‘I’m not in it for the money’: Constructing and mediating ethical reconnections in UK social banking

Over the last decade a range of social banks and Community Development Finance Initiatives (CDFIs) have developed a social investment sector in the UK. Some of these organisations emphasise their belief in partnership, association, reconnecting and re-humanising the relationship between investors with borrowers in order to reap social returns. ‘Ethical’ investors are encouraged to take sub-market returns on their investments in order for surpluses to be distributed to the organisations’ beneficiaries. Some key theoretical and political questions include: how are investors enrolled in these initiatives? What discourses of ethics are constructed and how do investors relate to them? How do these discourses relate to debates in geography revolving around ‘caring at a distance’? Drawing on work on the Charity Bank and the Industrial Common Ownership Fund (ICOF), this paper analyses how these discourses are constructed and mediates the relationship between investors and borrowers. It explores stakeholders both investors’ and borrowers’ perceptions of these activities as well as the way investors construct their own reasons for investing.     

Concerning the notion of ‘sub-region’: the French case

At least in France the sub-region is a living spatial entity. It is partly the heir of structures established in the pre-industrial epoch, receiving from the ancient ‘pays’ and old administrative structures the sense of belonging to a certain social cadre held by a population. For a long period the weak development of an hierarchy of urban services made most towns of equal standing, limiting the growth of commercial relationships and the dimensions of functional spaces. With the growth of an hierarchy of urban services, and improvement in accessibility the functional units have enlarged, breaking unequally the former cadres, and creating polarisations of various scales. Where the metropolises have not become dominant the sub-regions remain sufficiently autonomous, around a town of medium size. More often, in every case where local polarisations have been progressively effaced, and economic spaces have enlarged immeasurably and where the administrative region is seeking identity, the sub-region is reasserted as a social functional space in the pattern of customary life-style, and appears acceptable as a level in the operation of spatial management.     

The liminality of training spaces: Places of private/public transitions

This paper draws upon research, conducted for the London West Learning and Skills Council, on the training experiences of women with dependent children. One of the striking revelations of the research, we suggest, is the way in which training spaces are used and perceived by women, which are often at odds with government intentions. To help make sense of women’s use of, and motivation for, training we utilise the concept of ‘liminality’ and the private/public imbrication to explain the ways in which women use, or are discouraged from using, training spaces. Further, how the varied and multiple uses women in our research have put training to in their own lives has encouraged us to rethink the relationship between the private and the public more generally. In the light of this, we suggest that training and the places in which training take place, have been neglected processes and spaces within feminist geography and might usefully be explored further to add to an extensive literature on women’s caring and domestic roles and their role in the paid workplace.     

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.     

New media, the new economy and new spaces

This paper counters proponents of the ‘weightless economy’ who have suggested the ‘death of distance’ in relation to economic and social activities that use the worldwide web (WWW). An analysis of new media developers in New York’s ‘Silicon Alley’ demonstrates that place and distance are still important. The most important aspect of this co-location is the possibility of social interaction. This paper points to the value of analysis of the material practice of the social (and the economic and cultural). The notion of ‘untraded dependencies’ is developed through looking at its manifestation and constitution in the specificity of space, time and economic activity.     

Researching local elites: reflexivity, ‘situatedness’ and political-temporal contingency

Since the late 1970s, the UK has experienced a series of changes in the mechanisms of governing local economic development. This paper considers the methodological consequences of these recent changes. Drawing on two local elite-based case studies, involving semi-structured interviews, we reflect on our acquired ‘situated knowledge’ and argue that this is related to the contingent nature of our respective research access. We advocate that an approach sensitive to ‘research situatedness’ (with respect to the politics of time as a ‘research moment’) is essential to avoid over generalising from our experiences. To address this concern, the paper offers two concepts for debate – political-temporal contingency and the mode of entry.     

The political-economy of Blair’s “New Regional Policy”

The “region” and “regional change” have been elusive ideas within political and economic geography, and in essence require a greater understanding of their dynamic characteristics. Trailing in the backwaters of the devolution to the Celtic nations of Britain, the contemporary era of New Labour’s political-economic ideology, manifest through “third-way” governance in England places the region and its functional capacity into the heart of geographical inquiry. Drawing upon a new regionalist epistemology, this paper seeks to recover a sense of (regional) political economy through a critical investigation of the development and formulation of Blair’s “New Regional Policy” (NRP). I address how New Labour has attempted to marry economic regionalisation on the one hand, and democratic regionalism on the other. This paper specifically questions the wisdom of such a marriage of politically distinct ideologies through a critical investigation of the underlying contradictions of their strategy from both a theoretical and empirical standpoint. Demonstrated both in the North East “no” vote in 2004, and in the post-mortem undertaken by the ODPM Select Committee in 2005, the paper illustrates how a loss of political drive gradually undermined the capacity of devolution to deliver in England. Finally, I argue that through the lens of the NRP we can speculate on some of the wider issues and implications for the study of regional governance.     

