Water and power networks and urban fragmentation in Los Angeles: Rethinking assumed mechanisms

Los Angeles is often described as the epitome of urban fragmentation, a notion which in this context is frequently connected to, or even conflated with urban sprawl. At the same time, the city features integrated water and power networks which have been under public ownership for over 70 years. We thus have an apparent paradox in the context of the debate on ‘splintering urbanism’, between socio-spatial fragmentation and the integration of networks. In discussing the idea that deregulation of infrastructural networks exacerbates urban fragmentation, the authors use the case of Los Angeles in order to highlight the central role of private interests in management decisions concerning infrastructure networks. The authors carry out their analysis in an historical perspective, revealing that network integration and universal access can often serve private interests more than the public good. Urban fragmentation in Los Angeles, they conclude, is the result of a complex process of instrumentalisation of network development and management.     

Defending national linguistic territories in the European Single Market: towards more transnational geolinguistic analysis

This paper calls for more analysis of contemporary transnational linguistic movements. Geographers have hitherto focused on linguistic problems within states and paid less attention to issues that arise as languages, notably English, are used internationally across state boundaries. It does this by examining a conflict that arose when forces integrating the supranational European Single Market space came into conflict with a Member State's determination to protect the linguistic 'integrity' of its national territory. This conflict would appear to be a precursor of similar ones to come as languages increasingly compete in a linguistic market within an integrating Europe and a globalizing world.     

区位进入理论与企业集团的国际化扩张——以海尔集团为例

中国企业集团是改革开放以后出现的大型企业组织 ,在经济全球化的背景下 ,研究其国际化扩张具有重大现实意义。本文在详细介绍Hayter的国际企业区位进入理论的基础上 ,以海尔集团为例 ,分析了企业集团的国际化扩张过程 ;其次 ,分析了海尔集团所具有的进入优势以及所面临的空间进入壁垒。海尔集团所具有的进入优势有管理与文化优势、技术创新优势、产品质量优势、营销优势 ,但还面临着心理距离、企业规模小以及东道国政策的限制等空间壁垒。最后 ,提出了有关企业集团国际化扩张的一些对策。     

When the Light of the Home is Abroad: Unskilled Female Migration and the Filipino Family

The migration of women engaged in transnational domestic work reveals how the uneven impacts of globalisation have intruded into the micro‐world of families and households. In this age of globalisation and migration, family membership has become multisited or transnational, with members dispersed in space. The migration of workers and the separation this entails has raised challenges to notions and ideals of “being family”. Unlike other workers on the move, the migration of domestic workers has some distinctive characteristics. It can be framed in terms of women moving between families and households; workers whose departure from their family of origin and insertion into their family of employment reconstitute the structure and content of family relationships in both material and imagined ways. Drawing on in‐depth interviews conducted in the Philippines and Singapore, we explore how migrant women and their family members define and negotiate family ideals, gender identities and family relationships, given the family's transnational configuration. Our findings provide some support to the notion that individual members in transnational families resort to “relativising” in fashioning responses to their situation.     

Circulating planning ideas from the metropole to the colonies: understanding South Africa's segregated cities through policy mobilities

In the early part of the twentieth century, South African cities were segregated in accordance with British city planning concepts that embodied the belief that social order can be manipulated through the urban form. This paper surveys the history of South African planning practices to understand the spread of segregation policies and practices. Whereas scholars tend to agree that the apartheid city (post?1948) is a more highly organized and structured version of the colonial city (pre?1910), the literature lacks consensus on the development of the segregated city (1910?1948) within South Africa. How did concepts of segregation circulate and why was it implemented with such consistency? Accordingly, this paper employs concepts of policy mobilities to trace historical configurations in South Africa to international influences. The focus on the circuits of knowledge explains how concepts and designs transplanted from elsewhere helped create the form of South African cities today. Understanding the movement of planning ideas through policy mobilities furthers geographical understandings of historical circulation processes, the role of the local actors, and policy mobilities failure. This history of learning also challenges the assumption that South African cities are unique and in so doing opens the doors for knowledge sharing between postcolonial cities.     

