Resisting Corporate Multiculturalism: Mapping Faculty Initiatives and Institutional-Student Harassment in the Classroom

This paper argues that calls for multicultural curricula in universities across the US can be met with strategic curricular interventions that radically confront gendered racisms across regional, national, and international racial formations. Faculty who risk making such interventions should plan for student and institutional resistances. Intersecting consumer and corporate interests desire universities to be socially nonconflictual and economical places of leisure and entertainment, not sites of critical intervention. Accordingly, we theorize how and why faculty committed to oppositional multiculturalism might be cast as transgressive. In so doing, we pay particular attention to how identity politics are quadrangulated through embodiment, performance, time, and place. We additionally discuss ways for systematically working against the grain of gendered racisms and for supporting those who are teaching multiculturalism (critically) or seen to embody it. Working against the grain is particularly important as we enter the 21st century, given the increasing diversification of faculty and student bodies in universities across the US and the attendant risks “diverse” persons take, risks generally not experienced or acknowledged by White Americans.     

Lost in the field: ensuring student learning in the 'threatened' geography fieldtrip

As a result of its importance to the discipline's identity and epistemology, the nature of fieldwork and the fieldtrip itself have recently come under close scrutiny in the education and geographical literature. Moreover, not only is their pedagogical importance being debated, but also their future viability at a time of increasing pressure on institutions to minimise potential risk situations in the field, offer value for money to students as well as following the increasingly common and popular trend of long-haul fieldtrips. This paper therefore critically interrogates the role and use of fieldwork within geographical teaching and learning in the light of its changing and increasingly contested status within the discipline in three parts. First, it outlines and reflects upon the current debate surrounding the threat to the primacy of fieldtrips in geography at a time of ongoing upheaval in higher education. Second, through the empirical example of personal experiences teaching on second-year undergraduate urban geography fieldtrips to San Francisco in December 2007 and 2008, the paper engages with the current discussions of the pedagogical importance of fieldtrips. Third, the paper asks, to what extent teaching in 'the field' might foster the 'experiential' or 'active' learning needed to inspire the kind of 'deep learning' approaches that hold the kind of 'transformative' potential envisaged as a key goal of education more broadly. Through exploring these ideas with reference to recent and relevant experience, the paper aims to critically interrogate the role and value of fieldtrips at a time when their potential demise is being cast as a fundamental assault on geography's founding identity and pedagogical traditions. The paper concludes that despite the threats it faces, the pedagogical significance of fieldwork means that it must remain a fundamental tenet of the geographical educational experience.     

Liberating learning: Thinking beyond ‘the grade’ in field‐based approaches to teaching

This paper is positioned within current debates on education development and the value of fieldwork as a pathway to fostering a nuanced, sophisticated and empathetic world view among students. Here, we focus on one form of field‐based teaching within geography, that is, intensive field studies courses taught abroad. We draw on our experience as cofacilitators of a six‐week intensive field course conducted in various parts of Thailand. The course we discuss in this paper was focused on teaching students both applied research skills (critical engagement, ethnographic research methods and ethical research practice) and substantive content (the social, cultural, political and economic aspects of Thailand from a geographer's perspective). We argue that the value of field studies lies in the ability of such a course to help students enhance and deepen broad, generalisable skills such as problem solving; ethical research practice; critical engagement with complex social issues; and independent research skills.     

Making of high‐tech Hyderabad: Mapping neoliberal networks and splintering effects

Over the past few decades, cities and city regions have become the core of the global economy. Regional governments are increasingly drafting city development policies and implementing them through various visioning documents with the aim of making cities more global, networked and competitive. Welfarist governments especially in the global South are becoming increasingly entrepreneurial, and in the process poor citizens are getting pushed to the margins, evicted from their land and relocated to city fringes. Hyderabad in India provides an interesting illustration of neoliberal development trends in which poor local farmers are forced off their land to make way for a ‘world‐class’ knowledge enclave, popularly known as Cyberabad. This paper examines the policies and processes by which the regional government has sought to brand Hyderabad as a world‐class information technology destination and to restructure and reimagine it as a key node in a network of ‘globally connected cities’ of the world. It also considers the making of Cyberabad in terms of splintering urbanism, which is often understood as a defining feature of contemporary neoliberal urban processes.     

