‘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.     

Ecological restoration, cultural preferences and the negotiation of ‘nativeness’ in Australia

The paper addresses cultural assumptions about ‘nativeness’ and ‘belonging’ to place as they are implicated in notions of ‘ecological restoration’. Given the centrality of complex notions of ‘indigeneity’ to the issue of what ecological ‘restoration’ means in Australia, this is a rich area for cultural and historical analysis. Case materials illustrate the negotiated and ambiguous nature of Australian ideas about what ‘belongs’ ecologically and culturally across the broad continent of this relatively young post-Settler nation. We seek to foreground these issues through consideration of what ‘restoring’ nature might mean in the context of debates about native plants, the re-introduction of an iconic species of ground dwelling bird, the removal of cane toads that are demonised as highly ‘alien’, and the multiple ways in which the dingo is regarded ambiguously as both native and a ‘pest’ that needs to be controlled and culled. By showing how ‘restoration’ can be understood and mobilised in a variety of ways – in terms of the ‘re-naturing’, ‘re-valuing’ and/or ‘repatriating’ of indigenous species, as well as impassioned rejection of ‘exotics’ – we emphasise the importance of social science for building a well-grounded sense of how environmental management priorities and approaches are informed by a wider set of cultural assumptions.     

‘Boundary’ in Ancient Persian Tradition of Statehood

It is universally accepted that the need for defining precise lines of separation and points of contacts between states is the byproduct of the emergence of nation-states and ‘world economy’ in the 19th century Europe. Nevertheless, it is hard to overlook the fact that these modern notions are rooted in periods prior to the emergence in Europe of nation-states. There are indications that ancient civilizations were familiar with the notion of ‘state’ in connection with the concepts of territory and boundary. Ancient texts reveal that this basic principle existed in ancient Persian literature in respect of matters of state, territory, and boundary. Similarly, the likelihood exists that these Persian notions could have influenced Roman civilization. It is widely believed that a combination of ancient Greco-Roman and Persian civilizations is a major contributor to what culturally constitutes ‘West’. Later in the Sassanid period the inter-linked notions of state, territory, and boundary developed substantially, coming quite close to their contemporary forms. On the other hand, considering that ‘justice’ was the corner stone of ancient Persian Political philosophy, the idea that ancient Persian spatial arrangement might have contributed to the evolution of the concept of democracy in the West may not be too difficult to contemplate.     

Two surveys for taking measures to cope with the coming earthquake to the Tokyo Metropolis

Although Tokyo City has frequently suffered from earthquake disasters, more than 70 years have passed since the last catastrophe of 1923. Because Tokyo has a greater probability now than ever of being hit by another major earthquake, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has carried out two surveys for taking measures to cope with it; earthquake vulnerability assessment and earthquake damage prediction. The former assesses earthquake vulnerability regionally and is used for disaster-proof city planning. Damage due to the expected earthquake is quantitatively estimated in the latter. The results are used for making a regional disaster prevention plan in an emergency. Both physical and human geographers participate in these interdisciplinary surveys effectively.     

Environmental Stewardship in UK agriculture: A comparison of the environmentally sensitive area programme and the Countryside Stewardship Scheme in South East England

Research into the adoption of Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) has typically sought to identify the defining characteristics of participants and the ‘barriers to entry’ that dissuade others from joining. More recently, attention has focused on the motivation of participants and non-participants in helping to understand patterns of participation. This paper compares the pattern of participation in two distinct schemes operating in South East England. Indirect evidence suggests that scheme design and implementation is influencing the type of farmer joining and their motivation for doing so. Results from a survey of farmers also support the idea that the schemes are recruiting from different sections of the farming community. ESA farmers are largely motivated by financial gain, whereas those enrolling land in the Countryside Stewardship Scheme have more clearly defined conservation motives. Although there is also a ‘core’ of resistant non-participants, further changes to the design and delivery of policy could encourage a large number of ‘potential enrolers’ to join.     

