Mapping the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria using exploratory spatial data analysis

This paper examines the spatial variation of HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in Nigeria. It uses Exploratory Spatial Data Analytical (ESDA) techniques to provide insight into the pattern. The overriding objective is to determine if there is a significant spatial clustering of HIV/AIDS. The calculated and mapped Global and Local Moran’s I, and Getis and Ord G _i * values reveal certain states such as Benue, Nassarawa, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Cross River have significant spatial clusters of HIV/AIDS rates in Nigeria. The spatial analysis enables policy makers to identify states most affected, and design effective and culturally acceptable preventive measures. Specific policies targeted at states are a more appropriate approach in tackling the epidemic rather than the usual universal cookie-cut HIV reduction strategies that may not be applicable to the different cultural milieu.     

Imaginative geographies of gender and HIV/AIDS: moving beyond neoliberalism

This paper examines how neoliberal development discourse contributes to the production and maintenance of problematic gendered hierarchies and spaces. By interrogating the basic assumptions undergirding this discourse, this paper explores how neoliberalism produces spaces which normalise certain identities—especially those associated with individualism and economic rationality, and makes errant values such as communalism and altruism. Drawing on perspectives from feminist geographies, we argue that by normalising and privileging certain masculine identities, neoliberalism reinscribes and legitimizes gendered power relations that are counterproductive to addressing HIV/AIDS. The ‘ideal’ person fighting HIV/AIDS in the neoliberal framework is rational, competitive and self-interested, but these characteristics are complicit in worsening HIV prevalence and mobilize problematic gender roles and identities. Given the pervasiveness of this ideology in Malawi, we propose ways in which families, communities and institutions can challenge and reshape gender identities and potential solutions to HIV within this context.     

Warsaw under transformation: new tendencies in the housing market

The aim of this paper is to show how and in what sense the post-socialist transformation process has influenced the urban spatial structure of Warsaw with the help of empirical evidence dealing with housing. Therefore, the main focus of the study is the transformation of the housing market in the 1990s under social and economic restructuring process. The article comprises two parts: the first part involves the geographical development of the urban spatial structure within the context of housing market changes. In order to explain today's transformation, the system of socialist time is also discussed. In the second part emphasis is placed on the evidence of the transformation in urban space, dealing with new tendencies and challenging mechanisms in the housing market. The last period of transformation is also investigated in terms of changes in the urban space since housing is seen as an important factor of urban transformation. Hence, following the brief outline of historical development of the urban space housing market changes including the privatization of urban land is going to be the concern of the paper. The problems of the transformation and practical implementation of the privatization process are also discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Queens as Mothers: the role of the traditional safety net of care and support for HIV/AIDS orphans and vulnerable children in Ghana

The paper examines the significance of the traditional safety net to provide security and help to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). (Abbreviation OVC, as conceptualised by UNICEF (2001)). It questions the scenario of societal breakdown due to HIV/AIDS by asking how the traditional safety net operates, nature of solutions to the OVC problem it provides and its sustainability. No geographical region in Ghana has been so affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic than the Manya Krobo District in Ghana. While analysing the role of the work of the Manya Krobo Queen Mothers’ Association (QMA) and five private caregivers, the perceptions of three OVC are presented: on how it is to be an OVC, what their dreams and hopes are for the future, and their awareness of HIV/AIDS. It is observed that even though the QMA serves as a good role model for how to address the OVC problem, it has its limitations. The traditional extended family system is under pressure, but not about to break down. As the effectiveness of its support will depend on the contribution of the wider Ghanaian society, localised solutions have to be scaled up to make an impact. Thus, the breakdown scenario needs to be nuanced and contextualised. The vulnerability of the local place under study relates to unemployment and migration, economic poverty and social–cultural marginalisation. These factors are intertwined with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.     

Factors influencing willingness to comply with HIV/AIDS prevention measures by female college students in Kolkata,West Bengal,India

With a 2.4 million people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), India is among the countries in the world most vulnerable to the spread of HIV. This study focuses on understanding what makes female college students (ages 18–24) in Kolkata, India willing to comply with HIV/AIDS preventive measures; these students are widely believed to be at low risk of infection with HIV. Through a questionnaire survey, the data used in this study was collected from 232 female students attending five higher education institutes. Multiple regression analysis reveals that religion, household income, perception of whether preventive measures would hamper freedom, and respondents’ perception of the effectiveness of preventive measures all influence the students’ willingness to comply with preventive measures. Based on its findings, the study makes several recommendations to improve HIV/AIDS prevention in Kolkata and West Bengal, India.     

