From heartland to hegemony: Changing the world in political Geography

The heartland theory in political geography is compared with recent uses of the hegemony concept to order international relations. Both sets of ideas are described in terms of the basic content of their models, the context in which they were created, and the political contest that they prioritize. It is found that both models represent academic attempts to advise the political elites of declining major powers on how to cope with a changing world. In the final section a synthesis of the models is presented.     

From new political organizations to changing moral geographies: Unpacking global civil society

The discourse of globalization suggests that territorial and cultural boundaries are increasingly insignificant or even disappearing in today's `world of flows'. More recently, this notion of borderlessness has also suffused broad reaches of the imagination of policy-makers and social scientists in the Western world. Thus, the term `global civil society' was coined to capture the experience and impact of transnational environmental and human rights activism. In this paper, however, it is argued that the concept remains both undertheorized and empirically dubious. In order to analytically `unpack' the concept, I provide a brief summary of an empirical research project on networks of new political organizations in South Asia and the West. The evidence assembled suggests the need to reconceptualize the geographies of transborder solidarity and concern beyond the rhetoric of global civil society.     

From catfish to organic fish: making distinctions about nature as cultural economic practice

This paper addresses the cultural economy of nature and the material culture of economic practice. Attending to ways that cultural notions about the biophysical world play key roles in political economic conflicts, discussion centers on two recent debates involving the cultural economy of seafood production and trade. The first debate is over whether the label “catfish” should include catfish imported from Vietnam into the United States; the second deals with whether fish and shellfish should be eligible to be certified “organic” under new US regulations. Analysis reveals that the key dynamic in these debates is not necessarily how people think about “nature”, but instead is how people make distinctions about the world. Rather than focusing on what is natural or not, key actors make distinctions among both organisms and environments. The ways that different groups define and enclose the biophysical world works to distinguish places as either appropriate or not for certain kinds of production activities. The overall argument is that significance and meaning of the biophysical become implicated in economic geographies by making distinctions about the world that then become important for how economic activity can work. As such, cultural economic approaches should attend to the ways that the biophysical is involved in relations such as competition and international trade, while nature-society approaches should shift focus from Nature to specific aspects of the biophysical world.     

From Kerala to Dubai and back again: Construction migrants and the global economic crisis

As a crisis that was precipitated in part by risky forms of investment in the built environment, construction workers, and particularly migrants employed in the industry have been at the forefront of job-losses worldwide since 2008. I offer a reading of construction unemployment through David Harvey’s theorisation of the secondary circuit of capital, arguing that these trends reflect the industry’s immanent connections to the built environment and to volatile, debt-fuelled urbanisation strategies which have played a crucial role in absorbing global capital surpluses in recent years. I ground this international perspective through a case study on the crisis experiences of a group of migrant construction workers from the south Indian state of Kerala who lost their jobs in Dubai in 2009. Based on interviews with migrants who returned home following the collapse of the emirate’s construction sector, I explore how a number of place-specific relationships that transect the Kerala–Dubai construction labour market served to compound these workers’ economic insecurity following the crisis. These include the immense migration debts that migrants shouldered, the insecure and exploitative character of employment in Dubai’s building trades, and the particular vulnerability of Dubai’s construction markets to the retreat of finance capital from the Gulf region in 2008. Workers’ accounts offer insights into the uneven and trans-local geometries of risk that define contemporary construction work in Dubai. More broadly, they provide a key perspective on the precarious producer geographies that underpin the secondary circuit of capital.     

Cultural political economy: On making the cultural turn without falling into soft economic sociology

This article explores the implications of making the cultural turn in the engagement of economic and political geography with issues of political economy. It seeks to steer a path between a fetishistic, reified economics that naturalizes economic categories and a soft economic sociology that focuses on the similarities between economic and other socio-cultural activities at the expense of the specificity of the economic. We show how combining critical semiotic analysis with an evolutionary and institutional approach to political economy offers one interesting way to achieve this goal. An evolutionary and institutional approach to semiosis enables us to recognize the semiotic dimensions of political economy at the same time as establishing how and why only some economic imaginaries among the many that circulate actually come to be selected and institutionalized; and Marxian political economy enables us to identify the contradictions and conflicts that make capital accumulation inherently improbable and crisis-prone, creating the space for economic imaginaries to play a role in stabilizing accumulation in specific spatio-temporal fixes and/or pointing the way forward from recurrent crises. The paper illustrates these arguments with a case study on the Flemish ‘anchoring strategy’ as a specific regional economic development strategy. It concludes with a set of guidelines for the further development of cultural political economy.     

