Teaching Historical Geographies of American Film Production

Abstract

The geographies of Hollywood are multiple, contradictory, ephemeral and tangible. Our preconceived conceptions of space and place play a dynamic role in what elements we tend to focus on when discussing the cultural industry of American cinema. This essay uses Hollywood as a metaphor for the American film production industry and a historical geography of production as a framework to explore major spatial and structural changes within this industry from its inception to the present. It highlights teaching methods and materials from the course A Geography of Film at Southern Connecticut State University. Mode of production relates to the economic process where capital, labor, knowledge and imagination are blended to produce a culturalized product for consumption. The American film industry is a fine example of the commodification of culture.     

Suggestions for Low-Cost Equipment for Physical Geography I: Laboratory Equipment

Abstract

Fieldwork and laboratory experiences have always been important components of physical geography education, at universities as well as secondary schools. However, the rising cost of necessary equipment and dwindling education budgets of most universities and secondary schools have placed such experiences in crisis. This is the first of two papers that present lab- and field-based items we have designed and built for student research. The equipment is easy to construct and made from low-cost materials like PVC plumbing pipe. Photographs, construction notes, and costs have been included for each of the pieces of equipment, as well as measured schematics for the more complex items.     

Useful Products of the Century Plant a Lesson on Mexico

Creating opportunities for students to actively apply hazards theory to real-life situations is often a challenge in hazards geography courses. This article presents a project, the Jocko Lakes Fire Project, that implemented learning strategies to encourage students to be active in wildfire hazards research. Wildfire hazards stand out as an increasing threat to communities in forested areas given current and projected rates of urbanization, the growing concentration of wealth in hazard-prone areas, the increasing costs of forest wildfire reduction, and climate change. Components of the project involved students in problem definition and the articulation of a research plan; identifying and collecting relevant data; and analyzing and documenting the wildfire hazard event. The student-based evaluation of the project and its outcomes highlights the ways in which this approach can increase understanding of local hazard scenarios, familiarity with relevant theory, geographical knowledge, and skills in research.     

Some Suggestions Concerning a Course of Study in Geography

Abstract

Over the next decade or so, the National Assessment for Educational Progress in Geography and the Geographic Education Standards Project promise to give geography a new definition as a school subject. This will challenge the educational community to re-examine how geography is taught and learned across all the grade levels, K-12. If geography is to be perceived as an essential subject in preparing students for citizenship as adults, not only must its image change, but its content and the pedagogy that delivers it must be modified as well. To achieve those ends, new curricular models grounded in cogent and applicable research must develop through partnerships of teachers, teacher educators, learning theorists, and professional geographers.     

Service-Learning: Critical Traditions and Geographic Pedagogy

Abstract

The rise of service-learning in higher education has been critiqued as little more than community service that encourages students to “do good,” but fails to generate original scholarship or social change. In this article, we argue that service-learning gives geographers the opportunity to challenge these critiques, by demonstrating the practical and political implications of collaborative research methodologies, while conveying powerful conceptual understandings of inequality. We begin by interrogating the philosophical overlap between experiential and service-based learning in the educational philosophy of John Dewey. Using this foundational approach, several theoretical and methodological debates in geography are examined, celebrating and drawing lessons from classic and current service-learning programs. We conclude with a discussion and reflection on experiences with implementing similar pedagogical projects.     

Service industries in the global economy

This article discusses services as a research theme by reviewing the anthology Service Industries in the Global Economy, a collection of articles published in 1998, in two volumes in the series The International Library of Critical Writings in Economics (series editor Mark Blaug). The articles are reprints from journals in economics, economic geography and sociology, and they span the period from 1939 to 1997. Of the total of 70 articles, this review can give only some samples.     

Restructuring and socially managed flexibility in the Norwegian hotel industry

The article explores processes of restructuring firms in the Norwegian hotel industry in the light of constant negotiations between neoliberalisation and countermeasures in the social-democratic welfare state, and the effects of this restructuring on labour. Inspired by scholarship on neoliberal restructuring, the article examines how competitive strategies in the hotel industry are shaped by intensified competition, by the interface of industry regulations, labour market regulations, and social security, and by the labour movement. Social-democratic welfare states are not insulated from neoliberal currents in either accumulation or regulation, and the concept of socially managed flexibility proves helpful in examining regulatory resistance to neoliberalisation. As in other advanced economies, the Norwegian hotel industry faces increased competition through intensification of labour efforts and strategies to increase flexibility, especially numerical flexibility aimed at cutting costs. Norwegian labour market regulations to some extent curb numerical flexibility for cost-cutting purposes, and the centralised labour movement plays an important role in this regard. Nonetheless, the hotel industry has found room to manoeuvre. The article reveals the state's difficulties in managing flexibility in a way that permits numerical flexibility, yet prevents cost-cutting that leads to intensified labour efforts at the lower end of the service sector.     

基于局部空间统计的产业集群空间分析——以北京市制造业集群为例

将集群识别与空间分析相结合,通过全国集群模板识别产业集群,进而利用局部空间统计方法,探测产业集群的空间布局特征。利用2008年北京市和全国经济普查数据,从产业联系的角度识别了北京市制造业集群,在此基础上进一步测度了北京市制造业集群的空间分布现状与布局特征。研究发现,北京市制造业集群主要分布在近郊区并向远郊区延伸,资源条件、政策环境、交通区位、历史因素等多种区位因子均对集群的区位选择产生影响。从总体分布来看,北京市制造业集群的空间布局存在分布比较分散、功能重叠或与区县功能定位不符等问题。未来在政策制定时,应进一步强化北京市制造业集群的空间集聚,发挥区域产业政策的引导作用,并不断依托产业园区优化集群发展环境,引导符合区县功能定位的制造业集群发展。     

城市汽车服务业空间集聚特征研究:以南京市为例

随着中国城市化进程的不断深入,汽车服务业已成为城市现代服务业的重要组成部分,对城市空间影响也日益加大。以南京市为案例,对汽车服务业总体空间集聚及分行业空间集聚情况进行了分析与比较,证实了汽车服务业集聚空间的出现,不同的行业类型其空间表现是不同的。进而总结归纳出南京市汽车服务业空间布局特征,具体表现为:圈层分布特征明显,汽车销售、汽车维修养护、汽车配件、汽车租赁、汽车俱乐部五大行业在不同圈层的集聚状况也有着明显的差异;总体呈现出小集聚、大分散的格局,除了几个规模较大的集聚区,汽车服务业整体空间布局显得比较零碎;与干道交通关联紧密,大部分汽车服务业都分布于城市干道周围。