Showing papers in "Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers in 2005"
TL;DR: The concept of scale in human geography has been profoundly transformed over the past 20 years and despite the insights that both empirical and theoretical research on scale have generated, there is today no consensus on what is meant by the term or how it should be operationalized.
Abstract: The concept of scale in human geography has been profoundly transformed over the past 20 years. And yet, despite the insights that both empirical and theoretical research on scale have generated, there is today no consensus on what is meant by the term or how it should be operationalized. In this paper we critique the dominant – hierarchical – conception of scale, arguing it presents a number of problems that cannot be overcome simply by adding on to or integrating with network theorizing. We thereby propose to eliminate scale as a concept in human geography. In its place we offer a different ontology, one that so flattens scale as to render the concept unnecessary. We conclude by addressing some of the political implications of a human geography without scale.
1,412 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe a single day's walking along the South West Coast Path in North Devon, England, focusing on the distinctive ways in which coast walking patterns into refracting orderings of subjectivity and spatiality, into sensations of anxiety and immensity, haptic enfolding and attenuation, encounters with others and with the elements.
Abstract: This paper tells the story of a single day's walking, alone, along the South West Coast Path in North Devon, England. Forms of narrative and descriptive writing are used here as creative and critical means of discussing the varied affinities and distanciations of self and landscape emergent within the affective and performative milieu of coastal walking. Discussion of these further enables critical engagement with current conceptualizations of self–landscape and subject–world relations within cultural geography and spatial-cultural theory more generally. Through attending to a sequence of incidents and experiences, the paper focuses upon the distinctive ways in which coast walking patterns into refracting orderings of subjectivity and spatiality – into for example, sensations of anxiety and immensity, haptic enfolding and attenuation, encounters with others and with the elements, and moments of visual exhilaration and epiphany.
615 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that much of the work in this relational turn is relational only in a thematic sense, focusing on various themes of socio-spatial relations without theorizing sufficiently the nature of relationality and its manifestation through power relations and actor-specific practice.
Abstract: Recent theoretical and empirical work in economic geography has experienced what might be termed a ‘relational turn’ that focuses primarily on the ways in which socio-spatial relations of economic actors are intertwined with processes of economic change at various geographical scales. This phenomenon begs the questions of whether the ‘relational turn’ is simply an explicit reworking of what might be an undercurrent in economic geography during the late 1970s and the 1980s, and whether this ‘turn’ offers substantial advancement in our theory and practice. In this paper, I aim to evaluate critically the nature and emergence of this relational economic geography by revisiting its antecedents and conceptual frameworks. This evaluation opens up some significant conceptual issues that are further reworked in this paper. In particular, I argue that much of the work in this ‘relational turn’ is relational only in a thematic sense, focusing on various themes of socio-spatial relations without theorizing sufficiently the nature of relationality and its manifestation through power relations and actor-specific practice. This paper thus illuminates the nature of relationality and the multiple ways through which power works itself out in ‘relational geometries’, defined as the spatial configurations of heterogeneous power relations. As a preliminary attempt, I first conceptualize different forms of power in such relational geometries and their causal effects in producing concrete/spatial outcomes. I then show how this relational view can offer an alternative understanding of a major research concern in contemporary economic geography – regional development.
568 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the connections between emotional geographies and psychotherapy are explored with a view to resisting the equation of emotion with individualized subjective experience, and developing situated, relational perspectives.
Abstract: The current upsurge of interest in emotions within geography has the potential to contribute to critical perspectives that question conventional limits to scholarship. Three precursors of emotional geographies are discussed in this context (humanistic, feminist and non-representational geographies). Connections between emotional geographies and psychotherapy are explored with a view to resisting the equation of emotion with individualized subjective experience, and developing situated, relational perspectives. Psychotherapy is approached as a theory of practice that accords central importance to affective qualities of relationships, which is shown to be directly relevant to geographical engagements with emotion. The distinction between feelings and representations of feelings is revisited through a discussion of psychotherapeutic meaning-making.
480 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the notion of territory is dependent on a particular way of grasping space as calculable, which makes bounded territories possible, but also underlies new global configurations, and suggest that further historical and conceptual work on territory is necessary before it can be thought to be superseded.
