Far from Being "Home Alone": The Dynamics of Accompanied Fieldwork

Despite persistent images to the contrary, most fieldworkers are accompanied. Yet, there has been limited discussion on the nature of accompanied fieldwork, particularly by geographers. Drawing on our experiences in three countries in the tropics, we discuss the dynamics of being accompanied in “the field” by our children and female co‐researchers. Specifically, we focus on issues of access and rapport; the impacts of their presence on our positionality; and the implications these have for power relations and research outcomes. We demonstrate how being accompanied entangles our personal and professional selves and can result in more egalitarian power relations as we become “observers observed”. We argue that by paying attention to the dynamics of accompanied fieldwork, there is the potential to enhance the conceptual focus of our methodological concerns and to provide a more theoretically sophisticated mode of exploring the ways in which our multiple identities intersect while in “the field”.     

Negotiating Expectations in the Field: Gatekeepers, Research Fatigue and Cultural Biases

This paper considers disjunctures between my expectations and experience of doing dissertation fieldwork, which I conducted in Benin between the autumns of 1997 and 1998. The research examined the nature of women's livelihood strategies and their associated outcomes in terms of material well‐being. I now believe that my feminist worldview, and my growing exhaustion as the project progressed, resulted in my minimising the importance of key aspects of fieldwork in an African context. Specifically, I downplayed the importance of negotiating with male “gatekeepers” in gaining access to the women with whom I wanted to work. While most of the time I was able to manage this well enough, one day, in particular, stands out as a time when I handled these negotiations very poorly. This paper compares the experiences of that day with another much more productive and fruitful one to examine how and why expectations and experience can diverge. A consideration of some of the issues that resulted in the “lost day” might prove instructive for other researchers.     

Making Space for Failure in Geographic Research

The idea that field research is an inherently “messy” process has become widely accepted by geographers in recent years. There has thus far been little acknowledgment, however, of the role that failure plays in doing human geography. In this article we push back against this, arguing that failure should be recognized as a central component of what it means to do qualitative geographical field research. This article seeks to use failure proactively and provocatively as a powerful resource to improve research practice and outcomes, reconsidering and giving voice to it as everyday, productive, and necessary to our continual development as researchers and academics. This article argues that there is much value to be found in failure if it is critically examined and shared, and—crucially—if there is a supportive space in which to exchange our experiences of failing in the field.     

American Migration,Settlement, and “Belonging” in Francophone Canada

More Americans now reside in Canada than at any time since the Vietnam War. Of particular note is the surprisingly large population of immigrants from the United States who now reside in Montreal—Francophone Canada's largest and most diverse city. This article documents and analyzes the migration experiences, spatial patterns, and “sense of belonging” of Americans in Montreal during the post–Vietnam era framed within the larger political and linguistic context of the city's “Two Solitudes.” Findings are based on information compiled from archival materials, census records, structured and unstructured interviews, survey questionnaires, participant observation, and fieldwork. My overarching goal is to embed the experiences and patterns of this English‐speaking group of immigrants in predominately French‐speaking Montreal during the past five decades—one of the most dramatic and divisive periods of time in Montreal and in Quebec as a whole.     

Property advertising and the representational production of suburbia: “Functional suburbs” and “lifestyle suburbs” in Auckland

This paper joins literature on suburban advertising with Lefebvre's concept of representational space to analyse property advertisements as part of the representational production of suburban space. Based on comparative analysis of advertising material for suburban residential developments on Auckland's “North Shore” in two time‐periods—1950s and 2010s—the paper examines changes and continuities in thematic content. While property advertisements in the mid‐1900s emphasised the “functional suburb,” paying attention to attributes such as quality of utilities and proximity to the central city, more recently advertisements have more strongly emphasised the “lifestyle suburb,” with a focus on middle‐class community and natural amenity.     

Subjectivity,Power, and the IRB

A substantial literature in social sciences, including law and society, examines the intersections of research ethics and institutional review board (IRB) frameworks. Although geographers have engaged this literature, we argue that further involvement in ethical and regulatory discussions will advance opportunities for better understanding and negotiating the complex subjectivities produced in the IRB structure. Drawing on illustrative experiences of researchers, we focus specifically on the institutions convening IRBs, the researchers, and the human “subjects” produced in the IRB process. We conclude with a call for greater open discussion of the power dynamics, subjectivities, and challenges of formal ethical research structures.     

