A century and counting: Geographical research on Guatemala in historical perspective

In his recent book Putting Science in its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge (2004), David Livingstone challenges historians of geography to locate that history in space and places, as well as time. Using the national/cultural space that is Guatemala, this paper plots some of the co-ordinates, contours, and questions that such a geographic history might entail. Particular emphasis is placed on providing a first approximation of the contours the history of geographic research in, and on, Guatemala. The main focus is on the work of self-identified geographers, though many scholars in cognate fields, especially historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists have made important contributions to this history. Clear phases in this history are evident, starting in the late 19th century with the work of the German geographer Karl Sapper. North American geographers came to dominate the record in the post-WWII period. The current phase promises not only a new generation of researchers, but also new directions as well as some continuities with topics and questions with a century-old time-depth. This paper seeks to contribute to the largely inchoate project of producing histories of geography at the regional, national, and continental scales for Latin America.     

Spaces of unintended consequences: The Ground Safety Zone in Kosovo

In the spring of 1999 NATO conducted a 79-day air campaign against Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) to force that country to cease the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians and to force the withdrawal of Yugoslavian forces from the province. In June of 1999 a NATO led military force (KFOR or Kosovo Force) entered Kosovo to reestablish a safe and secure environment. Shortly thereafter ethnic Albanian armed extremists groups launched an insurgency in the neighboring Presevo Valley of Southern Serbia in a bid to join the predominantly ethnic Albanian population of that area with Kosovo. The rebels used the five-kilometer wide Ground Safety Zone, established by NATO, as a sanctuary from which to attack Serb police and military units. NATO and KFOR found themselves in the predicament of having to halt this insurgency while maintaining the peace in Kosovo. This paper provides a case study in applied political geography that examines the unintended consequences of creating an uncontrolled political and security space in the midst of a zone of conflict. Additionally, this paper will present a revised application of the concept of Peace Geography for the Post Cold War Era. Peace Geography involves the elements of association, disassociation, and isolation. These elements proved to be critical in bringing the Presevo Valley Insurrection to a peaceful conclusion, and this revised and updated peace geography shows great promise for future peacekeeping operations. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Looking for the critical geographer, or why bodies and geographies matter to the emergence of critical geographies of Latin America

This paper argues that critical geographies of Latin America begin with an analysis of how and why the bodies and geographies of geographers themselves matter. To focus on the geographer as a producer of knowledge is not to advocate the kind of navel gazing so abhorrent to many scholars. Rather, it is an effort to call attention to and critically assess how the geographer's embodied social position and geographic location inform the production of knowledge about and representations of Latin American people and nature. To illustrate how and why bodies and geographies matter, I draw from feminist and post-colonial theory and include examples from my own experiences and those of other researchers doing fieldwork in Latin American countries. I conclude by exploring the notion of situated knowledge as a tactic that writes bodies and geographies into academic texts. Ultimately, situating knowledge represents a political intervention and contribution to the broader goals of emancipatory politics shared by critical human geographers.     

It's a long way to the other geographers and geographic knowledges

Geographic knowledge is usually understood as the knowledge produced by geographers. Yet, it is also produced by people outside of the academia. But as Western science claimed for its exclusive self the status of ‘knowledge’, others have long been denied the production and possession of a true knowledge, and recognised merely the mastering of practical skills. The binary opposition between scientific and other forms of knowledge has been central to the construction of academic geography until the late 1980s, when postmodern thought cast some doubt on the universality of scientific knowledge. This led to critical analyses of academic geography, revealing its situatedness, as well as to a new interest for the geographies of the ‘Others’. Examining how geographers have dealt with other knowledge sets so far, and how they have labelled them, this paper argues that other geographies should be given more attention. This means focusing on the knowledges themselves, and considering implementing a true dialogue between these and academic geography. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Race, space and place in suburban Durban: an ethnographic assessment of gated community environments and residents

This paper explores gated community culture and development in the suburbs of North Durban in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Using perspectives from the anthropology of space and place as a theoretical and methodological framework, ethnographic fieldwork in one community in this area explores the cultural reasoning behind the movement to a fortified suburban enclave in South Africa by problematizing why, in a newly democratic society based on an ethos of desegregation, do individuals feel the need to segregate themselves along class and racial lines in fortified developments in a fashion reminiscent of homeland demarcation during apartheid? And, is the movement to gated communities within post-apartheid South Africa solely a white cultural and class phenomenon? While these questions are necessary, and perhaps commonsensical in terms of the unique social history of South Africa, research also attempts to complicate these lines of inquiry to apprehend the cultural reasoning and lifestyles of gated community residents to move past racial and class stereotypes and delve into the complex culture of these environments and the different rationalizations that individuals work with to justify their surroundings.     

