Canadian Inuit,digital Qanuqtuurunnarniq,and emerging geographic imaginations

Using the Canadian Arctic as a case study this paper explores how Internet-based research can be used to advance area studies in an era of rapid global change. Regions of the world are rapidly changing due to social, technological, and environmental processes, and traditionally marginalized groups are increasingly using digital tools to help shape new geographical imaginations of these regions. Digital research is uniquely capable of analyzing these political uses of digital technologies, to produce a better understanding of how many different stakeholders are shaping emerging geographical imaginations. The Canadian Arctic offers a particularly powerful case study to understand these processes both because it represents a geographic region that is complex, multi-scalar, and rapidly evolving, and also because it is a region in which traditionally marginalized indigenous groups are using the Internet to increase the visibility of their perspectives. This paper develops an innovative methodology, combining computational analysis of ‘big data’ along with traditional forms of qualitative analysis, to analyze representations of the Arctic across the websites of five different organizations. These organizational websites were chosen because each of the organizations has a different relationship to the Arctic, operates at a different geographic scale, has some relevance to areas of the Canadian Arctic in which Inuit live, and has a large website. The analysis successfully reveals how these different organizations use the web to shape different types of geographic imaginations of the Arctic, as well as the types of discursive politics being used by the organizations to push forward their own political goals. The result is a powerful form of area studies capable of highlighting the geographic imaginations and re-imaginations of a complex set of actors operating at many different scales.     

Territorial embeddedness of natural resource management: A perspective through the implementation of Industrial Ecology

We address the territorial embeddedness of resource management: the way in which resource management is shaped by the territorial context in which it occurs, as well as the way in which resource management contributes to shape new territories. We demonstrate that Industrial Ecology (IE), as a specific resource management approach, can be used to gain new perspectives on territorial patterns emerging with resource optimization. First, we lay down a theoretical framework that should underlie the use of territory as a concept, building bridges between geography and IE. Then, drawing upon this theoretical framework, we develop a methodological structure that can lead to and manifest the process of territorial construction at work in IE. We test the knowledge production capacity of this theoretical and methodological approach to territory in IE by applying it to a specific case study in the Aix-Marseille Provence metropolitan area (France). This paper thus enhances knowledge about the territorialization process at work in IE, by identifying different IE territories within the same geographic area and positioning local stakeholders, understood as local inhabitants, with respect to territorial interfaces. Finally, we discuss how IE, as a specific resource management approach, questions the different aspects of the connection between people and geographical places in a natural management context.     

A matter of terminology — the ecological approach in geography: a re-examination of basic concepts

Ecology is receiving increased attention as a research focus for geography and other academic disciplines. A consideration of basic concepts and the relationship of such ideas to the organizing frameworks of individual disciplines is needed to define the position of ecology as a substantive field or methodological approach. Geographers are concerned with the identification and explanation of the spatial patterning of earth phenomena. The ecosystem concept, with an emphasis on structure, networks of interaction, and function, is quite useful for conducting such geographical investigations. It acquires enhanced value within the subfields of geography by refining the approach through topical foci. Cultural ecology is one example; in this case a system is studied in terms of how its various cultural and biophysical components relate to a cultural characteristic (s) selected as the focus of investigation. Ecology is thus viewed as a methodological approach with significant applications for geographic research.     

Urban tree planting programs, function or fashion? Los Angeles and urban tree planting campaigns

Tree planting programs are being implemented in many US cities (most notably New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago) on the basis of the multiple environmental and health benefits they may provide. However, the magnitude and even the direction of the impacts of trees on specific urban environments have seldom been directly measured. In addition, there has been little research on the historical, cultural, political or institutional origins of such programs, or on their implementation process. Pending questions include the degree to which these programs are integrated in the existing frameworks of city government and infrastructure management, how they are paid for, and the kinds of collaborations between nonprofit organizations, the public, and public agencies at all levels they may require in order to succeed. This paper reports on an interdisciplinary research project examining the Million Tree Program of the City of Los Angeles.     

