Geopolitics and “The Courage to Teach”: Identity,Integrity and the Subject of Political Geography

Abstract

Previous literature discussing and exemplifying the teaching of political geography has emphasized the material to be disseminated. Building upon those contributions, this paper offers a means of connecting student, teacher, and subject matter. Using the perspective of Parker Palmer, as illustrated in his book The Courage to Teach, it is suggested that placing the subject at the center of the classroom will result in the effective teaching of political geography. Two classroom exercises are used to exemplify the argument.     

Systematic Geography for Grade 4: A Spatial Systems Approach

Abstract

Various social and geographical strategies that have been used to assign children to schools in the United States are examined in order to: 1) support the contention that social space and geographic space are rarely considered in concert in the context of community problem solving, 2) point out the need for the consideration of various socio-spatial concepts such as action space, territoriality, and neighborhood in social scientific research addressing itself to the understanding of social issues, and 3) urge consideration of the fundamental changes overtaking American society, particularly the processes of time-space convergence which underlie the socio-geographical reorganization of earth space.     

可持续城市理念下新城市主义社区规划的价值观

从空间公正与价值尊严等方面对新城市主义社区规划的价值观进行研究,阐述其基本理念和规划原则。通过上述原理的分析,明确了新城市主义社区规划的社会价值观和空间价值观的内涵,前者涉及人本性、空间多样性、社区平等感和社会环境协调性4个层面,后者则体现在重视公共区域的阶层平等可进入性、提高混合居住的社会平等空间的宜居性和以强制性的宜居环境标准提升社会的平等性。最后,对新城市主义社区规划价值观的理论和实践性进行批判性的审视,并尝试性地提出解决实践中普遍存在的空间不公正问题的对策。     

Political culture: a typology grounded on Cultural Theory

Political culture is an attractive concept to characterize the specific preferences regarding politics in different political communities. However, it is a blurred concept because of the confusion between patterns of individual values and collective culture at the one hand, and the disputable separation between orientations and practices at the other hand. This contribution explores the potential of Cultural Theory, also called the Theory of Sociocultural Viability, to analyze political culture. This theory postulates the existence of four viable ways of life, which are patterns of social interactions and rationalizations reinforcing each other. Each way of life offers a partial explanation of reality and therefore reaches out for cultural allies who can compensate for its weakness. Such an alliance, generally between two ways of life, can be quite stable and therefore determines to a large degree the nature and the stability of the political institutions of a country. The political culture of a political community can be characterized by the proportion of adherents of each way of life (its regime), and by the predominant alliance of two ways of life.     

Neighborhood Activism among Homeowners as a Politics of Space

Most approaches to neighborhood activism among homeowners explain it in terms of a single social variable, such as class or race or gender. This article argues that, by focusing on one social category, these approaches fail to examine the range of variables that influence homeowner activism. The paper argues that, instead of understanding homeowner activism as a politics of class or race or gender, it should be understood as a politics of space. Such an approach allows us to understand how social variables interrelate in homeowners’ political project and provides a more effective explanation for why this agenda is translated into action.     

Just a train-ride away, but still worlds apart: Prospects for the Øresund region as a binational city

This article considers whether the cities of Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden, recently joined by the Øresund bridge, ought to be considered as one binational city. Working from the assumption that the project of constructing this binational city is a top-down endeavor whose success ultimately rests on the degree of support it receives from regional inhabitants, I focus on public opinion survey data collected one year after the opening of the bridge. Analysis shows that there are sharp national differences in the amount of support for the construction of a binational greater metropolitan region. I discuss how these differences may lead to an asymmetrical development for the emerging binational city, with Malmö eclipsed by the Danish capital Copenhagen, as well as how the heavily multi-cultural population of Malmö can impact Danish-Swedish cooperation on the Øresund.     

Embodying a Europe of the cities: geographies of mayoral leadership

This paper explores some issues in representing the geographies of mayoral power in contemporary Europe. It begins by summarizing the idea of a 'Europe of the Cities' and an emerging new mayoral political class in Europe, and then discusses some of the insights offered by cultural geography in conceptualizing this new agenda in urban politics.     

Natural and imposed injustices: the challenges in implementing 'fair' flood risk management policy in England

This paper examines the challenges facing English flood risk management (FRM) policy and practice when considering fair decision-making processes and outcomes at a range of spatial scales. It is recognised that flooding is not fair per se : the inherent natural spatial inequality of flood frequency and extent, plus the legacy of differential system interventions, being the cause. But, drawing on the three social justice models – procedural equality, Rawls' maximin rule and maximum utility – the authors examine the fairness principles currently employed in FRM decision-making. This is achieved, firstly, in relation to the distribution of taxpayer's money for FRM at the national, regional and local levels and, secondly, for non-structural strategies – most notably those of insurance, flood warnings and awareness raising, land use control, home owner adaptation and emergency management. A case study of the Lower Thames catchment illustrates the challenges facing decision-makers in 'real life': how those strategies which appear to be most technically and economically effective fall far short of being fair from either a vulnerability or equality perspective. The paper concludes that if we are to manage flood risk somewhat more fairly then a move in the direction of government funding of nationally consistent non-structural strategies, in conjunction with lower investment decision thresholds for other local-level FRM options, appears to offer a greater contribution to equality and vulnerability-based social justice principles than the status quo.     

The demonstration effect: Natural resources, ethnonationalism and the Aceh conflict

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami brought Aceh's long-drawn separatist conflict back to international attention. Yet, the precise way in which the different aspects of the conflict entangled with resource-related grievances have remained poorly understood. Taking a political ecology approach, this paper sets out to understand the role of natural resource grievances within the complex and shifting set of mutually implicated factors leading to and sustaining the conflict from the early days of Indonesia's independence. The paper argues that the management of Aceh's natural resources – especially the rich gas and oil reserves – was not the sole or primary causal factor. Rather, state managed exploitation of natural resources had a demonstration effect, exemplifying other grievances and supporting the articulation of a separatist discourse naturalizing 'Acehnese' conceptualizations of resource entitlement. Comparing Aceh with other separatist conflicts, the paper suggests that, as conflict unfolds at the intersection of a shifting set of concerns, it is increasingly difficult to separate the underlying issues of identity, resource entitlements and human rights.     

Why do they burn the 'bush'? Fire, rural livelihoods, and conservation in Zambia

Despite the historical importance of fire as a savanna land management tool, much controversy still surrounds discussions on anthropogenic fire utilization and the sustainability of indigenous land management practices in African savannas. This controversy is arguably a result of a discord between official fire policies and actual indigenous fire practices – a discord based on a gap in existing knowledge of, and a lack of informed literature on, the importance of fire for socio-economic and environmental survival in savanna environments. Addressing a continuing lack of research on the political ecology of fire, this study investigates the historical and present day socio-economic, environmental and political frameworks that affect anthropogenic burning regimes and land management in the Kafinda Game Management Area and Kasanka National Park in Zambia. A series of participatory research activities revealed the continuing importance of fire to rural livelihoods, but that a mismatch in desired burning regimes exists between local stakeholders. The paper argues that local power relations are preventing the local communities from adopting burning regimes that would be more environmentally sustainable and more in line with present day farming systems.