Sirius Passet,Greenland and the Cambrian Explosion

Throughout Earth history there have been many important milestones: e.g. the emergence of life, the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere, snowball Earth events. One of these major events was the emergence of multicellular life, which, as we are all told in Palaeontology lectures, took place in the Cambrian, when a sudden flowering of life forms emerged, including all of the major groups we have today: the ‘Cambrian explosion’. Two great questions emerge: what happened before this (a problem which worried Darwin as it seemed to threaten his thesis of steady evolution) and how, in detail did this ‘explosion’ take place?     

Dalit identity in urban Pokhara,Nepal

Urban migration by Nepalese Dalits has not only provided them with social, economic and educational opportunities, but also the possibility of escaping traditional caste-based discrimination. However, despite making the most of opportunities provided by the city, Dalits have not been able to pursue their political agenda to the extent of other ethnic communities. This study in the city of Pokhara, Nepal, explored Dalit identity using two rounds of focus group discussions involving a total of 23 individuals drawn from a range of Dalit caste groups with a variety of livelihoods. The results describe the caste-based discrimination experienced by the participants and the different strategies they employ to either reinvent themselves by changing names; or embracing their caste-heritage and taking advantage of affirmative action programmes. Whilst urban migration can provide some relief from discrimination, the study reveals that caste still remains prominent in the lives of Dalits in Pokhara. The paper argues that Dalit unity and elimination of intra-Dalit caste-based discrimination are needed in order to institutionalise their citizenship rights in post conflict Nepal.     

Mineralization in geosynclines — the Alpine enigma

The problem of the paucity of post-Hercynian mineralization in the Alps compared with the rich mineral endowment of other young fold mountain belts of the same world wide system has for long been an unsolved puzzle. It is suggested that the key to this problem can be found in relating the Alpine geosyncline to the plate tectonic framework within which it evolved. Hsü's suggestion that the Alpine geosyncline did not develop at a convergent juncture, but occupied part of the region where the African and European plates were moving laterally past each other leads on to the inference that subduction of oceanic crust did not take place on any significant scale during the evolution of the geosyncline or its subsequent deformation. This accounts for the relative absence of porphyry copper deposits and Cyprus-type massive sulphide deposits. Consideration of the possible history of the Alpine geosyncline in the light of plate tectonic theory accounts not only for the absence of these oretypes but also provides an explanation for the presence of some of the few major metalliferous deposits of this orogen. This in turn suggests the consideration of certain genetic models for the origin of these deposits and has important overtones with regard to mineral exploration in the Alps.     

试论宏体植物的早期演化

概述了地史早期宏体植物化石的记录。从细胞群体到组织-器官构造有大约11 亿年的漫长进化史。蓝田植物群和庙河生物群标志着震旦晚期(大约7-5.4 亿年间)发生了宏体植物演化史上的一次大辐射,非矿化、弱矿化、和矿化的高级藻类出现。寒武纪发生了另一次辐射。非矿化藻类是最有发展前途的类群,可能直接导致了维管植物的出现。     

Scent of a supercontinent: Gondwana's ores as chemical tracers—tin,tungsten and the Neoproterozoic Laurentia-Gondwana connection

The birth of Gondwana is inextricably linked to the break-up of the earlier Neoproterozoic supercontinent Rodinia. In detail, the Neoproterozoic reconstructions of Rodinia are unsolved and without them a detailed kinematic history of the birth of Gondwana cannot be constructed. This paper shows that Gondwana's ore deposits provide chemical “scents” that can be effectively used to trace the tectonic history of Gondwana; and the heterogenous distribution of Gondwana's ore deposits are used to evaluate Late Neoproterozoic reconstructions, which place Laurentia against West Gondwana along a common belt of Grenville age rocks. West Gondwana (including its Grenville-like rocks) is anomalously enriched in Sn and W relative to the rest of Gondwana. The Grenville Province of Laurentia and its immediate hinterland are devoid of Sn-W deposits and even occurrences of any significance. Therefore, Rodinia reconstructions which juxtapose East Laurentia against the west coast of South America result in juxtaposition of distinctly different metalliferous crustal blocks. These reconstructions may not be correct, and other models should be (re-)explored.     