The Caesura: remarks on Wittgenstein’s interruption of theory, or, why practices elude explanation

This paper aims to bring the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein into contact with the growing interest and concerns over the status of practice, performance and non-representational ‘theory’ within human geography. Drawing predominantly on Wittgenstein’s later work, the aim is to use Wittgenstein’s comments to illuminate how certain presuppositions and idealisations over the nature of understanding and meaning are or have been built into our (social scientific) modes and methods of explanation. Thus Wittgenstein’s work is used as a diagnosis––a diagnosis of how the modus operandi of giving an explanation can, and often does, prevent us from acknowledging the practical and the performative, from witnessing the taking-place of meaning and understanding. The paper carries out this task by focusing first on Wittgenstein’s critique of the role of ‘rules’ and ‘rule-following’ in the construction of social scientific accounts and secondly, through a consideration of the implications of Wittgenstein’s ‘scenic’ style of writing through which he attempts to deconstruct the epistemo-methodological idealisations and representationalist desires of social analysis. The claim here is not that Wittgenstein’s work provides the solution to the problematics which confront us in considering the status (or otherwise) of practice, but rather that his work may provide us with other ways of going-on, ones more sensitive to the eventful, creative, excessive and distinctly uncertain realms of action.     

Entangled exchange: Reconceptualising the characterisation and practice of bodily commodification

Richard Titmuss’ classical 1970 study of blood donation has provided a powerful conceptual model for characterising transactions involving human bodily materials. This now paradigmatic model suggests that such transactions are typically organised in accordance with one or other of two dichotomous, and mutually exclusive, modes of exchange: gifting or commodification. In this paper I utilise findings from my own and others’ empirical research to illustrate the range of complex, multiply constituted, and contested modes of commodification that now typically attend the exchange of human body parts and tissues of which Titmuss’ model can take no effective account. Drawing on work by Radin, Callon, and Miller I illustrate the complex justificatory work that those involved must perform to fit their lived experiences of tissue exchange into this now outmoded paradigm. I then consider how the protagonists themselves ontologise their practices and with what effects. In the second part of the paper I consider how neo-liberal ideologies and instruments are being employed to suborn a variety of highly differentiated and geographically distinct practices of bodily commodification to the ‘logic of the market’. I explore here what the operative effects of defining the global circulation of body parts and tissues as a new ‘economy’ might be. I then consider how, if at all, a market logic could ‘Value’ all those ‘calculations of interest’ and ‘values’ that underpin exchanges of human body parts and tissues in specific national, communal or institutional settings. I conclude by reflecting on the desirability or possibility of performing normative assessments of the ethicacy of highly geographically and culturally differentiated practices of bodily commodification.     

New insights into the origin and migration of brines in deep Devonian aquifers, Alberta, Canada

Analysis of hydraulic heads and chemical compositions of Devonian formation waters in the west central part of the Alberta Basin, Canada, characterizes the origin of formation waters and migration of brines. The Devonian succession in the study area lies 2000–5000 m below the ground surface, and has an approximate total thickness of 1000 m and an average slope of 15 m/km. Four Devonian aquifers are present in the study area, which form two aquifer systems [i.e., a Middle–Upper Devonian aquifer system (MUDAS) consisting of the Elk Point and Woodbend–Beaverhill Lake aquifers, and an Upper Devonian aquifer system (UDAS) consisting of the Winterburn and Wabamun aquifers]. The Ireton is an effective aquitard between these two systems in the eastern parts of the study area. The entire Devonian succession is confined below by efficient aquitards of the underlying Cambrian shales and/or the Precambrian basement, and above by overlying Carboniferous shales of the Exshaw and Lower Banff Formations.The formation water chemistry shows that the Devonian succession contains two distinct brine types: a ‘heavy brine,’ located updip, defined approximately by TDS >200 g/l, and a ‘light brine’ with TDS <200 g/l. Hydraulic head distributions suggest that, presently, the ‘light brine’ attempts to flow updip, thereby pushing the ‘heavy brine’ ahead. The interface between the two brines is lobate and forms large-scale tongues that are due to channeled flow along high-permeability pathways. Geological and hydrogeochemical data suggest that the following processes determined the present composition of the ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ brines: original seawater, evaporation beyond gypsum but below halite saturation, dolomitization, clay dehydration, gypsum dewatering, thermochemical sulfate reduction (TSR), and halite dissolution. The influx of meteoric (from the south) and metamorphic (from the west) waters can be recognized only in the ‘light brine.’ Albitization can be unequivocally identified only in the ‘heavy brine.’ The ‘heavy brine’ may be residual Middle Devonian evaporitic brine from the Williston Basin or the Elk Point Basin, or it may have originated from partial dissolution of thick, laterally extensive Middle Devonian evaporite deposits to the east of the study area. The ‘light brine’ most probably originated from dilution of ‘heavy brine’ in post-Laramide times.     

