The geographical space of big companiesDer tätigkeitsraum groβer gesellschaftenL'espace géographique des grandes sociétés

During its active life a large firm adopts several representations of the space with which it is in contact. The author is concerned with the recognition of the principal traits of these representations, based upon the results of questionnaires and interviews with representatives of a dozen French companies of international standing.Industrial space is signified by the distribution of productive forces, analysed and enumerated by classical geography. It has served as the basis of a systematisation aimed at the construction of a science of localisation. Nevertheless the factors compared are not of constant value.Commercial space which guides the sale-effort is structured by town centres and their level of attractiveness. Largely influenced by political geography it escapes complete domination because of the flux of commercial relationships.The thoughts of directors are exercised periodically at the level of world markets, monetary zones and tariffs, and the poles of decision that determine the march of events. In the last analysis strategic space thus perceived is financial space.     

Spatial imaginary and geography: A plea for the geography of representations

After twenty years of work on the geography of representations, how is it still possible to define geography as “the science of space”, ie as direct knowledge of material reality? This conception of the discipline — based on Cartesian precepts of evidence (eg the observer's independent certainty), reductionism (ie a disaggregation into sets of simple elements), causality (ie the presupposition of a linear linkage between cause and effect) and exhaustiveness (ie the certainty that nothing essential has been omitted) — has been thrown into question by the geography of representations' holistic approach. How can our scientific practices be separated from our interior existence with its affective and emotional aspects? Is not scientific action an extension of being? Mustn't the geographer, above and beyond the observation of concrete phenomena, also understand the subtle and complex — at times random and hidden — links which unite human beings and their life-space, be it from the viewpoint of the poet, or of all those who take alternative approaches to geography? What I would like to demonstrate is (1) how in an historically and socially given environment, the individual constructs his own reality in linking together the structural, functional and symbolic; (2) how the representation of the landscape is related to our existential experience; and (3) how the imaginary and the real are connected in each place.     

‘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.     

Social geography: its place and formation

The Soviet geographical literature of the last decade has adopted four principal, alternative premises about the place of social geography within the overall system of geography. These are that social geography: (1) does not exist as a separate branch of the subject; (2) belongs to a lower hierarchical order of geography, usually as a sub-division of population geography; (3) belongs to a medium level within the hierarchy of geography, broadly equivalent in status to economic geography; or (4) belongs to the highest hierarchical level of the subject, being synonymous with the geography of human society (sodetal geography). The author stresses the difference between the wider definition of social geography, which takes it to be the geography of society, studying the arrangement of sodetal objects in their geographical interrelations, and the narrow view, which defines ‘social’ as sociological. In this case, social geography is synonymous with sociological geography; it studies sociological objects in their geographical setting. The paper also discusses the process of the sociologization of geography.     

The status of geography in Saudi universities with special reference to King Saud University

Although there are several departments and subdepartments of geography in Saudi universities and other institutions, these departments have so far failed to produce professionals who are capable of filling the posts offered by the employers in both the public and private sectors. This paper suggests that since the demand for geography graduates with general training is rather low at presents, it is time for geography departments to turn to professionalism in the field so that geography graduates can compete favourably for the available posts. This calls for a new look into the geography curriculum, particularly at university level with a view of improving the skills and aptitude of geographers to assume a more positive role in the process of development. The paper also calls for the regional specialisation of geography departments in Saudi Arabia as a step forward towards solving the existing job problem for geography graduates, as well aas underlining the involvement and commitment of geographers to issues of development at the local, regional and national scales.     

Geography's role in general education in the United States

In the United States, geography is taught most frequently in the junior secondary schools, is somewhat more limited as a regular course in the senior secondary schools, and is a prominent discipline within many college and university programs of instruction. At the secondary school level, geography is usually integrated within the broader based social studies, while at the college and university level it has an important function both within general education as well as specialized training. At the pre-collegiate and collegiate levels geography has developed quite independently at times, and at other times there has been a close relationship that has benefitted both levels of education. At the end of the 1980s decade, considerable cooperation was underway in the United States between teachers of secondary school and tertiary level geography in order to upgrade and enhance the discipline. In the first part of this paper, a general history of geography within American education is presented. The second part of the paper discusses geography's role within general education at the secondary and tertiary levels, including the academic backgrounds for teachers. The way in which geographic education in the United States provides students with the opportunity to study holistic relationships between people and the environment and its importance to informed citizenship are discussed in the final section of the paper.     

