地理学研究进展与前沿领域

现代地理学涵盖自然地理学、人文地理学和地理信息科学，其发展趋势是：相邻学科的交叉、渗透与融合，加强地理学内部的综合研究，地理过程的微观研究进一步深化，结合实践拓宽应用研究领域，实验与研究手段的现代化，理论思维模式的转变。地理学应在陆地表层过程与格局、全球环境变化及其区域响应、自然资源保障与生态环境建设、区域可持续发展及人地系统的机理与调控、地理信息科学和数字地球战略等前沿领域开拓创新，为促进地球系统科学的发展、协调人地关系等做出积极的贡献。     

Rethinking rewilding

The term ‘rewilding’ sounds as if it should have a straightforward meaning ‘to make wild again’. But in truth the term has a complex history and a host of meanings have been ascribed to it. Rewilding as a specific scientific term has its beginnings as a reference to the Wildlands Project, which was founded in 1991 and aimed to create North American core wilderness areas without human activity that would be connected by corridors. Words, however, do not stand still—they change over time and take on new meanings, while sometimes simultaneously retaining the older sense. Employing Foucault’s idea of historical genealogy, this article examines how the term rewilding was historically adopted and modified in ecological scientific discourse over the last two decades. This investigation probes what and, by extension, when and where, rewilding refers to as it has moved into various geographies across the globe. It then examines how the term has moved outside of science and been adopted by environmental activists as a plastic word. Taken as a whole, rewilding discourse seeks to erase human history and involvement with the land and flora and fauna. Such an attempted split between nature and culture may prove unproductive and even harmful. A more inclusive rewilding is a preferable strategy.     

Parallel currents in the natural and social sciences

Einstein's relativity and the subsequent quantum theory have split physicists into two camps. One argues that the apparent inconsistencies between the mechanistic order of Newtonian physics and the holistic properties of matter revealed by relativity and quantum theory will eventually be resolved within an overall mechanistic order. The second argues that these holistic properties are genuine and require a drastic change in our overall world view. This tension between the mechanistic and holistic conceptions of the world has always existed in the life, human and social sciences. The force behind their emergence and development was the dialectical tension created by the inconsistencies between the mechanistic-Cartesian order, which dominated science, and the holistic properties which are apparent in the domains of life and human society. This recent split among physicists thus creates a new reality, in which the tension between the holistic and mechanistic conceptions of the world is no longer a tension between the scientific natural sciences and the non-scientific ‘humanities’, but rather the tension of science as a whole. The paper discusses the development of these parallel currents in the natural and social sciences and explores their implications.     

试论自然资源科学及其学科体系

本文从自然资源的基本概念和基本特点入手,首先明确了自然资源科学的性质及其研究的核心问题与研究任务,阐述了自然资源科学研究的主要内容,并根据一些经济发达国家的经验,提出了该学科研究的几种新趋向;然后,根据自然资源科学中各门学科之间及其与相邻学科之间的关系,阐明了自然资源科学的学科体系。     

Knowing wildfire risk: Scientific interactions with risk mitigation policy and practice in Victoria,Australia

Over the past decade, major landscape wildfires (or ‘bushfires’ in Australia) in fire-prone countries have illustrated the seriousness of this global environmental problem. This natural hazard presents a complex mesh of dynamic factors for those seeking to reduce or manage its costs, as ignitions, hazard behaviour, and the reactions of different human and ecological communities during and after hazard events are all extremely uncertain. But while those at risk of wildfire have been subject to significant research, the social dimensions of its management, including the role of science, have received little attention. This paper reports on a case study of the Barwon-Otway area of Victoria in Australia, a high wildfire risk area that has recently been a pilot site for a new risk mitigation strategy utilising the wildfire simulation model PHOENIX RapidFire. Against simple equations between ‘more science’ and ‘less uncertainty,’ this paper presents results from interviews and a workshop with practitioners to investigate how scientific research interacts with and informs both wildfire policy and practice. We suggest that attending to cultural and social specificities of the application of any technical innovation—such as next generation modelling—raises questions for future research about the roles of narrative, performance, and other knowledges in the sedimentation of science.     

