State‐led talent return migration programme and the doubly neglected ‘Malaysian diaspora’: Whose diaspora,what citizenship,whose development?

This paper questions the assumptions of ‘diaspora’, ‘citizenship’ and ‘development’ underlying diaspora strategies targeting a specific pool of overseas Malaysian ‘talent’ migrants. I examine the Malaysian state's discursive attempts to construct a carefully contained economic ‘diaspora'—the ‘Malaysian diaspora'—through its talent return migration programme. In this process, there is a portion of the ‘Malaysian diaspora’, especially non‐bumiputeras (sons of soil), who are doubly neglected and excluded: first, from access to full and equal citizenship (which arguably contributed to their emigration in the first place); and second, from eligibility and recognition to participate in Malaysia's talent return migration programme. However, recent political activism calling for electoral reform and overseas voting rights challenges state‐constructed visions of the ‘diaspora’ and their expected roles in advancing ‘development’. This paper concludes by highlighting questions raised by the Malaysian case, linking these explicitly to how diaspora strategies—as they have been conceived, practised and contested—challenge the broader Migration and Development paradigm.     

Contesting ‘Local’ Commemoration of the Second World War: the case of the Changi Chapel and Museum in Singapore

This paper concerns the performance of national war memory at the Changi Chapel and Museum, a site honouring the many prisoners interned in Japanese-Occupied Singapore—especially at Changi—during the Second World War. In the light of the global nature of ‘the Changi story’, and the predominantly transnational nature of its present in situ memorialisation, we first examine how the Singapore state has sought to ‘localise’ the site to make it equally appealing to Singaporeans, as a place where a sense of their ‘shared history’ may be invoked. We then explore the Singaporeans' views about the site and its reconfiguration as a national icon, arguing how the state's task of ‘localising’ the site has been a vexed process due to myriad factors such as ethnic and religious plurality, and the already foreign-centric bias of prevailing knowledge about Changi. Following that, we show how this performance of national memory is also inflected by Australia's national remembrance of the same event. More broadly, we highlight the contested process of ‘localising’ such war memoryscapes as national iconography, suggesting how it may be more fruitful to conceive them as ‘international memoryscapes’, or places to which all individuals can relate regardless of race or national affiliations.     

Another Typical Day in this Typical Town: place as inspiration for music creation and creative expression

Geographically isolated within its own State as well as from the rest of the country, and with the highest percentage of metropolitan primacy of all Australian States, Perth is a city somewhat uncomfortable with its creative and cultural identity. The city is physically peripheral to networks in the arts and creative industries that operate at the national level. And, symbolically, many in Perth’s cultural sector feel a sense of isolation. Yet, in certain cultural sectors, such as music, Perth demonstrably punches above its weight, consistently generating high-quality cultural exports. This paper unpicks this curious juxtaposition. It examines the influence of Perth—as a geographical location and a site of creative inspiration—on the music created and disseminated by local contemporary musicians who write and perform their own indie pop/rock music. I discuss the nuanced relationship between creative clustering and place, drawing on theories regarding the relationship between music and place, the notion of the music scenes and creativity and creative practices. I explore how living in Perth, a geographically isolated city, with a highly concentrated population and associated music sector, influences creative expressions, desires and inspirations, for a select group of local indie pop/rock musicians who achieved national and international notoriety with their music in the late 1990s and 2000s. Navigating isolation but nevertheless energised by strong social connections and scene participation, Perth musicians catalysed creativity in ways that contribute to evolving debates on the links between place, creativity and music.     

TENDING CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND FOOD CITIZENSHIP IN TORONTO'S COMMUNITY GARDENS*

ABSTRACT. Scattered throughout the city of Toronto are more than no community gardens, sites of place‐based politics connected to the community food‐security movement. The gardens, spaces where passions for plants and food are shared, reflect the city's shifting cultural landscape and represent an everyday activity that is imbued with multiple meanings. Toronto's community food‐security movement uses gardens as one strategy to regenerate the local food system and provide access to healthy, affordable food. Three garden case studies expand on the complexities of “food citizenship,” illustrating the importance of that concept to notions of food security. The gardens reveal the role gardeners play in transforming urban spaces, the complex network of organizations working cooperatively and in partnership to implement these projects, and the way in which social and cultural pluralism are shaping the urban landscape.     