Abstract: This article provides a critique of a dominant strand of the literature on globalization – that which suggests it can be understood as deterritorialization. It argues that suggestions that we have moved away from territorial understandings of politics fail to conceptually elaborate the notion of territory itself. Drawing parallels between mathematics and politics in the seventeenth century, the paper claims that the notion of territory is dependent on a particular way of grasping space as calculable. This way of understanding space makes bounded territories possible, but also underlies new global configurations. In other words globalization is a reconfiguration of existing understandings rather than the radical break some suggest. The article concludes by making some comments on this reconfiguration, and suggesting that further historical and conceptual work on territory is necessary before it can be thought to be superseded.
290 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that sociality is too often confused with liking, and argue that it is vital to tackle misanthropy head on, and that currently there is a coming together in cities of all kinds of affective politics of concern which can act, through all manner of small achievements, as a counter-example of the Cassandra interpretation, but which do not mistake the practice of this politics for a search after perfection.
Abstract: I take as my starting point the fact that Western cities are often depicted as on the brink of catastrophe. Indeed some contemporary authors would argue that they have never been closer to that brink. The first part of this paper argues against this tendency by focusing on the preponderance of activities of repair and maintenance. Having looked at the state of this forgotten infrastructure, in the second part of the paper I turn to an examination of why this Cassandra interpretation is so prevalent. I argue that, in particular, it draws on wellsprings of misanthropy which are rarely voiced in writings on cities because sociality is too often confused with liking. Yet it seems vital to me to tackle misanthropy head on. Then, in the third part of the paper, I argue that currently there is a coming together in cities of all kinds of affective politics of concern which can act, through all manner of small achievements, as a counter to misanthropy but which do not mistake the practice of this politics for a search after perfection.
208 citations
TL;DR: A complementary narrative is written around the findings of qualitative "compositional" research as discussed by the authors, which is about the way health itself is drawn into the structuring of society and space, illustrated in the processes of selective placement, entrapment and displacement.
Abstract: Place is undoubtedly relevant to health, and geography is a central character in the story of how rich societies handle inequalities in death and disease. But the text is incomplete, its scope limited by a too-delicate encounter between research and policy, and by a strange subdisciplinary divide. Accounts of the geography in health inequalities are largely, albeit subtly, locked into ‘context’. They document the complex extent to which different (material, social and cultural) environments undermine or enhance resilience. They tell the tale of risky places. Our complementary narrative is written around the findings of qualitative ‘compositional’ research. It is about the way health itself is drawn into the structuring of society and space. This geography is a map of health discrimination, illustrated in the processes of selective placement, entrapment and displacement. By drawing attention to the ‘healthism’ of politics and policy in ‘care-less’ competition economies, this enlarged perspective might enhance the role of geography (and geographers) in both understanding and managing health inequalities.
146 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the simultaneity of online/on-site experiences through an exploration of cyberspace as a performative liminal space, one where the women "tried out" different versions of motherhood.
Abstract: This paper makes a case for cyberspace and geographical space coexisting simultaneously as an interconnected dyadic cyber/space combining the virtually real and the actually real. Based on empirical evidence from a study examining the role of the Internet in the life of new mothers, we investigate the simultaneity of online/onsite experiences through an exploration of cyberspace as a performative liminal space, one where the women ‘tried out’ different versions of motherhood. We suggest that liminality, as a concept that can denote both a space and time of ‘betweenness’, is a useful tool in the virtual geographers ‘conceptual handbag’ as it enables a more lively understanding of cyberspace. But although cyberspace can result in the production of new selves, these selves have residual attachments to embodied experiences and practices. This suggests that new theorizing about cyber/space must combine a consideration of liminality with everyday corporeality.
139 citations
TL;DR: This article explored community opposition to a proposed accommodation centre for asylum seekers in Nottinghamshire (UK) and found that local campaigners rarely referred directly to their own 'whiteness' and argued their campaign can only be understood within a racialized problematic, constituting an attempt to defend the privileges of an 'unmarked' whiteness against the imagined threat of a racialised Other group.
