A Commentary on the Use of Touch for Accessing On‐Screen Spatial Representations: The Process of Experiencing Haptic Maps and Graphics

The growth of the Internet and the digital revolution have meant increased reliance on electronic representations of information. Geospatial information has been readily adapted to the world of cyberspace, and most Web pages incorporate graphics, images, or maps to represent spatial and spatialized data. But flat computer screens do not facilitate a map or graph experience by those who are visually impaired. The traditional method for compensating for nonvisual access to maps and graphics has been to construct hard‐copy tactile maps. In this article, we examine an electronic accommodation for nonvisual users—the haptic map. Using new and off‐the‐shelf hardware—force feedback and vibrotactile mice—we explore how touch can be combined with virtual representations of shapes and patterns to enable nonvisual access to onscreen map or graphic material.     

Making Cyberspaces into Cyberplaces

Abstract

This article explores the interplay between geographic concepts and geographers' Web site design. The concepts—place, site, and situation—provide the context for reconsidering current metaphors dominating the rhetoric of cyberspace. Challenging the predominant metaphor of cyberspace as path or highway, we draw on the work of French phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty and on the work of phenomeno-logically oriented geographers to propose the figure/ground structure of cyberplace in contrast to the void of cyberspace. For the absolute freedom of unlimited space we suggest the depth and breadth of world. If geographers succeed at creating Web sites informed by disciplinary concepts, Web site design itself can help to reconceive geographic concepts. Two virtual field-trips offer the opportunity to demonstrate the interaction of a reconceived notion of place and the design of graphical interfaces. The article discovers possibilities for enhancing the value of geographic Web sites. Three design strategies—geographic context, duration, and nonlinearity—are recommended as a result of this investigation.     

A Review of “Amazon Peasant Societies in a Changing Environment: Political Ecology,Invisibility and Modernity in the Rainforest”

Web 2.0 has yielded a wealth of publicly available data, largely through the popularization of social media and the proliferation of user-generated content (UGC). Thus, the data void in social science research is diminishing as these new data sources are exploited. The discipline of geography, in particular, stands to benefit considerably from geotagged UGC or volunteered geographic information (VGI). In this article, we utilize a form of UGC—restaurant reviews—to evaluate the geography of Web 2.0 in Franklin County, Ohio. We find that restaurant reviews are largely concentrated in relatively few areas of the city, indicating that the impacts of Web 2.0 have not touched down evenly within the central county of the Columbus metropolitan statistical area. We argue that an intraurban digital divide is still apparent and might even be exacerbated by Web 2.0.     

A Global Approach to the Spatial Diversity and Dynamics of Internet Domains

The objective of this paper is to describe the place of individual countries in digital space through the lens of Internet domains and specific websites. We will discuss the global geography of domains in reference to states and other entities of spatial organization, and changes in the positions of individual websites. These issues will be approached with an awareness of the significant changes taking place in the functioning of the Web, particularly cyberbalkanization. This study mainly used data from Alexa rankings, the best free source of information available on the behavior of Internet users. One conclusion is the clear U.S. dominance over other countries in relation to number of most popular domains. Despite the clear U.S. dominance, the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—play an increasingly significant role in the geography of domains. The trends discussed in this article are related to the so‐called balkanization of the Internet. Regulations of its functioning and the growing importance of national websites and search engines have contributed to deepening the differences between Internet users in different countries.     

Re-placing the Pilbara's mining unions

This paper examines the attempt by mining management in Western Australia's Pilbara to replace mining unions—quite literally—by removing them from the processes of representation and bargaining. It analyses the way in which those unions have tried to re-place themselves, in the senses of transforming themselves in those spaces in which they were already operating and reviving themselves where they were not. Where unionists have succeeded in these engagements, it has been by working at a range of geographical scales, using the ‘power of place’ in the Pilbara and reshaping traditional geographies of union organisation. It is suggested here that many of these emergent outcomes are the result of the embeddedness of geographically specific historical structures along with new intersections of nationally and locally scaled labour politics.     

