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Since the establishment of ecocriticism, the traditional Western dualistic categories of spaces and places have become objects of increasing pluralistic refigurations in light of the challenges posed by current environmental crises. More and more scholars have discussed how rooted dichotomies, including country/city and nature/culture, should be reconsidered for better acknowledging the sense of connectedness occurring between humans and the surrounding nonhuman world. Consequences of this approach in literary and cultural studies have been pivotal: new environmentally oriented hermeneutic practices have developed, which allow for reevaluating phenomena linked to old-fashioned understandings of the natural world. Among them, the pastoral, traditionally conceived as the contrast between the rural and the urban, has been reexamined by ecocritics through new concepts, starting from the “post-pastoral” (Gifford, 1999). By stressing the investigation of the relationship between the human and the environment in pastoral representations, the post-pastoral has become a favorable tool (Gifford, 2006) for enhancing ethical considerations in response to the challenges posed by the Anthropocene.

This transdisciplinary chapter is also inspired by “geocriticism,” which reflects on how literary narratives influence spatial practices in the real, material world. Specifically, this chapter discusses how the neologism “cittagna” – blending the Italian terms città (city) and campagna (country) – which first appeared in Stefano Benni's novel Prendiluna (2017), allows critics to reflect on the development of similar combinatory processes in contemporary urban spaces. When considering this process in parallel with the notion of post-pastoral, “cittagna,” becomes a useful concept for observing how, in current cityscapes, the emergence of new spaces and places negotiates the conventional country/city split, while highlighting the sense of intertwining between the two terms. Hence, attention is placed on how two possible examples of rising “cittagnas” – roof gardens and off-leash dog parks – can be read as evidence of the increasing attentiveness toward issues of human-nonhuman relationality in today's urbanism, which becomes a hope on the horizon for facing current environmental concerns.

China has embarked on a major concerted strategy to arrest grassland degradation and livelihood problems in the western pastoral region. The paper aims to provide a framework through which this strategy can be understood and refined into the future.

The paper is based on a typology of grassland policies – technical, administrative, and management – and a discussion of the emphasis that China has and should place on each policy category. Data are drawn from policy documents and interview material collected through extensive fieldwork in large tracts of China's western pastoral region.

China has appropriately pursued “top‐down” technical and administrative policies to address major and immediate degradation‐livelihoods problems. However, longer term solutions to the problems require the strengthening of management structures from the “bottom‐up”, especially amongst herders themselves and other economic factors.

The paper proposes a series of concrete recommendations that may be considered as China refines its grasslands strategy into the future. The emphasis in the paper on the relationships between multi‐dimensional policies is of particular value in addressing multi‐dimensional grasslands‐livelihood problems.

Despite the magnitude and implications of China's recent grasslands strategy, there is a dearth of English language studies on the subject, which this paper aims to fill. The paper includes numerous micro‐level insights gained from extensive fieldwork in the western pastoral region that are not evident in more macro‐level studies.

Investigates the dimensions of accounting information prepared for use in managing non‐corporate pastoral entities in pre‐Federation Western Victoria and the local, time‐specific environmental factors which shaped these dimensions. Based on examinations of 23 sets of surviving business records prepared during 1836‐1900, provides evidence of the structure and usage of pastoral accounting information in an unregulated financial reporting environment. Draws conclusions about the likely impact of cultural, legal and political, professional, educational, economic and other factors as key explanatory variables. Also argues a case for lost relevance based on the evidence of accounting change in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

Pinpoints how economic and social development in the strategically important pastoral region of China poses many unique problems, in particular the future livelihood of the minorities who have inhabited the vast pastoral expanses of north and north‐west China for millennia, which is being threatened by degradation of the rangelands. Outlines the development issues confronting the pastoral region, and examines the impact on the region of two specific nationwide reforms ‐ the introduction of the household production responsibility system and the fiscal reforms of the early 1980s. Shows that both these generally beneficial reforms have created major “second generation” problems in pastoral areas. Identifies the principal reason for these undesirable outcomes as the divergence between national and local policy objectives.

This research examined the impacts of diversified income from trading caterpillar fungus on pastoral households' livestock production and income. The specific objectives were to identify the main factors underlying participation in caterpillar fungus trade and to explore the impacts of a diversified income from trading fungus on livestock production activities and income.

Data were collected from a pastoral household survey (n = 503) in five Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures. The authors employed propensity score matching (PSM) procedures to estimate the effects of participation in trading caterpillar fungus.

Pastoral households participating in caterpillar fungus activities maintain smaller herds, sell fewer animals for profit, slaughter more livestock for family consumption and experience fewer livestock deaths compared to nonparticipants. There is also some evidence that pastoral households participating in caterpillar fungus activities have a higher annual income compared to nonparticipants.

A direct measure of grassland degradation was not included due to the data limitation. The estimated average treatment effects could differ under different observed households' characteristics.

This study fills a gap in the literature on the impacts of diversified income on livestock production activities. The authors provide a new perspective on the controversy over the extraction of caterpillar fungus. This study contributes to exploring the dual role of income diversification in addressing poverty and grassland resource degradation for Tibetan pastoral communities.

Drawing on the literature on pastoral power, a term introduced by Foucault that denotes a specific form of authority based on the subordinate's open communication regarding aspirations, interests and personal concerns, having the full faith in the leader's care of the subordinate's welfare, this article report empirical material from a study of Swedish construction industry.

