The desert and the sown: Nomad–farmer interactions in the Wadi Faynan,southern Jordan

The paper discusses the changing relationship between pastoral nomads and farmers, one of the recurring themes in the history of the arid Near East. In many parts of this region that history has often been characterized in terms of changing cycles of sedentary farming and pastoralism, linked respectively to notions of cultural florescence and collapse. The paper reviews the complex history of cultivation, herding, and industrial activity (copper mining and processing) that has been established for the Wadi Faynan in southern Jordan, a desertic region used today largely by Bedouin herding groups, from the Early Bronze Age to the present day. As recent studies indicate for the Negev region as a whole, it concludes that notions of simplistic cycles in nomad–sedentary relations are unhelpful: historical contingency played a far more important role than the physical landscape and the changes effected to it by climatic shifts over the past 6000 years.     

Restructuring in Cooperatives: The Example of the Danish Pork Processing Industry, 1968–2002

This article investigates the degree to which large cooperative organizations behave like other multilocational firms when they restructure. An examination of the restructuring of the Danish pork processing industry over thirty-five years reveals that cooperative ownership does matter in subtle ways. In particular, the coordination of the market achieved under cooperative ownership results in a restructuring that preserves both global economic position and fundamental institutions, particularly the cooperative movement and the set of beliefs that underpin it. This preservation of the beliefs of the cooperative movement is particularly evident in the lack of price “squeezing” on pigs delivered to the slaughter facilities.     

Temporal and spatial changes of temperature and precipitation in Hexi Corridor during 1955–2011

This study is focused on the northwestern part of Gansu Province, namely the Hexi Corridor. The aim is to address the question of whether any trend in the annual and monthly series of temperature and precipitation during the period 1955-2011 appears at the scale of this region. The temperature and precipitation variation and abrupt change were examined by means of linear regression, five-year moving average, non-parameter Mann-Kendall test, accumulated variance analysis and Pettitt test method. Conclusions provide evidence of warming and wetting across the Hexi Corridor. The mean annual temperature in Hexi Corridor increased significantly in recent 57 years, and the increasing rate was 0.27℃/10a. The abrupt change phenomenon of the annual temperature was detected mainly in 1986. The seasonal average temperature in this region exhibited an evident upward trend and the uptrend rate for the standard value of winter temperature indicated the largerst of four seasons. The annual precipitation in the Hexi Corridor area displayed an obviously increasing trend and the uptrend rate was 3.95 mm/10a. However, the annual precipitation in each basin of the Hexi Corridor area did not passed the significance test. The rainy season precipitation fluctuating as same as the annual one presented insignificant uptrend. No consistent abrupt change was detected in precipitation in this study area, but the rainy season precipitation abrupt change was mainly observed in 1968.     

The Growth and Location of High Order Services in the Canadian Urban System, 1971–1991

In spite of the considerable economic importance of high order (intermediate demand) services, research on the growth and location of these activities has remained at a fairly aggregate level. The behavior of the individual elements of this group has rarely been documented in detail. In this paper, we seek to determine if individual high order service activities are becoming spatially more concentrated or dispersed across the Canadian urban system, and to determine if differential rates of growth may be observed by region and by urban size category. These issues are of considerable importance in the ongoing debate concerning the impact of the tertiarization of the economy on uneven spatial development. We examine the performance and location of 17 individual high order service activities over a set of 152 Canadian urban areas with populations greater than 10,000 inhabitants. Most of these activities are highly concentrated in a small number of very large urban areas, and their level of concentration declined only very slightly over the period 1971–1991. We conclude with an examination of the factors underlying the geographic concentration of high order services at the upper end of the urban hierarchy.     

The Geography of the Journal of Geography: Paper Origins, 2008–2015

The Journal of Geography publishes work on geography education from throughout the world. This article investigates the origins of articles from 2008–2015, uncovers differences in rejection rates among articles from developed versus less developed regions, and makes suggestions to improve publication success by non-North American authors.     

The rate,extent and spatial predictors of forest loss (2000–2012) in the terrestrial protected areas of the Philippines

While studies on deforestation of protected areas (PAs) have been conducted in many parts of the world, no comparative study has been done over an entire country in the tropics. Thus, we conducted a country-wide assessment of forest cover loss in all terrestrial protected areas of the Philippines, covering 198 PAs with a total area of 4.68 million ha. This study utilised Hansen's Landsat-derived global maps of forest cover change from 2000 to 2012, with tree canopy cover data for 2000 as the base year. Correlation and logistic regression analyses were employed to determine the significance and magnitude of the relationships between forest cover and 11 predictor variables. The assessment of forest loss reveals that the terrestrial protected areas are generally effective in reducing forest loss. Over the 12-year period, the average rate (2.59%) of forest clearing in protected areas is marginally lower by 0.1% than the entire country (2.69%). Within the same duration, the average forest loss rate within the 2-km buffer zones of selected protected areas is 1.4 times of those inside PAs. However, there was a significant number of PAs with phenomenal forest cover loss in terms of extent (48,583 ha over 12 years) and rate (up to 21%). We found that spatial predictor variables included in this study have weak or no relationships with forest cover, and hence they are not reliable inputs for predictive modelling. Comprehensive assessments of deforestation are needed at the micro-scale (e.g. single PA level) level and relatively shorter historical timeframe (e.g. less than a decade), to generate useful information for policy formulation, planning, and management.     

