Forever transnational: The ambivalence of return and cross‐border activities of the Shan across the Thailand‐Myanmar border

Over the past two decades, northern Thailand has experienced a massive influx of Shan ethnic nationals from Myanmar migrating to escape economic hardship and political conflicts at home. Myanmar's recent reforms raise the question of whether these migrants will return. The paper brings together the context of current changes in Myanmar with migrants' prospects of return and the impact of large‐scale migration on homeland politics. On the one hand, the paper explores the possibility that Shan migrants could remain forever transnational, for many of them will most likely never return. On the other hand, it considers the perspective of Shan elites in Myanmar on the fact a large portion of young Shan now spend their adult lives living and working in Thailand. While out‐migration of young Shan threatens the social fabric of Shan community in Myanmar, Shan ethnonationalists strive across the Myanmar border to regain loyalty among the Shan migrant population in Thailand. By examining the two aspects, this paper attempts to shed light on the impact of transnational migration on both migrants and their home country.     

Liberating learning: Thinking beyond ‘the grade’ in field‐based approaches to teaching

This paper is positioned within current debates on education development and the value of fieldwork as a pathway to fostering a nuanced, sophisticated and empathetic world view among students. Here, we focus on one form of field‐based teaching within geography, that is, intensive field studies courses taught abroad. We draw on our experience as cofacilitators of a six‐week intensive field course conducted in various parts of Thailand. The course we discuss in this paper was focused on teaching students both applied research skills (critical engagement, ethnographic research methods and ethical research practice) and substantive content (the social, cultural, political and economic aspects of Thailand from a geographer's perspective). We argue that the value of field studies lies in the ability of such a course to help students enhance and deepen broad, generalisable skills such as problem solving; ethical research practice; critical engagement with complex social issues; and independent research skills.     

城市新区作为“家”的表征与实践——以鄂尔多斯康巴什新区为例

本文基于表征与非表征的研究视角,分析了以鄂尔多斯康巴什为代表的中国城市新区作为“家”的表征与实践过程。研究发现：针对康巴什新区,外部媒介与地方政府以表征手段建构了截然不同的“家”的意象。其中,BBC、Times等外媒将康巴什新区描绘成充满荒凉景观的“鬼城”和不健康的中国城市居住空间,而在地方政府的重构中,康巴什新区则充满了生态栖居必备的城市景观并成为了先进的城市文化空间。而作为“家”中的居住者,康巴什居民“家”的营建经历了从陌生到认同的渐进过程,这一过程包含了日常生活实践中的空间转换与情感边界的构建。不同行动者共同塑造了康巴什新区多元的、充满矛盾意义的“家”的空间身份。本文旨在丰富中国快速城市化背景下“家”的地理学研究视角与类型,回应“鬼城”话语对地方政府主导的城市化“无家”的质疑,亦是城市新区社会文化研究的有益拓展与补充。     

Saigon from the diaspora

In the wake of reform in Vietnam and the end of the cold war, overseas Vietnamese are returning to their former homeland in increasing numbers. For most of the first generation in the diaspora, memories of wartime Saigon are now being augmented by a touristic experience of contemporary Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. This essay asks how the co-presence of these differently spatialized and temporalized ways of knowing the city affects the production and consumption of images of Saigon in overseas Vietnamese communities in the West. Based on media ethnography carried out in Vietnamese households in Sydney, the paper argues that changes in the way Saigon is represented in overseas Vietnamese popular culture reflect a shift in the larger politics of diasporic identity. While narratives of exile and refugeehood remain potent forms of affective (if not instrumental) politics in overseas Vietnamese contexts, transnational forms of consciousness and identification are beginning to enter into diasporic public culture, albeit in a highly contested way.     

CHIRICAHUA APACHE HOMELAND IN THE BORDERLAND SOUTHWEST*

The creation of the present United States‐Mexico boundary in the mid‐nineteenth century interrupted and disregarded the traditional territorial space of the Chiricahua Apache, whose ancestral homeland transcended this new line. As a result of their land claims, the United States created a reservation for the Chiricahua Apache, but it was later withdrawn. Today members of this group officially reside among Mescalero Apache in New Mexico and Fort Sill Apache in Oklahoma. This essay assesses the historic and contemporary impact of geographical borderland changes for the Chiricahua Apache and discusses the legacy of a transformed homeland.     

