To a Young Medical Geographer

Editor's Note : The views and opinions expressed in the following paper have been written in the form of a letter or conversation between a dissertation advisor and an advanced graduate student in medical geography. It emphasizes the pervasive qualities of the health component of human behavior, and hopefully transmits aspects of human behavior that are taking hold in medical-ecological research. It attempts to suggest what at least one practicing medical geographer thinks a major facet of the field will be like as it matures. The holistic perspective that it envisages seems to be taking hold in neighboring disciplines—or perhaps “interdisciplines”as they might someday be called. The speculative quality of the presentation is intended to serve as a possible springboard for professional interaction.     

Geo-Historical Approaches to Environment: the Evolution of Environmental Thought in Western Civilization

Abstract

While attempting to establish a workable methodology for the study of environmental perception through history at the undergraduate college level, it was discovered that certain socio-cultural institutions, i.e., economics, politics, religion, and science/technology, play a dominant role in the formation of human thought and subsequent behavior patterns. By reducing human action to categories, students find it possible to investigate the influence of essentially non-physical aspects of environment on environmental perception, and they discover how environmental perception maintains or alters socio-cultural conventions. Here, the Middle Ages provide an example of how one socio-cultural convention — religion — modified human thought, behavior, and environmental alteration.     

Geographic information systems and the BBC's Domesday interactive videodisk

Abstract

The Domesday Project is an ambitious attempt by BBC Enterprises Ltd to present a contemporary snapshot of the United Kingdom in the 1980s on interactive video disk. Two disks are being produced: the first, the local or community disk, consists essentially of information collected by the British people. The second, the national disk, has (amongst other material) a selection of data from both government and quasi-government sources. In total, the disks will hold about 250 Mb vies of digital data. ;is well as some 50000 photographs and around 20 million words of text. The paper introduces the idea of interactive video and the local disk. It then concentrates on methods of access to, and cartographic display of, data on the national disk. We conclude that it is a significant geographical information system which will ultimately form one of the most widely-used data base systems for the foreseeable future.     

Lærerstudenters myter om befolkning og miljø

This article discusses perceptions of linkages between population and environment among Norwegian teacher trainee students. It is based on experiences from teaching, the examination of more than 1500 written examination papers, and a questionnaire to students. The conclusion is that students generally hold neo-Malthusian views of environmental crisis as the inevitable consequence of population increase. These perceptions, which we characterise as 'myths', contrast with results of recent research. The article discusses some of the sources of these myths as well as reasons for their apparent robustness.     

Urban greening,property and more-than-human commoning

ABSTRACT

Urban greening is about bringing vegetation into cities in ways that produce flourishing urban ecologies whilst also making cities more liveable for human inhabitants. We focus here on greening that is done through the maintenance or establishment of gardens, parks, urban forests and informal spaces. We argue that in contexts with established property law systems, such as Australia, making urban ecologies through greening is shaped heavily by relations of property tied to land. This includes constraining the extent to which urban greening can contribute to socio-ecologically just cities. We suggest that progressing greening that is more attentive to the geographies and temporalities of more-than-human life requires us to trouble the hold of property over greening. To do this we explore the possibilities opened up by the lens of urban commons/commoning. We engage with the emerging concept of more-than-human commoning as a way of attuning urban greening to nonhuman agency and affordances. We also grapple with the risk of obscuring or concealing difference between humans in the way commoning makes room for more-than-humans, especially in the context of settler-colonialism. We conclude by calling for a more overt politics of urban greening that encompasses diverse human and more-than-human experiences of the city.     

Childhood asthma: Regional and social inequalities in parents' perceptions of the diagnostic process in Norway

This paper focuses on the 'cultural turn' which has taken place in British and to a lesser extent North American and Australian human geography in the last decade. It begins by exploring what constitutes the cultural in what has been dubbed 'new cultural geography'. It then explores contemporary claims that cultural geography has eclipsed or marginalised social geography. The final section evaluates these claims about the demise of the social, arguing that the social has not been evacuated but rather has been redefined. While this paper tells a specific story about a particular tradition and geographical frame of reference, it nonetheless has wider relevance because it provides an example of the differential development of particular sub-disciplinary areas, of the way subdisciplinary knowledges shape each other, and of the way understandings of disciplinary trends are contested.     