Abstract: Geographers have recently progressed the debate on NIMBYism by demonstrating that opposition to new development is frequently motivated by white residents’ desire to exclude non-white groups. In this paper, I extend this argument by exploring community opposition to a proposed accommodation centre for asylum seekers in Nottinghamshire (UK). Herein, I detail a rhetoric of opposition that ignored the multiple origins and ethnicities of asylum seekers to depict them as an undifferentiated Other group. Though local campaigners rarely referred directly to their own ‘whiteness’, I argue their campaign can only be understood within a racialized problematic, constituting an attempt to defend the privileges of an ‘unmarked’ whiteness against the imagined threat of a racialized Other. In conclusion, I argue that studies of NIMBYism must take careful account of the contingency of racial identities if they are to effectively contribute to the geographic literature that seeks to de-centre white privilege.
125 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a post-socialism marked out as different by the particular experiences of socialism, its construction and destruction and as a partial and hybrid social form, produced by a combination of multiple social forms constructed at varied scales of time and space.
Abstract: In reporting on recent research on the changing geographies of everyday life in the town of Nowa Huta in southern Poland, this paper seeks to promote the use of post-socialism as a conceptual, rather than simply descriptive and/or transitory, category. By exploring experiences of (im)mobility and (in)security in post-socialism, this paper connects to related work on the West and asks what difference post-socialism makes. It concludes by presenting a post-socialism marked out as different by the particular experiences of socialism, its construction and destruction and as a partial and hybrid social form, produced by a combination of multiple social forms constructed at varied scales of time and space.
123 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the different ways in which Darwin's fundamentally biogeographical theory of evolution by natural selection was construed in a number of different settings, including the Charleston Museum of Natural History in South Carolina, the Wellington Philosophical Society and New Zealand Institute and the St Petersburg Society of Naturalists in Russia during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Abstract: The idea of a ‘geography of reading’ provides a potential point of conversation between the cultural and scientific wings of our profession. Here I explore some dimensions of the geography of reading scientific texts. Drawing on a number of theoretical pronouncements – Gadamer's ‘fusion of horizons’, Said's ‘travelling theory’, Secord's ‘geographies of reading’, Beer's ‘miscegenation of texts’, Fish's ‘interpretive communities’ and Rupke's ‘geographies of reception’– I focus on the spaces where scientific theories are encountered. The argument is that where scientific texts are read has an important bearing on how they are read. This realization points to a fundamental instability in scientific meaning and to the crucial significance of what might be called located hermeneutics. As a case study in the development of a cartographics of scientific meaning, I explore the different ways in which Darwin's fundamentally biogeographical theory of evolution by natural selection was construed in a number of different settings. The sites I have chosen to illustrate this are the scientific communities which congregated around the Charleston Museum of Natural History in South Carolina, the Wellington Philosophical Society and New Zealand Institute, and the St Petersburg Society of Naturalists in Russia during the second half of the nineteenth century. In each case the encounter with evolution theory, and the ways it was interpreted, are shown to have been shaped by local cultural politics, thereby disclosing the critical role that space plays in the production of scientific meaning.
TL;DR: The potential for research to'make a difference' and, in particular, to exert influence on public policy and practice has increasingly attracted comment and controversy as mentioned in this paper. And not only geographers, but also natural scientists are not always sanguine about the difference their research makes to wider society.