Restructuring,Race, and Real Estate: Changing Home Values and the New California Metropolis, 1989-2010

The wake of the foreclosure crisis warrants renewed attention to geographies of race and real estate. This case study of the San Francisco Bay Area shows that outlying exurban communities on the metropolitan fringe, which saw major in-migrations of communities of color over the past three decades, were hard hit by the real estate crash, after having seen substantial housing price increases during the tail end of the boom. The potential impact on wealth and asset accumulation for these communities is significant. Rather than traditional forms of segregation, this new geography of crisis suggests a form of peripheralization, where minority communities in particular were lured out to the far suburbs under structural conditions of neoliberalism, far different from the federally supported suburbanization of two generations ago. This new reality is reminiscent of the urban roots of the foreclosure crisis, and of the need to view the crisis at a metropolitan scale.     

River Dog: Re‐imagining and re‐representing the environment and de‐idealising the rural in New Zealand film

The depiction of pristine countryside in New Zealand film has engendered a cultural disconnection with the environmental stories within the landscape. In this essay, we briefly examined the meaning of rural New Zealand landscape and its role in film. This research was done in part by making a short documentary, River Dog, a film about the rural New Zealand landscape. The character, plot and underlying message of River Dog were framed within visually relevant archetypes to form a constructive environmental message. Here, we examined River Dog's use of empathetic storytelling, an approach used to communicate an environmental issue without promulgating science or politics.     

'To define the indefinable': population classification and the census in South Africa

The population of many countries, including South Africa, has been classified into discrete groups from colonial times until the present day, for purposes of census enumeration. A reading of the census results requires an understanding of the subtleties and shifts of the classification system, which were frequently related to a definition of legal and political rights, including place of residence. The national census has tended to reinforce the groups it was initially meant only to observe.     

Measuring the Digital Divide in the United States: Race,Income, and Personal Computer Ownership

This article demonstrates how the Lorenz Curve and the Gini coefficient can be used to measure inequalities in home personal computer (PC) ownership in the United States at the national, regional, and state levels. Our empirical investigation, based on supplemental data from the Current Population Survey of the U.S. Census, indicates that income inequalities are substantially smaller within white households owning a PC than African American households, at all geographic scales. While income inequalities among PC owners (households) have decreased between 1994 and 2001 in all regions and states, the magnitude of this inequality has declined more rapidly among whites compared to African Americans.     

Post‐tropical/post‐tsunami: Climate and architectural discourse in South and Southeast Asia

Following the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004, scenes of destruction overwrote representations of a benign tropical landscape on the eastern periphery of the Indian Ocean. The incongruous coupling of luxury resort hotels with devastated indigent fisher settlements in international media coverage had exposed the global inequities embedded in a tropical tourism industry subscribed to and abetted by states, institutions, developers and architects. As post‐tsunami reconstruction commenced, it became evident that the climatic trope through which regionalist aesthetics had been filtered thus far was incapable of providing expedient solutions to real social problems. In academia and in the profession, the complex discourse of so‐called tropical architecture shaping the debates has yet to be untangled and problematized. Implicating and haunted by colonial, nationalist, developmental and political renderings, and more recently by issues of globalization, such representations continue to undergird architectural debates and production. In the wake of recent reconstruction projects and provoked by related architectural student designs in Sri Lanka, this paper reviews the politics of the tropical agenda in architecture and some considerations for its demise.     

Post‐orogenic thermal history and exhumation of the northern Appalachian Basin: Low‐temperature thermochronologic constraints

