Development of recreational geography in the USSR

Specific features of development of recreation geography in the USSR are, first of all — combination of the deliberate outstripping theoretical research based on the systems approach with the traditional techniques of field investigation of actual dhenomena, and second — combination of scientific activities with active interference into practical territorial organization of recreation of different groups of population. Development of recreation geography has influenced the other branches of geography, as well as the theory of project-design and architecture. Rapid growth of a new branch of science is considered as an illustration of high integrating potentialities of modern geography, which is now based not only on the empirical studies, but on the theoretical search as well.     

Transpolitical geography

As political geography searches in desperation for new (theoretical) directions to follow, this paper argues that the category of the ‘political’ has already curved back on itself, attaining the status of the ‘transpolitical’. Hereinafter, politics will never finish replaying its own disappearance as effect. This curvature is itself associated with profound shifts in the experience of history and time, of geography and space, and of the very ideas of theory, politics and events—shifts which continue to fascinate, haunt and transfix political geography in the enigmatic hereafter of the transpolitical. Adopting the motifs of s(ed)uction, transpearing, superficial abysses, and hypertelia (the ‘end of the end’), the paper assesses: the transpolitical figures of anomaly, ecstasy, obesity and obscenity; the irruption of the hyperreal (the more real than the real); the mutation of the political scene of representation into the transpolitical ob-scene of pornogeography; the fatal strategies pursued by the masses in relation to the spectre of the (trans)political; and the challenge of a transfinite universe for conjuring theoretical practice at the end(s) of political geography. Beginning with the transition from the political era—dominated by the transgressive figure of anomie and the emancipatory promise of revolutionary subl(im)ation—to the transpolitical simulacrum—characterized by the errant figure of anomaly and the superficial abyss of potentialization—the paper attempts to animate a transpolitical geography which affirms the s(ed)uction of superficial abysses and instantiates an ethics of the transpearing event.     

American geographers and the geography of East Central Europe

In the context of American geography's distinguished record in area studies around the world, East Central Europe stands out as a region that has attracted particular scrutiny over the time-span of activity by the Association of American Geographers. While the work done prior to 1918 was inevitably cast in an imperial framework with some hints of environmental determinism, the subsequent emergence of a new Europe — along with more explicitly humanistic perspectives in a discipline that was continuing to grow rapidly — led to a surge in field activity which was maintained through the communist years despite the formidable restrictions of the early post-war years. While there is a great diversity in the contributions made it is evident that there has been a continuing preoccupation with political power and the region's geopolitical significance evaluated in the context of changing great power relations. Also the big questions of economic and social geography — resources, culture and planning systems — have been examined; while a number of geographers have dedicated significant proportions of their total career activity to in-depth primary research on their chosen specialisms.     

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     

Ethnicity and geography in Jewish perspectives

It is said that the Jewish people has had a surfeit of history but not enough geography. Deprived of its independence, expelled from its homeland, and dispersed among other nations, Jewish communities internalized different socio-cultural manners and customs. Throughout history, Jewish leaders — political and rabbinical — expresssed various attitudes toward territoriality and political aspirations for Jewish independence. As Zionism and the return of Jews to the Land of Israel became a real movement, those different attitudes had to confront a new reality, in which Jewish history meets Jewish geography. This paper discusses the encounter of a Jewish culture that developed under Diaspora conditions with the new reality of Jewish territoriality and sovereignty.     

American influence on Japanese human geography: A focus on the quantitative and GIS revolutions

Japanese geography has been greatly influenced by American academia since the Second World War. The first wave was the quantitative revolution, which occurred at the end of the 1950s. Sophisticated analytical techniques and fine spatial models were introduced to Japanese geography and used in empirical studies, especially in the field of urban/transportation geography in the 1970s. The second wave was the new geography in the 1980s, including behavioral, radical and humanistic approaches. The third wave was the GIS revolution in the 1990s, which has been promoting a problem-solving approach focusing on policy matters. In this paper, I discuss how American geography has impacted on the development of Japanese human geography during this half century.     