渔民南海生产空间“家”的营建与情感体验——以潭门渔民为例

流动背景下,传统固定的家不断受到挑战,家的定义和内涵也因流动而更加丰富。现有研究多从陆地视角关注流动对家的多维影响,较少探讨海洋语境下流动与家的潜在联系。此外,随着科技的进步,生产空间“家”的营建也成为可能。文章借鉴家的地理学相关理论,基于深入访谈、参与式观察和文本分析等方法,探讨海南潭门渔民在南海耕海实践中生产空间家的营建和情感体验。研究发现,潭门渔民在流动渔船中利用类“家”的功能进行日常生活实践,从而模糊渔船生产空间与家的边界,产生“在家”的体验;在长期的耕海过程中,渔民之间通过彼此之间的关心、照顾、互助等行为增进感情,从而产生家的团结、温暖等情感体验;渔船在长期的海上流动过程中,渔民逐渐对南海的岛礁、物产、边界等自然、人文环境产生熟悉感、安全感和归属感等情感体验,实现了对南海“祖宗海”的家园想象。     

“The mangrove preserves life”: Habitat of African survival in the Atlantic world

Mangroves emerged a crucial habitat for Africans and their descendants during the transatlantic slave trade. Europeans avoided mangroves because of the deadly fevers that frequently claimed the lives of those who ventured there. Many were felled by lethal falciparum malaria, against which Africans alone carried genetic resistance. The transatlantic slave trade spread the disease‐causing plasmodium to New World Anopheles mosquitoes through infected bloodstreams, extending African mangroves’ pestilential reputation to the Neotropics. On both sides of the Atlantic, an environment Europeans feared provided Africans food, basic necessities, and sometimes, refuge from slavery. In Neotropical mangroves Africans largely replaced declining Amerindian populations, who were also immunologically vulnerable to the introduced plasmodium. Today, African descendants in Old and New World mangroves demonstrate longstanding human use of this ecosystem. Comparison of shellfish gathering and gendered collection patterns in mangroves recognizes Amerindian and African influences in Neotropical mangroves and illuminates the connections to transatlantic diasporic history. The discussion considers how a more‐than‐human geography shaped “place‐based knowledge” of mangrove swamplands that remained marginal to European territorializing during the colonial period. African and Afro‐descendant place‐making underscores the ways people, plants, insects, microbes, shellfish, and tides framed geography and diasporic identity at the periphery of the Atlantic world.     

Passive revolution: A church‐military partnership in the Philippines

In the Philippines, a Catholic social movement for local development and broad structural transformation, referred to as Basic Ecclesial Communities, offers a counter‐narrative to state development. Predicated on the power of networked local groups, the Diocese of San Carlos has taken the original concept and rescaled it, operating a variety of social‐action programmes at the diocese level. The focus of this paper is a unique partnership between the diocese and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which has produced a number of measurable positive changes in under‐serviced areas. We remain uncertain, however, about the extent to which the church is cooperating with, or being co‐opted by, the military as it enters into partnership, and many members of the clergy share our scepticism. In this paper we draw upon Gramsci's concept of passive revolution (1971) as a means to conceptualize both the efforts of the church to reform society from within, and the reaffirmation of the hegemonic discourse that seems inevitable.     

Urban structures and daily mobility patterns in a city of long distances—the case of Muscat/Oman

Population growth, urban sprawl and a high degree of car dependency as well as slowly rising petrol prices contribute towards increasing challenges for everyday urban mobility in Muscat, Oman. Until now, only a few empirical studies have dealt with urban mobility in Oman. Therefore, this article draws mainly on our own empirical findings to answer the following questions: What do daily and weekly mobility patterns look like in Muscat? How do these practices differ depending on the social position of the household, i.e. their nationality, income and education? Which interdependent effects can be discerned between everyday mobility practices and the fragmented and segregated urban structures? Since our research questions focus on the interrelations between urban structures and individual mobility, we chose a mixed‐methods approach including methods derived both from social and spatial research. This article in particular draws on our quantitative survey covering 850 households and extensive mappings of three selected case study areas and secondary data analysis.     

Disparities and diversities among female‐headed households in rural Malawi after 20 years of economic liberalization

Using data from a survey carried out in six tobacco growing villages across Malawi in 2004–5, this paper summarizes some main differences found in subsistence production and income levels between male‐ and female‐headed households and the disparities among female‐headed households in the light of economic liberalization policies of the past two decades. The disadvantaged position of female‐headed households in terms of land and labour endowment, together with the high cost of inputs since the structural adjustment programmes and removal of subsidies since the 1980s has prevented poorer female‐headed households not only from attaining maize self‐sufficiency, but also from engaging in high‐return agriculture such as tobacco production. Although livelihood diversification is adopted by both male‐ and female‐headed households, many female‐headed households still depend on low‐entry‐barrier activities such as agricultural waged labour and are unable to break out of the poverty cycle. However, female‐headed households are a heterogeneous category and factors such as the availability of nonfarm income opportunities, social networks to access labour and capital, land acquisition through flexible applications of patrilineal inheritance rules, and the existence of formal channels for credit and informal tobacco trading have enabled some to improve agricultural productivity and achieve high incomes.     