Apatite fission‐track (AFT) thermochronology and (U‐Th)/He (AHe) dating, combined with paleothermometers and independent geologic constraints, are used to model the thermal history of Devonian Catskill delta wedge strata. The timing and rates of cooling determines the likely post‐orogenic exhumation history of the northern Appalachian Foreland Basin (NAB) in New York and Pennsylvania. AFT ages generally young from west to east, decreasing from ~185 to 120 Ma. AHe single‐grain ages range from ~188 to 116 Ma. Models show that this part of the Appalachian foreland basin experienced a non‐uniform, multi‐stage cooling history. Cooling rates vary over time, ~1–2 °C/Myr in the Early Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, ~0.15–0.25 °C/Myr from the Early Cretaceous to Late Cenozoic, and ~1–2 °C/Myr beginning in the Miocene. Our results from the Mesozoic are broadly consistent with earlier studies, but with the integration of multiple thermochronometers and multi‐kinetic annealing algorithms in newer inverse thermal modeling programs, we constrain a Late Cenozoic increase in cooling which had been previously enigmatic in eastern U.S. low‐temperature thermochronology datasets. Multi‐stage cooling and exhumation of the NAB is driven by post‐orogenic basin inversion and catchment drainage reorganization, in response to changes in base level due to rifting, plus isostatic and dynamic topographic processes modified by flexure over the long (~200 Myr) post‐orogenic period. This study compliments other regional exhumation data‐sets, while constraining the timing of post‐orogenic cooling and exhumation in the NAB and contributing important insights on the post‐orogenic development and inversion of foreland basins along passive margins.     

Source‐to‐sink analysis in an active extensional setting: Holocene erosion and deposition in the Sperchios rift,central Greece

We present a source‐to‐sink analysis to explain sediment supply variations and depositional patterns over the Holocene within an active rift setting. We integrate a range of modelling approaches and data types with field observations from the Sperchios rift basin, Central Greece that allow us to analyse and quantify (1) the size and characteristics of sediment source areas, (2) the dynamics of the sediment routing system from upstream fluvial processes to downstream deposition at the coastline, and (3) the depositional architecture and volumes of the Holocene basin fill. We demonstrate that the Sperchios rift comprises a ‘closed’ system over the Holocene and that erosional and depositional volumes are thus balanced. Furthermore, we evaluate key controls in the development of this source‐to‐sink system, including the role of pre‐existing topography, bedrock erodibility and lateral variations in the rate of tectonic uplift/subsidence. We show that tectonic subsidence alone can explain the observed grain size fining along the rift axis resulting in the downstream transition from a braided channel to an extensive meander belt (>15 km long) that feeds the fine‐grained Sperchios delta. Additionally, we quantify the ratios of sediment storage to bypass for the two main footwall‐sourced alluvial fan systems and relate the fan characteristics to the pattern and rates of fault slip. Finally, we show that ≥40% of the sediment that builds the Sperchios delta is supplied by ≤22% of the entire source area and that this can be primarily attributed to a longer‐term (~10⁶ years) transient landscape response to fault segment linkage. Our multidisciplinary approach allows us to quantify the relative importance of multiple factors that control a complex source‐to‐sink system and thus improve our understanding of landscape evolution and stratigraphic development in active extensional tectonic settings.     

Sediment dispersal and redistributive processes in axial and transverse deep‐time source‐to‐sink systems of marine rift basins: Dampier Sub‐basin,Northwest Shelf,Australia

Morphological scaling relationships between source‐to‐sink segments have been widely explored in modern settings, however, deep‐time systems remain difficult to assess due to limited preservation of drainage basins and difficulty in quantifying complex processes that impact sediment dispersals. Integration of core, well‐logs and 3‐D seismic data across the Dampier Sub‐basin, Northwest Shelf of Australia, enables a complete deep‐time source‐to‐sink study from the footwall (Rankin Platform) catchment to the hanging wall (Kendrew Trough) depositional systems in a Jurassic late syn‐rift succession. Hydrological analysis identifies 24 drainage basins on the J50.0 (Tithonian) erosional surface, which are delimited into six drainage domains confined by NNE‐SSW trending grabens and their horsts, with drainage domain areas ranging between 29 and 156 km². Drainage outlets of these drainage domains are well preserved along the Rankin Fault System scarp, with cross‐sectional areas ranging from 0.08 to 0.31 km². Corresponding to the six drainage domains, sedimentological and geomorphological analysis identifies six transverse submarine fan complexes developing in the Kendrew Trough, ranging in areas from 43 to 193 km². Seismic geomorphological analysis reveals over 90‐km‐long, slightly sinuous axial turbidity channels, developing in the lower topography of the Kendrew Trough which erodes toe parts of transverse submarine fan complexes. Positive scaling relationships exist between drainage outlet spacing and drainage basin length, and drainage outlet cross‐sectional area and drainage basin area, which indicates the geometry of drainage outlets can provide important constraints on source area dimensions in deep‐time source‐to‐sink studies. The broadly negative bias of fan area to drainage basin area ratios indicates net sediment losses in submarine fan complexes caused by axial turbidity current erosion. Source‐to‐sink sediment balance studies must be done with full evaluating of adjacent source‐to‐sink systems to delineate fans and their associated up‐dip drainages, to achieve an accurate tectonic and sedimentologic picture of deep‐time basins.     