Mapping Energy: Cartographies of Energy Into The Twenty‐First Century

“Energy” presents a number of complex and interrelated challenges regarding the environment, economy, and politics. In this paper, we argue that cartography should help clarify our understanding of energy issues, but ask whether this has in fact been the case. In a review of over 100 articles pulled from twenty‐three peer‐reviewed geography journals, we qualitatively assess energy maps published since the early 20^th century, examining trends in topic and cartographic technique. Energy maps in geography journals have focused on North America and Western Europe while relying on proportional symbols, grayscale production, and the analysis of energy phenomena at the national scale—tendencies that in many instances have limited our understanding of the ways in which energy is actually consumed. Simultaneously, cartographers are limited to the energy data available to them, frequently precluding small‐scale consumption analysis or consideration of diurnal and seasonal trends. We argue that the future of energy cartography relies on access to consumption data coupled with greater user interactivity.     

Queer Farmland: Land Access Strategies for Small-Scale Agriculture

Farmers struggle to afford farmland because competing land uses raise prices higher than what farmers earn, especially in small-scale and sustainable agriculture. Farmers often depend on an intimate partner’s income or labor to access land, yet few studies investigate sexual relationships in farmland access. I interrogate how sexuality shapes land access for small-scale agriculture through participant observation and interviews with 25 queer farmers in New England. I find that queer farmers’ sexual identities and relationships influence where they farm, who they live and work with, how they afford the land, and how they learn to farm. I argue that finding land, labor, credit, and knowledge are intertwined, heteronormative processes of capital accumulation shaped by racism and sexism. Queer farmers’ experiences navigating heteronormativity suggest the relevance of sexuality to land conservation and food justice, limits of organizing land access through sexual relationships, and alternatives to the “family farm.”     

Uneven development of the sustainable city: shifting capital in Portland,Oregon

Portland, Oregon, is renowned as a paradigmatic “sustainable city.” Yet, despite popular conceptions of the city as a progressive ecotopia and the accolades of planners seeking to emulate its innovations, Portland’s sustainability successes are inequitably distributed. Drawing on census data, popular media, newspaper archives, city planning documents, and secondary source histories, we attempt to elucidate the structural origins of Portland’s “uneven development,” exploring how and why the urban core of this paragon of sustainability has become more White and affluent while its outer eastside has become more diverse and poor. We explain how a “sustainability fix”—in this case, green investment in the city’s core—ultimately contributed to the demarcation of racialized poverty along 82nd Avenue, a major north–south arterial marking the boundary of East Portland. Our account of structural processes taking place at multiple scales contributes to a growing body of literature on eco-gentrification and displacement and inner-ring suburban change while empirically demonstrating how Portland’s advances in sustainability have come at the cost of East Portland’s devaluation. Our “30,000 foot” perspective reveals systemic patterns that might then guide more fine-grained analyses of particular political-socio-cultural processes, while providing cautionary insights into current efforts to extend the city’s sustainability initiatives using the same green development model.     

Who Is “Forest‐Dependent”? Capturing Local Variation in Forest‐Product Sale,Eastern Honduras

How researchers describe groups living within or near the world's tropical rain forests has important implications for how and why these groups are targeted for assistance by conservation and development organizations. This article explores how data about market behavior can be used to assess one aspect of forest peoples’ livelihoods: their “dependence” on forest resources as a source of market income. With the intent of revealing the importance of methodology to how we describe forest peoples’ livelihoods, I draw from a multiyear survey of market activity among the Tawahka Sumu of Honduras and distinguish nested measures of the Tawahkas’ engagement in forest‐product sale. Results indicate that whether or not the Tawahka —or any forest group — can be considered financially “dependent” on forest resources depends on the spatial and temporal scales at which data are aggregated. As a group, the Tawahka earned 18 percent of total market income from forest‐product sale, but their group profile masked a high degree of heterogeneity at the village and household level. Similarly, multiyear data indicated that while group‐level generalizations adhere from year to year, they belie considerable change in households’ market behavior across years. I discuss three ways in which the findings are relevant to the theory and practice of conservation and development in the humid tropics. I emphasize the importance of spatial scale in interventions, how market‐oriented conservation schemes can benefit from a broader conceptualization of the economic context in which forest‐product sale occurs, and how longitudinal analysis can reveal the dynamism of forest peoples’ livelihoods.     

