Fighting extractivism

One Saturday in May 2023, about one hundred people gather in the Bee Park community centre in Manorhamilton, County Leitrim, in the north- west of Ireland. They are here to welcome and learn from three water protectors, Chas Jewett, Jeshua Estes, and Lewis GrassRope, visiting from the Lakota Nation (Figure 6.1). The visit has been organised by Making Relatives, a collective of water protectors in Ireland and North America, and supported by Friends of the Earth NI, Communities Against the Injustice of Mining (CAIM), the Derry Playhouse, and us – a group of researchers.

Before we hear from the three Indigenous visitors, speakers from three local campaigns tell us about what they are facing in Leitrim. Save Leitrim is a campaign resisting expansion of monoculture industrial forestry, which covers over 20 per cent of the county; Treasure Leitrim is the most recent campaign group, organising to stop mining developments in the area; and Save Dough Mountain, opposing the construction of industrial wind turbines on sensitive, upland bogs in North Leitrim. We don't hear from Love Leitrim but they are of course mentioned – formed in 2011, they successfully organised with other local communities, activists, and environmental non- governmental organisations (ENGOs) to block proposed fracking across the country, resulting in a fracking ban in the Republic in 2017, one of the few places in the world to do so – a campaign which continues to be fought across the border in the North.

For most people outside Leitrim, the least- populated and ‘poorest’ county in Ireland, there isn't any obvious connection between forestry, mining, wind farms, and fracking.

From the plough to the stars

Over the past two years, Ireland has gained a reputation as the ‘most pro- Palestine country in Europe’ following mass mobilisations against the genocide in Gaza since the 7 October 2023 uprising. This reputation is not unearned, and in fact rests on a much longer history of solidarity, especially among Republican communities in the North, who have long seen (and made) allies in the Palestinian anti- colonial struggle. However, the fierceness of this same support in the South has taken some politicians by surprise, and even centre- right Government parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been vocally critical of Israel, making Ireland an outlier in Europe. That said, Ireland's greatest complicity in the US- Israeli project is in its trade links, and despite the rhetoric from the ruling coalition, there has been zero real threat of sanctions.

In November 2024, a report from The Ditch reveals that the US Ambassador had written directly to the Tánaiste (deputy Prime Minister) warning of ‘consequences’ if Ireland enacted the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB) (The Ditch Editors 2024). The proposed law, first brought forward in 2018, would ban and criminalise trade with companies operating in or from illegal settlements in occupied territories (as determined under international law) – in particular, Israeli settlements in Israeli- occupied Palestinian territories. Despite widespread popularity, and unanimous support across opposition parties, the Bill is once again ‘sent for review’ following the Ambassador's intervention. In her email, the Ambassador cited more than 1,000 US companies located in Ireland that would be adversely affected by the passing of the OTB. Though it may not seem significant, and it only demonstrates what many know to be the case: that this is an overt example of US imperialism working through Ireland.

Faulting within rocks and sediment creates some of the most dramatic landscapes (Fig. 10.1). A favorite trip for many visitors to the Western United States follows the route from San Francisco to Las Vegas, or from San Francisco to Phoenix, where much of the mountainous scenery along these routes has been formed by faulting. Because of this faulting, the high alpine landscapes contrast greatly with the desert landforms in the lowlands below. After reading this chapter, you will be able to take this excursion and understand the stunning geomorphology of these faulted landscapes, and others.

Eolian, (or aeolian) simply stated, refers to the wind. Eolian processes and landforms involve the erosion, transport, and deposition of sediment by wind. Of the major geomorphic agents (wind, water, ice, and gravity), wind is perhaps the one that is most readily observed, and the one that is often in play across Earth’s surface. Wind is everywhere, and its effects are easy to find. That said, wind as a geomorphic agent is mainly felt on landscapes where vegetation cover is minimal and where sediment is exposed to the power of the wind. Even landscapes that are currently vegetated have beneath them a cover of sediments with ties to eolian systems – but from a different, usually drier and windier past. In this chapter, we will discuss the variety and importance of eolian processes, sediments, and landforms, in all manner of different places!

Volcanoes are exciting – yet dangerous – features, capable of reworking entire landscapes overnight. With more than a dozen volcanic eruptions occurring at different locations on Earth at any one time, volcanoes are a very real part of our world. Each of these volcanoes, and the many extinct ones around the world, has a different eruptive history. Some burst to life in explosive eruptions, like the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines. Others bubble up rivers of lava in what is known as an effusive eruption, like the 2018 activity on Hawai‘i’s Kilauea volcano.

