Most recent papers:

• Youth Artisanal and Small‐Scale Miners' Perspectives on the Health Effects of Mercury.
  Lydia Osei.
  Geographical Journal. 2 days ago
  ["The Geographical Journal, Volume 192, Issue 2, June 2026. ", "\nShort Abstract\nASM constitutes a significant non‐farm livelihood activity for rural populations across sub‐Saharan Africa. Despite its socio‐economic importance, the occupational and environmental consequences associated with mercury use at ASM sites are severe. Mercury use in mining is a practice with a history spanning more than 3000 years. This paper argues that adopting a targeted approach focused on young artisanal and small‐scale miners, coupled with the introduction of safer mining practices, could make a substantial contribution to the eventual reduction and elimination of mercury use at ASM sites.\n\nABSTRACT\nArtisanal and small‐scale mining (ASM) has gained prominence in the development discourse mainly due to its contribution to national economies; but also, the occupational and environmental challenges associated with the sector. This paper concentrates on the use of mercury at ASM sites, as one of the major concerns associated with a growing sector in Ghana. The paper reveals that youth miners have limited knowledge of the grave health effects of mercury because such knowledge is based on what is transmitted by their older counterparts. Some miners have devised crude ways of protecting themselves against the effects of mercury. The paper proposes that an improved education on the effects of mercury on the health of youth miners could be an essential component of formalising the sector, which will also prove to be a key strategy to achieving the goal of reducing and eliminating mercury from ASM.\n"]

  May 10, 2026   doi: 10.1111/geoj.70063   open full text
• The Social Equity of Spatial Compactness Varies by Context: Evidence From Belfast, Glasgow and Liverpool.
  Tianrui Sun, Cristian Silva.
  Geographical Journal. 12 days ago
  ["The Geographical Journal, Volume 192, Issue 2, June 2026. ", "\nShort Abstract\nThis paper examines the relationship between urban compactness and social equity across three UK cities. Using a multidimensional compactness framework and multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR), it analyses how demographic characteristics relate to spatial compactness at a fine scale. The findings reveal that these relationships are highly context dependent, highlighting the need for more locally sensitive and equitable compact city strategies.\n\nABSTRACT\nWhile compact urban development is widely promoted as a pathway to greater social equity, empirical evidence on the extent to which social equity is achieved remains inconclusive. To advance on this, we address three elements on compact urban development linked to social equity that have been little examined: (i) the conflation of compactness with density; (ii) the limited fine‐scale analysis of compactness in relation to demographic patterns; and (iii) the underexplored relationship between demographic characteristics and urban compactness. On this basis, the study develops a multidimensional compactness measurement framework at a 500‐m resolution, integrating physical, functional and socio‐economic indicators. Based on this, multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) models are applied to three UK cities—Belfast, Glasgow and Liverpool—to examine how demographic variables (ethnicity, employment, education, gender and age) relate to spatial compactness. The findings show that the demographic–compactness relationship is highly context dependent, varying across both locations and social groups. This highlights the need for equitable compact development strategies that are sensitive to contextual differences and responsive to the circumstances of diverse population groups.\n"]

  April 30, 2026   doi: 10.1111/geoj.70086   open full text
• Resilience of Agricultural Trade During the US‐China Trade War: The Role of Product and Geographical Diversification.
  Wenwan Jin, Yuxin Zhu, Xiongbin Lin, Xingchuan Gao.
  Geographical Journal. April 17, 2026
  ["The Geographical Journal, Volume 192, Issue 2, June 2026. ", "\nShort Abstract\nGlobal trade shocks, such as the US‐China trade war, challenge the resilience of agricultural exports. Based on customs data from 2019 to 2022, this study finds that diversifying both products and trade partners helps China's agricultural trade recover faster. Product diversification ensures long‐term stability, while partner diversification strengthens short‐term resilience, offering strategic insights for trade policy.\n\nABSTRACT\nGlobal shocks often destabilise international trade, and the current tensions in US‐China trade relations exemplify this challenge. This study analyses China's customs data during 2019–2022 to identify optimal strategies to help Chinese agricultural products recover faster. The findings reveal that both product and geographical diversification significantly enhance the resilience of China's agricultural trade under trade war pressures, especially for China's eastern regions. While geographical diversification bolsters short‐term resilience, product diversification is key to long‐term trade stability. Furthermore, the positive impact of product diversification is mainly attributed to the weak relatedness among products, whereas geographical diversification benefits from the strong linkages among China's trading partners. These results highlight the critical role of such diversification in maintaining trade stability during the ongoing US‐China trade war and offer valuable insights for formulating agricultural trade strategies.\n"]

  April 17, 2026   doi: 10.1111/geoj.70084   open full text
• (Not) Covering Climate Risks: A Multimodal News Framing Analysis of Soil Health Reporting in the UK Press.
  Antal Wozniak, Jill E. Hopke.
  Geographical Journal. April 17, 2026
  ["The Geographical Journal, Volume 192, Issue 2, June 2026. ", "\nShort Abstract\nRisks to soil health from increased flooding and drought due to climate change are a priority risk area for the UK government, but our analysis of two years of UK newspaper coverage on this issue reveals very little attention to it. Our multimodal framing analysis shows that news reports are largely devoid of addressing the root causes of climate change, very rarely feature policymakers' voices, prioritise adaptive measures over mitigation and make frequent use of generic visuals. We discuss ramifications for the public's climate risk awareness and political agency.\n\nABSTRACT\nRisks to soil health from increased flooding and drought due to climate change are a priority risk area for the UK government. Our analysis of newspaper coverage of this issue reveals very little attention to it in the two years following the release of the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2022. We conduct a qualitative multimodal framing analysis of a population of 42 news reports and their 117 accompanying images. We identify two major issue frames that include soil health as either a remedy or cause: habitat/biodiversity loss and food insecurity. Both focus on adaptation measures, mostly in industrial agriculture and community‐ or individual‐level gardening. Climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration is a secondary aspect that cuts across both issue frames. Policymakers are largely absent, both in writing and imagery. Visuals are often generic and lack representations of loss. Implications for publicly communicating the climate risk of soil degradation are discussed.\n"]

  April 17, 2026   doi: 10.1111/geoj.70058   open full text
• Map and Archival Evidence of the Historical Avulsion of the Brahmaputra River.
  Keith Richards, Hugh Brammer, Patricia Saunders.
  Geographical Journal. April 17, 2026
  ["The Geographical Journal, Volume 192, Issue 2, June 2026. ", "\nShort Abstract\nOne of the world's great rivers, the Brahmaputra, avulsed—changed course—significantly sometime between the dates of 1765 and 1830. These are the dates of surveys by James Rennell (grey) and Richard Wilcox (black), both under the direction of the East India Company; no other surveys between these dates can refine the estimate of the timing. However, archival material enables a piecing together of evidence suggesting that the trigger for the avulsion was a major flood associated with a severe monsoon in 1787–1788.\n\nABSTRACT\nThe Brahmaputra River is one of the world's largest rivers, entering the Bengal Basin from its extensive Himalayan catchment, flowing south through Bangladesh, and joining the Ganges to traverse a complex fan‐delta and enter the Bay of Bengal. When Major James Rennell surveyed the river to establish the ‘Route Surveys’ for the East India Company between 1765 and 1777, it followed a different course, turning to the South‐East into the Sylhet Basin, and joining the Meghna. Some time after this, it changed its course—it avulsed—and a re‐survey was undertaken by Captain Richard Wilcox in 1828–1830 which first showed its present‐day southerly route. However, there is uncertainty about when, why, and how this major adjustment occurred, and these questions can only be answered with recourse to archival materials. This paper accordingly pieces together information in the writings of travellers and East India Company officials in the region in the period between 1787 and 1854; evidence of boundary changes in 1806; archival material indicating that the East India Company was concerned enough about declining flow in the ‘Old’ Brahmaputra to consider engineering works by 1845; and contemporary evidence of the widespread impact of severe monsoon floods in 1787; to conclude that the avulsion probably took place rather earlier than often assumed. And intriguingly, it seems that although Rennell left India in 1777, in the first edition of his Memoir published after those floods had occurred (1788), he inserted a brief reference to the Brahmaputra changing its course.\n"]

  April 17, 2026   doi: 10.1111/geoj.70059   open full text
• The Plural Lives of E‐Waste: Valuation and Contestation in Accra's Recycling Network(s).
  Ebenezer Gyampoh Amoah.
  Geographical Journal. April 17, 2026
  ["The Geographical Journal, Volume 192, Issue 2, June 2026. ", "\nShort Abstract\nElectronic waste (e‐waste) in Accra is shown to be plural and ontologically multiple, enacted as livelihood, commodity, hazard, governance object and political actor across dispersed recycling networks. Using a multi‐sited, follow‐the‐thing approach and 60 interviews, I specify four socio‐material mechanisms (i.e., copper's market tempo, device repairability, tool throughput–cost fit and the atmospheric mobilisation of fumes) that toggle these enactments. This explains why formalisation and safer technologies often yield only partial change and derives governance heuristics that balance environmental protection with survival economies in African cities.\n\nABSTRACT\nElectronic waste (e‐waste) has become a key lens for geographers interested in uneven urban development, environmental risk and global production networks, yet we still know comparatively little about how its value is made and contested in specific African urban spaces. I argue that e‐waste in Accra, Ghana, is plural and ontologically multiple: the same devices are variously enacted as livelihood, commodity, hazard, governance object and political actor as they move through recycling networks. I develop a mechanism‐centred explanation for this plurality and for the incomplete enrolment of formalisation by specifying four socio‐material mechanisms: copper's market tempo, device repairability, tool throughput–cost fit and the atmospheric mobilisation of fumes and smoke. The analysis draws on a multi‐sited, follow‐the‐thing approach and 60 semi‐structured interviews across Accra's dispersed e‐waste hubs. The findings show how informal workers perform e‐waste as a resource for daily survival; repairers and second‐hand sellers extend device lifespans and make electronics affordable; NGOs and civil‐society organisations frame e‐waste as a governance problem; and the materiality of e‐waste itself shapes policy and practice. I trace these socio‐material mechanisms to explain why formalisation and safer technologies often generate only partial and contested change. This study contributes to debates on the politics, management and geography of e‐waste by highlighting the plural, ontologically multiple materialities of e‐waste. It also extends conceptualisations and competing knowledges of e‐waste by offering a mechanism‐based account of how valuation, informality and environmental governance are co‐produced in African cities.\n"]

  April 17, 2026   doi: 10.1111/geoj.70061   open full text
• Vegetal Infrastructure: Rwanda's Eucalyptus Boom and the Material Politics of Tree Planting as a ‘Nature‐Based Solution’.
  Nathan Clay.
  Geographical Journal. April 08, 2026
  ["The Geographical Journal, Volume 192, Issue 2, June 2026. ", "\nShort Abstract\nThis article analyses the political ecology of Rwanda's eucalyptus boom, situating it as a site of tension within a global push towards ‘nature‐based solutions’. It develops the concept of vegetal infrastructure, demonstrating how certain tree species become legible to global environmental governance while making local social‐environmental dynamics illegible. It emphasises the need to rethink global tree‐planting mandates.\n\nABSTRACT\nPlanting trees has become a global obsession. Forest restoration and afforestation have been rebranded as ‘nature‐based solutions’ to climate change. Nations, corporations and non‐profits together aim to plant trillions of trees, roughly equivalent to a new Amazon. This article considers the local implications of this terrestrial transformation. It reports on empirical findings from Rwanda, where over fifty million trees—mostly eucalyptus species—have been planted during the past fifteen years. Based on fieldwork with four rural communities, I demonstrate how the material properties of eucalyptus intersect with state and market rationales to make tree planting profitable, scalable and legible. Building from geographic thinking on infrastructure and human‐plant relations, I develop the concept of vegetal infrastructure to analyse how trees are enrolled in political projects, producing durable inequalities that become a palpable fixture on the landscape. The article emphasises the urgent need to diversify global reforestation mandates and offers vegetal infrastructure as a lens to assess their local implications.\n"]

  April 08, 2026   doi: 10.1111/geoj.70080   open full text
• (No) Pets on University Campuses: ‘Animaling’ Citizenship for Pet‐Friendly Spaces.
  Clare Holdsworth, Daniel Allen, Mark Lucherini, Cameron Causer.
  Geographical Journal. January 18, 2026
  ["The Geographical Journal, EarlyView. ", "\nShort Abstract\nRising support for pet‐friendly university campuses is driven largely by assumed human well‐being benefits, even though staff and, to a lesser extent, students, raise concerns about how companion animals can be active participants in campus life. This paper argues that meaningful policy change requires moving beyond a human‐centric view towards acknowledging companion animals' agency and their capacity to share and co‐create university spaces.\n\nABSTRACT\nRising pet ownership in advanced economies such as the United Kingdom has coincided with growing demand for pet‐friendly environments, reflecting the deepening significance of human and companion animal relationships. Universities have increasingly acknowledged the therapeutic potential of domesticated animals for student well‐being, yet institutional recognition of pet‐friendly policies remains limited and often anthropocentric. This paper explores attitudes towards the potential introduction of pet‐friendly policies in a UK campus university, comparing the views of both staff and students. Our analytical framework draws on two key strands of scholarship: animal geographies, which decentre human agency by foregrounding the co‐constitutive nature of human–animal relations, and political animal studies, which recognises companion animals as co‐citizens entitled to participation and care. From this foundation, we investigate how university community members experience and interpret interactions with pets on campus, how they articulate support or opposition to policy changes and what narratives emerge that may shape institutional decision‐making. Using data from an online survey of staff and students (n = 424), we find widespread support for creating a more pet‐inclusive campus. However, this support is largely justified through a human‐centric rationale, with emphasis placed on the emotional benefits for people. Little recognition is given to the agency of companion animals or their capacity to shape and co‐produce university spaces. We argue that any meaningful shift towards pet‐friendly campus policies must move beyond utilitarian perspectives and instead engage with more‐than‐human frameworks that recognise companion animals as active participants in university life. Such an approach invites a broader ethical and spatial rethinking of institutional environments in ways that challenge anthropocentric assumptions and align with emerging geographies of human–animal interactions.\n"]

  January 18, 2026   doi: 10.1111/geoj.70062   open full text
• Commercialisation and Visitor Perceptions of Cairo's Urban Parks: A Machine Learning Analysis of User‐Generated Images.
  Abdelbaseer A. Mohamed.
  Geographical Journal. January 18, 2026
  ["The Geographical Journal, EarlyView. ", "\nShort Abstract\nThis study analyses 3179 user‐generated Google Reviews images from 17 public parks in Cairo to examine visitor perceptions of park environments. Using topic modelling, K‐means clustering and associative word analysis, three themes emerged: Family & Recreation, Natural Scenery & Greenery, and Crowds & Urban Activity. Results highlight a spectrum of park experiences, ranging from natural, low‐commercial spaces to highly commercialised, family‐oriented destinations, demonstrating how commercial features influence park identity and recreational appeal.\n\nABSTRACT\nUrban parks in rapidly growing cities serve multiple functions. However, the interplay between natural aesthetics, recreation and commercialisation remains underexplored, especially in the Global South. This study analysed 3179 user‐generated Google Reviews images from 17 public parks in Cairo. We applied topic modelling, K‐means clustering and associative word analysis to examine visitor perceptions. Three main themes emerged: Family & Recreation, Natural Scenery & Greenery, and Crowds & Urban Activity. The analysis revealed both distinctive park identities and common commercial features, such as restaurants and ticketed facilities. Clustering highlighted a spectrum of park experiences, from natural, low‐commercial spaces to highly commercialised, family‐focused destinations. Findings show that commercialisation not only enhances attractiveness and recreational opportunities but also affects accessibility and place identity. This research provides a framework for understanding visitor perceptions and supports sustainable and inclusive park management in urban contexts of the Global South.\n"]

  January 18, 2026   doi: 10.1111/geoj.70065   open full text
• Distance or location? How the geographic distribution of kin networks shapes support given to single mothers in urban Kenya.
  Sangeetha Madhavan, Shelley Clark, Malcolm Araos, Donatien Beguy.
  Geographical Journal. October 06, 2017
  With increasing urbanisation and mobility underway across sub‐Saharan Africa, kin groups are becoming spatially dispersed. The extent of support provided by kin to one another is likely to vary with this geospatial positioning. Because most data collection is restricted to the co‐residential household, we have little knowledge of the geospatial dimensions of kin groups of which a large part is beyond household boundaries, and even less insight into how spatial variation might impact on intra‐familial support patterns. Drawing on recently collected data on single mothers and their kin in Nairobi, Kenya, we describe the geospatial positioning of non‐residential kin; examine the relationship between objective and subjective measures of distance and location of kin and support for single mothers; and analyse the relationship between kin clustering and receipt of support. Our results show several important findings. First, financial support from non‐residential kin is geographically quite dispersed but emotional support is more concentrated among kin living near the mother. Second, whereas there is no effect of the objective measures on financial or emotional support, we find strong effects of subjective measures. Third, we find that the clustering of kin around the mother by distance has no effect on either outcome but having the majority of kin living in rural areas has a negative effect on emotional support even after controlling for distance between kin and kin location.

