Place and Health: Towards a Reformed Medical Geography*

An engagement with public health concerns and aspects of social theory such as the structure/agency debate is crucial to medical geography. The imperatives underlying this engagement center on place, a geographical concept which is prominent in both social theory and recent health philosophy. Without detracting from its distinguished heritage, this reformed medical geography will analyze issues such as the consequences of illness and health service provision for both personal well-being and the collective experience of place by communities.     

Community,Place and Cyberspace

It is over 30 years since the concept of community without propinquity was first proposed. According to this concept, communities might be spatially far-flung, but nevertheless close-knit, intimate and held together by shared interests and values, rather than by geographical proximity. Although the idea of community without propinquity has been heavily criticised, the advent of advanced telecommunications and the emergence of cyberspace mean that a reappraisal of the concept, and of the changing nature of community generally, is warranted. The paper undertakes such a reappraisal. A review of the literature on cyberspace reveals several reasons why the social effects of advanced telecommunications and the Internet might be less than is sometimes predicted. Setting this discussion in the context of other social science discourses on new urbanism, consumption rather than production as a basis for city life, postmodernism, and 'the third way' in politics, shows that place and local community are, and will continue to be, fundamental to the functioning of society. Cyberspace might have annihilated distance but not place.     

Place,Learning Progressions,and Progress

This commentary response reflects on the thoughts offered by Solem, Mohan, Rawling, and Lambert regarding Larsen and Harrington's article titled “Developing a Learning Progression for Place” (2018).     

Regional Urbanization,Spatial Justice,and Place

Revisiting work such as Edward Soja's Postmetropolis reminds us of the importance of a geographical perspective, as well as a thoroughly process oriented and dynamic consideration of the urban. Soja's work emphasizes multi-scalar processes that work to produce urbanization, and the complex, fragmented, and unequal spaces that result. Attention to spatial process and justice is essential, but is incomplete without consideration and real attention to the material and geographically embedded experiences of place that manifest urbanization in everyday life.     

Space,Place, Population and Census Analysis in Australia

The Australian Census of Population and Housing is a census of people not places. However, where people live and work can be of major relevance in our search for explaining and understanding their behaviour. This paper argues that the place dimension in the Australian census has not been exploited very effectively in this respect. Three dimensions of the issue are addressed. Firstly, the spatial units commonly used for analysis of census data often are not appropriate to the problem being investigated. The spatial units in the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) used for census data rarely represent meaningful social, economic and environmental regions. Secondly, the use of a simple urban/rural dichotomy is criticised as being a very blunt instrument to differentiate settlement types. Thirdly, the relationship between people and place in the census is discussed. While for the most part the census relates people to a single location—their place of usual residence—this is only one of the places with which people regularly interact. It is suggested that there is a need to adopt practices in the census which allow a range of population geographies to be defined. In conclusion it is argued that innovation in the Australian census, especially with the introduction of meshblocks and contemporary methodology and technology in Geographical Information Systems, makes it possible to analyse spatially referenced data in ways that can address these three issues.     

Cartographies of Stalin: Place,Scale, and Reputational Politics

In this article we explore the spatial variation of support for former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in his home country, Georgia. This research contributes to the literature on reputational politics by highlighting the role of spatial, rather than only social, factors in the construction of public opinion about Stalin. We illustrate how geographic factors impact Georgians' perceptions of the Soviet dictator by examining various aspects of place at various scales—including distance to Gori, Stalin's birthplace, the history of urbanization, and economic and political indices. To this end we map attitudes toward the Soviet dictator and use a multilevel spatial regression technique to explain variance in support for Stalin across forty-seven districts of Georgia. This enables us to explore the impact of place on people's attitudes by examining (1) whether there are local and regional hotspots of Stalin admiration and, if so, (2) what the contextual explanations of these attitudes are.     

Interpreting the Civil Rights Movement: Place,Memory, and Conflict

Produced over the past decade, monuments and museums dedicated to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s have desegregated America's memorial landscape. Tracing a broad arc across the US South, the material elements of this landscape — historic markers, monuments, parks, registered buildings, and museums — present a distinct challenge to representations of an elite, white American past. This challenge, however, is offered in a distinctly gendered manner, inasmuch as the role of women in organizing and leading the movement is obscured. Further, the historical narratives concretized at these sites are mediated by conventions associated with civil rights historiography and the tourism development industry. The result is a complex, sometimes ironic landscape. Via the narratives they embed and the crowds they attract, these landscapes are co‐constitutive with contemporary politics of representing the past in the United States. This paper offers an overview of current memorial practices and representations of the Civil Rights movement found at the country's major memorial landscapes.     

Interpreting the Civil Rights Movement: Place,Memory, and Conflict

Produced over the past decade, monuments and museums dedicated to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s have desegregated America's memorial landscape. Tracing a broad arc across the US South, the material elements of this landscape — historic markers, monuments, parks, registered buildings, and museums — present a distinct challenge to representations of an elite, white American past. This challenge, however, is offered in a distinctly gendered manner, inasmuch as the role of women in organizing and leading the movement is obscured. Further, the historical narratives concretized at these sites are mediated by conventions associated with civil rights historiography and the tourism development industry. The result is a complex, sometimes ironic landscape. Via the narratives they embed and the crowds they attract, these landscapes are co-constitutive with contemporary politics of representing the past in the United States. This paper offers an overview of current memorial practices and representations of the Civil Rights movement found at the country's major memorial landscapes.     

Place attachment among retirees in Greensburg, Kansas

On 4 May 2007 an ef-5 tornado leveled 95 percent of Greensburg, Kansas. Because city leaders encouraged everyone to use “green” building techniques as they rebuilt their homes and businesses, not only has the return to normalcy been exceedingly slow, but some of the town's older residents feel that officials have overlooked their needs. These minor episodes of discord enabled us to learn what features are most important to people in retirement. The features include identifiable landmarks, a space in which to socialize, and age-specific businesses. We assert that the lessons learned in Greensburg are applicable to other communities with a sizable older population. As baby boomers rapidly enter retirement they will seek places to live that are elder friendly and enable them to effectively bond with place. As previous research attests, people who have a strong attachment to place commonly have a good quality of life.     

Evincing a Place for Place in Learning Progressions Research

This commentary is a response to Larsen and Harrington's article titled “Developing a Learning Progression for Place” (2018). Within the author focuses on the development of learning progressions in geography and future research directions.     

Place and Belonging in America

David Jacobson. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2002. x and 234 pp., notes, and index. $39.95 cloth (ISBN 0‐8018‐6779‐7). Reviewed by Robert Saveland, Department of Social Science Education (emeritus), University of Georgia, Athens, GA.