Abstract: The potential for research to 'make a difference' and, in particular, to exert influence on public policy and practice has increasingly attracted comment and controversy. Ironically, such scrutiny arises, at least in part, from perceived deficiencies at the research/policy interface. As the 2003 RGSIBG conference programme put it, with gentle understatement, [gleographers are not always sanguine about the difference their research makes to ... wider society' (RGS-IBG 2003, 80). And not only geographers, of course. What Carol Weiss (1975) identified as the problem of 'little effect' has long been familiar, across different disciplines, to those engaged in policy-relevant research. A recent report documented 'frustration on the part of social scientists that their work is inadequately appreciated and used' (Commission on the Social Sciences 2003, 85), and natural scientists similarly complain that their advice goes unheeded (see Clark and Majone 1985). Even when research and analysis are explicitly designed to inform policies and decisions, those who look for manifest impacts may be disappointed. As In't Veld and de Wit demonstrate in their revealing analysis of public policy issues in the Netherlands, '[H1arge quantities of knowledge produced for the benefit of policy are never used in that policy-making' (2000, 154, emphasis added). There is a marked tendency to attribute the problem of little effect to shortcomings in communication. Decisionmakers and practitioners, it is argued, are pressed for time, so may act in ignorance of bodies of knowledge 'out there', or misinterpret such material as comes their way. Researchers, for their part, if they are willing to engage with policy at all, may fail to produce 'useable knowledge' and/or to articulate their findings in a language that policymakers find accessible.! Such claims were made repeatedly in a series of seminars on urban environments2 that I recently co-convened. These seminars
TL;DR: In this article, a set of shocks to the meaning of accepted categories like "nature" and "technology" are delivered by forging new links between geography and biology and technology, which can provide a series of new perspectives, as well as a pressing ethical challenge.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with forging new links between geography and biology and technology by delivering a set of shocks to the meaning of accepted categories like ‘nature’ and ‘technology’. To achieve these dual aims, the paper will double click on the icon ‘intelligence’. ‘Intelligence’ prioritizes the active shaping of environments. It thereby allows space for the spaces of the world to themselves become a part of intelligibility and intellect as elements of distributed cognition and, as will become clear, pre-cognition. The paper argues that such a conception of sentience can provide a series of new perspectives, as well as a pressing ethical challenge.
TL;DR: This paper explored the analytic purchase and substantive concerns of what they call geographies of relatedness, highlighting the attentiveness to sites, scales and contexts within this work, and suggested ways in which a focus on relatedness may shape approaches to established and emerging matters of concern in human geography.
Abstract: This paper explores the analytic purchase and substantive concerns of what I am calling geographies of relatedness. Drawing on recent work in feminist anthropology which has reconsidered kinship as classificatory system and practice, and highlighting the attentiveness to sites, scales and contexts within this work, I suggest ways in which a focus on relatedness may shape approaches to established and emerging matters of concern in human geography. I consider first the foundational status but flexible meaning of ‘blood’ in kinship thinking, and the ways the flexibility of kinship can be curtailed and its foundational status reinstated in relation to the nation and the state. Second, I consider the geographies of relatedness that are constituted through and practised in the process of establishing degrees of biological connection, delimiting difference, mapping human ‘diversity’ and defining personal, collective and human origins at different scales and with different effects. A focus on geographies of relatedness, I argue, highlights the ways blood ties or similarly naturalized connections move between and connect categories of relatedness with different sizes, extents and configurations across space, as well as different temporalities. It suggests an alertness to new global mappings of human relatedness and difference and combines a critical attention to ideas of the ‘nature’ of human reproduction as foundational, original or primal in the natural order of the social, to ideas of ‘place of origin’: personal, national, ethnic, racialized, universal in their familiar and emergent forms.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that insufficient attention has been paid to the scale at which alternative economic practices operate, arguing that when attempting to build non-capitalist practices, scale matters.
Abstract: This paper engages with recent geographical debates on alternative economic practices, arguing that insufficient attention has been paid to the scale at which they operate. Through an analysis of recent attempts to ‘fix’ economic activity at a scale felt to be normatively desirable through alternative currencies, the paper argues that when attempting to build non-capitalist practices, scale matters. The paper discusses processes of financial structuration that limit and channel these spaces through an analysis of localized alternative networks in the UK (Local Exchange Trading Schemes – LETS) and the geographically wider barter networks in Argentina.
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study from Cameroon is used to show that the commodification of public water supplies is not new, permanent or inevitable, and the relationship between the willingness to pay for water and knowledge among water users about the costs of production is examined.
Abstract: Across the globe there is an ongoing debate about whether water ought to be treated as a commodity. This paper argues that recent geographical work on commodities can usefully inform these debates amongst environmental and development policymakers. First, the paper uses a case study from Cameroon to show that the commodification of public water supplies is not new, permanent or inevitable. Second, it uses the case study and insights from the psychoanalytic literature to examine the relationship between the willingness-to-pay for water and knowledge amongst water users about the costs of production. It is argued that the commodity fetish remains a useful concept, but that it requires reinterpretation. It concludes that demystifying the commodity includes not only unveiling the politics of production but also understanding the politics of the practice of exchange by considering the socio-synthetic effects of treating things as commodities.
