Transitional Territories

Monserratt Cortes Macias

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

Composition

Indigenous and rural communities with natural capital management practices originated in Mesoamerica intervene both in Protected Natural Areas (PNA) and outside of them, transforming natural spaces into managed landscapes. The territories of the indigenous communities as a whole represent 14.3% of the country’s surface and almost all of the types of vegetation existing in Mexico are represented in them. Most of the dry and humid forest, which together include a very high biodiversity, are under the custody of indigenous communities. A third of the country’s federal PNAs and 28.9% of their area include indigenous territories, and about 21% of their population is indigenous, therefore, the conservation of a significant portion of biodiversity and ecosystems and the services that they provide depends on the conservation of said territories (Sarukhán et al., 2017)


Alteration

About 50% of the most important aquifers of the country’s hydrographic basins are occupied by indigenous people, which translates to a quarter of the country’s total rainwater catchment. Half of the regions where the greatest rainfall occurs on a national scale correspond to the territories of indigenous communities. Unfortunately, almost 80% of the population of the NPAs is classified in marginalization indexes between medium and very high, a situation largely determined by the high representation of indigenous groups in these zones (Sarukhán et al., 2017). The management of the water basin in the Yucatan Peninsula, is a complex hierarchy of federal instances, subdivisions and interests of private sectors that continue pushing the limits of the NPAs in order to gain ownership on groundwater resources.

Limits

After the phase of research, it became evident that the region is one where the different worldviews and management of the territory have caused a large fragmentation in the landscape but also in the socio-cultural fabric. These two inclusive oppositions cut through the territory, making it lose its fragile equilibrium and leaving it exposed to natural and human threats. In the current climate crisis, now is the time for nations to develop a well-rounded strategy of socio-ecological development that takes into account the different voices and knowledge of the territory.

Patrisia Tziourrou

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geopolitics'

For the “(Geo)Politics” line of inquiry, the topic of displacement has been selected to analyze the post-war critical conditions. The population displacement that follows the war of 1974 has led to the human disappearance from a lot of villages. Thus, the exploration of two chronological times, before and after the war, shows how landscape politics have changed. Thus, the map is a composition of the prewar use of the territory as a human settlement and the post-war use of the settlement as a livestock shelter. The comparison of these two eras shows how the post-war geopolitics deconstructed or erased the pre-war structures, but also the size of the land affected by these two land uses in 1880 and 2021. Based on this, the transect shows in a broader territory this shift of the uses and the size of land exploitation. Finally, the diagram is also a comparison between the before and after in order to show how the war affects the population of a lot of villages in the area and the post-war development of livestock activity. Thus, there is an obvious mutation of the human settlement into a goat settlement, which gradually deconstructs the pre-war civilization.

Katerina Inglezaki

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

Composition

The portion of the population that sees migration as a serious problem is reflected upon the vote during the last general elections held in 2019. The Region of Murcia has become the first community where Vox, Spain’s far-right populist party, is the most voted force. The extreme right won three seats in this community with 10,000 votes more than PSOE or PP. Indeed, the difference between the results of the regional and municipal elections with the general ones is great, and the reason must be sought in the migrant vote, or rather the absence of it. Taking into account that the ideology of the extreme right finds in the rejection of immigration one of its great pillars, it could be said then that the more immigrants there are in a municipality, the more voting potential the extreme right has. This does not mean that the high percentage of votes for Vox is explained solely by immigration, but is also affected by a number of reasons, such as the deep rural cultural context, the disaffection with politics, the Spanish patriotism in response to sovereignty challenges, and so on.

In Torre Pacheco in particular, Vox obtained 38% of the votes, exceeding 45% in some schools, in contrast to the last local elections, where the Torre-Pacheco Independent Party (PITP) won, with Vox obtaining three councilors out of 21 and barely 1,600 votes, only 30 more than the PP, and that is because of the lack of voting rights for immigrants on a national level. “What this vote is saying is clearly that we want immigrants, but without citizenship rights, that is, we want a type of worker who does not make demands on us in terms of labor or social rights,” according to Andrés Pedreño, professor of Sociology and deputy for Podemos.