水科学的内涵及其发展动力

水科学是以自然界的水为对象,研究其静态的分布和动态的变化过程,包括其物理学的、化学的和生物学的变化过程及其从宏观到微观的运动形式和变化规律等.因此,它是以地球上水圈为对象的科学,也包括水圈与气圈、水圈与岩石圈、水圈与生物圈的相互关系和相互作用,以及水在环境中与其他要素间的相互作用与影响、水与人类社会的关系等等.水科学在其自身发展中仍应遵循认识与实践的统一,自然科学属性和应用科学属性的相互配合、协调发展,以求把人与水和自然的关系处理得合理、有效.     

On the use of 3-dimensional plots in KAr dating

3-Dimensional correlation diagrams have advantages over 2-dimensional ones (‘isochrons’) for interpreting the results of KAr measurements on suites of coeval samples, since they display all the data without making a priori assumptions. This is a particular advantage for distinguishing between ‘initial’ argon of constant isotopic composition and ‘excess’ argon of constant concentration, because at present their detection has relied upon separate diagrams constructed upon mutually exclusive assumptions.The method also permits the relationships between the various models in use to be more easily grasped but—like all such plots—can only show that a given physical model is consistent with the data, not that it is the only consistent one.     

The ecology of knowledge: Linking the natural and social sciences

In the context of global crisis the Bacon-Descartes model of exact science, with its mechanistic world view and its doctrine of progress in man's mastery of nature, is being replaced by a more coherent philosophy of science based on ecosystem concepts. The late twentieth century, it seems, marks the end of centuries of positivism and the beginning of an age of ecoscience. This paper looks at the origins of the discredited positivist claims for an objective scientific method and proposes the ecology of knowledge as a more appropriate theory, both for the sciences and for ordinary knowledge. From this viewpoint claims for a fundamental division between the natural and social sciences on the basis of method and subject matter can no longer be sustained. Moreover, as the feminist and deep ecology movements join in condemning the tradition of patriarchal, exploitative science, a new conceptual framework is emerging in which science is being directed towards more holistic views and more democratic processes, guided by a more socially and environmentally responsible ethic.     

Scaling struggles over land and law: Autonomy,investment, and interlegality in Myanmar’s borderlands

This article explores the relevance of spatial global legal pluralism—an emerging field at the interstices of geography, anthropology, and socio-legal studies—for research on the global land rush, and the study of land law and investment in particular. I argue that a focus on the spatial dimensions of law—coupled with attention to the interlegality, scalar politics, and spatio-temporalities of semi-autonomous law—offers important insights into the dynamic forces, actors, and stakes in the global land rush. In Myanmar, the prospects for peace—however tenuous—have led to an acceleration of land law development including the creation of ‘semi-autonomous land law’ by ethnic armed groups and activists in its borderlands. I discuss the ways in which such policies not only anticipate peace but seek to shape its political-economy over multiple spatio-temporalities. By recognizing both international human rights law and customary law, such ‘non-state’ laws bring these two scales into an intermediary legal jurisdiction, contributing to the sedimentation of Kawthoolei and Kachinland as political scales in their own right.     

全球变化研究中自然科学和社会科学协同方法的探讨

由于研究对象、目的、数据、方法等方面的不同,自然科学和社会科学的协同存在着非常大的困难,近20年来,气候变化、环境、生态、能源、粮食、资源、灾害、健康等跨学科交叉研究的兴起,为自然科学和社会科学协同带来了新的契机。为克服自然科学和社会科学协同的困难,首先要开展"以解决问题为导向"的研究,从项目初始就贯彻"协同设计、协同实施"的理念,将政府和社会作为全球变化与可持续性研究的服务对象。在研究对象的空间尺度协同上,通过自然科学的降尺度和社会科学的升尺度,在局域尺度上开展气候变化脆弱性与适应研究是实现自然科学和社会科学协同的基础。同时,正确理解和沟通科学的不确定性是自然科学和社会科学协同的重要环节,进行观测数据及调查资料的协同是未来自然科学和社会科学协同成功的关键。最后,对自然科学和社会科学协同中沟通和交流的鸿沟以及人才培养、重理轻文倾向、跨学科研究的评价标准等问题进行了思考和讨论。     

