Anne Rademacher - Böcker

At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Building Green explores the experience of environmental architects in Mumbai, one of the world's most populous and population-dense urban areas and a city iconic for its massive informal settlements, extreme wealth asymmetries, and ecological stresses. Under these conditions, what does it mean to learn, and try to practice, so-called green design? By tracing the training and professional experiences of environmental architects in India's first graduate degree program in Environmental Architecture, Rademacher shows how environmental architects forged sustainability concepts and practices and sought to make them meaningful through engaged architectural practice. The book's focus on practitioners offers insights into the many roles that converge to produce this emergent, critically important form of urban expertise.At once activists, scientists, and designers, the environmental architects profiled in Building Green act as key agents of urban change whose efforts in practice are shaped by a complex urban development economy, layered political power relations, and a calculus of when, and how, their expert skills might be operationalized in service of a global urban future.

A major contribution to the nascent anthropology of urban environments, Reigning the River illuminates the complexities of river restoration in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital and one of the fastest-growing cities in South Asia. In this rich ethnography, Anne M. Rademacher explores the ways that urban riverscape improvement involved multiple actors, each constructing ideals of restoration through contested histories and ideologies of belonging. She examines competing understandings of river restoration, particularly among bureaucrats in state and conservation-development agencies, cultural heritage activists, and advocates for the security of tens of thousands of rural-to-urban migrants settled along the exposed riverbed. Rademacher conducted research during a volatile period in Nepal’s political history. As clashes between Maoist revolutionaries and the government intensified, the riverscape became a site of competing claims to a capital city that increasingly functioned as a last refuge from war-related violence. In this time of intense flux, efforts to ensure, create, or imagine ecological stability intersected with aspirations for political stability. Throughout her analysis, Rademacher emphasizes ecology as an important site of dislocation, entitlement, and cultural meaning.

Environment and Society connects the core themes of environmental studies to the urgent issues and debates of the twenty-first century. In an era marked by climate change, rapid urbanization, and resource scarcity, environmental studies has emerged as a crucial arena of study. Assembling canonical and contemporary texts, this volume presents a systematic survey of concepts and issues central to the environment in society, such as: social mobilization on behalf of environmental objectives; the relationships between human population, economic growth and stresses on the planet's natural resources; debates about the relative effects of collective and individual action; and unequal distribution of the social costs of environmental degradation. Organized around key themes, with each section featuring questions for debate and suggestions for further reading, the book introduces students to the history of environmental studies, and demonstrates how the field's interdisciplinary approach uniquely engages the essential issues of the present.

Environment and Society connects the core themes of environmental studies to the urgent issues and debates of the twenty-first century. In an era marked by climate change, rapid urbanization, and resource scarcity, environmental studies has emerged as a crucial arena of study. Assembling canonical and contemporary texts, this volume presents a systematic survey of concepts and issues central to the environment in society, such as: social mobilization on behalf of environmental objectives; the relationships between human population, economic growth and stresses on the planet's natural resources; debates about the relative effects of collective and individual action; and unequal distribution of the social costs of environmental degradation. Organized around key themes, with each section featuring questions for debate and suggestions for further reading, the book introduces students to the history of environmental studies, and demonstrates how the field's interdisciplinary approach uniquely engages the essential issues of the present.

Ecologies of Urbanism in India explores how rapidly proliferating and resource-intensive urbanism affects everyday lived environments and the ecological processes that undergird them in Indian cities. Case studies on nature conservation in the city, urban housing and slum development, waste management, the history and practice of urban planning, and contestations over the quality of air, water, and sanitation in the major cities of Delhi and Mumbai, illuminate the urban ecology perspective at different points across the twentieth century. The book therefore examines how struggles over the environment and quality of life in urban centers are increasingly framed in terms of their future place in a landscape of global sustainability, and the future relationship between cities and their changing hinterlands. It brings both historical particularity and ethnographic nuance to the questions of urban ecology in Indian cities, offering novel insights into some of the most vital theoretical and practical debates on urbanism and sustainability.

Ecologies of Urbanism in India explores how rapidly proliferating and resource-intensive urbanism affects everyday lived environments and the ecological processes that undergird them in Indian cities. Case studies on nature conservation in the city, urban housing and slum development, waste management, the history and practice of urban planning, and contestations over the quality of air, water, and sanitation in the major cities of Delhi and Mumbai, illuminate the urban ecology perspective at different points across the twentieth century. The book therefore examines how struggles over the environment and quality of life in urban centers are increasingly framed in terms of their future place in a landscape of global sustainability, and the future relationship between cities and their changing hinterlands. It brings both historical particularity and ethnographic nuance to the questions of urban ecology in Indian cities, offering novel insights into some of the most vital theoretical and practical debates on urbanism and sustainability.

If twenty-first-century urbanization is understood as a problem, its regional epicenter is the cities in Asia. Facing unprecedented diversity in scale, scope, and environmental dynamics in the Asian urban experience, scholars will need an approach that can truly capture the significance of place and context. The challenge, as this volume illustrates, can be met by the analytic of ecologies of urbanism. Eschewing a rigid, single ecology, the contributors identify multiple forms of nature-in biophysical, cultural, and political terms-that have discernable impact on power relations and human social action. The case studies in this book-including leopards in Mumbai, a network of tubewells in northern India, an island that grows through reclamation in Hong Kong, and a railway continuum linking Khon Kaen and Bangkok-all attest to the versatility of ecologies of urbanism. Guided by urban processes rather than geopolitical boundaries, Places of Nature in Ecologies of Urbanism offers a picture of urban Asia that is composed of varied ecologies of urbanism.

If twenty-first-century urbanization is understood as a problem, its regional epicenter is the cities in Asia. Facing unprecedented diversity in scale, scope, and environmental dynamics in the Asian urban experience, scholars will need an approach that can truly capture the significance of place and context. The challenge, as this volume illustrates, can be met by the analytic of ecologies of urbanism. Eschewing a rigid, single ecology, the contributors identify multiple forms of nature-in biophysical, cultural, and political terms-that have discernable impact on power relations and human social action. The case studies in this book-including leopards in Mumbai, a network of tubewells in northern India, an island that grows through reclamation in Hong Kong, and a railway continuum linking Khon Kaen and Bangkok-all attest to the versatility of ecologies of urbanism. Guided by urban processes rather than geopolitical boundaries, Places of Nature in Ecologies of Urbanism offers a picture of urban Asia that is composed of varied ecologies of urbanism.