Alteration

Murcia, with a 14% foreign population, has seasonal agriculture that provides work almost twelve months of the year; This makes many immigrants prefer to live in the region over other agricultural areas of the country. The days of farm workers usually consist of between 13 and 15 hours a day, including transportation, since day laborers often have to travel to destinations such as Albacete, Alicante or Granada. In addition, they work mostly by piecework, that is, they are paid by the number of pieces collected and not by the hour - a worker can collect up to 2,000 lettuces a day, for example, while the piece is paid at 0.046 euro cents.


Limit

As the demand for seasonal workers has increased over the years, employment agencies have played a central role in the restructuring of work practices and labor intermediation. In the Murcian agri-food industry there are two important periods in the organization of the labor regime: firstly, the ‘90s, which saw the expansion of the furgonetero; and secondly, the years after 2000 during which the temporary employment agencies (TEAs) have grown their influence. Traditionally, the furgonetero is the person responsible for recruiting and transporting the day workers and who often takes the role of supervising their work and paying them.

The furgonetero is a mode of intermediation that implies a great deal of control over the labor market and recruitment networks. They control the contact information with agricultural companies and they know the local workforce and their availability. They are generally migrant workers who have been working in agriculture for a longer period than others and who maintain good relationships with farm owners.

The TEAs were created in 1994, as part of a framework of institutional reforms that permitted the business sector to develop flexibilization strategies for the organization of work. In Murcia, the speed at which TEAs have played a role in the labor market reflects the fact that they have taken over the function that was previously provided by the furgonetero, and before that by the enganchadores. The TEAs are playing a fundamental role, not just in the ethnic segmentation of the agri-food labor force but also, in the increased use of temporary work and rotation of foreign workers, a phenomenon that was already highlighted by authors in the mid-2000s and which intensified during the recent financial crisis.

By specializing in the recruitment and mobilization of workers, TEAs based on Murcia not only supply labor to firms in the region but in other European countries as well. Terra Fecundis is the most important company, that not only hires temporary workers to farms or processing warehouses but also maintains a large number of laborers on permanent part-time contracts, who can be moved around the European countryside within hours, like boxes of fruit. The company also provides a number of services, like legal representation on migration matters, money transfer services, even the selling of homes in countries of origin.

Isabella Trabucco

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

Geo-Politics – Composition
In the Composition of the Geo-politics panorama, the ownership and the power which acts on the interregional level is drawn out. The powers are grouped in: European, National, Regional, Municipal levels. Also, the main cities are represented, scaled based on their population. All the powers are drawn with a different pattern on a transparent background, it is, therefore, interesting to notice how the patterns overlap greatly above the Venice lagoon. A lot of different institutions act on the same location, creating difficulties in understanding who takes care of what and how the civic agency should move around them. The location where this aspect is coming more to the foreground is indeed the Venetian territory.

Geo-Politics – Alteration

In the Alteration, all the powers are represented as geological-lithographic layers of the subsurface. The institutions which act on bigger territories such as the European Union are placed at the bottom, while their action space on the surface is more limited than the one of an institution that acts on a smaller territory. The Alteration is bringing forward how the games of politics and power can deeply manipulate the subsurface or foundation of the urban and ecological environment. It seems like power acts above the space but in reality, is embedded in the deep layers below, making the chance for change or improvement, limited and restricted.

Geo-Politics- Limit

In the Limit, the flow of money is represented. The different powers are enclosed in each other forming a sort of optical illusion. The investments coming from bigger stakeholders sometimes get lost in the maze of responsibilities, this is why the final expenses are less than the initial money sum. The drawing tries to show how the relationships between powers create a restricted environment for both a space for action and for the investment of money too. This diagram shows clearly how crucial it is to intervene with an intention of Clearance. There is a need for space, a need to stretch in the maze of powers and interrelations, in order to create a more sensitive environment for change.

Xiaoling Ding

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

Composition
Given the extent and causes of flooding in 2021, it is necessary to compare them with relevant management policies and plans to determine the accuracy of previous forecasts. The map covers management policies in three areas: water management, flood risk management, and spatial planning. The catchment of Meuse River belongs to the category of water management, the flood risk areas defined in EU Directive belong to the category of flood risk management, and the administrative boundaries and nature reserves defined in Nature 2000 belong to the category of spatial planning.

