title: Laowai: Contested Identity and Imagined Community among Shanghai's Expatriates

authors: Foote, David

subjects: Expatriate

abstract: Considering their significance to the globalised economy, expatriate communities have attracted relatively little scholarly scrutiny.  Much has been written about non-Western migration to the West, but there has been little attention paid to population transfers in the opposite direction.  Shanghai has a long historical and cultural association with the West and, thanks to China’s continued economic growth, the city's Western expatriate population has more than tripled since 2001. This research utilises ethnographic methods to examine identity and community within Shanghai's expatriate population. Using data from participant-observation, as well as text gleaned from interviews and personal narrative, I document the construction, by expatriates, of small, tightly bounded networks of support as well as the broader imagined community of "Westernness" from which these fictive kinship groups were typically drawn.  Analysing transmigrancy through a ritual lens, I argue that this imagined Western community is best understood as an expression of communitas and that expatriates are liminal figures themselves, stalled in the middle phase of the migration ritual.  Indeed, expatriates frequently located themselves between China and the West, unable to become Chinese but also unwilling to be seen as just another tourist. Local Chinese constructions of self also position the Western Other on the periphery - entangling "whiteness" and Westernness with assumptions of class, cosmopolitanism and personal freedom.  Walled compounds and private drivers allowed some expatriates to move easily from one comfortable enclave of Westernness to another, only engaging with the local Chinese Other touristically.  However, many expatriates made deeper claims of local emplacement, stitching together patchwork cosmopolitan neighbourhoods out of scattered, often discontiguous local and expatriate spaces.  These blended neighbourhood bubbles provided expatriates with a space for the performance of new, liminal, transnational identities - rooted in Shanghai but still comfortably Western.

text: Laowai: Contested Identity and Imagined Community among Shanghai's Expatriates Considering their significance to the globalised economy, expatriate communities have attracted relatively little scholarly scrutiny.  Much has been written about non-Western migration to the West, but there has been little attention paid to population transfers in the opposite direction.  Shanghai has a long historical and cultural association with the West and, thanks to China’s continued economic growth, the city's Western expatriate population has more than tripled since 2001. This research utilises ethnographic methods to examine identity and community within Shanghai's expatriate population. Using data from participant-observation, as well as text gleaned from interviews and personal narrative, I document the construction, by expatriates, of small, tightly bounded networks of support as well as the broader imagined community of "Westernness" from which these fictive kinship groups were typically drawn.  Analysing transmigrancy through a ritual lens, I argue that this imagined Western community is best understood as an expression of communitas and that expatriates are liminal figures themselves, stalled in the middle phase of the migration ritual.  Indeed, expatriates frequently located themselves between China and the West, unable to become Chinese but also unwilling to be seen as just another tourist. Local Chinese constructions of self also position the Western Other on the periphery - entangling "whiteness" and Westernness with assumptions of class, cosmopolitanism and personal freedom.  Walled compounds and private drivers allowed some expatriates to move easily from one comfortable enclave of Westernness to another, only engaging with the local Chinese Other touristically.  However, many expatriates made deeper claims of local emplacement, stitching together patchwork cosmopolitan neighbourhoods out of scattered, often discontiguous local and expatriate spaces.  These blended neighbourhood bubbles provided expatriates with a space for the performance of new, liminal, transnational identities - rooted in Shanghai but still comfortably Western.

year: 2017

title: Sea-level change: Living with uncertainty

authors: de Lange, Willem P.