A social justice framing of climate change discourse and policy: Adaptation,resilience and vulnerability in a Jamaican agricultural landscape

It is now widely recognized that climate change is likely to have detrimental impacts across the Caribbean region, with the burden likely to fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable segments of society. It is therefore an appropriate time to ask whether the frameworks that lie behind climate change discourse and policy are consistent with the demands of social and environmental justice. In this paper, we use climate justice as a lens for evaluating three prominent frameworks for addressing climate change, those of adaptation, resilience, and vulnerability. Each of these discursive frameworks, we argue, can contribute to our understanding of climate change, but they do not all incorporate justice concerns to the same degree. In order to illustrate this, we examine the justice implications of using each of the three frameworks to assess a case study of agricultural transformation in Southwestern Jamaica. Farmers in this region have adapted to changing climate conditions in a variety of ways, including the use of new agricultural technology. The ability of many farmers to take advantage of such innovations, however, is constrained by the underlying landscape of vulnerability within the region. After interpreting this example from the perspectives of adaptation, resilience and vulnerability, we conclude that all three paradigms are capable of calling attention to climate justice issues, but only in the vulnerability perspective are such issues intrinsic. We believe, therefore, that a greater attention to vulnerability within Caribbean climate policy holds the potential to advance the goals of climate justice within the region.     

Comparison and good regional equilibrium with a special look at Iran: empirical experiences

The shift to building capacity and the loss of regional equilibrium may undermine service delivery and create a hardness issue for governmental and non-governmental organizations. Different countries follow different frameworks for regional equilibrium to evaluate the results of their actions. To achieve good regional equilibrium, we have performed a comparative analysis between the 10 existing frameworks and put 5 main criteria along with 60 sub-criteria in a checklist. We examined the method of measuring these components with the help of various indicators and to distribute weight between these indicators, we consulted experts. Finally, Iran is discussed with examples of direct indicators that may be used to measure the sub-criteria of each specific criterion. The quantification process is also shown by several specific representative indicators. For example, Mobile phones to the population, general practitioners per population, health and social employees to the population. Researchers, policy-makers, decision-makers, and decision takers, are those who can use the method studied in this study to assess the level of regional equilibrium in their country specifically and according to the environmental conditions and the current situation in the region.

     

Reconceptualizing the role of the user of spatial data infrastructure

Spatial data infrastructures, which are Internet-based mechanisms for the coordinated production, discovery, and use of geospatial information in the digital environment, have diffused worldwide in the last two decades. Currently, there are about one hundred spatial data infrastructures at the national level and many other at supra- and sub-national levels. These contemporary spatial data infrastructures operate with two main assumptions: formal organizations are the producers and suppliers of geospatial information; users are the passive recipients of information. The recent phenomenon of volunteered geographic information departs from these assumptions. In this paper, we argue that reconceptualizing the user of a spatial data infrastructure can accommodate this new phenomenon. Such a reconceptualization creates a middle ground between spatial data infrastructure and volunteered geographic information, which has important implications for future research.     

空间数据：性质、影响和分析方法

20世纪90年代以来,以信息技术为主要标志的科学进步日新月异,正深刻地改变着人类社会的生产和生活方式。人类活动所涉及的信息80％以上属空间信息,可由地理坐标确定其空间区位,美国已将发展空间信息科学视为提升其国家竞争力水平的重要途径之一。2000年美国国家地理信息与分析中心（Nat ionalCenterforGeo graphicInformat ionandAnalysis,NCGIA）在其跨世纪的研究规划中提出了发展地理信息科学的Varenius计划。Varenius计划要求研究空间信息的不确定性理论,并开发处理这种不确定性的空间数据分析技术。鉴于空间数据的两维多方向性,空间数据所包含的误差远比单一方向性的时间序列数据来得复杂。最近发展起来的空间统计学和空间计量经济学不仅解决了标准统计方法在处理空间数据时的失误问题,更重要的是为测量这种空间联系及其性质、并在建模时明确地引入空间联系变量以估算与检验其贡献提供了全新的手段。基于美国地理信息科学的发展动态,重点阐释空间统计学和空间计量经济学的理论基础,包括空间数据的性质、空间信息的误差理论、空间数据分析的类型和内容。     