从水体到沉积物:探寻有机质的沉积过程及其意义

自然界中有机质分布广泛、类型多样且性质各异,不论在水体还是在沉积物(岩)中都扮演着重要的角色。因此,探讨各类型有机质聚集和沉积过程的差异性,对深化认识有机质沉积特征和演化规律具有重要的意义。生物体在生长过程中产生了许多有机质,包括生物体自身、生物残体、动物排泄物以及生物分泌的有机分子等,各类型有机质的性质差异极大。由于研究方法的不同,可将海洋中有机质划分为颗粒有机质(particulate organic matter,POM)和溶解有机质(dissolved organic matter,DOM),而DOM又可划分为胶体有机质(colloidal organic matter,COM)和真溶解有机质;从聚合体形式上看,又有海雪和悬浮体等存在形式。进一步分析发现有机质的形态包括生物体、生物残体、排泄物和有机质聚合体等,并且各类型有机质与无机矿物以不同的形式共存。此外,DOM与POM间存在一定的转化关系。这些性质和特征架起了不同类型有机质间聚集和沉积的桥梁。在沉积物(岩)中通过粒度或密度分级分离及孢粉相分析,也发现不同类型的有机质,如生物体、生物残体和无定形等,它们常与特定的无机矿物共生,如无定形多富集在黏粒级颗粒中,而生物体和生物残体多富集在粗颗粒中。进一步溯源发现沉积物(岩)中的各类有机质与生物有机质或海洋中有机质的类型极具相似性,这些特征展现各类型有机质在沉积过程中的差异性。综合有机质的形态、性质以及与矿物共生关系,认为有机质可通过机械沉积、化学沉积和生物沉积等3种不同的方式沉积保存,其中机械沉积的有机质以惰性的生物残体为主,化学沉积的有机质以活性极强的无定形为主,生物沉积有机质以活性较强的微生物和粘附物为主。有机质沉积方式及有机质特征、矿物—有机质间关系和保存条件的差异,决定了有机质的演化命运的不同,进而对有机质生烃以及碳循环产生重要的影响,因而应引起人们的高度关注。     

Hydrothermal processes associated with meteorite impact structures: evidence from three Australian examples and implications for economic resources

Meteorite impacts cause conversion of kinetic energy into thermal energy. Part of this thermal energy is used to form a melt sheet, part is dissipated to heat the target rocks and these together with the hot rocks that elastically rebound from the depth of several kilometres (central uplift) activate hydrothermal circulation. Impact-generated hydrothermal systems have been documented from several impact structures world-wide. Three Australian examples—Shoemaker, Woodleigh and Yarrabubba—provide evidence of hydrothermal fluid flow both within and around the structures. Field observations, and petrographic and geochemical data suggest a common evolutionary trend of post-impact hydrothermal activity from early high-temperature alkali metasomatism to a later lower temperature H⁺ metasomatism, resulting in the overprinting by hydrous mineral assemblages. Hydrothermal systems activated by meteorite-impact events are important because they may also form economic mineral deposits, as is documented for several impact structures in the world. A working model of hydrothermal circulation in terrestrial impact structures posits two main stages: (i) initial high-temperature fluids percolate downward causing widespread alkali metasomatism of the shattered target rocks below the melt sheet, resulting in their modification to rocks of syenitic affinity; and (ii) inflow of meteoric water and progressive cooling of the melt sheet leads to a lower temperature stage, in which hydrothermal fluid flow tends to move upward, resulting in mineral assemblages and alteration patterns that resemble those of epithermal systems. In addition, these fluids can discharge at the surface as hot springs.     

Coalbed methane: From hazard to resource

Coalbed gas, which mainly consists of methane, has remained a major hazard affecting safety and productivity in underground coal mines for more than 100 years. Coalbed gas emissions have resulted in outbursts and explosions where ignited by open lights, smoking or improper use of black blasting powder, and machinery operations. Investigations of coal gas outbursts and explosions during the past century were aimed at predicting and preventing this mine hazard. During this time, gas emissions were diluted with ventilation by airways (e.g., tunnels, vertical and horizontal drillholes, shafts) and by drainage boreholes. The 1970's ‘energy crisis' led to studies of the feasibility of producing the gas for commercial use. Subsequent research on the origin, accumulation, distribution, availability, and recoverability has been pursued vigorously during the past two decades. Since the 1970's research investigations on the causes and effects of coal mine outbursts and gas emissions have led to major advances towards the recovery and development of coalbed methane for commercial use. Thus, coalbed methane as a mining hazard was harnessed as a conventional gas resource.     

