'Black skins–white masks': Postcolonial reflections on 'race', gender and second generation return migration to the Caribbean

This paper illustrates the opportunities afforded by the adoption of postcolonial discourse in development geography, drawing specifically on issues of transnationalism, hybridity and inbetweeness. The utility of such notions and associated approaches is illustrated by the authors' current research on the migration of young, second generation and foreign-born 'Bajan-Brits' to the small Caribbean island nation of Barbados, the homeland of their parents. Focussing on issues of 'race' and gender, the paper examines the experiences of return migration among this cohort from an interpretative perspective framed within postcolonial discourse. It argues that notwithstanding the considerable sociocultural problems of adjustment encountered, these Bajan-Brit 'returnees' may be seen as occupying positions of relative economic privilege. Theirs is a liminal space derived by virtue of having been born and/or raised in the UK and being of the black 'race'. Accordingly, they are demonstrated to be both advantaged and disadvantaged; both transnational and national; and black but, in some senses, symbolically white.     

The environmental envelope of fires in the Colombian Caribbean

Fire is an important disturbance agent for terrestrial ecosystems, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions where its occurrence is controlled by multiple biophysical and anthropogenic variables. We assessed the temporal and spatial patterns of active fire detections (MODIS product MCD14ML) in the Caribbean region of Colombia between 2003 and 2015, using time series, cross-correlation, hot spot and density techniques. We also assessed the environmental envelope of active fires by evaluating the effect of multiple biophysical and anthropogenic variables on fire presence/absence using generalized linear models (GLMs). Results show that fires follow a clear intra-annual cycle, with 86% of fire events taking place during the region's main dry season (December–March). There is also inter-annual variability related to the Tropical North Atlantic (TNA) quasi-decadal climatic oscillation. Active fires exhibit a distinctive spatial pattern, with regional hotspots. The set of variables that best explain fire presence/absence include biophysical (TNA, temperature annual range, dry quarter precipitation), anthropogenic (minimum distance to towns and roads) and composite (NDVI) variables. The extensive and ongoing land cover transformation of this region, from forest to pasture and agriculture, will likely increase the extent of burned areas and future carbon fire emissions to the atmosphere.     

Tourist Carrying Capacity Measures: Crowding Syndrome in the Caribbean

International tourism is increasing at an unprecedented rate. Understanding the variety of national and local impacts of this increase is of importance to a growing number of governments. Butler's resort cycle model (1974, 1980, 1991) provides for several long‐term possibilities as to the relationship between crowding and growth. McElroy, de Albuquerque, and Dioguardi (1993) focus on one of those possibilities. Specifically, using their penetration ratio, they predict that as tourist crowding continues for a group of Caribbean islands, the appeal of these islands decreases in the eyes of potential tourists and that, as time increases, the growth rate of the affected islands, actually decreases. Our article indicates that such a simple, straight‐line relationship between increased crowding and a decrease in the rate of change may not be inevitable; indeed, diseconomies of scale may be avoided. The use of a curvilinear regression function reveals how both positive and negative scale economies existed in the Caribbean during the years 1992 through 1996.     

Recreating Ocean Space: Recreational Consumption and Representation of the Caribbean Marine Environment

This paper investigates the historical relationship between the development of marine-based tourism and representations of marine space. Over the past 100 years, the Caribbean Sea has been transformed from a transportation surface connecting exotic ports of call into a commodity itself. Imagined by early travelers as a two-dimensional space to be crossed, the Caribbean has became part of a new tropical marine aesthetic, a three-dimensional spectacle to be actively consumed and conserved. These changing representations of the marine environment as a space of consumption have been paralleled by changes in the relationships between marine and terrestrial political economies. As marine-based tourism has intensified, the balance of power among coastal resource users has shifted. The increasingly conflictive consequences of this shift are illustrated by the case of Soufrière in St. Lucia where new uses of marine space have re-configured social and economic relationships. Soufrière's coastal economy has been transformed and its marine space increasingly politicized as competing representations of the sea have been used to assert conflicting claims to resource access. This paper attempts to elucidate the power of these representations by investigating their historical relationship to the changing role of the Caribbean Sea in the international tourism industry.     

Recreating Ocean Space: Recreational Consumption and Representation of the Caribbean Marine Environment

This paper investigates the historical relationship between the development of marine-based tourism and representations of marine space. Over the past 100 years, the Caribbean Sea has been transformed from a transportation surface connecting exotic ports of call into a commodity itself. Imagined by early travelers as a two-dimensional space to be crossed, the Caribbean has became part of a new tropical marine aesthetic, a three-dimensional spectacle to be actively consumed and conserved. These changing representations of the marine environment as a space of consumption have been paralleled by changes in the relationships between marine and terrestrial political economies. As marine-based tourism has intensified, the balance of power among coastal resource users has shifted. The increasingly conflictive consequences of this shift are illustrated by the case of Soufrière in St. Lucia where new uses of marine space have re-configured social and economic relationships. Soufrière's coastal economy has been transformed and its marine space increasingly politicized as competing representations of the sea have been used to assert conflicting claims to resource access. This paper attempts to elucidate the power of these representations by investigating their historical relationship to the changing role of the Caribbean Sea in the international tourism industry.     