Refugees in the IT Sector: Young Syrians’ Economic Subjectivities and Familial Lives in Jordan

This article explores refugee economic subjectivity in the context of restrictive asylum policies and disrupted transnational family lives. Drawing on fieldwork with young Syrian refugees pursuing IT training in Jordan, I focus on the “coding boot camp,” an emerging educational format in the field of refugee professional training. I thus explore how Syrian youths approach humanitarian policies in which, in the absence of full social and economic rights for refugees, the question of livelihoods is addressed through the paradigms of self‐reliance, creativity, and innovation. Reframing the refugee from a “protected” to a “productive” subject, and offering individual solutions to a structural economic impasse, these policies produce tensions between individual responsibilities and more‐than‐individual relations and identifications—with families, religious identities, and national communities—that remain unresolved. The findings contribute to geographical scholarship on economic subjectivity, familial relations, and the migrant and refugee condition, while shedding light on some of the effects of the encounter between technology‐centred, neoliberal approaches to humanitarianism and restrictive migration regimes in responses to the Syrian displacement.     

AFRICAN,RUSSIAN, AND UKRAINIAN REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT IN PORTLAND,OREGON

ABSTRACT. The residential patterns, adaptation experiences, and impacts of immigrants on North American cities have been well documented in the geographical literature. In this article, we build on prior work by testing the theories of Gaim Kibreab, who identified three factors that shape the experiences of recent refugees: attitudes of the receiving society; current policy environments; and employment opportunities in local communities. We analyze some of the ways in which these factors operate as interrelated systems for two comparative groups of foreign‐born migrants in Portland, Oregon: sub‐Saharan Africans; and Russians and Ukrainians. Using a mixed‐methods approach, we triangulate data from a blend of in‐depth interviews, participant observation in the community and at refugee and immigrant social service agencies, census and other statistical records, and cartographic analyses to report on the findings of our work. Data suggest that the residential, economic, and social spaces of new refugees are constructed as a complex multiplicity of networks and relationships that link time and place     

Runaway Brides: Anxieties of Identity among Trafficked Filipina Entertainers in South Korea

Although the migration of Filipinas to the Republic of Korea has only a short history, some Filipinas have already begun to form incipient communities around the largest United States military bases there. These communities are formed by an increasing number of women who run away from the military camptown clubs where they work as entertainers, to marry or live in cohabitation/de facto relationships with the enlisted American army personnel (or GIs) whom they meet and develop relationships with while working as entertainers in the GI clubs. Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with the women in one such camptown, this paper documents their experiences and the dynamics of their marriages as they attempt to negotiate their transition from “trafficked entertainers” to “runaway brides”. Their experiences illustrate the daily tribulations of women who wish to improve their prospects, or more ambitiously, transform their identity whilst abroad, by entering into marriages or similar arrangements, but who continue to be encumbered with the stigma attached to being trafficked entertainers. The discussion in this paper aims to contribute to the literature on Filipina migrants' anxieties about identity in the context of transnational migration.     

Spatial Discontinuities in Support for Hydraulic Fracturing: Searching for a “Goldilocks Zone”

Recent research suggests that those located closer to energy development are, on average, more supportive of this development. However, case studies in specific locations reveal additional nuance. In a case study of Bakken Shale residents, Junod et al. identified a “Goldilocks Zone” of unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD) acceptance—an area on the periphery of development that is “just right” because residents feel close enough to receive economic benefits but far enough away to avoid negative impacts. We explore whether this Goldilocks Zone extends nationally by combining geocoded public opinion data (N?=?23,154) with UOGD locations. Using multilevel regression modeling, we find that respondents located within 115?km of newly active UOGD are more supportive of hydraulic fracturing while those located within 115–305?km are comparatively less supportive. While we do not uncover a national-level Goldilocks Zone, our work highlights innovative approaches for examining spatial relationships in energy development opinion.     

Housing,Homelessness, and Mental Health: Mapping an Agenda for Geographical Inquiry*

This paper proposes that work by geographers on the relationships between housing, homelessness, and mental health should take into account recent literature concerning the nature of home in contemporary society. Towards this end, we distinguish between literal, incipient, and metaphorical homelessness. We argue that this distinction raises new research questions concerning the experience of households “on the edge of homelessness” and others who are well-housed but, for various reasons, are not “at home” in their present circumstances.     

PLACE MAKING,HAZARDOUS WASTE,AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOOELE COUNTY,UTAH*

ABSTRACT. Declining populations, aging inhabitants and infrastructure, limited economic opportunities, and under‐ or unappreciated natural environments characterize a number of rural communities in the western United States. Faced with the challenges of providing for their residents, some of these communities have chosen to permit undesirable land‐use activities, including the disposal of hazardous or nuclear waste. Central to the development of such sites is how a place is perceived and portrayed. Our purpose in this article is to examine how a dominant perception and portrayal of one such place—Tooele County, Utah—was created and used to facilitate the development of hazardous‐waste‐disposal sites. We use the geographical concept of “place” to illustrate how meanings and values are attached to a region in order to justify its becoming what it is and how such views persist.     

