J3ea 

About: J3ea is an academic journal published by EDP Sciences. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Humanities & Population. It has an ISSN identifier of 1638-5705. Over the lifetime, 914 publications have been published receiving 6604 citations. The journal is also known as: J3eA.

Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling

Abstract: Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling JOSHUA M. EPSTEIN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, PRINCETON, NJ, 2007 352 PP. CLOTH $49.50 REVIEWED BY ERIC C. JONES This book calls for a generative social science. Generative social science rests on the idea that you cannot explain current phenomena without describing the rules or preceding conditions that produced these current phenomena. In other words, the author believes that we must not only explore causality in terms of 'A affects B,' but also in terms of how a specific suite of physical, biological, social or cultural tendencies play out across time for a given population, producing some observed state or phenomenon. Epstein argues that anything short of being able to model the flow between prior and present conditions is mere description. He says his naming of the Generative approach took inspiration from Chomsky's generative syntactic structures. Generative social science is tightly wed to the methodology of Agent-Based Modeling made more feasible lately by faster computers. However, Epstein warns against its identification solely as a computer-driven technique. His point is that past behavior of individuals, households, firms or other agents must be accounted for when understanding a phenomenon. Following the lead of mathematicians and most modelers, the author seeks parsimonious or small sets of rules to explain the arrival at any current condition. This 'new' kind of social science is probably too mathematical for most ethnographically oriented social scientists to adopt, although this historicist/ evolutionary approach is one that must regularly be injected into the social sciences in order to augment the complimentary yet more dominant functionalist and ideationist approaches. Ecosystem researchers would certainly be able to make use of the agentbased modeling approach, perhaps even being able to better account for the individual agents in their systems. Population researchers similarly could better develop models and parameters for animal/plant/ agent behaviors. Generative Social Science is generally an update to the 1996 book Growing Artificial Societies (Brookings Institution and MIT Press) by Epstein and Robert Axtell, although this new book is a compilation of works with all but three chapters (Introduction, Chapters 2 and 13) published separately elsewhere in books or journals. Preludes by Epstein for each chapter make the flow awkward, but provide contextual insights or connections between chapters. All chapters have Epstein as an author-typically the primary author-and half of the chapters are single-authored by Epstein; as such, the publisher considers the book a single-authored work. A CD with several of the models accompanies the book, so that you can change a few of the parameters and graphically view the results (hundreds of colored pixels on a square space). The agent-based modeling technique is one way to bridge the micro-macro gulf, producing non-intuitive macro results along the way. Epstein is careful to define such emergence as the computable result of agent actions, and not as the old (and even contemporary, in some cases) idea of emergence as something that can never be reduced to its parts. Despite proposing this form of reductionism, the book allows that emergent properties maybe something that the individuals themselves might not possess, so emergence is not so much a sum of parts as a product of parts. Different agent-based models with different suites of variables might produce the same social phenomena, in which case field data and theoretical plausibility assist in determining which model to pursue. Models can also be used to find out which rules will not account for observed behavior. The first three chapters constitute the introductory material, primarily advocacy for the approach as well as delimiting the domain. The domain of generative social science is based upon the following: heterogeneous agents, bounded rationality, explicit/ geographic space, local interactions, non-equilibrium dynamics and initial autonomy of agents. …

The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics

Abstract: This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Anthropology at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Ecological Anthropology by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact scholarcommons@usf.edu. Recommended Citation Sabogal, Mabel. "The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics." Journal of Ecological Anthropology 13, no. 1 (2009): 78-80.