The Permeable City: Toronto's Spatial Shift at the Turn of the Millennium

This article presents an analysis of the relationship between urban governance restructuring, and global, national, and local action through a case study of the Toronto city‐region. The Toronto city‐region recently underwent a massive reorganization of its governance structures, functions, and jurisdictional boundaries. This restructuring raises questions about why these changes occurred at this particular juncture in the region's history. Why did the city that had always been known in the academic and political discourse as the “city that works” stop “working”? What global and national forces might have accounted for such a radical restructuring? And what did local action contribute? These questions are explored in both historical and contemporary contexts by drawing on insights from regulation theory, urban regime theory, and an analysis of Canada's changing fiscal federalism. This approach informs the role that institutions — regardless of their origin or territorial scope — play in sustaining a local accumulation system, and how this “local” accumulation grounds a national regulatory mode and regime of accumulation. The approach also explores the relationship between regime and regulation theories in the context of policy formation and institution building. The study concludes that the current policy set is incapable of resolving the region's crisis tendencies. Notwithstanding external forces, the current policy set is not inevitable. Globalization does not predetermine all spatial‐economic outcomes.     

文学地理学视野下香港文化认同

通过文本分析和档案分析的方法,立足文学地理学分析框架和研究范式,分析了香港70年代、过渡时期、后殖民时期三部文学界热门且公认具代表性的作品——《我城》《烦恼娃娃的旅程》和《后殖民食物与爱情》,解构了作品中“本土”“国家”和“全球”3个空间维度下再现的地理物象、空间想象、人物活动、地方文化,窥探其内部隐含的文化认同与身份意识问题。结果发现,由于香港社会历史和文化背景不断变迁等原因,香港的文化和身份意识处于不断重塑的状态。通过文本分析,发现香港文学作品中最早萌芽的是“本土”意识。西西的《我城》被认为是本土意识的发轫之作,其在港英政府和回不去的家这一夹缝中在“城”这一空间尺度上勾勒出浓浓的地方意识。其次,在中国恢复行使香港主权这一背景下,《烦恼娃娃的旅程》这一极具回归题材代表性的作品深刻地刻画了香港人在身份认同尺度升级过程中的迷惘。最后,也斯的《后殖民食物与爱情》通过“食物”为线索讲述了回归后的香港故事,为读者认识后殖民时期多元文化混杂下的香港社会提供了细致的观察。通过对三部文学作品的分析,发现港人经历了由殖民统治时期本土身份意识的觉醒以及对中国文化的归属,到回归过渡阶段身份意识的尺度升级及其不适,再到回归后多元文化的交织和协商,不仅在尺度上实现了由地方到国家再到全球化的身份意识塑造,而且在结构上存在中华文化、西方文化和香港本土文化不断协商与冲突的三重性。更为重要的是,通过文学地理视角的讨论,发现这样的文化和身份意识不是属于某个群体的特有特征,而是根植于香港社会的每一寸肌肤,不仅反映了小说作者对香港社会的细致观察,在一定程度上也反映了社会本身所面临的文化和身份困扰。     

Decentralization and the cultural politics of natural resource management in Kerala,India

The state of Kerala in India is known for its active civil society and the massive decentralization campaign launched in 1996. However marginalization of tribal communities hampers the state's decentralized environmental management strategies. The proposed construction of a dam along the Chalakkudy River will displace two colonies of the Kadar tribe in Chalakkudy and Athirapilly towns, destroy habitats of local wildlife and devastate unique riverine vegetation endemic to the region. This brings to light issues of social and environmental justice as well as a wider responsibility to protect and preserve unique flora and fauna. The state's decentralization strategies, as they relate to tribal communities, lack consideration of local power distribution and cultural conditioning. This raises questions about the state's role in social justice as well as biodiversity conservation. In 2010 and 2011, the author's interviews in Chalakkudy and Athirapilly towns reveal that tribal communities perceive that their place in society restricts their contribution regarding natural resource management and use. The paper suggests that unless the culture of planning and decision making in the state are changed, decentralized strategies will be ineffective, resulting in a predominately top‐down approach towards natural resource management, and will negate Kerala's goal of democratic decentralization.     

Creating public space,creating ‘the public’: immigration politics and representation in two Copenhagen parks

ABSTRACT

Contestations over immigration, citizenship, and belonging play out every day in urban public space. In this article we study the design processes and use of two Copenhagen parks, Superkilen and Mimersparken, to explore the creation of public space and the “public” in Denmark. Who is part of the Danish “public”? What right do immigrant residents have to shape public space and their neighborhoods? How are the boundaries of Danish national identity policed and contested in public space in Copenhagen? The Danish government has increasingly moved toward far-right anti-immigrant stances, even while Copenhagen promotes a multicultural vision of a diverse and cosmopolitan city. Superkilen and Mimersparken illustrate the shortcomings of Copenhagen’s multiculturalism: though Copenhagen celebrates immigration, it left little space for residents to make meaningful decisions as political actors. In the case of Superkilen and Mimersparken, designers’ stylized idea of immigration is more celebrated than the actual presence of immigrant residents.     