abstract: Sea level change is a naturally occurring process. Since the last glacial maximum, some 18,000 years ago, de-glaciation has taken place and this natural global warming has led to sea-level rise of on average 120 m or so. At some times, pulses of melt water coming from large peri-glacial lakes led to rates of sea-level rise as high as 3 m per century. The rate slowed down some 7000 years ago and since then has been naturally fluctuating by only a few meters. The remaining global sea-level rise has been about 20 cm in the 20th century. Has this led to global disasters? The answer is no. If the projected rise over the 21st century is double what was seen in the 20th, is it likely that it will result in global disasters? Again, the answer is most likely no; human ingenuity, innovation and engineering, and the proper material and financial resources should solve local problems if and when they arrive, as they have in the 20th century (see the Dutch example). 
In this short and accessible monograph, Willem de Lange and Robert Carter describe and explain sea-level change, including the many remaining uncertainties in our full understanding of what exactly drives this change, and discuss the implications, mainly regarding coastal management. The monograph is intended for policy makers, but it should be informative for any educated reader. De Lange and Carter analyse the causes of sea-level change, and describe how it has been measured – with tide gauges over the past 100 to 150 years and from satellites over the past 30 years. Their key message is to recall that sea-level change is a local phenomenon, with high variability and multiple causes. In the 20th century, for a global average rise of 20 cm, there has been sea-level rise of up to twice that value in some places, but in others a drop of the same amount! Because of the melting of a large former ice cap over the Baltic area, the Earth’s viscous mantle is slowly deforming and as a result sea-level is decreasing in the North of the British Isles at the same time as it is rising on the south coast. Moreover, we have known since Darwin and understood since the plate tectonics revolution that atolls in the Pacific form over slowly subsiding volcanoes and will eventually drown (but at a slower ‘geological’ rate, due to thermal subsidence of the lithosphere on which they stand). In any case, the global average has no practical value in local or regional coastal management.

text: Sea-level change: Living with uncertainty Sea level change is a naturally occurring process. Since the last glacial maximum, some 18,000 years ago, de-glaciation has taken place and this natural global warming has led to sea-level rise of on average 120 m or so. At some times, pulses of melt water coming from large peri-glacial lakes led to rates of sea-level rise as high as 3 m per century. The rate slowed down some 7000 years ago and since then has been naturally fluctuating by only a few meters. The remaining global sea-level rise has been about 20 cm in the 20th century. Has this led to global disasters? The answer is no. If the projected rise over the 21st century is double what was seen in the 20th, is it likely that it will result in global disasters? Again, the answer is most likely no; human ingenuity, innovation and engineering, and the proper material and financial resources should solve local problems if and when they arrive, as they have in the 20th century (see the Dutch example). 
In this short and accessible monograph, Willem de Lange and Robert Carter describe and explain sea-level change, including the many remaining uncertainties in our full understanding of what exactly drives this change, and discuss the implications, mainly regarding coastal management. The monograph is intended for policy makers, but it should be informative for any educated reader. De Lange and Carter analyse the causes of sea-level change, and describe how it has been measured – with tide gauges over the past 100 to 150 years and from satellites over the past 30 years. Their key message is to recall that sea-level change is a local phenomenon, with high variability and multiple causes. In the 20th century, for a global average rise of 20 cm, there has been sea-level rise of up to twice that value in some places, but in others a drop of the same amount! Because of the melting of a large former ice cap over the Baltic area, the Earth’s viscous mantle is slowly deforming and as a result sea-level is decreasing in the North of the British Isles at the same time as it is rising on the south coast. Moreover, we have known since Darwin and understood since the plate tectonics revolution that atolls in the Pacific form over slowly subsiding volcanoes and will eventually drown (but at a slower ‘geological’ rate, due to thermal subsidence of the lithosphere on which they stand). In any case, the global average has no practical value in local or regional coastal management.

year: 2014-01-15

title: Monitoring and hydrodynamic modelling of groundwater inflows into Lake Rotokakahi, New Zealand

authors: Noakes, Katie

subjects: Groundwater

abstract: Lake Rotokakahi is located 10 km south of Rotorua and is of immense cultural importance to the local iwi. The lake also has significant historical and recreational values, which prompted iwi to make the lake private in 1996. Lake Rotokakahi is one of several Rotorua/ Te Arawa lakes. Several of these lakes have become eutrophic and some have declining water quality. This study was prompted by declining water quality of Lake Rotokakahi and the need to identify potential sources of nutrients to the lake, particularly groundwater inflows.