Contested Nature: Promoting International Biodiversity with Social Justice in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract: Contested Nature: Promoting International Biodiversity with Social Justice in the Twenty-First Century STEVEN BRECHIN, PETER WILSHUSEN, CRYSTAL FORTWANGLER, AND PATRICK WEST (EDITORS) STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF NEW YORK, ALBANY, 2003 321 PP. $59.50 HARDCOVER, $19.95 PAPERBACK In 1991 West and Brechin published Resident People and National Parks in the hope it would "stimulate and mobilize a more deeply felt concern, a conversion of thinking from blind ecological imperative to more honest recognition of painful moral dilemma, and a sincere desire to rectify the injustice of the past." Contested Nature is a fitting successor to this book, addressing these same issues in a more comprehensive and systematic fashion with four theoretical chapters and case studies from around the world. It touches upon diverse aspects of current conservation dilemmas including exclusion and eviction, the institutional difficulties of complex conservation organizations, private conservation areas, ecotourism, the reification of communities, community level conflicts, deforestation, bio-prospecting and more. As its title suggests, the works in the volume are geared towards identifying the shortcomings of international conservation, while seeking to influence policy and practice in ways that promote biodiversity with social justice. A chapter on complex organizations and governance regimes suggests specific strategies for achieving this vision. Contested Nature is an authoritative statement of the current position of writings on social science and conservation and 1 strongly recommend it to researchers, practitioners and students. Written in an accessible and engaging style it is full of new ideas and accounts of the latest practices and problems that will form a valuable compendium for people wrestling with these problems, if Resident People and National Parks was a 'bible' for some activists (to quote a consultant working with the IUCN) then perhaps they now have an old and new testament. But, with apologies to its authors, I wish to use the opportunity of this review to make some wider reflections on the field as a whole. Contested Nature, as the current state of the art, prompts a number of ideas as to where we can go from here. The first concerns engagement. 1 fear that the ideas presented in ContestedNaturewill not influence the policy and practice of international conservation as much as it ought to. In part this is because it does not engage with natural science literature. With less than 3% of its citations in serious scientific journals it characterizes the field by preaching an engagement with conservation scientists it does not itself practice.1 This lack of integration works in other ways. The editors' major contributions which came out in Society and Natural Resources in 2002 have no citations on the Web of Science, which means they have not yet been noted by natural scientists. That sort of material is too good not to come out in natural science journals. The second concerns analysis. The book clearly argues that devolution is a necessary but insufficient step for locally rooted conservation. So now we need to ask for whom does devolution 'work' and what does it achieve? Indeed perhaps the real question here is how does democracy work/operate at different scales? Democratization is generally thought to be a good thing, but the practice of democracy is remarkably varied, it covers a plethora of forms of government. We require, in our writings about conservation and society, a greater awareness of the variety of forms democracy can take, and is expected to take, in the societies in which it is being encouraged. …

Conservation and Globalization: A Study of National Parks and Indigenous Communities from East Africa to South Dakota

Abstract: Conservation and Globalization: A Study of National Parks and Indigenous Communities from East Africa to South Dakota. JIM IGOE "WADSWORTH/THOMSON LEARNING, BELMONT, CA, 2004. xii + 183 PP. $26.95 PAPERBACK REVIEWED BY JENNIFER COFFMAN The front cover of anthropologist Jim Igoe's book shows a jubilant and matronly woman, perhaps from South Dakota given the book title, with one hand clutching the hand of a Maasai warrior, and her other hand firmly wrapped around a beaded rungu, the quintessential symbol of Maasai manhood. The woman and warrior dance in front of other Maasai warriors, as well as other jubilant, matronly nonMaasai women. What's wrong with this picture? Everything and nothing. Maasai warriors don't hold hands with women, let alone older women. But the book cover clearly shows that they do. Women of any age do not carry rungus in Maasailand. Yet, the photo tells another story. The book's cover succinctly conveys the simultaneous normalcy and absurdity that is the intersection of conservation and globalization. How do protected areas attract tourists and their dollars? How do locals make a living? Who gets to design and manage the multiple types of conservation and ecotourism schemes? And most importantly, what has and hasn't worked, according to whose standards? These are the basic, complicated questions that enhance the author's research. He undertakes the challenge of responding to them in this chatty book directed to a young, American audience. With the use of analogies and popular culture references, the author attempts to make controversial issues surrounding conservation accessible and interesting. Though a worthwhile read for practitioners and academics working in East Africa, this book is best suited for undergraduates or high school students, especially in courses dedicated to environmental studies, anthropology, sociology or cultural geography. Drawing mostly on ethnographic research beginning in 1992 in Tanzania, East Africa, the author launches the book with some basic explanations of and contexts for the terms conservation, globalization, ecotourism, and Maasai. This first chapter summarizes the author's experiences with how those four terms-and the ideas they represent-have become complexly intertwined in theTarangire National Park and Simanjiro District, Tanzania. Although some initial passages are inelegantly rendered, the author draws the readers into his narrative through personal anecdotes. Starting with his own trials as a budding cultural anthropologist and tracing the outline of his research over time, he demonstrates the challenges (e.g., gaining entry, accessing authoritative informants, negotiating hostilities among informants) and rewards (e.g., comparative studies based on multiple locales to help determine patterns, as well as aberrations) of multi-sited ethnographic research. Conservation and Globalization finds its stride in the author's passionate critiques of the rise and fall of Maasai non-governmental organizations, discussions of which also lead to examinations of the various ways in which "conservation" has been deployed. These are the threads that run throughout the book. Chapter 2 presents how "Maasai resource management"-open-access and multiple-use systems that flexibly exploit various ecological niches-clashes with the fixed locales and restricted access of national parks. The author notes that although both systems promote anthropogenic landscapes, the ways in which those landscapes are managed and who manages and benefits from them vary greatly. …