Burning issues: Whiteness, rurality and the politics of difference

In the past decade geographers have critiqued the exclusivity of idyllic representations of rurality and sought to explore the diverse experiences of Other social groups in the countryside. This paper builds upon that small but significant strand of research which has highlighted the whiteness of representations of rurality and the consequences of this for racialised minorities. These debates have been crucially important in forwarding our understanding of racially-exclusive constructions of idyllic country living; however, it is important that academics neither assume that such ideas are forever fixed, nor that they affect all minority ethnic groups in the same ways. This paper takes both the potential power and frailty of these ideas seriously, as it examines how the concepts of race, racism and rurality are deployed by different commentators as they debate the place of one specific minority ethnic group in the English countryside. The route taken into this is a consideration of print-media reporting of events in Firle, Sussex, where, in 2003, some white rural residents symbolically purged their village of Gypsy-Travellers by burning a mock caravan complete with effigies at their annual bonfire celebrations. In conclusion, the paper challenges the relative lack of attention to these issues within the white-dominated discipline of geography, and argues that it is imperative to trace the dynamic ways in which the whiteness of idyllic understandings of the rural are reinforced and challenged through contemporary social practice.     

Social geography — Welfare state ideology or critical social science?

The theme of the paper is the question of whether social geography has an ideological or a critical function in society. This question is approached from four different perspectives: (i) the history of ideas, (ii) the philosophy of science, (iii) the development of theory, and (iv) the view of practice.Having identified the two main directions of social geography as being a liberal (positivist) and a radical (marxist) approach, they are subjected to a brief epistemological examination.The development of theory of the liberal and marxist directions differ in three ways. These are the positioning of production vis-à-vis distribution, the conception of the relationship between the individual and society, and the understanding of space. The concept of relative space, making geography the science of space (chorology), is criticized. An alternative conceptualization of space, where space is not separated from and understood independent of the object under study, is formulated. Space is here considered as a property of the object (society), which totally integrates space and object.In the last section of the paper it is pointed out that the liberal approach represents either ‘counter-revolutionary’ or ‘status-quo’ theories, while the radical approach is ‘revolutionary’. The concept of space as the property of the object makes social geography more politically relevant, in that the actors in the political struggle became more precisely identified as groups in regional social structures.     

Mundane diplomacies for the practice of European geopolitics

This paper offers a practice-based account of diplomacy given that diplomats are central to the production and circulation of geopolitics. We contend that there is a changing geography of diplomacy underway from state-centred to “integrative diplomacy”, prompting the need for reorganisation of the modalities that shape and regulate state presence. Such reorganisation brings with it the challenge of fashioning new pathways of diplomatic engagement to counter the disordering of routinized mundane diplomatic practices, alongside new possibilities for diplomatic space to be used by various actors and interests. In sum, the move to integrative diplomacy commands closer academic attention to the contemporary geographies of diplomatic practice, and how these practices are transacted in diverse spatial settings, sites and domains, under conditions of multiple contestation of state authority and legitimacy. Using extensive European empirical materials, we argue that the ways in which diplomats devise, trial, make claims and counter-claims about geopolitical representations are ripe for practice-based analysis. We do this through an exploration of diplomacy’s geographical dimensions, that is, its everyday spaces and places, orderings and transactions and show how practices can go awry in the move to integrative diplomacy.     

Some remarks on the notions of ‘structure’ and ‘system’ in geographyAnmerkungen zur bedeutung der begriffe ‘struktur’ und ‘system’ in der geographieRemarques sur les notions de ‘structure’ et ‘systèmes’ en géographie

The terms structure and system are used frequently in geography, but nevertheless they remain often imprecise in definition as do the concepts themselves. An attempt is made here to show how geographical structure, which is geographical space organised by a system, may have an operational value in research to the extent that it incorporates both chorological and taxonomic facts. These ‘geographical structures’ should not be confused with the structures of systems.First the system is considered as a set of sets: set of elements, set of the attributes of these elements, set of relationships between the elements, and an assemblage of relationships between the complete system and all exterior to the system. The inputs, and functioning of systems in geography are then discussed by reference to a model of the atmospheric circulation, and to a model of an agricultural system.The utilisation of the two concepts structure and system have facilitated explanation in geography.     

Regional geography considered from the systems' approach

The main critiques of the term ‘region’ were directed in the 1950s against the ‘uniqueness’ of the region: being not repetitive, it was considered not to be of general value. In the author's opinion the term ‘uniqueness’ was misinterpreted: a region is made unique by the unique relationship between natural, cultural, economic, political and social elements existing in it. However, as these relationships are repetitive, or some at least can be repeated, regional geography is of general value. If the geographical study of a region invests its efforts and interests in functions, processes and relationships between the elements existing in a region, the concept of a region becomes, in fact, a concept of a system, with epistemological and methodolgical consequences. A model of ‘region as a system’ is the approach taken in this paper. Such an approach can resolve some basic problems of geography: the dichotomy between natural and anthropic elements of the region, which cannot be treated except by a systems approach; the tension existing between ‘space’ and ‘place’, which is perpetuated by the dichotomy between regional and systematic geography. Through a systems approach, the choice of a scale appropriate to a particular study can be directed by a distinction between system and subsystem; inclusion or exclusion of an element in the study of a region is not an arbitrary one, but depends on its relevance to the processes within the region. Perhaps the ‘personality of the region’, so often misinterpreted by scorners of regional geography, can be accepted as a legitimate part of the regional output.     