The aspiration towards universality in political theory and political geography

This paper seeks to trace and re-evaluate the convergence between political geography and contemporary political theory regarding the normative ascendancy of the local, contingent, concrete and particular over universal, abstract and general theories of justice. The search for universal norms has been roundly critiqued, principally by postmodern, communitarian and feminist authors, and in part this has paved the way for a recovery of content and context that appeals to political geographers. It is argued, however, that the wholesale rush to what is called here a persistent localism—in the form of the promotion of the claims of particular communities, partial and situated knowledges, the politics of difference—is premature. The dangers and inconsistencies of the latter may be avoided it is claimed by reiterating the minimal universalism contained in Habermas's theory of the public sphere. The theory is discussed and illustrated, compared to more aggressive proponents of universal standards of justice, and argued to be both normatively defensible and potentially geographically sensitive. The paper concludes that the aspiration to universality may be maintained within political geography.     

The geography of tourism in France: definition,scope and themes

Conclusions The substantial body of literature produced in the last two decades bears witness to the marked development of the geography of tourism in France over this period. This research has been strongly influenced by traditional geographic thought and is notable for the logic which underlies it. At the same time much remains to be done, with various avenues for future research being suggested in this paper. French geographers might also look increasingly outwards and to the work of others. By considering new and different methodologies, theories and fields of interest, the conceptual base of the subject might be enlarged and a more systematic approach developed. This need is keenly felt and this opening up is starting to occur, particularly through the exchange of ideas with foreign geographers at meetings of the national or international (IGU) commissions on the geography of tourism.     

Urban development and urban geography in Romania: The contribution of Vintila Mihailescu

Urban development has been a dramatic consequence of modernisation in Romania over the last hundred years. Although there are some differences between the periods of capitalism and socialism — notably the socialist emphasis on the central planning of industrial growth rather than the development of a well-rounded urban society — the population resident in towns has increased inexorably from 2.08 million in 1912 (16.3% of the total population to the country) to 3.71 million (23.4%) in 1948 and 10.49 million (47.3%) in 1980. The scope of Romanian geography has plainly altered in response to the shift in the rural-urban balance, all the more so in view of the long-standing concentration of effort on domestic issues. The paper examines the relationship between urban development and urban geography during this century: urban geography has become an integral part of the discipline whereas in 1900 interest was negligible. The transition has not been entirely smooth but considerable coherence arises from the work of Vintila Mihailescu (1890–1978) : a complete geographer but one who always emphasised the importance of urban geography. Since his death new leaders have emerged to ensure a continued commitment to what is now a fundamental element of Romanian geography.     

Modern Soviet geography

Soviet geography has become more applied and constructive in recent years. This results in particular from national needs to protect environment, to monitor changes therein, and to advise on the efficient design of large-scale developments especially, but not only, in the U.S.S.R.'s vast northern and eastern regions. The effect has been to strengthen theory and methodology.     

‘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.     

Environmental economic geography: A sympathetic critique

In this article I examine the objectives and substantive claims of a body of work that has come to be known as ‘environmental economic geography’ (EEG). I characterize this loose grouping of research activities as a topical contrivance: often what unites EEG researchers is simply a desire to apply the theories and methods of economic geography to environmental issues. The article explores an alternative rationale for doing EEG: the development of a distinctive intellectual project out of the encounter between economic geography and environment. Such a project extends beyond an assessment of the environmental impacts of economic activity, to examine the ways in which many ‘economic’ processes are environmentally constituted.     

Dictionaries, disciplines and the future of geography

This essay contributes to the discussions initiated by Setten [Setten, 2008. Encyclopaedic vision: speculating on The Dictionary of Human Geography. Geoforum 39 (3), 1097–1104], about The Dictionary ofHuman Geography. Rather than focusing on the identity and relative exclusiveness of the contributors, I emphasize how successive editions of the Dictionary have helped reshape the discipline in two ways. First, the proliferation of texts, like the Dictionary, aimed squarely at a student market has gone hand in hand with a variety of changes to the political economy of publishing in geography. Second, human geography has increasingly come to be defined in terms of its concepts and theories. The paper ends by considering the implications of these changes for disciplinary unity and the future of geography given the increasing prominence of both of integrated environmental science and of GIS.     