Documentary proxies and interdisciplinary research on historic geomorphologic hazards: a discussion of the current state from a central European perspective

During the last two decades, documentary data (written and iconographic sources) have been increasingly employed in geomorphologic research aiming at reconstruction of territorial distribution, temporal occurrence and social and economic impacts of various geomorphologic hazards. The goal of this paper is to broaden the previous discussion (Glade et al. The use of historical data in natural hazard assessments. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2001) of the methodological constraints on the use of documentary data for geomorphologic hazard research. Using the interdisciplinary approach of geomorphology, historiography and medial studies, we firstly summarise the major finding of papers that have employed various types of documentary data sources to study geomorphologic hazards in different regions. In the second section, we present case studies from the Czech Republic resulting from the ongoing research project that is devoted to the assessment of the potential of documentary data to reconstruct past occurrences of and mitigation strategies for geomorphologic hazards. Finally, we discuss three main methodological issues emerging from our research: (a) problems emerging from the positivist approach to documentary data sources and the necessity for critical analyses of documentary data sources based on modern historiographic approaches, (b) constraints arising from the combination of documentary data from different spatiotemporal scales and (c) lacks in the use of documentary data to study local-based adaptation strategies to cope with geomorphologic hazards.     

Rethinking the relationships of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation from a disaster risk perspective

Vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation are three fundamentally inter-related concepts among such research communities as global environmental/climatic change, social–ecological and disaster risk science. However, their mutual relationships are still unclear so far particularly in the field of disaster risk reduction, which to some extent blocks the reasonable risk analysis and scientific decision making. This paper performed a brief overview on the basic definitions and evolution processes of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation, and tentatively categorized past diverse thoughts of their relationships into three modalities, such as, vulnerability preference, resilience preference, and overlapped relationships. From a “hit-damage-recovery-learning cycle” insight and based on an empirical case study, we put forward two conceptual frameworks to address the relationships of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation within the disaster risk domain, and we further discussed their broader implications in terms of disaster risk management and social–ecological sustainability. In an attempt to bring together the analytical frameworks of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation, this study indicates that a sustainable adaptation strategy to the unavoidable disasters or changes should not only seek to reduce the vulnerability of a social–ecological system, but also to foster its resilience and adaptive capacity to future uncertainties and potential risks.     

Cluster considerations and Korean subsidiaries in the US

This paper is an effort to address some of the main considerations pertaining to foreign firm activity in clusters and the use of Porter’s clusters in geographic research. Three methodological questions related to the behavior of firms in and outside of Porter’s clusters are explored based on results generated from a survey of Korean subsidiaries in the US. Results indicate that firms within and outside of clusters do exhibit differences vis-à-vis their levels of autonomy from their HQ firms. No differences were found across firms located outside of clusters. Subsidiaries in clusters report much lower levels of autonomy in planning and inventory control, and higher levels of autonomy for information sharing and cost control. The hiring practices of subsidiaries in the US suggest that Korean firms are concentrating on hiring qualified managers from US competitors and US firms with which they had a previous relationship. In stark contrast to hiring practices in Korea, subsidiaries are not hiring significant numbers of managers with advanced degrees from universities or from the government.     