  October 06, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12230   open full text
• ‘Constructive tensions’ in resilience research: critical reflections from a human geography perspective.
  Geoff A Wilson.
  Geographical Journal. September 22, 2017
  This review paper critically examines four ‘constructive tensions’ in current resilience research, the first three of which are: its association with the roots of the resilience concept in ecological research; issues surrounding resilience as a normative or neutral concept; and confusion about the often interchangeable use of ‘resilience’ and ‘sustainability’ as possibly synonymous terms. The paper refers to these ambiguities as constructive tensions which have sparked fruitful discussions and debates. A fourth constructive tension is directly associated with human geography's engagement with resilience, especially in addressing the relative aspatiality of ‘mainstream’ resilience research, in reinforcing the importance of power and agency in resilience processes, and in arguing that resilience is strongly associated with neoliberal pathways of development. The discussion highlights that much ambiguity remains surrounding some of the key concepts associated with what makes a system ‘resilient’. This means that philosophical, moral and epistemological differences in natural‐science‐led and social‐science‐led resilience research need to be continuously acknowledged, and that mainstream resilience researchers can greatly benefit from critical insights offered by human geographers.

  September 22, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12232   open full text
• Place‐speaking: attending to the relational, material and governance messages of Silent Spring.
  Robyn Bartel.
  Geographical Journal. September 14, 2017
  The growing recognition of place agency, particularly in relational‐material conceptualisations, presents a challenge and an opportunity for legal geographic scholarship. Place is often invisibilised and abstracted by formal rules and institutions, but place shapes (and is shaped by) the law, and coproduces informal lore, norms and cultural practices that interact with formal law and influence governance. Such place‐work is particularly important for environmental law, for which place is or should be central, and is well overdue for scholarly interrogation. The focus of this paper is Silent Spring, often credited as having launched the modern environmental movement. The lens of legal geography is deployed to illustrate the significance of Rachel Carson's foregrounding of place and non‐human agency, validation of lay knowledges and alternative approaches in both science and policy. Carson's work demonstrates remarkable prescience in heralding relational ontologies, the relevance of materiality, and the value of collaborative governance. There is a challenge here for environmental law to recognise and embrace the many voices of place at multiple scales, and the role of place in generating its own legal order – a legal pluralism hitherto largely ignored. An opportunity exists to appreciate place law more fully, and deploy this recognition to address the environmental, regulatory and institutional problems of our time, including those that define the Anthropocene.

  September 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12229   open full text
• The geography of London's recent beer brewing revolution.
  Adam Dennett, Sam Page.
  Geographical Journal. September 14, 2017
  In this paper we examine the recent rapid growth of new breweries in London and the reasons behind it. At the turn of the millennium, just a handful of breweries was operating in London, but by 2016 this number had risen to over 85. Using open data from the Companies House database augmented with other online and printed sources, we show that the rapid growth of breweries, particularly since 2011, has exhibited spatial patterning. Ripley's K analysis reveals that as soon as we see new breweries emerging, they are clustering in space. Cluster analyses reveal that Bermondsey and Hackney are particular locational hotspots for brewing. Closer investigation of the Bermondsey cluster highlights the importance of a number of interacting physical, social and economic factors in helping foster this growth. We show that the railways and the spaces they have created, the general atmosphere of cooperation and sharing surrounding the industry in the city, macro‐economic and fiscal changes, foreign influence, technology and markets have all played their part in the recent spatial and temporal evolution of brewing in the city.

  September 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12228   open full text
• Mapping the future: policy applications of climate vulnerability mapping in West Africa.
  Alex De Sherbinin, Alex Apotsos, Jeremy Chevrier.
  Geographical Journal. September 03, 2017
  We describe the development of climate vulnerability maps for three Sahelian countries – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – and for coastal West Africa, with a focus on the way the maps were designed to meet decision‐making needs and their ultimate influence and use in policy contexts. The paper provides a review of the literature on indicators and maps in the science–policy interface. We then assess the credibility, salience, and legitimacy of the maps as tools for decision‐making. Results suggest that vulnerability maps are a useful boundary object for generating discussions among stakeholders with different objectives and technical backgrounds, and that they can provide useful input for targeting development assistance. We conclude with a discussion of the power of maps to capture policy‐maker attention, and how this increases the onus on map developers to communicate clearly uncertainties and limitations. The assessment of policy uptake in this paper is admittedly subjective; the article includes a discussion of ways to conduct more objective and rigorous assessments of policy impact so as to better evaluate the value and use of vulnerability mapping in decision‐making processes.

  September 03, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12226   open full text
• Repopulating and revitalising rural Sweden? Re‐examining immigration as a solution to rural decline.
  Martin Hedlund, Doris A Carson, Marco Eimermann, Linda Lundmark.
  Geographical Journal. August 31, 2017
  Increasing international immigration is often portrayed as a potential solution to persistent economic and population decline in rural areas. Based on longitudinal register data, this study examines the extent to which international migration has contributed to demographic and labour market changes in rural Sweden between 1990 and 2010. Results show that the urbanisation rate of international migrants is very high while their employment rate in rural areas remains comparatively low. Small positive changes are noticeable in the rate of higher education, self‐employment and employment in new service‐related industries among particular groups of immigrants. Immigrants to rural areas are a highly heterogeneous group in terms of their demographic and labour market characteristics, which should be considered when estimating the contributions of immigration to socio‐economic development in rural areas. This study shows that, while international migration may dampen population decline in rural areas to some extent, particularly in the working‐age groups, its potential to stimulate socio‐economic revitalisation in rural areas needs to be questioned and examined from a more nuanced and longitudinal perspective.

  August 31, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12227   open full text
• Helping from home: Singaporean youth volunteers with migrant‐rights and human‐trafficking NGOs in Singapore.
  Sallie Yea.
  Geographical Journal. August 28, 2017
  Social science literature on development volunteering has mainly focused on the interstices between overseas travel experiences and organised placements, with a particular focus on youth. To date, this literature has not engaged with development volunteering that takes place within one's ‘home country’ where subjects of helping are nonetheless racially and developmentally inscribed ‘Others’, such as refugee groups and exploited or trafficked migrants. This paper explores the motivations for and meanings of youth volunteering in development ‘at home’. The site for this examination is volunteers with NGOs oriented to migrant rights and human trafficking in Singapore. The paper makes a case for recognition of a more complicated geography of volunteering in development which is inclusive of development issues and subjects at home. Following this, the paper argues that this expression of development volunteering complicates existing characterisations, principally as volunteers express opposition to socially and state sanctioned discourses of service learning through development. Therefore, it is important to consider the political and social context of development volunteering to understand the motivations and meanings attached to development volunteering.

  August 28, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12221   open full text
• How do social practices shape policy? Analysing the field of ‘migration as adaptation’ with Bourdieu's ‘Theory of Practice’.
  Kayly Ober, Patrick Sakdapolrak.
  Geographical Journal. August 21, 2017
  In recent decades, there has been a shift in the climate‐migration discourse: from one preoccupied with ‘climate refugees’ to one of ‘migration as adaptation’. Academics and policy‐makers alike see migration as a way to generate income, diversify livelihoods, and spread risk in the face of climate change. Past literature has found that policy prescriptions at this nexus may play into existing politics and framings, especially in the struggle for funding or in the age of the ever‐present neoliberal agenda. This paper makes the case that perhaps the machinations behind policy recommendations need not appear to be sinister. While higher‐level structural considerations should be taken into account and doubtless undergird the trajectory of policy‐making, organisations often follow existing pathways neither because of empirical evidence nor with malicious intent, but rather because it is part and parcel of existing practices of positioning themselves within the system and playing the rules of the game. In fact, every‐day and seemingly mundane practices can accumulate and ‘hang together’ to shape and determine policy outcomes. This happens in a variety of ways in the field of ‘migration as adaptation’, but in its most explicit form can be unveiled in the organisational practices of writing publications and participating in conferences and working groups, for example. By using a practice‐oriented approach, with Bourdieu's ‘Theory of Practice’ as a guide, this paper provides an understanding of the logic and practices of the migration‐as‐adaptation policy sphere and the limited policy prescriptions related to it as well as suggests sites at which to target interventions for more radical policy imaginings.

  August 21, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12225   open full text
• Suburban commuting and activity spaces: using smartphone tracking data to understand the spatial extent of travel behaviour.
  Guillem Vich, Oriol Marquet, Carme Miralles‐Guasch.
  Geographical Journal. August 13, 2017
  This study explores the spatial extent of daily mobility by analysing the activity spaces of suburban commuters. It deepens knowledge of the transport‐related consequences of functionally segregated areas within metropolitan regions, detecting the most significant factors (personal and environmental) affecting the size of activity spaces of people with a suburban commute. Additionally, a comparison between new and traditional calculation methods of activity spaces has been carried out. To enable this, an app was developed for smartphones enabled with a global positioning system (GPS) in order to obtain accurate tracking data for 233 members of the Autonomous University of Barcelona in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona, Spain. Results show that spatio‐temporal factors together with socioeconomic factors, such as the professional role, are strong determinants of the size of activity spaces. Moreover, differences between public and private transport modes of commuting were minimal, proving the potential of public transport as a non‐restricting means of transport even in suburban environments. Finally, the comparative analysis between calculation methods highlight that new methods produce more realistic representations of the spatial extent of everyday life, and different sets of explanatory factors emerge for activity spaces measured in different ways.

  August 13, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12220   open full text
• Presidential Address and record of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) AGM 2017.
  Nicholas Crane.
  Geographical Journal. August 07, 2017
  In his second address as President of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Nicholas Crane illustrated the role geography can play in a shared, popular narrative. He argued that we should consider devoting more attention to promoting accessible geographical narratives with their long‐term emphases on people, places and environment, and less attention to historical narratives with their emphases on documented events limited to the last couple of thousand years.

  August 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12223   open full text
• Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Medals and Awards celebration 2017.
  Nicholas Crane, Andrew Cliff, Gordon Conway, David J A Evans, Lindsey Hilsum, Henry Wai‐chung Yeung.
  Geographical Journal. August 07, 2017
  The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) annual Medals and Awards recognise achievements in researching, communicating and teaching a wide range of geographical knowledge. The speeches and citations are a record of the 2017 celebration, with contributions by Sir Gordon Conway and Lindsey Hilsum, and Professors Andrew Cliff, David J A Evans and Henry Wai‐chung Yeung. The speeches include comments on the importance of geography for mapping extreme human experiences, engaging policy‐makers, understanding and tackling climate change and hunger, and inspiring others through teaching, fieldwork and travel.

  August 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12224   open full text
• National interests and the paradox of foreign aid under austerity: Conservative governments and the domestic politics of international development since 2010.
  Emma Mawdsley.
  Geographical Journal. June 27, 2017
  Since 2010, successive Conservative‐led Coalition and Conservative governments in the UK have imposed domestic austerity while maintaining foreign aid commitments. They have done so in the teeth of considerable hostility from influential sections of the media, many Conservative MPs and party members, and large sections of the voting public. This paper explains this apparently paradoxical position by analysing these governments’ increasingly explicit stance that aid serves ‘the national interest’ in a variety of ways. While not a new message from donors, post‐2010 Conservative governments have significantly powered up this narrative. The post‐Brexit referendum government is less committed to foreign aid, and it may well institute cuts following changes in legislation. In the meantime, however, it too has focused on shifting discourse and substance towards a more insistent articulation and pursuit of ‘the national interest’.

  June 27, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12219   open full text
• Wetland conservation and legal layering: managing Cambodia's great lake.
  Josephine Gillespie.
  Geographical Journal. June 19, 2017
  A challenge in the implementation of wetlands conservation targets lies in translating principles into practice in an array of different biophysical, social and regulatory settings. The interpretation of global protection objectives can become garbled if the institutional arrangements, particularly the regulatory ones, are ill suited to the task. When decision‐making processes are complex and multi‐layered, the regulatory regime can become ineffectual because it fails to take adequate account of the intricate connections between people, place and law. This dissonance compromises the effectiveness of law as a means of regulating human–environment interactions and may threaten the viability of critical wetlands. This paper draws attention to the need for more in‐depth analysis of the effects of legal layering [following Roth et al. 2015 (The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 47 456–75) and the von Benda‐Beckmann tradition] in conservation and environmental protection practice. Based on field data from the Ramsar listed wetlands of the Tonle Sap lake in central Cambodia, closer analysis of legal layering reveals regulations that appear to perpetuate existing power structures and decision‐making dynamics through a process of bricolage (Rusca et al. 2015, European Journal of Development Research 27 777–92). In this context a legal geographical perspective proves a powerful lens to expose the dynamics of environmental use/protection decision‐making.

  June 19, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12216   open full text
• ‘Hug‐an‐orphan vacations’: ‘love’ and emotion in orphanage tourism.
  Tess Guiney.
  Geographical Journal. June 15, 2017
  Experiences involving vulnerable children are among the most popular volunteer tourism practices. Celebrity humanitarianism and aid campaigns promote images of vulnerable children receiving love and care from international celebrities and humanitarian actors (mainly women), normalising intimacy within popular humanitarianism, or ‘hug‐an‐orphan’ vacations – vacations where tourists crave direct contact with children in global South countries (Schimmelpfennig , http://goodintents.org/orphanages/hug-an-orphan-vacations-3). Through accounts given by orphanage directors, volunteers, and commentaries on orphanage tourism, this paper describes the layered emotional entanglements within orphanage tourism. Volunteer tourism literature increasingly recognises the importance of affect in such experiences, principally concentrating on how it leads to its growing popularity. Indeed, many volunteer tourists are motivated from a distance to volunteer at orphanages, being drawn to the possibility of engaging with children. However, their emotions within these encounters are far less examined, and the reality of the lifestyle these children live in is often far more upsetting than expected. Regarding the orphans themselves, the argument I make within this paper is that the commodification of children through orphanage tourism experiences has resulted in an expectation that they will interact with tourists in particular forms. Children are expected to be ‘poor‐but‐happy’ and to engage intimately with volunteers and visitors to engender tourist satisfaction and encourage sympathy and donations. The performance of this behaviour is mediated and controlled by their emotional supervisors, orphanage directors. Through volunteer tourism, children are now a tourist commodity, utilising their love and emotions and creating space for exploitation.

