‘A place for everything’: Moral landscapes of ‘swiftlet farming’ in George Town,Malaysia

This paper is based on 6 months of ethnographic, multi-sited research in Malaysia, and investigates the relatively recent phenomenon of edible birds’ nest farming in urban areas (‘swiftlet farming’). Swiftlet farms are typically converted shophouses or other buildings which have been modified for the purpose of harvesting the nests of the Edible-nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus). I use the controversy over urban swiftlet farming in the Malaysian city of George Town, Penang, to examine discourses used by key stakeholders to shape debates over the place of non-human animals in cities. By considering everyday experiences of urban swiftlet farming, I explore how this burgeoning industry is perceived amongst residents, and how it is deemed to be (in)appropriate within the political, economic and cultural landscape of George Town. Yet, I also consider how farmers have sought to contest these discourses on ideological and normative grounds. In so doing, I place the cultural animal geographies literature in conversation with emergent literature on landscape and urban political ecology. Such a framing allows for a critical evaluation of the controversies surrounding this case, and their implications for human-animal cohabitation in cities. The paper reflects on the implications of this case for how we regulate human-animal relations and live in contemporary cities, and the crucial role of animals in altering urban form, aesthetics and everyday life, particularly in non-Western contexts.     

Task-oriented information value measurement based on space-time prisms

Recent years have witnessed a large increase in the amount of information available from the Web and many other sources. Such an information deluge presents a challenge for individuals who have to identify useful information items to complete particular tasks in hand. Information value theory (IVT) from economics and artificial intelligence has provided some guidance on this issue. However, existing IVT studies often focus on monetary values, while ignoring the spatiotemporal properties which can play important roles in everyday tasks. In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework for task-oriented information value measurement. This framework integrates IVT with the space-time prism from time geography and measures the value of information based on its impact on an individual’s space-time prisms and its capability of improving task planning. We develop and formalize this framework by extending the utility function from space-time accessibility studies and elaborate it using a simplified example from time geography. We conduct a simulation on a real-world transportation network using the proposed framework. Our research could be applied to improving information display on small-screen mobile devices (e.g., smartwatches) by assigning priorities to different information items.     

Student Perceptions of a Recreation Trail Assignment as a Valuable Learning Experience for Geography Undergraduates

Charging undergraduate geography students with the task of designing a recreational trail in their local community offers an engaging experiential opportunity with potential to advance geographic learning in a real-world setting. This article presents an assignment in which students were asked to develop a recreational trail proposal for an undeveloped local conservation area and the results of a survey that asked the students to reflect and report upon the educational value of this experience one year later. Results of the survey validated the assignment's lasting value to the students across the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective learning domains.     

An Individual Rural Geography

To date, only limited research has focused on the individual in rural geography compared to the importance given to the rural community. With the sociocultural turn and moral positions in rural geography, however, the individual is acquiring more relevance but encapsulated in analytical traditions of locality community and of marginal situations and people. This article synthesizes the most significant works about the individual, especially within rural geography, and its key dimensions are identified: citizenship (political and normative dimension), emotional aspects (the extraordinary moments in peoples' lives), everyday life (the relationship between the individual and the rural place), and difference and otherness (between and within others). To develop an individual rural geography, these four dimensions, which reflect different aspects of the rural individual, must be used in a complementary manner. The relevance of each dimension suggests different types of individualities in rural areas. Ultimately, this article proposes a “new humanism” in contrast with antihumanistic poststructural approaches.     

Where Are the Women? Accounting for Discrepancies in Female Doctorates in U.S. Geography

Although there have been noticeable improvements in recent years, geography continues to be a predominantly male discipline. The percentage of women receiving PhDs in geography has tracked lower than the U.S. average of female PhDs. Previous studies of women's contribution to geography have focused on personal accounts or on the study of some of the most prominent practitioners, with a few studies using basic data on PhDs awarded and Association of American Geographers membership to determine trends. This article provides a comprehensive overview of doctoral degrees in geography by gender, over time, and across all universities in the United States by examining an alternative database, that of doctoral dissertations. The analysis yields three separate types of results. First, historical and contemporary variations among U.S. universities are examined. Second, data indicate that male and female doctoral students differ in the sex of their advisor. Third, a simple regression model explains some of the discrepancies in the proportion of female doctoral students by department. In sum, this article provides a comprehensive empirical study of the factors that might contribute to the continued disparities in female doctoral students in geography.     

