EXPRESSING “LOCAL CULTURE” IN HAWAI'I*

ABSTRACT. Detached from the mainland and with a distinct historical ethnic geography, the conquered kingdom of Hawai'i, now the fiftieth state, is the only U.S. state with an Asian and Pacific Islander majority as well as the highest percentage of racial and ethnic intermarriage. Hawai'i's population reflects the tensions between the culturally pluralistic “spirit of aloha” and the ethnic‐cum‐social stratification that has evolved from its historical economic geographies. In this article I focus on one of these strata—what is referred to as “local” culture—discussing its ethnogenesis and contemporary manifestations, and I apply Jonathan Okamura's 1981 model of situational ethnicity to examine how locals and new immigrants negotiate the ethnic dynamics and social expectations of their daily lives. I also discuss various ways in which “localness” is represented on O'ahu's economic landscape, with an analysis of the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, as a holistic expression of local culture.     

Making “Unofficial” Sacred Space: Spirit Mediums and House Temples in Singapore

Although there has been significant work done on the creation of sacred space in residential housing, not enough attention has been paid to a particular segment of Chinese religion leadership in Singapore – spirit mediums – and the processes in which they practice within the political ideology of the modernist Singaporean state. In this paper, I will show how spirit mediums operate within “unofficially sacred” spaces, specifically house temples that subvert and resist functionalist policies of the Singapore state. Using two visually focussed, participant‐observation case studies, I will argue that this subversion is sustained in two inter‐related ways—one, through the visual comportment of the spirit medium's body through behavior and aesthetic markers and two, through the social prominence of the spirit medium when he or she is in a trance. These two factors come together to temporally displace the importance of the physical location, allowing a spirit medium to operate in any location, “official” or “unofficial.”     

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.     

SEAFARERS' “MARITIME CULTURE” AND THE “I‐KIRIBATI WAY OF LIFE”: THE FORMATION OF FLEXIBLE IDENTITIES?

This paper aims to examine how seafarers from the Pacific Republic of Kiribati cope with the experience of working with crews of different nationalities, and, further, how the exposure to different cultures during their journeys through international waters influences both their own identity as well as their perceptions of I‐Kiribati culture. Based on examples from open and semi‐structured interviews with seafarers working on German merchant ships and Japanese fishing vessels, the paper questions the application of concepts of “hybridity” in the case of these I‐Kiribati men in favour of the idea of “cultural flexibility”. It further considers to what degree seafarers strongly rooted in the clearly confined cultural values of Kiribati have adapted the values received through their training and employment by German or Japanese and Korean companies and officers. The paper adds to the framework of transnationalism by advancing the notion of emporion, in which the circular and transversal journeys of seafarers are viewed as a connecting space between land‐based areas; a space which provides a basis for an extended knowledge and understanding of different cultural outlooks as well as relations between nations.     

THE LEGENDARY “REDISCOVERY” OF GEORGE PERKINS MARSH

The conventional narrative regarding the American reception of George Perkins Marsh, author of Man and Nature (1864), is that his work and ideas were “lost,”“forgotten,” or “neglected” until Lewis Mumford “rediscovered” him and introduced him to geographers at the University of California‐Berkeley through The Brown Decades (Mumford [1931] 1955) and until Carl Sauer made him known to the profession at large beginning in 1938. This article upends the conventional narrative by looking at earlier references to Marsh's later versions of Man and Nature, which were published as The Earth as Modified by Human Action from 1874 to 1907. Analysis reveals that a number of geographers and historians cited these editions between 1875 and the early 1950s. Examining the legend of loss and rediscovery suggests the value of methods utilized in reception studies for research on the history of geography.     

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.     

(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.     

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.”     

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.     

“TROPICALISM” IN FRENCH GEOGRAPHY: REALITY,ILLUSION OR IDEAL?

In important respects, the disciplinary field of “tropical geography” is a uniquely French field of study, and Pierre Gourou is conventionally seen as its founder and doyen. Yet Gourou did not see himself as the creator of a new paradigm or research school, and geographers were generally more influenced by his writings than by his teaching or any personal connection. With particular reference to French geographical research in and on tropical Africa during the second half of the twentieth century, it is suggested that the development of tropical geography as a subfield ‐ and tropicalism as a research orientation ‐ can be put down to a variety of factors and circumstances. Geographical research on Africa was pivotal, as was the rise to prominence in French research institutes of some of Gourou's disciples. But African academics also played a part, as did criticism of tropical geography for its marginalisation of issues of development and geopolitics. The paper examines this postwar intellectual history and attempts to draw from it a positive and forward looking legacy ‐ a reinvigorated and interdisciplinary “tropicalism”, the main axis of which would be the analysis of the specific characteristics of tropical ecology, and its use and transformation by the societies that live from it. Such a project may help us to confront the contemporary world ecological crisis, and forge critical research projects on globalisation (altermondialisme) that can discern and deal with the complex local‐global, and rural‐urban, articulations of this phenomenon.     

“GALICIA'S HURRICANE”: ACTOR NETWORKS AND ICONIC CONSTRUCTIONS*

Monumental constructions are created for a purpose, often as a symbolic representation of a particular vision of a people or a place. Spain's Cidade da Cultura, a museum conceptualized by Galicia's former president with the hubristic goal of creating a world icon, is one such example. Like many iconic constructions, the Cidade da Cultura project was highly contentious and sparked a regionwide political debate, vastly overran its projected cost, and years later remains controversial and incomplete. An actor‐network theory analysis of why the project failed reveals the different roles played by individual components in the vast network of actors, including the monument itself, which came to exercise influence over the outcome of the project. Because the former president could not fully control this expanding network of actors, events soon spun out of control in what became popularly known as “Galicia's Hurricane.”     