  June 15, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12218   open full text
• Framing bovine tuberculosis: a ‘political ecology of health’ approach to circulation of knowledge(s) about animal disease control.
  Philip A Robinson.
  Geographical Journal. June 15, 2017
  Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) remains a significant animal health problem with a global distribution. In addition to the ecological complexities, socio‐economic and socio‐cultural factors also affect efforts to control and eliminate the disease. Interrogating bTB from the author's positionality of being both a veterinary epidemiologist and a human geographer, this interdisciplinary engagement in the political ecology of health investigates the experiences and opinions of the actors involved in disease control. The findings of this research in one part of the United Kingdom – Northern Ireland – demonstrate gaps between expert scientific discourse and circulating on‐the‐ground perceptions and lay knowledges of the disease. bTB is therefore known and framed in multiple, often antithetical, ways by those who meet and experience the disease on farms. The paper concludes that farmers, vets and state policy‐makers must accept the heterogeneity of the disease; make it visible again; and create new imaginaries for a future where bTB is no longer an everyday ubiquity.

  June 15, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12217   open full text
• Housing, home ownership and the governance of ageing.
  Emma R Power.
  Geographical Journal. June 02, 2017
  ‘Active ageing’ has become core to ageing policy internationally. This paper argues that housing, and specifically home purchase, is fundamental to the governance of active ageing in liberal welfare states such as Australia, the UK, the US and Canada. Specifically, the paper expands understanding of how neoliberally inflected active ageing agendas are advanced in conjunction with housing consumption, and builds new knowledge of the governance of asset‐based welfare, the investor subject, and housing marginality, showing how these practices and identities are governed temporally through ideas about what it means to age well. Arguments are advanced through analysis of Australian government ageing and age‐connected housing strategies in the 20 years to 2015. These strategies construct three key connections between housing and ageing. First, housing is framed as a base (or location) for active ageing, with secure, appropriate and affordable housing depicted as enabling participation. Second, home ownership is positioned as an individual responsibility. In this framing home ownership becomes a ‘choice’ and means through which individuals can demonstrate responsibility by self‐insuring against the fiscal risks of older age. Third, home ownership is connected to the activation of ideal ageing identities by enabling home owners as productive agers (the home as a form of income) and active consumers (home as a resource to fund prudential and age‐defying consumption in older age). Significantly, in framing home ownership as an individual responsibility and choice the importance of structural factors shaping housing access are downplayed. This is a question of key geographical significance, foregrounding an interlinked agenda of not just how, but where, ageing should take place.

  June 02, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12213   open full text
• Exploring intermediate cities in Latin America: mixed mobile methods for mobility assessment in Villarrica, Chile.
  Gonzalo Salazar, Felipe Irarrázaval, Martín Fonck.
  Geographical Journal. June 01, 2017
  Intermediate cities have had a key role in urban dynamics and development in Latin America since the second half of the twentieth century, yet the theoretical and methodological approaches to research about these types of city have not been suited to their complexity. Most research on them reduces to demographic criteria, overlooking the fact that they are characterised by intense socio‐spatial interactions with their surrounding rural areas and other nearby urban centres. This is a serious shortcoming in terms of the potential use of such research for urban planning, and the resulting development processes of these cities. The present work proposes that while research based on the physical patterns of the movement of people (including commuting) are relevant, it is necessary to delve deeper into the process of mobility in order to improve the comprehension of intermediate cities in Latin America. First, the article illustrates the weak points of traditional approaches to intermediate cities and from this proposes that the theoretical and methodological contributions of the new mobility paradigm (Sheller and Urry 2006, Environment and Planning A 38 207–26) can contribute considerably to the study of such cities, as well as the phenomena of intermediation inherent to them. The article then introduces a new methodological proposal, based on mixed mobile methods, that contributes to empirical research and understanding of intermediate cities. An empirical application of the methodology is performed in Chile, specifically in the city of Villarrica in the La Araucanía Region. Based on this application, the article provides some important conclusions regarding the research experience and the theoretical and methodological approach necessary to attend to the socio‐spatial complexity of intermediate cities in Latin America.

  June 01, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12210   open full text
• Relocation, relocation: perspectives on the spatio‐temporal impacts of health services transitions.
  Stephen Axon.
  Geographical Journal. May 24, 2017
  Within the context of an ageing population and the need to sustain hospital budgets, the nature and future of UK healthcare is changing. In the late 2000s, Stafford Hospital in Staffordshire was the centre of substantial public concern over poor care and high mortality rates. The dissolution of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (which ran the hospital) combined with the University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust led to the creation of the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust in November 2014. The rebranding of Stafford Hospital (now County Hospital) and the University Hospital of North Staffordshire (now Royal Stoke University Hospital) to eliminate all mention of ‘Staffordshire’ reflects a sense of renewal and reorganisation of services. Despite this, the transfer of a number of services such as consultant‐led maternity, acute surgery and inpatient paediatrics services from the County Hospital to Royal Stoke University Hospital has led to substantial public outcry. This paper presents the results from five focus groups highlighting substantial concerns, emotions and implications regarding the spatial and temporal changes to accessing hospital services in Staffordshire. Perspectives towards the spatio‐temporal impacts of health services transitions reflected attitudes to, and experiences of, (relocated) services; accessibility and transport; communication and engagement; concern about capacity. Drawing on these results, the paper concludes with a new conceptual framework outlining the perspectives towards the spatio‐temporal impacts of health services transitions, and with implications for Trusts seeking to engage service users with changes to local provision.

  May 24, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12214   open full text
• Better the devil you know? A relational reading of risk and innovation in the rural water sector.
  Julia Brown, Marije Broek.
  Geographical Journal. May 24, 2017
  This paper introduces an innovation – CBM‐lite – designed by a small Ugandan non‐governmental organisation (NGO) to remedy the shortfall of operation and maintenance (O&M) funds, identified as the key explanation behind the poor sustainability record of the community‐based management (CBM) model. Without a radical change in government and NGO policy concerning post‐construction support, the financing of hand pump O&M must come from communities themselves: hence the user pays principle is fundamental. CBM‐lite aims to reduce hand pump downtime by replacing the voluntary water user committees with an incentivised water operator bolstering the user pays principle, and through an insurance‐style micro‐finance product that ensures funds are available for expedient repairs. This innovation refines organisation and governance arrangements of CBM, but as the rules of operation and enforcement of sanctions are communally arranged, remains within the existing institutional framework of CBM. Drawing on original and extensive ethnographic fieldwork, surveys and interviews, we argue that a relational reading of risk applied to an innovation that deviates from mainstream CBM goes some way towards explaining the intransigence within the rural water sector. This novel application of relational risk theory advances the conceptual and empirical contribution of geography to the conundrum of realising sustainability in the rural water sector. The known risks associated with CBM – a third of hand pumps being non‐functional at any one time – may be seen as preferable to potential harm to ideology, to policy coherence, to organisational reputation, and to social and cultural norms. Finally, the study reconsiders current views about rural water management – notably the actual level of support for the user pays principle, key to both CBM and CBM‐lite. Unpacking sectoral inertia assumes greater significance with estimates that 57% of the global population will be reliant on communally managed water sources by 2020.

  May 24, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12215   open full text
• Jewish heritage tourism in Bucharest: reality and visions.
  Andrea Corsale.
  Geographical Journal. May 02, 2017
  Heritage tourism linked with past or current cultural diversity and ethnic minorities has become a significant part of the tourism industry. This paper contributes to the discussion about heritage management related to niche tourism development and minority group participation. The specific theme of Jewish heritage tourism is analysed, particularly through the case of the present Jewish community of Bucharest. Empirical results are presented and discussed in order to understand how this community and the local tourist sector perceive the tourist potential of its heritage, and envisions its development. A reflection on the discourse behind the current and possible future management of Jewish legacy can thus contribute to a better understanding of the complexity of niche heritage tourism processes in former or present multi‐ethnic sites.

  May 02, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12211   open full text
• Law, pliability and the multicultural city: documenting planning law in action.
  Phil Hubbard, Jason Prior.
  Geographical Journal. April 27, 2017
  In this paper we focus on the deployment of certain techniques that are central to municipal law's attempt to impose order on the city, namely, development control, zoning, and change of use regulation. Drawing on the notion of inter‐legality, we argue that such practices can never be consistent or universal, and instead need to be sufficiently pliable to recognise the diversity of legal norms, assumptions and practices evident in a multicultural city. We demonstrate this with reference to the resolution of urban land‐use conflict in Sydney (Australia) showing how planning decisions have need to demonstrate flexibility within the law to achieve outcomes that are sensitive to local contingency and informed by notions of spatial justice. In conclusion we suggest that attempts to make municipal law more consistent or unified are problematic given situated discretion is required to produce cities more open to difference and diversity.

  April 27, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12212   open full text
• (En)countering counterfeits in Bangkok: the urban spatial interlegalities of intellectual property law, enforcement and tolerance.
  Daniel F Robinson, Duncan McDuie‐Ra.
  Geographical Journal. April 25, 2017
  In a Bangkok mall a fibreglass policeman warning against intellectual property (IP) piracy stands just metres away from vendors selling fake DVDs; a scene indicative of incomplete and unsuccessful attempts by foreign governments (the US and EU in particular) and corporate actors at enrolment towards ever‐higher IP standards – the ‘IP ratchet’ that Drahos (2004 Intellectual property and pharmaceutical markets: a nodal governance approach Temple Law Review 77 401–24) describes. But the scene also reflects cultural resistance at the local level. Both readings exemplify the range of historical, cultural, and politico‐legal factors at play that can only be understood through engagement with vendors and consumers in the markets and malls of Bangkok. IP laws may achieve partial ‘closure’ but are regularly changing, contested, variably enforced, and subject to existing social norms such as the ‘cult of imitation’, cultures of legal informality, and a lack of social contract. We found that this lack of legal closure was most pronounced in the day‐to‐day operation of the Pratunam Market. Whilst other sites host regular crack‐downs by police, the IP‐specific DSI force, and the Thai courts, markets like Pratunam are mostly immune despite being a transnational trade node for the production and export of counterfeit garments with other developing countries, and a non‐conforming node in the IP enforcement context. In the face of persistent efforts to transpose Euro‐American IP laws in countries like Thailand, alternative and resistant nodes representing ‘spaces of interlegalities’ are likely to persevere because of the historical context, and the socio‐cultural norms of these places.

  April 25, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12209   open full text
• Understanding development impact in international development volunteering: a relational approach.
  Jinwen Chen.
  Geographical Journal. March 14, 2017
  This paper focuses on the question of how interpersonal relationships in international development volunteering (IDV) affect its development impact. While the IDV literature examines care, power and cross‐cultural relationships between volunteers and hosts, it has not clearly elucidated the link between these relationships and development impact. Moreover, although scholars and practitioners posit IDV as a less‐hierarchical and relationship‐focused way to do development, others particularly critique short‐term volunteers’ abilities in providing development impact. This paper thus seeks to understand development impact through a relational approach, by unpacking how and why interpersonal relationships matter in the process of doing development. It also explores the notion of temporality in development impact in terms of impact sustainability and volunteering duration. I analyse the Singapore International Foundation's capacity building Specialist Projects in Cambodia through qualitative fieldwork in 2014 and 2015 with various Cambodian and Singaporean IDV actors. I show how reciprocal relationships over time are crucial in creating intangible and sustainable development impact. More significantly, these findings shed light on the indispensable role of hosts in successful development impact, and make a case for the re‐centring of IDV on host perspectives and contributions.

  March 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12208   open full text
• Alternative spaces of urban sustainability: results of a first integrative approach in the Italian city of Brescia.
  Marco Tononi, Antonella Pietta, Sara Bonati.
  Geographical Journal. February 13, 2017
  In the face of contemporary economic, environmental, and social changes, one of the main challenges facing cities is to build and realise a vision for a sustainable future. To do so, a number of local sustainability strategies are promoted in urban policymaking with the goal of improving citizens' participation and quality of life. The aim is to empower citizens and enable them to be more active in local and global sustainability issues. This paper focuses on identifying and discussing the alternative spaces in which the future of the city can be collectively envisioned, considering processes of socio‐ecological change and power relations, consistent with an urban political ecology. The purpose of such spaces should be to link daily behaviour patterns of sustainability with urban environmental governance through processes of participation. In particular we suggest the adoption of an integrative approach between top‐down and bottom‐up approaches. One example is an experimental process, called the Altrevie project, which took place in a pilot area of the city of Brescia and involved 150 families. The approach is an example of participatory action research. Its first phase was a sample survey to obtain an initial representation of the lifestyles of the residents. In the second phase, residents learnt to measure their ecological footprint and participated in workshops and laboratories to improve the sustainability of their lifestyles. During the project, we identified and tried to promote alternative spaces in which to imagine and build the sustainable city: spaces of alternative consumption which go beyond the traditional market system (according to alternative economic geographies); and spaces of participation that can promote an integrative method between top‐down and bottom‐up approaches. These different approaches to urban development create unique conditions for seeking sustainability through innovative and participative visions.

  February 13, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12207   open full text
• The post 2008 Chilean Salmon industry: an example of an enclave economy.
  Beatriz Bustos‐Gallardo.
  Geographical Journal. February 10, 2017
  The salmon industry in Chile experienced large and rapid growth over the past three decades and by 2008 Chile was the second largest producer of salmon in the world after Norway. However, the industry was affected by a sanitary crisis that impacted on its growth and forced a change in production strategies. This paper argues that the post‐crisis scenario shows the deepening of an enclave economy in Los Lagos region that is changing the way in which the industry participates in rural development. Starting with a literature review on enclave and extractive economies I characterise the salmon industry as an enclave, and then examine evidence from the field to identify local effects in rural communities of this new form of relationship. I conclude by calling for a revitalisation of the geographical debates on enclave economies from a political ecology perspective to better understand communities’ interaction with extractive economies.

  February 10, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12204   open full text
• How can migration serve adaptation to climate change? Challenges to fleshing out a policy ideal.
  François Gemenne, Julia Blocher.
  Geographical Journal. February 10, 2017
  Migration continues to be pictured in public debates as a failure to adapt to changes, while policymakers explore adaptation measures as a means to reduce migration pressures, and scholars have contended that migration processes exist within a larger framework of strategies for adapting to damaging climate change impacts. So what are the impacts of migration on the adaptive capacities and vulnerabilities of the origin and host communities, as well as of the migrants themselves? The objective of this conceptual and methodological paper is to identify possible different options for research into the consequences of migration for adaptation. The first section reviews how the migration–adaptation nexus has been addressed in the literature, confirming the potential of human mobility to build resilience and to increase adaptive capacities within complex and potentially maladaptive processes. The next section explores the potential impacts of migration that need to be studied, from three main vantage points: the migrants themselves, the community of origin, and the community of destination. A final section weighs the possible approaches and suggests solutions that may exist to advance empirical study of the migration–adaptation area nexus, so that it can address not just the causes, but also the consequences of migration in the context of environmental changes.

  February 10, 2017   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12205   open full text
• Islamic leaders and the legal geography of family law in Aceh, Indonesia.
  Christine G Schenk.
  Geographical Journal. November 14, 2016
  This article explores the legal geography of family law in post‐colonial Muslim societies. Drawing on a case study in Aceh, Indonesia, it analyses how diverse Islamic leaders were able to influence a controversial administrative reform of family law in the reconstruction period after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. I argue that while Islamic leaders are important stakeholders in law‐making in Aceh, they are not a unified collective: rather they mobilise a variety of different practices of legal reasoning to bring legal constructions into agreement. Using the case of an administrative reform of marriage registration, a subordinate regulation in family law, I describe how Islamic leaders deliberate about social issues across their different schools and factions in order to address contemporary problems, while at the same time, mobilising interpretations of Islamic texts as a meaningful tradition for law‐making. The analysis builds on ethnographic fieldwork in Aceh, in particular qualitative interviews with civil servants working in the provincial government: Muslim actors, civil rights activists, national experts, international experts, politicians, and diplomats. The article provides impetus to debates in legal geography by illuminating the negotiations of legal reasoning in Muslim societies to make Islamic law, customary law and state‐centric state administration compatible.