“Lag” — a geochemical sampling medium for arid regions

Desert land surfaces are commonly characterized by a veneer or pavement of siliceous and/or ferruginous stony material. This material can be shown in most cases to be predominantly bedrock-derived, despite often severe modification by prolonged weathering, and can therefore be selectively sampled and analyzed as an indicator of bedrock geochemistry in geochemical surveys.Most pavements probably owe their existence to the interaction of several dispersion mechanisms. However, a common factor in all cases is the concentration of coarse particles at the surface as a result of the selective removal by erosion of fine dilutant material. Hence, the preferred name when used in the geochemical context is “lag”.In lag sampling, particles in the range 2.0–6.0 mm are screened on site from the unconsolidated surface material. Material in this size range has been found to be quite uniformly distributed over a wide range of arid region environments, including areas where residual soils are severely diluted by transported alluvial and aeolian materials.Data from exploration programmes for Au, Cu-Pb-Zn-Ba, and Ni allow comparison of results for lag sampling with those for alternative sample media in a variety of arid region environments. Analysis of lag samples for Au, Cu and As clearly indicates the presence of bedrock Au mineralization in the Paterson and Eastern Goldfields Provinces of Western Australia. In these areas both lags and soils exhibit good anomaly contrast, but lags show more extensive lateral dispersion, leading to advantages in reconnaissance exploration.Strong anomalies for Ni and Cu are developed in lags, compared with subdued response in fine-fraction soils over a Ni sulphide occurrence in the Eastern Goldfields which has been subjected to deep lateritic weathering.Lag geochemistry also clearly reflects sub-economic base metal and barite occurrences in the McArthur Basin, N.T., in spite of the dilution of surface soils by sands probably related to a Mesozoic marine incursion. Orientation sampling over a Pb-Zn prospect in the Pine Creek Geosyncline has demonstrated optimum response in lag samples compared with various size fractions of the associated lithosols.Variable dilution of lag samples by coarse quartz sand can be a problem in areas with substantial transported overburden. A simple procedure to ‘correct’ trace-element values using regression analysis based on the Fe content of samples is described as a means of reducing ‘noise’ resulting from such matrix variations.     

‘It’s more than just what it is’: Defetishising commodities, expanding fields, mobilising change…

Commodity geographies are politically weak. Geographical pedagogy isn’t particularly engaging. Radical geography should make connections. But it rarely leaves room for interpretation. Too much seems to be too didactic. And to preach to the converted. That’s a problem that needs attention. So, is it possible to develop a radical, less didactic, geography? With research funding, publication and teaching the way they are? To engage more students, more heartily, in the issues studied? To promote social justice, critical citizenship, and participatory democracy? But not by setting out the right ways to think, be, or act. Some film-makers, artists and writers have been able to do this. It seems. Subtly and cleverly. Through projects attempting to de-fetishise commodities. But their politics have been placed largely in the background, between the lines of, or separated out from, the presentation of scenes, things, relations, bodies, lives and voices. Seen and unseen elements of their audiences’ lives. Re-connected. Perhaps. Through communication strategies giving audiences something to think about and to think with, to argue about and to argue with. Putting themselves in the picture, in the process. These less didactic materials may be difficult to master for an exam or an essay. They may not make it clear who or what’s right or wrong or what audiences are supposed to do. But they could engage them in less direct ways. When they’re shopping for petrol or fish, or when they’re doing or thinking about completely different things. Things that may not even come under the heading of ‘production’ or ‘consumption’. This approach might be labelled as ‘weak’, ‘relativist’, a bit too ‘cultural’ ‘post-modern’, or ‘defunct’. But it’s an approach that may be radical in effect because its ‘politics’ aren’t so straightforward or ‘up front’. This paper is about changing relationships between research, writing, teaching, learning and assessment; expanding fields of commodity geographies to include classrooms as sites not only of ‘instruction’, but also of learning, for researchers and their students¹; showing how such learning might usefully shape research and writing elsewhere in these fields for those engaged in this defetishising project.     

Deep-rooted piercement structures in deep sedimentary basins — Manifestations of supercritical water generation at depth?

Deep-rooted enigmatic piercement structures in sedimentary basins, including ‘mud volcanoes’, ‘shale diapirs’, ‘salt diapirs’, and ‘asphalt volcanoes’, range in size from less than 1 km², surface area, up to 64 km², and have often an unknown depth of penetration due to incomplete imaging. We propose that they form a family associated with fluid flow. Our argument is based partly on their inferred location (above deep faults) and on the chemical analysis of emitted products, which includes liquid clays, brines and other substances from salt diapirs, and asphalt and light oils from the asphalt volcanoes. We explain these compositions by chemical alteration caused partly by supercritical water, a phase of water existent at high pressure and temperature, locally and temporarily achieved at depths generally beyond 10 km below surface, i.e., at the sediment–crust boundary. Our hypothesis overcomes some of the problems with interpreting fluid flow products, which are otherwise very difficult to explain. In case this hypothesis can be further verified, the family could perhaps be called ‘hydrothermally associated piercement structures’.     

