Political Geography: Territory,State, and Society

Kevin R. Cox. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002. xiv and 382 pp., maps, diags., photos., and index. $36.95 paper (ISBN 0‐631‐22679‐6) Reviewed by Douglas Reardon, Department of History, Geography, and Global Studies, Coppin State College, Baltimore, MD     

Geographers in Business,Government, and Nonprofit Organizations: Skills,Challenges, and Professional Identities

This study examines the experiences of geography graduates who work in business, government, and nonprofit organizations. We analyzed 352 logs from eighty-two professionals detailing professional activities, challenges, and opportunities during one work week each month, over a period of six months. Our analysis explores interpersonal relationships and working conditions affecting participants’ progress toward work goals, workplace climate, and professional identity. Geographic information systems and technology accounted for more than half of the geographic skills respondents reported using on the job, and administrative and leadership factors were the most commonly cited types of transferable skills. Professional geographers value collaborative workplaces as well as opportunities to work independently with the confidence of their supervisors, and their sense of a professional identity is enhanced when they feel valued and are recognized for their work. Professional development activities are important because they reinforce geographers’ sense of positively contributing to their organizations, enhance interpersonal interactions, facilitate work on specific projects, and expand individuals’ knowledge and skills. Moreover, our findings suggest that nearly half of the reported workplace difficulties could potentially be reduced or eliminated as a result of more and better professional development. Nonetheless, many employers do not consistently provide opportunities for professional development to their employees. Based on our analysis, we contend that professional development is a beneficial investment for lifelong learning, from undergraduate and graduate education throughout the entire course of a professional career.     

Counting Beans: Agrobiodiversity,Indigeneity, and Agrarian Reform

In‐field conservation of locally domesticated crop varieties ameliorates agrobiodiversity losses, but the interaction among nationally regulated socioeconomic factors at the local scale tends to discourage this. Analyses of household surveys conducted in Ecuador demonstrate that state and nongovernmental institutions interact to discourage cultivation of locally domesticated varieties of beans (Phaseolus spp.). Land privatization, agricultural extension, and credit programs favor market production of introduced modern bean varieties, and locally domesticated varieties are noted for favorable nutrition, culinary, and agroecological qualities. Resolving disconnections between the market and social values for landrace beans may provide agrobiodiversity conservation opportunities.     

African Environment and Development: Rhetoric,Programs, Realities

Tropical deforestation is widely believed to directly influence the climate at a number of scales. Yet while much has been written about the tropical forest-climate relationship, there is little empirical evidence showing if and how local and regional climates are modified by deforestation. This study presents the results of an analysis of deforestation and climate change in a rain forest in southern Mexico. Records from 18 climate stations in the Selva Lacandona of Chiapas, Mexico were examined and related to an analysis of deforestation based on Landsat images. The area surrounding some stations has been deforested since the stations were established, while the area surroundings others has remained forested. Strong climatic trends were generally evident at the deforested stations, including decreases in the average daily maximum temperature and temperature range. No precipitation changes were observed. A comparison of the results with microclimatic experiments and modeling studies suggests that the climatic impacts of deforestation are overgeneralized at the local scale. Landscape heterogeneity appears to influence the biophysical mechanisms linking tropical forests and climate, and should be explicitly represented in modeling studies.     

GIS-based urban modelling: practices,problems, and prospects

This paper reviews the practices, problems, and prospects of GISbased urban modelling. The author argues that current stand-alone and various loose/tight coupling approaches for GIS-based urban modelling are essentially technology-driven without adequate justification and verification for the urban models being implemented. The absolute view of space and time embodied in the current generation of GIS also imposes constraints on the type of new urban models that can be developed. By reframing the future research agenda from a geographical information science (GISci) perspective, the author contends that the integration of urban modelling with GIS must proceed with the development of new models for the informational cities, the incorporation of multi-dimensional concepts of space and time in GIS, and the further extension of the feature-based model to implement these new urban models and spatial-temporal concepts according to the emerging interoperable paradigm. GISci-based urban modelling will not only espouse new computational models and implementation strategies that are computing platform independent but also liberate us from the constraints of existing urban models and the rigid spatial-temporal framework embedded in the current generation of GIS, and enable us to think above and beyond the technical issues that have occupied us during the past ten years.     

Religion and technology: refiguring place, space, identity and community

This paper reviews the literature on the religion–technology nexus, drawing up a research agenda and offering preliminary empirical insights. First, I stress the need to explore the new politics of space as a consequence of technological development, emphasizing questions about the role of religion in effecting a form of religious (neo)imperialism, and uneven access to techno-religious spaces. Second, I highlight the need to examine the politics of identity and community, since cyberspace is not an isotropic surface. Third, I underscore the need to engage with questions about the poetics of religious community as social relations become mediated by technology. Finally, I focus on questions about the poetics of place, particularly the technological mediation of rituals.     

中国人口迁移,流动人口与城市化——现实,理论与对策

中国改革前的城乡不平等关系已演变成城市中拥有本地户口的居民与没有本地户口的流动人口的不平等关系。目前的城市化可以说是不完全和排斥性的城市化。要达到完全的城市化,必须关注三个重要方面,包括常规的城乡迁移、城市对流动人口的融合与包容以及城市边缘区的城乡一体化。流动人口地位低下的情况,政府和企业对此负有部分责任。讨论在户口制度背景下城市化的基本理论和城市流动人口融合的理论,认为应使用系统方法去研究城市化和城乡一体化的课题,该方法可应用于不同尺度的人与自然共生系统的规划、发展、建设和扩展,同时以香港的马鞍山新市镇作为例子来展示如何规划和发展一个可持续社区,以满足现代城市居民的期望。     

Race,culture, and practice: segregation and local food in Birmingham,Alabama

In this study, we use a combination of geographic information systems and Bourdieuan social theory to analyze the development of a food policy council in Birmingham, Alabama. The questions we investigate are: What is the relationship between race and culture? How is this relationship manifest in practice within the alternative food and agriculture movement? In our work, we show how the racially segregated conditions of metropolitan Birmingham forge divergent habitus among Blacks and Whites in the region. Consequently, Whites have difficulty producing practices and interpretations of those practices that Blacks can recognize as legitimate, and vice versa. As a result, the food policy council emerges from and remains trapped within a space of Whiteness, and few Blacks serve on the council or participate in its production.