Contemporary Refugee‐Border Dynamics and the Legacies of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference

While the geopolitical legacies of the World War I peace negotiations are widely recognized, this article examines the often overlooked connection between the WWI Paris Peace Conference's spatial and geopolitical logics and contemporary refugee‐border dynamics. We argue that the spatial and geopolitical logics that framed the WWI Paris Peace Conference—the creation of new states, the propagation of the Western ideal of bounded sovereign states, the nationalist goals of self‐determination and homogeneous ethnic nations, and the establishment of a system of international governance—continue to impact refugee‐border dynamics and “crises” today. The categories, ideals, and practices of the international refugee regime that emerged over the last one‐hundred years stem in great part from these logics. In this paper, we urge critical contemplation about how these foundations—including the establishment of the post of High Commissioner for Refugees in 1921, the resultant Nansen Passports, the post‐WWI minority treaties, and lastly the 1933 Convention Relating to the International Status of Refugees—connect to contemporary human (im)mobility and border violence. We also introduce the articles in this special issue and highlight key themes and future directions for research in critical migration studies.     

Environmental Science Education Programs: Opportunities for Geographers

Abstract

Environmental agencies in most states have an environmental education Web page that can point geography teachers to a variety of opportunities and resources to enhance their teaching. Most states provide linkages to local and national programs such as Project WET and Project WILD, and access to lesson plans and other teaching materials. A number of state agencies have environmental resource centers, teacher workshops, and grant programs for field trips and class projects. A few states have workshops that provide graduate academic credit and special certification. Much of the content of these programs contributes to fundamental geographic education themes as specified in the 1983 Guidelines in Geographic Education K–12 and Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994.     

“And a Charming Wife”: Gender,Marriage, and Manhood in the Job Search Process

The academic job search process, and the applications and reference letters that are constitutive elements of that process, are central to the creation and re-creation of a discipline. Disciplines and departments renew and re-create themselves — or do not, and merely replicate themselves — through hirings. A job search process can serve to hinder changes in the membership, culture, “look,” and the norms of the discipline, or it can facilitate dramatic and often rapid transformations. Job search materials thus provide an insight into the prevailing norms and conventions of a discipline. A review of a recent set of such materials reveals subtle gendered and racialized differences in the job search process. Such differences are apparent in the composition of referee committees, in the evocation of marital status both by applicants and by referees, and in the surprising persistence of themes of robust manhood. The referee pool, the applicant pool, and the search committee pool in an academic discipline are interlocked constituencies, and the job search process plays a “gatekeeping” role. The extent to which gender or racial differences are inserted into the job process thus has a bearing on the long term social construction of the discipline.     

“And a Charming Wife”: Gender,Marriage, and Manhood in the Job Search Process

The academic job search process, and the applications and reference letters that are constitutive elements of that process, are central to the creation and re‐creation of a discipline. Disciplines and departments renew and re‐create themselves — or do not, and merely replicate themselves — through hirings. A job search process can serve to hinder changes in the membership, culture, “look,” and the norms of the discipline, or it can facilitate dramatic and often rapid transformations. Job search materials thus provide an insight into the prevailing norms and conventions of a discipline. A review of a recent set of such materials reveals subtle gendered and racialized differences in the job search process. Such differences are apparent in the composition of referee committees, in the evocation of marital status both by applicants and by referees, and in the surprising persistence of themes of robust manhood. The referee pool, the applicant pool, and the search committee pool in an academic discipline are interlocked constituencies, and the job search process plays a “gatekeeping” role. The extent to which gender or racial differences are inserted into the job process thus has a bearing on the long term social construction of the discipline.     