Leadership practices are contingent on context and situation, and over time, authoritative leadership practices have been complemented by relational leadership that increasingly emphasizes the bilateral communication between manager and subordinate. The more communicative and “soft” leadership idiom may have both benefits and incur unanticipated consequences and conditions that need to be studied on basis of empirical materials.

Managers in the construction industry emphasize how subordinates increasingly turn to their closest managers to address a variety of concerns. Even though managers recognizes the value of providing personalized support, there is a risk that such a leadership idiom distract both managers and subordinates, i.e. counseling activities consume too much resources, making agents less prone to fully attend to proper project goals.

To consider contemporary leadership practices as partially premised on pastoral power provides new analytical possibilities that shed light on how leadership practice needs to correspond with new demands in the corporate setting.

Most of the studies done on pastoralists in Ethiopia either rely on qualitative data or mainly focus on descriptive analysis and thus lack rigorous econometric measures. As a result, very little is known about the economics of household level activities in pastoral production systems. Thus, the aim of this paper is to use analysis factors influencing household income among (agro‐) pastoralists of southern Ethiopia. This information therefore can contribute to more evidence‐based decision making occurring across pastoral areas and inform policy decisions regarding the design of income generating strategies in pastoral areas.

Multi stage sampling technique was followed to select 197 household heads. Descriptive statistics like mean, standard deviation and percentages were used to explain the socioeconomic characteristics of respondents. The relationship between the household income and the independent variables were estimated using multiple regression procedure.

The finding shows that wealth and income are highly skewed; agro‐pastoralists earned two‐fold more than pastoralists by virtue of their crop activity. The variables explaining the variations in income level are family size, market distance, land size, education level and livelihood diversification status. Households with larger family members, farm land, nearer to market centres, diversification status and literate heads have earned larger income than their counterparts.

Improving market access and developing marketing opportunities are essential to (agro‐) pastoralists to get the best value for their products; alongside the expansion of crop cultivation and creation of alternative livelihood opportunities and access to education should be emphasized.

The paper presents an analysis of original survey conducted by the author from December to January 2010/11.

The purpose of this systematic review was to assess the determinant factors of climate change adaptation (CCA) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Studies that focused on determinant factors of CCA by crop–livestock farmers and pastoralists in SSA and written in English were reviewed from five major databases using the applications of Endnote and NVivo. The review process followed a sequence of steps to reach into the final selection.

A total of 3,028 papers were recovered from the databases and screened for duplicates (777) and publications before 2000 (218). The titles and abstracts of 2,033 papers were reviewed, and 1,903 of them were excluded owing to preliminary exclusion criteria. Finally, 130 papers were selected for full-text review and more detailed assessment, where 36 papers qualified for the final review. The most important determinant factors of CCA by pastoralists were household income, access to information, access to extension services, government support and access to market. In the case of agro-pastoralists, access to information, household income, age and land/livestock ownership were found as the major determinant factors. Household income, land ownership, access to information, farm size, household size and access to extension services were the determinant factors found for CCA by smallholder farmers.

This systematic review identified the major determinant factors according to production systems and highlights the importance of considering specific factors in designing CCA strategies.

After clearly stating the research question, a literature search was conducted from the major databases for climate-related research, and a comprehensive search was performed by two independent researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the roles of accounting within state-based agencies which interpreted the ideal of protection for the Aboriginal population as principally about the removal of children from the Aboriginal communities to institutions of training and places of forced indenture under government-negotiated labour contracts.

The study uses the original archival records of the New South Wales Aborigines Protection and Welfare Boards (1883-1950) to highlight the link between pastoral notions of moral betterment and the use of accounting technologies to organise and implement the “apprenticeship” programmes.

The analysis reveals that accounting practices and information were integral to the ability of the state to intervene and organise this domain of action and, together with a legal framework, to make the forced removal of Aboriginal children possible.

The mentalities and practices of assimilation analysed in the paper are not unique to the era of “protection”. The study provides a history of the present that evokes the antecedents to recent welfare policy changes, which encompass a political rationality directed at the normalisation of the economic and social behaviours of both indigenous and non-indigenous welfare recipients.

The paper provides an historical example of how the state enlisted accounting and legal technologies to construct a crisis of “neglect” and to intervene to protect and assimilate the Aboriginal children.

Different livestock production systems contribute to globally Greenhouse gas emission (GHG) emission differently. The aim of this paper is to understand variation in emission in different production systems and it is also important for developing mitigation interventions that work for a specific production system.

In this study, the authors used the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment interactive model (GLEAM-i) to estimate the GHG emission and emission intensity and tested the effectiveness of mitigation strategies from 180 farms under three production systems in northern Ethiopia, namely, pastoral, mixed and urban production systems.

Production systems varied in terms of herd composition, livestock productivity, livestock reproductive parameters and manure management systems, which resulted in difference in total GHG emission. Methane (82.77%) was the largest contributor followed by carbon dioxide (13.40%) and nitrous oxide (3.83%). While both total carbon dioxide and methane were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in urban production system than the other systems emission intensities of cow’s milk and goat and sheep’s meat were lower in urban systems. Improvement in feed, manure management and herd parameters resulted in reduction of total GHG emission by 30, 29 and 21% in pastoral, mixed and urban production systems, respectively.

This study is a first time comparison of the GHG emission production by various production systems in northern Ethiopia. Moreover, it uses the GLEAM-i program for the first time in the ex ante settings for measuring and comparing emissions as well as for developing mitigation scenarios. By doing so, it provides information on the various livestock production system properties that contribute to the increase or decrease in GHG emission and helps in developing guidelines for low emission livestock production systems.