  November 14, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12202   open full text
• Writing the body, writing Others: a story of transcendence and potential in volunteering for development.
  Mark Griffiths.
  Geographical Journal. November 07, 2016
  Scholars have explored the ways that hierarchical North–South relations are preserved and reproduced in the spaces of international volunteering. Global structural inequalities are widely understood to permeate relations between volunteers and hosts where even the intimacies of empathy and care are ascribed values drawn out of North–South divides. This article has two objectives. First, to explore the affective experience of volunteering for development as a potential realm in which more equitable volunteer–host relations unfold, and second, to include hosts (not just volunteers) in writing on international volunteering. Negotiating the politics of representation, the main body of the article draws on empirical data from fieldwork in India to write a performative account of volunteer–host relations. As the narrative progresses, volunteer‐host relations from outside the dichotomies imposed by the very uneven patterns of development that make hosts hosts, and volunteers volunteers. The article thus makes the argument that affective life in the spaces of volunteering opens up new possibilities for subjectivity that are insubordinate to – and therefore transcendent of – the subject positions delineated by the uneven flows of global power and privilege. The article closes by moving the discussion from transcendence to potential, suggesting that we might research further the potential political agencies that emerge from affective experience in volunteering and development.

  November 07, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12200   open full text
• Social enterprises with environmental objectives: saving traditional orchards in England and Germany.
  Daniel Keech.
  Geographical Journal. November 07, 2016
  Social enterprises (SEs) re‐invest their profits towards a social mission. They have proliferated as post‐industrial economies try to meet social need with limited state funding. Scholarship has expanded accordingly, although SEs with primarily environmental objectives have been neglected. This article examines how SEs, in regions noted for wildlife‐rich orchards, fund nature conservation by marketing juice and/or cider, thereby attempting to revive economic possibilities for this traditional land use. A common thread between the SEs is their initiation by conservation organisations, and it is possible to group them within models of market intervention. Three models in particular are examined that reveal different approaches and degrees of success in orchard conservation. SE scholarship is marked by a wealth of case studies, and to avoid simply adding to this richness, the paper revisits Jens Beckert's ideas on the social order of markets. His theory that actors strive for stability through forms of co‐ordination in dynamic market ‘fields’ is applied to SEs aiming to produce positive conservation outcomes – or environmental order – from their market interventions. Within limits, social order advances understanding of environmental SE by identifying the multiple challenges they juggle, and revealing the environmental outcomes of SE engagement in markets.

  November 07, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12201   open full text
• Pandemic cities: biopolitical effects of changing infection control in post‐SARS Hong Kong.
  Henning Füller.
  Geographical Journal. September 18, 2016
  The growing fear of an emerging pandemic has facilitated efforts in infection control, where new technologies and laws have been introduced nationally and at the level of WHO. This renewed emphasis on infection control is changing the character of global health. This is well described as a securitisation of global health. Less clear is how an ‘emerging diseases worldview’ does play out on an urban scale. The city has historically been the preferred site for biopolitical interventions, which poses a question about the biopolitics of the ‘pandemic city’. Severely experiencing the SARS epidemic in 2003, Hong Kong may be an exemplary case in this regard. Focusing on ways of governing un/healthy bodies in post‐SARS Hong Kong, the article details a refined biopolitics, where longstanding mechanisms of social exclusion are combined with enhanced forms of social control through a mix of architectural, ideological and intelligence‐gathering processes.

  September 18, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12179   open full text
• Industrial renewal: narratives in play in the development of green technologies in the Norwegian salmon farming industry.
  Arnt Fløysand, Stig‐Erik Jakobsen.
  Geographical Journal. August 30, 2016
  This study introduces a social science informed technology approach to move towards a more comprehensive understanding of industry renewal. We achieve this through an evolutionary perspective scrutinising how materiality and discourse interact in an ongoing technology greening programme within the salmon farming industry in Norway. The empirical part starts with a brief introduction to the history of the salmon farming industry. This is followed by a section focusing on how new technology solutions under development relate to narratives in play in the discourses around new technology formation. The analysis reveals that a global demand narrative has become a focal point for the majority of the participating stakeholders. The narrative promotes increased growth into the ongoing greening programme under cover of feeding the world's growing population with proteins. The potential technological solutions are different forms of land‐based production systems, closed containment systems and offshore aquaculture operation systems. Undoubtedly, the systems represent huge material changes, but also a continuation of mass production rationality accountable for many of the environmental problems of the open‐net pen technology the new technologies are supposed to solve. Accordingly, the narrative appears to block a ‘cognitive renewal’ of the technology complex under study. On this basis we argue that the case underlines a requirement for more discursively informed understandings of ‘industrial renewal’ when aspiring for the introduction of green technologies.

  August 30, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12194   open full text
• The relational character of urban agriculture: competing perspectives on land, food, people, agriculture and the city.
  Chenae Neilson, Lauren Rickards.
  Geographical Journal. August 30, 2016
  In recent years the diverse primary food production activities in cities known as ‘urban agriculture’ have proliferated on the ground, in policy and in academic discourse. Most explicit representations of urban agriculture (UA) are positive, advocating its many related benefits and success stories, or critiquing barriers that restrict it. Despite widespread appeal, the way UA is imagined and planned remains highly varied and uncertain. To understand better the splintering and insular discourses and competing arguments about the role of UA in cities (especially in a developed world context), we draw on empirical research in Melbourne, Australia, to unpack what different stakeholders mean by the term. Using critical discourse analysis, we map contrasting perspectives on UA expressed by various groups (government, practitioners, media, academia) including some groups who could engage with UA but do not. We find that while UA is perceived by some as a strongly positive development, it is seen to be of little consequence by many others. General disinterest in UA is evident among traditional agriculture stakeholders and rural‐oriented groups in particular. Discourses about UA reflect differences in (1) whether UA is primarily conceived through the lens of land, food or people; and (2) how UA is imagined to relate to the rest of agriculture and the rest of the city. We conclude that although UA is increasingly ‘inside the urban tent’ as a legitimate land use and activity, it remains marginal. Moreover, it remains ‘outside the agriculture tent’ in that it does not seem to be conceived as a legitimate form of agriculture in comparison to the implicit Other: rural agriculture. We conclude that UA needs to move beyond its city‐centric approach and rural agriculture needs to move beyond its general disinterest in UA so that important and necessary connections can be recognised and forged.

  August 30, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12188   open full text
• The great age of geography: Presidential Address and record of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) AGM 2016.
  Nicholas Crane.
  Geographical Journal. August 10, 2016
  In his first address as President of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Nicholas Crane discussed how the themes of exploration, technology and education have influenced and inspired geographical thinking from the 1500s to the present day. The President also emphasised that geography – as a united discipline that reaches the wider population – makes, and can continue to make, important contributions to issues of global significance.

  August 10, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12186   open full text
• Addressing global challenges: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Medals and Awards ceremony 2016.
  Nicholas Crane, Bob Geldof, Ron Martin, Parvati Raghuram, Jo Sharp, Michael Storper.
  Geographical Journal. August 10, 2016
  The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)'s annual Medals and Awards recognise achievements in researching, communicating and teaching a wide range of geographical knowledge. The speeches and citations are a record of the 2016 ceremony, with contributions by Bob Geldof KBE, and Professors Ron Martin, Parvati Raghuram, Jo Sharp and Michael Storper. The speeches include comments on the importance of geography for understanding and tackling global challenges, engaging wider publics, geographical imagination, collaboration, fieldwork, travel and education.

  August 10, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12190   open full text
• Situating 1816, the ‘year without summer’, in the UK.
  Lucy Veale, Georgina H Endfield.
  Geographical Journal. August 10, 2016
  The immediate local impacts of the eruption of Mount Tambora, Sumbawa, Indonesia in April 1815 were devastating, resulting in the loss of an estimated 60 000 lives on this and neighbouring islands. However, the longer term effects of the largest known historical eruption on global weather and climate and the related consequences for human health and wellbeing have maintained the prominence of the eruption in public memory. Among the most notable effects were global weather anomalies the following year, which has come to be referred to as ‘the year without summer’. Scholars across the sciences and humanities continue to investigate the eruption, seeking insights into the likely meteorological and societal impacts of future volcanic eruptions. The bicentenary of the ‘year without summer’ in 2016 provides a timely moment to revisit this weather episode. In this paper, we draw on a range of archival materials and contemporary publications to reconstruct the weather year and explore how the summer of 1816 was experienced and recorded across the UK. We also wish to demonstrate the importance of historical contingency in understanding the potential implications of the event at the local level, and of situating events within their appropriate temporal context. We do this by considering the summer of 1816 as set against the wider weather and cultural contexts of the 1810s. Our findings illustrate that in a UK context, summer 1816 was characterised by unusual and extreme weather events. Importantly it also took place within a sequence of years that were similarly replete with anomalous and challenging weather conditions.

  August 10, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12191   open full text
• Cricket farming as a livelihood strategy in Thailand.
  Afton Halloran, Nanna Roos, Yupa Hanboonsong.
  Geographical Journal. August 08, 2016
  While many important aspects of wild and farmed insects have been discussed by scholars, such as nutritional value, conservation and farming techniques, no study has addressed how insect farming contributes to rural livelihoods. Furthermore, the roles that interactions between insect farmers, their peers and institutions play in insect farming as a livelihood strategy are even less well understood. This paper presents a preliminary assessment of cricket farming as a livelihood strategy in Thailand. Fortynine cricket farmers participated in in‐depth interviews designed to gain insight into how cricket farming contributes to rural livelihoods. This exploratory study investigates the following research questions: What are the characteristics of Thai cricket farmers and their farms? How do crickets contribute to the lives of rural farmers in Thailand? What role has social and human capital played in cricket farming communities? And what can be learned from the experience of cricket farming in Thailand? Findings suggest that cricket farming has improved the lives of many rural farmers in Thailand not only through the provision of an alternative income source, but through strengthening human and social capital. As such, further empirical data and case study analyses are needed in order to advance our understanding of this particular livelihood strategy.

  August 08, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12184   open full text
• Wish you were here: bodies, diaspora strategy and the politics of propinquity in post‐apartheid South Africa.
  Max J Andrucki.
  Geographical Journal. August 08, 2016
  Focusing on a case study of a non‐state actor called The Homecoming Revolution, which included interviews with staff as well as an analysis of reports, position papers, and testimonials on their website, I argue that attempts to incite return migration of skilled overseas South Africans, as an attempt to provide a fix for failures of the neoliberalising South African economy, hinge on a particular ideology of the body. I suggest that a constant focus on the supposed multiplier effects of the physical presence of skilled migrant bodies that have returned to South Africa, as well as the deployment of emotion as a means of mobilising expatriate bodies, constitutes an attempt to instrumentalise the transactionality of these bodies. This paper argues that more attention needs to be paid to the ways in which bodies are imagined and mobilised in neoliberalising states’ engagements with their diasporas. It also notes the irony of how skilled white bodies have emerged as a key focus of South African economic growth strategy.

  August 08, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12189   open full text
• Housing, population and region in Spain: a currently saturated property market with marked regional differences.
  José‐María Serrano‐Martínez, Ramón García‐Marín, David Lagar‐Timón.
  Geographical Journal. August 06, 2016
  In this paper we analyse the property market in Spain within a regional framework, according to the boundaries of the Spanish Autonomous Communities. Our analysis is based on the central hypothesis that there is an oversupply of housing in Spain, although there are some regional differences within this phenomenon. We first examine the stage known as the ‘property boom’, and we then produce an analysis that aims to simplify the housing market in Spain. After combining numerous variables and applying multivariate statistical techniques, we have obtained a classification with the following three categories: dried‐up markets, saturated markets and less distressed markets. Our analyses confirm the fact that there are disparate realities throughout Spain, and even contrasting realities between the Autonomous Communities.

  August 06, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12187   open full text
• Negotiating development narratives within large‐scale oil palm projects on village lands in Sarawak, Malaysia.
  Astrid Oberborbeck Andersen, Thilde Bech Bruun, Kelvin Egay, Milja Fenger, Simone Klee, Anna Frohn Pedersen, Lærke Marie Lund Pedersen, Victor Suárez Villanueva.
  Geographical Journal. July 18, 2016
  The Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo is one of the global hotspots of deforestation and forest degradation. The planting of oil palm has played a key role in the transformation of land use in the state. While much of the expansion in Sarawak so far has taken place in state forests (80%), many new plantations are being established on native customary rights (NCR) land. A significant portion of the total land area in Sarawak (20–25%) is claimed as native customary land where villagers traditionally practise extensive, semi‐subsistence farming. This article explores how major resource development projects intersect with and accentuate internal community differences in sites of new plantations. We do so by examining the case of an Iban village where the introduction of a large‐scale oil palm scheme has resulted in conflict and division within the community. By analysing the narratives that suggest that large‐scale land development projects ‘bring development to the people’, utilising ‘idle lands’ and ‘creating employment’ to lift them out of poverty, we argue that political and economic processes related to cultivation of oil palm intersect with local community differences in two ways. First, these projects cement and enhance internal power structures and inequalities. Second, the government's development narratives influence communities and link local community relations with national political discourses in complex ways.

  July 18, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12181   open full text
• Local perceptions of climate change impacts and migration patterns in Malé, Maldives.
  Robert Stojanov, Barbora Duží, Ilan Kelman, Daniel Němec, David Procházka.
  Geographical Journal. July 07, 2016
  For the last few decades, Maldives has been seen as being at the forefront of addressing climate change impacts. The low elevation of the islands makes them vulnerable to slow‐onset hazards, such as coastal erosion, sea‐level rise, salinity intrusion, and change in monsoon patterns and hence rainfall. Consequently, migration has long been discussed as an adaptation strategy for the population. This study covers outcomes from our field research conducted among islanders in Malé, the capital of Maldives, in 2013. It contributes empirical evidence toward understanding complex relations among environmental challenges, climate change, and migration. We set up two main research questions. The first question explored islanders' perceptions of impacts of climatic variability in recent years and possible impacts of future climate change. The second question probed whether out‐migration from the islands might be considered to be an adaptation strategy and whether the islanders were willing to move outside Maldives due to projected climate change impacts. We conducted our field research in the capital Malé and nearby residential islands, using quantitative questionnaires with local respondents (N=347). Our results suggest that, besides a set of actually experienced environmental and climate challenges, slow‐onset climate change impacts such as sea‐level rise are perceived as being one of the key factors affecting Maldivian society and livelihoods. More than 50% of respondents perceive future sea‐level rise to be a serious challenge at the national level and they accept that migration from islands to other countries might be a potential option. Conversely, from the individual perspective, sea‐level rise is not perceived by the local population as being one of their own important challenges. The reason is that many other factors – cultural, religious, economic and social – play an important role in decisionmaking about migrating or not.

  July 07, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12177   open full text
• Social innovation in rural development: identifying the key factors of success.
  Stefan Neumeier.
  Geographical Journal. June 24, 2016
  In political and lay discourses, social innovation has recently been seen as a promising solution to fill gaps caused by austerity politics, or as a means to meet the so‐called Grand Challenges of the twenty‐first century. This article focuses on factors supporting the success of social innovation; that is, factors that support the development of a social innovation that enhances the probability of a high rate of adoption. To achieve this, the questions addressed are: Which factors bring forward social innovation? Where in the innovation process do they take effect? To what extent can rural development policy purposefully exert influence on these factors? Drawing on findings in innovation and social innovation research as well as from the rural participative planning discourse, it is shown that three tiers of factors influence the success of social innovation. These are: (1) factors important for the success of the overall innovation process; (2) factors influencing the room to manoeuvre for the social innovation actor network; and (3) factors influencing the actual participation process. A closer look at each of these factors reveals that most of them are excluded from external steering, and only factors influencing the room to manoeuvre provide potential links for rural policy to support social innovation. This allows one to conclude that social innovation in rural development cannot be easily initiated or steered from the top down, raising the question of whether social innovation can be politically instrumentalised.

