Bøger i SpringerBriefs in Latin American Studies serien

The book considers desertification as a cause-effect of environmental degradation that causes global environmental changes and the current climate crisis. Desertification affects sustainability and is one of the most severe socio-environmental problems on a global, regional, and local scale and in magnitude.It is a complex and interdisciplinary phenomenon with socioeconomic, historical, and ecological aspects. The book dealt with themes such as ¿Anthropocene and limits of balance on Earth; Global Environmental Changes, Climate Crisis; Desertification: concepts, myths, and reality; Causes and impacts in the world,¿ considering international technical-scientific assumptions guided by historical, practical, and conceptual issues.Currently, desertification (land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and sub-humid regions, resulting from various factors, such as climate variations and human activities) occurs in different continents and associates with land use and environmental and climate changes. This is a question of interest to the political management of the territory.The compendium goes beyond the conceptual approach and brings case studies with depth and a holistic view. Watersheds, for example, were treated as synthesis cells of environmental assessments and territorial units to develop public policies to manage natural resources and mitigate soil salinization and geochemical contamination.Besides the correlation between desertification and climate as a natural design, its harmful consequences for the planet are correlated with the most affected areas associated with poverty, environmental conflicts, and land tenure. The book considers several studies and a wealth of qualitative and quantitative data, pointing out about 3.6 billion hectares affected and more than 2.6 billion people affected worldwide.Desertification areas demand priority attention and greater scientific clarification not contaminated by other interests, surpassing the boundaries of sectorial and empirical explanation and not dissociated from natural x human processes. The book proposes to be holistic with an assessment of the totality!

This book provides in-depth insights into the construction of the first road to reach riparian communities and the main access point to a national park in the Amazonian rain forest.

This book intends to present the development of socio-spatial practices in the metropolitan coast of the Northeast of Brazil, highlighting the main urban, spa and tourist agglomerations: Salvador-BA, Recife-PE, Fortaleza-CE, and Natal-RN.

This book interrogates the impact of tourism on local lives and environments along the southern Pacific Coast of Nicaragua.

This book presents the characteristics and limitations of geological units, Cenozoic and geochronological concepts. It studies landscape aspects developed from research in areas with proved Cenozoic tectonic activity, such as the Potiguar basin, located between the states of Ceara and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

The book focuses on the human and social effects of the construction of hydroelectric dams in Brazil. The book's main objective is to analyze the movements, adaptations and life changes in families suffering from the effects of dams throughout Brazil.

This book explores the mediated struggles for autonomy, land rights and social justice in a context of growing authoritarianism and persistent coloniality in Nicaragua. To do so, it draws on in-depth fieldwork, analysis of media texts, and decolonial and other cultural theories. There are two main threats to the authoritarian rule of the Nicaraguan government led by Daniel Ortega: the first is the Managua-based NGO and civil society sector led largely by educated dissident Sandinistas, and the second is the escalating struggle for autonomy and land rights being fought by Nicaraguäs indigenous and Afro-descended inhabitants on the country¿s Caribbean coast. In order to confront these threats and, it seems, secure indefinite political tenure, the government engages in a set of centralizing and anti-democratic political strategies characterized by secrecy, institutional power grabs, highly suspect electoral practices, clientelistic anti-poverty programmes, and the control through purchase or co-optation of much of the nation's media. The social movements that threaten Ortegäs rule are however operating through dispersed and topological modalities of power and the creative use of emergent spaces for the circulation of counter-discourses and counter-narratives within a rapidly transforming media environment. The primary response to these mediated tactics is a politics of silence and a refusal to acknowledge or respond to the political claims made by social movements. In the current conjuncture, the authors identify a struggle for hegemony whose strategies and tactics include the citizenship-stripping activities of the state and the citizenship-claiming activities of black, indigenous and dissident actors and activists. This struggle plays out in part through the mediated circulation and counter-circulation of discourses and the infrastructural dynamics of media convergence.

Using the case of the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam in Guatemala, constructed between 1978 and 1983, this book examines the effects of displacement on the former residents of Río Negro, a community forcibly evicted and nearly eliminated by the military and paramilitary. Using open-ended interview discussions and testimonies, it focuses on this specific incident of displacement and violence and discusses the outcomes 30 years later. Guatemaläs history is plagued by development projects that resulted in displacement, violence, and increased marginalization of its indigenous and non-indigenous populations. In order to make way for development initiatives such as the production of bananas, African palm, coffee and sugar cane; the extraction of metals such as gold and nickel; or, in this specific case, the construction of a hydroelectric dam, the land-based, predominately Maya campesinos have been systematically uprooted from the lands of their birth and launched into uncertainty.Theresearch findings presented, based on fieldwork conducted from January to April 2009, suggest that the majority of survivors from the massacres that took place are still adversely affected by the destruction of their families and livelihoods. While the circumstances pertaining to this event are unique, similar struggles over land and human rights continue into the present ¿ and if policies remain unchanged, in both international development agencies as well as the Guatemalan government, clashes of this nature only increase in time.

This book offers an analysis of the territory of Barcarena, in the Brazilian Amazon. Innovations in the Barcarena territory, such as the implementation of the aluminium factory Albras/Alunorte and the territorial configuration or public administration, lead to modernization simulations and artificial devices.

This book analyses the development of geography as a scientific discipline in Brazil, highlighting how the established partnerships with French geographers have helped shape scientific progress in the country.

This book studies the transformation of modern maritimity practices in coastal areas (such as swimming, navigation and tourism) and their implications to the development of Brazilian coastal cities, with an emphasis on the Northeast part of the country.

The book reflects on the current dimensions of tourism and patrimony in Brazil. It questions religious systems and their dynamic interface with the occupation of cultural spaces and the interpretation of touristic practices in Brazil.

This book describes the pottery trade activities of the residents of the community of San Bartolome de los Olleros in Piura, Peru. Based on extensive interviews with potters and traders, it explains why the barter of pots continues to be practiced, and explores how pottery production and exchange practices may now be changing.

This book analyzes the most important geohydrological aspects of the San Jorge Gulf Basin (Chubut and Santa Cruz provinces, Argentine Patagonia), with a particular focus on the physical and hydrodynamic characteristics of the system. Discovered in 1907, the San Jorge Gulf Basin was the first petroleum and gas-producing basin in Argentina.