Sustainable development in regional planning: The search for new tools and renewed legitimacy

This paper focuses on sustainability appraisal as a key technique for pursuing the political goal of ‘sustainable development’ within English planning. We conclude that unlike many planning tools of the past which have sought to depoliticise decision making by using more ‘scientific’ techniques, the early experience of sustainability appraisal has instead repoliticised them, by highlighting where tensions exist but without providing solutions.     

Environmental pollution and bio-politics: The epistemological constitution in Japan’s 1960s

This article examines the epistemological reconstitution in Japan—from Eisei (hygiene) to Kankyo (environment and ecology)—in the 1960s, particularly focusing on Yokkaichi city in the Mie prefecture that was infamous for environmental pollution. Post World War II, Yokkaichi port and its petrochemical industrial complexes were regarded as a symbol of Japan’s development. Referred to as ‘a million dollar night’s view’ for its ability to provide light the entire day, it played a central role in the country’s industrial reconstruction. Due to its reputation for ‘nature’-filled countryside, many enjoyed swimming at Yokkaichi despite the presence of the nearby industrial plants. Both these facts imply that people did not realize the risks posed by the dirtiness of the wastewater and the fumes emitted by the plants, an ignorance that may be traced back to the epistemic constitution of hygiene in Japan at the time. Since modernization, the government had adopted the idea of hygiene to control infectious and venereal diseases. The Department of Interior in 1873, and later, the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 1938 were also instituted to discipline human aesthetics through bio-politics. In the 1960s, when diseases of unknown origins began to appear and ‘scientific’ researches made the risks of wastewater and fumes visible, a new idea, Kankyo (which included but went beyond that of hygiene), was implemented to mitigate these risks. This transition saw the landscape of ‘a million dollar night’s view’ being transformed into a symbol of injustice and became a basis for grassroots political acts.     

Naming the land: San countermapping in Namibia’s West Caprivi

Both ‘indigenous rights’ and environmental discourses brought a NGO-led natural resource mapping project to the West Caprivi Game Park in northern Namibia in the late 1990s. San countermapping elsewhere in southern Africa demonstrates how mapping has been used as a tool for ‘indigenous’ identity-building and asserting authority over land. At the same time, mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have increasingly been used by conservationists in Namibian Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), demonstrating the potential therein for state and NGO surveillance and intervention regarding both natural resources and their users in conservancies and national parks. Mapping in West Caprivi thus embodied a tension between ‘visibility’ and ‘legibility’. This paper explores how mapping activities reflected, and became part of, institutional and ethnic struggles over identity, authority and natural resources. It argues that members of a San group called Khwe used mapping to construct particular histories, promote a unified, exclusive ethnic identity, and bolster their authority in the area. This in turn presented particular challenges for NGO relationships with the state. The mapping project also showed that, in their bid to counteract their own exclusion, Khwe not only opened up the landscape to new forms of NGO and state legibility, but sought to exclude ethnic others. Like other CBNRM projects, mapping often served socio-political, rather than environmental, functions.     