MAPS AND METAPHORS OF THE “SMALL EASTERN SEA” IN TOKUGAWA JAPAN (1603–1868)*

ABSTRACT. This article examines the ways in which oceans were depicted in Japanese geographical writings and maps from the Tokugawa period. It uses these texts to understand how early modern Japanese visions of the Pacific and of maritime Asian waters constructed epistemological frameworks through which the Japanese saw their place in an increasingly complex web of regional and global connections. In the absence of actual adventure on the “high seas,” Japanese writers, artists, and mapmakers used the inventive power of the imagination to fill in the cognitive blank of ocean space. I argue that the definition of early modern oceanic space was profoundly ambiguous, a legacy that, it can be argued, left its mark on Japan's modern relationship with the Asian Pacific region.     

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.     

“And a Charming Wife”: Gender,Marriage, and Manhood in the Job Search Process

The academic job search process, and the applications and reference letters that are constitutive elements of that process, are central to the creation and re‐creation of a discipline. Disciplines and departments renew and re‐create themselves — or do not, and merely replicate themselves — through hirings. A job search process can serve to hinder changes in the membership, culture, “look,” and the norms of the discipline, or it can facilitate dramatic and often rapid transformations. Job search materials thus provide an insight into the prevailing norms and conventions of a discipline. A review of a recent set of such materials reveals subtle gendered and racialized differences in the job search process. Such differences are apparent in the composition of referee committees, in the evocation of marital status both by applicants and by referees, and in the surprising persistence of themes of robust manhood. The referee pool, the applicant pool, and the search committee pool in an academic discipline are interlocked constituencies, and the job search process plays a “gatekeeping” role. The extent to which gender or racial differences are inserted into the job process thus has a bearing on the long term social construction of the discipline.     

National and Regional Trends in “Jobs in Geography”: 1980–1993

The number of “Jobs in Geography” advertised in the AAG Newsletter for U.S. faculty positions is analyzed for the 14 academic years from 1979–80 through 1992–93. Results reveal more job opportunities in the latter half of the study period, especially for tenured/tenure track positions as opposed to temporary jobs. The share of available positions open to ranks above the Assistant Professor level is smaller in the early 1990s compared to the 1980s. A distinct decline in faculty openings occurs for 1992–1993. Considerable regional variations in the job market situation are revealed.     

The Asian Economic “Flu”: A Geography of Crisis

This paper examines the recent economic turmoil in East Asia which has been linked to the convulsive nature of global capital movements. East Asia, once the site of rapid capital accumulation, lost its economic momentum beginning in July 1997 with a series of currency devaluations, culminating in a net outflow of private capital within a year. International capital's ability to disembed the region, however, has been highly uneven over space. That China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan are far more territorially resilient while others like Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea initiated major political changes suggests that the geography of crisis is far more complex than is currently presented.     

‘Here,we don't just trade goods,we also “sell” people's lives’: Sari‐sari stores as nodes of partial surveillance in a Philippine fishing community

Home‐based neighbourhood stores (locally known in the Philippines as sari‐sari stores) are a ubiquitous feature of most Philippine communities. They are small to medium‐size trade stores not unlike convenience stores in the West where people buy goods in small quantities. In the Philippines, these stores play a vital role in providing everyday economic sustenance to low‐income communities. But more than an economic hub, sari‐sari stores also function as a social hub that connects people and acts as eyes and ears of the community through the people who make use of their services. In a sense, sari‐sari stores are the community's ‘myopticon’ where people's day‐to‐day dealings with everyone in the community and its environs are reported and discursively brought under the gaze of the ‘entire community’. Being myopticon as opposed to Foucault's panopticon, surveillance in sari‐sari stores is partial, non‐hierarchicalized and could be resisted by people in the community. Nonetheless, regardless of the ‘myoptic’ features of sari‐sari stores, their presence in the community ‘interpellates’ everyone's daily existence and instantiates a discursive space from which a structure of informal social control is enacted among community members. Sari‐sari stores then are an important reminder of how our built environment is also about contestation and negotiation of everyday life as we make use of space and as the architectonics of space both constrain and empower our manoeuvring in places.     

Geography's Profile in Public Debate “Inside the Beltway” and the National Academies*

Geographers continue to engage in public debate “inside the Beltway” by participation within and through federal agencies and through the National Research Council. Several examples illustrate the level and kind of this engagement, which has been concentrated on environmental and spatial data and analysis themes. Most professional geographers have the opportunity to engage in this form of public debate through participation in the activities of the National Research Council. The level of this participation has been surprisingly strong, given the small size of the community of professional geographers, and has helped to shape both U.S. and international research agendas relevant to geographic research. Participation, however, is concentrated in a few programs and individuals, raising questions about the sustainability of geography's voice in this public activity.     

“HANDS ACROSS THE SEA”: THE MASONIC NETWORK,BRITISH IMPERIALISM,AND THE NORTH ATLANTIC WORLD

ABSTRACT. From Montreal to Madras, from Barbados to Burma, the lodges of Freemasons dotted the landscape of the British Empire from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. Together with the British grand lodges under whose authority they met, these lodges constituted a vast network that extended across the oceans and linked Freemasons in Britain's colonies to the metropole and to each other. In this article I use the fraternity to demonstrate how the age of empire can serve as a laboratory for studying transoceanic networks, institutions, and identities. Looking first at the broad imperial context, I demonstrate how the global Masonic network developed and describe its functions during the long nineteenth century. I then focus on the British North Atlantic as a case study of the brotherhood's role in connecting people on various sides of a particular ocean basin by offering practical services and encouraging an “imperialist” identity that helped consolidate the British Empire.