Marxism, Sarcasm, Ethnography: Geographical Fieldnotes from South India

This paper addresses questions of ethnography in geographic fieldwork through research conducted on globalisation and work in Tiruppur, an industrial boomtown in South India. During the last two decades of the twentieth century, Tiruppur town in western Tamilnad State became India's centrepiece in the export of garments made of knitted cloth. This industrial boom has been organised through networks of small firms integrated through intricate subcontracting arrangements controlled by local capital of Gounders from modest agrarian and working‐class origins. In effect, the whole town works like a decentralised factory for the global economy, but with local capital of peasant‐worker origins at the helm. My research explores the historical geographic trajectories linking agrarian and industrial work, and the ways in which these histories are used in the present. In these uses of the past in remaking self and place, I interrogate the self‐presentations of Tiruppur's entrepreneurs, as these “self‐made men” hinge their retrospective narratives of class mobility and industrial success on their propensity to “toil”. This paper explores questions of ethnographic method emerging from a political‐economic context in which globalisation has worked by turning “toil” into capital.     

Geographical Notes

Abstract

The word geography comes from the Greek language and means “to write about the earth.” “The World is a Colorful Place” is a learning activity that is designed to engage children in grades 3 through 8 in the processes of discovery and original writing about the earth.     

Strategic Positivism∗

Many “sociological”factors can account for the initial acceptance and continued persistence of W. M. Davis's Geographical Cycle. Such factors include Davis's attractive and forceful presentation of the cycle and the role of the cycle as a unifier of the discipline of physical geography, to name two. An analysis of the scientific character of the cycle, in the light of Karl Popper's criteria for demarcating between science and non-science, suggests that persistence of the cycle can also be attributed to a “logical”factor, the irrefutability of the central concept, stage.     

Shrinking ‘Smart’?: Urban Redevelopment and Shrinkage in Youngstown,Ohio

Abstract

This article analyzes the impact of the much-heralded Youngstown 2010 Plan and the enacting of a program of “controlled” or “managed” shrinkage. It is argued that while the program of redevelopment has had an impact on Youngstown and its national image, it represents an exclusionary project that has centered on redeveloping downtown areas and neglected many city neighborhoods which continue to experience high levels of unemployment, vacancy, and crime. The analysis is situated in relation to the contemporary literature on “shrinking cities.” Youngstown's experience raises critical questions regarding the nature of the challenges facing shrinking cities, the constraints on actions available to them due to state and federal funding, and the coherence of the concept of “smart shrinkage.”     

Communication from readers

Abstract

In geographic education, a scientific approach is typically acclaimed as the most appropriate approach to teach, model, and use in the schools. This approach, however, is more honored in the professional literature and meetings than in teaching. Admittedly, many practical problems provide opportunities and challenges for teachers to use the scientific approach. The recent trend toward “standards” in the profession, moreover, may also prove more a hindrance than a help in achieving scientific literacy.     

G. Stanley Hall,Child Study,and the Teaching of Geography

Abstract

G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924), founding president of Clark University, was a leader in the child study movement and a significant figure in psychology and education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hall had pronounced opinions on many educational subjects, including the teaching of geography. His criticisms and program for the reform of school geography were based on a mix of European ideas of heimatkunde or “home geography,” developmental or “genetic” psychology, and his work in the child study and nature study movements. This article traces Hall's involvement with geographic pedagogy from the 1880s through World War I, including his sponsorship of the first American Ph.D. dissertation in the teaching of geography, completed at Clark in 1906.     

The Council at Work

Abstract

The George J. Miller Award for Distinguished Service Committee has selected truly “A Person for all Seasons.” The recipient of this year's award favors the tropics, but has had rich experiences in the middle and high latitudes as well. The approach to geographic analysis which this year's recipient espouses has a rough but recognizable parallel in De Bello Gallico: “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres” (referring, obviously, to the recipient's A-V-T association). Although never a general—and here I presume Julius Caesar was—this person has chaired, ruled, flown, edited, directed, presided, superintended—and in each case earned a title appropriate to the service. But in two distributaries of endeavor where much of the time no formal title is granted, this year's award recipient has truly excelled: serving the profession and teaching students.     