Forecasting the HIV epidemic in Finland by using functional small area units

The purpose of this study is to analyze the development of the HIV epidemic in Finland in 1983–1994, and to predict the spatial distribution of new cases through 1997. The analysis is based on seroepidemiological data of all reported HIV carriers and a number of explaining variables based on individual level register data. Instead of focusing on populations of carriers and susceptibles, emphasis is placed on identifying the primary influences directing the epidemic as a spatial process. This is done by dividing Finland into 62 functional small area units and by assigning the risk of obtaining the virus to each unit based on behavioral, socioeconomic, interaction, and structural characteristics of the population. The approach is a multistep procedure including multivariate regression analysis, the potential model, and time series analysis. The model was used to produce a three-year forecast of the distribution of new HIV carriers in Finland. Compared with earlier studies of similar nature based on the use of administrative regional units, in this paper the forecast distribution of HIV cases is more closely related to the functional structure of the spatial system in Finland. Such an approach offers a method for producing more reliable short-term forecasts of the spatial distribution of new HIV cases. Three different spatial diffusion patterns were identified.     

Business services and restructuring of urban space in Moscow

The locational pattern of business services in Moscow is analyzed in the context of established concepts of BS location in the largest cities of the world and existing views on urban change in transitional economies. The typically post-Soviet elements of this pattern are emphasized as well as the way they affect urban change generally. The empirical part of the paper comprises a detailed analysis of BS locations in Moscow and an attempt to explain the geography of business districts in a broad historical and political context. The theoretical discussion is focused on similarities and differences of BS spatial structures in Moscow with those of other world capitals.     

明清时期安徽省蝗灾时空演化、社会影响与响应*

自古以来,蝗灾与水灾、旱灾并称为中国农业社会的三大自然灾害。基于史料文献收集了明清时期安徽历史蝗灾记录,通过构建10 a尺度上的蝗灾频次序列和1 a尺度上的蝗灾县次序列,在县域尺度上绘制了蝗灾指数分布图,探讨了蝗灾演化时空动态过程。通过引入饥荒、米价以及疫灾序列分析了蝗灾对社会的影响以及古代社会对蝗灾的响应过程。结果表明: 明清时期安徽境内共发生181次蝗灾,每3.2次/10 a,累计653个受灾县次,平均3.6县/a;安徽地区发生了5次大蝗灾事件,这与同时期的干旱密切相关;安徽长江以北地区的蝗灾指数高于南部山区,地形、水旱灾害以及人类活动等因素是影响蝗灾指数分布差异的主要原因。蝗灾对社会产生了复杂深远的影响,是引发饥荒的重要因素,并间接导致瘟疫现象。蝗灾大范围出现后导致短期内米价暴涨,增加社会不稳定性。政府的捕蝗救灾的方式与能力直接影响群众的生存状况,是保障社会稳定的重要机制。综合看来,蝗灾会对农业子系统、经济子系统、社会子系统和技术子系统产生多重影响。     

Spatial change and economic organisation: The Tyneside coal industry (1751–1770)

Concepts of economic power and organisation are rarely considered by historical geographers in their attempts to explain change in space economies. In this paper an attempt is made to use these concepts to explain and understand the changing geography of the Tyneside coal industry from 1751 to 1770, a time when the industry was dominant nationally. At the beginning of the period the Tyneside industry was itself dominated by a monopolistic group, the Grand Allies, a dominance partly maintained through control over the use of land. Their dominance was broken by a combination of technological and economic developments as exploited by a competing group of capitalists based on the emerging banking system. The monopoly of the Grand Allies was broken but replaced, in a more developed form, by the Limitation of the Vend, and by 1770 the geographical and economic structure of the industry had changed dramatically. Underpinning this changing geography was the interaction of social and political structures, including the interdependence of enterprises with a developing political economy. It is in this interaction that the understanding of change in space economies must be sought.     

