Using Qualitative Methods in Medical Geography: Deconstructive Moments in a Subdiscipline?

As medical geography reinvents itself as health geography, the linkages between social theory and the deconstruction of central categories organizing its medical orientation are being explored. This paper discusses the contribution of qualitative research to this process. In providing access to alternative ways of understanding health concerns, and emphasizing issues of power in the production of knowledge, qualitative methodology carries the potential for reconceptualizing key issues framing investigation of the relationships between place, people, and their health. In pursuing current issues in social theory, qualitative research also contributes to the blurring of the subdiscipline's boundaries and revitalizes its agenda.     

Environmental geography in China: retrospect and prospect

1FromchemicalgeographytoenvironmentalgeographyThe growth of environmental geography in China can be traced back to the early 1960s when a group of geographers and soil scientists initiated a chemical geography program in China following the speciality created by Russian geographers. The main fields of studies conducted during the mid-1950s to the early 1970s involved aquatic, terrestrial and atmospheric chemistry of major elements, which focused on geochemical taxonomy of inorganic elements i…     

Postindustrial Manufacturing in a Sunbelt Metropolis: Where Are Factories Located in Phoenix?

Manufacturing establishments are integral to the spatial structure of fast-growing Sunbelt metropolitan areas, but most concepts and theories of intrametropolitan location were largely developed for an earlier technological era and different spatial contexts. This article investigates the location of nine disaggregated manufacturing sectors in Phoenix, Arizona, showing varying degrees of central core concentration and metropolitan-wide clustering. Distinct sectoral co-location patterns are also evident. We interpret our results as evidence that the intrametropolitan location of postindustrial manufacturing is best understood as a series of spatial distributions with varying concentration, centralization, clustering, and other order-based characteristics. There is little evidence that randomly scattered discrete industrial zones have developed nor that spatial patterns are uniform. Enduring lock-in effects tied to transportation infrastructure are pivotal to understanding the locational distribution of manufacturing industries in metropolitan Phoenix. Results do not support a hypothesis that a positive relationship exists between establishment size and distance from sectoral mean centers.     

Ingress in Geography: Portals to Academic Success?

Niantic Labs has developed an augmented virtual reality mobile app game called Ingress in which agents must seek out and control locations for their designated factions. The app uses the Google Maps interface along with GPS to enhance a geocaching-like experience with elements of other classical games such as capture-the-flag. This study aims to assess the effect Ingress can have on introductory to physical geography students. These goals include: whether the students can acquire greater geographical interest through Ingress, garner a sense of community, and whether students exhibit improved exam scores in the classroom.     

Bio-gentrification: vulnerability bio-value chains in gentrifying neighbourhoods†

In this paper, I develop the concept of “bio-gentrification” as a way to broaden critical theoretical debates on the relationship between gentrification and “social mixing” policies. Bio-gentrification weds urban Marxist political economic insights to the neo-Foucauldian notion of biopower. The former stresses spatial tactics of removal and displacement and value generated through land and property. The latter assesses a wider terrain of spatial tactics, their relationship to knowledge produced about humans as living beings, and their alignment with capitalist urbanization. The Vancouver example illuminates how social mixing “truths” and practices to which they are tied generate value by naturalizing human insecurity in situ and transforming the biological existence of disadvantaged peoples into raw material for profit through a process that can be conceptualized as a “vulnerability bio-value chain.” Bio-gentrification refers to the tension between removal and embedding of disadvantaged peoples and points to the need for a bio-gentrification politics to confront this dynamic.     

Indians in England: why did they emigrate?

The period of highest migration from India to England was 1955-1975. In 1981, the Bradford metropolitan district had about 13,000 Indians. 46% were Punjabis and 43.3% were from Gujarat. Using a 10% sample of Indian households in the Bradford district in 1984 and secondary information, this study examines the impact of the following reasons on decision to migrate: 1) push factors in the area of origin, 2) the 1947 partition of India, 3) strong economic attraction of the destination, and 4) "cultural ethos" and "status competition" among the migrant communities in the areas of emigration. Findings show that 1) Punjab and Gujarat do not have high poverty levels nor very high population densities; 2) the partition of India did not influence migration decisions; 3) the economic well-being of returning migrants and the high conversion rate of English currency did attract migrants to England (39% of surveyed migrants emigrated to England for purely economic reasons); and 4) 60% of the Punjabis and over 50% of the Gujaratis state that local status competition had a significant influence on their decisions to migrate. Thus, the economic attraction of England and the status competition among local families and the community were the dominant factors in migration decision making.     

