quality varieties of rice, cereals, mangos, and so on. If strategically managed, these resources would be able not only to feed India’s own population but also to feed large parts of the rest of the world. The much-bruited adverse impact on soil quality and water table levels are misrepresentations of the environmental concerns: they result from a lack of investment in environmental resources management and in managing these resources. Experiences in the field give grounds for hope, when orchards are seen replacing paddy cultivation in some of the degraded lands of Punjab, drip irrigation is replacing flooded irrigation, and vegetables and horticulture are bringing in more cash and adding diversity to dietary habits.

As a result of anticipated high power needs over the next twenty years, even coal use will not peak within the next decade. Even if the most ambitious targets are met and coal use declines dramatically by 2050, coal capacity will still be at 2012 levels. Carbon capture and storage technology will need serious consideration if the capacity needs to be decarbonised at that time. Solar and wind power are increasing and together are expected to account for almost 40% of total electricity generation capacity in 25 years’ time. But it will be difficult to close the door on other non-carbon power sources like nuclear and hydro once the total generation capacity reaches levels six times higher than at present. These growth rates are merely those required for providing universal access to a decent life and are far removed from a lifestyle that would change dietary habits, currently based on locally grown agricultural produce and low per capita meat consumption (approximately 5 kg per capita a year, compared to 120 kg in the United States and 80 kg in Germany).

India’s energy-intensive industries are almost on a par with the best technologies globally. Technological advancement promises to deliver efficiency and justice simultaneously. Energy-efficient home appliances can deliver the same service level for millions more with the same energy supply, and perhaps without increasing total energy use. All the air conditioners in India today can be given a five-star rating. So there is no reason why India should not succeed in bringing its masses through the mainstream developmental pathway. The work of delivering universal human wellbeing (better shelter, better workplaces, a healthier environment, and so on) should not only be maintained but pursued with all vigour. It is now or never.

India cannot afford to miss out on the demographic dividend. The youth of the country needs to innovate the path toward their future wellbeing using modern science. If humanity is to live in peace and harmony—the two best indicators of human wellbeing—let’s not delay India’s progress in the name of experimenting with romantic ideas of alternative development models or “degrowth.”

Let us remind ourselves of what India has achieved so far, even after following global developmental trends. India’s total electricity generation equals that of Russia today and is at the same level as China in 1994. Less than 10% of urban households own a car; car-sharing is a lifestyle in India, 42% still use a bicycle, motorized two-wheelers are used by 35% of urban households, per capita CO2 emissions are less than 2 metric tons, compared to 17 MT in the United States, 7 MT in the EU, and 6.7 MT in China. Industries have begun to adopt cleaner production to maintain global competitiveness. Whereas the industrial output growth rate in the 1970s was roughly equal to the energy demand growth rate, in the current decade technology growth has decoupled activity growth and energy demand growth to such an extent that a five-fold increase in energy growth can now produce twenty-fold activity growth thanks to energy-saving technology.

From an Indian perspective, growth now, with the adoption of increasingly advanced technology, means progress and justice for the masses. The search for alternative development models should and will continue, given human curiosity and imagination. But experimenting with India would be equivalent to “development delayed is development denied.” How can we ask the poor of India not to aspire for better food, better hygiene, and better health? Who has given the privileged few the right to deny them these options?

Joyashree Roy is an ICSSR National Fellow, Professor of Economics, Coordinator, Global Change Programme, JU-Sylff Programme Director, Jadavpur University. This text was originally written for the German magazine welt-sichten, and was published in German in the September issue.