Women,Politics, Elections,and Citizenship

Abstract

Significantly more women than men are registered voters in the United States, and a higher proportion of women voters actually cast ballots on election day. Yet the 106th Congress (1999-2001) includes only 56 women members, 12% of the total membership of the House and Senate. Likewise, women hold only 22% of the total seats in state legislatures. The purpose of this article is to examine this paradox. It first examines the history of the women's movement in the United States. It then turns to an evaluation of women's progress in gaining elected office. Finally it considers three primary obstacles to women gaining equitable representation: solidarity among women, political culture, and the single-member district system now employed in the United States.     

The Use of Literary Works in Teaching Latin American Geography

Abstract

Properly selected literary works can spark student interest in regional geography. Since evidence is mounting that reading levels of students are continuously declining, special attention may be needed to draw students to books. Whereas a textbook, even a well-written one, may fail to hold a student's attention or stimulate him to attempt further reading, an exciting and informative novel may produce the desired response. Students can learn to appreciate the practical application of traditional geographic writing and instruction through the instructor's careful integration of course themes with the pseudo-real-life plots of fiction or the true-life situations recounted in biographical works or travel accounts.     

A Teaching Model of Network Diffusion: the Taiwan Example

Abstract

Inquiry-discovery learning of processes involved in determining transportation patterns form the core of this teaching model. To develop the exercise, a generalized model of route network growth is presented, followed by explanatory models of causation and theory formulation. These suggest hypotheses which are then tested against a real-world example, the evolution of the road network in Taiwan. The model promotes understanding of human behavior and geographic change through systematic scientific inquiry and cross-national application. It is sufficiently general for use at several teaching levels.     

Multimedia Guided Writing Modules for Introductory Human Geography

Abstract

This article describes a pilot project initiated in the fall term of 1993 that implemented and tested an interactive system of multimedia computer learning modules for an introductory human geography course. Modules actively involved students in learning and collaborative writing about topics illustrative of the breadth of contemporary human geography. Evaluation was achieved by means of analysis of student essays, electronic logs of student time spent in various portions of the system, and a comprehensive survey administered to students at the end of the term. This information suggests that the use of interactive multimedia lab modules can greatly enrich the learning environment for a wide range of students taking introductory human geography courses, though careful attention must be paid to ensure ease of use. The modules are now being refined based on these results; our hope is to make them available to other geography departments in the near future.     

A Scope and Sequence in Geographic Education,Grades K-12

Abstract

This article introduces the word “LAMPPOST” as a mnemonic device to aid in the instruction of climate variables. It provides instructors with a framework for discussing climate patterns that is based on eight variables: latitude, altitude, maritime influence and continen-tality, pressure systems, prevailing winds, ocean currents, storms, and topography. It focuses on ways to introduce the variables in a logical sequence that provides a smooth transition from one variable to the next. It is primarily designed for instructors with a background in human geography or the social sciences who wish to incorporate elements of physical geography into their lectures.     

MAPS,METAPHORS AND MUDDLES

The idea of a cognitive or mental map has been a source of confusion in the geographical literature for some time. Downs suggests that the confusion can be removed if we give consideration to the role of maps in metaphors and analogies. This raises important questions, but treating the map as a double metaphor does nothing to clarify these issues. Cartographic skills are not the result of introspection and hypothesizing such maps-in-the-head can only impede our understanding of spatial behavior.     

A Review of “An Everyday Geography of the Global South”

Human interactions with the marine environment and pollution hold broad lessons for understanding environmental change. Expanding geographical inquiry beyond its traditional, land-based foci and delving deeper into marine environment and risk issues offers fruitful avenues by which to elaborate and refine our understanding of nature-society relationships. I present a case study of marine petroleum transportation risks in the Straits of Malacca to illustrate the complex history of political and economic processes across a range of scales and shaping the risks in the Straits. The inescapable tension between generalizing global social and environmental processes and recognizing the array of local differences drives ongoing policy debates in the Straits, as it does increasingly for many global environmental problems.     