Passive revolution: A church‐military partnership in the Philippines

In the Philippines, a Catholic social movement for local development and broad structural transformation, referred to as Basic Ecclesial Communities, offers a counter‐narrative to state development. Predicated on the power of networked local groups, the Diocese of San Carlos has taken the original concept and rescaled it, operating a variety of social‐action programmes at the diocese level. The focus of this paper is a unique partnership between the diocese and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which has produced a number of measurable positive changes in under‐serviced areas. We remain uncertain, however, about the extent to which the church is cooperating with, or being co‐opted by, the military as it enters into partnership, and many members of the clergy share our scepticism. In this paper we draw upon Gramsci's concept of passive revolution (1971) as a means to conceptualize both the efforts of the church to reform society from within, and the reaffirmation of the hegemonic discourse that seems inevitable.     

Along‐strike variability in shelf‐margin morphology and accretion pattern: An example from the northern margin of the South China Sea

Interplays among diachronous tectonism, uneven sediment supply, and local marine hydraulic processes make the northern margin of the South China Sea (SCS) an ideal location to investigate the complexity of along‐strike variability in shelf margins. This study examines shelf‐margin morphology, stratigraphy, and sedimentation from the northern SCS using multichannel seismic reflection profiles complemented with the data from commercial and ocean drilling sites. Analysis of seismic reflection profiles reveals three categories of shelf‐margin cross‐sectional profiles, the concave‐up, linear, and sigmoidal, according to which five margin sectors were recognized. Results show that these margin segments differ in relief, shelf‐edge trajectory, submarine canyon development, and long‐term accretion pattern. The westernmost margin sector, or the Yinggehai (YGH)‐western Qiongdongnan (QDN) margin, has appeared to be supply dominated since its commencement at ca. 10.5 Ma, which is characterized by well‐developed prograding clinoforms, low‐angle shelf‐edge trajectories, and an absence of canyons. Presence of concave‐up profiles is also suggestive of high sediment influx. In contrast, the eastern QDN margin was primarily regulated by local subsidence and faulting, leading to a stationary shelf‐edge migrating pattern and linear upper‐slope morphology. Densely distributed slope‐confined gullies indicate the margin’s disequilibrium and erosive nature. Further east, the Pearl River Mouth (PRM) margin formed much earlier (ca. 30 Ma) and experienced a more complicated accretion history, including three phases which were dominated by sequential marginal faulting (before ca. 30 Ma), basement structure (ca. 30–23 Ma), and sediment supply (ca. 23 Ma to the present). The overall sigmoidal morphology and truncated stratigraphy of this margin probably resulted from the sculpting of local marine processes, especially ocean currents and internal waves. The exception of the central PRM margin where concave‐up profiles develop is mainly related to canyon erosion. Overall, this study highlights the vital role of local forcing factors in controlling along‐margin variations and determining the final fates of different margin segments. A comparison between the northern SCS and other well‐established examples reveals that concave‐upward shelf‐margin shapes, which are usually associated with high sediment supply, little influence from hydraulic regimes, or sometimes, high degree of canyon development, may be an indicator of good reservoir potential beyond the shelf edge.     

