Doing interdisciplinarity: motivation and collaboration in research for sustainable agriculture in the UK

This paper studies knowledge production in complex, collaborative research projects that brought together academics from different disciplines, research users and agricultural businesses. It takes a comparative approach, studying the interactions within interdisciplinary research teams from ten case studies, considering the process of collaboration from initial idea through to publication. The research developed a typology of participants in these projects, and identified the motivations and challenges of each. Our results analyse the process of research teams coming together and the relationships that are built up during the research. A particular challenge identified was the building of cooperation and trust. This issue is explored alongside issues of communication, methodology, data analysis and the process of drawing and publicising conclusions.     

Doing groups: Situating knowledge and creating stories

This paper presents group research as a potentially powerful research tool for cultural geographers interested in the ways knowledge is produced at the interpersonal level. I argue that groups can create unique research spaces that incorporate 'sociality', the everyday social norms, logics and languages that guide ordinary conversations, into the research agenda. By concentrating on these discursive norms, insights can be obtained into the ways that knowledge is negotiated, produced and constrained in different places. To demonstrate the value of group research, a case study involving Australian environmentalists is analysed, to show how forests are constructed, contested and naturalised within this particular subculture. The article concludes by emphasising the importance of group research to critical geographers interested in social empowerment and change.     

空间尺度视角下的家庭能源消费研究进展与展望

能源是地理学研究的核心议题,家庭能源消费活动作为区域典型人地关系活动的形式,是能源地理精细化研究的一大趋势。论文基于地理学的空间尺度视角,回顾了能源地理研究的缘起、家庭能源消费的空间特征、形成机制及数据来源,对存在问题进行述评,并从当前家庭能源消费面临的机遇出发,对未来值得进一步深入研究的主题进行了展望和阐释。主要得到3个结论：① 构建全景式家庭能源数据调查框架,将地域类型与能源类型、数量、用途纳入调查的视域;② 中观尺度的研究有待加强,通过微观—中观—宏观尺度内关系的协调,从一个相互嵌套式的结构整体中去认识和把握家庭能源消费特征及规律;③ 构建家庭属性、地理因素、生活方式等多要素综合集成分析框架,剖析家庭能源消费空间特征的形成动因,实现对家庭能源消费空间分异过程的本质理解。研究有助于地理学能源领域的空间研究和实践的国际化,对中国家庭能源消费的理论视角补充具有积极的学科意义。     

Learning by Doing: Implementing Community Service-based Learning

Abstract

Community-based Learning (CSBL) is based on the idea that learning is facilitated when the classroom is linked with real-world experience. This paper presents an overview of the pedagogical basis of community service-based learning (CSBL) and compares CSBL projects carried out in two very different settings. The findings indicate that in order to implement CSBL successfully, instructors need to plan ahead, develop partnerships with community organizations, and allow community groups to guide student projects. It is also important to recognize that the full benefits of CSBL are only gained when students, community members, and instructors spend time reflecting on the CSBL experience.     

Doing social volcanology: exploring volcanic culture in Indonesia

Social volcanology refers to the integration of social science research methods into the traditionally physical domain of volcanology. This emerging multi-methodological research area draws from many disciplines in order to examine hazard-mitigation strategies that are community focused. A key facet of social volcanology is the role of culture and this paper explores the influence of traditional cultural values in relation to the 2006 volcanic crisis at Mt Merapi (Java). This paper describes the complex amalgam of cultural and socio-economic factors that influence community reactions to volcanic hazards and demonstrates the need for interdisciplinary hazard research.     

Food becoming compost: encountering and negotiating disgust in household sustainability

ABSTRACT

Human encounters with waste can trigger reflections on taken-for-granted assumptions about consumption. Taking this observation as its starting point, this paper explores whether and how the introduction of the kitchen caddy and food waste composting at the municipal scale generates new environmental subjectivities in Australian homes. Using visceral research methods, the paper shows that, other than participation in municipal composting, close encounters with food becoming compost do not trigger more experimental or sustainable relationships with food. Rather, they trigger new configurations of cleanliness, tidiness and storage as participants seek to stabilise their home against the disruptive sight, smell and touch of food becoming compost. In unsettling the boundaries between humans and nonhumans, and cleanliness and chaos, food becoming compost produces visceral disgust among residents who are primed through modern home cultures to maintain cleanliness, control and the prevention of nonhuman intrusions at home. The success of municipal composting thus hinges on households’ commitment to ‘sustainability work’ in placing, storing, cleaning and sealing food to reconfigure the modern home for waste recovery. Reconceptualising municipal composting as a co-production of sensory engagement and household practices, we centre a visceral politics of household sustainability at the heart of municipal composting and resource management.     

The geography of same-sex couples and families in Australia: an empirical review

ABSTRACT

Much has changed since the first mapping of single-sex couples and families from the 2006 Australian census. An increasing willingness to allow their identification in the census has accompanied increasing public acceptance of same-sex couples culminating in significant support for legalising same-sex marriage in a 2017 national survey. Technological advances permit complex cross-tabulations of Australian census data and more detailed characterisations of same-sex couples. New geographies differentiate between male and female couples with children, showing same-sex couples are not just a feature of some inner-city areas, though these remain important, but also of suburban, regional and some rural areas. Drawing on the 2016 census, contemporary geographies of same-sex couples with and without children in Australia and changes over the past decade in Sydney are analysed at a time of increased interest in this demographic.     