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.     

Geography in general education in the Federal Republic of Germany

The professional formation of German geography teachers is advanced both at university level and for all types of schools. There is a long tradition of teaching geography as a separate independent subject in classes 5–13, whereas it is an integrated subject in classes 1–4 and only in some states, on the secondary level. Speaking for all schools and all ten federal states, it can be maintained that there is a minimum of one geography hour per week, sometimes up to two hours. However a certain decline of classroom hours has occurred during the last 30 years (which most other subjects suffered as well). As most geography teachers have another subject (or two), they have a tendency to identify as a maths teacher, for example, because of the higher general esteem the second subject may have. Still, public opinion considers geography to be of general importance for an educated citizen. This has effectively influenced the curricula, emphasizing cognitive insight in geographical aspects, topography and general understanding of man-land relationship. A higher level of critical insight, planning issues and higher intellectual objectives can be reached with geographical topics.     

经济地理学新的思维范畴

全球经济一体化与信息时代的到来，给经济地理学带来了新的变化，加之实践的检验，经济地理学由过去那些“区位论”，“生产布局”相应地发展到空间理论和信息理论，重在分析机制因素，时空的变化也更加深刻了，本学科比较综合，具有广阔的区域空间，复杂的内涵 ，其学科的创新在于在时空耦合度上使经济和社会同人口，资源，生态环境之间保持和谐，高效优化有序的发展，逐步建立具有我国特色的资源节约型的社会经济消费体系。着重分析了经济地理学新的思维范畴与研究趋势，强调用科学方法来检验以前的结论，用统计方法（层面分析）来解释数量关系，用GIS的分析法来印证空间布局的合理性。     

At the heart of the cultural approach in geography: Thinking space

The way that space is thought of is at the heart of the cultural approach in geography. The passing down of all the components of a culture depends upon the way data is aquired and processed, the results memorized or broadcast. Communication shapes the experience and the knowledge of space and time. It gives to everyone the idea that the real world is doubled by a beyond which plays a central role in social life, since it is upon such a beyond that normative thinking relies and that a significance is given to individual and social life. The spheres of lived-in and known space and time, as well as that of the beyond, vary according to available technologies. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

网络信息空间的地理学研究回顾与展望

网络信息空间（以下简称网络空间）的地理学是当前地理学研究的重点方向之一。1991年万维网诞生并向大众普及后网络空间开始得到广泛认可,同时其作为一种新的空间与事物也吸引了地理学界的高度关注。以多种期刊数据库和搜索引擎为检索源,考察国内外网络空间的地理学研究成果。依据研究内容将国外研究归纳为网络空间地理内涵、虚拟社区、虚拟化身与认知、网络空间的经济地理学,网络空间制图和互联网6个重点研究领域,将国内研究归纳为互联网的区域作用、网站和虚拟地理环境3个热点领域,并分别进行了梳理回顾。最后对国内外研究进行了简要评述,从网络空间的外部层面、内部层面和作用层面提出了若干研究议题。     

新经济地理学研究综述

为了理清新经济地理学的相关研究成果,以便使经济的发展从时间与空间这两个维度在理论中实现了完美的融合,通过文献综述的方法,对新经济地理学的基本模型做了简要的回顾和评述,主要就研究内容和理论的应用进行综述介绍,并在此基础上对新趋向进行了讨论.     

Landscape syntheses — objectives and tasks

Scientific methods available to geography cannot, as yet, adequately comprehend and interpret landscape in all its complexity and dynamics. We are of the opinion that it should seek alternatives, new paths. The alternative must be sought at a much wider level, within the achievements of a synthetic and theoretical approach within the philosophy of contemporary science and its theoretical-methodological challenges, and in the introduction of mathematical logic and reasoning and not in the mechanical adoption of formulas and technical practices from other sciences. In spite of the diffusion of findings from other sciences we have to keep the focus on our object — landscape — a focus which is developing rapidly and which greatly differs from such a focus within geography in the past. The object remains the same, what changes, is its content. The perspective for avoiding the pitfalls of the present situation is to be seen in the convergence of data from individual branches of geography toward the fundamental problems of geographical reality.     

Public-space planning in four Nordic cities: Symbolic values in tension

This article takes its point of departure in the assumption that values shape planning practices and that alternatively one can reconstruct such values from the way planning interventions are argued and evaluated. We contend that planners’ discourses involve implicit value commitments that are observable in their representations of public space and implicated in the results of public-space planning. The paper builds an empirical case from representations of public space elaborated in planning documents developed by planners in four medium-sized Nordic cities. We show how these planning representations form four thematic value clusters concerning urban public space, namely leisure-play, identity-unity, power-organization and unruliness-change. Together these clusters constitute a value framework which reveals a number of central tensions relating to the way that planners seek to balance order and spontaneity in public space. The paper concludes by outlining and discussing these values and the tensions they represent.