成矿预测:从二维到三维

随着矿产资源勘探方法以及计算机科学技术的不断发展,成矿预测的理论和方法已从定性发展至定量,从二维拓展到三维。近十年来,随着深部矿产资源勘探工作的推进,三维成矿预测研究得到了迅猛发展,相关理论与方法也已逐步走向成熟。本文总结了国内外二维成矿预测研究的现状,同时对近十年来国内外学者在三维地质建模技术、三维成矿预测方法等方面的主要成果和进展做了系统总结和分析。目前,国内外多个地区已相继开展了三维成矿预测工作,并成功圈定多个深部找矿靶区,相关成果为深部找矿勘探工作提供了新的方法和方向。在此基础上,本文对未来三维成矿预测的发展趋势进行展望,相较于传统的二维成矿预测,三维成矿预测往往受限于三维预测信息的缺乏。如何更好的挖掘二维数据在深度方向的指示能力,将二维数据推演至三维环境,利用数值模拟、机器学习等方法开展数据挖掘、充分发挥已有数据的内蕴信息将在未来推动三维成矿预测理论的深入发展,提高三维成矿预测的理论方法及应用实践水平。     

I-Xe dating: From adolescence to maturity

The I-Xe chronometer is based upon decay of now-extinct ¹²⁹I where the ratio of accumulated daughter ¹²⁹Xe to stable ¹²⁷I reflects the iodine isotopic ratio at closure of the host mineral. Since none of the parent remains, I-Xe is by nature a relative chronometer but, when referenced by a standard mineral of known age, the I-Xe system becomes an absolute chronometer reflecting true closure times. Most iodine hosts are secondary minerals so the I-Xe system is unique in providing details of post-formational chronometry not readily available with other chronometers. The short half-life of ¹²⁹I gives it exceptional precision. However, the secondary nature of iodine host minerals, combined with the inherent precision of I-Xe, were responsible for a large database of “whole-rock” I-Xe ages that were not easily interpreted. As this problem evolved historically, doubts were cast upon the viability of the I-Xe system as a chronometer which persisted until it was tested against other chronometers in single-mineral systems. Properly calibrated, absolute I-Xe ages reflect the true closure time of the host minerals, and sequences of closure times in different hosts provide cooling rates for the parent object.     

Swiss and Alpine geologists between two tectonic revolutions. Part 2: From drifting continents towards plate tectonics

Following the major contributions of Wegener and Argand (Part 1), it was the work of synthesis carried out by R. Staub that represented the major contribution Alpine geology made with respect to that heritage. The research work of young scientists (Gagnebin, Juvet, Wavre, Leuba) who had been influenced by Argand was of lesser importance. Ampferer’s ground breaking contribution, coming along with illuminating graphic illustrations, was all but ignored. Although remaining fairly popular, the theory of continental drift found itself under the heavy fire of criticism from influential geologists in the USA and in Europe. In order to test the validity of the idea, C.E. Wegmann suggested linking geological field work with oceanographic research. He showed that the trajectories of drifting had to be conceived as following the small circles of the sphere. With regard to Alpine geologists of the time, they were renowned for the high quality of their geological mapping. This remained the very special activity in which they excelled, but they focused on topics that were becoming narrower and narrower, and increasingly specialised. The new avenues for research that Holmes and Hess opened up had but little impact on Alpine geologists. In fact, they apparently remained unaware of a note by Holmes written in German and published in a Swiss journal. On the eve of the Second World War, the meeting of the Geologische Vereinigung devoted to the origin of the Atlantic Ocean confirmed that continental drift was being seriously challenged, although a few papers pointed to new developments, e.g. that in Iceland extensional tectonics had been active for the last 5,000 years. Most Alpine geologists were either highly critical of the theory of plate tectonic when it arrived or expressed serious reservations towards the idea. Of the exceptions, first Laubscher and then Bernoulli showed very clearly how important the new theory could be for understanding the evolution of Alpine orogeny. Continental drift and plate tectonics were very much the product of the creative imagination of human minds. Whereas Wegener used a broad range of confirmed results, plate tectonics sprang out of the new research being carried out in the domain of oceans. Graphic illustration was one of the favourite vehicles used to put across these new perspectives. Sometimes their impact remained alive long after their author had withdrawn his backing for the idea (as was the case for Argand’s “embryonic tectonics”); sometimes, even in spite of their very high standard, they were just ignored (which was the case for Ampferer).     

