THE LOS ANGELES COAST AS A PUBLIC PLACE

ABSTRACT. In the public‐space discourse Los Angeles is usually portrayed as more “anti‐city” than city. Its landscape is overrun by houses, “private‐public” squares and plazas, theme parks, shopping malls, and so on and lacks inclusive public places. Yet this discourse has essentially disdained to contemplate a major public space that contradicts its general thesis: the Los Angeles coast. The coast is meaningful public place in two specific senses. First, it symbolizes Los Angeles as a whole and therefore provides a basis for regional public identity. Second, Angelinos themselves take the coast seriously as a public place, and they have striven to make it inclusive in practice.     

CREATING NARRATIVES OF PLACE AND IDENTITY IN “LITTLE SWEDEN,U.S.A.”*

ABSTRACT. In Lindsborg, Kansas—“Little Sweden, U.S.A.”—the streets are lined with shops offering “An Adventure in Swedish Tradition,” and residents put on numerous festivals throughout the year highlighting Swedish folk customs. Such ethnic tourist towns have become increasingly widespread in the United States over the past thirty years. Tourists tend to perceive these places as towns where folk culture has been passed down unchanged for generations, while academics tend to dismiss residents' ethnicity as crass commercialism. Neither view is correct. Ethnicity and tradition are not static but constantly invented and reinvented. Modern folk ethnicity, among European Americans in particular, is simply the most recent incarnation of this process, one that attempts to recover ties to a specific, small‐scale landscape and history. This article explores the changing nature of the narratives of ethnicity and place‐based identity that the residents of Lindsborg have used to create a place for themselves in American society.     

KITCHENSPACE,FIESTAS, AND CULTURAL REPRODUCTION IN MEXICAN HOUSE‐LOT GARDENS*

ABSTRACT. The house‐lot garden in central Mexico is gendered space where changing cultural identities are negotiated, re‐created, and celebrated as “tradition” is continually redefined. No clear boundary separates the kitchen from the house‐lot garden or the private space of the household from the semipublic space of the community. During collective food preparation for religious fiestas, gendered reciprocity networks strengthen community relations and foster alliances between traditional neighborhoods and between communities in the region. At the intersection of everyday life and fiestas, food‐preparation spaces, or kitchenspaces, in the house‐lot garden are fertile areas in which to explore the cultural reproduction of nature‐society relations. They are vital to understanding gender, place, and culture in this region and represent people's symbolic connection with the land in increasingly urban contexts. This article analyzes the sense of place that Mexican women derive from their house‐lot gardens.     

Place attachment among retirees in Greensburg, Kansas

On 4 May 2007 an ef-5 tornado leveled 95 percent of Greensburg, Kansas. Because city leaders encouraged everyone to use “green” building techniques as they rebuilt their homes and businesses, not only has the return to normalcy been exceedingly slow, but some of the town's older residents feel that officials have overlooked their needs. These minor episodes of discord enabled us to learn what features are most important to people in retirement. The features include identifiable landmarks, a space in which to socialize, and age-specific businesses. We assert that the lessons learned in Greensburg are applicable to other communities with a sizable older population. As baby boomers rapidly enter retirement they will seek places to live that are elder friendly and enable them to effectively bond with place. As previous research attests, people who have a strong attachment to place commonly have a good quality of life.     

城市行政区划调整背景下城郊居民地方认同的重构与机制研究——以广州番禺小龙村为例

快速城市化带来了行政区划的调整及城市土地、空间和边界的改变,也重构了传统的地方与地方认同。以广州市番禺小龙村为例,分析城市扩张和地方重构下影响地方认同的因素、机制与过程。研究发现：① 城市扩张过程中,居民户籍身份上的改变最为突出,农民对于其市民身份及新的行政地方的认同度不高,最终产生了一定程度的身份与区域的隔离;② 认同是多维度影响、深层次和动态变化的过程,地方认同需要从身份和地方双重维度进行分析,居民多元的自我身份感知与对地方的认知及其切实的个体需求共同影响其最终的身份归属和地方认同。因此,城市行政区划调整过程中需了解、重视区划调整变化后城郊居民的生产生活,同时注重社会基础福利的提升,以促进居民对于新的地方和身份的认同,进而促进城乡融合。     