This chapter will examine the landforms associated with endogenic (Earth’s internal) processes, particularly those associated with heat and which lead to eruptions of molten rock, hot water, and steam. The latter are referred to as hydrothermal processes. Therefore, we will not only discuss volcanic and plutonic landforms, but also the intriguing features associated with hydrothermal processes, such as geysers and hot springs.

Introduction

The concept of public space and the struggles faced by the social subjects in the city have been topics of discussion in several areas of knowledge.1 In the academic field, some studies focus on how cities have been built according to male- and- white- centred perspectives (Hayden, 1980); other studies centralize their analysis on the strategies and tactics (Certeau, 1998) used by vulnerable subjects to subvert such processes of exclusion, as studied by Leite (2007) and Barros (2020).

In several Latin American cities, the social organization of the space reflects its history of inequalities. According to Berth (2023, p 124, author's translation), ‘Space is the material synthesis of its own time and the physical definition of the social landscape.’ In Brazil, the logics of exclusion within the urban and public spaces follow patriarchal and hygienist perspectives that, in many moments, reflect themselves in architecture and urban politics. Berth (2023, p 157, author's translation) draws attention to the female experience in the cities by claiming that ‘women inhabitants of the cities share the experience of being a body to be estranged, unwished for, invaded, and capable of being curtailed or limited’.

In this work, I shall analyse how young women from the city of Aracaju, a coastal city in northeastern Brazil, claim their right to the city (Lefebvre, 2011) through the practice of surfing and skateboarding.

This collection offers a global perspective on young people and social change, specifically youth transitions to adulthood and the different spaces these take place in. In offering this global perspective, we explore the varied and challenging pathways young people take to achieve adulthood. In doing this, the contributing authors take a particular focus on the way inequalities and injustices are intertwined with processes of social change towards the realization of social justice.

The editors and contributors all share a commitment to researching and working with young people to give voice to their experiences of new patterns of inequality existing as part of the processes of social change in the contemporary global landscape (Wyn and Woodman, 2014). In this way, the collection's authors ask for young people's voices to be heard, their actions to be taken seriously, and their realities recognized in local, national and international political terrains. It is a call to recognize young people's claims to rights in diverse and distinct contexts, but also to draw understanding from these towards enacting shared claims and actions towards delivering social justice.

Although we take a focus on historical, continuing and changing inequalities, exclusions and injustices, the work presented is a hopeful collection that asks the reader to consider how the insights across the chapters might be applied in both research and practice. This introductory chapter sets out the ways that youth and transitions have been theorized and presents the central argument for a focus on spaces and social justice in understanding young people experiences of transitions.

Introduction: structural liminality in contexts of displacement

Studies set in contexts of displacement illustrate how states wield power over migrants, refugees and asylum seekers by exercising both spatial and temporal techniques of governance (Koshravi 2019; Rozakou 2021). Displaced people are often physically contained, detained and isolated, to set them apart from citizens and state services (Hyndman and Giles, 2011), including education. Educational institutions – designed for national citizens – can thus feel out of sync with the material, structural and temporal realities of refugees. For one, educational opportunities are not readily accessible to refugees, even in national contexts where schools are legally obligated to grant entry (Bartlett, 2015; Rodriguez- Gomez, 2019). Implicitly (and in some cases explicitly) linked to nation- building, educational systems are designed for citizens with long- term relationships, connections and affection for the state in which they are set (Waters and LeBlanc, 2005; Dryden- Peterson and Horst, 2023). Moreover, educational institutions are inherently future- oriented (Stambach, 2017), creating temporal disjunctures in contexts where there are few opportunities to draw on one's educational attainment to earn income or create livelihoods (Poole and Riggan, 2023).

As defined in Chapter 1, geomorphology is the study of landforms – plain and simple. Whether they are formed on bedrock or on loose sediment, by erosion or deposition of sediment, and whatever their age, landforms are the building blocks of Earth’s physical landscapes. In essence, landscapes are organized and interconnected assemblages of landforms. These interconnections may be temporal, genetic, or spatial. With regard to temporal connections, some landforms on a landscape may have all formed at roughly the same time. They may share a similar origin (genetic connections). On many landscapes, however, the landforms may have formed at different times and in different ways.

Justice refers to a broad concern with fairness, equity, equality and respect.

Just from the daily news, it is readily apparent how questions of justice or the more obvious experiences of injustice shape our everyday lives.