TL;DR: This paper found that levels of ethnic segregation in England?s schools are high, with considerable variation both across LEAs and across different minority ethnic groups, and that ethnic segregation is only weakly related to income segregation.
Abstract: We document ethnic segregation in secondary schools in England in 2001 in order to contribute to the debate on the degree of ethnic group social integration. We use indices of dissimilarity and isolation to compare the patterns of segregation across nine ethnic groups. We find that levels of ethnic segregation in England?s schools are high, with considerable variation both across LEAs and across different minority ethnic groups. By combining the two indices we are able to identify areas of particular concern as scoring highly on both. Finally, we show that ethnic segregation is only weakly related to income segregation.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors build on the work of Graham Smith, who was developing a critical geopolitics of Russia in his posthumous paper of 1999, published in this journal, and link the evolving geopolitical orientations of Russia to the search for a post-Soviet identity amongst its citizens and its political leadership.
Abstract: In this paper, we build on the work of Graham Smith, who was developing a critical geopolitics of Russia in his posthumous paper of 1999, published in this journal. Like Smith, we link the evolving geopolitical orientations of Russia to the search for a post-Soviet identity amongst its citizens and its political leadership. While Smith saw a core concept in Russian geopolitics having Protean masks, it is the leadership of the Russian state, specifically President Putin, who has successfully adopted a Protean strategy to appeal to the disparate elements of the Russian geopolitical spectrum. Based on a nationwide survey in spring 2002, we identify six clusters in Russian public opinion by socio-demographic characteristics and we connect each cluster to the main geopolitical orientations competing in contemporary Russia, including democratic statism and the increasingly marginalized Eurasianism that formed the core subject of Smith's paper.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the longevity and diversity of the Amazonian rainforest and assessed its likely future and proposed two new theories for the great diversity of Amazon rainforest, the canopy density hypothesis and the precessional-forced seasonality hypothesis.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate the longevity and diversity of the Amazonian rainforest and to assess its likely future. Palaeoclimate and palaeoecological records suggest that the Amazon rainforest originated in the late Cretaceous and has been a permanent feature of South America for at least the last 55 million years. The Amazon rainforest has survived the high temperatures of the Early Eocene climate optimum, the gradual Cenozoic cooling, and the drier and lower carbon dioxide levels of the Quaternary glacial periods. Two new theories for the great diversity of the Amazon rainforest are discussed – the canopy density hypothesis and the precessional-forced seasonality hypothesis. We suggest the Amazon rainforest should not be viewed as a geologically ephemeral feature of South America, but rather as a constant feature of the global Cenozoic biosphere. The forest is now, however, entering a set of climatic conditions with no past analogue. The predicted future hotter and more arid tropical climates may have a disastrous effect on the Amazon rainforest.
TL;DR: The free trade doctrine, now global common knowledge, has followed a complex spatio-temporal path of knowledge production from its origins in Manchester at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Abstract: The free trade doctrine, now global common knowledge, has followed a complex spatio-temporal path of knowledge production from its origins in Manchester at the turn of the nineteenth century. While grounded in normative and cognitive claims, its transformation from local self-interest to global doctrine was a result of the scale-jumping tactics of the Anti-Corn Law League, combined with the popularity in Western Europe of private property liberalism and the hegemonic global positionality of early nineteenth-century Britain. Corn Law repeal in 1846 in London was constructed as the point in space–time where doctrine became practice, and Britain's subsequent prosperity was seen as proof of its validity. After 1880, except in Britain until 1914 and the colonies, performance belied the doctrine as progressive liberalism became influential, and import-substituting industrialization an effective catch-up strategy, for other nations. The free trade doctrine was reasserted, however, with the emergence of US hegemony, as a rationale for breaking up non-US colonial preference systems and, more recently, neoliberalism. The free trade doctrine is now performed routinely under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. Nevertheless, it remains a local epistemology, whose truth-like status is kept insulated from rigorous challenge by alternative epistemologies and practices.
TL;DR: In this paper, it has been acknowledged that small-scale, surface process geomorphology alone is unable to provide an understanding of long-term landscape development, both because of the significance of tectonics, and because the important role of contingency at the large temporal and spatial scales involved.
