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Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: John Byrne, School of Urban Affairs & Public Policy. Includes bibliographical references.

Research has concentrated on understanding social function and social power in Bialowieza Forest in northeastern Poland. It has attempted to analyse, from the standpoint of political ecology, the value that people, both locally and further afield, place (and have placed) on the forest. And it has struggled to understand how the machinations of power have enabled or disabled such values to be expressed. Over the past ten years Bialowieza Forest has been the site of a particular conflict concerning the enlargement of the existing national park to encompass the whole forest. For some who have moved to Bialowieza from other regions of Poland, the forest is as a Renaissance painting that should not be altered and a laboratory where scientific experiments can be conducted and through which income, from home and abroad, can be generated from project funding and support from international NGOs. At the same time it is (apparently) subject to man's present 'destruction and deterioration'. My principal arguments remain that (i) far from being a pristine 'primeval forest' Bialowieza is a thoroughly logged-over forest that has borne man's influence, in various ways, since at least the sixth century; (ii) that far from being subject to present 'destruction and deterioration' it has, for the past 50 years, been actively restored by foresters after considerable devastation in the 1930s and 30s; and finally (iii) that the social construction of the forest has served to dispossess and alienate local people (mostly Belorussian) living around the forest whose cultural and economic base is currently threatened. I argue that there is little value in discussing the social construction of nature without, at the same time, examining the strategies of political actors that enlist such social constructions as tools in the normal struggle for power at the local, national and supranational scale. To this end I examine the cultural and scientific roots of the national park movement, the dispute over the forest both in terms of utility and through perception and representation. I examine the economic history of the forest. I analyse the legitimacy of those involved in contestation and those who seek to utilise the forest in particular ways. Further, I examine issues of governance and law. Whilst I recognise that research on access to, and management of, forests and national parks today is not unique, I believe this work holds value for its focus (in a European context) not simply on the forest struggle as a locality issue, but on how the struggle is enriched by ideological and representational practices that operate across time and space. Such practices form the scope and inform the principal arguments in this thesis.

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Abstract This dissertation is a research for the historical reconstruction of the local political ecology since post-war in Penghu. At present, the research of local factions and democratic transition in Taiwan seems to have omitted the in-depth study of off-shore Penghu area. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to try exploring the formation and declining of Penghu local factions in the post-war, and to examine the vicissitude of military role before and after abolished martial law in Penghu. In the meanwhile, we would systematically analyze the change of Penghu local political ecology in the process of democratization. By executing this Penghu case, we would conduct a further antithesis and discussion on the existed research of the local factions in Taiwan. This research adopted the field study and the in-dept interview method to collect empirical data. In addition that we expect the historical documents and official statistics data could be the helpful auxiliary evidence. The primary findings emerged from this research are¡G¡]1¡^Due to the pre-existing inter-group differences and competition of autonomy election, the Penghu local factions were generated and competition among factions were emerged. In addition, the only competition field was the election for congress of county or province because the position of county mayor was controlled by the military force. ¡]2¡^The faction itself was lack of strong structure because of the scarceness of Penghu local resources. In addition, there had not been any political opposition in Penghu during the martial law era. As a result, the relationship of alliance between Kuomintang and faction did not exist and the local factions were served as the counter-acting pressure of political oppositions for Kuomintang. Therefore, when the leader of faction had been changed or the members of faction were facing the conflict in profit could emerge the split, reorganization, or declining.¡]3¡^Following the transitions of authoritarian regime in Taiwan, not only military controlling role of political regime had been collapsed in Penghu, but also it withdrew the electoral mobilization machine for Kuomintang. In the meanwhile, military role had been changed from domination to assistance on the economical and social aspect.¡]4¡^On the one hand, democratization made the traditional "bi-factionalism pattern" of Penghu transformed into a multi-regional competition pattern. On the other hand, even if democratic transition boosted the political type of party competition, the influence of existing parties and military units had been gradually loosing. By contrast, local faction based on the combination of family, geography, and social relationship as well as burgeoning political-commercial sectors had become the main characters of regional political ecology. Worthy of mention, the existing theoretic perspective about local factions in Taiwan didn¡¦t absolutely fit Penghu. This research claims that it should take into account the characteristics of political economical and social structure at local, and the selection strategies of local political actors when understanding the local political ecology. Keywords¡G political ecology, local faction, democratic transition, military role, Penghu