Alteration
Overlaying the above special management areas with the actual flood areas in 2021, it is not difficult to find that the main Meuse overflow is not beyond the predicted flood risk area, while the tributaries of the Rur have some overflows beyond the nature reserve.

Theoretically, from the waterfront to the interior, flood-related spatial governance at the municipal scale is primarily the responsibility of three agencies under the Dutch context. Rijkswaterstaat manages large water bodies and national flood defenses. Waterboard Limburg manages the portion between the water edge and the city, including regional flood defenses and flood plains. Municipality Roermond is responsible for spatial planning within the city and the sewer system underground.

Limit
Across sectors and scales, there are management plans supported by policies and regulations in all sectors, from the EU to the local level. Especially when the new environmental law takes effect in 2022, policies at different scales will become more consistent. In addition, there is a lot of cross-departmental collaboration, both horizontal and vertical.

Overall, the current flood management in the Netherlands is top-down. Except for the consulting firm responsible for the environmental impact assessment, which is the private sector, all the remaining agencies involved are the public sector. Meanwhile, the main management responsibilities are concentrated in Rijkswaterstaat and Waterboard at the regional level, while the planning at the municipal level is backward, and the flood awareness of citizens is not fully mobilized.

Samuel van Engelshoven

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

Geopolitics aims to unravel the governing systems behind the water management of the Rhine. The governance of water management is arranged differently in each nation of the basin. In The Netherlands and France, waterboards have much power in managing the river. However, in The Netherlands, the governance of large rivers is centralized, comparable with Luxembourg. In Germany and Switzerland, respectively, states and cantons have the most responsibility for the management of water. This fragmentation of governance could jeopardize basin-wide initiatives.

The risks for downstream communities are overlaid to clarify which governing regions are responsible and which endure the risk. Points where the river crosses borders exemplify differing management strategies when examined in more detail.

There are three governing parties that have basin-wide responsibility. Most countries within the basin are members of the European Union. The EU has its own policies and regulations on water management, which helps bring coalition in the management of the basin. Switzerland is not part of the union, but its strong ties with the EU brings opportunities.

In 1816 the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine (CCNR) was constituted to enforce the 1815 treaty on freedom of navigation on international waterways. Due to multiple problems, freedom of navigation became a reality in 1868. The members are Germany, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy. The commission ensures equal rights on shipping in the basin. (Arndt et al., 2009)

The second governing party is the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR). This organization was established in 1950 to combat the increasing pollution of the river. The ICPR’s primary focus is pollution, flood risk, and ecological issues. All riparian states are members, including the European Union. The transboundary tasks of the ICPR correspond with the problem fields within this thesis and is, therefore, an interesting organization to study and collaborate with. (International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine, n.d.)

Today, there is extensive collaboration within the Rhine basin. The collaboration ranges from flood protection to energy production. The European Union, ICPR, and CCNR are potent examples of this collaboration. States of the Rhine have not always worked together this intensively. In the 19th century, there was a treaty on freedom of navigation, and bilateral dams were built, but intensive collaboration was not happening. The period around the second world war is characterized by very little collaboration; the river was mainly used for warfare. Two decades after the war, international collaboration was boosted by the formation of the ICPR and the EU. Since then, more and more collaborative programs have been set up.

Esmee Kuit

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

The project location is right on the edge of the Groene Hart – the hard urban border of Zoetermeer marks the current border of the Randstad and the Groene Hart. Even though there are multiple governmental entities that have a voice within the area, there is a consensus about the level of protection of the green area in the middle of the urban Randstad. This is because the Groene Hart is of importance with regards to the cultural-historical landscape (PBL, 2015). However, the area is also a popular place to live, as there is good connectivity with the surrounding agglomeration of cities. Therefore, there is a large shortage of houses in and around the project area (Staat van de Woningmarkt. Jaarrapportage 2021, 2021).

The alteration shows an abstraction of what will happen if that thin film bursts. If that happens, at one point at the Groene Hart, there is probably no stopping the expansion of the Randstad into the green protected area, as there are a multitude of municipalities that all benefit from being able to expand outside of the current urban borders. However, when that bubble will pop, or what exactly will happen cannot be said with certainty (Staat van de Woningmarkt. Jaarrapportage 2021, 2021).

