The post-Cold War situation has given way to a new and unprecedented constellation of global interrelations. The power constellation today is not only multi-polar, but rather, ‘chaotic’: its configuration keeps shifting and it is determined not simply by new emerging super powers, but also by any seemingly small events in non-linear modes of interaction. The interdependency between communities somehow makes significant changes unpredictable. Such an interdependent, yet chaotic, world order, in turn, raises new philosophical questions. Identity, culture and civilization cannot be understood anymore simply in terms of traditional categories. These categories are called into question through mutual interrogation and mutual enlargement of horizons, and this inevitably entails hybridization and pluralization. The Asian voices included in this book speak of recognition of and respect for the ‘otherness’, the other outside as well as inside. The writers mostly see globalization as well as their own cultural positions through dialogical imagination in which a Western philosophical framework is deployed to find out their Asian positions, and the reverse, the Asian reality is used to problematize the Western framework. Thereby this book attempts to shed light on the question of how we are to understand culture and civilization.

In Sharing Territories, Cara Nine defends a river model of territorial rights. On a river model, groups are assumed to be interdependent and overlapping. If we imagine human settlements and territorial rights as established in river catchment areas-not on lands with walls and borders-the primary features of group life are not independence and distinctness. Drawing on natural law philosophy, Nine's theory argues for the establishment of foundational territories around geographical areas like rivers. Usually lower-scale political entities, foundational territories overlap with and serve as the grounding blocks of larger territorial units. Examples of foundational territories include not only river catchment areas but also urban areas, drawn around individuals who hold obligations to collectively manage their surroundings. Foundational territorial authorities manage spatially integrated areas where agents are interconnected by dense and scaffolded physical circumstances. In these areas, individuals cannot fulfil their natural obligations to each other without the help of collective rules. As foundational territories overlap the territories of other political units, Nine frames a theory of nested and shared territorial rights, and argues for insightful changes to the allocation of resource rights between political groups and individuals.

A thoroughly revised edition of this successful undergraduate introduction to literary theory, this text includes core pieces by leading theorists from Russian Formalists to Postmodernist and Post-colonial critics. An ideal teaching resource, with helpful introductory notes to each chapter.

"Nowhere has a range of case studies of Sudan been brought together in a single volume. Given the concern with the growing number and complexity of conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan there is a significant readership in academic circles and from those involved in humanitarian organisations of all kinds." Professor Peter Woodward, University of Reading "A timely contribution to an important set of debates ... tackles questions emerging from discussions about modernisation, urbanisation and globalisation from an explicitly local angle with regards to Sudan." Dr Harry Verhoeven, University of Oxford Sudan experiences one of the most severe fissures between society and territory in Africa. Not only were its international borders redrawn when South Sudan separated in 2011, but conflicts continue to erupt over access to land: territorial claims are challenged by local and international actors; borders are contested; contracts governing the privatization of resources are contentious; and the legal entitlements to agricultural land are disputed. Under these new dynamics of land grabbing and resource extraction, fundamental relationships between people and land are being disrupted: while land has become a global commodity, for millions it still serves as a crucial reference for identity-formation and constitutes their most important source of livelihood. This book seeks to disentangle the emerging relationships between people and land in Sudan. The first part focuses on the spatial impact of resource-extracting economies: foreign agricultural land acquisitions; Chinese investments in oil production; and competition between artisanal and industrial gold mining. Detailed ethnographic case studies in the second part, from Darfur, South Kordofan, Red Sea State, Kassala, Blue Nile, and Khartoum State, show how rural people experience "their" land vis- -vis the latest wave of privatization and commercialization of land rights. J rg Gertel is Professor of Economic Geography at Leipzig University; Richard Rottenburg is Chair of Anthropology at the University of Halle; Sandra Calkins is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle

India, one of the largest importers of oil in the world, has been diversifying its energy resource options and moving towards greater energy security. This book analyses India’s potential for building energy ties in the Asia–Pacific considering the global and regional power politics. Facing China’s growing influence in Asia, India’s eastward engagement with its extended neighbours has been entrenched in its Act East Policy and institutional commitments towards Southeast Asia. This volume focuses on diverse facets of energy security beyond the traditional understanding of demand and supply and price and stability. It examines India’s energy sector, its dependence on hydrocarbons, and the push towards renewable and alternate energy resources. It further looks at the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea regions in geopolitical negotiations from an energy perspective and how China’s influence in the region will affect India’s moves towards greater energy cooperation with the countries of East Asia. With contributions by leading experts, the volume seeks to fill a major void in this theme and cater to the needs of a variety of audiences including academics, policymakers and experts in international relations, geopolitics and geoeconomics, and professionals in the field of energy studies.