Nation building and resource management: The politics of ‘nature’ in Timor Leste

This paper examines the role of custom and tradition in the process of nation building and resource management in post-independence Timor Leste (East Timor). While customary land tenure is alluded to but not explicitly recognized under the Timorese Constitution, it is clearly stated that all natural resources are owned by the State. However, this paper argues that rather than waiting for the government to create land and resource management related laws, local people in Timor Leste are making and remaking their own laws, mobilizing their customary practices and, increasingly, ‘performing’ their traditions in public demonstrations of their extant capacities. In part, this process can be read as a way of enticing in outsiders, making them a party to the law making process, a witness to its legitimacy. Often critical to such processes, is the ability of local level leaders to draw in outsiders through their engagements with the idea of ‘nature’ – a concept which allows diverse interests to come together in conversation and build relationships despite what is often a dissonance in the meanings and priorities attributed to the concept (see Tsing, A.L., 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford). The paper focuses on a view from the margins – Tutuala in the far east of the country – and ways in which this community is attempting to both resist and embrace the developmental hegemony of a centrist state. This, it is argued, is a case which demonstrates the power of the local (both ritually and politically) to shape and intervene in the national development process and the associated discourses of nature preservation.     

Translocal assemblages: Space, power and social movements

In this paper, I deploy an analytic of ‘translocal assemblage’ as a means for conceptualising space and power in social movements. I offer a relational topology that is open to how actors within movements construct different spatial imaginaries and practices in their work. In using the prefix ‘translocal’, I am signifying three orientations. First, translocal assemblages are composites of place-based social movements which exchange ideas, knowledge, practices, materials and resources across sites. Second, assemblage is an attempt to emphasise that translocal social movements are more than just the connections between sites. Sites in translocal assemblages have more depth than the notion of ‘node’ or ‘point’ suggests – as connoted by network – in terms of their histories, the labour required to produce them, and their inevitable capacity to exceed the connections between other groups or places in the movement. Third, they are not simply a spatial category, output, or resultant formation, but signify doing, performance and events. I examine the potential of assemblage to offer an alternative account to that of the ‘network’, the predominant and often de facto concept used in discussions of the spatiality of social movements. I draw on examples from one particular translocal assemblage based in and beyond Mumbai which campaigns on housing within informal settlements: Slum/Shack Dwellers International.     

Geographies of generosity: Beyond the ‘moral turn’

This paper questions Geographers debates about ‘caring at a distance’ and the ‘geographies of responsibility’, focussing on the treatment of the theme of partiality in ethics and justice. Debates in Geography often present partial commitments as morally or politically problematic on the grounds that they prioritize self-interest, exclusionary, and geographically restricted ways of relating to others. We outline how debates about caring at a distance and the geographies of responsibility frame partiality as a problem to be overcome. We argue that Geography’s engagements with moral philosophy are premised on faulty assumptions about the sorts of influences people are liable to act upon (one’s that privilege causal knowledge as the primary motivating force), and also flawed assumptions about the sorts of problems that academic reasoning about normative issues is meant to address (the assumption that people are too egoistical and not altruistic enough). We use the theme of generosity as an entry point to argue that partiality and finitude might be the conditions for any ethical–political project that de-centres the motivation of practical action away from the sovereign self towards responsive and attentive relations of encounter with the needs of others. Understanding generosity as a modality of power suggests a revised programme for geographical investigations of the intersection between ethics, morality and politics: one which looks at how opportunities to address normative demands in multiple registers are organized and transformed; at the ways in which dispositions to respond and to be receptive to others are worked up; and how opportunities for acting responsively on these dispositions are organized.     