From global trade to our consumption; living or dying through war and peace; access to education; relations in the workplace or home; how we experience life through a spectrum of identities; or the more- thanhuman entanglements that contextualize our environments, we need to conceptualize and analyse the intersections between spaces and practices of justice to formulate innovative and grounded interventions.

The Spaces and Practices of Justice book series aims to do so through cutting across scales to explore power, relations and society from the local through to international levels, recognizing that space is fundamental to understanding how (in)justice is relationally produced in, and through, different temporal and geographical contexts. It is also always practised, and a conceptual focus on these ‘doings and sayings’ (Shove, 2014) brings a sense of the everydayness of (in)justice. It also allows for analysis of the broader contexts, logics and structures within which such experiences and relations are embedded (Jaeger- Erben and Offenberger, 2014; Herman, 2018).

Who doesn’t love the beach? Beaches and coastlines are beautiful landscapes that provide a wealth of recreational, economic, and environmental benefits. In many locations, coastal areas are highly developed, which can make managing these dynamic landscapes challenging. The study of these landscapes is essential for developing land management practices that balance natural coastal processes with the challenges associated with coastal development.

Coasts are shaped by a variety of processes, such as waves, tides, and water level fluctuations. These processes operate on different timescales, ranging from short-lived storm events to sea level fluctuations that span millennia, and from local to global spatial scales. In some cases, coastal processes interact to enhance risk and vulnerability along the coast. For example, a hurricane that makes landfall at a spring (high) tide can be far more devastating than one that landfalls at a neap (low) tide.

Introduction

In 1989, the United Nations launched its Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which, particularly through Article 12, enshrined the right of children and young people to be heard on ‘all matters affecting the child’ (UN, 1989). Youth participation as mandated by the UNCRC encompasses and has been implemented in a number of areas, including education, health, child protection, environmental impacts, as well as public affairs such as policy making, democratic processes and legal issues (Head, 2011). Over the last three decades, the predominant response to the UNCRC has been the development of various youth participation models and initiatives (for example, Hart, 1992; Cahill and Dadvand, 2018). Subsequent work has been critical of such approaches (see Kraft and Manning, 2023), particularly regarding tokenistic forms of youth participation and the way young people's participation can be ignored or manipulated and without access to powersharing and/ or decision- making processes (Hall and Pottinger, 2019; Lukuslu et al, 2020).

A different approach to facilitating young people's participation in matters that concern them has emerged from critical and transformative traditions of social research, in particular participatory action research. In contrast to the dominant approaches of youth participation models, youth participatory action research (YPAR) draws upon research traditions that seek to unsettle established power relations and have a strong history of working collaboratively with disadvantaged groups to promote change and pursue social justice for children and young people (Cammarota and Fine, 2008).

Soil means different things to different people. To a gardener, it is a medium for plant growth. To a civil engineer, it is a type of foundational material, or perhaps something to backfill around a house or in a septic drain field. To a hydrologist, soil functions as a source of water purification and supply. To some geologists, it is the overburden that buried all the rocks! But to geomorphologists and pedologists (pedology is the study of soils), soil comprises both organic and/or mineral materials, normally at the surface, that have been altered by biological, chemical, and/or physical processes. Another recent definition stresses the importance of biota in soil formation, defining soil as the “biologically excited layer” of Earth’s crust.

Although a natural process, human actions and extreme climatic events can accentuate slope instability, leading to disastrous slope failures and loss of life, like the one that occurred in the Brazilian city of Petrópolis on February 17, 2022. Over 200 people died in the mudflows, caused by intense rainfall (258 mm in three hours) and the deforestation of upslope areas. Understanding how and why materials move downslope helps geomorphologists to predict where and when future mass movement events may occur.

Except for perhaps volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, the most impressive (and deadly) geomorphic “events” involve the downslope movement of rock, debris, and sediment – referred to as mass movements because the material moves en masse. In their simplest sense, mass movements represent the downslope transport of rock and soil materials. Examples range from massive, fast-moving landslides and debris flows, to the inexorably slow process of soil creep.

Water is central to life. Geomorphologists know that running water also plays a key role in sculpting the land surface. This chapter covers physical hydrology – the science concerned with the occurrence, distribution, and movement of water – and the movement and storage of water-borne sediment within the various Earth systems. In this chapter, we focus on streams and how they transport sediment, from source to sink. The material presented here forms an important background for Chapter 16, which focuses on landforms developed by running water.