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Using Traditional Patriarchal Institutions to Address Women’s Problems

December 4, 2015
By 19655

That modernity does not necessarily bring secularisation in most parts of the world is knowledge rarely disputed in our times. People working in the field of development are increasingly acknowledging the continuing influence of patriarchal2 religious norms on individual and collective life and looking for ways to promote female empowerment within the local reality.3 At the same time, there is growing evidence that gender-specific programmes in the past have produced negative side effects, perhaps because they failed to understand the interdependent livelihoods of men and women in traditional societies. This has led to some efforts to make men and boys central actors of female empowerment.4 Ordinary women in more traditional societies still grapple with culture-specific challenges that are rarely addressed in global initiatives. These include fundamentalist wars against their piety, frictions between modernisation and cultural identity, and intergenerational communication problems that interfere with young women’s choices.5

These were some of the challenges local people repeatedly conveyed to me through their accounts during a year of research in sub-Saharan Africa. The project described here was designed in response to these findings, and proposes to address asymmetries in the lifestyles and livelihoods of men and women working through the patriarchal institutions that inevitably make up the building blocks of most traditional societies. Pragmatic development must be relevant to the realities of local people, and must work within those realities to create an environment for change from within that is led by the people themselves out of their free choice.

Background

The idea that development programmes need to be cautious not to promote existing inequalities between men and women is the product of Western feminist movements. Gender sensitivity has been a mainstream part of development since at least the 1995 International Conference on Women held in Beijing.6 In 2013, in an attempt to understand the need to integrate gender-sensitivity in African agricultural development programmes, I embarked on a year-long fieldwork project in Ghana, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Tanzania.7 My methodology was to listen to what men and women had to say about their livelihoods, to observe how men and women lived together, and to become exposed to Western gender and development approaches so as to investigate their impact.

The findings overall revealed a gap between people’s nuanced lifestyles (and the even more nuanced relationships between men and women) and the theoretical assumptions underpinning most gender and development programmes. The mainstream theoretical framework seemed to be premised on a consistent set of assumptions about gender relations in other countries and the implicit idea that most cultural influences are pernicious to women. In addition, the fact that gender analysis was done from the standpoint of leading Western societies meant that the impact of faith on material life was rarely researched or accounted for. In the societies where I lived, however, it was evident that cultural and faith-based ideas and beliefs shaped gender identities and relations, also influencing women’s possibilities as food producers. It was rarely recognised in the programmes I saw that improving women’s livelihoods would require understanding and engaging with these deeply embedded ideas and socialisation norms first. I therefore developed an alternative strategy that would include traditional institutions both in the analysis of gender realities and in sensitisation processes. Getting local religious and patriarchal figures involved in this process was another priority.

My proposal was to achieve this by combining ethnographic methods of research with participatory methodologies for community discussion. The process of group sensitization would be guided by ERDA methodology, a tool developed by research partners at the University of Tennessee to promote collective problem solving in communities.8 Through such a process of collective dialogue participants were expected to become more aware of the positives and negatives in their community. The gender-sensitive aspect of the approach would in turn provide a platform for thinking about asymmetries in the livelihoods and social roles of men and women, and trace their origin possibly in religious and cultural conventions. At the same time, ERDA would guide the process of sensitization and reduce my role to that of interlocutor. I employed this approach for the first time in the community of Guédé Chantier in Senegal, in response to an invitation by the mayor, Dr. Ousmane Aly Pame, to support the community’s development in ways that would be inclusive and culture-sensitive.9

Socio-economic Conditions through the Gender Lens in Guédé Chantier

Guédé Chantier and the central canal that enables farmers to irrigate their rice.

Guédé Chantier and the central canal that enables farmers to irrigate their rice fields.

Guédé Chantier was established in 1933 by the French colonial administration as an irrigated agriculture project, resettling some 50 families to the area to grow rice. The original local inhabitants were Fulani, although today Guédé is ethnically diverse. The population is homogenously Muslim, with the majority belonging to the Sufi branch of Islam, and specifically the Tidjanniya brotherhood.10 Guédé has a population of approximately 7,000, with a large population of young women.

Men are expected to provide for their families. They usually work in pastoralist, agricultural, fishing, artisanal, and entrepreneurial activities in the village and nearby areas. Women are responsible for looking after children and running the house. Many women work small parcels of land to produce vegetables, which they sell to buy cooking materials. Almost all women are involved in the transformation of raw foodstuffs for sale, including preparing salted peanuts and turning rice into flour.

Khadija, a mother of four in a polygynous marriage, preparing salted peanuts.

Khadija, a mother of four in a polygynous marriage, preparing salted peanuts.