This dissertation is a study of agricultural failure. It follows the efforts of settlers, then scientists, to impose cotton as a commodity crop in the eastern region of South Africa, known today as KwaZulu-Natal. Touted as a commodity crop capable of remaking land and life in this region in the 1850s, the 1860s, at the turn of the century, and again in the 1930s, cotton never achieved more than marginal status in the agricultural economy. Its story is one of historical amnesia: although faith in the region’s cotton prospects dipped following each spectacular failure, it was routinely resurrected once previous failures had been accounted for, or memories of them had faded. Two crucial issues are at the centre of this episodic history. First, I explore the enthusiasms that underpinned successive efforts to introduce cotton, the logistics of planned expansion, and the reasons for the repeated collapse of cotton-growing schemes. My primary argument is that cotton failed because colonists lacked the technology to overcome natural constraints to production, in the form of temperature, rainfall, soils and insect pests. Settlers and scientists could not remake the land, the climate, or the cotton plant to meet their needs or realize their dreams. They attempted to overcome obstacles to production through settlement schemes, new agricultural inputs, and breeding technologies, but were unable to conquer the ecological incompatibilities between theoretical ambition and practical cultivation. This dissertation stresses the limits of colonial agriculture when confronted with unsuitable growing conditions. Second, I aim to unravel the side effects of the repeated failures of cotton production in Natal and Zululand. I turn the question of agricultural failure on its head to ask what was achieved through these repeated attempts to develop cotton as a commodity crop. I concentrate on the outcomes of these difficult and disappointing efforts at cotton cultivation – increased settler presence, stronger delineation between settler and African space, expanded state control into rural areas – and argue that, despite repeated failure, cotton facilitated important structural changes to the region’s agricultural, political and economic landscape.

This dissertation is a study of agricultural failure. It follows the efforts of settlers, then scientists, to impose cotton as a commodity crop in the eastern region of South Africa, known today as KwaZulu-Natal. Touted as a commodity crop capable of remaking land and life in this region in the 1850s, the 1860s, at the turn of the century, and again in the 1930s, cotton never achieved more than marginal status in the agricultural economy. Its story is one of historical amnesia: although faith in the region’s cotton prospects dipped following each spectacular failure, it was routinely resurrected once previous failures had been accounted for, or memories of them had faded. Two crucial issues are at the centre of this episodic history. First, I explore the enthusiasms that underpinned successive efforts to introduce cotton, the logistics of planned expansion, and the reasons for the repeated collapse of cotton-growing schemes. My primary argument is that cotton failed because colonists lacked the technology to overcome natural constraints to production, in the form of temperature, rainfall, soils and insect pests. Settlers and scientists could not remake the land, the climate, or the cotton plant to meet their needs or realize their dreams. They attempted to overcome obstacles to production through settlement schemes, new agricultural inputs, and breeding technologies, but were unable to conquer the ecological incompatibilities between theoretical ambition and practical cultivation. This dissertation stresses the limits of colonial agriculture when confronted with unsuitable growing conditions. Second, I aim to unravel the side effects of the repeated failures of cotton production in Natal and Zululand. I turn the question of agricultural failure on its head to ask what was achieved through these repeated attempts to develop cotton as a commodity crop. I concentrate on the outcomes of these difficult and disappointing efforts at cotton cultivation – increased settler presence, stronger delineation between settler and African space, expanded state control into rural areas – and argue that, despite repeated failure, cotton facilitated important structural changes to the region’s agricultural, political and economic landscape.

This dissertation is a study of agricultural failure. It follows the efforts of settlers, then scientists, to impose cotton as a commodity crop in the eastern region of South Africa, known today as KwaZulu-Natal. Touted as a commodity crop capable of remaking land and life in this region in the 1850s, the 1860s, at the turn of the century, and again in the 1930s, cotton never achieved more than marginal status in the agricultural economy. Its story is one of historical amnesia: although faith in the region’s cotton prospects dipped following each spectacular failure, it was routinely resurrected once previous failures had been accounted for, or memories of them had faded. Two crucial issues are at the centre of this episodic history. First, I explore the enthusiasms that underpinned successive efforts to introduce cotton, the logistics of planned expansion, and the reasons for the repeated collapse of cotton-growing schemes. My primary argument is that cotton failed because colonists lacked the technology to overcome natural constraints to production, in the form of temperature, rainfall, soils and insect pests. Settlers and scientists could not remake the land, the climate, or the cotton plant to meet their needs or realize their dreams. They attempted to overcome obstacles to production through settlement schemes, new agricultural inputs, and breeding technologies, but were unable to conquer the ecological incompatibilities between theoretical ambition and practical cultivation. This dissertation stresses the limits of colonial agriculture when confronted with unsuitable growing conditions. Second, I aim to unravel the side effects of the repeated failures of cotton production in Natal and Zululand. I turn the question of agricultural failure on its head to ask what was achieved through these repeated attempts to develop cotton as a commodity crop. I concentrate on the outcomes of these difficult and disappointing efforts at cotton cultivation – increased settler presence, stronger delineation between settler and African space, expanded state control into rural areas – and argue that, despite repeated failure, cotton facilitated important structural changes to the region’s agricultural, political and economic landscape. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

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