Earthquake-induced burial of archaeological sites along the southern Washington coast about A.D. 1700

Although inhabited by thousands of people when first reached by Europeans, the Pacific coast of southern Washington has little recognized evidence of prehistoric human occupation. This apparent contradiction may be explained partly by geologic evidence for coastal submergence during prehistoric earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone. Recently discovered archaeological sites, exposed in the banks of two tidal streams, show evidence for earthquake-induced submergence and consequent burial by intertidal mud about A.D. 1700. We surmise that, because of prehistoric earthquakes, other archaeological sites may now lie hidden beneath the surfaces of modern tidelands. Such burial of archaeological sites raises questions about the estimation of prehistoric human population densities along coasts subject to earthquake-induced submergence. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Geography and the pragmatic tradition: The threefold engagement

Geography has had only limited interchange with the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism. This paper claims that a closer engagement with pragmatism has much to offer to geography, not least in providing an arena within which very different types of geographical inquiry - qualitative and quantitative, human and physical - may find some common ground for useful conversation and debate. However, this will only be fully achieved if geography embarks on a threefold engagement with pragmatism: (1) studies that develop and deploy specific pragmatist ideas and concepts within particular geographical research; (2) studies that attempt to relate geographical research to the wider arena of the pragmatic tradition; (3) historical examination of early links between pragmatism, social science and geography. The history and contemporary revival of pragmatism is described, together with its impacts on social theory and social science. The existing literature on geographical engagement with pragmatism is then examined, and it is argued that there is a much broader relevance within both human and physical geography, not linked to particular styles of research. The question of the history of earlier influences of pragmatism on American geography is then raised, and some linkages charted. The philosopher Hilary Putnam has used the term ‘pragmatist enlightenment’ to describe what he sees as the promise of pragmatism, and the paper concludes by suggesting that this also promises an exciting and fruitful engagement for geography.     

Britain's oldest rocks

In August 1994, Britain's top science journal, Nature, announced that a team of scientists working at the University of Cambridge had found Europe's oldest rocks at a remote location near to Gruinard Bay in the Scottish Highlands. They reported ancient volcanic rocks with an age of 3300 million years. This was more than 300 million years older than any age previously measured on rocks in the British Isles and between 100 and 200 million years older than any rocks known in Europe. The discovery of itself is in many ways unremarkable, for much older rocks are known from ancient continental shield areas in Canada, Australia and Greenland. What was important was that the reported age did not agree with any of the other measured ages known within the British Isles. This was highlighted in a comment in the same issue of Nature, which suggested that the new data were so important that they require a massive revision of our views on the earliest history of the British Isles. For other scientists, however, the conflict between these new data and previously reported ages began to raise questions about the methods employed in dating the 'oldest rocks'.     

Social epidemiology as medical geography: Back to the future

There is something very traditional about Nancy Krieger’s decidedly modern work. She advances a social epidemiology that is multidisciplinary, advancing a “quantitative population science” that is also spatial in its approach and method of analysis. Many geographers see their work as affirming the potential of medical cartography and geography as disciplines critical to public health studies of disease incidence. This article argues that the history of epidemiology and public health are historically spatial and geographic, a link lost in the research of many twentieth century health researchers. A review of the history of medical geography, and of public health, insists upon the spatiality of disease studies as a critical groundwork not simply for contemporary disease studies but for the history of disease studies as they have slowly developed over for more than 200 years.     

Mobile bodies: Animal migration in North American history

North Americans have had a profound affect on wildlife, especially migratory animals such as elk, bison, salmon, and many species of birds. Migration is a vital adaptation for these and other species. Yet despite this importance and the myriad ways in which people have influenced and understood migration, environmental geographers have devoted scant attention to it. This paper examines the role of animal migration in North American history. North Americans have affected and managed animal migrants in six primary ways: transforming migrant habitats; harvesting migrants; obstructing and facilitating migrants; working across borders; visualizing migrants; and accepting and resisting migrants. I examine these different aspects of animal migration history in North America and end with a discussion of how other geographers such as environmental historical geographers, political ecologists, and animal geographers can employ this framework.     

