Geomoney: An option on frost, going long on clouds

The paper adopts a cultural economy approach to explore the emergence of a market in so-called weather derivatives, referred to in the paper as a form of ‘geomoney’. These are specially designed financial products that allow firms to protect their profits against the impact of changing weather conditions. The paper approaches the emergence of this market, and the issues its growth raises, in three interlinked stages. Weather derivatives are located amongst the hybrid collective that is contemporary finance and are analysed through the conceptual apparatus afforded by a cultural economy approach to finance. The paper employs this analytical line to examine the assumptions and models that enable the weather to be turned into a risk and then be transported and traded within capital markets. Through specific examples of weather products together with a discussion of the International Finance Corporation’s recent involvement in this market, the paper suggests something of the ‘world making’ capabilities of finance theory and the politics of finance often hidden beneath the mathematical models. The paper concludes by highlighting not only the usefulness of a cultural economy of finance to geographers but, in light of the examples discussed, the need for cultural economy to recognise and to engage critically in its analysis the politics that such a conceptual approach to the making of financial markets exposes.     

New risk assessment products for dealing with financial exposure to weather hazards

A market place designed to provide a variety of weather-sensitive institutions with products for dealing with their risks from weather-climate hazards has been developing in recent years. Shifts in demographics, growing population, and greater wealth across the U.S., coupled with de-regulation of utilities and expansion of global economics, have increased corporate vulnerability to weather/climate extremes. Availability of long-term quality climate data and new technologies have allowed development of weather-risk products. One widely used by electric-gas utilities is weather derivatives. These allow a utility to select a financially critical seasonal weather threshold and for a price paid to a provider, to get financial payments if this threshold is exceeded. Another new product primarily used by the insurance industry is weather risk models. These define the potential risks of severe weather losses across a region where little historical insured loss data exists. Firms develop weather-risk models based on historical storm information combined with a target region’s societal, economic, and physical conditions. Examples of the derivatives and weather-risk models and their uses are presented. These various endeavors of the new weather market exhibit the potential for dealing with shifts in weather risks due to a change in climate.     

Social geography in France — heritages and perspectives

Attention has long been given by French geographers to social factors; one of the first overt attempts at a french social geography were made by Abel Chatelain and Pierre George. Their lead was not immediately followed, but another isolated attempt to develop social geography was made by Renée Rochefort. The gap left by French geographers was to some extent filled by sociologists and ethnologists until the 70s. Pierre Claval then sought to use social factors as a means of unifying human geography, but at the same time rejecting marxist interpretations and moving towards behaviourism. A further nucleus of development was established at Lyons around Renée Rochefort; yet other geographers approached social geography by emphasizing social factors in urban studies etc. An aspect of this development was the formation of affiliations of various social scientists to study social change. All the major currents of thought are now present — humanistic, marxist, positivist — and a wide range of themes examined, but without any agreed definition of social geography. Attempts are here made to work towards a definition, emphasizing the relationship between social factors and spatial factors, and between economic infrastructure and juridicial, political and ideological superstructure; recognizing that there is often an hiatus between change on the infrastructure and change in the superstructure.translated by editor     

中美地理学近百年发展脉络的比较研究——基于《地理学报》和Annals of the Association of American

基于《地理学报》和Annals of the Association of American Geographers学术论文的统计,对比近百年中美两国地理学的发展脉络,着重从总体特征、重点研究内容及其变化、理论—实践关系三方面对比异同,获得经验和借鉴。美国地理学经过初期发展、高速发展后,目前进入持续发展阶段;中国地理学在曲折中崛起,目前正处在高速发展时期。美国地理学中人文地理学一直居主导地位,中国则从重视自然地理开始逐渐向自然、人文、方法三足鼎立方向迈进;美国地理学家非常重视微观、中观实践,但在国家宏观决策中远没有中国地理学家发挥作用更直接。美国地理学研究水平高于中国,但这种差距正在缩小,研究方向的变化相差3~5年。世界地理研究中心有向亚太地区、向中国转移的可能,中国地理学家要勇于创建具有中国特色的地理学派。     

German research in transport geography: Life in the space between objective analysis and political advice1

Transportation has been a bone of public contention for decades, the discussion ranging from traffic-calming measures in individual streets to the continual growth of global transport movements. In the last 20 years transport topics have also received increased attention within the discipline of geography, be it academic, professional or in schools, but the topics addressed by today's transport geography have almost nothing in common with the roots of the field. This means that transport geography is a handed-down, hyphenated sub-branch of geography in name only. In fact, the name refers to a field of geography that is experiencing not only all the birthing pains and uncertainties of a discipline in the process of defining a new direction for itself, but also the sense of excitement and thrill of the new. This paper sets out to show both the role transport geography plays as part of human geography with its concepts and paradigms, and also the role it plays within the political debate on transport. An appeal is made to geographers to become more involved in this branch of our science.     