Abstract: Since the 1960s the analysis of small-scale surface processes has been the dominant approach in geomorphology, the previous focus on regional-scale landscape evolution having been largely abandoned as a result of the lack of knowledge of processes and process rates at the relevant temporal and spatial scales. It has recently been acknowledged that small-scale, surface process geomorphology alone is unable to provide an understanding of long-term landscape development, both because of the significance of tectonics, and because of the important role of contingency at the large temporal and spatial scales involved. But the major advances in geochronological techniques and numerical modelling of landscape evolution that are now revolutionizing our understanding of long-standing questions of landscape evolution have been largely developed and applied by researchers from outside the traditional geomorphology community. As a result, two distinct communities of researchers have emerged concerned with different scales of landform analysis, but the progress of geomorphology will be best served by greater interaction between them.
TL;DR: This article explored the ways white rural residents racialized Gypsy-travellers and highlighted the chaotic nature of whiteness as a social construction in a rural region of Cumbria, UK.
Abstract: This paper combines insights from geographical research on the racialization of ethnic minority groups with more recent interest in whiteness in an exploration of the ways white rural residents racialize Gypsy-Travellers. Focusing on the white rural residents of Appleby, Cumbria, and their racialization of and relations with Gypsy-Travellers who attend the New Fair there each year, the paper contributes both to our understanding of the ways white people racialize ethnic minority groups, and in doing so also highlights the chaotic nature of whiteness as a social construction.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace the formation of Russia's penal peripheries up to the present day and use the example of the north of Perm' oblast to analyse the process involved in forging a 'penal region'.
Abstract: Russia has a distinctive ‘geography of punishment’ that is the product of the use of the peripheries as a place of exile and incarceration. Framing the analysis in a discussion of recent penal theory, including in the works of Michel Foucault, the author traces the formation of Russia's penal peripheries up to the present day and uses the example of the north of Perm’ oblast to analyse the process involved in forging a ‘penal region’.
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of geography on debates over wild-fowling and otter hunting in England are explored, showing how arguments over human conduct in relation to the animal were linked to scientific studies of populations, moral arguments over cruelty and the abilities of field sports to restyle themselves as modern.
Abstract: The paper considers otter hunting and wildfowling in England between 1945 and 1970, showing how arguments over human conduct in relation to the animal were linked to scientific studies of populations, moral arguments over cruelty and the abilities of field sports to restyle themselves as modern. If wildfowling restyles itself as a new conservationist practice, otter hunting is increasingly regarded as a form of landed barbarism. Detailed studies of Herefordshire and Norfolk are drawn upon alongside national debates. The paper emphasizes the effects of geography in debates over such practices, extending work on animal geographies through the study of animal landscapes.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that trust in fellow citizens in Turkey exhibits a positive relationship to associational activities (joining clubs etc.), while in Moscow social trust can be explained predominantly in terms of (lower) socio-economic status.
Abstract: Aiming to bring local context into studies of social capital, our study uses samples of 4006 individuals in Istanbul and 3476 in Moscow using a comparable questionnaire. The stratification of each city's neighbourhoods on the basis of socio-economic characteristics provided the basis for the sampling. Using a multilevel modelling procedure, we show both that locality matters (neighbourhood effect proved significant) and that social capital may indeed be constituted in very particular ways in illiberal democracies such as Russia and Turkey. Social and political trust are frequently thought to contribute to social capital – that is, to provide social resources upon which individuals or groups may draw for their political efficacy. Trust in fellow citizens in Istanbul exhibits a positive relationship to associational activities (joining clubs etc.), while in Moscow social trust can be explained predominantly in terms of (lower) socio-economic status. At the same time, important similarities emerged between the two cases. For social trust, in both cities the ‘cosmopolitanization thesis’, which holds that those who associate more widely are also more trusting of fellow citizens, generally applied. Further, in both cities, residents with lower socio-economic status (though in Moscow this is complicated by education) and lower likelihoods of engagement in direct political action were more trustful of parliament. While this is the opposite of what we have been led to expect based on Western democratic polities, it is a reasonable outcome of illiberal democratic governance operating in these two cities.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how communicative planning in the eastern Caribbean country of St Lucia disciplines people's conduct from the perspectives of Foucault's concept of governmentality and Laclau and Mouffe's theorization of hegemony.