A Review of “Appalachian Aspirations: The Geography of Urbanization and Development in the Upper Tennessee River Valley, 1865–1900”

This article tests the explanatory power and interactions among five alternative explanations of environmental knowledge: (1) local information availability, (2) neighborhood characteristics, (3) environmental attitudes, (4) personal empowerment, and (5) information seeking. Using random forest and conditional inference trees, the article analyzes survey responses and finds that attitudes about personal empowerment and frequent information seeking are the strongest predictors of knowledge. The study offers random forest and conditional inference trees as statistical tools for complex data sets and studies that test hypotheses generated from multiple theories. We discuss the influence of knowledge differences over inclusive sustainability discussions.     

The landscape of gentrification: exploring the diversity of “upgrading” processes in Hong Kong, 1986–2006

In the late twentieth century, Hong Kong experienced a transformation from an industrial to a specialized services and high-tech economy. Accompanying this shift, extensive local redevelopment has fundamentally altered the physical and social characteristics of the city. This analysis explores the physical and social transformation of Hong Kong from 1986 to 2006, examining the diversity of gentrification processes. The specific questions focus on: (1) How extensive are gentrification processes operating within Hong Kong? and (2) What is the role of new-builds in facilitating displacement? Principal component analysis and K-means clustering are used to identify areas within Hong Kong that are experiencing physical and social upgrading. From the quantitative analysis, three neighborhoods—Kennedy Town, Tiu Keng Leng, and Yuen Long—are selected for a qualitative study into the complexity and the diversity of capital reinvestment, social conflict, and displacement.     

The “Cultural Turn” in the Classroom: Two Examples of Pedagogy and the Politics of Representation

Abstract

This article offers video lessons that interweave visual and written materials in order to introduce university undergraduates (who may or may not be geography majors) to some recent shifts in geographic inquiry. What is often described as the “cultural turn” in human geography invites us to examine more closely the politics of representation, whereby power relations animate the ever-unfolding construction of cultural identities. These examples of pedagogy explore the formulation of geographic knowledge about two cultural groups—the Maori and the Romany (a.k.a. Gypsies).     

Working in a Landscape of Recession and Expansion: Academic Jobs in Geography in the United States, 1990–2011

The recent economic recession brought much university hiring to a standstill in the United States. Geography, in spite of strong prerecession growth, was no exception. Without a sense of how the academic geography job market has changed over the past decades, however, it is difficult to assess any recession-related decline or the relative strength of any recovery. This article presents an analysis of academic job postings in the field of geography from 1990 through 2011. Using data aggregated from the AAG Newsletter, which acts as an informal clearinghouse for most academic openings for geographers at four-year colleges and universities in the United States, we assess changes in the overall magnitude in numbers of academic job openings, with the particular goal of placing the recession-based paucity of openings within its broader historical context. Our results indicate that, indeed, the recession led to a very sharp decline in advertisements, but compared to previous recessions, the recovery appears to have occurred very quickly. Open-rank and temporary/non-tenure-track positions appear to have been fairly robust to the poor economic conditions, whereas assistant professor openings were particularly hard hit.     

Religion on the Fringe: the representation of space and minority religious facilities in the rural–urban fringe of metropolitan Sydney,Australia

This article examines land-use development applications for minority religious facilities in two local government areas on the rural–urban fringe of metropolitan Sydney, Australia. Using critical discourse analysis and underpinned by Lefebvre's (1991) conceptual triad of space, the work interrogates the way in which place identity is generated and codified both by land-use planners and local residents through spatial representation. This representation is revealed in discourses around the compatibility of minority religious facilities for particular zones, lack of a sufficient minority population and social disruption. These discourses reveal a construction of peri-urban space that is aligned with particular elite Anglo-Australian activities (horse riding and gentleman farms) and land uses (rural residential, small-scale agriculture and the ‘bush-church’). These case studies illustrate the potential for the creation of exclusionary, abstract space by urban planners but also the ways in which local residents use discoursive strategies to ensure the stability of their position as elites in rapidly changing spatial situations.     

The Legacy of Jedidiah Morse in Early American Geography Education: Forgotten and/or Forgettable Geographer?

Despite numerous and significant writings by historians of geography and biographers from other disciplines, and his authorship of the first geography textbooks written in and for the new American republic, most geographers are largely unaware of the contributions of Jedidiah Morse in academic geography. Writings about Morse suggest that he had alienated himself from many of his contemporaries early in his career through his authoritarian brand of Calvinistic republicanism, a perceived contradiction of that style with his entrepreneurial ambitions, his role in the controversial Bavarian Illuminati, and a dispute with a noted New England historian. But subsequent, broader intellectual movements sealed Morse's fate as a forgotten geographer (to most), including the end of the Second Great Awakening, Transcendentalism, Darwinism, and the “new,” process‐based geographical thinking inspired by Carl Ritter, Alexander von Humboldt, and Arnold Guyot. Regardless of the reasons for Morse's lost legacy, his contributions to geographical education are important and should be remembered.     

Landscape,development, technology and drivers: The geography of drownings associated with automobiles in Texas floods, 1950–2004

More than 200 people have died in automobiles that have encountered flooded roadways in Texas from 1950 to 2004. This study examines the geographical processes that create flood hazards associated with automobile travel to discern the most important factors in their genesis. A database of drowning cases caused by motorists' interactions with flooded roadways in Texas was compiled for the study period. We examine the circumstances and spatial patterns of these events by addressing the following questions: where have motorists drowned? How did rates and spatial patterns of accidents change over the study period? To the extent that we can determine, what were the characteristics of the roads, the drivers, and the landscapes when and where deaths occurred? What factors appear to explain the temporal and spatial distributions of hazard? We conclude that roadway familiarity might have emboldened drivers to attempt to surmount water rushing across a road, that time of day was clearly an important characteristic of the accidents, and that roadway characteristics and sex and age of the drivers seem not to be key contributing factors. The most important factors, however, are associated with growth: increases in population and increased automobile registrations drive the propensity for increased automobile-flood hazards.