  June 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12180   open full text
• Climate variability and livelihood diversification in northern Ethiopia: a case study of Lasta and Beyeda districts.
  Zerihun Berhane Weldegebriel, Martin Prowse.
  Geographical Journal. June 14, 2016
  This article examines smallholders’ perceptions of climate variability in two districts in northern Ethiopia, and the diversification options pursued within and outside agriculture. Meteorological records corroborate smallholders’ belief that temperatures are increasing but do not support assertions that rainfall is decreasing. Farm‐level adaptation mainly involves soil and water conservation measures learnt from state‐led schemes as well as planting a broader crop mix. Diversification outside agriculture is mainly wage labour: international and national migration, construction work in local towns, participation in public works and piecework on nearby farms. The article concludes by arguing that policymakers could do more to support non‐farm diversification strategies by recognising the importance of rural–urban connections in fostering adaptation.

  June 14, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12178   open full text
• Mapping the pastoral migratory patterns under land appropriation in East Sudan: the case of the Lahaween Ethnic Group.
  Hussein M Sulieman, Abdel Ghaffar M Ahmed.
  Geographical Journal. May 26, 2016
  The loss of about 4 million ha of land in East Sudan to mechanised rain‐fed agriculture severely restricts pastoral mobility, as much of this land is the traditional rangeland for different transhumant pastoralists and smallholder farmers in the area. The aim of this paper is to map the current transformations of the migration patterns of transhumant pastoralists in East Sudan as a result of the land appropriation, by taking the Lahaween ethic group as an example. The paper followed a mixed approach of mapping, geo‐coded field trips using GPS device, focus group discussion and key informant interviews. The findings showed that the annual movement of the Lahaween covers approximately 350 km. They spend 77% of their annual cycle in the summer areas. Frequent and rapid herd movement is a principal strategy in the process of coping with land appropriation. Other coping and adaptation mechanisms taken by the Lahaween included separation of animal types; separation of herds from households; fragmentation of households; use of vehicles and mobile phones in managing herds; entering the national game park; and crossing the international border. The need to promote and facilitate livestock mobility is a longstanding claim in the region. However, the continued neglect of livestock movement territories by state planners is a contested issue which might add a new dilemma of conflict to the country. The mapping exercise presented in this paper is expected to offer a technical guide for solving the problem of congested mobility. It also provides decision‐makers with the current territories of pastoralists' movements.

  May 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12175   open full text
• Writing Tibet as Han Chinese sojourners: the discourses, practices and politics of place in an era of rapid development.
  Junxi Qian, Hong Zhu.
  Geographical Journal. May 13, 2016
  This paper engages with the debates on place, and develops an analysis of a corpus of writings on Tibet produced by Han Chinese writers, documenting their experiences of sojourning in Tibet. Recent literature in human geography has conceptualised place as a centre of meanings. Moreover, it has been recognised that place is implicated in the fashioning of the self. Following these theorisations, this article examines how the Han writers' senses of place for Tibet enable them to explore and fashion their identities, and build an alternative lifeworld to the allegedly alienated and rationalised life in the China Proper (neidi). This study puts forward its arguments in tandem with two theoretical perspectives. On the one hand, it suggests that place is a performance that coheres around constructed discourses and lived practices. Hence, this article analyses both the ways in which the Han writers' frame Tibet into a system of discourses and meanings, and how these discourses feed into routinised, lived practices at the level of the everyday life. On the other hand, this study also investigates how Tibet as place is situated in the tension between local particularity and the wide network of places that constitutes China's post‐reform transformation. The writers' texts play out a sense of place being eroded and on the verge of being ruined. Notably, they negotiate the restless transformation of Tibet in profoundly ambiguous and contradictory ways.

  May 13, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12176   open full text
• Britain's changed electoral map in and beyond 2015: the importance of geography.
  Ron Johnston, Charles Pattie, David Manley.
  Geographical Journal. April 20, 2016
  Three geographical elements play major roles in the operation of the UK's electoral system: the geography of support – how spatially segregated each party's voters are; the geographical clustering of those segregated areas; and the constituency boundaries within which those geographies are nested. In the period from 1970 to 2010 as a result of the interaction of these three, Britain's apparent three‐party system (four‐party in Scotland and Wales) was represented in a series of geographically separate two‐party systems. At the 2015 election, although there was little change in support for the two largest parties from the overall situation in 2010, there were substantial changes in the volume and geography of support for the five smaller parties. Those latter changes produced very different geographies in 2015 from those in 2010, with major likely consequences for the next contest in 2020.

  April 20, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12171   open full text
• Frances B. Lysnar: New Zealand's first woman FRGS, 1913.
  Michael Roche.
  Geographical Journal. February 24, 2016
  In 1913 the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), in the face of mounting pressure, decided to readmit women as Fellows (FRGS). Amongst the first group of successful nominees was Frances B. Lysnar, a New Zealand teacher, amateur artist and traveller. This paper briefly positions Lynsar in colonial New Zealand and examines how she engaged with ‘geography’, revisits her book New Zealand: The Dear Old Maori Land (1915), and assesses how she used ‘FRGS’ status to give added credential to her work raising funds for Pandita Ramabai's Mukti Mission in India.

  February 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12172   open full text
• Assessing and understanding the environmental changes in the Doubegue watershed (Burkina Faso) by combining temporal study of land use changes and stakeholders' knowledge.
  Elodie Robert.
  Geographical Journal. January 29, 2016
  Since the 1980s, the Bagre region (Burkina Faso) has witnessed significant environmental changes mainly due to anthropogenic causes (arrival of new population groups, demographic increase, reservoir creation, exacerbation of conflict linked to land ownership, and land and agrarian reform), and secondarily to climatic perturbations. For a comprehensive understanding of these environmental changes, and their causes and impacts in the Doubegue watershed, it is necessary to combine different analytical tools. An original methodology, which combines remote sensing and field survey, is proposed. A temporal study of land use change was conducted to identify areas at risk and ongoing processes. At the same time, a survey was carried out to study the local population's knowledge concerning changes to the resources of vegetation, water and soil. The analysis of a time series of satellite images reveals environmental changes mainly in the central area of the watershed, since the 1990s in particular, with an increase in cropped and bare soils. The survey also highlights reduction in vegetation cover, a decrease in soil quality and changes in the river system. In addition, stakeholders link the degradation of vegetation cover to changes in the river system. Finally, to reduce degradation of resources (vegetation, water and soil), actions are being developed and/or sought by the population and by organisations in the region.

  January 29, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12169   open full text
• Sustainable construction and socio‐technical transitions in London's mega‐projects.
  Andrew Brooks, Hannah Rich.
  Geographical Journal. January 28, 2016
  Sustainable construction attempts to mitigate the destructive impacts of building on the global environment. Mega‐projects in London, such as Blackfriars Station and the Shard, symbolise urban renewal and are promoted as engines for sustainable development, principally through their use of sustainably procured materials. Unique buildings which are monumental and often state backed act as niches or incubators for sustainable construction, because they operate as protected spaces where the general rules of construction do not apply. Decision making in sustainable construction is complicated by the multiple state and public stakeholders involved in projects such as large stations and skyscrapers, and the different perspectives of architects, developers, procurement specialists, end users and others. While there are diverse actors involved, there has been some international convergence in the construction sector around how to deliver sustainability, and sustainable procurement has become the primary social and technological change through which more sustainable approaches to construction are delivered. Using interviews and questionnaires undertaken with six leading contractors involved in some of London's mega property and transport infrastructure projects, we analyse how sustainability procurement is deployed in the construction industry. Socio‐technical transition theory provides a way to understand the context‐specific developments led through mega‐projects, which are at the forefront of promoting the use of sustainably procured materials and technologies. Our research demonstrates that moves to deploy a more sustainable approach are based around modifications to current practices rather than fundamental transformation. Cost and risks are frequently cited as barriers to the sustainable procurement of materials, while some contractors are sceptical of the improvements that can be delivered through sustainable procurement.

  January 28, 2016   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12167   open full text
• Mexico, the failed state debate, and the Mérida fix.
  Carolyn Gallaher.
  Geographical Journal. November 11, 2015
  This paper examines the discourse of ‘shared responsibility’ that the governments of the United States and Mexico created through the 2008 Mérida Initiative. This discourse fixed the terms of an unruly debate that stood in the way of bilateral cooperation – are Mexico's drug cartels terrorists, and if so is Mexico in danger of failing? Specifically, the discourse does three things. First, it clarifies the formal position of both governments that Mexico's drug cartels are criminals, not insurgents. Second, by using the term ‘transnational criminal organisation’ (TCO) to label the cartels, the United State accepts some responsibility for them. Finally, the discourse establishes a territorial notion of sharing so that US participation inside Mexico is limited. Although ‘shared responsibility’ has been characterised as a ‘paradigm shift’ in how the two countries deal with one another (Benítez Manaut 2009, Revista Mexicana de Política Exterior 87), I argue here that it reinforces a militarised status quo. By defining ‘shared responsibility’ as an obligation between states, the two countries do not have to articulate a joint responsibility to Mexico's civilians, who bear the brunt of both the cartels and the bilateral fight against them. This framing also helps explain the US government's muted response to abuses by the Mexican military since the agreement took effect.

  November 11, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12166   open full text
• Historical geography as an international discipline 1975–2015.
  Alan R H Baker.
  Geographical Journal. November 06, 2015
  This paper was delivered by invitation as the opening plenary address at the 16th International Conference of Historical Geographers held at the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) in London, UK, 5–10 July 2015. That series of conferences had its origins in a British‐Canadian symposium held in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, in 1975. Coincidentally, the Journal of Historical Geography was also founded in 1975. This paper assesses the contributions of the ICHG and of the JHG to the internationalisation of historical geography during the first 40 years of their existences. It provides some reflections not only on their significant, positive, contributions but also on the problems raised by their structures, breadth of coverage, costs, and use only of the English language. It concludes by acknowledging the role of other international gatherings of historical geographers and of other journals of historical geography.

  November 06, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12164   open full text
• Towards an enhanced understanding of ethnic group geographies using measures of clustering and unevenness.
  Gemma Catney.
  Geographical Journal. September 27, 2015
  This paper considers how the increased ethnic diversity of England and Wales has been accompanied by changes in the geography of ethnic group distributions, towards increased or decreased segregation. Drawing on data from the 2001 and 2011 Censuses, the paper has two aims: first, to understand changes to ethnic residential segregation better, through an approach to considering unevenness and clustering concurrently and thus, second, to add to methodological understandings of both the national picture and local geographies of ethnicity, and their evolution over time. The analysis combines spatial with non‐spatial information, looking both at the spread of ethnic groups across England and Wales (measured by the Index of Dissimilarity) and how similar the prevalence of an ethnic group is between neighbouring small areas (census output areas; measured by the Moran's I spatial autocorrelation coefficient). Change in segregation over the period is characterised by three major trends: increased ethnic group spread across neighbourhoods and increased spatial similarity between neighbouring small areas (all minority ethnic groups except White Irish and Caribbean); decreased unevenness across neighbourhoods and decreased spatial similarity between neighbouring areas (White Irish and Caribbean); and increased unevenness and increased spatial similarity (White British). The combined measurement of clustering and evenness, in contrast to the use of indices of single dimensions alone, provides a distinction between local concentrations and national‐level differences, which captures key characteristics of the geography of ethnic groups and the ways in which they have changed.

  September 27, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12162   open full text
• Food waste, sustainability, and the corporate sector: case study of a US food company.
  Daniel N Warshawsky.
  Geographical Journal. September 17, 2015
  Food waste has emerged as one of the world's most critical issues, as record levels of food waste have resulted in negative outcomes for food security, land use, and methane production associated with climate change. As key institutions in the world's food system, retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers have taken steps to reduce food waste. Yet, while food corporations promote their food waste programs as part of their broader green sustainability initiatives, it is unclear how and why they have developed these initiatives. To fill this research gap, this study examines a US company's food waste reduction programs as a case study. To this end, this study utilises interview data of key stakeholders to examine the ways that food waste is produced, regulated, and reused by food corporations. Research findings point to some positive outcomes, such as the transformation of food waste into alternative energy and increased efficiency in food donation systems. Yet, these positive outcomes may be overshadowed by corporate priorities which privilege profitability, brand enhancement, and short‐term high‐visibility solutions. This research highlights that the broad and somewhat diffuse definition of sustainability may allow corporations to highlight narrow, company‐specific technical fixes rather than do the hard work associated with reducing food waste in their supply chains. Moreover, data suggest that many food corporations use the sustainability trope as a way to ensure that they are recognised as legitimate, ethical, and profitable companies. Thus, while some argue that sustainable development institutionalises important environmental practices into the market, evidence from this study suggests that these corporate practices may be evidence of neoliberal environmental governance which is determined by market logics rather than environmental or social justice. In this way, corporate profitability determines how sustainability is defined, when and where sustainability is implemented, and how sustainability is to be measured.

  September 17, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12156   open full text
• Making space for disability in eco‐homes and eco‐communities.
  Amita Bhakta, Jenny Pickerill.
  Geographical Journal. September 15, 2015
  There is continued failure to build homes for diverse and disabled occupancy. We use three eco‐communities in England to explore how their eco‐houses and wider community spaces accommodate the complex disability of hypotonic cerebral palsy. Using site visits, video footage, spatial mapping, field diary observations, surveys and interviews, this paper argues that little attention has been paid to making eco‐communities and eco‐houses accessible. There are, we argue, three useful and productive ways to interrogate accessibility in eco‐communities, through understandings of legislation, barriers and mobility. These have three significant consequences for eco‐communities and disabled access: ecological living as practised by these eco‐communities relies upon particular bodily capacities, and thus excludes many disabled people; disabled access was only considered in relation to the house and its thresholds, not to the much broader space of the home; and eco‐communities need to be, and would benefit from being, spaces of diverse interaction.

  September 15, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12157   open full text
• Crossing the (watershed) divide: satellite data and the changing politics of international river basins.
  Colin J Gleason, Ali N Hamdan.
  Geographical Journal. September 15, 2015
  Acquiring freshwater resources is a necessary component of sustainable human settlement subject to increasing pressure from population and climate changes. This sometimes scarce resource primarily comes from rivers, and international river basins (IRBs), where watersheds and watercourses cross political boundaries, are often spaces of great political tension and conflict worldwide. Such conflict potential has garnered interest from a wide range of research communities, and each emphasises public access to hydrologic data as integral to successful international management of IRBs. However; these hydrologic data, especially measurements of river flow rate, are often closely guarded state secrets. Satellites have been cited as a key technology set to challenge this data monopoly that have yet been unable to calculate river flow rate without some form of guarded ancillary data. Now, at‐many‐stations hydraulic geometry (AMHG) offers a means of circumventing data limitations without any a priori information, and the forthcoming NASA/CNES Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite also promises to estimate flow rates solely from its novel measurements following launch. In this paper, we explore how these newly available estimates of river flow rate could reconfigure water‐management and interstate relations in IRBs, and demonstrate AMHG, for two cases: the Ganges–Brahmaputra and Mekong. For these basins we find that satellite flow rate retrievals will likely reinforce and favour state‐level negotiations of water resource governance. Also, satellite flow retrievals can have the direct, concrete effect of improving hydrologic understanding of the upstream Ganges–Brahmaputra, a sorely needed advance that will positively benefit millions of Bangladeshis and affect state‐level interactions between India, China, and Bangladesh. Finally, we avoid offering prescriptive water management solutions for each case, as local stakeholders will ultimately determine if and how such satellite retrievals will be used.