Social geographical research in Germany — a balance sheet for the years 1950–1980

Theory and practice in German social geography reflect back on thirty years of an arduous search for identity as a discipline. Both its friends and its adversaries are in agreement that this identity has yet to be achieved. The development of the foundation phase of the 1950s — late because of specifically German conditions — led to the rapid growth of several distinctive research lines. Thereafter the pace of development slowed as various concepts were abandoned, accompanied by hesitancy over material questions, especially as some were revealed to be impractical by completed research. Up to the present there appear to be thresholds that cannot be crossed even by informed geographers. Since 1980 social geography in Germany has stagnated, and become absorbed in behavioural research. This article has attempted a balance of the more important contributions that have tried to develop themes dealing with the social complex from the geographical viewpoint.Translated by editor     

Doing community geography

Community Geography offers researchers, community groups, and students opportunities to engage in action oriented applied geographical research. Creating and sustaining these research programs can be challenging, programs can involve many partners from both academic and the community, have different goals and purposes, and utilize a variety of methods to perform research. In this paper we offer a framework of three primary overarching principles for implementing CG projects; (1) Who, (2) Why, and (3) How. (1) “Who” describes who is involved in CG, including researchers, community partners, academic institutions, (2) “Why” describes the justifications and benefits of taking this approach. (3) “How” explains how CG borrows methodologies from many disciplines within geography and beyond. Our examples are not exhaustive; rather, they serve as starting points to inspire researchers interested in CG.

     

Political geography in the time of cyberspaces: New agendas?

This review paper aims to offer a contribution to debates over theory and subject for political geography. Following a brief review of histories of political geography, the main (though not exclusive) focus is on the way that political geography may confront ‘globalization’ and the multiplicity of flows that constitute ‘cyberspaces’. Notwithstanding the consequences of the resulting transformations, the paper argues that a number of traditional subjects of political geography should remain central to the field. In particular, it is argued that a degree of state-centric focus continues to be a valuable critical project. However, such a focus needs to be supplemented by a stress on the dialectical relationships between the state, territory, culture and economy. The approach taken to this in World Systems-Theory is critiqued and some alternatives are explored. In these explorations the paper also argues for an increased engagement and cross-fertilization between political, economic, social and cultural geographies, and with critical work in political science and international relations.     

Bringing geography to the community: community-based learning and the geography classroom