新时代面向美好生活的日常生活地理与城乡休闲——“生活地理与城乡休闲”专栏解读

随着西方学界“日常生活”的兴起与转向,“回归生活世界”与生活本体论成为人文地理学研究的新视角。新时代背景下,中国社会主要矛盾的转化催生地理学人地关系的转变,由静止的、同质的人地关系转变为动态的、异质的人地互动关系,“人”与“地”被赋予日常生活的内涵与外延,“闲暇处才是生活”。在追求美好生活的新时代,地理学需要回答日常生活地理以及休闲具有哪些地理特征,不同主体如何通过日常生活及休闲展演人与地、人与人、人与自我的动态关系,从而建构不同空间尺度的生活实践与地方意义等问题。本专栏主要探讨日常生活及休闲中所展演的主体能动性、空间异质性以及人地互动的复杂性,涉及城市居民的生活休闲与主观幸福感、城市公共空间活力评价以及休闲方式、日常生活中的地方情感与定居意愿等内容,以期尝试用中国本土的实证来回应西方日常生活地理学的研究。期待未来的相关研究能够更加关注边缘群体的日常生活及其休闲,能够弥补城乡休闲中“乡”尺度的不足,能够全面系统地阐述日常生活与休闲在时间演变过程中的变化规律及其机制。专栏旨在推动中国情境的日常生活地理学的理论建构,在实践上以期为新时代美好生活的具体践行贡献地理智慧。     

REMAKING MOSCOW: NEW PLACES,NEW SELVES*

ABSTRACT. The erratic course of the “transition” in Russia today undermines hope for the establishment of a genuine democracy supported by institutions of civil society. The West must accept that the outcome of the transition is unknown. Whether public space is emerging where the practices of civil society have been able to take root is not clear at the moment. However, important transitions in daily life and everyday places are occurring, especially as a result of consumerism. If public space does take shape, it will have to be rooted in Moscow's new places. This study draws on the conceptual framework of Robert David Sack in an exploration of changes in places and selves in Moscow.     

高星级酒店外籍管理者对广州地方景观的感知与跨文化认同

全球化是当今世界最重要的特征之一。有关跨国移民对城市景观的感知和跨文化认同研究也得到越来越多的关注。在文献回顾的基础上, 以广州高星级酒店外籍管理者作为研究对象, 通过定性研究进行数据的收集和分析, 构建了外籍管理者对城市地方景观感知和跨文化认同的形成演变机制, 并得出以下结论:① 在职业影响下, 外籍管理者对迁入城市产生了被动的地方认同, 进而形成了被迫同化的跨文化认同模式;② 外籍管理者基于身份构建对城市地方景观进行感知, 对反映“他者”、“我者”和“世界人”身份的景观感知度较高, 反映出他们对故乡和迁入城市的地方认同, 从而产生了同时具有整合和边缘特征的跨文化认同模式;③ 外籍管理者通过迁入城市的地方景观感知而产生地方意义的解读, 基于对迁入城市正面的地方意义解读, 对城市产生了地方认同和整合的跨文化认同模式, 基于对迁入城市负面的地方意义解读, 对城市产生了地方不认同和分隔的跨文化模式。研究结论丰富了城市景观研究和跨文化认同研究的相关理论成果, 并为中国跨国移民政策和国际化城市建设提供了可供借鉴的实践参考。     

PLACE INVADERS: CONSTRUCTING THE NOMADIC THREAT IN ENGLAND*

Over the centuries, the image of nomads threatening sedentary ways of life has been a common pejorative representation. In order to understand what geographies underpin narratives about nomads, I examine how social theory and media representations invoke the image of nomads. Both media and academic representations are buttressed by limited understandings of place and space, framing nomads as the quintessential “place invaders.” Focusing on nomadic Gypsies and Travelers in England provides a contemporary example of this process. British media representations construct nomadic Gypsies and Travelers in England as out‐of‐place and threatening. Deconstructing essentialist geographical conceptions allows us to avoid reproducing the common image of placeless nomads, reveals how people utilize place to render others inferior, and highlights the fact that conflicts between nomadic and sedentary ways of life are not intractable and natural. Adopting a more nuanced understanding of place can challenge the dominant trope of nomads as place invaders.     