Supporting youth-led community geography on the impacts of neighbourhood social infrastructure on young people’s lives: a case study from East Scarborough,Canada

This paper is a reflection on 3 years of youth engagement in neighbourhood-based geographic research on the state of social infrastructure in East Scarborough, Toronto, Canada. It revolves around the evolution of LIFT, a youth-led advocacy group with the mandate to engage youth in community-based research to identify gaps in resources and inform local organizations about youth priorities. Using critical reflection as research method, we explore how community geography can be a responsive approach to the needs of youth to analyze their lived experience and collect data to influence decision-making in their communities. We articulate a series of propositions and core assumptions to inform a non-adultist, youth-focused community geography, highlight the ethical dimensions of this work, as well as discuss the often-complicated institutional and interpersonal dynamics that shape the success and sustainability of youth-led community geography.

     

On geography as science

The paper attempts a preliminary exploration of some of the issues raised if we choose to account geography a “science”. The inherent equivocation of the notion of “science” is first examined, and the methodological implications are emphasised, leading into a brief consideration of inductivism and deductivism; it is concluded that deductivism, despite some valid questions which hang over it, represents the more secure methodological framework, and some of the implications of this conclusion for geographical study in general are explored. The importance of deductivism in physical geography is then considered, and the special problems of human geography are also examined, notably the significance of human volition and of value judgments in social, economic and cultural geography. The methodological implications of human perception are also reviewed. Regional geography is then briefly evaluated, and the possibilities of applying techniques of systems analysis to its problems are developed, viewing these techniques as a special phase of scientific method. Some issues relating to the notion of causality are then raised, with special reference to the crucial distinctions between the notion of causality in natural science and the related concept in historical study, and, by extension, in certain aspects of geography also. The paper concludes with a brief evaluation of the quantitative movement in geography, paying particular attention to the role of mathematics in science in general and in geography in particular.     

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.     

大规模高性能地球系统建模及模拟集成框架的研究

完整的地球系统包含大量的物理元素,这些元素相互作用影响,导致我们整个地球不断变化,甚至会产生地球灾害。高性能计算机的出现为这个复杂系统的研究开辟了新的道路——高性能计算模拟。文中详细介绍并分析了地球系统建模及模拟研究从最初单个物理模型的模拟到多个物理模型紧耦合模拟,再到软件框架集成模拟这一整个发展历程。重点介绍了三个由美国多个研究团队开发的建模框架:日地系统建模框架(SWMF),地表系统建模框架(ESMF),固体地球系统建模框架(GeoFramework)。然而这些基于特殊领域的框架仍存在一些缺陷,尤其是三个框架中的物理模型无法互操作,无法集成,从而无法实现从太阳到地核这一跨越整个地球空间的完整地球系统的建模及模拟。为了解决这些问题,文中提出了采用近年来新提出的适用于大规模高性能科学计算的标准组件规范CCA构建整个地球系统的模拟及分布式协同工作平台——分布式高性能地球系统建模集成框架(DHEMF)。DHEMF以其特有的面向服务基于组件的特性,使其能够解决地球系统模型(组件)的建模、集成、应用、管理、互操作等复杂问题,并最终实现完整地球系统的模拟及预报。     

Constructing citizenship in the shadow state

This article addresses the contributions of local community-based nonprofit organizations to the construction of citizenship through three different examples of state–organization interaction in Minneapolis–St. Paul to integrate migrants into American society. These examples stand for broader questions about how shadow state relationships affect the shape and scale of citizenship relations to which organizations contribute. The article focuses empirically on how organizations enact state rules and resources in providing services to migrants. The conclusions are directed toward theorizing the kinds of shadow state relationships that contribute to nationally inclusive visions of citizenship as well as alternative, subnational visions of citizenship.     