Currently the community faces a number of problems, including soil depletion, water pollution due to use of synthetic fertilizers, shortage of pastoral land, drought, unstable income due to seasonal problems, and migration. Women have limited control of land, limited access to agricultural inputs, and find it difficult to secure credit. Livelihoods for both men and women are becoming more difficult as the price of living increases. This is felt particularly by women, who must manage daily household needs on very meagre funds.

Project Activities

A. Context Analysis

The project was planned as three rounds of activities to unfold over the period of one year. In the first round, I completed questionnaires with men and women in their homes that asked them about their livelihoods and gender-specific challenges. I also spoke to key informants, representatives from local youth organisations, and ordinary men and women. Two focus group discussions—one with men and another with women—were held to unpack profounder religious and cultural beliefs and norms underpinning girls’ and boys’ socialisation. This information was used to prepare the participatory workshop.

Participants’ own definitions of “development.”

Participants’ own definitions of “development.”

B. Participatory Workshop

The workshop had a timeline of two days; it attracted 14 participants on the first day, and 21 on the second (38% female). The group was diverse in terms of age, education levels, marital status, and other socio-economic characteristics. 11 The workshop followed the ERDA methodology, starting with an evaluation of current realities, followed by exercises to bring out problems caused by the intersection of traditional values and norms and modern influences, to assess possible needs and opportunities, and ultimately to produce a platform for action toward sustainable community growth.

Participants reflecting on how they understand “development” in the context of their own lives.

Participants reflecting on how they understand “development” in the context of their own lives.

In the second part of the workshop, a conversation about moral values led participants to examine their ideas and perceptions about people from different backgrounds, and the issue of equality and difference. This led gradually to the topic of the relations between men and women in Pulaar society. Young men and women, both married and single, worked together to list differences and similarities between men’s and women’s livelihoods. Participants also discussed the impact of family, schooling, and religious education on their perceptions about women and men and their respective roles in society. A conversation about spousal and inter-generational communication followed. Although disagreement occasionally halted dialogue early on, by the end of the workshop participants were fully engaged and more aware of their shared identities than differences. Participants also expressed excitement at the ERDA methodology, which they felt could be replicated to promote other communal development initiatives.12

C. Meeting with Patriarchal Leaders

Working together to identify differences and shared characteristics between men and women.

Working together to identify differences and shared characteristics between men and women.

In the second round of activities a meeting was held with religious leaders: Muslim clerics and local elders (a total of nine participants). I planned this discussion to summarise the participatory workshop and its findings to the local ‘patriarchs,’ and to discuss issues of equality in Islam as they had been articulated during the workshop, the focus groups and the personal interviews. The aim was to hear how local leaders thought about the intersection of faith-based, culturally embedded norms about men and women and the needs of younger generations in a constantly globalising world. I also wanted to see how they would visualise development in their community, and their role and responsibility in it.

Progress and Future Directions

The ethnographic activities showed that men and women have different roles, responsibilities, and expectations in this society. The asymmetries in livelihoods most likely reflect religious norms compounded by cultural practices. Patriarchal arrangements of social life, such as in the ways land is allocated, did seem to make equality more difficult to sustain. But the real impediment was found in mentalities that viewed women as less capable than men and belonging exclusively in the home. The participatory workshop showed that most people are interested in change and condone equality, but in ways that do not depart from patriarchal structures that they perceive as foundational to either faith or culture. Any intervention that aims to address women's problems would need to take into account this subtle relationship between growing ideas of equality and a strong sense of identity, especially in cases where the latter combines with an androcentric worldview.

It also emerged from the activities that there is much untapped potential for personal and economic growth in women’s agricultural and revenue-generating activities at home. From the conversation with religious leaders it became evident that they would not oppose economic activities led by women, although there was a general preference that women should not work. Because women spend most of their time within the house, growing food in gardens was identified as a possible pathway for providing women with a stable and independent source of income, and also improving their children’s nutritional habits in the long run (which currently lack diversity).