Reconsidering neoliberal urban planning in times of crisis: urban regeneration policy in a “dense” space in Lisbon

In this article, I contribute to recent debates about the concept of neoliberalism and its use as an explanatory concept, through the analysis of urban planning and regeneration policy in Lisbon amidst crisis and austerity. Suggesting a look at neoliberalization from a threefold perspective—the project, governmentalities, and policymaking—I analyze how current austerity-policy responses to the European economic crisis can be understood as a renewed and coherent deployment of neoliberal stances. The article presents implications for urban planning in Lisbon and thus suggests an exploration of the negotiations and clashes of hegemonic neoliberal governmentalities and policies with the local social and spatial fabric. For this exploration, I select a “deviant” case—the Mouraria neighborhood, a “dense” space in which the consequences of policies diverge sharply from expectations. In conclusion, I suggest that neoliberalization (in times of crisis) should be understood as a coherent project compromised by a set of highly ambiguous governmentalities, which bring about contradictory policymaking at the local level.     

Working in a Landscape of Recession and Expansion: Academic Jobs in Geography in the United States, 1990–2011

The recent economic recession brought much university hiring to a standstill in the United States. Geography, in spite of strong prerecession growth, was no exception. Without a sense of how the academic geography job market has changed over the past decades, however, it is difficult to assess any recession-related decline or the relative strength of any recovery. This article presents an analysis of academic job postings in the field of geography from 1990 through 2011. Using data aggregated from the AAG Newsletter, which acts as an informal clearinghouse for most academic openings for geographers at four-year colleges and universities in the United States, we assess changes in the overall magnitude in numbers of academic job openings, with the particular goal of placing the recession-based paucity of openings within its broader historical context. Our results indicate that, indeed, the recession led to a very sharp decline in advertisements, but compared to previous recessions, the recovery appears to have occurred very quickly. Open-rank and temporary/non-tenure-track positions appear to have been fairly robust to the poor economic conditions, whereas assistant professor openings were particularly hard hit.     

A Geosystem Perspective in Landscape Archaeology Studies: Ancestors' Occupations in Ilhéus,Brazil

Past occupations in the Brazilian geographic area showed experiences of particular relations with natural resources. In this sense, landscape archaeology attempts to have a better understanding of the lifestyle of ancestral populations by analyzing archaeological traces. The study approach that translates the natural systems and their relations with the anthropic systems is known as geosystem theory, which helps landscape archaeology in patterns of past occurrences resulting from environmental characteristics. The objective of this study was to show the geosystem landscapes of Ilhéus, in Bahia, Brazil, that defined land occupation since the precolonial period in Brazil. Four geosystems have been identified; they defined how precolonial groups lived in the area and favored colony growth starting in the nineteenth century with local sugarcane production in sugarcane mills. Key Words: geoarchaeology, GIS, natural systems, northeastern Brazil.     

UV-B radiation: a health risk in the Arctic?

Seasonal stratospheric ozone depletion in the Arctic has raised the question of whether the associated increases in ultraviolet-B (290-320 nm) constitute a significant health risk in Arctic populations. Increases in skin cancer in Europe and the USA from excess UV-B resulting from ozone depletion have been predicted. Skin cancer is, however, rare in Inuit populations.
UV-B also causes a selective down regulation of the immune system which may be a natural regulatory mechanism evolved to prevent autoimmune attack on sunlight-altered skin. The action spectrum for UV-B immunosuppression implicated a unique skin photoreceptor molecule, urocanic acid (UCA), which isomerizes from the trans to the cis isomer on exposure to UV-B, the cis isomer being immunosuppressive. This form of immunosuppression is important in skin cancer and possibly in infectious diseases.
The epidemiology of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma shows a relationship with UV exposure, postulated to be via the immunosuppressive effects of UV-B. Cancers which show an excess in Inuit populations include nasopharyngeal and salivary gland cancer. Genetic factors appear to be involved, but these are thought to be virally related cancers possibly associated with the high viral load in these populations. In several studies on non-Arctic populations, salivary gland cancer has been linked to ultraviolet exposure. A potential role for UV-B exposure in these cancers in the Arctic needs to be explored.
In view of the high levels of POPS in some Arctic regions, potential interactions between the immunosuppression caused by some of these pollutants and the effects of UV-B need to be investigated.     