The experimental governing of mobility and trade on the China‐Laos frontier: The Tai Lue case

This paper discusses the governing of subjects and objects' mobility in the context of trans‐border rice and corn trade on the China‐Laos frontier. It traces the attempts by a group of ethnic Tai Lue traders from China to assert themselves as ‘flexible subjects’ and economically triumphant actors on the Upper Mekong market in the era of economic regionalization. It illustrates how, between 2005 and mid‐2006, the traders' economic success relied on a variety of ‘border strategies’. ‘Border strategies’ include a gender‐balanced organization of trade, the instrumental deployment of trans‐border ethnicity, the appropriation of a Han style of business, the opportunistic reliance on the Chinese administration's ‘regime of graduated mobility’, and the enactment of a ‘war‐machine’ against Lao state agents. Yet, in late 2006, a new wave of state authoritarianism, enmeshed in corporate accumulation processes, inhibited the traders' success. The paper suggests that, unlike what some defenders of globalization and transnational theories maintain, in the age of economic regionalization, the alleged flexibility and increased mobility of subjects and objects across the borders of the Greater Mekong Subregion remain conditional on an unpredictable mechanism of loosening and tightening. This is part of a long‐applied governing pattern of ‘experimentation under hierarchy’ on the Sino‐Lao frontier.     

Mobile Communications,Social Networks,and Urban Travel: Hypertext as a New Metaphor for Conceptualizing Spatial Interaction*

The widespread use of mobile communications is leading to new practices in family life and social life, and these changes have significant implications for the study of urban travel. Because of the adoption of new modes of space‐time coordination, changing time use and increasing mobility, changing use of existing urban nodes, the blurring of boundaries between home and work, the importance of social networks and social capital, and the shift to person‐to‐person connectivity, the spatial structure and processes of interaction among individuals have become much more complicated in this age of mobile communications. Static spatial frameworks based on fixed points (e.g., home or workplace) and distances among them are no longer adequate for understanding urban travel. The study of urban travel now needs new conceptualizations and new methodologies.     

“Follow That Car!” Mobilities of Enthusiasm in a Rare Car's Restoration

This article follows one object, a rare car, through its life cycle and in so doing engages the literatures in cultural geography on mobilities, materiality, and enthusiasm to show how all three are linked in the restoration of this one automobile, a Czechoslovakian-built Tatra T87 from 1941. Through archival and autoethnographic research, we trace the history of the Tatra company and then follow the production, sale, and subsequent ownerships of this one particular car through two wars and across two continents. We detail its restoration, tracing a geography of automobile enthusiasm that brought this rusted hulk back to life, one facilitated internationally by the Internet but that nevertheless demands extraordinary mobilities of cars, people, and parts. In following this one thing, we join other scholars in complicating the commodity- or global-value chains so often described as linear, to uncover instead complex entanglements of reuse, repurposing, and restoration. Because the car in question is our own, we mobilize our experiences with the car to reveal how the geographies of enthusiasms (automotive and otherwise) involve sustained and profound emotional engagements—emotional engagements often left out of academic accounts where, we suggest, they might be desirable as well.     

“OUR HOME IS DROWNING”: IÑUPIAT STORYTELLING AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN POINT HOPE,ALASKA*

ABSTRACT. Contemporary storytelling among the IÑupiat of Point Hope, Alaska, is a means of coping with the unpredictable future that climate change poses. Arctic climate change impacts IÑupiat lifeways on a cultural level by threatening their homeland, their sense of place, and their respect for the bowhead whale that is the basis of their cultural identity. What I found during my fieldwork was that traditional storytelling processed environmental changes as a way of maintaining a connection to a disappearing place. In this article I describe how environmental change is culturally manifest through tales of the supernatural, particularly spirit beings or ghosts. The types of IÑupiat stories and modes of telling them reveal people's uncertainty about the future. Examining how people perceive the loss of their homeland, I argue that IÑupiat storytelling both reveals and is a response to a changing physical and spiritual landscape.     

The Coproduction of Peri‐Urban Space

Expanding beyond narrow approaches of understanding postapartheid space, this research analyzes the social relations contributing to land use patterns and livelihood decisions as manifestations of the coproduction of space. Drawing on a detailed livelihood and land‐change analysis case study of Polokwane, South Africa, it is argued that combinations of social processes across scales contribute to the production of peri‐urban South Africa and offer an uncommon mixed‐methods approach by combining qualitative ethnographic interviews, quantitative survey data, and land‐cover change detection. The peri‐urban interface is coproduced as individuals participate in multiple livelihood activities (wage labor, businesses, social programs) and changing land use patterns (residential, urban, mixed use) through negotiations at multiple scales—from macrolevel economic policy to local labor regimes.     