Lesson Plans in Geography

Abstract

This article advocates that geography teachers undertake field studies of human systems with their students. A field trip process is described that helps teachers to guide students to explore and analyze a real human system with the expressed goal of building skills that can transfer to and complement a wide range of geographic learning tasks identified in Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994. Students are taken to a human system, such as a supermarket or a hotel. In groups, students interview as well as tour with a representative of a key department of the human system. Using teacher-supplied materials, groups create models or visual schematics of the whole human system they studied. The model must show the complex as a collection of interdependent elements with distinct functions. The learning outcomes achieved by students are a collection of geographic skills ideal for transfer to subsequent geographic investigations of urban places and or regions.     

UK-based terrorists' antecedent behavior: A spatial and temporal analysis

Background and purposeTerrorism is a real and present danger. The build-up to an attack includes planning, travel, and reconnaissance which necessarily require the offender to move through their environment. Whilst research has examined patterns of terrorist attack locations, with a few exceptions (e.g. Rossmo & Harries, 2011), it has not examined the spatial behavior of the terrorists themselves. In this paper, we investigate whether the spatial mobility patterns of terrorists resemble those of criminals (and the wider population) and if these change in the run up to their attacks.MethodUsing mobile phone data records for the ringleaders of four different UK-based terrorist plots in the months leading up to their attacks, we examine the frequency with which terrorists visit different locations, how far they travel from key anchor points such as their home, the distance between sequential cell-site hits and how their range of movement varies as the planned time to attack approaches.ConclusionsLike the wider population (and criminals), the sample of terrorists examined exhibited predictable patterns of spatial behavior. Most movements were close to their home location or safe house, and they visited a relatively small number of locations most of the time. Disaggregating these patterns over time provided mixed evidence regarding the way in which their spatial activity changed as the time to the planned attack approached. The findings are interpreted in terms of how they inform criminological understanding of the spatial behavior of terrorists, and the implications for law enforcement.     

THE IMPACT OF FEDERAL LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ASSISTANCE UPON TRAVEL BEHAVIOR

Despite substantial amounts of federal assistance to local public transportation, ridership has declined considerably in the country as a whole since 1964, suggesting an ineffective government program. A city-by-city comparison of assistance received with changes in transit ridership shows that declines in transit usage were least in cities receiving the most federal aid, and greatest in cities receiving the least aid. This demonstrates that federal aid has had an impact upon travel behavior. Indeed, it is the single most important factor explaining differences between cities in travel behavior changes in the 1970's.     

Permits to burn: weeds,slow violence,and the extractive future of northern Australia

ABSTRACT

This essay narrates the ‘slow violence’, or creeping environmental harms taking place within contemporary environmental governance. It centres on a tall, dense and highly flammable introduced pasture species Gamba grass (Andropogon gayanus), which was listed as a weed across north Australian jurisdictions in 2008. Since this time, it has continued to expand its reach across the Northern Territory (NT). With a potential invasion range of over 380,000?sqkm², this grass is a serious threat to many more-than-human worlds in the north, including Indigenous-led and Indigenous-owned environmental service economies and multimillion-dollar projects engaged in savanna fire management for carbon credits. Drawing upon fieldwork and interviews with a range of public servants, landholders and researchers in the NT between 2015 and 2018, this essay demonstrates how environmental governance is being undermined through specific institutions and practices. Through an ethnographic reading of weed management documents, including several legal permits to grow Gamba grass within the NT’s ‘eradication zone’, this essay narrates the diverse threads of a pressing ‘slow’ disaster. The unfolding story of Gamba grass, we suggest, is instructive for those seeking to understand the present and future of resource extraction or ‘extractivism’ in Australia and elsewhere.     

Fluid Households,Complex Families: The Impacts of Children's Migration as a Response to HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa*

Abstract

The fluidity of southern African families is related to a long history of internal and external migration. Currently, HIV/AIDS is having a dramatic impact on extended family structures, with the migration of individual members employed as a coping strategy. Children's migration is one aspect of this that is often distinct from that undertaken by other household members. This article is based on qualitative research conducted in Lesotho and Malawi with young migrants and the households that receive them. It examines the processes of fragmentation and re-formation of households through the movements of children that are taking place in response to HIV/AIDS, and explores the impacts these processes have on young migrants and the households they join.