Thinking like a geologist: The culture of geology Mawson lecture 1996∗

Geology plays a crucial role in both the scientific and the popular culture; it has transformed the way ordinary people look at the world over the last two centuries. Much of this transformation is understood in terms of information about the age of the earth, the disposition of the continents, and the evolution of living things. The two main concerns of this paper are with geology as education, and geology as a system of thought, a way of thinking about the world. My central question is how does a grounding in geology affect the cast of mind, the way one thinks, perceives and behaves? What is the culture of geology? Conclusions are of two kinds. Some of the propositions advanced about the nature of geology in relation to the other sciences and our general culture are: (i) there is no hierarchy of the sciences; (ii) geology is a Romantic science rather than a Classical one; (iii) there is no such thing as the scientific method; (iv) geologists often attempt to reconcile competing hypotheses; (v) geological phenomena are often of an almost irreducible complexity and their investigation is beset by problems of scale, both spatial and temporal; and (vi) the concept of ‘universality’ has a distinctive application in geology. Among the non‐professional uses of geology are: (i) human history is incomplete without environmental history; (ii) geology has application in environmental planning and management, but this requires judgement and experience as knowledge of the geology is not enough, it is equally important to know when it can safely be overridden, when it is useful background, and when it is critically important to decision‐making; and (iii) an awareness of the geology of a region enhances the sense of place—our sense of our individual and communal identities owes much to an awareness of place.     

Archaeological mounds in Marajó Island in northern Brazil: A geological perspective integrating remote sensing and sedimentology

Earthen mounds with archaeological artifacts have been well known in Marajó Island since the 19th century. Their documented dimensions are impressive, e.g., up to 20 m high, and with areas as large as 90 ha. The mounds, locally known as tesos, impose a significant relief on the very low‐lying landscape of this region, which averages 4 to 6m above present sea level. These features have been traditionally interpreted as artificial constructions of the Marajoara culture, designed for defense, cemetery purposes, or escape from flooding. Here, we provide sedimentological and geomorphological data that suggest an alternative origin for these structures that is more consistent with their monumental sizes. Rather than artificial, the Marajoara tesos seem to consist of natural morphological features related to late Pleistocene and Holocene fluvial, and possibly tidal‐influenced, paleochannels and paleobars that became abandoned as depositional conditions changed through time. Although utilized and modified by the Marajoara since at least 2000 years ago, these earthen mounds contain a significant non‐anthropogenically modified sedimentary substratum. Therefore, the large Marajoara tesos are not entirely artificial. Ancient Marajoara cultures took advantage of these natural, preexisting elevated surfaces to base their communities and develop their activities, locally increasing the sizes of these fluvial landforms. This alternative interpretation suggests less cumulative labor investment in the construction of the mounds and might have significant implications for reconstructing the organization of the Marajoara culture. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Nature and culture in social science: the demarcation of domains of being in eighteenth century and modern discourses

Modern social science is concerned with policing the ‘boundary’ between nature and culture, with limiting and excluding phenomena which threaten to challenge its account of the social determination of the attributes of human beings. The paper argues that this boundary defence is an unusually touchy and difficult matter because social science has inherited an Enlightenment conception of man as ‘unique’. Human culture is regarded as different in quality from any possible form of animal association or attainment. At the same time as supporting this ontology it supposes the ‘boundary’ is in some sense a matter of empirical science, capable of specification by reference to evidence. We try to show the confusions these two contradictory circumstances produce by considering two debates: those concerning the possibility of ‘feral’ children and those concerning the uniqueness of language to human beings. It is demonstrated that the modern debates develop theories, issues and lines of dispute which appeared in the eighteenth century.     