Abstract: Communicative planning initiatives are being increasingly implemented across both the North and South of the globe. Influenced by Habermas’ theory of communicative rationality, this form of planning concentrates upon consensus building between different signified interest groups. The paper explores how communicative planning in the eastern Caribbean country of St Lucia disciplines people's conduct from the perspectives of Foucault's concept of governmentality and Laclau and Mouffe's theorization of hegemony. Linking the latter to an analysis of Massey's non-bounded conceptualization of the local, it is argued that, as geographers, we may do better to concentrate less upon the deterministic effects of common styles of government and more upon the moments which bring their themes temporarily and spatially into being. In doing so, some initial steps are made toward proposing the concept of space-time-politics, drawing upon Wittgenstein's work on ‘aspect-seeing’. In concluding, I argue that we should not see terms such as ‘consensus’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘the local’ as pre-existing moral justifications for political action, but instead as the product of relations of space-time-politics.
TL;DR: The degree to which residents of British inner cities and suburbs have diverged in their voting behavior over the post-war period is analyzed in this paper. But, it is not shown that residents of inner cities are indeed polarizing in their electoral choices.
Abstract: The degree to which residents of British inner cities and suburbs have diverged in their voting behaviour over the post-war period is analysed in this article. Examining aggregate election results by constituency, it is demonstrated that residents of inner cities and suburbs are indeed polarizing in their electoral choices. OLS regression analysis is conducted using constituency-level data to determine the relevance of intra-urban differences for understanding geographic variation in the vote in relation to those for region, size of conurbation and urban–rural distinctions. Results show that urban place of residence is particularly important for understanding the shifting geography of Conservative support. The implications of this research for electoral change in Britain are discussed.
TL;DR: Wylie as mentioned in this paper interpreted his reactions to a day spent walking along the South West Coast Path between Clovelly and Hartland Quay on the North Devon coast, and found the analysis in the paper of what shapes our reactions to landscape quite fascinating.
Abstract: Walking has long been recognized as the main form of countryside recreation in the UK (Patmore 1972) and its popularity has been greatly encouraged by the network of long-distance footpaths that now criss-cross the country, not to mention the evergrowing right to roam anywhere across open country as the Countryside and Rights of Way Act (2000) is steadily implemented. I, therefore, was particularly interested in the paper by John Wylie (2005) interpreting his reactions to a day spent walking along the South West Coast Path between Clovelly and Hartland Quay on the North Devon coast. I should say that I have known and walked the coastal footpath between Minehead and Padstow for many years, though I have never attempted to cover it in a single hike as he did. Like the author, however, I have done the walk from Clovelly to Hartland Quay in a day. Indeed, I have done it on several occasions over the years; in a variety of weathers, alone, with family and friends, and with students on a Geography field trip. No two of these walks have ever been the same and I found the analysis in the paper of what shapes our reactions to landscape quite fascinating for the way in which it illuminated the subtleties behind our individual perceptions. Who we are, and where we come from, are self-evidently key determinants of what we perceive and how we react to any situation and the analysis is a powerful antidote to the didactic world of the guidebook, with its aim of imposing a pre-set structure on what we see, smell and hear. Nevertheless, reading the paper left me with a distinct feeling that the picture was incomplete and I have come to the conclusion that this stems from the narrowness of the context within which the walk appears to have been undertaken and analysed. The whole focus seems to be overly self-centred and introspective and, thus, omits some crucial elements of what it is that influences the appreciation of such a walk. That is not to say that the whole experience is not deeply felt and forcefully communicated. There are passages in the paper of quite lyrical writing, my favourite being the description of emerging from the dense woods west of Clovelly into the open farmland and cliff tops near Brownsham:
TL;DR: Merriman, Peter, the authors, "Respect the life of the countryside": the country code, government and the conduct of visitors to the countryside in post-war England and Wales', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30(3) pp.336-350 RAE2008
Abstract: Merriman, Peter, (2005) ''Respect the life of the countryside': the Country Code, government and the conduct of visitors to the countryside in post-war England and Wales', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30(3) pp.336-350 RAE2008