COLONIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF TROPICAL GEOGRAPHY IN FRANCE

This article broadly positions the successful establishment of the field of French tropical geography in the immediate postwar period against developments stemming from a longer history of French colonial engagement in Africa, Asia and South America, and clarifies the seemingly late timing of, and paradoxes involved in, the creation of a body of French scientific knowledge about the tropics. Colonial scientific research did not develop in France until the end of the nineteenth century. However, the colonial geography appearing at this time did not rely on fieldwork but, rather, catered to the demands of the business class for overseas expansion and to public curiosity. Even while the medical geography of tropical areas and knowledge of tropical soils and ecology progressed greatly between 1900 and 1940, there were still only a few French geographers working in the tropics. With the advent of the Second World War, when “big science” appeared in France and its colonial empire, the number of French geographers involved in tropical research grew rapidly. The field of tropical geography built up by Pierre Gourou was a synthesis of approaches developed in South America, Africa and Indochina. Although it soon came under strong criticism for its pessimistic view of prospects for industrialisation and urbanisation in the tropics, it seduced French geographers because it matched the contemporary interest in zonality and relied on a genre de vie analysis of, typically, rural areas. Thus, the postwar blossoming of tropical geography shaped by Gourou was more a response to various internal dynamics within French geography than an exercise in imperialism. Its demise was not due to the eclipse of French colonialism but, rather, its inability to deal with the modernisation of tropical societies.     

Teaching Social Justice: Reviving Geography's Neglected Tradition

Abstract

American students are encouraged to become globally competitive. I argue that in a world plagued by social inequality and environmental mismanagement, students should become globally cooperative. But this position is not new. Nineteenth century geographers such as Peter Kropotkin argued that geographic education should promote cooperation and tolerance of others. This article explores why geographers cast aside this progressive vision for geographic education. It hypothesizes that geography's pursuit of academic and scientific legitimacy prompted it to spurn “value-laden” methods. The article concludes by suggesting that geographers return to their social justice roots by adopting constructivist pedagogical methods of Paulo Freire.     

政治地理学中生存空间概念的演变

生存空间是拉采尔创立现代政治地理学之初提出的核心概念,与国家有机体一起构成人类有机体空间政治的分析框架。20世纪上半叶,地缘政治学派继承并发展了国家有机体的概念,同时吸收了民族主义、社会达尔文主义等思想,将生存空间改造成为服务法西斯空间扩张的理论工具。二战结束后,地缘政治学被唾弃为恶学,而生存空间也被抨击为恶学之钥。80年代后期,新政治地理学从批判视角审视生存空间与法西斯的关系,生存空间的理论价值重新得到重视。论文通过梳理生存空间从提出、兴盛、没落到复苏的发展历程,旨在揭示这一概念在理解政治地理学研究模式、认识人地关系、探索空间治理、制定区域决策等方面的重要价值,为中国未来开展相关研究提供参考。     

THE GEOGRAPHY OF POST-COLONIAL AFRICA: SPACE,PLACE AND DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA (1960–93)1

This overview of human geographic studies of sub Saharan Africa begins with the contributions made by West European geographers to the colonial service, and the growing interest in post-war ‘development’ and to the anti-imperial movements in the late colonial period (1945–60). The paper provides an intellectual map of the contributions by European and African geographers to the broad array of development problems which emerged after 1960. North American geographers made significant contributions to the debate somewhat later, particularly in association with the growing involvement of U.S. development agencies in the 1970s. Particular emphasis is given to geographic studies in fields such as agrarian change, ecological degradation, industrialization, human mobility and patterns of urbanization and settlement.     

Geographers in the U.S. Government in Washington,DC, during World War II

Geographers in Washington, DC, during World War II and the agencies in which they worked are recalled through the naming of geographers engaged in wartime work during this seminal period in the development of the geography profession in the United States. The five agencies then employing the largest number of geographers were the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, the Topographic Branch of the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department, the Board of Economic Warfare (later the Foreign Economic Administration), the Board on Geographic Names, and the Office of the Geographer, Department of State. The impacts of this period on individual geographers, the professional organization of geographers, cartography, higher education, and the government are suggested.     

Continuity and change: (re)constructing environmental geographies in late Soviet and post-Soviet Russia

Environmental studies conducted worldwide often overlook the knowledge traditions of the locales where they are conducted. Addressing this issue, I investigated the geographic journal literature of late Soviet (1980–1989) and post-Soviet (1990–2003) Russia. Notable trends are increasing criticism of environmental and resource management in Russia and a (re)turn to pre-socialist Russian theorizations of society–nature interactions. Specifically, the noösphere, ethnogenesis and geosystems are trends in the literature that signify how Russian geographers (re)construct environmental knowledge. For non-Russian geographers working in Russia, awareness of these trends situates place-based knowledge relative to multiple cultures (ethnic, scientific) and time periods, promoting cross-cultural understanding of different traditions of geographic inquiry.     