古地磁:从地球到火星

古地磁学是一门典型的交叉学科,通过综合地质学、地球物理学、环境科学等学科相关方法,分析天然样品中记录的磁学信息,深入研究地磁场演化、地球动力学过程、古环境与古气候演化等.自20世纪中叶以来,古地磁学在各研究领域得到快速发展,通过进一步与其他学科交叉,衍生出诸多新兴方向.首先回顾了古地磁学的发展历史与基础研究领域.在此基础上,重点介绍了高精度卫星磁测与相关研究新领域、月球与火星磁学研究的新进展.同时,对古地磁学与高精度磁测等方法集成在地磁场演化、板块构造、深部结构、月球磁场演化、火星磁场及环境演化等方面的综合应用进行了讨论.最后,对古地磁学未来的潜在研究方向进行了展望.      

Professional women and the economic practices of success and survival before and after regime change: diverse economies and restructuring in the Russian Republic of Buryatia

Drawing from historical research, participant observation, and informal and formal interviews, we examine the economic experiences of professional Buryat and Russian women before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the Siberian Russian Republic of Buryatia. We use a diverse economies framework to theorize a broader understanding of the restructured economy and how women have sought to improve and maintain their lives by developing various practices in the workforce in both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods such as gaining more education, informal networks of exchanges and favors, urbanization, and, for Buryats, Russian language acquisition. We argue that women in the early 2000s continue to employ many of these practices regardless of their varying experiences and attitudes about the transition from socialism to a market economy.     

Reflections on Nigel Thrift's optimism: political strategies to implement his vision

This response to Nigel Thrift's recent paper (2002, Geoforum 33, 291–298) develops two of his points: the need for geography to remain buoyant within school curricula and a potential split of physical from human geography within the universities. I argue that political strategies are necessary for both if geography is to remain the large, intellectually vibrant discipline that Thrift identifies.     

Impediments to the management of shared aquifers: A political economy perspective

The reliance on aquifers which are shared by more than one country is increasing. Yet, shared aquifers are only rarely addressed in international treaties, despite the wide recognition of the desirability of comprehensive coordinated management. In order to identify the impediments to reaching agreements on the management of shared aquifers, and the factors that may assist in overcoming these impediments, the political economy of transboundary groundwater exploitation is outlined, and the Israeli-Palestinian case examined. It is argued that the main impediment to the conclusion of international agreements on groundwater is the array of domestic power structures, and particularly the power of small cohesive interest groups. The analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian 1995 interim agreement, and the negotiations leading to it, suggest that this impediment can be overcome, if the domestic interests are recognized in advance, and addressed in the agreement. It also shows that high level politics can play a positive role in forcing water negotiators to conclude an agreement.

The role of economic sectoral structure as a policy mechanism towards more resilient peripheral regions: the case of South Africa

The role of economic sectoral structure in regional growth and development is widely acknowledged. However, there has been scarce reflection on its role as a policy instrument, particularly for peripheral regions. In reaction, this paper investigates the role of economic sectoral structure as a policy instrument towards more resilient peripheral regions. Through a multiple country policy analysis, the paper determines to what degree economic sectoral structure is reflected in regional development policies of 18 countries with predominantly rural characteristics and lagging regions. Moreover, the role of economic sectoral structure towards more resilient regions is quantified and measured for a specific peripheral region case in South Africa as developing country exhibiting poor economic resilience. The paper highlights related variety as a key ingredient for a region to reach a state of dynamic stability between adaptation and adaptability towards enhanced long-term resilience capacity of the peripheral region. The research concludes that policy focus should support the maintenance of the sectors and industries of comparative advantage on the regional scale, but strongly focus on sectoral comparative advantage within the national scale (if present) to establish a more robust region. This will establish and strengthen the identified peripheral growth centres as centres of national competitiveness and specialisation. Primary policy actions as emanated from the literature and the multiple country policy analysis will promote more efficient sectoral composition as key towards more resilient peripheral regions. It is acknowledged that these policy actions must be informed by a detailed regional economic analysis for different peripheral regions to determine inherent and latent economic potential and link with interdependent industries. This paper will highlight that regional policy should become more explicit by exploiting the role of economic and natural resources as growth engines for the peripheral regional economy in a more effective way through a multi-centred territorial structure.