Doing art and doing cultural geography: The fieldwork/field walking project1

With accompanying examples of initial visual experimentation from the fieldwork/field walking PhD project, the paper outlines some of the challenges of being an artist and using systems of understanding from science, the new ethnography, and cultural geography as a framework for making contemporary art. The PhD project is in its preliminary stages and is designed to explore the area of walking and fieldwork in art, and as art. Some of the challenges are the ambiguous role of the artist as scientist, ethnographer and researcher, the role of reflexivity in art practice; and the pitfalls of 'academic art'. While cultural geographers have used artworks as texts to explain places, this project endeavours to work with issues of place, landscapes, power, identity and representation in the art, to feed back into this dialogue. The bulk of the project will take place in the Kimberley region of Western Australia where the concepts of wilderness and wildness are most relevant. The research question posed by the fieldwork/field walking project is: within the discourse between art and science what is the connection between fieldwork and walking in the field?     

Town dwellers in their networks: urban-rural mobility and household strategies in Cameroon

Abstract

Urban-rural interactions are important features of spatial dynamics in Africa that have been affected by recent economic, social and cultural transformations. The attention of academics and policy-makers has concentrated on the impact of such mobility on rural actors and economies. Our objective is to consider the point of view of urban households and to analyse how they manage to develop and use their “rural connections”. The paper is based on in-depth qualitative fieldwork conducted in Cameroon, in Douala and Bafoussam. It presents an analysis of the configurations of urban resident mobility to rural regions. By mapping mobility we show the role of linkages with rural areas in urban household strategies. We also illustrate how a major city and a fast-growing secondary one differ in their connections with rural areas. The paper addresses what is one of the recurrent questions in the literature: will urban-rural linkages change in the long-term as the trend towards urbanization intensifies. Urban-rural mobility remains crucial, contributes to creating complex and dynamic networks. Collective connections are reaffirming the importance of the village and the region of origin. Mobility is a key element for many urban households in developing their urban position and strategies.     

Elderly co-residence and the household responsibilities hypothesis: evidence from Nanjing,China

In this paper, we analyze the effects of co-residence with elderly parents on gender differences in travel. The Household Responsibility Hypothesis (HRH) explains differences in the role of women regarding household responsibilities. However, research so far has studied “Western” household types while excluding households with co-residing elderly parents. Furthermore, research has paid exclusive attention to gender differences in commuting trips, and has neglected the effects of built environment characteristics. In view of these shortcomings, we pose the following research questions: what are the determinants of gendered differences in travel behavior, and specifically, what are the effects of elderly co-residence in households and land use on gender differences in trip frequency and travel distance? In addition to the HRH, we introduce the Elderly Co-residence Hypothesis, which suggests that co-residing elderly parents take over household responsibilities from adult women, resulting in diminishing gender differences in working-age travel patterns. We present the results of empirical research in Nanjing, China, that support this hypothesis.     

Studies of household activity patterns and urban structure

Simonsen, Kirsten, 1973: Studies of household activity patterns and urban structure. Geografisk Tidsskrift 73: 26–35. København, juni 1, 1974.

This Paper focuses upon the daily activity patterns of individuals and households. It gives a survey of the relevant literature and discusses the possible use of activity studies. Furthermore, it treats the interrelationship between activity patterns and environment and illustrates this by a case study from a Danish provincial town.     

基于家庭区位需求的城市住房价格模拟分析

目前关于城市住房价格异质性和影响因素研究多侧重于空间位置分析,从城市系统角度刻画住房价格分异现象有待进一步探索。根据“土地利用—交通相互作用理论”,城市空间的发展过程是各类活动通过交通相互作用的过程,本文构建了交通可达性模型,综合全市经济活动空间分布和交通网络评价城市区位条件,并以北京为例,从就业、教育、消费、医疗服务等各方面评价了城市区位条件,在此基础上依据家庭成员结构,模拟分析了家庭区位需求对住房价格的影响。案例研究表明,本模型对房价的模拟可以在全市范围内达到很好的效果;家庭的区位选择决定着住房价格的空间格局;各类活动中就业对北京市房价分布影响最为显著,其次是消费、教育,而医疗服务对住房价格影响相对较弱。此外,本文所提出的模型系统阐述了城市经济活动分布格局对住房价格的影响,经济活动分布发生变化时模拟结果随之变化,因此,本模型可以进一步拓展用于“以业带人”政策实验,模拟分析疏散各类经济活动后住房价格的变化,也为城市房价及土地市场分析研究提供模型方法上的参考。     

Migration and the transformation of employment and household structures

Data collected in Colombia and Thailand in 1977 are used to "compare the employment and household characteristics of migrants before and after the move in order to assess the degree of change which accompanies migration. Moreover, these comparisons [are] made for migration streams between places at different levels in the urban hierarchy with the intention of determining within which streams the greatest transformations occur."