Geographers in the U.S. Government in Washington,DC, during World War II

Geographers in Washington, DC, during World War II and the agencies in which they worked are recalled through the naming of geographers engaged in wartime work during this seminal period in the development of the geography profession in the United States. The five agencies then employing the largest number of geographers were the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, the Topographic Branch of the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department, the Board of Economic Warfare (later the Foreign Economic Administration), the Board on Geographic Names, and the Office of the Geographer, Department of State. The impacts of this period on individual geographers, the professional organization of geographers, cartography, higher education, and the government are suggested.     

THE TROPICS: ENVIRONMENTS AND HUMAN IMPACTS UNDERSTOOD AND REINTERPRETED

In the 1950s, few people had travelled widely through different parts of the tropics and interpretations on tropical landforms, soils, vegetation and climate largely rested on impressions gained from residence or long sojourns in particular tropical countries. Most academic geography on the tropics was then written by expatriates and lacked the perspective gained from long experience of tropical regions. Particular problems of understanding arose as people attempted to extrapolate from one part of the tropics to another. Since then, understanding has advanced enormously, largely through the efforts of tropical scientists working in their own institutions and through the greater technological ability to study tropical lands both remotely and through easier field access. The establishment of a number of field stations, aimed primarily at the biological sciences, but also facilitating the work of geographers, has been a major stimulus to this effort. Concerns over practical issues, particularly local development and global climatic change have prompted new avenues of research, many of which have been assisted by the great increase in data collection in tropical countries. For the future, South-South dialogue between tropical physical geographers is needed to improve their ability to ask meaningful questions so that they can contribute to teach the rest of their discipline more about serious applied and applicable geography.     

在一般性与特殊性之间的地理学——以《地理学思想：批判性导论》为范本的考察

地理学思想史研究和教学对学科发展意义重大。地理学发展过程中既有寻求一般性理论的传统,也有对地方特性的强调,二者间的紧张关系是地理学思想史的一个主调。尤其是第二次世界大战之后,实证主义、人文主义、马克思主义、女性主义、后现代、后结构、后人文、关系地理学等众多学派涌现,其核心争论正是追求一般性还是特殊性。聚焦该问题,以《地理学思想：批判性导论》一书为典型案例,通过梳理地理学思想流派更迭的简史,总结一般性和特殊性之间的辩证互动关系,并指出未来中国地理学思想研究和教育的核心在于批判性。只有通过批判性思考和实践,才能更深入地了解学科性质及其演变历程,才能更好地进行学术普及和理论创新。     

THE LEGENDARY “REDISCOVERY” OF GEORGE PERKINS MARSH

The conventional narrative regarding the American reception of George Perkins Marsh, author of Man and Nature (1864), is that his work and ideas were “lost,”“forgotten,” or “neglected” until Lewis Mumford “rediscovered” him and introduced him to geographers at the University of California‐Berkeley through The Brown Decades (Mumford [1931] 1955) and until Carl Sauer made him known to the profession at large beginning in 1938. This article upends the conventional narrative by looking at earlier references to Marsh's later versions of Man and Nature, which were published as The Earth as Modified by Human Action from 1874 to 1907. Analysis reveals that a number of geographers and historians cited these editions between 1875 and the early 1950s. Examining the legend of loss and rediscovery suggests the value of methods utilized in reception studies for research on the history of geography.     

Sentinels of geography: legacy,public policy and contemporary relevance

Many geographers, past and present, have addressed public policy issues facing nations and peoples and in the process offered solutions to highly complex problems. Three ‘sentinels’ of the discipline, Halford Mackinder, Carl Sauer and Thomas Griffith Taylor, served as protectors of geography speaking up for the science in a way often confronting public officials, politicians and others. They contributed significantly to the development of geography in Britain, the USA, Australia and Canada, while engaging in public policy debates on topics such as geopolitics, geographical constraints on land use and natural resource management. All three were advocates for the unity of geography, stressing how an understanding of the interconnectedness of natural and human phenomena can assist in decision making. They were often frustrated by what they saw as ill-informed policies which did not respect geographic realities. Given their varied contributions, it is difficult to fully assess their impact both during their long and productive lifetimes, and subsequently, especially given the interdisciplinary and contested nature of their research. Today, academic geographers are faced with having to increasingly ‘prove the impact’ of their research, something beyond the comprehension of previous generations. Lessons from an analysis of the work of these ‘sentinels’, as well as my own experience, show how difficult a task this will be.     