Small towns as ‘sub-poles’ in English rural development: Investigating rural–urban linkages using sub-regional social accounting matrices

This paper uses spatial economic data from four small English towns to measure the strength of economic integration between town and hinterland and to estimate the magnitude of town–hinterland spill-over effects. Following estimation of local integration indicators and inter-locale flows, sub-regional social accounting matrices (SAMs) are developed to estimate the strength of local employment and output multipliers for various economic sectors. The potential value of a town as a ‘sub-pole’ in local economic development is shown to be dependent on structural differences in the local economy, such as the particular mix of firms within towns. Although the multipliers are generally small, indicating a low level of local linkages, some sectors, particularly financial services and banking, show consistently higher multipliers for both output and employment.     

The genesis and significance of ‘hummocky moraine’: Evidence from the Isle of Skye, Scotland

The range of genetic and climatic interpretations of Scottish ‘hummocky moraine’ is reviewed, and new data are presented from the Isle of Skye, western Scotland, which are used as the basis of a genetic classification. ‘Hummocky moraine’ on Skye is shown to consist of three principal sediment-landform associations: (1) recessional moraines; (2) chaotic ice-stagnation moraines; and (3) drumlins and fluted moraines. The recessional moraines consist of transverse moraine ridges and chains of mounds, and were formed by a combination of glaciotectonics and debris accumulation at active ice margins. Second, chaotic moraines consist of randomly-distributed hummocks, mounds and rim-ridges and record deposition in contact with inactive ice. Finally, drumlins and fluted moraines are longitudinally-oriented subglacial bedforms formed by a combination of lodgement and sediment deformation. Individual occurrences of ‘hummocky moraine’ may comprise one, two or all of these associations. The detailed study and differentiation of Scottish ‘hummocky moraine’ provides a valuable source of information on former glacier dynamics and landscape change.     

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.     

“Traditional” women, “modern” water: Linking gender and commodification in Rajasthan, India

In this paper, I analyze the connections made between women and water in a Rajasthani drinking water supply project as a significant part of drinking water’s commodification. For development policy makers, water progressing from something free to something valued by price is inevitable when moving economies toward modernity and development. My findings indicate that water is not commodified simply by charging money for it, but through a series of discourses and acts that link it to other “modern” objects and give it value. One of these objects is “women”. I argue that through women’s participation activities that link gender and modernity to new responsibilities and increased mobility for village women involving the clean water supply, a “traditional” Rajasthani woman becomes “modern”. Water, in parallel, becomes “new”, “improved” and worth paying for. Women and water resources are further connected through project staff’s efforts to promote latrines by targeting women as their primary users. The research shows that villagers applied their own meanings to latrines, some of which precluded women using them. This paper fills a gap in feminist political ecology, which often overlooks how gender is created through natural resource interventions, by concerning itself with how new meanings of “water” and “women” are mutually constructed through struggles over water use and its commodification. It contributes to critical development geography literatures by demonstrating that women’s participation approaches to natural resource development act as both constraints and opportunities for village constituents. It examines an under-explored area of gender and water research by tracing village-level struggles over meanings of latrines.     

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.     

Domesticating neo-liberalism: Everyday lives and the geographies of post-socialist transformations

This paper examines the ways in which neo-liberalism is both constructed and made ‘more tolerable’ through everyday practices and livelihoods in post-socialist cities. It argues that existing conceptualisations of neo-liberalism centre too fully on the role of powerful global forces and institutions in constructing marketisation processes, and consequently neglect the ways in which everyday lives are embroiled in the formation of neo-liberal worlds. Through an exploration of the experience of neo-liberalism in the Slovak Republic and drawing upon research with households in one large housing estate in Bratislava, the paper examines the ways in which everyday lives construct neo-liberal possibilities in the attempt to make them ‘more tolerable’. In particular, the paper explores the postponement of the future by some members of the middle-aged generation failing to reap the benefits of economic reform, the role of economic practices ‘outside’ of market-based capitalist relations in constructing engagements with the formal market, and the role of domestic food production in sustaining household networks and social reproduction for some of the most marginal households in the context of low-wage employment and state benefit reductions.     

Beyond environmental impact: articulating the “intangibles” in a resource conflict

Environmental planning is an arena of policy making in which formal public deliberation is among the most extensive. At the same time, environmental disputes can also be among the most resistant to resolution, often becoming entangled in issues that some describe as “intangible”. The discourse is largely structured by regulatory frameworks, such as environmental impact assessment laws and procedures, which focus primarily on operational rights (what one can or cannot do where and when) and tangible impacts on the physical or natural environment. A comparative case study of mariculture in Hawai‘i reveals that a large measure of public concerns focused on collective choice rights (who has a right to make which decisions on behalf of whom) and the more intangible impacts to the social or cultural environment. These concerns are often nested in a historic context that has implications for the social processes that they create. The findings from this study imply a need for more structured or systematic ways to deliberate issues of collective choice rights alongside operational rights within the larger process of environmental planning.     

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.