The Relationship of Place Re-Making and Watershed Group Participation in Appalachia

This article explores how participation in watershed groups creates a social space that mediates the relationship between biophysical places and place-protective action. We analyze qualitative data from a survey of more than 200 watershed group volunteers in the Appalachian region of the United States who were asked to describe experiences that encouraged or discouraged their participation. “Place” emerged as a key theme, with further delineations between made places (those highly affected by human activity, including coal extraction); natural places; and re-made places (those restored by the efforts of the watershed-group participants). Our findings suggest that the places themselves—and the natural, institutional, and social resources in these places—are more than a backdrop or setting for the volunteer activities; they also inspire, enhance, and are transformed by the act of volunteering.     

Place‐Making Through Beer‐Drinking: A Case Study of Montana's Craft Breweries

Montana's craft brewing industry has grown astronomically in the last few decades and has spawned many breweries with local names and themes. Using Montana's craft breweries as a case study, this paper demonstrates that craft breweries play a significant role in contemporary place‐making. First, brewery and beer names are analyzed to extract several place‐based themes, and it is argued that these perpetuate a particular New West identity for the state. Then, through the lens of tourism and the quest for “authenticity,” surveys of brewery visitors are used to identify the various attractions that drinking craft beer and visiting breweries offer their patrons. Besides the taste of the beer, the local nature of breweries and their community focus prove to be an important draw for brewery visitors and provide the chance to experience the community in a more authentic way, and thus, offer an opportunity to make a meaningful connection with place. This research proves that craft breweries have become an important venue for place‐making, not only in Montana, but in other cities and states with a significant craft‐brewing industry     

Women in the Field: Critical Feminist Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives*

Feminist scholars have traditionally emphasized the importance of incorporating “the everyday” worlds of women into the historically masculinist theoretical and empirical foundations of the social sciences. Such emphases have commonly resulted in smaller-scale research projects and more interactive kinds of research methods and methodologies. Feminist geographers have uniquely contributed to the body of feminist scholarship through drawing out the importance of place in everyday constructions of gender and, more recently, sexuality. Critical field-based research has therefore from the beginning been the mainstay of subdisciplinary research. Like the discipline as a whole, however, little explicit attention has been given in publications or pedagogically to the politics of fieldwork (including how a “field” is defined and the politics involved in choosing and working in a particular “field”) or the politics of representation (which includes considerations of the partiality of knowledge and how and to whom we represent our work, ourselves and others in various kinds of texts). These “Opening Remarks” show how these issues are addressed in the papers that follow and how feminist geography has much to contribute to critical analyses of global and multinational processes, including patriarchy, capitalism, and racism.     

“The mangrove preserves life”: Habitat of African survival in the Atlantic world

Mangroves emerged a crucial habitat for Africans and their descendants during the transatlantic slave trade. Europeans avoided mangroves because of the deadly fevers that frequently claimed the lives of those who ventured there. Many were felled by lethal falciparum malaria, against which Africans alone carried genetic resistance. The transatlantic slave trade spread the disease‐causing plasmodium to New World Anopheles mosquitoes through infected bloodstreams, extending African mangroves’ pestilential reputation to the Neotropics. On both sides of the Atlantic, an environment Europeans feared provided Africans food, basic necessities, and sometimes, refuge from slavery. In Neotropical mangroves Africans largely replaced declining Amerindian populations, who were also immunologically vulnerable to the introduced plasmodium. Today, African descendants in Old and New World mangroves demonstrate longstanding human use of this ecosystem. Comparison of shellfish gathering and gendered collection patterns in mangroves recognizes Amerindian and African influences in Neotropical mangroves and illuminates the connections to transatlantic diasporic history. The discussion considers how a more‐than‐human geography shaped “place‐based knowledge” of mangrove swamplands that remained marginal to European territorializing during the colonial period. African and Afro‐descendant place‐making underscores the ways people, plants, insects, microbes, shellfish, and tides framed geography and diasporic identity at the periphery of the Atlantic world.     