Exploring the spread of methamphetamine problems within California, 1980 to 2006

The introduction and spread of high potency methamphetamine has led to dramatic increases in drug-related problems in California. Prior research suggests that drug abuse rates are related to local demographic and economic characteristics, law enforcement activities, and sentencing practices. Methamphetamine abuse in particular has been shown to be reduced by laws regulating the raw materials needed for its production. This research models the regional effects of such laws on the spatio-temporal patterns of growth of methamphetamine-related problems across California from 1980 to 2006. Amphetamine-related arrests and hospital discharges related to amphetamine abuse/dependence were assembled for California counties over the years 1980–2006. Varying-parameter Bayesian space–time models were used to relate the implementation of major laws controlling the distribution of methamphetamine precursors to observed patterns of arrests and discharges and to allow such associations to vary by location. The models used conditionally autoregressive (CAR) Bayesian spatial priors to allow spatial correlation in estimation of county-specific growth in these measures over three distinct time periods: before the 1989 law, between the 1989 and 1997 laws, and after the 1997 law. Growth of arrests and discharges were related to demographic and economic indicators to determine geographic areas more or less susceptible to the spread of methamphetamine problems. Although both problem measures increased during all three periods, each of the precursor laws was associated with short-term reductions in the growth of arrests and discharges. Growth was greatest in central California counties prior to 1989 and increased in coastal counties in later years. From 1980 to 1989 growth was highest for counties with low incomes and high proportions of white residents, while 1989–1997 growth was highest in counties with fewer whites and more Hispanics. Growth after 1997 was not significantly associated with county characteristics. This research demonstrates that the precursor laws did suppress the growth of methamphetamine related arrests and hospital discharges. It also demonstrates specific geographic patterns in the growth of methamphetamine arrests and abuse across California during this time. Early patterns of growth were related to economic and demographic characteristics, while later patterns were not. This suggests that some counties were uniquely susceptible to the early spread of the methamphetamine epidemic, although problems eventually grew dramatically in all California counties.     

Socio-spatial differentiation and residential segregation in Delhi: a question of scale?

This paper focuses on the pattern of social-spatial differentiation and segmentation of the metropolitan area of Delhi. The main objective is to analyse the mechanisms of residential segregation and the factors that explain it both at the micro- and macro-level. In the context of the Indian society and its caste system traditionally associated with strong social and spatial segregation, we try to appraise the extent to which the metropolitanization process in Delhi engenders original forms of spatial segmentation or perpetuates and strengthens the traditional forms of socio-spatial divisions. At the level of the global spatial organization of the urban agglomeration, our objective is twofold: to analyse the factors that shaped the urban landscape and introduced spatial discontinuity, from physical barriers to the different historic periods and the impact of town planning; to analyse the residential pattern of different segments of the urban population, in order to detect whether certain economic and socio-cultural attributes generate a pattern of segregation. We then pursue a more detailed investigation at the level of a zone, based on the case study of Mayur Vihar-Trilokpuri in east Delhi. We analyse the residential practices developed by different socio-economic groups, their strategies as regards the occupation of the geographical and economic space, their tendency to residential clustering that leads to a pattern of social segregation at the level of the neighbourhood. In this perspective, the links between the urban policies at the macro-level and the individuals’ residential practices at the micro-level are also examined.     

The diffusion of ICT in France: infrastructures,services, and uses

How does the organization of space interfere in the numerical development of territories? Our hypothesis is that information and communication technologies (ICT) are organized by taking into account the existing spatial structures, compared to constraints of distance, spatial position and urban hierarchy. In the context of the liberalization of the sector of telecommunications, ICT spread according to an economic logic of profitability. The concern of network operators collides with the principle of territorial equity in planning policies. To understand the diffusion of ICT in France, a cartographic analysis of their distribution is proposed. It derives from the notion of networks at three levels: infrastructures, services and uses. The research takes into account the difference between regional configurations to identify the spatial factors of the digital divide. For each level, the diffusion of ICT follows a different logic, and characterizes territories with different orientations. Areas with a high density of population and activities are quickly equipped. The democratization of the use of the Internet, notably with the diffusion of public access to the Internet, is present to a greater degree in low-density areas.     

Regional investment effectiveness and development levels in China

For centuries, it has been taken for granted that social and economic development in China has an east-west spread, or from the coast to the interior. Even though a tremendous effort was made by the socialist government for thirty years (1949-1978) on rectifying this unhealthy imbalance, most people hold the belief that the spatial patterns of China's development remain the same as they were forty years ago. This deep-rooted concept plays an important role in shaping China's present economic development strategies. Thus, an evaluation of the impact of the goverment's regional balance effort remains critical. Understanding the changes and patterns of China's regional development is central to formulating appropriate policies for future planning. In this paper an overview of regional development is presented from the perspective of history. Regression between the total fixed capital investment and the combined industrial and agricultural output is analyzed, and an effort is made to find out the spatial distribution of regional investment effectiveness. A factor analysis based on twenty socio-economic variables revealed that apart from the traditional E-W regional disparity, the modern socialist dispersal policy has also affected the regional development in China. Though the historical economic factors unbalanced the development from E to W, the economic pratice advocated by Socialist China has reversed the tendency to some extent. A cluster analysis of 21 provinces, five autonomous administrative regions, and three municipalities identified new spatial patterns, and the result strengthened the finding that the effort of regional balance in the period of 1949–1978 is still at work.     