Situating the geographies of injustice in democratic theory

Post-Marxist and poststructuralist ontologies of the political have been important reference points for recent discussions of democracy in critical human geography and related fields. This paper considers the conceptual placement of contestation in a strand of democratic theory often denigrated by these approaches, namely theories of deliberative democracy informed by post-Habermasian Critical Theory. It is argued that this concern with contestation derives from a focus on the relationships between different rationalities of action. It is proposed that this tradition of thought informs a distinctively phenomenological approach to understanding the situations out of which democratic energies emerge. In elaborating on this phenomenological understanding of the emergence of political space, the paper proceeds in three stages. First, it is argued that the strong affinities between ontological conceptualisations of ‘the political’ and the ontological register of canonical spatial theory squeezes out any serious consideration of the plural rationalities of ordinary political action. Second, debates between deliberative and agonistic theorists of democracy are relocated away from questions of ontology. These are centred instead on disputed understandings of ‘normativity’. This move opens up conceptual space for the analysis of phenomenologies of injustice. Third, using the example of debates about transnational democracy in which critical theorists of deliberative democracy explicitly address the reconfigurations of the space of ‘the political’, it is argued that this Critical Theory tradition can contribute to a distinctively ‘topological’ sense of political space which follows from thinking of political action as emerging from worldly situations of injustice. In bringing into focus this phenomenological approach to political action, the paper has lessons for both geographers and political theorists. Rather than continuing to resort to a priori models of what is properly political or authentically democratic, geographers would do well to acknowledge the ordinary dynamics and disappointments which shape political action. On the other hand, political theorists might do well to acknowledge the limits of the ‘methodological globalism’ that characterises so much recent work on the re-scaling of democracy.     

Fractured space: a geographical reflection on the digital divide

What does it mean to reflect upon space in connection to telecommunications? If we start with a conception of urban space as being fully integrated, including on an equal footing both information and communication technologies (ICT) and mobility techniques, as well as the founding notion of copresence that we find at the heart of all urban organization, we might then be able to examine the notion of the ‘digital divide’ in a new light. This clearly experimental approach is conducted by a research group called ‘Urbatic’, which is composed of geographers who, for the last three years, have been conducting theoretical research whose objective is to take into account two fields of social science: the theory of urbanity and the theory of telecommunication. Surveys conducted in this perspective focus on the analysis of the choices people make between the different means they can use to cope with distances (copresence, mobility and telecommunication) with a view to constructing their own space. The analysis of these choices leads us to propose a new theorized interpretation of the ‘digital divide’.     

Social geography — Welfare state ideology or critical social science?

The theme of the paper is the question of whether social geography has an ideological or a critical function in society. This question is approached from four different perspectives: (i) the history of ideas, (ii) the philosophy of science, (iii) the development of theory, and (iv) the view of practice.Having identified the two main directions of social geography as being a liberal (positivist) and a radical (marxist) approach, they are subjected to a brief epistemological examination.The development of theory of the liberal and marxist directions differ in three ways. These are the positioning of production vis-à-vis distribution, the conception of the relationship between the individual and society, and the understanding of space. The concept of relative space, making geography the science of space (chorology), is criticized. An alternative conceptualization of space, where space is not separated from and understood independent of the object under study, is formulated. Space is here considered as a property of the object (society), which totally integrates space and object.In the last section of the paper it is pointed out that the liberal approach represents either ‘counter-revolutionary’ or ‘status-quo’ theories, while the radical approach is ‘revolutionary’. The concept of space as the property of the object makes social geography more politically relevant, in that the actors in the political struggle became more precisely identified as groups in regional social structures.     

地球表层的人地系统及其调控

论述了地球表层的人地关系研究发展情况及开展人地系统研究的必要性,阐明了新的人地系统观应具有的特点及不同研究模式,强调了首先研究人地系统调控的机理问题。