michaelschoon Michael Schoon's Personal Website

Just finished a book, Transforming the Frontier: ‘Peace Parks’ and the Politics of Neoliberal Conservation in Southern Africa, by my good friend, Bram Buscher.  I strongly recommend this book as a great critical overview of transboundary conservation.  This book looks across southern Africa, but it zeroes in on the Maloti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation and Development Area at greater depth.  The book takes a neo-Marxist perspective (is that fair, Bram?) at the intertwining of conservation and development and some of the problems that arise from furthering this agenda.

At the opposite extreme in the political spectrum, I just finished another book on baseball, Men at Work, by the conservative columnist, George Will.  I was amazed at how well he knows his baseball, and I was equally amazed at the conservative political agenda that he was able to insert into a casual study of a sport.  But regardless of your political predilections, this is a great read – if you like baseball.

Otherwise, I’m immersed in books on Sweden, in preparation for our upcoming trip.  And for work, I’m digging into James Scott’s Seeing Like a State, which I’ve been meaning to tackle for some time.  Seeing Like a State takes on the international development community and international aid organizations.  Given Lyrna’s work with CARE in Ecuador and our time in southern Africa, I’m interested to see his perspective.  Also, I’ll be interested in seeing how it compares with the views of Easterly, Robert Guest, and Paul Collier.  I’ll let you know.

Recently the Rockefeller Foundation began a search for a position as managing director for resilience with a corresponding budget in the 7 figures.  Often these types of positions seem to use a very broad, everyday definition of resilience.  However, the foundation appears to have done its homework and is looking for interlinked social-ecological resilience research.  The goals are to 1) enhance individual, community and institutional capacity to survive, adapt, and grow in the face of acute crises and chronic stresses and 2) promote growth with equity whereby the poor and vulnerable have more access to opportunities that improve their lives.

The responsibilities include (among several):

Defining the indicators and impact measures for building resilience in a range of contexts. This will include, importantly, resilience not just to climate change, but to the different kind of shocks and chronic stresses faced by poor and vulnerable people. It will include building economic, institutional, and social as well as physical/infrastructural resilience.

Leading and managing the current and next stage of the Sustainable Employment in a Green US Economy (SEGUE) Initiative in Development.

This is very exciting, and I look forward to seeing how this program moves forward.

Just a quick note this morning.
I’m currently in the midst of a couple books for work and another for pleasure.
For work, I’m finishing up Duncan Watt’s recent book Everything is Obvious (Once You Know the Answer). It does a very nice job explaining why social science is so difficult. He also effectively diagnoses why we are so often misled by our common sense.
I’m also reading an edited volume by David Lane, Sander van der Leeuw, Denise Pumain, and Geoffrey West called Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change. Very interesting and advanced thinking on innovation, the role of urbanism, and linking of various theories from biology, economics, sociology, etc. I should note, Sander’s also my employer!
Finally, I’m really enjoying one of the best books on baseball of all time, Roger Kahn’s book on Jackie Robinson’s Brooklyn Dodgers, The Boys of Summer.

I’m using this page less as a blog and more as a simple home page.  This is my first attempt at a post.  I hope that everyone finds what they’re looking for!