Subsequently, in a third trip to the village, a workshop was held with women on the themes of nutrition and agriculture. The workshop again employed the ERDA methodology of collective dialogue. In the discussions, women recognised linkages between cultural influences and tradition and current nutritional practices and deficiencies, and raised the need for change. Some participants proposed forming an association for women that would pilot a collective project to grow more nutritionally rich foods at the established local genetic centre. In line with this project’s premises that change must be free-willed and start from within, it was left to the local population to decide how they will leverage on the ERDA activities and what changes they will proceed to make.13

Objectives, Aims, and Expectations

This project’s objective has been two-fold: first, to see more community members sensitised about differences and asymmetries in the lifestyles and livelihoods of men and women, and second to create an environment for men and women to come together, discuss their problems and needs, and become aware of new collective and individual pathways for action. The underlying aim was to pilot a new approach to development practice that is based on local gender knowledges, and does not attempt to impose change based on a priori conceptualisations of what ideal gender relations should be. The activities in the village also provided the context for my masters research titled “Gender through the Lens of Religion: An Ethnographic Study from Senegal” (University of Sussex, Institute of Development Studies), which should add to the field’s understanding of the intersection of faith-based worldviews and Western ideas of gender equality, as well as the implications of this intersection for sustainable development in African societies and elsewhere.14

“Power lies with the individual who has the freedom of choice. This choice, however, requires will, maturity and knowledge.” Young woman in Guédé Chantier

1I would like to thank sincerely the Tokyo Foundation in Japan for believing in the proposal I submitted, and for granting me the means to begin to realise it. I also want to thank Dr. Harwood Schaffer at the University of Tennessee for sharing his work with me and introducing me to the community of Guédé Chantier, and its first Mayor Dr. Ousmane Pame, for willingly accepting my proposal and facilitating my fieldwork and activities there. I also wholeheartedly thank the population of Guédé Chantier for accepting me and for showing patience and willingness to engage with this endeavour.

2‘Patriarchy’ etymologically results from the combination of two words, pater>patria and arkhein, which mean respectively ‘father>family/clan’ and ‘to begin/to rule/to command’ (Online Etymology Dictionary). Patriarchy here then is not defined as androcentrism, but as an organisational structure in which the male plays a central role. Whether a male-led institution becomes unequal will depend on how that subject uses the authority given to him.

3See for example E. Tomalin (ed.), 2015, The Routledge Handbook or Religions and Global Development. Routledge.

4See for example E. Esplen and A. Brody, 2007, Putting Gender Back in the Picture: Rethinking Women's Economic Empowerment, http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/sites/bridge.ids.ac.uk/files/reports/BB19_Economic_Empowerment.pdf

5It is little surprise that many scholars in developing countries continue to call for alternative epistemological approaches to gender theorisation. See for example O. Oyěwùmí, (ed.), 2011, Gender Epistemologies in Arica: Gendering Traditions, Spaces, Social Institutions, and Identities, Palgrave McMillan. The same position is echoed in anthropological arguments that have long called for practice designed on the basis of local knowledge. See for example L. T. Smith, 1999, Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous People, London: Zed Books Ltd.

6See for example C. Moser, 1993, Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training, Routledge: London and New York.

7I was awarded the Thomas J. Watson fellowship by the eponymous foundation in New York after being nominated by Bates College in 2012. The project was of my own conceptualisation and design, and was implemented during the period of one year.

8This tool was developed by research partners at the University of Tennessee. It is known by the acronym ERDA (Evaluate, Research, Develop and Assess), and according to my partner, Dr. Harwood Schaffer, was adapted from a well-known tool in Business Studies called Cycle of Innovation. It was designed to set in motion an ongoing cycle of community insight-sharing and re-assessment, securing community ownership of decision-making, to encourage cooperative problem-solving. It was developed on the idea that when practitioners depart, the community must be able to continue to resolve its problems independently.

9Dr. Pame as introduced to me through my research partner at the University of Tennessee, who was at the time working closely with Dr. Pame to address agriculture-related issues in the community. Since Guédé Chantier was upgraded to the status of a commune (2008-2009), Dr. Pame has been committed to mobilising its local population toward more sustainable growth pathways. The community was reportedly the first to be registered as an eco-village.