国际上的政治地理学研究进展与启示————对《Political Geography》杂志2005-2015年载文的分析

通过对国际上的政治地理学旗舰性杂志《Political Geography》2005-2015年期间391篇成果的分析,总结出国际政治地理学研究的主要研究议题为:边境与边界,环境政治,空间与尺度,领土和主权以及安全问题,选举地理,社会和文化政治,其中空间与尺度,领土和主权以及安全问题,社会和文化政治几个方向研究成果占较大比例,而其他三个方向则相对较少.通过研究方法分析发现,国际政治地理学主要采用定性分析的方法,尤其是民族志和文本分析的方法,定量分析的使用存在一定的局限性.最后,从该杂志的研究对象和研究机构两个方面的分析归纳出:欧美主导的发达国家(尤其是英国和美国)对世界政治地理学话题的学术霸权与世界南,北差异发展具有一定的相关性.在中国综合国力日渐增强,参与国际事务能力不断提高以及作为新兴的地缘政治力量崛起的社会历史背景下,政治地理学经世致用之能亟待被展现.因此,中国政治地理学发展作为发展中国家的声音势必将越来越洪亮.     

褚亚平先生的学术思想与主要贡献

褚亚平先生是中国著名的地理教育学家和地名学家.他长期从事地理教育研究与实践,完善了中学地理教学法学科体系,创造性的提出地理教材"三系统"理论,提出以学生为本,促进学生全面发展与深入教学研究,培养高质量师资队伍并行的地理教育理论,他对地理教育的研究成果推动了中国地理教育学的发展.他重视地名研究与管理人才培养,撰写专著力图构建地名学的基础理论,并对新时期地名管理,地名规划,地名商品化等问题提出自己的看法.     

The Legacy of Jedidiah Morse in Early American Geography Education: Forgotten and/or Forgettable Geographer?

Despite numerous and significant writings by historians of geography and biographers from other disciplines, and his authorship of the first geography textbooks written in and for the new American republic, most geographers are largely unaware of the contributions of Jedidiah Morse in academic geography. Writings about Morse suggest that he had alienated himself from many of his contemporaries early in his career through his authoritarian brand of Calvinistic republicanism, a perceived contradiction of that style with his entrepreneurial ambitions, his role in the controversial Bavarian Illuminati, and a dispute with a noted New England historian. But subsequent, broader intellectual movements sealed Morse's fate as a forgotten geographer (to most), including the end of the Second Great Awakening, Transcendentalism, Darwinism, and the “new,” process‐based geographical thinking inspired by Carl Ritter, Alexander von Humboldt, and Arnold Guyot. Regardless of the reasons for Morse's lost legacy, his contributions to geographical education are important and should be remembered.     

Recent Trends in Geography Education in Louisiana

Geography at elementary and middle schools in Louisiana, USA., remains a social studies strand along with civics, economics, and history, with no state-required geography course at any level. But because schools may require more geography than the state standard, this research examines the extent to which K–12 students are exposed to geography in Louisiana, using an electronic survey and an interview with state department of education officials. Results suggest that geography remains underemphasized, but the 2011 implementation of new social studies standards, the Advanced Placement Human Geography course, and other initiatives offer promise for more geographically literate Louisiana citizens.     

Meeting the Challenge of Systemic Change in Geography Education: Lucy Sprague Mitchell’s Young Geographers

The history of K–12 geography education has been characterized by recurrent high hopes and dashed expectations. There have, however, been moments when the trajectory of geography education might have changed to offer students the opportunity to develop a thorough working knowledge of geography. Lucy Sprague Mitchell’s geography program developed in the 1920s and 1930s was brilliant in its conception and execution but it did not lead to large-scale systemic change. Analyzing the origins, development, and outcome of her program suggests the conditions that facilitate and inhibit systemic change, and therefore perhaps we can learn to capitalize on comparable moments in the future.