BUILDING A FACADE FOR FINLAND: HELSINKI IN TOURISM IMAGERY*

Tourist destination promoters compose visual images and arrange them in brochures in order to communicate a coherent and attractive story. In a changing socioeconomic and political context, the city officials of Helsinki recognized a need for systematic promotion in the 1950s. In this article I examine 127 images published in ten tourism brochures produced by the Excursion Section of the Sport and Excursion Office of Helsinki between 1954 and 1963. The data‐driven, content‐analytical study shows how the images served a political identity project aimed at creating a sense of national solidarity among the Finns and to show international audiences that Finland is a modern nation. As a means of gaining acceptance in the West, support of citizenship education included emphasis on national symbols and signs of well‐being and visualization of urban tourism.     

休闲涉入与地方依恋对农民工留城意愿的影响 ——基于广州市的调研数据

在"认知-情感-行为意向"范式下,基于中国农民工流入地典型代表广州市的抽样调查数据,采用差异显著性检验和结构方程模型分析方法,探讨农民工留城意愿和地方依恋特征,并实证检验休闲涉入、地方依恋对农民工留城意愿影响的理论模型.结果表明:1)广州市农民工的留城意愿和地方依恋倾向较为强烈;2)不同个体特征的农民工群体在留城意愿和...     

空间认同:城市空间研究转向中的知识前沿、趋势与启发

中国城市化进程的快速发展,促使人们不断解构、调整和重构对城市空间的认同,这是城市化发展中不容忽视的新问题。以Web of Science（WoS）为数据源,对国外城市空间认同研究进行了分析和知识再现。研究发现：① 城市空间认同是人们对城市发展中社会经济认同、文化认同、集体认同、身份认同与情感认同的集合。作为重要的国民意识,城市空间认同主题是国外学者关注的重要领域,对该领域研究的本质上是对城市空间实践中人文主义空间诉求的知识表征;② 在2008~2017年的国外城市空间认同研究中,美国、英国、澳大利亚等国家具有明显优势,国际合作研究网络主要在美洲-欧洲、欧洲-澳洲,以及澳洲-欧美之间;国外城市空间认同研究高被引文献注重对“空间多中心性”“地方与连续性”“城市社区”“城市公民身份”“空间绅士化”“地方主义”等方面的讨论。③ 未来研究更加倾向在“认同”“空间”“城市”“地理”“政治”“地方”,以及“社区”等新主题方面。相比较而言,国内对城市空间认同的研究较为欠缺,随着中国城市空间实践不断推向纵深阶段,需要强化城市空间认同研究的“理论自觉”。     

Eating Out Ethically: An Analysis of the Influence of Ethical Food Consumption in a Vegetarian Restaurant in Guangzhou,China

For exploring vegetarian eating in contemporary Guangzhou, this article employs the concept of ‘ethical eating’ and the framework of ethical consumption as outlined by Clive Barnett and his coauthors to examine food practices in a vegetarian restaurant through two dimensions: the restaurant dimension and the consumer dimension (2005b). Drawing on the ethnographic observations and interviews on food practices in a vegetarian restaurant conducted by Refreshing Vegetarian Food (Yixin Su Shi), in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong province, this article argues that, on the one hand, the restaurant can provide an ethical environment for vegetarian eating and connects ethics and human bodies encountered through eating experiences. On the other hand, the restaurant is reshaped as an ethical food space through the performance of consumers' social identities and “self‐other” relations.     

The nation-state and the city: introduction to a debate

In recent years, the urban political landscape has become infused with a potent and incendiary mixture of popular-democratic, anti-globalisation, and separatist rhetoric. One central process driving this has been the problematic relations between the nation-state and the city. This Debates and Interventions forum aims to prompt a debate about where the city should be situated intellectually in respect of the nation-state. Four questions are addressed: (1) How do contemporary processes of urban development reflect changing national geopolitical priorities? (2) To what extent are struggles around immigration, citizenship and recognition conducted within cities rather than around the nation-state? (3) To what degree does the city (as e.g. a physical form, social environment or discourse) help to mobilise, propel and/or contest this new urban politics? And (4) Is the concept of a “post-national” global order appropriate for understanding the city and urban politics today?     