10Sufism is the mystical version of Islam, and is defined by the followers’ search for inner spirituality and approximation of God. The Tidjanis share three foundational principles, which are: 1. Praying to be forgiven for your sins (‘Astafiroullah’), 2. Recognising no one as divine but God (‘La Illa Ha Illalah’), 3. Praying to the Prophet Mohammad (‘Salatou Allale Nabby’). (Principal Imam Abdoulaye Ly, personal interview, 1 April 2015, consent granted).

11Participation at this point was self-selected, however an attempt was made to communicate directly with women and men in the community so as to ensure that everyone was informed before the day of the workshop.

12Participants proposed various suggestions, but due to the fact that we ran out of time, no action plan was created. The different pathways were discussed in follow-up conversations.

13My conviction is that development must respect free choice. This echoes the work of Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize in Economics 1998). My approach takes Sen’s theory seriously and recognises that people value different things and that development must be formulated based on such values. See A. Sen, 1999, Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press.

14This has become my MA dissertation at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, under the title “Gender through the Lens of Religion: An Ethnographic Study from a Muslim Community in Senegal”.

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The Socioeconomic Dimension of Irrawaddy Dolphin Conservation

November 9, 2015
By 19660

Sierra Deutsch, a Sylff fellow at the University of Oregon, went to Myanmar and Cambodia to assess the two countries’ different approaches to natural resource management. In this article, she describes the preliminary findings of her research and argues that the experiences of local people affected by natural resource policies are important and may have implications for the success of those policies.

* * *

The Mekong

The Mekong

As concern has grown over the alarming acceleration of environmental problems since the emergence of the industrial era, the science of natural resource management has evolved in an effort to confront such issues. In recent years, conservation efforts have shifted from a focus on individual species to an ecosystem-based management (EBM) approach. With this change, the concept of the “human dimensions” of resource management—which emphasizes the diverse forms of knowledge and beliefs of stakeholders and their incorporation in conservation policy1—has come to the fore2,3. It is now widely recognized that natural resource management is really about the management of natural resource users 1,3,4. Taking it a step further, recent research has pointed to the importance of socioeconomic analyses in conservation research strategies 5,6.

Historically, the question “Is this conservation project working?” has often been answered without considering the perceptions and experiences of the people whose livelihoods are most directly affected by conservation policies 7,8. While biological indicators are obviously an important part of conservation work, understanding how conservation programs are perceived and experienced by the local communities most affected by them is also vital—both for the sake of the communities themselves and because support from those communities may have important implications for the long-term success of conservation efforts.

Cambodia critical dolphin habitat and research sites

Cambodia critical dolphin habitat and research sites

The Status of the Irrawaddy Dolphin

The Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) inhabits rivers throughout Southeast Asia and coastal waters in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the Bay of Bengal to the Philippines 9. The species is listed as “threatened” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with five sub-populations listed as “critically endangered.” Since the dolphins are not hunted directly for consumption, they are considered a “nonconsumptive” resource.

The main threats to their survival are upstream industrial pollution, accidental catches by gillnet fishing, and mortalities resulting from electro-fishing 9,10,11,12.

Myanmar: Critical dolphin habitat and research sites

Myanmar: Critical dolphin habitat and research sites

Conservation measures that seek to aid in the recovery of Irrawaddy dolphin populations must therefore address the socioeconomic factors that indirectly affect their survival, making Irrawaddy dolphin conservation projects an ideal focus for a study on the socioeconomic dimension of conservation initiatives.

Conservation measures for the Irrawaddy dolphin vary by country. They include attempts to mitigate habitat degradation, restrictions on the fishing practices and gear that endanger the dolphins, educational outreach, poverty alleviation through development, encouragement of tourism, and formation of fisher cooperatives 9,10,12. Each country has had varying success in conservation of the Irrawaddy dolphin and, because of its widespread distribution in multiple countries, the Irrawaddy dolphin is also an ideal subject for a cross-country comparison of conservation projects.