  September 15, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12155   open full text
• The diffusion of grassroots innovations for sustainability in Italy and Great Britain: an exploratory spatial data analysis.
  Giuseppe Feola, Anisa Butt.
  Geographical Journal. August 26, 2015
  Little research so far has been devoted to understanding the diffusion of grassroots innovation for sustainability across space. This paper explores and compares the spatial diffusion of two networks of grassroots innovations, the Transition Towns Network (TTN) and Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale (Solidarity Purchasing Groups – GAS), in Great Britain and Italy. Spatio‐temporal diffusion data were mined from available datasets, and patterns of diffusion were uncovered through an exploratory data analysis. The analysis shows that GAS and TTN diffusion in Italy and Great Britain is spatially structured, and that the spatial structure has changed over time. TTN has diffused differently in Great Britain and Italy, while GAS and TTN have diffused similarly in central Italy. The uneven diffusion of these grassroots networks on the one hand challenges current narratives on the momentum of grassroots innovations, but on the other highlights important issues in the geography of grassroots innovations for sustainability, such as cross‐movement transfers and collaborations, institutional thickness, and interplay of different proximities in grassroots innovation diffusion.

  August 26, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12153   open full text
• The diversity of small‐scale oil palm cultivation in Sarawak, Malaysia.
  Ryoji Soda, Yumi Kato, Jason Hon.
  Geographical Journal. August 14, 2015
  The purpose of this study was to describe the patterns of land use that have emerged on the island of Borneo in the wake of an oil palm boom in its indigenous population. An in‐depth examination of indigenous land‐use changes between 2004 and 2013 in a selected oil palm farming village in Sarawak, Malaysia was conducted using data derived from high‐resolution satellite images to examine the spatial distribution of oil palm cultivation. The results found that oil palms are irregularly and randomly distributed. The results of interviews with villagers further revealed a diversity of oil palm planting actors and demonstrated how this diversity relates to villagers' land‐use options and decision‐making. From the viewpoint of plantation management, the mosaic and patchy cultivation of small‐scale oil palm farming appears inefficient and irrational. However, villagers' land‐use behaviours conform to their traditional land tenure customs and allow them to secure diverse opportunistic land‐use options to survive in the event of a sharp drop in the price of oil palm. The villagers' rationale for oil palm expansion also derives from their complex relationships with the diversity of actors that have interest in their land, including plantations, urban Chinese, and small‐ and middle‐scale developers. It is important to create balanced relationships among these diverse stakeholders in order to maintain mosaic‐like village landscape and realise sustainable development of oil palm cultivation in rural Sarawak.

  August 14, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12152   open full text
• Limitations and opportunities of social capital for adaptation to climate change: a case study on the Isles of Scilly.
  Jan Petzold.
  Geographical Journal. August 12, 2015
  Small islands are among regions most affected by the impacts of global climate change. They are regarded as particularly vulnerable, but from a different point of view, island societies also feature a particular sociocultural resilience, which distinguishes them from continental societies. How do social structures increase the adaptive capacity of small islands towards sea‐level rise? I consider the concept of social capital as applicable in order to understand the role of communities and collective action in a context of vulnerability and resilience. In this paper, I present results from a case study on the Isles of Scilly, UK. A mixed methods qualitative approach has been applied to analyse the various roles of social capital for the adaptation to climate change impacts on this small archipelago, which is representative of European small islands in an economically advanced, but isolated context. The Isles of Scilly are among the most vulnerable island regions in Europe. The results of the research contribute to the general discussion on social capital and the relevance of collective action for the adaptation to global climate change. How useful is the concept? And how relevant is it for small islands, such as the Isles of Scilly?

  August 12, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12154   open full text
• General principles behind traditional environmental knowledge: the local dimension in land management.
  Gerardo Bocco, Antoinette Winklerprins.
  Geographical Journal. June 08, 2015
  Traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) has become a widely used concept in theory and practice. TEK encompasses environmental knowledge acquired by people native to, or long‐term inhabitants of, specific places, over long periods of time; knowledge which is then assumed to apply only to those local areas. TEK has indeed been particularly characterised as a use of local knowledge in the search for solutions to specific, local, environmental problems. Critics of TEK may then argue that it is not based on a strong conceptual framework, and accordingly it cannot be generalised. However, different local practices, which produced analogous outcomes elsewhere, may share common features; moreover, they may be based on general principles behind local ecological knowledge. This is despite the fact that empirical knowledge on specific areas is perceived as local by the producers themselves, and is regarded as local by scientific researchers. The purpose of this paper is to explore some potential general principles that undergird the local component of TEK by focusing on the TEK of soils and geomorphology. We focus on TEK's local dimension; we explore the extent of the local by looking for analogous TEK practices in different, contrasting regions. First we report on local agricultural and land management techniques in the North Atlantic Islands, following their occupation by the pre‐historic Norse migration c. 800 AD up to 1200 AD. Then we discuss how the findings from that time period exhibit general principles regarding soil and geomorphic TEK that occurs in other parts of the world and time periods. We conclude by putting forward potential implications for generalities about TEK.

  June 08, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12147   open full text
• Understanding the long‐term strategies of vulnerable small‐scale farmers dealing with markets' uncertainty.
  Benjamin Bathfield, Pierre Gasselin, Luis García‐Barrios, Rémy Vandame, Santiago López‐Ridaura.
  Geographical Journal. May 04, 2015
  In this paper, we present a framework and a methodology to identify the long‐term strategies of small‐scale farmers dealing with uncertainties. To do so, we link the Activity System framework to the concept of perceived vulnerability and analyse the small‐scale farmers' trajectories. Based on a sample of 34 small‐scale coffee producers in Guatemala and through the analysis of case studies and classification methods, we identify some trends in long‐term decisionmaking. These trends are mainly built on responsiveness, autonomy, vulnerability shifts and collective means of action. We finally discuss these findings in the light of previous studies carried out in different contexts.

  May 04, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12142   open full text
• Indexing livelihood vulnerability to the effects of typhoons in indigenous communities in Taiwan.
  Kuan‐Hui Elaine Lin, Colin Polsky.
  Geographical Journal. April 02, 2015
  The theoretical importance of understanding how livelihoods shape local vulnerability to the effects of climate change has received broad attention, but with relatively few attempts to produce and implement an analytical framework based on the theory. This study develops a livelihood vulnerability analytical framework, and applies it to the case of rural indigenous communities of Taiwan that are regularly exposed to typhoons and associated geological hazards. Measures of the factors influencing how typhoons impact these indigenous communities (sensitivities), and of the abilities of such communities to respond in anticipatory or reactive modes (adaptive capacities) are also included. The study is based on mixed qualitative and quantitative analysis, combining data from in‐person interviews and surveys from 2006 to 2009. Livelihood vulnerability narratives are developed accordingly, together with a spatially‐explicit livelihood vulnerability index to diagnose the dimensionality and the distribution of vulnerability across the area. Three patterns of livelihood vulnerability are found including least vulnerable communities in the remotest area with relatively abundant livelihood capitals to mitigate vulnerability, intermediate vulnerability communities which are doubly exposed to market and typhoon‐associated stresses, and the most vulnerable communities trapped in poverty and vulnerability loops. The patterns reveal strong spatial relationships of social development beginning with the Japanese colonial government (1895–1945) and continuing through the Kuomintang Chinese government (1945–present). This historical development shaped the original human‐environmental conditions in each community and the inequality continues to expand due to increased hazard risk and inappropriate policy interventions. This study highlights the need for future research to develop a continuous program for longitudinally tracking the dynamism of the three patterns of vulnerability.

  April 02, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12141   open full text
• Intelligent enterprise: wasting, valuing and re‐valuing waste electrical and electronic equipment.
  Martin Oteng‐Ababio, George Owusu, Mary Chama.
  Geographical Journal. March 06, 2015
  The common narrative on e‐waste recycling in contemporary Ghana refers to a sector that is primarily a marginalised, ‘survival entity’ involving excess workers living in poor urban neighbourhoods. Other narratives highlight the environmental health challenges associated with e‐waste recycling management practices. In this paper, we explore how such recycling in Accra, notwithstanding the health and environmental externalities, also involves a vibrant entrepreneurial part of the urban economy. This case‐study‐based article was conducted through community asset mapping and 17 key informants' interviews. The study identified within the e‐waste economy a network of worlds of work that intersect with both formal and international industries. Based on our findings, we propose that when properly nurtured, regularised and managed, e‐waste recycling can foster economic growth and job creation. In conclusion, we highlight three foci that can enrich theory, practice and research, all three of which are in need of broader understandings. These foci will also support progress towards achieving a democratic account of everyday life and work complexities within the informal economy in Ghana.

  March 06, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12140   open full text
• Debates about African urbanisation, migration and economic growth: what can we learn from Zimbabwe and Zambia?
  Deborah Potts.
  Geographical Journal. February 14, 2015
  There has been much debate about whether patterns of urbanisation in sub‐Saharan Africa defy the usually accepted links between migration flows and economic geographies. In the 1980s and 1990s African urban economies were weak and increasingly informalised. The livelihoods of the majority of urban households became intensely vulnerable. However, the most widely accepted narrative was that rural–urban migration remained strong and rates of urban growth were unaffected, suggesting that African migrants ignored economic signals and that explanations of migrant behaviour must primarily be non‐economic. A new angle on this debate has now arisen: whether urbanisation in Africa generates economic growth or vice versa. This has been triggered by the much improved GDP growth rates which many African countries have experienced in the twenty‐first century, driven in large part by a commodity boom and increased demand for their natural resources. This paper seeks to contribute to these debates through a detailed analysis of the contrasting experiences of Zimbabwe and Zambia from the 1960s to today. Rates of urbanisation waxed and waned in both and were evidently affected by national economic development patterns which have been highly variable – to a significant extent the experience of each country in each decade has been the mirror image of the other. From this it is argued that, as elsewhere in the world, migration flows have been strongly influenced by economic opportunity. The evidence from these countries also supports the view that it is economic development that drives urbanisation, and not the other way round.

  February 14, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12139   open full text
• In the contact zone: engineering meaningful encounters across difference through an interfaith project.
  Lucy Mayblin, Gill Valentine, Johan Andersson.
  Geographical Journal. February 03, 2015
  Increasing scholarly attention is being paid to urban encounters with ‘difference’. Much of this work to‐date has focused on incidental encounters in various spatial settings from the market to the café. Here, a number of commentators have observed that fleeting, unintended encounters, where diverse people rub along together as a consequence of accidental proximity, do not necessarily produce ‘meaningful contact’. That is contact which breaks down prejudices and translates beyond the moment to produce a more general respect for others. This paper contributes to these debates by focusing instead on purposeful organised activities (‘The Project’) to bring two different groups together intentionally who would not normally have the opportunity for sustained engagement through a case study of an interfaith (Muslim and Jewish) youth cricket project in a large UK city. Here, we use the concept of the ‘contact zone’ to evaluate the effectiveness of this project. The findings highlight three critical processes which contribute to generating meaningful contact. First, it is important to establish space where participants from different groups can safely explore their differences together. Second, it is necessary to create space to establish shared interests: here through the game of cricket. Both are factors which require significant resourcing, in particular to enable a professional facilitator to manage what can be, or become, conflictual encounters and the expression of potentially negative emotions. Third, banal sociality also matters. It was time spent ‘hanging out’ alongside, instead of in, the purposeful activities when the participants identified their own natural affinities and found particular shared identity positions which contributed to destabilising the significance of differences beyond those The Project sought to address. These findings have clear relevance for future policy initiatives to develop interfaith relations.

  February 03, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12128   open full text
• Desert journeys: from exploration to covert operations.
  Isla Forsyth.
  Geographical Journal. February 02, 2015
  This paper explores the entangled relationship between geographical knowledge and covert warfare through a study of soldier and desert explorer Ralph Bagnold. On Italy's declaration of war in 1940 the British military became engaged in a process of transforming the desert plains of the Middle East into an unnerving, obscure battlefield. General Wavell, Commander in Chief, ensured he drew upon those with a grounded understanding of this shifting terrain. Bagnold drew Wavell's attention because he had previously conducted pioneering aeolian research (later published as the seminal The physics of blown sand and desert dunes 1941, Methuen), as well as having developed desert‐based technologies for exploration. Due to Bagnold's intimate knowledge of the desert he was perfectly positioned to be charged with a small, specially equipped force that could wreak havoc behind enemy lines; a covert unit known as the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG). This study of Bagnold's desert exploration and the emergence of the LRDG in WWII will uncover how geographical knowledge became engrained within the prosecution of desert warfare. The paper explores the ways in which the particularities of the desert shaped technologies of mobilities and covert methods of conflict and how the geographies of the desert have been informed through military‐inflected exploration combined with technological innovation.

  February 02, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12136   open full text
• Oil, human capital and diversification: the challenge of transition in the UAE and the Arab Gulf States.
  Michael C Ewers.
  Geographical Journal. February 01, 2015
  This research studies the labour and human capital dimensions of diversification and structural change in oil economies, with a focus on the case of the UAE and the Arab Gulf States. It examines how oil‐driven development in the Gulf has resulted in entrenched patterns of employment and migration, which have forestalled efforts by these countries to transition into more sustainable, post‐oil economies. Utilising a mixed methods approach based on secondary data analysis and a survey conducted with 300 firms, it studies how these distortions have evolved as the region has embarked on a number of major diversification efforts over the past four decades. Oil wealth has provided Gulf economies with the capital to create competitive new sources of economic growth, but the challenge remains sustainability: reproducing the labour force in non‐oil industries locally.

  February 01, 2015   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12138   open full text
• Ethical consumption, meaningful substitution and the challenges of vegetarianism advocacy.
  Harvey Neo.
  Geographical Journal. December 11, 2014
  Vegetarianism is viewed by its advocates as ethical food consumption par excellence. Yet the steady, albeit modest, growth in vegetarians worldwide is paradoxically set against an increase in global meat consumption. This study draws on the literature of ethical consumption to illuminate the practical challenges in vegetarianism advocacy. Research on ethical food consumption focuses on three main lines of inquiry, namely how is ethical food defined; under what socio‐spatial conditions do consumers choose to consume (or not consume) ethical food and what ends do consumers hope to achieve by consuming ethically. This article details the discursive framings of anti‐meat advocacy and shows how such framings fall short of presenting vegetarianism as a form of ethical food consumption. The challenges in persuading consumers to stop meat consumption (as opposed to merely reducing consumption) are well known. In this paper, I highlight a less discussed challenge, relating to the lack of ‘real’ substitutes for meat, in anti‐meat advocacy. Through a discussion of what I will call the problem of ‘meaningful substitution’, I address a comparatively under‐explored question in ethical food consumption research: what is the relative (ethical) relationship between two products? Addressing this question sheds light on our very definition of ethical product and consumption, as well as the challenges of ethical consumption advocacy. Through a series of in‐depth interviews with vegetarians (both advocates and non‐advocates) in Taipei, Taiwan, I conclude that the various moral and nature‐based framings of vegetarianism, as a form of ethical food consumption, are weakened by the lack of a meaningful substitute. More broadly, the study speaks to the practical politics and policies in the effective promotion of ethical consumption.

  December 11, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12130   open full text
• The paradox of poverty in rich ecosystems: impoverishment and development in the Amazon of Brazil and Bolivia.
  Antonio A R Ioris.
  Geographical Journal. December 03, 2014
  The article offers an examination of poverty and development in the Amazon, moving beyond the conventional view which places the blame on infrastructure deficiencies, economic isolation or institutional failures. It examines synergistically connected processes that form the persistent poverty‐making geography of the Amazon region. The discussion is based on qualitative research conducted in two emblematic areas in Bolivia (Pando) and Brazil (Pará). The immediate and long‐term causes of socioeconomic problems have been reinterpreted through a politico‐ecological perspective required to investigate the apparent paradox of impoverished areas within rich ecosystems and abundant territorial resources. Empirical results demonstrate that, first, development is enacted through the exercise of hegemony over the entirety of socionature and, second, because poverty is the lasting materiality of development it cannot be alleviated through conventional mechanisms of economic growth based on socionatural hegemony. The main conclusion is that overcoming the imprint of poverty on Amazonian ecosystem entails a radical socioecological reaction. Additionally, the multiple and legitimate demands of low‐income groups do not start from a state of hopeless destitution, but from a position of strength provided by their interaction with the forest ecosystems and with other comparable groups in the Amazon and elsewhere.