Challenge to the Nation-State: Immigration in Western Europe and the United States

Abstract: Challenge to the Nation-State: Immigration in Western Europe and the United States Christian Joppke, Editor New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 360 pp. In highly developed Western countries, popular notions run rampant about a weakening of the nation-state's sovereignty. Among the state's supposed destroyers are: post-modern economic globalism, tribalistic ethnic nationalism, pressures for international human rights, and supranational imperatives. These 'challenges to the nation-state' are given thorough examination and critique in this edited volume on immigration and immigration policy in the U.S. and countries of the European Union. Though the tide may lead the reader to believe odierwise, the volume asserts that the nationstate, in fact, is not in decline, and does not face any serious challenge to its existence from international migration. All chapters are well referenced and are grounded primarily in the examination of immigration politics and law, de jure and de facto, in the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany. Challenge to the Nation-State lacks a concluding chapter, although the introduction is sufficient in providing a framework for understanding the research presented in the other chapters. By 'nation-state,' Joppke intends a territorially sovereign polity defined largely by the ability to grant and deny citizenship to individuals in order to guarantee continuity in the relationship between state and individual. Joppke's introduction offers a fine summary of the findings of contributing authors, but also doggedly maintains a unifying theoretical framework, and attempts to take discussions on immigration further than any of the individual chapters. His basic thesis is that the nation-state can and still does maintain sovereignty over its borders, its affordance of rights and privileges, and its affordance of citizenship, often balancing a change in one with an opposite change in another. In the end, citizenship always has been and always will be granted by a territorially sovereign polity. Challenge to Sovereignty, the first section following the introduction, addresses territorial sovereignty-one of the two political bases for the modern nation-state. The authors in this section note changes in the decision-making arena for states in recent years, but resoundingly conclude that decision-making tools and ultimate authority over the movement of people (while experiencing new constraints) still lie with national governments, not extra-national bodies. And while Soyal's Limits of Citizenship (1995) continues to have an influence over this discussion, as it is referenced by some of the authors, few are entirely sympathetic to Soyal's polemic stance about the reach of post-nationalism. Saskia Sassen is the single author in the volume who asserts that immigration is a serious challenge to the state. The odiers are more skeptical. Sassen's globalizing economy paradigm dichotomizes regulations for information, capital, and goods vs. regulations for migrants and labor, the former more transnational, the latter more international. In this model, the state has the twofold goal of globalizing the economy while maintaining state sovereignty, thereby undermining state authority and power. This chapter uncritically cites many global processes (e.g., judicial tools, deregulation, bond-raters, international commercial arbitration) as evidence for the dissolution of statehood. However, it is also the only chapter to devote much attention to the relation between state sovereignty and the governance of global economic practices. Sassen's chapter, diough a minority viewpoint, also considers international economics, which is found lacking in the odier chapters. The contribution by Gary Freeman contends Sassen's by arguing that most variation and developments in immigration policies can be explained better by domestic politics than by structural economic adjustment. In addition, especially intriguing in light of current nationalistic sentiments around the world, are his findings that, among actual policy outcomes, there resides little basis for the claim that Western states are becoming more restrictive against immigration. …