Even though there is no certainty about when it will happen, it is becoming increasingly clear that bordering municipalities are out of capacity. The population density and housing density have been increasing over the past decades (CBS) and are not expected to stop. Zoetermeer already has a much higher than average housing density, but numbers continue to grow.

Luiz do Nascimento

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

Composition
*Productive/Energetic/Inhabited Landscapes*
The highly urbanized Basin presents a series of overlapping interests. Within the landscape of the river valley, three main operational landscapes can be noticed: energetic landscape, productive landscape, and landscape of inhabitation. Due to its position regarding the Basin (upstream), the City of São Paulo’s regard for the river determines much of what goes on downstream.
Apart from being the Capital City, São Paulo has always exercised influence on the countryside. Either by concentrating the accumulated wealth generated by extractive activities in the hinterland or by generating demand for food, agricultural products, and more recently cheap biofuels; the enormous size of the city and the lack of a mobility system based on public transportation creates an enormous demand for biofuels, which are very common in Brazil. Part of this demand is met by the inner peri-urban areas of the Basin, which has specialized in the production of sugarcane and presents an impressive amount of biofuel plants.
Furthermore, the Middle and Upper-Basin have been shaped by production of energy from many hydropower plants, as well as for navigation towards the Tietê-Paraná Waterway. Acting as a route towards the hinterland since pre-colonial times, the River Basin continues to be very relevant for the logistics of the region, as along the centuries many highways and rails have been built following the shape of its valleys.


Alteration
*Transcalar relations between landscapes*
The Capital City of São Paulo and the hinterland of the Tietê Basin have, since colonial times, grown in a synchronized manner. As agriculture expanded and wealth was accumulated based on enslaved work, cheap nature, and natural resources, the City grew richer. This led to the great expansion of what today is one of the largest urban areas in the world, responsible for exerting great pressure on the adjacent peri-urban and rural areas of the Basin.
As a mandatory stopping point between the fields and the Port of Santos, much of the agricultural production of the State still passes through the city on its way down to the Ocean.
Also, as previously mentioned, a great deal of the harvested sugarcane in the Basin is destined for the production of biofuels, which are used by the City’s inhabitants due to the excessive dependency on private motor vehicles for transportation. Hence the peri-urban areas adjacent to the city face pressure from the countryside as it has been transformed into an empire of Biofuels' corporations activity.
Around the large city, a peri-urban belt of small food produces nourishes the almost 20 million people population, despite the lack of economic incentives and appropriate infrastructure.

Limits
*Different instances of governance and landscapes*
Many private and public institutions overlap their interests and agencies within the Basin, as it is a highly disputed space by nature, citizens, farmers, biofuel companies, and energy companies. It is clear that the interests of International capital have been given preference for the past centuries, by the total disregard of environmental and social well-being within the Basin.
Any attempt of going against these interests seems to border on the impossible and utopian, but a large number of NGOs, especially related to nature conservancy and regeneration, within the Basin provide a glimpse of an alternative future. Due to the high value of the Atlantic Rainforest, these NGOs are compromised with exposing environmental issues and demanding action from governmental institutions.

Oviya Elango

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

The region is governed by 2 state administration bodies: Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Governing independently without acknowledging the interdependencies of the natural systems, geographies that traverse them. People living on the western slopes speak the language of Malayalam while on the eastern side they speak Tamil, which also adds to the complexity of communication. Watersheds exist as natural boundaries for administration of interdependent systems, which is not considered in traditional governance practices.

According to the government of India the governance of water bodies lies within individual states who are responsible for the development and management. While the Central government provides financial resources to the state governments for execution of national level projects, the projects within the administrative boundaries are the states responsibility. There exists a hierarchy of water management and differs between these two states with different governing bodies at rural and urban scales.
Water utilities are underperforming in India despite investment in infrastructure and capacity. Most of the households in this region do not receive water 24/7 and women are primarily on the losing side, as they fetch water from tanks or local wells, greatly affecting their productivity. 65% of the rich have access to piped water supply while only 2 % of the poor people enjoy the same.(Water: Towards a Paradigm Shift in the Twelfth Plan on JSTOR, n.d.). Inferring from the timeline of events and the investment in irrigation conclude that the funds allocated for irrigation projects have not been utilised effectively to improve water management. The state which receives rainfall for 8 months in a year requiring such a huge amount of investment for irrigation projects is problematic in its root.