Further evidence for 1.85 Ga metamorphism in the Central Zone of the North China Craton: SHRIMP U–Pb dating of zircon from metamorphic rocks in the Lushan area, Henan Province

This paper reports SHRIMP zircon U–Pb dating of Precambrian supracrustal and granitic rocks from the Lushan area, Henan Province, in the southern portion of the Central Zone (also referred to as the Trans-North China Orogen) of the North China Craton. A graphite–garnet–sillimanite gneiss (Sample TW0006/1) of the Shangtaihua ‘Group’ gives a range of inherited zircon ages from 2.73 to 2.26 Ga and a metamorphic zircon age of 1.84 ± 0.07 Ga. A garnet-bearing gneissic granitoid (Sample TWJ358/1), which is considered to intrude the Shangtaihua ‘Group’, gives a magmatic zircon age of 2.14 ± 0.02 Ga and a metamorphic zircon age of 1.87 Ga. The metamorphic zircon ages of 1.87–1.84 Ga obtained in this study indicate that an important tectonothermal event occurred at the end of the Paleoproterozoic in the Lushan area. This supports the southern continuation of a Central Zone in the North China Craton that workers have recently considered to result from continent–continent collision. It is also evident that the Shangtaihua ‘Group’ was formed during the Paleoproterozoic (between 2.26 and 2.14 Ga), and not during the Archean, as previously considered.     

Towards a critical political geography of African development

In this paper we aim to rethink the political geography of African development at the beginning of the 21st century. Central to our thesis are two intertwining legacies, paralleling Edward Said’s Orientalism. The first is the construction of Africa in the western imagination and the second is an enduring trusteeship towards the continent. The core movement we seek to critique and move beyond is the complicity between racialised knowledges about Africa and a series of political interventions that seek to ‘help’ Africans to develop. The paper begins by examining the legacy of colonialism in the policies towards and representations of Africa. Although selective and schematic we argue that what unites these power–knowledge constructions is a sense of trusteeship towards the continent. The next step is to look at ways of decolonising our knowledges as a means to effect more appropriate political engagement with Africa. For this we touch on a range of theoretical positions, but look most closely at the corpus of post-colonial theory for ways of doing this. While not uncritical of post-colonialism we find it potentially useful for destabilising western authority and in addressing questions of popular agency and cultural constructions of exclusion. From here we attempt a reformulation which addresses the role of the state, the politics of place and space, and the ways in which ‘we’––professional geographers––might go about our work.     

Isotope provinces, mechanisms of generation and sources of the continental crust in the Central Asian mobile belt: geological and isotopic evidence

The available geological, geochronological and isotopic data on the felsic magmatic and related rocks from South Siberia, Transbaikalia and Mongolia are summarized to improve our understanding of the mechanisms and processes of the Phanerozoic crustal growth in the Central Asian mobile belt (CAMB). The following isotope provinces have been recognised: ‘Precambrian’ (T_DM=3.3–2.9 and 2.5–0.9 Ga) at the microcontinental blocks, ‘Caledonian’ (T_DM=1.1–0.55 Ga), ‘Hercynian’ (T_DM=0.8–0.5 Ma) and ‘Indosinian’ (T_DM=0.3 Ga) that coincide with coeval tectonic zones and formed at 570–475, 420–320 and 310–220 Ma. Continental crust of the microcontinents is underlain by, or intermixed with, ‘juvenile’ crust as evidenced by its isotopic heterogeneity. The continental crust of the Caledonian, Hercynian and Indosinian provinces is isotopically homogeneous and was produced from respective juvenile sources with addition of old crustal material in the island arcs or active continental margin environments. The crustal growth in the CAMB had episodic character and important crust-forming events took place in the Phanerozoic. Formation of the CAMB was connected with break up of the Rodinia supercontinent in consequence of creation of the South-Pacific hot superplume. Intraplate magmatism preceding and accompanying permanently other magmatic activity in the CAMB was caused by influence of the long-term South-Pacific plume or the Asian plume damping since the Devonian.     