Maada’oonidiwag gete-dibaajimowen (“sharing old stories”): reflections on a place-based reparatory research partnership in Nbisiing Anishinaabeg Territory

In this paper, we reflect on an emerging community-based partnership rooted in place-based reparative research. Braiding knowledges (Atalay, 2012) from Nbisiing Anishinaabeg communities, northern Ontario universities, and multi-scalar museums, the partnership focuses on repatriation, reparative environmental histories, and action-based research in the context of settler colonialism and climate change. We reflect on ongoing projects that attempt to put Anishinaabe gikendaasowin (knowledge) into action alongside historical geographical research. We discuss how the partnership resonates with community geography values of relationship, collaboration, equity, and reciprocity, and urge non-Indigenous geographers to acknowledge how Indigenous knowledges and approaches have shaped these ideas long before geography became a discipline. We contend that historical geographers have a deeper role to play in community geography scholarship, citing examples of two projects related to (1) repatriation of Anishinaabeg cultural heritage and (2) storymapping through historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS). However, we argue, geographers must continue to acknowledge their own positionality in a discipline that was built through settler colonial violence and knowledge production. Finally, we reflect on the role of academic institutions in facilitating First Nation-university-museum partnerships through access to funding, space, and databases, while addressing the challenges of relying on institutional support for reparatory and decolonizing projects.

     

It's a long way to the other geographers and geographic knowledges

Geographic knowledge is usually understood as the knowledge produced by geographers. Yet, it is also produced by people outside of the academia. But as Western science claimed for its exclusive self the status of ‘knowledge’, others have long been denied the production and possession of a true knowledge, and recognised merely the mastering of practical skills. The binary opposition between scientific and other forms of knowledge has been central to the construction of academic geography until the late 1980s, when postmodern thought cast some doubt on the universality of scientific knowledge. This led to critical analyses of academic geography, revealing its situatedness, as well as to a new interest for the geographies of the ‘Others’. Examining how geographers have dealt with other knowledge sets so far, and how they have labelled them, this paper argues that other geographies should be given more attention. This means focusing on the knowledges themselves, and considering implementing a true dialogue between these and academic geography. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Scale,causality, and the new organism–environment interaction

The fallout from environmental determinism of the early 20th century steered geography away from biological and evolutionary thought. Yet it also set in motion the diversification of how geographers conceive environment, how these environments shape and are shaped by humans, and how scaling negotiates the interpretation of this causality. I illustrate how this plurality of scalar perspectives and practices in geography is embedded in the organism–environment interaction recently articulated in the life sciences. I describe the new fields of epigenetics and niche construction to communicate how ideas about scale from human and physical geography come together in the life sciences. I argue that the two subdisciplinary modes or ‘moments’ of scalar thinking in geography are compatible, even necessary, through their embodiment in organisms. To procure predictability, organisms practice an epistemological scaling to rework the mental and material boundaries and scales in their environment. Yet organisms are also embedded in ontological flux. Boundaries and scales do not remain static because of the agency of other organisms to shape their own predictability. I formally define biological scaling as arising from the interplay of epistemological and ontological moments of scale. This third moment of scale creates local assemblages or topologies with a propensity for persistence. These ‘lumpy’ material outcomes of the new organism–environment interaction have analogues in posthuman and new materialist geographies. They also give formerly discredited Lamarckian modes of inheritance a renewed, but revised acceptance. This article argues for a biological view of scale and causality in geography.     

Ecological and spatial traditions in geography,and the study of environmental problems

The author outlines the relationships between geography and the study of environmental problems. After WW II when these problems were growing in number and complexity, many geographers turned to the quantitative study of spatial relations and processes, neglecting the ecological aspects of human life on earth. However, recently human and physical geography are turning again to an ecological point of view. In the study of environmental problems, a synthesis of the spatial and the ecological traditions in geography is possible. The spatial aspects of environmental problems and environmental management in a systems-theory framework are the central points in the contribution of geography to an interdisciplinary environmental science.     