  December 03, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12124   open full text
• The new geography of food security: exploring the potential of urban food strategies.
  Roberta Sonnino.
  Geographical Journal. November 27, 2014
  Food insecurity is increasingly ‘bimodal’, encompassing issues of quantity and quality, under‐ and overconsumption, in developed and developing countries alike. At a time when most of the world's population lives in cities, food security has also assumed a strong urban dimension, raising new issues of physical and financial access to food. Finally, the recent emergence of a ‘New Food Equation’, marked by food price hikes, dwindling natural resources, land grabbing activities, social unrest, and the effects of climate change, is bringing onto the global food security agenda a range of often interrelated sustainability concerns. Responses to this new geography of food security are increasingly emerging at the local level, particularly in industrialised countries, where municipal governments are recasting themselves as food system innovators. Based on the documentary analysis of 15 urban food strategies from Canada, the USA and the UK, the paper addresses three main questions: What type of ‘foodscape’ do these documents envision, and why? Does the rescaling of food governance coincide with the emergence of a new localistic approach to food security? What type of priorities and concrete measures do city governments identify to deal with the new geography of food security? By highlighting the centrality of the relationships between urban and rural areas and actors as targeted intervention areas, the analysis raises the need for a tighter scholarly and policy focus on ‘connectivities’ – i.e. the role of food exchange nodes and of governance coordination in the design and implementation of more effective food security strategies.

  November 27, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12129   open full text
• Global changes, livestock and vulnerability: the social construction of markets as an adaptive strategy.
  Denis Gautier, Bruno Locatelli, Christian Corniaux, Véronique Alary.
  Geographical Journal. November 25, 2014
  Nowadays, livestock producers in Sahel have to deal not only with climate variability but also with changes in land use and policies that restrict access to pasture and increase their vulnerability. At the same time, the growth of urban livestock markets both nationwide and in neighbouring countries is creating opportunities for producers. However, few studies have examined the role of markets in the adaptive strategies of livestock producers in West Africa, the changes in strategies for capturing market opportunities and the social interactions that lead to changes in market access and functioning. This paper addresses the question of how livestock producers and traders have transformed their producing and marketing strategies in response to climate variability and land access constraints. Our proposed conceptual framework on markets, vulnerability and adaptation considers that adaptive strategies include the social construction of markets through which market access is based on social networks and follows the norms and rules embedded in the complexity of these networks. This proactive strategy of stakeholders, through a socially constructed market access, allows traders to harness opportunities and livestock producers to adapt to climatic and land access constraints. We apply the framework in a case study in the region of Niono and Ségou in the Niger Inner delta in Mali. Results show that livestock producers and traders have changed their livestock‐raising and marketing strategies in response to the challenges faced by livestock producers and the emerging market opportunities. This study highlights the importance of considering the social construction of livestock market systems and marketing behaviours as adaptive strategies of livestock producers to multiple changes. Although livestock markets can support the adaptive strategies of several types of producers, their functioning as institutions has been understudied and scantily addressed in policy.

  November 25, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12115   open full text
• The English floodplain.
  John Lewin.
  Geographical Journal. May 23, 2014
  English floodplains are platforms for flood risk vulnerability; they are varied in form and in the timing of their development, both naturally and in terms of human occupation. An understanding of floodplain generation is one of the diverse research areas that can contribute towards effective flood mitigation efforts. The performance of remedial measures like catchment sediment management, flood embanking and channel dredging need to be evaluated with regard to active fluvial process systems so that they may be applied appropriately, particularly given uncertain future environmental changes.

  May 23, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12093   open full text
• Sustainable deathstyles? The geography of green burials in Britain.
  Richard Yarwood, James D Sidaway, Claire Kelly, Susie Stillwell.
  Geographical Journal. May 15, 2014
  In the context of a wider literature on ‘deathscapes’, we map the emergence of a new mode of burial and remembrance in Britain. Since a ‘green’ burial ground was established in Carlisle in 1993, sites for so‐called ‘green, ‘natural’ or ‘woodland’ funerals have proliferated. There are now over 270 such sites in Britain. Drawing on a postal and email survey sent to all managers/owners and visits to 15 green burial grounds (enabling observations and semi‐structured interviews with their managers), we chart their growth, establishment and regulation and describe the landscapes associated with them. This requires, and leads to, wider reflections on nature, capital, consumption, culture and the body.

  May 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12087   open full text
• Security, surveillance and geographical patterns at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Johannesburg.
  Chiara Fonio, Giovanni Pisapia.
  Geographical Journal. May 09, 2014
  This paper analyses the 2010 FIFA World Cup that took place in South Africa by focusing on both security and surveillance dynamics and spatial implications in the city of Johannesburg. While securitisation dynamics and socio‐political legacies have been explored by a substantial body of literature, the activities of the law‐enforcement agencies in a specific urban setting, distinctive geographical patterns and aspects of security governance in South Africa seem to be more fragmented. In this contribution we argue that the tournament represents an important shift in FIFA security governance, namely a shift from reactive patterns of security provisions to more proactive policing approaches. Additionally, we shed light on power dynamics and on trends of securitisation of the urban space, such as the reliance on technology‐based policing which resulted in the implementation of surveillance tools. Symbolic implications and spatial patterns are also discussed with an emphasis on either facility developments or on controversial event‐driven projects. Overall, we contend that despite delivering a safe tournament and reducing crime rates, further investigation is needed to assess surveillance technologies both from a cost‐benefit analysis and from socio‐ethical implications, i.e. the stigmatisation of certain social groups. However, we also argue that inclusionary aspects in relation to event‐driven impositions should be taken into account in the literature on mega‐events in the global South.

  May 09, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12089   open full text
• Workfare and resistance in the US: the quietude and ineffectiveness of progressive welfare politics post 1996.
  Julie MacLeavy.
  Geographical Journal. May 08, 2014
  This paper focuses on the implementation of workfare in the US, with the aim of understanding the passive response of the unions and other progressive groups to the restructuring and retrenchment of the American welfare system. In particular, it considers the disparate efforts to organise welfare recipients and low‐wage workers around the restructuring of social benefits towards work in the District of Columbia. Although the convergence of welfare recipients and low‐wage workers through ‘work‐first’ initiatives has the potential to spur political mobilisation and protest against the reform of welfare, it is found that at the local level campaigns against workfare are diverse and changeable, producing very little – it could be argued – in terms of long‐term resistance. Identifying forms of dissidence in Washington DC as constitutive of the broader liberal regime of governance and re‐regulation, this paper probes the forms, possibilities and problems of organising workfare subjects. This allows for consideration of the extent to which workfare programmes are being re‐inscribed within emerging patterns of political‐economic development and the potential for future action.

  May 08, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12092   open full text
• Is the grass always greener? Making sense of convergence and divergence in regeneration policies in England and Scotland.
  David McGuinness, Paul Greenhalgh, Lee Pugalis.
  Geographical Journal. May 08, 2014
  This paper is concerned with the trajectories of regeneration policy discourse and practice in a devolved UK context. Over recent years the asymmetrical nature of devolved governance has intensified, exemplified by a policy of political containment in Scotland and a reconfiguration of sub‐national institutional architecture in England. Against a backdrop of the transfusion of Holyrood's devolution agenda and Westminster's localism programme, an empirical analysis of contemporary English and Scottish regeneration policy is provided. We investigate the extent to which perceived divergences in government policy resonate with those at the sharp end of regeneration practice, informed by concepts derived from the policy convergence/divergence literature. The key finding is the coexistence of ideological divergence, replete in political discourse and policy documentation, but growing convergence in actual existing practice, evidenced in the nature, extent and scale of initiatives. The enveloping fiscal context and austere politics, producing what is anticipated to be a protracted period of financial retrenchment, appears to be a defining factor in contemporary urban regeneration policy convergence.

  May 08, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12090   open full text
• Cosmopolitan beginnings? Transnational healthcare workers and the politics of carework in Singapore.
  Brenda S A Yeoh, Shirlena Huang.
  Geographical Journal. May 02, 2014
  In recent times, the increasing scholarly interest in the contested place of the migrant in the cities of the North and South has drawn mainly on frameworks of integration, multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. Much of the literature pays little heed to gender dynamics and accords little value in particular to the roles that female migrants play in actively shaping the urban contexts in which they live. We contend that by shifting attention to the more feminised spheres oriented towards the private sphere away from public display (including that of ‘carework’ which is increasingly performed by female migrant workers), we may be able to better glimpse cosmopolitanism at work. This is because the social relations of care provide more fertile ground for developing what Glick Schiller et al. (2011, Ethnic and Racial Studies 34 399–418) call ‘cosmopolitan sociability’. This is not to negate the findings of feminist analyses that suggest that carework, particularly in globalising cities restructured by neoliberal agendas, reproduces and extends forms of social inequalities. Indeed, even as the locus of carework shifts from local to foreign women from less developed countries, patriarchal norms and unequal gender relations are reinforced, and in fact intersect with other power geometries based on race, nationality and class. As illustration of the politics of carework, this paper discusses the place of migrant healthcare workers (primarily Chinese, Indian, Filipino and Burmese women) in institutionalised settings in the rapidly globalising city of Singapore. While their presence in the global city raises moral anxieties not only about the shift of carework from the family to outside the home, they also alert us to the possibilities and limits of a cosmopolitan approach to care transcending boundaries of race, culture, language and nationality.

  May 02, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12084   open full text
• Nature, wellbeing and the transformational self.
  Jo Little.
  Geographical Journal. May 02, 2014
  This paper explores the relationship between health, exercise and the body through the lens of fitness holidays. It conceptualises fitness tourism within Foucaudian ideas of the care of the self and bodily discipline, arguing that the holidays and the practices they employ need to be seen as part of the shift in health in which the individual is required to take a more active part in regulating and managing their own health and wellbeing. The paper stresses the relationship between health and beauty, and the importance of appropriately sized and shaped bodies within contemporary ideas of wellbeing. It goes on to show how nature is present in both the kinds of bodies that are seen as healthy, and the spaces and practices used to produce those bodies. Drawing on interviews, client testimonials and publicity material the paper examines the motivations behind the provision and consumption of fitness holidays. It argues that despite a set of novel and ‘transformative’ practices (incorporating strong links between diet, relaxation and exercise and an emphasis on ‘reeducation’), consumption of and satisfaction with the fitness holidays is heavily dependent on conventional outcomes of weight loss and body size reduction.

  May 02, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12083   open full text
• The uneven geographies of the Olympic carceral: from exceptionalism to normalisation.
  Jon Coaffee.
  Geographical Journal. May 02, 2014
  In recent years a vast academic literature has developed around the concept of ‘militarising’ or ‘securitising’ cities and in particular the policy responses to the occurrence of crime, fear of crime and the evaluation of cities as strategic sites for a spectrum of large‐scale increasingly destructive perturbations in everyday urban life, such as riots, protest and acts of terrorism. Increasingly policy interventions in response to such threats have embodied characteristics of the ‘carceral archipelago’ where incarceration techniques and strategies are punitively deployed within public places of the city and embedded within the design of urban space. Such attempts at creating increasingly hyper‐carceral spaces have often been supported by an array of legislation and regulation targeting the control of particular activities deemed unacceptable or inappropriate. This paper draws conceptually from the urban security literature noted above and emerging studies within the nascent sub‐discipline of carceral geography, and examines their convergence on the issue of Olympic security planning. This highlights the various spatial strategies and imprints that emerge from new conceptualisations and practices of securitisation, and how these might be seen to characterise an increasingly punitive state. Here Agamben's studies of exceptionality are deployed to highlight how ‘lockdown’ security often becomes the ‘normal’ option for Olympic cities, seen as being on the frontline in the war on terror, and how a range of uneven geographies emerge and are sustained in such locations before, during and after the event. Empirically the paper uses data from ethnographic research focusing on the experiences of security preparation for, and post‐event legacy of, the London 2012 Olympics. The paper also seeks to highlight how lessons from the military‐carceral security strategies deployed in London have been transferred to subsequent host cities of Sochi (2014) and Rio de Janeiro (2016).

  May 02, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12081   open full text
• Gender differences in commute time and accessibility in Sofia, Bulgaria: a study using 3D geovisualisation.
  Mei‐Po Kwan, Alexander Kotsev.
  Geographical Journal. April 10, 2014
  Much research on human mobility patterns and accessibility to date has been conducted largely in Western European and North American countries, where the private vehicle is the main means for commuting. As a result, most studies focused largely on car‐based mobility (automobility) and accessibility, and relatively little is known about countries in other regions of the world. Based on an activity‐travel dataset collected in Sofia, Bulgaria and using 3D geovisualisation, this study attempts to fill this gap through examining gender differences in commute time and potential access to urban opportunities. The results reveal important gender differences in commute time and individual accessibility. Among the surveyed participants, women tend to spend more time on their commute trips and have more restrictive spatial reach to urban opportunities compared with men, largely as a result of their reliance on public transit as their primary mode of transport. Further, women have lower accessibility compared with men who used the same travel mode. This case study adds important new knowledge about a geographical area that has been under‐studied by Anglophone geographers. It also shows that GIS‐based geovisualisation and analysis are powerful tools for uncovering gender differences in the geographical distribution of commute time, which conventional quantitative methods cannot reveal.

  April 10, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12080   open full text
• Happiness on your doorstep: disputing the boundaries of wellbeing and localism.
  Karen Scott.
  Geographical Journal. April 02, 2014
  This paper is a critical review and analysis of the recent emergence of wellbeing discourses in UK national politics and their relationship with localism agendas. In 2011 the UK Coalition Government initiated a national programme to measure wellbeing. Despite a stated desire to consult the public as widely as possible on what matters for wellbeing, policy discourse is currently dominated by particular framings of wellbeing, predominantly within the arenas of subjective wellbeing research, positive psychology and individual behaviour change, where community participation and volunteerism narratives feature heavily. Ideas of wellbeing are enmeshed within narratives of reducing bureaucracy and creating the Big Society. This argument is backed up by a discourse analysis of government documentation on wellbeing and localism, which illustrates how discursive boundaries are being created around the concept of wellbeing which in turn demarcates clear boundaries of responsibility. The explicit desire on the part of the UK Coalition Government to devolve more responsibilities to the ‘local community’ is justified by appeals to particular ideas of wellbeing which are evidenced by particular sorts of research, limiting room for other, more progressive, accounts.

  April 02, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12076   open full text
• Cultivating critical practices in physical geography.
  Marc Tadaki, Gary Brierley, Mark Dickson, Richard Le Heron, Jennifer Salmond.
  Geographical Journal. April 02, 2014
  Fundamental changes in the meaning and practice of environmental science are affecting – and are affected by – the theoretical, technological, pedagogical and institutional projects of physical geography. These changes have given rise to a range of ‘integrative’ (or integration‐directed) disciplinary narratives which articulate a role for physical geographers within an engaged project of societal relevance and transformation. In this context, we welcome the rise of a notional ‘Critical Physical Geography’ and here we seek to expand the conversation to support thinking about what it might mean to be critical within physical geography. Moving beyond definitions of interdisciplinary collaboration, we propose that being critical from within physical geography begins with cultivating a critical disposition towards the situated partiality of our scientific practices. This prompts consideration of the ways in which our environmental objects could be assembled differently, reflecting different personal histories and values, and from different epistemic locations and management framings and through different investment narratives. A critical disposition prompts reflection upon the situated constraints and opportunities presented by our institutional locations. Recognition and articulation of critical perspectives may provoke endeavours to more consciously reassemble our scientific and institutional projects into more effective interventions to secure a more powerful and meaningful role for physical geographers across their diverse engagements.