Assessment of provincial social vulnerability to natural disasters in China

Assessment of social vulnerability has been recognized as a critical step to understand natural hazard risks and to enhance effective response capabilities. Although significant achievements have been made in social vulnerability researches, little is know about the comprehensive profile of regional social vulnerability in China. In this study, the social vulnerability to natural hazards was firstly divided into socioeconomic and built environmental vulnerability. Then, using factor analysis, we identified the dominant factors that influence the provincial social vulnerability in China to natural hazards based on the socioeconomic and built environmental variables in 2000 and 2010 and explored the spatial patterns of social vulnerability. The results indicated that the provincial social vulnerability in China showed significant regional differences. The social vulnerability in the southeastern and eastern regions of China was greater than its northern and central parts over the past decade. Economic status, rural (proportion of agricultural population and percentage of workers employed in primary industries), urbanization, and age structure (children) were the dominant driving forces of variations in provincial socioeconomic vulnerability in two studied years, while lifelines and housing age could explain most of changes in built environmental vulnerability in 2000 and 2010. There were no statistically significant correlations between social vulnerability and disaster losses (p > 0.05), indicating the impact of disasters was also related to the intensity of hazards and exposure. Disaster relief funds allocated to each province of China depended more on its disaster severity than the regional integrated social vulnerability over the past decade. These findings would provide a scientific base for the policy making and implementation of disaster prevention and mitigation in China.     

Meteorological Office, Pune-411 005

Natural disasters like floods, tornadoes, tropicalcyclones, heat and cold wavewreak havoc and cause tremendous loss ofproperty all over the world. Most ofthe natural disasters are either dueto weather or are triggered due toweather related processes.Extreme weather events claimed thousands oflives and caused damage on vastscale. Recent super cyclone which affectedOrissa in 1999, Bangladesh cyclone of1970 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992 areexamples of some of the more damagingtropical cyclones which affected developingas well as the developed world. Heatand cold waves are also extreme events,which cause enormous losses in terms oflives lost and human discomfort and ailmentsarising out of them. The heat waveof 1995 and 1998 are still fresh in the mindof the Indian public. The estimated lossof human lives due to heat wave in 1998 was morethan 15,000. Economic losses asa result of these disasters and in particular inassociation with tropical cyclones haveincreased enormously over the last three decades.During 1961–1991, total loss oflives from drought alone was 1,333,728 overthe whole world. In terms of economiclosses, there is 8–10 fold increase from thebase figure of 1960. The socio-economicimpact of natural disaster is complex dependingupon the vulnerability of the placeand mitigation strategies that are put in place.Meteorology plays a crucial role in forewarningpeople about the severe/extremeweather systems and a constant endeavour by themeteorological services worldover has gone a long way towards minimizing thelosses caused by natural disasters.The paper summarises the natural disasterstatistics over south Asia and the possibleprediction strategies for combating theirsocio-economic impacts.     

Institutional power-geometries: enduring and shifting work relations in cleansing depots

Institutions are objects of study that raise questions about the relationship between continuity and change. Employment is changing and for this reason it presents an opportunity to explore how it is that paid work might be thought of as an institutional ‘space’ that is made up of enduring and shifting power relations. This paper views institutions through a lens of ‘power-geometries’, that is, as complex webs of relations of domination and subordination (Massey, D., 1992. New Left Review 196, 65–84). The paper illustrates these power-geometries by exploring employment in local authority cleansing depots in South East England. I concentrate on how the inequity of employment relations enables the institutionalisation of work practices. Employment relations were found to have shifted to different degrees according to the particular geographies and histories of labour markets, employer strategies, local politics and worker solidarities. Despite these variations the asymmetry of employment relations is seen to have endured. I conclude by arguing that whilst power-geometries are not fixed, when ‘institutionalised’ they are not easily changed during ‘everyday’ interaction.