The Sun City Wars: Chapter 3

A revealing indicator of social fragmentation in metropolitan America is the proliferation of common interest developments (CIDs), communities defined by restrictive covenants, deed restrictions, community associations, and citizens groups that wield substantial political influence and power. In Phoenix, large-scale retirement communities represent a conspicuous form of CID, populated by Anglo, middle, and upper-middle class elderly migrants who display high levels of political organization and participation. We present a case study of heated conflict between retirees in Sun City West—who see themselves as separate from the larger metropolitan region—and surrounding communities in the Dysart School District. The conflict is fraught with age, social class, and cultural tensions and evolves around seniors wielding political muscle in defeating school funding measures, controlling the Dysart governing board, and seeking to de-annex themselves out of the district to avoid paying school taxes. We argue that political conflict between advantaged seniors and neighboring working class Latino communities is symptomatic of troubling divisions across urban social space in America, raising thorny questions about the nature and scale of community, political representation and power, and fostering the public good in the face of "secession of the successful" from the larger polity.     

The Relationship of Place Re-Making and Watershed Group Participation in Appalachia

This article explores how participation in watershed groups creates a social space that mediates the relationship between biophysical places and place-protective action. We analyze qualitative data from a survey of more than 200 watershed group volunteers in the Appalachian region of the United States who were asked to describe experiences that encouraged or discouraged their participation. “Place” emerged as a key theme, with further delineations between made places (those highly affected by human activity, including coal extraction); natural places; and re-made places (those restored by the efforts of the watershed-group participants). Our findings suggest that the places themselves—and the natural, institutional, and social resources in these places—are more than a backdrop or setting for the volunteer activities; they also inspire, enhance, and are transformed by the act of volunteering.     

PORTRAITS OF PLACELESSNESS: BRITISH NINETEENTH-CENTURY IMAGES OF THE AFRICAN LANDSCAPE

Landscape art provides a window on the world of subjective interpretation and shared perceptions of place. Portraits of places are therefore simultaneously portraits of a society, its preferences and prejudices, and the meaning it imparts to the world. In the nineteenth century, settlers in Africa felt alienated, uncomfortable, abandoned and detached, and their landscape art—both paintings and poetry—was testimony to their emotional and psychological responses to the foreign environment. Both the imported artistic techniques for portraying nat?re and the symbols populating the landscape images revealed the temperament of the pioneers’ attitudes to place.     

Reform of Teacher Education: An Opportunity for Geographers

Abstract

This paper focuses on the context and major efforts designed to reform teacher education in the nation's universities. An overview of systems governing and impacting teacher education is provided, with focus on the issues and conflicting forces that form the context within which teacher education-and geography education—find themselves. The paper concludes with a discussion of general trends in education reform and renewal and leadership opportunities open to geographers.     

Patterns of Racial Diversity and Segregation in the United States: 1990–2010

The growing ethnic and racial diversity of the United States is evident at all spatial scales. One of the striking features of this new mixture of peoples, however, is that this new diversity often occurs in tandem with racial concentration. This article surveys these new geographies from four points of view: the nation as a whole, states, large metropolitan areas, and neighborhoods. The analysis at each scale relies on a new taxonomy of racial composition that simultaneously appraises both diversity and the lack thereof (Holloway, Wright, and Ellis 2012). Urban analysis often posits neighborhood racial segregation and diversity as either endpoints on a continuum of racial dominance or mirror images of one another. We disturb that perspective and stress that segregation and diversity must be jointly understood—they are necessarily related, although not as inevitable binary opposites. Using census data from 1990, 2000, and 2010, the research points to how patterns of racial diversity and dominance interact across varying spatial scales. This investigation helps answer some basic questions about the changing geographies of racialized groups, setting the stage for the following articles that explore the relationship between geography and the participation of underrepresented groups in higher education.     

基于WebGIS的TB级南极遥感影像发布系统关键技术研究

我国已经完成南极地区多种类型高分辨率遥感影像的制图,其产品的数据量达到TB级,对这些影像进行网络共享有助于帮助人们更好地认识南极,也能提升我国在南极事务中的影响力.本文介绍了基于数据库以及WebGIS平台的TB级南极洲遥感影像图网络发布系统的设计与实现方法.以ArcGIS Server作为WebGIS平台,对各类遥感影...     

