“Value”-chains: Identity, tradition, and Ohio's flori(culture) industry

This paper examines the status of the floriculture industry in northwest Ohio, barriers facing firms in this transitioning sector, and strategies to promote industry competitiveness. Specifically, the paper focuses on the business practices of firms and efforts by local policymakers, academics, and business leaders to alter the regional dynamics of the industry vis-à-vis a grassroots “cluster” initiative. Using survey and focus group data, the paper demonstrates that culture, tradition, and shared values are key barriers to change and suggests that local cluster initiatives—like the Maumee Valley Growers—are an effective strategy for overcoming these barriers. From an applied perspective, the paper demonstrates the importance of contextualizing applied geographic research and the potential for geographers to chart, inform, and shape the internal geographies, practices, and trajectories of local actors and industry.     

Coloring the Field: Gender, “Race,” and the Politics of Fieldwork

My experiences combining research and activism within the Japanese-Canadian community reflect a growing concern among feminist and anti-racist scholars with the politics of work among people marginalized by racism and sexism. This concern arises within a context where “other voices” are being heard, but the legitimacy of one individual or group to represent another is being challenged. Such challenges require that essentialism and naturalism be addressed politically and theoretically, a difficult irony given the need to utilize essentialist categories to address the oppressive conditions under which they emerged. To do so, a critical theory of political construction is required.     

(Hetero)sexing Space: Gay Men and “Straight” Space in Adelaide,South Australia

This paper examines gay men's perceptions and experiences of everyday places in Adelaide, South Australia. It illustrates the nature of social space as a heterosexual artifact. The paper also outlines ways in which gay men may contribute to the heterosexualization of space. Many gay men monitor the public and private roles they play for fear of the consequences of “discovery,” and through self-policing and restricted behaviors they may contribute to the spatial supremacy of heterosexuality. Acts of nondisclosure and the adoption of straight sexual facades constrain gay men's social and spatial lives.     

Comments on Jansson, K.N. and Glasser, N.F. (2008) “Modification of peripheral mountain ranges by former ice sheets: The Brecon Beacons, southern UK,” Geomorphology 97, 178–189

Jansson and Glasser (Jansson, K.N., Glasser, N.F., 2008. Modification of peripheral mountain ranges by former ice sheets: the Brecon Beacons, southern UK. Geomorphology 97, 178–189.) have recently provided unconventional interpretations of selected glacial erosional and depositional landforms in the Brecon Beacons, UK, based on remotely sensed imagery. These new interpretations contradict well-established and reliable evidence for the origins and ages of certain glacial landforms of this upland area and elsewhere. They suggest that during a post-Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) ice-sheet event ice flowed up supposed, essentially “fluvial” valleys producing “glacial lineations” and depositing marginal moraines at the valley heads and on cirque floors. We argue that their interpretations of some key landforms are incorrect and that they have ignored much of the previous dating and field geomorphological evidence. Sedimentary and morphological evidence (e.g., lack of erratic content; convex planform with respect to the headwall; relatively large height range of moraines; and close association with headwall extent, height, and steepness) all indicate that higher level cirque-floor and valley-head moraines in the Brecon Beacons (> c. 400 m) were formed by cirque glaciers. Available dating evidence indicates a Younger Dryas age. We demonstrate that the supposed “fluvial” valleys, comprising trough heads with steep headwalls, have more nearly parabolic than V-shaped cross profiles indicating substantial glacial modification. Field evidence shows that proposed key exemplar post-LGM glacial lineations are in fact debris flow deposits. We conclude that whilst the adoption of a macroscale approach can shed new light on large-scale, ice-sheet movements, this approach should not be undertaken without consideration of the associated field evidence.     

Representing “Neighborhood”: Growth Coalitions,Newspaper Reporting,and Gentrification in St. Louis

Newspaper reporters are important actors in promoting gentrification. This study of St. Louis examines their use of a prominent representation of neighborhood in this process: dying neighborhoods in need of middle‐class technical salvationists. We examine its use to help drive two processes to promoting gentrification: legitimating restructuring at actual or anticipated sites and isolating “revitalization‐contaminating” communities. We discover this neighborhood representation is applied primarily to legitimate restructuring at specific sites. Revitalization‐threatening neighborhoods, represented differently, indicates this representation is task specific in this city's “gentrification project.”     

ON “BIOREGIONALISM”AND “WATERSHED CONSCIOUSNESS”*

A diffused but philosophically sophisticated social movement, emphasizing the importance of the sense of place and a locally responsible stewardship of Nature, has been emerging in recent years in various parts of North America. Whether “bioregionalism”is a new way of thinking about our place on Earth and our relationship to it, as some would believe, or simply the ecologic perspective familiar to geographers and environmentalists, romanticized and dressed in a new vocabulary, it deserves our attention for its adherents are kindred souls.     

CREATING NARRATIVES OF PLACE AND IDENTITY IN “LITTLE SWEDEN,U.S.A.”*

ABSTRACT. In Lindsborg, Kansas—“Little Sweden, U.S.A.”—the streets are lined with shops offering “An Adventure in Swedish Tradition,” and residents put on numerous festivals throughout the year highlighting Swedish folk customs. Such ethnic tourist towns have become increasingly widespread in the United States over the past thirty years. Tourists tend to perceive these places as towns where folk culture has been passed down unchanged for generations, while academics tend to dismiss residents' ethnicity as crass commercialism. Neither view is correct. Ethnicity and tradition are not static but constantly invented and reinvented. Modern folk ethnicity, among European Americans in particular, is simply the most recent incarnation of this process, one that attempts to recover ties to a specific, small‐scale landscape and history. This article explores the changing nature of the narratives of ethnicity and place‐based identity that the residents of Lindsborg have used to create a place for themselves in American society.     

“WOMEN IN GEOGRAPHY” REVISITED: PRESENT STATUS,NEW OPTIONS

The representation of women on geography faculties did not increase appreciably between 1971 and 1977, but women in other academic disciplines have fared somewhat better. The latter have improved their status primarily as a result of actions taken by professional associations representing their fields. When a professional association ignores its female constituency or refuses to commit itself to improving their circumstances, federal agencies now offer alternative channels for obtaining redress.     

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.