A pedodiversity pattern: taxonomically established soil orders in China

1GeneralsituationofstudyChina is one of the oldest civilized countries in the world. Human activities and the practice of agriculture date back nearly 10 thousands years when people began gaining an understanding and knowledge about soils. Records of these activities can be found in ancient or current Chinese references (Gong etal., 1999), and in non-Chinese literatures like those in English and Russian (Thorp, 1936; Kovda, 1960; Needham, 1986; Li and Cao, 1990; Gong etal., 2003). Soil cl…     

Fiscal geographies: “Placing” taxation in urban geography

As the state’s primary means of both redistributing wealth and incentivizing private investment, tax plays an outsized role in a range of critical urban processes, including (re)development, gentrification, financialization, and local and regional governance. We argue, through reference to existing literature in urban and economic geography, as well as our own research on taxation and the state, that urban scholarship could benefit by close and careful engagement with taxation and the tax system. We term this new vein of research “fiscal geographies” and see it as offering potential for more nuanced study of urban political economy, politics, and processes.     

Land use change in Bohai Rim: a spatial-temporal analysis

Land use change is one of the important aspects of global change[1-3]. The Bohai Rim is a hot spot of economic development in China, where land use changes remarkably. Analyzing land use change in this area is significant to the research of global change and regional sustainable land use. Although there has been much work undertaken on regional land use change in China, it was mainly on urban land use change[4-11], and few researches integrated remote sensing and GIS method. Based on data f…     

A Review of: “Loose Space: Possibility and Diversity in Urban Life”

Basso, Keith H. Wisdom Sits in Places: Language and Landscape among the Western Apache

Foote, Kenneth E. Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy

Harries, Keith and Cheatwood, Derral The Geography of Execution: The Capital Punishment Quagmire in America

Larkham, Peter J. Conservation and the City

James, Preston E. and Martin, Geoffrey J. All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas

Meir, Avinoam As Nomadism Ends: The Israeli Bedouin of the Negev

Ruddick, Susan M. Young and Homeless in Hollywood: Mapping Social Identities

Smith, Neil The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City     

Preferential treatment in a transition economy: the case of state‐owned enterprises in the textile and garment industry in Vietnam

The article examines the role and contribution of preferential treatment of state enterprises to growth in the textile and garment industry. State enterprises are still the largest single sector in the textile and garment industry in Vietnam, but are losing market shares to private Vietnamese enterprises and foreign‐owned enterprises despite the benefits that they enjoy. However, in the present context of economic transition and keen competition in the global market, well‐managed state enterprises are attractive to foreign buyers of their products and have a role to play in market access abroad. This contrasts with the neoliberal notion that privatization is essential to competitiveness in the global market.     

Trouble in paradise: resilience and Vancouver’s second life in the “new economy”

Resilience is an increasingly important concept within urban studies, economic geography, and evolutionary economics for measuring the capacity of city-regions to respond to economic shocks. In this article, we provide a sympathetic critique of the resilience metaphor in urban studies, which we explicate through an analysis of the recent history of the Vancouver economy. On the surface, Vancouver seemingly showed resilience when it overcame the abrupt decline of its resource-based economy in the 1980s, and established an alternative flourishing “new economy” by the 1990s. But over the last five years, the key local “creative” industries such as video game development and film production have suffered, with a number of large firms leaving Vancouver, and industry employment declining sharply. Drawing on more than 40 interviews conducted over a five-year period with members of the local video game community, our paper documents the rise and more recent decline of Vancouver’s “new economy” sector. Our research raises questions about the value of the resilience metaphor in urban studies and highlights the difficulties facing city-regions reliant on highly mobile “new economy” industries.     

Estimating Population Attribute Values in a Table: “Get Me Started in” Iterative Proportional Fitting

Iterative proportional fitting (IPF) is a technique that can be used to adjust a distribution reported in one data set by totals reported in others. IPF is used to revise tables of data where the information is incomplete, inaccurate, outdated, or a sample. Although widely applied, the IPF methodology is rarely presented in a way that is accessible to nonexpert users. This article fills that gap through discussion of how to operationalize the method and argues that IPF is an accessible and transparent tool that can be applied to a range of data situations in population geography and demography. It offers three case study examples where IPF has been applied to geographical data problems; the data and algorithms are made available to users as supplementary material.