AMENITY MIGRATION IN THE U.S. SIERRA NEVADA*

ABSTRACT. Since 1960 California's Sierra Nevada counties have ranked among the regions with the strongest relative population growth in the state. Reassessment of peripheral areas has been the main force driving population and settlement growth in the central Sierra Nevada of California and Nevada, termed “amenity migration” or “counterurbanization.” This study analyzes the impacts of amenity migrants—“urban refugees”—on socioeconomic conditions in high‐mountain regions. We define these regions as the “High Sierra,” comprising zones at elevations more than 1,800 meters above sea level. People who migrate to the High Sierra tend to be white and well educated, with considerable household earnings. Unlike the population in the foothills, these migrants are not senior citizens. Their demand for periodic or permanent residences has caused housing prices to increase enormously. As a result, a majority of homes are now priced well beyond the reach of local salaries, which may lead to potential conflict between locals and newcomers. The massive settlement expansion in high‐mountain areas requires a new approach to land‐use planning, one that takes functional regions into account. Therefore, it is expedient to reassess existing jurisdictional boundaries.     

Positionality and Praxis: Fieldwork Experiences in Rural India

This paper provides a reflexive account of conducting fieldwork as a graduate student in the Sunderban area of West Bengal state, India, in the mid‐1990s. Reflecting on my personal experiences of research in a setting that was simultaneously familiar and foreign, I use frames of positionality to understand the impact of explicit and implied power structures on the research process, the relationships between the researcher and those researched, and the transfer of knowledge. This paper argues that the multiple subject positions and identities of both scholar and subjects as presented in the field vary with setting, and that these positionalities affect access to informants, the tenor and outcomes of encounters, and knowledge production. While self‐reflexivity is endorsed as a strategy for critically informed research, active measures such as openness about the agenda and activities undertaken, self‐disclosure, making conscious accommodations for the research subject's work schedule and time constraints, mutual sharing of information, and explicit recognition of the research subjects' expertise through lived experiences are proposed as strategies for equalising the power balance between scholar and subject.     

FROM “INSTANT ASIA” TO “MULTI-FACETED JEWEL”: URBAN IMAGING STRATEGIES AND TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN SINGAPORE

In order to develop their tourism industry and attract visitors, urban destination sites often adopt imaging strategies. These marketing and promotional tools often portray the cities as unique and distinct from other urban areas. In Singapore, different tourism images have been deployed over time—for example, the “Instant Asia” theme in the 1960s and 1970s, the “Surprising Singapore” image in the 1980s, and the “Multi-Faceted Jewel” motif in the 1990s. This paper argues that tourism imaging is a dynamic process not only because promotional campaigns have evolved over time but also because they are shaped by diverse global and local forces at different points in time. On the one hand, such images attempt to capture the imagination and interests of international tourists, and on the other hand they fulfill local objectives such as providing Singaporeans a sense of national identity and selfhood. Simply put, urban imaging policies embody both economic goals and sociopolitical functions and are directed at both visitors and residents. This paper illustrates the relationship between these economic and political forces over the last 40 years in Singapore.     

RUSSIAN DOLLS OR SCALE SKIPPERS? TWO GENERATIONS IN STRASBOURG*

ABSTRACT. Over the past quarter‐century academic geographers have interrogated the concept of “scale.” It had previously been conceived as an unproblematic and mechanical item in geographical representation, a device for moving “up” from the finely detailed to the general. Regular, commonsensical steps were supposed to move one from the corporeal scale to the global scale, each scale nested into the next higher. Such is the “Russian‐dolls” mode, whereby an individual considering his or her geographical identity—as in this study—would proceed hierarchically in scale from self, to city, to region, to nation, to continent. Ethnographic evidence from Strasbourg, France, however, reveals another mode: “scale skipping.” Here an individual, musing upon her or his identity, can plausibly make the leap from the individual to the supranational scale in one sentence. Instructive examples of both modes are furnished from two fifteen‐strong groups of Strasburgers, selected for their presumed attachment to the supranational‐scale ideal of “Europe.” The older group comprises professional Eurocrats; the younger group, college students returning to complete their studies in Strasbourg after attending universities elsewhere in the European Union through the Erasmus Program of study abroad.