Diversification vs. Preservation: Two Contrasting Approaches

Fisherman on the Ayeyarwady River (Myanmar)

Fisherman on the Ayeyarwady River (Myanmar)

Cambodia’s approach seeks to preserve the status quo of privatized resources and focuses more on the diversification of livelihoods and the economic development of rural communities 13. Meanwhile, Myanmar has focused more on the preservation of livelihoods in rural communities 14. Cambodia’s approach seems to be failing and the imminent extinction of its dolphin population has been predicted 15, while Myanmar’s approach seems relatively successful 14. Yet the perceptions and experiences of these policies by the people that are most directly affected, while taken into consideration during planning and implementation 4,14, seem to have been largely ignored once the policies have been implemented.

Bringing Local People into the Discussion

Fisherman on the Mekong (Cambodia)

Fisherman on the Mekong (Cambodia)

I used questionnaires to gather data for the hypotheses I have about different perceptions of conservation among the participants. But I also wanted to make sure that participants were given an opportunity to highlight what was important to them. Too many well-intentioned Western researchers go to “developing”countries and make assumptions about the needs and desires of their participants without bothering to ask the local people in those countries what they think. Of course, I had to set out with at least a few questions and expectations in mind—if only because it is virtually impossible to get funding without them! But I purposely chose to carry out personal interviews and focus-group discussions—in addition to questionnaires and participant observation—to allow participants to tell me what was important to them and what they wanted foreign researchers to help with in the future.

Preliminary Findings

At the conclusion of my fieldwork, I had a total of 128 individual interviews, 275 completed questionnaires, and 25 focus-group discussions. These came from 8 riverside villages in Myanmar and another 8 in Cambodia (16 villages in total). The data are still in the preliminary stages of analysis: All of the audio recordings still need to be transcribed in Burmese and Khmer and then translated. (I felt this was a more accurate way of assessing the data, since the interpreters I used on-site may have left out some of what was said, assuming it wasn’t important enough to repeat). However, I have already seen several themes emerge and hope to confirm them once I have the full translations.

One of the research villages Myanmar

One of the research villages Myanmar

First, virtually all participants seem to think fondly of the Irrawaddy dolphin and expressed a desire to continue to protect it. Second, many participants in both countries seemed to express frustration with ongoing corruption—law enforcement often takes monetary bribes in exchange for “looking the other way” when illegal fishing gear (which unintentionally harms dolphins as well) is used in the river. Many of those participants seemed concerned for the future of the river and its ability to supply the fish that is their primary source of protein. Third, while participants in both countries seem to feel that conditions in their communities have improved over the last 10 years, I was surprised by the differences in how participants expressed that improvement.

Many of the people in Cambodia—where they have experienced a shift toward capitalism since the early 1980s—tended to emphasize the presence and role of money in their lives, often discussing improvements in terms of people having bigger houses, owning motorbikes or cars, and having more money in general (basically, the standard symbols of Western “wealth”). In contrast, participants in Myanmar—where they have just recently begun to experience a shift toward capitalism since 2010—seemed to place more emphasis on community enrichment, frequently discussing improvements in terms of things like better schools, improved medical treatment, and the construction of flood walls. While these are only preliminary findings that need to be confirmed, they are also just a few of the themes immediately obvious from the data. I am confident that many exciting and important findings remain to be made.

Encouraging the Involvement of Underrepresented Groups

Traveling has always been one of my great loves. As I spent more time traveling, particularly in developing countries, I gradually became aware of a desire to address the social and environmental problems that seemed to be everywhere. I had the opportunity to meet many people along the way from diverse geopolitical regions, cultures, ethnicities, religions, genders, and ages who were contributing to solutions for these social and environmental problems.

Around the same time, I began to become aware of my undeserved privilege as a middle-class, white North American to access resources—such as education and the ability to travel abroad—that are not available to the vast majority of the world’s population. Because of this awareness and because of these interactions with the people who inspired me, I decided that even though I enjoyed studying whales and dolphins immensely, I felt a deep responsibility to use the resources available to me to contribute to the peace and well-being of humankind and the planet.