答“对秦岭奥长环斑花岗岩质疑”

环斑花岗岩是一种特殊结构的花岗岩类，并且多数产在元古宙克拉通中。笔者曾报道了在秦岭造山带中发育有印支期具有环斑结构的花岗质岩石。“对秦岭奥长环斑花岗岩质疑”一文认为它们不是环斑花岗岩，并引用Ramo的图表来说明自己的观点。本文将从以下几方面进行讨论：秦岭环斑花岗岩的研究历史；环斑花岗岩的定义；世界上环斑花岗岩的成因类型；秦岭环斑花岗岩的副矿物及铁镁含量和环斑钾长石特征；秦岭环斑花岗岩与基性岩共存等。本文还论证了秦岭环斑花岗岩不同于元古宙非造山环斑花岗岩，而是一种造山型的环斑花岗岩，其形成于后造山环境，是挤压（造山）向拉张（稳定）转折时期的产物。最后对研究秦岭环斑花岗岩的几个理论问题进行了探讨。     

Maps as geomedial action spaces: considering the shift from logocentric to egocentric engagements

This paper considers some significant questions in geography and cognate fields about the roles of maps in the information age. Most maps are now digital products, offering immersive environments for user involvement. The increasingly networked digital distribution of geographic information in consumer-orientated cartographic representations leads to substantial changes how people individually and collaboratively experience and produce space and place. This article focuses on the ongoing metamorphosis arising through geobrowsing, the media-based flexible production of geographic knowledge through interactive maps. Drawing on work in media studies influenced by the so-called spatial turn—the rediscovering of geography-related questions in the social sciences and humanities, after modernism’s claimed prioritization of time and history (Soja in Postmodern Geographies. The reassertion of space in critical social theory, London, 1989; Jameson in Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism, Duke University Press, Durham, 1991)—this paper develops a theoretical framework built on the dynamic networked geomedial action spaces concept to understand the changing roles of information age maps as imagined materialist spaces for the experience and production of space—ultimately a medial turn. Following this concept, maps change from offering static and non-interactive frames of geographic reference for the production of space and place and as geomedia support a veritable infinity of interactive and map-based activities. Geobrowsing facilitates some new modes of geographic interactions that move from logocentric engagements with static maps to egocentric dynamic interactions with code-based elements of geomedial action spaces. Google Earth and similar geomedia facilitate maps that become intrinsic to a growing number of social action spaces and alter the experience and production of space and place.     

Tsunami databases: The problems of acceptance and absence

Tsunami databases are not dissimilar from a wide variety of other data sources used by researchers, and yet users rarely, if ever, use them appropriately. They contain summary information of individual tsunamis, but they will always be incomplete because of the fragmentary data related to numerous past events and the difficulty of updating event information for those already included. Examples from AD1917 and AD1892 throw some light on this dilemma and show that not only is the uncritical use of such databases inappropriate, but that the data they contain may not be fit for the research questions being asked. This is unfortunate because it has probably led to at least one significant misconception developing within the tsunami community - that earthquakes are by far the most significant tsunami-genic source. When used appropriately though, tsunami database have the potential to inform and empower coastal communities.     

‘A place for everything’: Moral landscapes of ‘swiftlet farming’ in George Town,Malaysia

This paper is based on 6 months of ethnographic, multi-sited research in Malaysia, and investigates the relatively recent phenomenon of edible birds’ nest farming in urban areas (‘swiftlet farming’). Swiftlet farms are typically converted shophouses or other buildings which have been modified for the purpose of harvesting the nests of the Edible-nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus). I use the controversy over urban swiftlet farming in the Malaysian city of George Town, Penang, to examine discourses used by key stakeholders to shape debates over the place of non-human animals in cities. By considering everyday experiences of urban swiftlet farming, I explore how this burgeoning industry is perceived amongst residents, and how it is deemed to be (in)appropriate within the political, economic and cultural landscape of George Town. Yet, I also consider how farmers have sought to contest these discourses on ideological and normative grounds. In so doing, I place the cultural animal geographies literature in conversation with emergent literature on landscape and urban political ecology. Such a framing allows for a critical evaluation of the controversies surrounding this case, and their implications for human-animal cohabitation in cities. The paper reflects on the implications of this case for how we regulate human-animal relations and live in contemporary cities, and the crucial role of animals in altering urban form, aesthetics and everyday life, particularly in non-Western contexts.