The “Oldest River” As An Appalachian Popular Region

Abstract

Appalachia's New River was labeled “the second oldest river in the world” during the 1970s as part of a campaign to save the river from being dammed. Despite the absence of geomorphic evidence, the promotion of the superlative age of the river was so successful that the mythical label became reality in the minds of the region's populace. The “oldest river” thus became a popular or vernacular region, defined as one perceived to exist by its inhabitants. Sources of evidence for the current existence of the oldest river as a popular region include Internet references, which typically use the positive place image of the ancient stream to enhance the value of the river valley's attributes. Geography educators and students at all levels will benefit from class research projects aimed at identifying and understanding popular regions found near their educational institutions.     

中国地理科学进展与展望——与美国地理学战略方向的比较(英文)

Understanding the Changing Planet: Strategic Directions for the Geographical Sciences(UCP),published by the National Research Council(USA),and its comments in The Professional Geographer propose that uppercase and plural "Geographical Sciences"(GS) is the strategic direction for geography in the next decade for better understanding of our rapidly changing planet. According to these comments,UCP valued technologies and tools excessively("task"),and did not pay much attention to methodology("discipline"). Actually,both"task" and "discipline" are geographical wings,especially in the time of "big science".Enlightenment from UCP and its comments is the strategic direction that should be balanced between "task" and "discipline",GS should be a three-dimensional construct of a disciplinary system,methodology,and technologies and tools,and this system should be scientific humanism based on scientific spirit and directed by humanism. During the last 60 years,Chinese geographers devoted themselves to GS,including practice and theory. Obviously progress and outlook are proposed as interdisciplinary GS,Earth Surface Sciences(ESS) and Geographical Construction(GC). The disciplinary system of GS is very complex,and is composed of such human knowledge domains as sciences,technologies,engineering,and philosophy. The main mission is to research the open,complex,and macro earth system(not only scientifically,but also humanistically),and one significant methodology is "comprehensive integration of qualitative and quantitative means"(CIQQM). At the same time,another changing direction in Chinese geography is Human-Economic Geography(HEG).     

思维科学与地理思维研究

思维科学是研究人脑对信息加工、处理过程的科学。电脑实际上是仿人脑的 ,但是与人脑还有许多差别。地理思维在运用大脑时 ,比较全面 ,抽象思维、形象思维、和创造性思维 ,运用都很多 ,对开发大脑具有特殊的意义。文中概括地阐述了思维科学的主要内容 ,结合地理思维给出了具体的地理逻辑思维、地理图像思维和地理创造性思维的内容。     

POPPER'S PRINCIPLE OF FALSIFIABILITY AND THE IRREFUTABILITY OF THE DAVISIAN CYCLE

Many “sociological”factors can account for the initial acceptance and continued persistence of W. M. Davis's Geographical Cycle. Such factors include Davis's attractive and forceful presentation of the cycle and the role of the cycle as a unifier of the discipline of physical geography, to name two. An analysis of the scientific character of the cycle, in the light of Karl Popper's criteria for demarcating between science and non-science, suggests that persistence of the cycle can also be attributed to a “logical”factor, the irrefutability of the central concept, stage.     

Decisions of the U. S. Board of Geographic Names. June 5, 1900, To January 8, 1902 II

ABSTRACT

Spatial literacy is a new frontier in K–12 education. This article describes a place-based introductory GIS/GPS middle school curriculum unit in which students used measuring tools, GPS units, and My World GIS software to collect physical and spatial data of trees to create a schoolyard tree inventory. Maine students completed “memory maps” of their schoolyards as a pre/post exercise assessment. A statistically significant increase in students’ spatial awareness was documented. A technology-based curriculum can significantly increase students’ spatial awareness especially in a place and context relevant to each student.     

Seeking commonalities of community resilience to natural hazards: A cluster analysis approach

ABSTRACT

The aim of the study on which the article is based was to identify groups of communities with similar resilience profiles, using Norwegian municipalities as a case. The authors used a set of socioeconomic and environmental indicators as measures of municipalities’ resilience and performed a cluster analysis to divide the municipalities into groups with similar multivariate resilience signatures. The results revealed six groups of municipalities that, apart from their unique combinations of indicator scores, featured certain spatial patterns, such as an “urban cluster” with urbanized municipalities and a “suburban cluster” with municipalities concentrated around major cities. The authors conclude that municipalities in each of the groups shared aspects that made them either more or less resilient to natural hazards, which could make them potential targets for shared interventions. Additionally, the authors conclude that clustering can be used to identify municipalities with similar resilience features and that could benefit from networking and sharing operational planning as a way to improve their respective communities' resilience to natural hazards.     