Community-based learning is a pedagogical technique designed to bring students out of the classroom and into their communities. Students typically pair with local nonprofit organizations to complete work which ties into their scholarship. Faculty, students, and community members can all benefit from these partnerships, and university-community relations are strengthened by them. These connections deepen the educational experience and improve student success and retention, and build civic engagement skills that benefit the university community and the student’s home community (Strait, Turk, and Nordyke in: JR Strait, K Nordyke (eds), Pedagogy Of Civic Engagement, High-Impact Practices, and e-Service- L Earning, Stylus Publishing, Virginian, 2015; Bednarz in Journal of Geography in Higher Education 32:87–100, 2008; Mohan in Journal of Geography in Higher Education 19:129–142, 1995). Spatial citizenship, while vital to such engagement and to effective community participation, is seldom taught in traditional pedagogy (Kanwischer, Schulze, and Gryl in: Thomas Jekel, Adrijana Car, Josef Strobl, and Gerald Griesebner (eds), Spatial citizenship—dimensions of a curriculum, Wichmann Verlag, Berlin, 2012). Connecting place to pedagogy with spatially-enabled learning helps students investigate complex global concepts at a manageable local scale. Geography is an intrinsic part of scholarship, to varying degrees, and spatial thinking can bring added dimension and value to the educational process (Vogler in: Thomas Jekel, Adrijana Car, Josef Strobl, and Gerald Griesebner (eds), Wichmann Verlag, Berlin, 2012). The intersectionalities which exist within the community, when examined with a spatial lens, are the core of community geography, a praxis-focused method of engaged scholarship (Shannon in Progress in Human Geography, 10.1177/0309132520961468, 2020). Community-based learning is not clearly defined, yet some established models exist. Place-based learning communities move cohorts of students through a curriculum that is centered on local community issues, with the community as both laboratory and lens, and building place attachment (Schweizer, Davis, and Thompson in Environmental Communication 7:42–62, 2013). Service learning, while less clearly defined, typically involves direct work with community organizations, identifying, investigating, and contributing to solutions for local issues (Strait, Turk, and Nordyke in: JR Strait, K Nordyke (eds), Pedagogy Of Civic Engagement, High-Impact Practices, and e-Service- L Earning, Stylus Publishing, Virginian, 2015; Cal Corps Public Service in Designing Community-Based Courses, 1–45, 2015). Built around the concept of place, the added dimension of improved spatial citizenship benefits both community and students. This paper will review community-based learning as practiced through upper-division service learning courses in geography at two universities, and the development of a new course, as methods of engagement with local communities through a spatial lens.

     

Social epidemiology as medical geography: Back to the future

There is something very traditional about Nancy Krieger’s decidedly modern work. She advances a social epidemiology that is multidisciplinary, advancing a “quantitative population science” that is also spatial in its approach and method of analysis. Many geographers see their work as affirming the potential of medical cartography and geography as disciplines critical to public health studies of disease incidence. This article argues that the history of epidemiology and public health are historically spatial and geographic, a link lost in the research of many twentieth century health researchers. A review of the history of medical geography, and of public health, insists upon the spatiality of disease studies as a critical groundwork not simply for contemporary disease studies but for the history of disease studies as they have slowly developed over for more than 200 years.     

时间维的自然地理学研究

自然地理学方向的古地理学开创了时间维地理学研究的领域,其在我国的发展经历了一个从古地理学向环境演变研究拓展的过程。以现代自然环境的历史建构为主体的古地理学,以时间坐标系下自然地理过程研究为主的环境演变研究,以从时间的维度探索人地关系为主的人地系统演变研究,分别体现了地理学的区域研究传统、地球科学传统和人地关系传统,构成了自然地理学时间维研究的3个基本方面。广义地理解自然地理学方向的古地理学、环境演变以及人地系统演变,它们可以看作是相通的,人地系统演变可以理解为包括了人类作为驱动力和承受者的环境演变,用人地关系来定义自然学地理方向的古地理学,则可以将其定义为关于人地（人类-环境）系统历史演变的科学。     

Ocean geography for ocean science

The expanding needs for ocean resources, together with the design and diffusion of new kinds of deep-ocean and coastal management patterns, have changed profoundly in the transition from modern to post-modern society. As a result, the scientific approach to the ocean has also undergone profound changes, which have marked the epistemology of disciplines, their logical backgrounds and methods. This process has been driven by oceanography, which was born in the 19th century and has benefited, first, from the monitoring techniques from surface ships, then from the exploration of the water column and seabed, and finally from the satellite monitoring systems. While that process was evolving, geography has been involved in investigations of marine and coastal uses and the interaction between human communities and the ocean. Since the mid-1980s, and especially because of the inputs of Agenda 21 (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, UNCED, 1992), oceanography has been required to deal also with deep-ocean and coastal management issues. To respond to this need, interaction of oceanography with other disciplines is essential. In this prospect geography has an important role because, on the basis of its heritage, it could contribute to (i) the epistemological discussion of the building up of ocean science, (ii) the analysis of the human communities/ocean ecosystems interaction, and (iii) the design of sustainable development-consistent management patterns. The conceptual background and external epistemology needed by ocean geography to optimise this role are presented and discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.