The interaction between groundwater and surface water has a major influence on the trophic status of lakes, particularly those that are predominantly or solely groundwater fed systems. Lake Rotokakahi has one small spring-fed surface water inflow and one outflow, the Te Wairoa stream. Thus the lake is predominantly groundwater fed. The main objective of this thesis was to quantify the contribution of groundwater and surface water to Lake Rotokakahi and to examine interactions of the groundwater system with the lake, in order to provide a basis to improve lake management practices. Multiple monitoring sites were established around the perimeter of the lake to determine the spatial and temporal variation of groundwater inputs, as well as the groundwater nutrient dynamics. A three-dimensional hydrodynamic lake model was set up and simulations were used to examine how groundwater and surface water inflows were dispersed within the lake upon entry.

Monitoring of the shallow groundwater system took place from 1 January to 1 July 2016. Three separate storm events were monitored at high frequency within this monitoring period. The monitoring results showed the groundwater system varied significantly both spatially and temporally and also contributed a high proportion of the total nutrient load to the lake. Groundwater discharge and nutrient concentrations generally increased in association with or immediately following high rainfall events.
 
The three-dimensional model ELCOM was set up using hydrological data for the catchment, meteorological data from a nearby station and bathymetry of the lake. Simulations were based upon different methods of calculating groundwater inflows. Simulation 1 was based upon the common water balance equation method. Simulation 2 used constant groundwater inflow and outflow volumes as determined by a groundwater flow model, MODFLOW, which had been applied to the catchment by White et al., (2015). Simulation 3 combined MODLFOW values and measured groundwater levels to create a varying inflow volume based on water level. The three simulations accurately captured surface and bottom temperatures and had varying lake water levels. Only simulation 3 accurately captured the presence of the groundwater spring near the lake shore and was concluded the more accurate method of groundwater inflow calculation.

text: Monitoring and hydrodynamic modelling of groundwater inflows into Lake Rotokakahi, New Zealand Lake Rotokakahi is located 10 km south of Rotorua and is of immense cultural importance to the local iwi. The lake also has significant historical and recreational values, which prompted iwi to make the lake private in 1996. Lake Rotokakahi is one of several Rotorua/ Te Arawa lakes. Several of these lakes have become eutrophic and some have declining water quality. This study was prompted by declining water quality of Lake Rotokakahi and the need to identify potential sources of nutrients to the lake, particularly groundwater inflows.

The interaction between groundwater and surface water has a major influence on the trophic status of lakes, particularly those that are predominantly or solely groundwater fed systems. Lake Rotokakahi has one small spring-fed surface water inflow and one outflow, the Te Wairoa stream. Thus the lake is predominantly groundwater fed. The main objective of this thesis was to quantify the contribution of groundwater and surface water to Lake Rotokakahi and to examine interactions of the groundwater system with the lake, in order to provide a basis to improve lake management practices. Multiple monitoring sites were established around the perimeter of the lake to determine the spatial and temporal variation of groundwater inputs, as well as the groundwater nutrient dynamics. A three-dimensional hydrodynamic lake model was set up and simulations were used to examine how groundwater and surface water inflows were dispersed within the lake upon entry.

Monitoring of the shallow groundwater system took place from 1 January to 1 July 2016. Three separate storm events were monitored at high frequency within this monitoring period. The monitoring results showed the groundwater system varied significantly both spatially and temporally and also contributed a high proportion of the total nutrient load to the lake. Groundwater discharge and nutrient concentrations generally increased in association with or immediately following high rainfall events.
 
The three-dimensional model ELCOM was set up using hydrological data for the catchment, meteorological data from a nearby station and bathymetry of the lake. Simulations were based upon different methods of calculating groundwater inflows. Simulation 1 was based upon the common water balance equation method. Simulation 2 used constant groundwater inflow and outflow volumes as determined by a groundwater flow model, MODFLOW, which had been applied to the catchment by White et al., (2015). Simulation 3 combined MODLFOW values and measured groundwater levels to create a varying inflow volume based on water level. The three simulations accurately captured surface and bottom temperatures and had varying lake water levels. Only simulation 3 accurately captured the presence of the groundwater spring near the lake shore and was concluded the more accurate method of groundwater inflow calculation.

year: 2016