Construing and constructing the South China Sea beyond state-led environmentalism: Vernacularizing geographical,geopolitical and sociotechnical imaginaries of territory

During the 2010s, the South China Sea (SCS) became a geopolitical flashpoint over the sovereignty of the Paracels and Spratlys. China envisioned its transformation of coral reefs into military bases and island cities as an SCS ‘green construction’ project. This article analyses how the SCS is discursively construed and practically constructed as maritime national territory, by mobilizing fishing legacies and extending state limits through ‘state-led environmentalism’ rhetoric. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in China, I show that state-led environmentalism is a hierarchical process that intermittently co-opts and excludes local populations to advance the state's territorial ambitions, which are anchored in geographical, geopolitical and socio-technical imaginaries of ‘maritime civilization’. Yet, I also show that in this process, the SCS emerges as spaces of vernacularized political claims. Thus, I argue that territory is not only a political technology of control but also vernacular practice through which universalizing discourses— whether on the Exclusive Economic Zone regime, sovereignty or nature—are adapted and modified.     

Aquaculture and the Postproductive Transition on the Maine Coast

Aquaculture is the global food system's fastest growing sector. The postproductive transition—the shift away from commodity production toward more consumption‐oriented land uses—is common in many coastal areas as well. This paper examines the intersection of these trends in a U.S. state, Maine, with expanding aquaculture and extensive coastal, rural economic and demographic change. It examines interactions between coastal landowners and aquaculture farmers at aquaculture lease hearings in the state's three main aquaculture regions. Landowners are often uncertain about aquaculture because it is new and unfamiliar. Farmers use lease hearings to educate coastal landowners about farm operations, and farmers respond to concerns by altering their operations to fit landowners’ priorities. However, comparative analysis of the three regions reveals divergent histories and geographies leading to different levels of conflict. This study shows the value of applying rural postproductive transition theory to coastal regions and aquaculture development.     

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。     

The Regionalization of Chinese Business Networks: A Study of Singaporean Firms in Hainan,China

This paper examines the central role of social and political institutions behind motivations and strategies of ethnic Chinese Singaporean investment in Hainan, China. Drawing upon 22 case studies of Singaporean firms in Hainan, we show that Singaporean investment in Hainan is embedded in Chinese business networks and their associated institutions. At the personal level, direct investments are largely motivated by the cultural attachments of Singaporean Hainanese to Hainan. Their small‐ and medium‐sized joint ventures largely reflect the characteristics of ethnically‐based Chinese business networks that stress connections, or guanxi. Similarly, the influence of social organizations (e.g., clan associations) and government institutions (e.g., public and quasi‐public agencies) on Singaporean investment strategies in Hainan reveals the significance of ongoing social relations institutionalized at the broader societal level.     

AUSTRALIAN BACKYARD GARDENS AND THE JOURNEY OF MIGRATION*

ABSTRACT. Gardens have been an important site of environmental engagement in Australia since the British colonization. They are places where immigrant people and plants have carried on traditions from their homelands and have worked out an accommodation with new social and biophysical environments. We examined the backyard gardens of three contemporary migrant groups—Macedonian, Vietnamese, and British born—in suburban Australia and a group of first‐generation Australians with both parents born overseas. In Macedonian backyards, emphasis was strong on the production of vegetables; in Vietnamese backyards, on herbs and fruit. British backyards were more diverse, some focusing on non‐native ornamental flowers and others favoring native plants. The cohesiveness of the respective groups was partly an artifact of our sampling strategy. The Macedonian and Vietnamese migrants shared an affinity for productive, humanized landscapes that reflected their rural, subsistence backgrounds and crossed over into their attitudes toward the broader environment and national parks. The rural and village backgrounds help explain why intensive backyard food production has broken down among the next generation in (sub)urban Australia, becoming part of heritage rather than everyday practice.     

基于世博会的城市旅游空间结构重构与优化

世博会已经成为展示人类在社会、经济、文化和科技领域取得成就的国际盛会,受到全世界的关注和参与。随着世博会规模、性质的不断演化,世博会对城市的影响日渐扩大。基于历届世博会的城市旅游目的地分析,研究与揭示世博会引致旅游新增长极形成、旅游空间结构重构的内在规律与机理,结合2010年世博会的举办,探究上海城市旅游空间结构重构与优化。     

EXPRESSING “LOCAL CULTURE” IN HAWAI'I*

ABSTRACT. Detached from the mainland and with a distinct historical ethnic geography, the conquered kingdom of Hawai'i, now the fiftieth state, is the only U.S. state with an Asian and Pacific Islander majority as well as the highest percentage of racial and ethnic intermarriage. Hawai'i's population reflects the tensions between the culturally pluralistic “spirit of aloha” and the ethnic‐cum‐social stratification that has evolved from its historical economic geographies. In this article I focus on one of these strata—what is referred to as “local” culture—discussing its ethnogenesis and contemporary manifestations, and I apply Jonathan Okamura's 1981 model of situational ethnicity to examine how locals and new immigrants negotiate the ethnic dynamics and social expectations of their daily lives. I also discuss various ways in which “localness” is represented on O'ahu's economic landscape, with an analysis of the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, as a holistic expression of local culture.