The return on investment of such large scale expenditure on irrigation projects is necessary to predict the pathways of future water resource management. This is understood by study done on different kinds of infrastructure projects in Tamil Nadu by Palanisami et al., n.d. The internal rate of return (IRR) clearly shows the rates of return for various investment kinds, with small system tanks tend to have the highest rate of return (20.6 percent), followed by large system tanks (20.3 percent ).Hence there is a need for strategic planning and management of water and investments in the region.

Hugo López Silva

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

The first compositions on “accumulation” investigate the contribution of energy to the near-approaching climate and social collapse. It focuses on the mode of energy of the non-renewables and its contribution to the damage in local and planetary ecosystems.
The investigation follows lines of inquiry that are in line with the main adaptive cycles and related times of change. In that sense, the main adaptive cycles relevant for the place and topic are identified and the related times of change addressed. “Geopolitics”, which provides insight into the negotiations, plans and visions related to the features of capitalism as a mode of production and energy’s precipitating role in anthropogenic planetary environmental depletion; showing that this epoch of production is specific and can be changed.
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To think about the geopolitics of the non-renewables mode of energy is to think about the negotiations (and its plan, visions, expectations) that can maintain a level of productivity that supports the current mode of production, or that line that must point upwards in all charts otherwise there is a sense of failure.

Labour productivity growth has historically had a symbiotic relationship with capitalist markets and fossil energy. (Mair, Druckman and Jackson, 2020) History can locate the transition to fossil fuels and their dense energy capacities as a key dynamic in the transition from a low to a high productivity economy, leading to new possibilities of growth and development in industry, housing and mobility. This forms the material basis for the globalised network and its successive waves of capitalist intensification that exploits the geological work (in short and long temporalities) of natural systems. The before mentioned local biosphere degradation and global climate change are part of the loop that feeds itself by exploitation, then scarcity, then new frontier for capital intensification and nourishing business opportunities as it shares the entropies of its operation to a point that is increasingly becoming palpable as a threat.

The maps on the side mark three moments: first, from the post-war period of reconstruction until the key moment of the oil crisis (1973) and UN conference defining climate goals (1992) as a period before consistent environmental concerns. Then a time of environmental concern was the norm, but that did not reflect in different behaviour. Now, the decarbonisation and phasing-out of fossil fuel in the same exploitative paradigm will harm other natures. It is a time of unfitting actions because, even inside “energy transition”, “sustainable development” backs up many unfitting interventions if seen from the perspective of socio-ecological local contestations. Speaking of energy, we may be entering an era in which we appear to be on the edge of a steep decline in EROI values (Rye and Jackson, 2018; Brockway et al., 2019) and it is possible that in the near future, it could reach such low levels that the energy sector effectively “cannibalises'' other sectors (Sers and Victor, 2018). All in all, a reduction in overall productivity levels is likely to be forced upon us (Elkomy et al., 2019). Following these predictions, post-growth imaginaries are being drawn in philosophy, economy and sociological studies; this project aims to take it to the spatial project of energy. Whether we run up against biophysical limits, or we successfully transform our societies in such a way that they are no longer built around chasing output growth.

Minyue Jiang

Three drawing sequence:
Composition - Alteration - Limits of 'Geo-Politics'

Composition
The study in the line of inquiry of geopolitics takes a more macro and policy perspective, considering the current situation and potential of the elements of study itself and its associated socio-economic and cultural ecological aspects. The various research directions mentioned in the previous inquiries overlap with each other and become the combined information that decision-makers need to grasp in order to build a flood resilience future. The diagram shows the existing ecological protection and flood policies related to the nature-based solution, overlaying these multiple spatial policies from a mega regional planning perspective.

Alteration
The mega region as a whole system is not simply a dichotomy between urban and rural. The profiles show different kinds of flood risks faced by the mega region from inland to seaward, the possible locations of crises, and the potential spaces which might be used to address them.

Limit
In the past, rivers and waterways were used as a major transport route, influencing the shape of each individual city and transforming the urban landscapes. Nowadays, water connects the entire mega region and is an important factor in the configuration of the future mega region.