Julie Silva | University of Maryland (original) (raw)

Papers by Julie Silva

This project examined the role of place attachment in facilitating successful resettlement progra... more This project examined the role of place attachment in facilitating successful resettlement programs and identified barriers faced by resettled communities as they establish place attachment to the post-resettlement site. Respondents were asked about which items were needed for a better life and the importance of these items; items required for survival and happiness; and items needed for a better home. In addition, respondents were asked about the social environments in their post-resettlement site and former village; their material possessions in the post-resettlement site and former village; their household expenses in the post-resettlement site; and quality of life in their former village including availability of utilities, housing materials, and presence of disasters. Demographic variables include ethnic group, age, sex, language, education, occupation, and number of school-aged children in the household and their education.

This work was supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under fundi... more This work was supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation DBI-1052875.

Remote Sensing

While remotely sensed images of various resolutions have been widely used in identifying changes ... more While remotely sensed images of various resolutions have been widely used in identifying changes in urban and peri-urban environments, only very high resolution (VHR) imagery is capable of providing the information needed for understanding the changes taking place in remote rural environments, due to the small footprints and low density of man-made structures in these settings. However, limited by data availability, mapping man-made structures and conducting subsequent change detections in remote areas are typically challenging and thus require a certain level of flexibility in algorithm design that takes into account the specific environmental and image conditions. In this study, we mapped all buildings and corrals for two remote villages in Mozambique based on two single-date VHR images that were taken in 2004 and 2012, respectively. Our algorithm takes advantage of the presence of shadows and, through a fusion of both spectra- and object-based analysis techniques, is able to diff...

Review of Regional Studies

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

As climate change continues, it is expected to have increasingly adverse impacts on child nutriti... more As climate change continues, it is expected to have increasingly adverse impacts on child nutrition outcomes, and these impacts will be moderated by a variety of governmental, economic, infrastructural, and environmental factors. To date, attempts to map the vulnerability of food systems to climate change and drought have focused on mapping these factors but have not incorporated observations of historic climate shocks and nutrition outcomes. We significantly improve on these approaches by using over 580,000 observations of children from 53 countries to examine how precipitation extremes since 1990 have affected nutrition outcomes. We show that precipitation extremes and drought in particular are associated with worse child nutrition. We further show that the effects of drought on child undernutrition are mitigated or amplified by a variety of factors that affect both the adaptive capacity and sensitivity of local food systems with respect to shocks. Finally, we estimate a model dra...

International Journal of Tourism Research

ABSTRACT We examine the effects of tourism employment on gender inequality in Namibia. We find th... more ABSTRACT We examine the effects of tourism employment on gender inequality in Namibia. We find that tourism contributes to local livelihoods by providing opportunities for cash income through employment, craft sales and shareholder profits from tourism enterprises. In general, male-headed households are economically better off. Female-headed households with tourism employment are better off than those without and are as equally well-off as male-headed households. We find no significant statistical difference between male-headed households with tourism employment and those without it. These findings suggest that tourism provides specific advantages for women and helps mitigate gender inequality in areas where tourism employment is available. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Geographical Bulletin Gamma Theta Upsilon, May 1, 2001

Applied Geography, 2016

Abstract The environmental effects of disease are broadly recognized but still not fully understo... more Abstract The environmental effects of disease are broadly recognized but still not fully understood. The impact of health on economic development has been well-documented, as have how changes in land cover can contribute to poor health. However, little is known about how changes in health may impact land use and land cover. Fallowing has long been regarded as an advanced, sustainable land use decision employed by subsistence agriculturalists. In the presence of a prolonged illness, however, subsistence agriculturalists may also potentially use fallowing as a coping mechanism. In this paper we seek to understand the extent to which fallowing is used as a coping strategy by households facing a prolonged illness. If illness threatens a household's labor supply, it could affect their ability to cultivate all of their land and may impact food security and general economic well-being. Additionally, it may also impact the actual landscape, as previously agricultural land may revert to a transitional state or land abandonment. This study employs mixed methods to determine if unhealthy agricultural households use fallowing as a coping strategy, identifies whether or not unhealthy fallowing households are more vulnerable agriculturally and economically than their healthier fallowing counterparts, and examines whether there is a land cover effect that can be detected using Landsat TM/ETM + satellite imagery.