It is my hope that the results of this study will encourage more involvement of underrepresented groups in assessing the effectiveness of environmental and other policies on a local, regional, national, and global scale. I believe that acknowledging the diverse ways in which people experience and perceive conservation initiatives is especially important where conservation policy appears to be failing. The addition of alternative worldviews to a collective analysis may ultimately lead to more effective approaches to, and better solutions for, the environmental problems that affect us all.

Literature Cited

1 Decker, Daniel J, Riley, Shawn J and Siemer, William F (2012) Human dimensions of wildlife management, JHU Press.

2 Berkes, Fikret (2012) ‘Implementing ecosystem-based management: evolution or revolution?’ Fish and Fisheries, 13(4), pp. 465–476.

3 McLeod, Karen and Leslie, Heather (2009) ‘Why ecosystem-based management’, in McLeod, K. L. and Leslie, H. M. (eds.), Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans, Washington, D.C., Island Press.

4 Beasley, Isabel (2007) ‘Conservation of the Irrawaddy dolphin, Orcaella brevirostiris (Owen in Gray, 1866) in the Mekong River: biological and social considerations influencing management.’

5 Clausen, Rebecca and York, Richard (2008) ‘Global biodiversity decline of marine and freshwater fish: a cross-national analysis of economic, demographic, and ecological influences.’ Social Science Research, 37(4), pp. 1310–1320.

6 Clausen, Rebecca and Clark, Brett (2005) ‘The metabolic rift and marine ecology: an analysis of the ocean crisis within capitalist production.’ Organization & Environment, 18(4), pp. 422–444.

7 Kellert, Stephen R, Mehta, Jai N, Ebbin, Syma A and Lichtenfeld, Laly L (2000) ‘Community natural resource management: promise, rhetoric, and reality.’ Society & Natural Resources, 13(8), pp. 705–715.

8 Moore, Kathleen Dean and Russell, Roly (2009) ‘Toward a new ethic for the oceans’, in McLeod, K. and Leslie, H. (eds.), Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans, Island Press, pp. 325–340.

9 Baird, Ian G and Beasley, Isabel L (2005) ‘Irrawaddy dolphin Orcaella brevirostris in the Cambodian Mekong River: an initial survey.’ Oryx, 39(3), pp. 301–310.

10 Smith, Brian D and Hobbs, Larry (2002) ‘Status of Irrawaddy dolphins Orcaella brevirostris in the upper reaches of the Ayeyarwady River, Myanmar.’ Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 50, pp. 67–74.

11 Stacey, Pam J and Leatherwood, Stephen (1997) ‘The Irrawaddy dolphin, Orcaella brevirostris: a summary of current knowledge and recommendations for conservation action.’ Asian Marine Biology, 14, pp. 195–214.

12 Smith, Brian D, Tun, Mya Than, Chit, Aung Myo, Win, Han and Moe, Thida (2009) ‘Catch composition and conservation management of a human–dolphin cooperative cast-net fishery in the Ayeyarwady River, Myanmar.’ Biological Conservation, 142(5), pp. 1042–1049.

13 Beasley, Isabel, Marsh, Helene, Jefferson, Thomas A and Arnold, Peter (2009) ‘Conserving dolphins in the Mekong River: the complex challenge of competing interests’, in The Mekong: Biophysical environment of an international river basin, Sydney, Australia, Elsevier Press, pp. 363–387.

14 Smith, Brian D and Tun, Mya Than (2007) ‘Status and conservation of Irrawaddy dolphins Orcaella brevirostris in the Ayeyarwady River of Myanmar’, in Smith, B. D., Shore, R. G., and Lopez, A. (eds.), Status and Conservation of Freshwater Populations of Irrawaddy Dolphins, WCS Working Paper Series No. 31., New York, Wildlife Conservation Society, pp. 21–40.

15 Beasley, Isabel, Pollock, K, Jefferson, T A, Arnold, P, et al. (2012) ‘Likely future extirpation of another Asian river dolphin: The critically endangered population of the Irrawaddy dolphin in the Mekong River is small and declining.’ Marine Mammal Science.