“That is Real America!”: Imaginative Geography among the Chinese Immigrants in Flushing,New York City

Imaginative geography is lived. It is grounded in everyday life, embedded in local context, and influences place identity and place making. By using Chinese immigrants in Flushing, New York City, as an example, this article will explore the formation of multi‐scalar imaginative geographies of the receiving nation, city, and neighborhood among immigrants in their everyday work and travel. The study demonstrates that after migration, physical distance is replaced by the social and cultural distance across which imaginative geographies are formed, reconstructed, and contested. In the case of Flushing, the easy access to ethnic resources leads to a superficial exposure to the world outside the community, thus the geographic knowledge among the Chinese immigrants largely remains imaginative. The imaginative community nurtures a sense of insider‐ness that stands in large contrast with the sense of the outsider‐ness beyond the community, reflected in daily language, racial consciousness, perceived boundaries, and the sense of place among the Chinese immigrants in Flushing.     

The Space That Race Makes

This essay is a revision of a paper prepared for an NSF workshop on race and geography. Participants in the workshop were asked to offer their views on the topic and our suggestions for further research. This contribution explores some aspects of the relationship and relevance of geography to the question of race in North America. It touches on three “places” that constitute the discipline: the place of research, the place of teaching, and the workplace. With respect to research, it suggests some promising lines of inquiry. Among these are studies of the relationship of scale to the politics of identity and studies of “passing” in connection with studies of geographies of experience and geographies of power.     

THE KIOWA HOMELAND IN OKLAHOMA

ABSTRACT. Kiowa Indians derive their common identity from deep roots in southwestern Oklahoma, an area they call their “homeland.” On this landscape are recognized and distinctive marks, both visible and invisible: The Kiowa have blanketed it with their significant stories. The region is important as a psychological anchor in the Kiowa past and as a core for their modern identity as a distinct people. In this article I explore Kiowa stories, ideas, and feelings about specific landmarks of the homeland. I also step back to discuss how the homeland generates attachments that are not attributable to individual elements within it.     

The Space That Race Makes

This essay is a revision of a paper prepared for an NSF workshop on race and geography. Participants in the workshop were asked to offer their views on the topic and our suggestions for further research. This contribution explores some aspects of the relationship and relevance of geography to the question of race in North America. It touches on three “places” that constitute the discipline: the place of research, the place of teaching, and the workplace. With respect to research, it suggests some promising lines of inquiry. Among these are studies of the relationship of scale to the politics of identity and studies of “passing” in connection with studies of geographies of experience and geographies of power.     

CONSTRUCTING AFRICAN AMERICAN URBAN SPACE IN ATLANTA,GEORGIA*

Recognizing the connections between the construction of urban space and racial identity, this article explores an urban redevelopment scheme launched in 2004 by Big Bethel ame Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Known as the “Renaissance Walk,” Big Bethel's project is a $45 million dollar redevelopment plan to turn an adjacent city block into a mixed‐use development. By looking at the racialization of place from the perspective of those who live, work, and organize along Auburn Avenue, one of the most historically significant African American business corridors in the United States, I contend that Big Bethel's redevelopment project is emblematic of contemporary black counterpublic spaces and links the redevelopment project undertaken by Big Bethel with African American identity positions.     

情境主题餐厅员工地方感特征及其形成原因——以广州味道云南食府为例

地方感的研究为探讨人地关系提供了新的视角。情境主题餐厅作为能提供特殊体验的一种微观文化空间,为员工构造了一个“异位(heterotopias)”的超现实空间(hyperreality)。本文通过对广州味道云南食府这一典型情境主题餐厅员工的体验式观察和深度访谈,探讨了情境主题餐厅员工对不同尺度空间产生的不同地方感特征及其原因,得出以下结论：① 员工对情境主题餐厅及其所处城市的地方感存在差异。他们对餐厅具有强烈的地方认同和地方依赖,对餐厅所处城市具有地方依赖,但对餐厅以外的其他城市空间不存在地方认同;② 员工对情境主题餐厅地方感特征产生的原因是餐厅融洽的社交环境、良好的工作和生活环境以及较高认同的情境(文化);③ 员工对情境主题餐厅所处城市地方感特征产生的原因是城市所提供的良好工作条件、较差的自然环境、低熟悉的城市空间、对家乡的依恋和对“异乡人”的身份认同;④ 员工对情境主题餐厅及其所处城市的熟悉程度、环境和文化认同程度和归属/依恋程度的差异是员工对两者地方感存在差异的原因。结论对于丰富地方感在微观空间层面的理论与实证研究有重要的价值,能够为城市中其他微观文化空间的地方感研究提供借鉴。