Emotional Encounters in Sacred Spaces: The Case of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Individual experience and emotion are critical to a complete understanding of the transformative effect of sacred spaces on people's lives. We implement an in-depth qualitative examination of the spiritual experiences from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were allowed the opportunity to freely articulate their emotions when attending meetinghouses and temples as well as discuss the spiritual significance of these sites. We found that these spaces transcended the “everyday,” had a considerable capacity to inspire emotio-spiritual encounters, particularly feelings of peace, and further served as evidence of a deeper individual gradation of sacred space.     

WHY WAS HUMBOLDT FORGOTTEN IN THE UNITED STATES?*

ABSTRACT. In the nineteenth century Alexander von Humboldt was acclaimed as “the second Columbus” and “the scientific discoverer of America.” His prestige and fame were such that on 14 September 1869, the hundredth anniversary of his birth, a grand celebration was held with parades, speeches, concerts, and the unveiling of memorials in cities across the country. Humboldt's popularity in the United States endured for the remainder of the nineteenth century, but he dropped from public consciousness in the twentieth century. To account for the eclipse of Humboldt's fame in the United States three hypotheses are discussed: a shift in the character of scientific endeavor; the quality of Humboldt's written work; and the rise of anti‐German sentiment with a concurrent rush to “de‐Germanize” the United States in the early twentieth century.     

Vacation Field Work for Pupils

Abstract

A Magic Carpet Trip to Learning Geography provides successful hands on, student-tested activities for teaching elementary school students about continents and oceans. From the introductory “Magic Carpet” poem to the finale, Geography Pizza, students are activiely involved in learning: (1) why our earth is the “Blue Planet”; (2) the continent names, shapes, and locations; (3) about continental drift. In the article an evaluation tool is discussed that can be used to assess the growth of geography awareness in the classroom. Through the use of poetry, music, games, science, math, cooking, and student writing, geogrpahy comes alive in the elementary classroom.     

Gorilla Tourism in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park,Uganda: An Actor-Network Perspective

This article performs actor-network theory (ANT) to examine the development of gorilla tourism at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda. We depict a number of translations in which gorillas were designated and enrolled as coexisting with local livelihood practices, as “trophies” in the hunting network, “man's closest neighbor” in the scientific network, “endangered species” in the conservation network, and finally, through habituation processes, became part of the tourism network. These five versions of the “gorilla” network show how gorillas are shaped in and by the relations in which they reside. By examining Bwindi in terms of ANT's notions of ordering, materiality, and multiplicity, we not only show how gorilla tourism has gained permanence and popularity, but also draw attention to new ways of thinking about actors and agency in tourism, conservation, and development.     

Geography Education Across the Atlantic at the Geographical Association

Abstract

The Geographical Association (GA) is an international association of over 10,000 geography educators headquartered in Sheffield, England. The National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) and the GA have similar goals. The GA's annual conferences provide an excellent opportunity to begin geography education partnerships between the NCGE and the GA. Operating exhibits and teaching workshops on geographic information systems at the last three Geographical Association conferences at universities in England afforded the opportunity to network with teachers and pave the way for future collaboration.     

Geographical categories: an ontological investigation

This paper reports the results of a series of experiments designed to establish how non-expert subjects conceptualize geospatial phenomena. Subjects were asked to give examples of geographical categories in response to a series of differently phrased elicitations. The results yield an ontology of geographical categories-a catalogue of the prime geospatial concepts and categories shared in common by human subjects independently of their exposure to scientific geography. When combined with nouns such as feature and object, the adjective geographic elicited almost exclusively elements of the physical environment of geographical scale or size, such as mountain, lake, and river. The phrase things that could be portrayed on a map, on the other hand, produced many geographical scale artefacts (roads, cities, etc.) and fiat objects (states, countries, etc.), as well as some physical feature types. These data reveal considerable mismatch as between the meanings assigned to the terms 'geography' and 'geographic' by scientific geographers and by ordinary subjects, so that scientific geographers are not in fact studying geographical phenomena as such phenomena are conceptualized by na ve subjects. The data suggest, rather, a special role in determining the subject-matter of scientific geography for the concept of what can be portrayed on a map. This work has implications for work on usability and interoperability in geographical information science, and it throws light also on subtle and hitherto unexplored ways in which ontological terms such as 'object', 'entity', and 'feature' interact with geographical concepts.