Environmental Research Letters, 2015

Regional Studies

In recent years the rise of consumer concerns for ‘quality’ and the associated emergence of ‘alte... more In recent years the rise of consumer concerns for ‘quality’ and the associated emergence of ‘alternative food networks’ (AFN) have attracted widespread attention from academics and policy-makers. In contrast to the ‘placeless’ and globalized conventional food chain, AFNs are increasingly viewed as ‘embedded’, ‘ethical’, and ‘sustainable’ options for rural development and regional economic growth. In Worlds of Food: Place, Power, and Provenance in the Food Chain Kevin Morgan, Terry Marsden and Jonathan Murdoch take up this argument, engaging directly with the political economic forces shaping the ‘new agri-food geography’ (p. 7). For Morgan et al. the marginalization of regions by the industrial food model, once believed to signal the death knell for local small-scale agricultures, has opened a privileged space for such agro-economies in the ‘intensely competitive economic and spatial battlefield’ that is contemporary food politics (p. 71). These spaces, once ‘locked-out’ of dominant markets, are increasingly ‘locked in’ (or attempting to become so) to profitable ‘quality’ markets precisely because their agro-ecologies and agro-economies were passed over by the ‘homogenizing tendencies of the conventional system’ (p. 85). This argument, however, is contingent: the benefits of local and alternative food networks are achievable only with the support of extra-local regulation and sufficient consumer demand. Organized loosely around the concepts of ‘place’, ‘power’, and ‘provenance’, Worlds of Food highlights the ongoing struggles to re-embed food production and (re)empower producers vis-à-vis downstream actors. Transgressing geographic scale, Morgan et al. explore the local effect of global regulation, and the increasingly global effect of local efforts to preserve agricultural integrity. After setting out an ambitious theoretical framework – which draws largely on conventions theory, but also owes much to the political economy and actor-network approaches of older agri-food literatures – the argument delves into the ‘particular forms of globalization’ characteristic of contemporary land-based capitalism (p. 54). Recent efforts to liberalize agricultural trade in the Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, coupled with the disproportionate power of concentrated retail capital in the UK and USA, they argue, continue to institutionalize industrial conventions that ‘devalorize or depreciate rural space through a process of scale enlargement and delivery’ (p. 69). Worlds of Food, however, is not a narrative without hope. Morgan et al. emphasize the equally significant counter-movement to localize food production and capitalize on the socio-ecological particularities of agri-food regions. With superb historical and analytical detail they examine three emerging alternative networks. Their case studies explore a range of production practices and agro-ecologies, from the uber alternative Tuscany (Chapter 4) to the quintessentially agri-capitalist California (Chapter 5), and finally to the Welsh commodity ghetto (Chapter 6). With each success story Morgan et al. illustrate the diversity of ‘fixes’ to the problem of marginalization and divergent trajectories taken by spaces of alternative production. In many ways this story repeats a standard political economic trope: the crises inherent to global capitalism provide both obstacles and opportunities for accumulation. In other ways, however, Worlds of Food expands the horizons of agro-food studies, framing efforts to localize and regulate production as manifestations of a ‘new moral economy of food’ (p. 167). Contemporary food politics, Morgan et al. argue, is marked by a growing concern for health and ethics and an increasingly ‘contested debate about responsibility’ (p. 171). Neither the conventional nor the alternative worlds are immune, as evidenced by the conventionalization of organic and Fair Trade products. Empirically rich and theoretically robust, this book provides an unparalleled discussion of the issues and debates around local and alternative foods. Ironically though, despite repeated nods to works suggesting the permeability of local/global boundaries and the embeddedness of all food production (p. 9), Morgan et al. conceptualize the contemporary agri-foodscape as a ‘clash of paradigms’ (p. 73) between the ‘conflicting geographic forces’ of localization and globalization (p. 53). While indeed distinctive, the line between Regional Studies, Vol. 41.5, pp. 713–718, July 2007

The Review of regional studies

This study examines the drivers of income inequality in a rural, developing economy. The analysis... more This study examines the drivers of income inequality in a rural, developing economy. The analysis uses data from a national longitudinal survey of rural households and a case study in Mozambique’s Limpopo River Basin and to investigate how economic integration affects income inequality within environmentally-embedded economies. Decomposition of the Gini coefficient finds increasing inequality of agricultural income at the national level. Qualitative findings suggest that economic change pressures smallholders to abandon traditional agricultural strategies, which increases environmental risk and contributes to higher inequality. Results indicate changing environmental-economic trade-offs are one mechanism behind rising inequality in rural societies integrating into the global economy.

Human Ecology

Economic goals form a critical component of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) p... more Economic goals form a critical component of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programs, but many studies question whether these initiatives actually deliver economic benefits to local communities. This presents a puzzle regarding why rural residents remain in CBNRM programs, and raises the possibility that non-economic incentives also influence participation. We address this question in a study of two Namibian communal conservancies, analyzing survey and interview data collected between 2009 and 2011. We find that economic incentives explain participation in one conservancy, whereas social motivations take precedence in the other. Our findings indicate that strong attachment to place and preferences for social cohesion can motivate people to comply with CBNRM even when economic incentives fail to materialize.

Journal of Sustainable Development, 2015

Development and Change, 2014

ABSTRACT Neoliberal conservation schemes involving nature-based tourism are implemented throughou... more ABSTRACT Neoliberal conservation schemes involving nature-based tourism are implemented throughout the developing world to address rural poverty. Drawing on socio-economic surveys and in-depth interviews, this article uses the case of Uibasen Conservancy in Namibia to investigate social responses to neoliberal conservation. We find that people's aspirations for upward economic and social mobility lead them to participate in neoliberal conservation projects in an attempt to combine economic opportunities created by nature-based tourism with traditional livelihood strategies. In this case, certain aspects of neoliberal conservation are perceived as a source of hope for non-elites seeking to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to ascend social hierarchies. We find that intra-community power struggles dominate discourses of discontent and local-level conflict which consequently masks the disruptive and anomic forces of the global tourism industry. We additionally provide insight into specific social contexts that may increase the allure of neoliberal conservation and explain why marginalized individuals may embrace some neoliberal logics despite — or, perhaps, because of — their disruptive tendencies.