‘Public intellectuals’, geography, its representations and its publics

Recent years have seen academic geographers engaged in a series of debates over the current state of the discipline, its ‘relevance’ to others in the social sciences, to policy-makers, and to those studying geography at school age. This short critical review builds upon an issue raised in this journal [Thrift, N., 2002. The future of geography. Geoforum 33, 291–298], namely the role of geographers as public intellectuals. After reviewing the different ways in which the notion of public intellectuals has been understood, the paper turns to geography’s representations and to its publics. The paper concludes by arguing for an appreciation of the full range of ways in which geographers call forth publics through a range of representational strategies. It suggests that regardless of how geographers perform publicly and intellectually, two things are perhaps worth remembering: it is in the interest of geographers to name what they do as geography and to name themselves as geographers.     

Gender, geography and policy: the conundrums of engagement

This paper contemplates the relationship between the discipline of geography, and the making of public policy. It is particularly concerned with the compatibilities and incompatibilities of the nature of academic knowledge production and public policy development. As such, we contribute to an ongoing debate among geographers regarding whether and how they should engage with policy, and utilize examples from our involvement in the Metropolis Project, a Canadian initiative based on interdisciplinary research networks linked to government and public service agencies involved in immigrant settlement. We argue ultimately that geographers do need to engage politically with policymaking, but that the manner in which to do this is never straightforward, but rather takes place across institutional, ideological, and political landscapes that are perpetually shifting. Finally we suggest some helpful tools from feminist methodologies with which to approach policy-related issues.     

Spatial change and economic organisation: The Tyneside coal industry (1751–1770)

Concepts of economic power and organisation are rarely considered by historical geographers in their attempts to explain change in space economies. In this paper an attempt is made to use these concepts to explain and understand the changing geography of the Tyneside coal industry from 1751 to 1770, a time when the industry was dominant nationally. At the beginning of the period the Tyneside industry was itself dominated by a monopolistic group, the Grand Allies, a dominance partly maintained through control over the use of land. Their dominance was broken by a combination of technological and economic developments as exploited by a competing group of capitalists based on the emerging banking system. The monopoly of the Grand Allies was broken but replaced, in a more developed form, by the Limitation of the Vend, and by 1770 the geographical and economic structure of the industry had changed dramatically. Underpinning this changing geography was the interaction of social and political structures, including the interdependence of enterprises with a developing political economy. It is in this interaction that the understanding of change in space economies must be sought.     

当代地理学特征：发展趋势及中国地理学研究进展

地理学是一门研究地球表层自然要素与人文要素相互作用及其时空变化规律的科学，它广泛运用现代科学技术手段，具有跨越自然科学与社会科学的性质。面对当前全球变化和可持续发展的世界性科学问题，地理学家根据学科特点和领域优势，抓住机遇、迎接挑战。目前主要研究地球表层系统各界面间的物理、化学、生物及人文过程，探讨多种过程的相互作用机理，探求人类活动与资源环境间相互协调、可持续发展的规律。地理学以“格局—结构—过程—机理”的研究思路贯穿始终。随着新技术、新方法的使用以及观测资料的不断积累，实验测试数据质量的提高和数据量的增加，当今地理学的研究在空间尺度上同时向微观、宏观两个方向扩展，模型研究不断科学化，已具备现代科学的主要特征。总体上，表现为部门地理研究深化，区域综合研究加强。长期以来，中国地理学在自然地理的综合研究、地表自然过程研究、城市与区域发展研究，以及面向社会现实的应用基础研究等方面取得了较好进展。     

Labouring geography: Negotiating scales, strategies and future directions

In our editorial introduction to this themed issue on labour geography, we outline some important on-going debates in the relatively young field of labour geography and suggest future directions for research. First, there is the key question of labour as an active agent in the production of economic landscapes. The agency of labour will likely remain a defining feature of labour geography, but perhaps it is not as important to construct theoretical analytical boundaries as it is to define labour geography as a political project. Second, debates continue surrounding the production of scale and the multiscalarity of organized labour. Third, labour geographers have yet to engage in any sustained fashion with unpacking the complex identities of workers and the way in which those identities simultaneously are shaped by and shape the economic and cultural landscape. Fourth, there is some debate on the costs and benefits of a ‘normative’ labour geography which emphasizes what workers and their organizations ‘could’ or even ‘should’ do. Lastly, we challenge the assumption that labour geographers have not yet asserted themselves as activists in their own right. We conclude the editorial by introducing the articles included in the issue. While these articles may not address every gap in the literature, they do contribute in significant ways to move the labour geography project forward.     