青年知识移民就业城市选择及其影响因素

随着城市知识经济转型,各个城市越来越重视对知识人才包括青年知识人才的吸引。以广州市高校大学生为例,采用定性和定量相结合的方法,从城市与个人的双重视角探讨高校青年知识移民就业城市选择的特点及其影响因素。研究发现：1）青年知识移民总体上倾向于选择其本科或研究生就读地所在的城市和比其户籍地与就读地更高等级的城市（如一线、新一线城市）就业,这反映了他们向上空间流动和社会流动的意愿与动机;2）他们的就业流动是城市因素和个人因素共同作用的结果,其影响因素主要包括城市经济、城市环境、城市政策与城市文化,以及青年知识移民来源地的户籍类型与户籍地的城市等级等;3）城市经济发展（工作机会）是吸引高校青年知识移民的最重要因素,但与此同时,生存舒适度（生活机会）在青年知识移民的就业流动过程中所起的作用愈发重要,城市环境建设需要关注公共文化设施、社会舒适程度、交通便利程度、卫生服务设施以及城市自然环境和居住环境等方面的问题。个人因素方面,高校青年知识移民来源地的户籍类型与户籍地的城市等级对其就业流动决策具有显著的影响作用。细致探究青年知识移民就业流动规律及其影响因素是新时期理解和建构基于中国语境的知识型人才流动理论的需要,也是人才政策制定与知识人才实现自身价值的关键。     

Labor Market Marginalization of Youth in San Antonio,Texas

Poverty among inner‐city residents is associated with their marginal status in the labor market. Marginalization in the labor market begins during youth when important educational and employment decisions are made. Analysis of 1990 U.S. Census tract data for San Antonio, Texas identifies the lack of a high school diploma, poverty, non‐employment, and non‐enrollment in school as conditions of marginality for youth. Spatial patterns of youth labor market marginalization show concentrations in the inner city and in sectors on the West, South, and Eastside. Regression analysis reveals that levels of youth marginalization are associated with neighborhood context represented by the employment, behavioral, and ethnic characteristics of the overall residential population of a census tract.     

Conceptualising Irish rural youth migration: a biographical approach

This paper explores the usefulness of a biographical approach in studying Irish rural youth migration. There have been calls recently for an approach to migration study that involves conceptualizing migration as part of individual biographies as well as social structures. However, there is little research that explicitly adopts a biographical approach. This paper presents the theoretical underpinnings, methodological issues and findings of a recent study that was guided by the principles of a biographical approach to migration. The study was an exploration of life-path formation among Irish rural youth from the 1970s to the 1990s. The paper focuses on the three key elements of a biographical approach to migration, and relates them to Irish rural youth migration. Firstly, migration is considered as part of an individual's biography, and the methodological implications of this are explored. Secondly, it is argued, drawing on the research in Ireland, that migration decision-making is a multilayered process. In the case of Irish rural youth migration, a biographical approach highlights the complexity of migration decision-making, revealing the tensions and struggles that lie behind each move, and thus raises questions over the tendency towards simplification of the migration process. Finally, it is argued that migration is a cultural phenomenon, but that this assertion needs careful qualification. This paper problematizes the role of culture in migration processes by untangling the systems of competing discourses of migration that underlie societal norms regarding migration, thereby challenging the view of migration as "normal" for particular societies or cultures.     

Socio‐economic and ecological challenges of small‐scale fishing and strategies for its sustainable management: A case study of the Old Brahmaputra River,Bangladesh

Socio‐economic and ecological challenges faced by the small‐scale fishers dependent on the Old Brahmaputra River, Bangladesh are assessed using a combination of questionnaire survey, co‐monitoring of fish catch, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Results reveal that the fishers are involved in professional, seasonal or subsistence fishing. Fish catches from the river have declined significantly because of overfishing, destructive use of fishing gear, water pollution, siltation, rapid urbanization and human encroachment, thereby threatening the health of the river ecosystem as well as the future of small‐scale fishing. We evaluate various social, economic and ecological challenges faced by the fisher communities. We propose a conceptual framework that recognizes linkages among social, economic and ecological aspects in devising a sustainable river fisheries management system. We recommend effective legal enforcement of policies and regulations, strong institutional collaboration and active fisher community participation in management to ensure sustainable use of the resource base.