National and transnational borderlanders’ attitudes towards the security fence between Israel and the Palestinian Authority

The subject of the security fence between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank has become a major issue in Israel and in the world in the last several years. The main aim of this research is to reveal the attitudes and thoughts about the fence held by local residents living in settlements (borderlanders) in the proximity of a part of the security fence that has already been completed. The research concentrates on the western-Israeli side of the fence, as it aspires to delve into and understand the meaning and implications of the security fence on matters such as personal security, safety of property and freedom of movement, the possibility of maintaining social and economic ties between the two sides and feelings about living in the area in the future. Underlying this research is the transformation occurring in the border area as a result of its closure by construction of the security fence, after many years in which it was open partially. This process has many diverse consequences, some of them contradictory, on the two populations residing near the border in Israel: the majority Jewish population (the national borderlanders), and the minority Arab population (the transnational borderlanders).     

新冠肺炎疫情背景下国际移民管治与个体响应策略

自新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情肆虐以来,全球国际移民流动按下暂停键。我国也面临着同样的情况,部分城市内部聚集着因疫情难以回国的国际移民,这对于地方政府的移民管治提出了巨大挑战。通过结合运用地理学与人类学的跨学科视角,在福柯的权力与异端辩证关系框架的基础上,加入了“管治-响应”的逻辑思路进行重组,并采用该分析框架,以广西阳朔为例,讨论后疫情时代国际移民管治与个体生存策略。通过结合参与式观察法与网络民族志法,结果发现：首先,为避免疫情防控中政治尺度跃迁引发的国际舆论事件,地方政府在国际移民群体中寻找权力代理人,并与之形成权力联盟,对移民个体进行管治,包括“规训/照料”“医治/隔离”“监控/放任。这种转换将原本权力关系中的地方政府与移民个体之间的矛盾转化为权力代理人与移民个体之间的矛盾,有效地规避了尺度跃迁问题。其次,移民个体结合自身的社会资本,采用特有的响应策略,包括“权力代理人”“顺从/搭便车”“治疗/自我管治”“不合作/破坏”。这些发现有利于加深对国际移民社会融合的理解,为地方政府的移民管治提供新思路。     

不均衡的跨国人口流动：对美墨移民历程与政策的思考

美国是全球最大的移民接收国,墨西哥是美国最大的移民来源国,特殊的地缘关系和巨大的发展差距使众多墨西哥人移民美国。墨裔移民为美国提供了充足的劳动力,在美墨边境地区,移民集聚带动了两国边境地区的发展。但族裔矛盾始终是美国主要社会问题之一,特别是“9·11”事件后,少数族裔和非法移民问题加剧美国社会分裂和对立,成为美国国内政治博弈的焦点。基于区域地缘关系的视角来看,美国与墨西哥之间长期不对等的国际关系决定了跨国移民的流入状态和生存境遇,也是美国族群矛盾的主要原因之一。移民问题政治化将持续强化墨裔移民政策的不确定性,使移民个人与家庭面临更大的融入困难。     

Foreign Hypermarket Retailers in China: Spatial Penetration,Local Embeddedness,and Structural Paradox

As the world economy shifts towards services, transnational corporations (TNCs) in the service sector have accelerated their expansion in emerging economies. This paper examines the development and embeddedness of foreign hypermarket retailers in China. It also analyzes the spatial penetration patterns of retail TNCs, the impacts of home and host economies on their local embeddedness, and how they resolve the structural paradox between enforcing standardization and conducting localization. The expansion of retail TNCs has been influenced by the gradual liberalization policies of the Chinese government. Spatially, they expanded in two directions: from the eastern costal region to the central and western hinterland, and along China's urban hierarchy from larger cities to smaller cities. While home economies greatly influenced their initial strategies, foreign hypermarket retailers are constantly adjusting to better embed in the Chinese market and to more effectively resolve the structural paradox.