Forever transnational: The ambivalence of return and cross‐border activities of the Shan across the Thailand‐Myanmar border

Over the past two decades, northern Thailand has experienced a massive influx of Shan ethnic nationals from Myanmar migrating to escape economic hardship and political conflicts at home. Myanmar's recent reforms raise the question of whether these migrants will return. The paper brings together the context of current changes in Myanmar with migrants' prospects of return and the impact of large‐scale migration on homeland politics. On the one hand, the paper explores the possibility that Shan migrants could remain forever transnational, for many of them will most likely never return. On the other hand, it considers the perspective of Shan elites in Myanmar on the fact a large portion of young Shan now spend their adult lives living and working in Thailand. While out‐migration of young Shan threatens the social fabric of Shan community in Myanmar, Shan ethnonationalists strive across the Myanmar border to regain loyalty among the Shan migrant population in Thailand. By examining the two aspects, this paper attempts to shed light on the impact of transnational migration on both migrants and their home country.     

Constraining forcing factors and relative sea‐level fluctuations in semi‐enclosed basins: the Late Neogene demise of Lake Pannon

Sedimentary basins are affected by a large number of forcing factors during their evolution and as a result, it is often difficult to isolate the contribution of each individual factor. Many forcing factors are temporally and spatially heterogeneous; they do not affect all parts of the basin in the same way and at the same time. We show that this heterogeneity can be used to identify the contributions of forcing factors by comparing various parts of a basin. This approach is applied to the Pannonian Basin, a back‐arc basin located in Central Europe. In the basin, the amounts of crustal extension, tectonic inversion and sediment influx varied in space and time, while the connection with the marine realm fluctuated. In this study we focus on two currently unresolved issues: firstly, we establish by what processes and from what directions the basin was filled in, and secondly, we investigate whether the basin was affected by the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The analysis of seismic and well data in the previously less studied SE part of the basin demonstrate that progradation occurred from the southern and eastern basin margins, complementing the previously described progradation from the northwestern and northern basin margins. Elsewhere in the basin, an unconformity observed in the progradational basin infill is intensely debated to be the result of either the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) or basin inversion. Having the advantage of minor Pliocene–Quaternary amounts of inversion in the studied part of the basin we show that no regional unconformity is present in the studied stratigraphic interval, which implies that the effects of the MSC on the basin were minor. We infer that being aware of the fact that the effects of relative sea/lake‐level fluctuations may vary significantly across a basin is critical for understanding the evolution of semi‐enclosed basins.     

体制与认同：高校地理院系调整的启示

地理院系调整研究旨在通过对地理学认同产生不利影响的高校地理院系调整的解析,揭示地理学发展存在的学科与体制认同问题。基于对高校地理院系调整的回顾,分析地理院系调整的原因及影响,并结合当前地理院系发展态势阐明其启示。结果显示：学科认同与院系调整互为关联,尽管地理院系调整导致的解体并不表明地理学的终结,一般意义的调整也存在积极影响,但不同类型地理院系调整对地理学（特别是人文地理学）学科认同的不利影响仍然明显,并影响着体制层面的学科再生产。地理院系调整的发生是多因素共同影响的结果,复杂多样的因素及其影响表明地理院系面临竞争,需要地理学者既“正名”（塑造科学性、统一性的学科形象）又“指实”（完整的院系体制建设）;既“向内”（地理院系及地理学家的努力）又“向外”（维护地理学及地理院系的完整性认同）的集体努力,在强化地理学综合性基础上形成“多轨发展”机制,强化地理学学科与体制认同。“跨学科典范”的塑造或许是当前地理院系应努力的现实目标。     

Journey‐to‐Work Patterns in the Age of Sprawl: Evidence from Two Midsize Southern Metropolitan Areas*

Among others, one commonly identified negative consequence of urban sprawl is an increase in the length of the journey to work. However, there has been more discussion of this than serious scrutiny, hence the relationship between urban sprawl and commuting patterns, especially at the intraurban level, remains unclear. Using the 2000 Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) data for two Southeastern metropolitan areas, this research investigates the extent to which workers living in sprawl areas commute farther to work than those living in higher density areas. The analysis of variance confirms that workers commuting from sprawl areas to urban areas experience a longer commute in terms of time as well as mileage, though this varies when workplace and home locations are taken into account. However, multivariate statistical results suggest that there are limits to the utility of sprawl as a predictor of travel behavior compared to workers' socioeconomic characteristics, as other factors appear to be equally or more important.