Political ecology and development: Intersections, explorations and challenges arising from the work of Piers Blaikie

While most contributions to this collection focus centrally on political ecology (PE), this paper approaches the work of Piers Blaikie through a somewhat different lens, situating his political ecological contributions within the broader context of his engagement with related themes in development studies. I trace and discuss his work in approximately chronological terms, from the spatial organization of North Indian villages through the political economy of agrarian change and of peripheral capitalist (under-)development in Nepal to political ecology, pathbreaking work on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Uganda, more general disaster vulnerability and recoverabililty, and a survey of post-structural challenges in development theory. Not only does this approach provide a distinctive view of Blaikie’s evolving concerns over the course of his career and thematic connections between them, but it also reflects my personal experience of his work and its influence. This foundation then enables an exploration of several issues about current directions in, and possible future extensions of, PE which should help to ensure that PE does not, as some critics claim, have only limited remaining shelf-life.     

苏南地区城乡聚落空间演化过程及其格局特征

当前,城乡聚落空间正由自然和经济社会条件存在差异的等级体系转变为密切联系的网络化结构,城乡融合已经成为中国城乡聚落空间演化发展的重要方向。以苏南地区为例,对20世纪90年代以来的城乡聚落空间演化过程及其格局特征进行分析,发现2000年以后城镇聚落扩张强度远高于乡村聚落,城乡聚落空间结构可进一步归纳为集中、双心、多核和密集4种基本格局。该研究对乡村振兴背景下的城乡聚落空间优化布局具有一定指导作用。     

Poverty and HIV prevalence in Ghana: a geographical perspective

There is a widespread belief that poverty leads to the spread of HIV/AIDS. However, intra-country comparisons of the phenomenon have been limited. This study seeks to fill this gap by examining the relationship between poverty and HIV prevalence amongst the 10 administrative regions of Ghana. Based on the available data for poverty and HIV, certain distinct patterns emerge. For example, poverty levels are the highest in the three northern regions (Upper East, Upper West and Northern region) even though their HIV prevalence is one of the lowest. It clearly follows that there are more complex forces at work than just the effects of poverty alone. To unravel some of these puzzles, the paper proposes a key role for culture, globalization and geographical accessibility. In addition, it is suggested that local level studies in a multivariate framework have much to contribute to the identification and quantification of relevant relationships.     

Community capacity amongst people living with HIV/AIDS

Mobilisation of people living with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s was tied to social identity and the public rendering of AIDS as a gay disease. This activism has continued in large cities alongside new streams of mobilization addressing the needs of groups such as women and Aboriginal peoples living with HIV. We draw on interviews conducted with six people living with HIV/AIDS in a small Ontario city where the population does not allow for services tailored to specific groups. We investigate experiences of social engagement amongst people living with, and affected by, HIV/AIDS and examine why efforts to establish a community-based participatory research project was unsuccessful. Drawing from indicators of community capacity developed by Jackson et al. (Health Promot Int 18(4): 339–350, 2003) we identify the role of stigma both amongst different groups living with HIV/AIDS and the wider public as undermining a common sense of community and, potentially, our efforts to establish a community-based participatory research process.     

SARS in Singapore—challenges of a global health threat to local institutions

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) has been declared by WHO (World Health Organisation) as a global health threat. Within a period of four to five months in 2003, the disease infected some 8,000 people in more than 25 countries and left 774 dead. The many studies that have been done on the spread of SARS in Asia as well as countries as far flung as Germany and Canada have focused on the global dimension of the infectious disease as well as the speed of its spread upon emergence in southern China and then Hong Kong. Less attention has been paid to its spatial distribution at the national and local scales. This discussion focuses on the spread of SARS at the national and local spatial scales. In the process, the study presents the management of a hazard, in this case, an emerging infectious disease by national health care institutions such as the hospitals that ultimately proved to have been wholly unprepared for coping with at least the health aspects of the outcome of a globalised national agenda for growth and economic progress.     

Anglo American media representations, traditional medicine, and HIV/AIDS in South Africa: from muti killings to garlic cures

Before 2000 limited media coverage of medicine in South Africa existed, yet much of what did exist centered primarily on traditional healing practices. It was not until the introduction of HIV/AIDS that traditional medicine was seen as having some potential value to the population, but only so far as the ability of traditional healers to direct patients to biomedical treatment. This article examines how the contemporary western media portrays medicine in South Africa and how the introduction of HIV/AIDS as a major news story has shifted the depiction of western and traditional medical treatment. Insights from these questions are examined in light of the colonial context of South Africa’s political struggle over medicine.