“THE FARTHER REACHES OF HUMAN TIME”: RETROSPECT ON CARL SAUER AS PREHISTORIAN*

ABSTRACT. Carl Ortwin Sauer (1889–1975) is widely regarded as one of the most influential geographers of the twentieth century, admired particularly for his studies in cultural and historical geography. His contribution to the study of prehistory is less widely acknowledged, but, between 1944 and 1962, he published a series of speculative yet scholarly papers that contain many prescient insights into humanity's remote past and the relationships of our ancestors to the environments they occupied—and modified. In this essay, based on the Carl O. Sauer Memorial Lecture given at the University of California, Berkeley, in October 2001, I reflect on Sauer's contribution to the science of prehistory by examining, in the light of recent advances in knowledge, two major themes of Sauer's work: the early dispersal of Homo sapiens in the Old World, and the origins and prehistoric spread of agriculture.     

Politics,Public Space,and Memorials: The Brawl on the Mall

This paper examines recent proposals for memorials and monuments on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Demands for memorials are increasingly at odds with the Mall's important role as open green space and public protest space. This article analyzes the broader issues embodied in the competing purposes of this highly visible public space by considering the recent controversy over the World War II Memorial. The controversy focused primarily on the location of the memorial. Opponents contended the World War II Memorial would interrupt or destroy the iconography of the National Mall. Supporters argued that the location selected for the memorial was consistent with its importance in U.S. history and that it deserved such a prized location in the central axis between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. The article then analyzes the politics behind the site selection, and examines the debate about the impact of the memorial's location. It concludes that the location of the memorial was not accidental but intentional, and thereby reveals a purposeful re-writing of the Mall's symbolic space to suit a specific vision of the war and its meaning in American history. The article also contends that the location of the memorial represents an emerging social-political agenda that is prioritizing the Mall as a place of commemoration at the expense of open space, and, perhaps, at the expense of public protest space.     

Employment Trends in Geography,Part 1: Enrollment and Degree Patterns*

This paper is the first in a series of three papers dealing with the current and future labor market for geographers. It is based on a report prepared by the Association of American Geographers' (AAG) Employment Forecasting Committee to the National Research Council's (NRC) Rediscovering Geography Committee. This report provides a data-based analysis of the past and future supply of geographers, the current labor market conditions in the field, and the factors likely to influence the future demand for geographers (faculty hiring, geographic education initiatives, trends in private-sector jobs, etc.). Each year some 4,000 individuals receive degrees in geography from America's institutions of higher education. They, or some portion of them, make up the new supply of geographers entering the labor market. In the near future (up to five years), the availability of new geographers is related to the number of geography students now in the educational pipeline. Their current specialties, and the specialties of the programs from which they come, tell us about the types of skills and the kinds of interests to be held by future labor force entrants. In the longer term (five to ten years), the number of new geographers will be influenced by geographic education initiatives at the precollegiate level. More and better geographic instruction in elementary and secondary schools will expose more students to geography as a field of study and as a potential career path. The purposes of this paper are to (1) review degree and enrollment trends in geography, (2) assess the “trickle-up” effects of geographic education initiatives at the precollegiate level, and (3) investigate the characteristics of future supply as evidenced by the types of occupations for which geography departments are now preparing students.     

美国大学区域地理教育的发展与变迁--以亚洲地理教育为例

区域地理是地理学教育与研究的一个重要组成。在当今经济与环境的全球化过程中,对区域地理课程的需求有了明显上升。区域地理教育的重要性也引起了方面的重视。美国大学区域地理教育的发展与变迁主要受两方面的影响：一是地理教育在国民教育中的地位;二是某个区域在国际事务中的重要性以及与美国的关系。在过去３０年中,随着近年来亚洲经济的高速发展和它在国际中的地位日益提高,以及亚洲与美国贸易额的的迅速增长,亚洲地理课在     

Twitter and Academic Geography through the Lens of #AAG2018

Twitter has emerged as a global social network of active users who share conversations with one another in an online setting. Academics are one community that has increasingly taken to Twitter as a means of connecting with other scholars, sharing research, and obtaining meaningful feedback. Tweeting has become especially popular during academic conferences where conference attendees use Twitter hashtags to filter conference conversations into a separate dialogue. For geographers, the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) represents one such occasion to use Twitter to discuss contemporary developments in geographic research. In this article, we provide an overview of Twitter as well as the ways in which the academic community uses the platform. Following this, we discuss the tweets sent using the hashtag for the 2018 AAG Annual Meeting, #AAG2018. To analyze these tweets, we collected all tweets with this hashtag for a period of four weeks and examined the content using word clouds and sentiment analysis to explore general feelings and trends associated with geography and the AAG Annual Meeting. We conclude with suggestions for future research avenues that could use Twitter data to gauge the pulse of the geographic discipline. Key Words: academic conferences, American Association of Geographers, geography, sentiment analysis, Twitter.     