On the units of geographical economics

The new `geographical economics' introduced by Paul Krugman and others has been dismissed by geographers for a number of reasons, ranging from (mis)treatment of externalities to reliance on formal modelling. These criticisms may be appropriate, but they miss some underlying unit assumptions that cause geographical economics to deal poorly with issues of scale and space. The theories produced by Krugman and others rely on the economic units of the firm, industry and economy for analysis. In contrast, geographers often use spatial units which not only reveal different processes, but can also delimit the economic units. Acknowledgement of the difference in the assumed units of analysis between geographical economics and economic geography is necessary before any useful discourse between the two fields can occur.     

Cultural climatology and the representation of sky, atmosphere, weather and climate in selected art works of Constable, Monet and Eliasson

The visual turn presents new challenges and methodologies for the pursuit of geography as we seek to communicate our ideas and understanding within and beyond the discipline. This paper attempts to show the potential importance of visual culture within a field that we may call cultural climatology. Cultural climatology seeks to explore the dialectic between society and atmosphere, weather and climate at a variety of temporal and spatial scales. A new visual approach to cultural climatology is presented as a possible way of stimulating conversations across the divide between the social and physical sciences. Images and visualisation assert their presence in the understanding, modelling and communication of many nature/culture debates, highlighting a need both for visual literacy across geography, and for social and physical scientists to share their visual methodologies. Cultural climatologists, like other scientists, need visual methodologies for both the critical construction and deconstruction of the images they wish to present and with which they are confronted. To illustrate the importance of visual literacy for cultural climatologists this paper introduces a sample of works from three artists: Constable, Monet and Eliasson. It shows how an exploration of their work (via a theory of pictures) could help to provide: firstly a methodology for understanding the cultural symbolism of skies and weather; secondly an assessment of the urban atmosphere in London at the turn of the 20th century and thirdly an example of the effective representation of atmosphere, weather and climate involving public participation and understanding. Lessons learned from deconstructing these works of art will then be used to suggest improvements in the visualisation of weather in the production and consumption of weather forecasts (thus, picturing theory).     

Spatialities of data: mapping social media ‘beyond the geotag’

As emerging sources of so-called ‘big data’ are increasingly utilized in order to understand social and spatial processes, so too have these new data sources become the subject of harsh criticism from more critically-oriented geographers and social scientists. This paper argues that one of the major issues preventing a more productive dialogue between critical human geographers and those already engaging in the mapping and analysis of these new data sources is around the ways that space and spatiality are conceptualized in social media mapping. As such, this paper draws on and extends earlier critiques of the ‘spatial ontology of the geotag’, in which the geographic analysis of geotagged social media data over-privileges the single latitude/longitude coordinate pair attached to each individual data point, often leading to the kind of simplistic mappings and interpretations prevalent today. The goals of this paper are two-fold: first, to demonstrate how the spatial ontology of the geotag is implicitly operationalized within mainstream social media mapping exercises, and how this understanding of space remains incongruent with existing conceptions of space drawn from human geography. Second, using the example of tweeting in the wake of the August 2014 killing of an unarmed African–American teenager by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, this paper demonstrates how a more geographically-situated analysis of this kind of data, inspired by relational or multidimensional conceptualizations of space, can yield alternative understandings of the social processes embedded in such data.     

Geography’s underworld: The military-industrial complex, mathematical modelling and the quantitative revolution

The Second World War marked an epochal change in the relation of geographers to war and the military. The military had long utilised the skills of geographers, but from World War II the relation changed at least in the United States, and the military began less drawing upon existing geographical knowledge than directing a new kind that was increasingly formal, instrumental, and model driven. With the growing importance of the computer, this trend continued even more strongly during the early Cold War period, and was further propelled by the interests of a new, collective assemblage, the military-industrial complex. A cyborg entity, the military-industrial complex enfolded diverse performances, ideas, inanimate objects, people and even academic disciplines into a larger composite, one product of which was a new regime for the production of knowledge. The purposes of the paper are to examine the process by which geography within the United Stated joined this cyborg entity, and the character of the disciplinary knowledge regime that eventuated. The argument is pursued by examining three individuals key to the new disciplinary regime: Waldo Tobler a pioneer of analytical cartography and later GIS whose first job was at RAND on a project to develop an early warning system for nuclear attack; William Garrison who spearheaded the use of economic modelling in studies of transportation that he carried out with his students at the University of Washington Seattle; and Arthur Strahler, a geologist at Columbia University, who through his links to the US Office of Naval Research, funded and directed a set of students who later entered physical geography utterly transforming it to meet the dictates of the new regime.