Religion and technology: refiguring place, space, identity and community

This paper reviews the literature on the religion–technology nexus, drawing up a research agenda and offering preliminary empirical insights. First, I stress the need to explore the new politics of space as a consequence of technological development, emphasizing questions about the role of religion in effecting a form of religious (neo)imperialism, and uneven access to techno-religious spaces. Second, I highlight the need to examine the politics of identity and community, since cyberspace is not an isotropic surface. Third, I underscore the need to engage with questions about the poetics of religious community as social relations become mediated by technology. Finally, I focus on questions about the poetics of place, particularly the technological mediation of rituals.     

Water use, growth and yield of green gram under rainfed upland crop sequences in Gangetic Plains of Indian sub-tropics

A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of different crop sequences on water use, growth and yield of green gram (Vigna radiata (L) Wilezek) during 1992-93 and 1993-94 under rainfed upland condition in Indo-Gangetic plains of West Bengal. Green gram sown in the month of March as pre-rainy (summer) season crop, as and when the winter crops vacated the land, produced highest dry matter of 372 gm-2 which was significantly highest in black gram-yellow sarson sequence. The results of the field experimentation revealed that green gram gave highest grain yield to the extent of 10.80 q/ha when sown after black gram (rainy season) followed by yellow sarson (winter season) while the crop produced 10.63 q/ha under sesame-yellow sarson sequence. Highest water use of 267 mm was achieved in green gram under black gram-yellow sarson sequence and the crop gave water use efficiency of 4.07 kg ha-1mm-1 under black gram-yellow sarson sequences.     

The Space That Race Makes

This essay is a revision of a paper prepared for an NSF workshop on race and geography. Participants in the workshop were asked to offer their views on the topic and our suggestions for further research. This contribution explores some aspects of the relationship and relevance of geography to the question of race in North America. It touches on three “places” that constitute the discipline: the place of research, the place of teaching, and the workplace. With respect to research, it suggests some promising lines of inquiry. Among these are studies of the relationship of scale to the politics of identity and studies of “passing” in connection with studies of geographies of experience and geographies of power.     

Life After Death

Predictions of the death of impoverished and actively marginalized racial and ethnic communities are premature. Many core African American societies have been devastated by the state, capital, and cultural policies of the last two decades. Simultaneously, geography and the other social sciences have been mobilized in order to prevent a fuller understanding of these communities and of the need for social equity. The further development of several approaches is required to open geography and the other disciplines up for community‐building, rather than community destruction. The incorporation of research in the following areas holds out the promise of revitalizing both: human rights; the ethnic movements underlying restructuring; the social construction of regions; the reproduction of social power; building ethnic alliance; and indigenous knowledge systems.     

Using Spatial Statistics to Examine the Pattern of Urban Land Development in Halifax–Dartmouth

This article examines the locational patterns of population and employment and the resultant changes in urban form in the Halifax–Dartmouth region between 1970 and 1996. The article employs the univariate and bivariate K function to measure spatial dependence or clustering within and between the classes of residential and commercial land parcels. The results of the K function estimates suggest that residential land parcels cluster together, commercial land parcels cluster together, and residential and commercial land parcels have become more clustered over time. Evidence of clustering provides insight into the changing urban form of the region and possible multinucleation.     

RURAL PLACE ATTACHMENT IN HISPANO URBAN CENTERS*

ABSTRACT. Continued rural‐to‐urban migration has helped motivate cultural geographers, long suspected of having a rural bias, to include urban areas in their purview. Patterns of gender, class, ethnicity, and commercialization have proved to be fertile subjects for research, but the elastic links between rural and urban places are not yet well understood. Hispanos, despite intense feelings of loyalty to their rural villages, moved en masse to cities in the 1940s. By the 1950s a majority of Hispanos were living in regional urban centers of the upper Rio Grande country, where wages were higher and employment was secure. This Hispano experience is a crucible for examining how urbanites' attachment to rural places is manifested in various cultural expressions brought from country to city: painted murals, burial preferences, popular music, and irrigation ditches. Understanding threads of rural culture that have been incorporated into the urban fabric in turn leads to clearer comprehension of the emotional attachment that urbanites have for rural areas and a better appreciation of the complexity of the urban cultural environment.     

模糊区域拓扑关系模型

拓扑关系是地理信息系统中空间要素之间最基本也是最重要的关系之一，是进行绝大多数空间查询和分析的基础。非模糊空间要素之间的拓扑关系在一般拓扑学等理论的基础上已有相关的模型和描述，并在实践中得到广泛的应用，如何建立模糊空间要素这间的拓扑关系是建立模糊要素地理信息系统的基础。该文在模糊扑扑学的基础上提出了模糊区域的定义，建立了用于分析模糊区域之间拓扑关系的理论和模型，提出了4*4-intersection模型拓扑关系矩阵，并分析了不同拓扑关系矩阵对于非模糊区域之间、模糊区域之间建立拓扑关系的区别和联系，最后采和不同公式对模糊区域之间的关系进行了系统的描述。     

基于空间信息技术的城市应急救援联动系统研究

该文分析国内外城市现代救援体系及其发展趋势，对基于统一的空间信息基础设施平台分布式城市应急救援联动系统(体系结构与系统实现)的关键技术进行研究，以成都市城市应急救援联动系统为例，探讨了城市应急救援联动系统的构成、功能、业务流程、系统平台、用户界面等。     

东莞城市化过程中若干问题研究

改革开放以来，东莞市积极吸纳海外资本与技术，通过“三来一补”企业的快速发展，带动了非农产业和小城镇的迅速发展。然而，受我国分散的工业化和农村城市化政策体制的影响，在快速城市化过程中也暴露出很多值得关注的问题。该文基于实地考察与问卷访谈，重点分析了土地利用效率低、外来人口集中以及基础设施建设与城市经济发展不相协调等问题，并提出协调城市化发展的对策。     

城市功能区划的数量化方法研究及其应用--以深圳市南山区物流中心选址为例

文章总结了以往国内学者对城市功能区域的数量化方法研究，认为在层次分析法等方法中对指标权重的确定存在主观因素过多等不足，严重影响了研究的科学性和准确性，文章为了克服上述不足，将多属性效用理论的代理价值法与博弈论的方法应用于城市功能区的布局与研究，并以深圳市南山区物流中心的选址为例，阐述了代理价值法与博弈论在城市功能区域中的具体实践操作。