网络信息空间的地理学研究回顾与展望

网络信息空间（以下简称网络空间）的地理学是当前地理学研究的重点方向之一。1991年万维网诞生并向大众普及后网络空间开始得到广泛认可,同时其作为一种新的空间与事物也吸引了地理学界的高度关注。以多种期刊数据库和搜索引擎为检索源,考察国内外网络空间的地理学研究成果。依据研究内容将国外研究归纳为网络空间地理内涵、虚拟社区、虚拟化身与认知、网络空间的经济地理学,网络空间制图和互联网6个重点研究领域,将国内研究归纳为互联网的区域作用、网站和虚拟地理环境3个热点领域,并分别进行了梳理回顾。最后对国内外研究进行了简要评述,从网络空间的外部层面、内部层面和作用层面提出了若干研究议题。     

ICT-driven projects for land governance in Kenya: disruption and e-government frameworks

Critical academic research has yet to comprehensively identify conceptual linkages and tensions between information communication technologies (ICTs) and land governance projects. In order to make a contribution to these complex research fields, this article examines three Kenyan projects to illustrate different aspects of competing theoretical frameworks for ICT-based land rights projects. The projects documented land and property in the informal settlements of Kibera and Mathare in Nairobi, and in the rural community of Lari in Kiambu County. Drawing particularly on conceptual frameworks that emphasize the ‘disruptive’ potentials of ICTs, and frameworks based on e-government models, the article argues that these projects include both disruptive aspects, which work through applying pressure on the state, and more ‘integrative’ approaches which seek to build state capacity. The projects also rely on multiple stakeholders, and cannot be easily categorized within simple narratives of crowdsourcing, for example. Instead the realities are more complex and ‘success’ is difficult to assess, and potential uses of such projects are open and multiple.     

Mapping the data shadows of Hurricane Sandy: Uncovering the sociospatial dimensions of ‘big data’

Digital social data are now practically ubiquitous, with increasingly large and interconnected databases leading researchers, politicians, and the private sector to focus on how such ‘big data’ can allow potentially unprecedented insights into our world. This paper investigates Twitter activity in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in order to demonstrate the complex relationship between the material world and its digital representations. Through documenting the various spatial patterns of Sandy-related tweeting both within the New York metropolitan region and across the United States, we make a series of broader conceptual and methodological interventions into the nascent geographic literature on big data. Rather than focus on how these massive databases are causing necessary and irreversible shifts in the ways that knowledge is produced, we instead find it more productive to ask how small subsets of big data, especially georeferenced social media information scraped from the internet, can reveal the geographies of a range of social processes and practices. Utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods, we can uncover broad spatial patterns within this data, as well as understand how this data reflects the lived experiences of the people creating it. We also seek to fill a conceptual lacuna in studies of user-generated geographic information, which have often avoided any explicit theorizing of sociospatial relations, by employing Jessop et al.’s TPSN framework. Through these interventions, we demonstrate that any analysis of user-generated geographic information must take into account the existence of more complex spatialities than the relatively simple spatial ontology implied by latitude and longitude coordinates.     

Volunteered Geographic Information constructions in a contested terrain: A case of OpenStreetMap in China

The recent explosive growth of user-generated geographic information has drawn significant attention from GIS scholars and human geographers. Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) here refers to a key component of such a phenomenon, comprising both a range of practices of geographic information production and dissemination by volunteers as well as new forms of geospatial data produced and curated through various interactive online platforms and mobile devices such as OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Google Maps. VGI constructions have raised questions on spatial knowledge, power, and context. Through a study that examines social constructions of OSM in China, this paper makes two contributions to the existing literature: providing a political economic account of VGI constructions in China and exploring legalities in VGI research. Informed by research in critical GIS, this paper traces political economic transitions in relation to OSM constructions and examines OSM contributors' experiences and how these experiences constitute OSM development and usage. Drawing upon law and society research, this paper investigates how OSM mappers encounter the state's regulatory scheme of online mapping. This legality perspective of spatial data production and usage is a topic rarely explored in VGI studies. With interview data and document analysis, this paper unravels processes of powerful state institutional arrangements to control and invest in VGI simultaneously, entrepreneurs' interest in developing location-based services using VGI data, and experiences from a tech-savvy group in exploring and making VGI. While individual experiences vary, they show efforts of questioning embedded power relations shaping spatial data production in these continuously evolving, contested technoscientific and social landscapes.