PROMOTIONAL IMAGERY OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK*

ABSTRACT. The Great Northern Railway vigorously encouraged visitation to Glacier National Park between 1911 and 1930. We reconstruct the railway's promotional imagery of Glacier through an assessment of 796 photographs used by the company to publicize park landscapes and activities. Seven themes in the photographs—Native Americans, scenery, recreation, wildlife, the Wild West, park management, and personalities—reveal a useful portrait of how Glacier National Park was marketed with images of the American West mass distributed for decades by one of the nation's most influential corporations.     

Peaks of People: Using Topographic Prominence as a Method for Determining the Ranked Significance of Population Centers

This article borrows a statistical method from physical geography—topographical prominence—to suggest a new technique for measuring the relative significance or rank of population centers. Unlike raw population measures, prominence gives consideration to both the spatial intensity of concentrated population areas as well as the spatial dependence or independence of neighboring settlement clusters in relation to one another. We explain how to apply the topographic prominence calculation method to gridded population data and examine its practical utility through case studies of several U.S. states. We then discuss some ways in which parametric choices about point-to-surface transformations can result in considerably different outcomes and offer further suggestions for conceptualizing and measuring population center significance.     

Effect of Mothers' Exposure to Electronic Mass Media on Knowledge and Use of Prenatal Care Services: A Comparative Analysis of Indian States*

The Government of India considers prenatal care programs as a priority activity for promoting safe motherhood and child survival. It relies heavily on electronic mass media, including radio, television, and cinema to educate mothers—two‐thirds of whom are illiterate—about prenatal check‐ups and timing, iron prophylaxis, and tetanus toxoid injections. This study evaluated the effect of mothers' exposure to electronic mass media on knowledge and use of prenatal care services, using data from India's 1998–1999 National Family Health Survey. Multivariate logistic regressions were used to estimate the effects of media exposure by calculating odds ratios of each of the four response variables (complete prenatal care services, prenatal check‐ups, tetanus toxoid injections, and iron prophylaxes) for exposure to mass media. The results indicated that exposure to mass media is related to the use of prenatal care services even when other likely causes of the relationships are statistically controlled at their mean. The effect also showed a north‐south divide among the Indian States, being stronger in northern states as compared with southern states.     

SOCIAL RELATIONS SPATIALLY FIXED: CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN SAN ANTONIO,TEXAS

ABSTRACT. More than 140 court cases filed in the United States between 1970 and 2003 argued that unacceptable and unconstitutional funding disparities exist among school districts in most states. In those arguments, stories, statistics, and maps are used to compare various school districts to prove that conditions are indeed unequal. Both sides—plaintiff and defendant—use such information to disprove each other's contentions. In so doing, each assumes that the political spaces of the school districts are absolute, timeless, and independent. Failure to recognize that these spaces—the school districts—are not objective but, in fact, constitutive of the class and race relations actually being argued and debated in court further legitimates local geographies of privilege and deprivation. I examine the formation of the school districts around San Antonio, Texas to illustrate that these districts are far from independent of one another and were formed to isolate privileged communities from the rest of the city. A relational view of space‐time allows such spaces as school districts to assume a political role, as opposed to the absolute, independent spaces they now represent.     

Chinese Trade in Latin America Compared to the European Union and the United States: The Case of Technology-Intensive Exports

Using trade data submitted by United Nations member states from 1995 to 2013, this article contributes to understanding China's trade with Latin America. By employing and building on the TECH score methodology, this project highlights China's growing economic connectivity with nine large and important Latin American economies. The analysis conducted here shows that compared with exports originating from other, more traditional foreign investors (i.e., the United States and the European Union member states), Chinese exports to these Latin American countries—although growing in sophistication over time—are relatively less technologically sophisticated during the study period. This work clarifies that in spite of these Latin American economies being highly complementary (for their natural resources and consumer markets) to China's manufacturing-intensive economy and despite the rapid growth in bilateral and biregional trade, China's displacement of traditional foreign actors, in terms of its technology-intensive exports to the region, is not supported by the data to date.