Spatial Patterns of Migration and Income Change in the Mountain West: The Dominance of Service‐Based,Amenity‐Rich Counties

One of the most recognizable and important changes occurring in the West is rapid population growth. This article intends to address questions associated with whether patterns of population growth and income migration are associated with “new” and “old” West economies. Rural restructuring in the U.S. has created a group of counties with service‐based economies. In the Mountain West, a number of counties with service‐based economies are located in areas with high levels of environmental or natural amenities, creating what has been termed the “New West.” Migration to the rural parts of the Mountain West, and the income transfers associated with migration, are increasingly concentrated within these New West counties. Rapid population growth, the changing characteristics of in‐migrants, and their spatial concentration in New West counties provide a basis for conflicts over what the rural West is becoming.     

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     

Event sedimentation in low‐latitude deep‐water carbonate basins,Anegada passage,northeast Caribbean

The Virgin Islands and Whiting basins in the Northeast Caribbean are deep, structurally controlled depocentres partially bound by shallow‐water carbonate platforms. Closed basins such as these are thought to document earthquake and hurricane events through the accumulation of event layers such as debris flow and turbidity current deposits and the internal deformation of deposited material. Event layers in the Virgin Islands and Whiting basins are predominantly thin and discontinuous, containing varying amounts of reef‐ and slope‐derived material. Three turbidites/sandy intervals in the upper 2 m of sediment in the eastern Virgin Islands Basin were deposited between ca. 2000 and 13 600 years ago, but do not extend across the basin. In the central and western Virgin Islands Basin, a structureless clay‐rich interval is interpreted to be a unifite. Within the Whiting Basin, several discontinuous turbidites and other sand‐rich intervals are primarily deposited in base of slope fans. The youngest of these turbidites is ca. 2600 years old. Sediment accumulation in these basins is low (<0.1 mm year^?1) for basin adjacent to carbonate platform, possibly due to limited sediment input during highstand sea‐level conditions, sediment trapping and/or cohesive basin walls. We find no evidence of recent sediment transport (turbidites or debris flows) or sediment deformation that can be attributed to the ca. M7.2 1867 Virgin Islands earthquake whose epicentre was located on the north wall of the Virgin Islands Basin or to recent hurricanes that have impacted the region. The lack of significant appreciable pebble or greater size carbonate material in any of the available cores suggests that submarine landslide and basin‐wide blocky debris flows have not been a significant mechanism of basin margin modification in the last several thousand years. Thus, basins such as those described here may be poor recorders of past natural hazards, but may provide a long‐term record of past oceanographic conditions in ocean passages.     

Advances in monitoring vegetation and land use dynamics in the Sahel

Vegetation dynamics of the West African Sahel has attracted great scientific interest over the last 40?years because of the dramatic inter-decadal variability observed in the resource base of the region directly impacting on the livelihoods of the West African population. From farmers to pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and forest-users, all depend on the availability of vegetation resources and are affected by fluctuations in the available vegetation resource. Vegetation dynamics are controlled by both natural and human factors, including climate change and variability, increased concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere, grazing pressure, bush fires and agricultural expansion or contraction. The use of satellite data in combination with field data played a major role in the monitoring of vegetation dynamics and land use in the Sahel, since the mega drought of the 1970s and the 1980s. This paper briefly reviews the advance of satellite-based monitoring of vegetation dynamics over these 40?years. We discuss the promises of current and likely future data sources and analysis tools, as well as the need to strengthen in situ data collection to support and validate satellite-based vegetation and land use monitoring and modelling.     

New‐Build Development and the Gentrification of Oklahoma City's Deep Deuce Neighborhood

New‐build development has become associated with the phase of gentrification that has taken shape since the mid‐1990s. This article examines the gentrification of Deep Deuce, a historically black neighborhood in Oklahoma City. An analysis of property sales identifies the major external agents involved and leads to a discussion of the area's racial turnover. Considering the relational aspects of place, specifically how the identity of Deep Deuce has been constructed in relation to the nearby area of Bricktown, provides new insights on the nature of changes affecting this neighborhood. Supplementing this with an examination of resistance to the gentrification of Deep Deuce shows how city neighborhoods can come to be defined by limited understandings of place, and how historic preservation efforts can generate symbolic capital and facilitate cultural appropriation. This article also contributes to the study of gentrification in smaller metropolitan areas.