Cultural Geography: A Survey of Perceptions Held by Cultural Geography Specialty Group Members*

As of the year 2000, the Cultural Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers had 465 members and ranked fourth overall in total membership within the association. Furthermore, cultural geographers had the second fastest growing specialty group between 1993 and 1998, after the Geographic Perspectives on Women specialty group. In spite of this demonstrated overwhelming appeal among geographers, to date, no one has systematically analyzed the subdiscipline of cultural geography to determine such things as its links to other aspects of the discipline, its major scholarly contributions, its most highly regarded publication outlets, its notable practitioners, and its most recognized departments. As the ranks of cultural geographers have swelled, the subdiscipline has become multifaceted. This article contextualizes and interprets the results of a survey sent to members of the 1998–1999 Cultural Geography Specialty Group. Outcomes include Louisiana State University and the University of Texas at Austin listed as offering the strongest cultural geography departments, Wilbur Zelinsky being deemed the subfield's most outstanding living practitioner, and the Annals of the Association of American Geographers named the journal that best meets cultural geographers’ needs.     

太平洋岛国对澳大利亚地缘战略影响的历史考察

历史上太平洋岛国对澳大利亚地缘战略的影响以第二次世界大战为分水岭,主要分为三个阶段：二战前是地缘战略缺失阶段,当时澳大利亚无视周边地缘环境,将国家安全系于遥远英帝国的庇护,忽视近邻岛屿的防御屏障作用,导致国家遭受战火;二战时期是地缘战略构建阶段,随着澳美战时同盟成立,太平洋上的海空航线成为澳大利亚的“生命线”,澳大利亚的独立防务意识也不断加强,意图凭借《澳新协定》将太平洋岛国纳入势力范围;二战后是地缘战略丰富阶段,在太平洋岛国发展问题日益突出和岛屿地区安全态势日趋复杂的背景下,澳大利亚实施援助战略以促进地区的繁荣与稳定。未来,澳大利亚将继续保持该地区最大援助国的地位。     

THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF HONG KONG INVESTMENTS IN THE ASEAN REGION

Conventional studies of “Third World multinationals” tend to focus on their recent origins. This paper argues that the transnational operations of Hong Kong firms have had a long tradition originating in its Overseas Chinese networks and in the colonial experience of many Southeast Asian countries. Based on secondary and primary data, this paper takes a historical view to describe how the ASEAN operations of Hong Kong transnational corporations (HKTNCs) and their foreign direct investment (HKFDI) have evolved over more than a century to become one of the most important economic players in the ASEAN region. Four phases of their historical development are benchmarked in this paper. Before World War II, HKTNCs in the commercial and banking sectors had a notable presence in the region. It was, however, in the post-war period that HKTNCs and their FDI flows flourished. During the period 1945–69, industrialisation took off in Hong Kong and this led to the expansion of manufacturing HKTNCs into the ASEAN region. The real zenith of outward investment from Hong Kong was the 1970s and 1980s so that in the 1990s Hong Kong has become one of the largest investors in Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.     

近40年来的中国人口地理学——一个跨学科研究领域的进展①

本文对20世纪80年代以来中国人口地理学的发展进行了全面综述。尽管近年来中国人口地理学在地理学科领域给人留下的是萧条、甚至被边缘化的印象,但从跨学科的角度看,该学科还是取得了巨大进展。人口地理学者在复兴中国的人口学研究中发挥了不可或缺的作用,并在这一跨学科研究领域中占据了重要地位。人口地理学者从地理学的视角出发,在人口迁移流动、城镇化、人口分布、人口与资源和环境之间的关系、老龄化、婚姻模式和移民犯罪等众多人口问题的研究上作出了重要贡献,尤其是在人口迁移流动研究和人口城镇化若干问题的研究中占据着领先地位。中国人口地理学者自20世纪80年代以来与社会科学领域学者间的交流互动不断增加,在促进学科发展的同时,也出现了一种逐渐偏离主流人文地理学的倾向;今后,中国人口地理学应更多地回归地理学领域,在人口学和人文地理学两个领域间寻求健康、平衡的定位,以促进其在跨学科领域中获得进一步发展。