  April 02, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12082   open full text
• Water (in)security: securing the right to water.
  Alex Loftus.
  Geographical Journal. March 26, 2014
  This paper rereads debates over water security and insecurity through the tools of critical geographical scholarship. It seeks to demonstrate the value of such a critical perspective in achieving access to water for all. While rejecting a simplistic dismissal of mainstream discourses on water security, the paper notes the failure to adequately politicise the processes and relationships that reproduce water inequalities. Finding lessons in recent writings on political ecology, the hydro‐social cycle and on the right to water, the paper concludes with a Gramscian claim to build from the fragmented but situated knowledges implicit in struggles to achieve democratic access to water.

  March 26, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12079   open full text
• Where are the ‘bad fires’ in West African savannas? Rethinking burning management through a space–time analysis in Burkina Faso.
  Sebastien Caillault, Aziz Ballouche, Daniel Delahaye.
  Geographical Journal. March 26, 2014
  In Sudanian savannas, frequent fires are required to maintain a mix of trees and grasses. After a century of long conflict over fire utilisation and resource management, arising from colonial scientists reacting against traditional practice, fire has become a management tool used to shape tropical vegetation. Many examples show that fire is allowed and used in protected areas, and more recently, tolerated in West African countrysides. If fires are no longer viewed as ‘evil’ for African landscapes, fire setting remains a problem. Nowadays, fire ecology and the savanna concept focus on fire seasonal temporality, and create a new and more specific category of contested fires, or late‐season fire, referred to in this paper as ‘bad fires’. This specific category generally conceives fire as a biophysical element, which leads to savanna degradation. This paper examines the reality of ‘bad fires’ in the Western Burkina Faso through a space–time analysis to investigate the existence of an annually seasonal pattern of fires created by peasants. Using spatial association (I_Moran) on active fire MODIS products, we are able to demonstrate a deterministic regional pattern occurring over six years (from 2004 to 2009). Results of this study confirm the importance of a close study of fire in its temporal dimension with respect to temporality in burning practices. Conclusions show that the details of timing in fire‐setting are key and also bring us new perspectives to understanding fire collective management at a local scale and new elements for climate modelling at a global scale.

  March 26, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12074   open full text
• The geo‐historical legacies of urban security governance and the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
  Adam Molnar.
  Geographical Journal. March 20, 2014
  In 2004, the discourse of ‘legacy’ was woven into the constitutional fabric of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Bidding for Olympic events is now premised on procuring post‐event legacies that will resonate through local communities and host countries long after the flame is extinguished. Given vast expenditures in security, policing, and emergency management operations at major sporting events, it is notable that the IOC and its official partners have disproportionately under‐represented security and policing legacies. This paper addresses research into security and policing legacies of major events by turning much needed empirical attention towards institutional‐level geographies of security and policing – particularly on legacies of policing and militarisation in Olympic host cities. Accordingly, the paper traces the institutional trajectory of the Military Liaison Unit (MLU) in the Vancouver Police Department who were heavily involved in coordinating the joint civilian–military effort throughout the lifecycle of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. Theoretically, the paper furthers Stephen Graham's (2010) New Military Urbanism that considers the circulation of military expertise between neo‐colonial frontiers of military intervention with Western urban spaces. In doing so, this paper unpacks an empirically guided temporal approach that discerns key drivers of militarisation as localised, empirical‐based ‘trajectories’ of development of security and policing institutions, which are linked to, and circumscribed by, critical juncture episodes in the context of mega event security. The paper traces processes of the MLU to explain how conditions underpinning the civil–military divide in urban policing, as a series of jurisdictional, institutional, and by extension, geographical configurations have continued, changed or been abandoned in the context of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. As such, this paper contributes to much needed debate on the controversies and opportunities inherent in security legacies and major events, which implicate the wider securitisation and militarisation of Western cities.

  March 20, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12070   open full text
• The changing geography of global trade in electronic discards: time to rethink the e‐waste problem.
  Josh Lepawsky.
  Geographical Journal. March 05, 2014
  This paper provides a synopsis of the changing geography of global trade in electronic waste over time using data available from the United Nations COMTRADE database. It quantifies the magnitude and direction of this trade between 206 territories in over 9400 reported trade transactions between 1996 and 2012. The results demonstrate two key findings. First, at its peak in 1996, trade from territories designated as Annex VII under the Basel Convention (‘developed’ countries) to non‐Annex VII territories (‘developing’ countries) accounted for just over 35% of total trade. By 2012 trade from Annex VII to non‐Annex VII territories accounted for less than 1% of total trade. Second, between 1996 and 2012 the two groups of territories evolved different regional trade orientations: Annex VII territories are predominantly trading intra‐regionally, with 73–82% of total trade moving between Annex VII territories. In contrast, non‐Annex VII territories are mostly trading inter‐regionally: by 2012 less than one‐quarter of non‐Annex VII trade moved to other non‐Annex VII territories with the rest moving to Annex VII territories. The results are congruent with an emerging body of research that profoundly troubles the dominant conceptual and policy framings of the global e‐waste problem. Solving that problem will not happen if it is imagined as one predominantly characterised by dumping of e‐waste from rich, ‘developed’ countries of the ‘global North’ in poor, ‘developing’ countries of the ‘global South’. A reframing of the issue of e‐waste is necessary to productively enrich the conceptualisation and policy discussion of e‐waste as an issue of environmental and economic politics and justice.

  March 05, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12077   open full text
• The emerging geographies of climate justice.
  Susannah Fisher.
  Geographical Journal. March 05, 2014
  Climate justice is a well used concept within the international climate debate yet it has often remained little more than a static ideal. Through an analysis of the work of a loose civil society coalition in India mobilising around climate change justice, this paper argues that we need to be more attentive to the emerging geographies of climate justice, particularly in the global South where climate change provokes questions of uneven development processes as well as environmental concerns. The paper shows how climate justice has been scaled as an international justice issue through public discourses, national policies and civil society engagement in India. I argue that this focus on international climate justice narrows the political space for alternative articulations and claims for climate justice. Whereas climate justice has tended to focus on the nation‐state as the key actor in addressing climate injustice I argue there are multiple entry points to address climate injustices at different scales. To understand what is meant by climate justice beyond the international sphere requires an exploration of the multiple manifestations and scales of climate justice and geographers could offer a critical contribution to an understanding of what national and local climate justice would mean in practice. These ideas are already starting to be operationalised in development programmes and climate finance, and a spatially grounded geographical understanding is crucial to future policy in this area.

  March 05, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12078   open full text
• The ‘filling in’ of community‐based planning in the devolved UK?
  Simon Pemberton, Deborah Peel, Greg Lloyd.
  Geographical Journal. February 26, 2014
  Political devolution in the UK has afforded opportunities for studying policy differences and similarities in relation to local‐level community‐based planning initiatives in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Organised around the concepts of ‘lesson‐drawing’ and the ‘filling in’ of local governance, this paper critically considers aspects of policy design and development associated with community‐based planning within and between the devolved UK polities. In practice, policy instruments vary with respect to their institutional, scalar and organisational rationalities. A policy mobility perspective may enable a relatively more critical understanding of how local governance arrangements are being externally and internally shaped in the respective devolved nation‐regions.

  February 26, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12075   open full text
• Insular territories: US colonial science, geopolitics, and the (re)mapping of the Philippines.
  Scott Kirsch.
  Geographical Journal. February 17, 2014
  Examining the category of the Insular as a key framing of US extraterritorial, inter‐oceanic power during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the paper examines two overlapping sets of geographical discourses and mapping practices – broadly characterised as geopolitical‐imperial and scientific‐governmental – that reflected US efforts to map (remap) the Philippines after 1898, beginning with the purchase of Spanish (Jesuit) geographical knowledge. Turning to the spatially extensive and, it is argued, geopolitically loaded survey and mapping sciences, including geography, ethnology, geology, forestry and geodesy, the paper explores how cartographic practices were not only integral to a more accurate representation of the islands on paper but were also linked in practice with processes of governmental knowledge production and territorial transformation. In these efforts to extend US colonial sovereignty across the archipelago during the first decade of the twentieth century, US Insular officials grappled to know the territories which they presumed to govern.

  February 17, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12072   open full text
• Desert boundaries: the once and future Gobi.
  Troy Sternberg.
  Geographical Journal. February 14, 2014
  When Marco Polo journeyed to the court of Kublai Khan in 1271 he traversed a great sandy desert filled with ‘extraordinary illusions’ that became known as the Gobi desert. The continued use of term Gobi, first appearing in 1706, is a rare case of Mongolian ascendancy over the Chinese. Exploration of the Gobi as a mapping term seeks to understand how the desert was conceptualised and identified as a geographical region, an economic sphere and a political presence. Historically contested between China and Russia with Mongolia as a proxy, the desert is now home to 25 million people, mineral wealth and rapid development. As attention increases and the strategic region integrates into global systems, knowledge of the perceived desert boundaries becomes germane. In our era of data and demarcation with place names used to confer prior possession we examine how the Mongolian term ‘gobi’ rather than the Chinese equivalent ‘shamo’ prevailed. China dominates the region without asserting physical control; in fact, the term ‘Gobi desert’ is not recognised in China's geographical lexicon. Does past suzerainty offer insight to the present and potential future scenarios in the desert? New contextualisation presents the Gobi as a multi‐dimensional space that, rather than a past construction, portends an emergent consciousness no longer isolated and insulated from regional and global currents.

  February 14, 2014   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12071   open full text
• A climate of control: flooding, displacement and planned resettlement in the Lower Zambezi River valley, Mozambique.
  Alex Arnall.
  Geographical Journal. June 18, 2013
  In recent years, the potential role of planned, internal resettlement as a climate change adaptation measure has been highlighted by national governments and the international policy community. However, in many developing countries, resettlement is a deeply political process that often results in an unequal distribution of costs and benefits among relocated persons. This paper examines these tensions in Mozambique, drawing on a case study of flood‐affected communities in the Lower Zambezi River valley. It takes a political ecology approach – focusing on discourses of human–environment interaction, as well as the power relationships that are supported by such discourses – to show how a dominant narrative of climate change‐induced hazards for small‐scale farmers is contributing to their involuntary resettlement to higher‐altitude, less fertile areas of land. These forced relocations are buttressed by a series of wider economic and political interests in the Lower Zambezi River region, such as dam construction for hydroelectric power generation and the extension of control over rural populations, from which resettled people derive little direct benefit. Rather than engaging with these challenging issues, most international donors present in the country accept the ‘inevitability’ of extreme weather impacts and view resettlement as an unfortunate and, in some cases, necessary step to increase people's ‘resilience’, thus rationalising the top‐down imposition of unpopular social policies. The findings add weight to the argument that a depoliticised interpretation of climate change can deflect attention away from underlying drivers of vulnerability and poverty, as well as obscure the interests of governments that are intent on reordering poor and vulnerable populations.

  June 18, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12036   open full text
• Still colonising the Ord River, northern Australia: a postcolonial geography of the spaces between Indigenous people's and settlers' interests.
  Jessica McLean.
  Geographical Journal. May 09, 2013
  The growing use of environmental flows in rivers and wetlands around the world, aimed at maintaining ecological health by allocating water to the environment, arguably also provides space for recognition of Indigenous water values. Theoretically, if environmental water values, which nominally determine what water is made available for restoring river health through environmental flows, do coincide with Indigenous water values, then this mutual benefit is conceivable. However, in contexts such as the Ord in northern Australia, where environmental water values are defined as post‐dam construction, then further marginalisation of Indigenous interests likely ensues. This paper looks at the history of two key industries in the Ord, pastoralism and irrigation, to examine the origins of its current geography of environmental water values. A geography of water emerges that unpacks postcolonial relations as manifest in society–water relations. I examine how particular colonial values that reinforce the status quo of industry in the Ord also dominate water management, effectively sidelining Indigenous water values.

  May 09, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12025   open full text
• The prestige of sustainable living: implications for water use in Australia.
  Meryl Pearce, Eileen Willis, Loreen Mamerow, Bradley Jorgensen, John Martin.
  Geographical Journal. May 01, 2013
  The paper outlines water conservation behaviours and assesses the level of congruity between the stated water use of householders against their actual metered consumption. A profile of high water users in three parts of South Australia is offered: two metropolitan areas differing in socio‐economic characteristics and a regional town. The research used a postal questionnaire, a follow‐up telephone interview and corresponding household water meter readings. Location, household size and annual household income have significant predictive qualities for high per capita water use. The number of times gardens were watered in a week, watering the garden more often than was permitted under the restrictions, and the manner in which conservation behaviours were carried out helped predict high per capita water use. Participants had an accurate idea of the magnitude of their water use and how it compared with that of other households. High water users knew that they were high consumers of water. Implications of the findings for water demand management are briefly outlined.

  May 01, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12016   open full text
• The Internet and the gender division of household labour.
  Tim Schwanen, Mei‐Po Kwan, Fang Ren.
  Geographical Journal. April 24, 2013
  Geographers and others have long since examined the distribution of paid work, childcare and housework within households and have more recently begun to explore the various effects of Internet use on everyday life and digital inequalities along lines of gender and other social markers. These lines of inquiry have so far remained largely separate and this paper brings them together by analysing the interrelations between the Internet and the gender division of household labour. Multi‐group structural equation modelling is applied to dedicated survey data collected among heterosexual couples in Columbus (Ohio, USA). The results demonstrate that Internet use is gendered in many ways. Variations in Internet use are explained by a broader range of factors for women than for men, and an unequal division of domestic responsibilities within the household constrains women's Internet use but not men's. Overall, however, the relations between Internet use and the gender division of household labour are modest. The latter is related in different ways for women and men to the residential location, the household situation, the employment situation and gender‐specific interactions among paid work, childcare and housework.

  April 24, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12014   open full text
• Community development at the coal face: networks and sustainability among artisanal mining communities in Indwe, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.
  Etienne Nel, Tony Binns, Matthew Gibb.
  Geographical Journal. April 23, 2013
  Artisanal, or small‐scale mining, is widely recognised as a key, but often controversial, survival strategy adopted by low‐income communities in the global South. This paper examines how members of one community in South Africa, that of Indwe, in a desperate effort to create self‐employment, have initiated micro‐level coal‐mining enterprises, which have had the downstream effect of supporting local transportation and brick‐making operations. Government concerns over the legality of these activities overlie the recent depletion of the local resource and the involvement of a mining corporate in the region. In terms of the way forward, the paper explores the uneasy compromise which has emerged between the corporate's social responsibility initiatives and the suspicions of the artisanal miners.

  April 23, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12022   open full text
• The construction of family values in geopolitical discourse: the ongoing legacy of Adolf Hitler and Britain's ‘supreme emergency’.
  Colin Flint.
  Geographical Journal. March 08, 2013
  The use of the philosophical axioms of just war theory by political leaders justifying their participation in war is examined. Especially, the just war themes of ‘supreme emergency’ and ‘emergency ethics’ are investigated as a means of justifying extra‐territorial wars, or wars that are far away from a state's borders and where no imminent threat of invasion is present. The practice of equating geopolitical situations to the actions of Hitler and Nazi Germany is seen as a consequence of the mobilisation of the language of ‘emergency ethics’. The rhetoric justifying extra‐territorial warfare uses an idealised sense of the home that is reinforced by the practices of soldiers. Furthermore, the importance of values in the ‘emergency ethics’ logic is investigated by exploring the memoirs of a British Army chaplain serving in the Korean War. The contemporary relevance of the article lies in the extra‐territorial nature of the War on Terror and the persistent use of reference to values to justify immoral and illegal acts of war.

  March 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12015   open full text
• A flexibility framework to understand the adaptation of small coffee and honey producers facing market shocks.
  Benjamin Bathfield, Pierre Gasselin, Santiago López‐Ridaura, Rémy Vandame.
  Geographical Journal. March 08, 2013
  Small‐scale coffee producers are particularly exposed to a very fluctuant market. The present work aims at characterising the adaptation of small‐scale coffee and honey producers to the 1999–2003 coffee crisis in the Guatemalan Highlands from a systemic and agronomical perspective. Working with a homogeneous sample of 34 families we identify up to 27 different flexibility mechanisms. A qualitative analysis of families' life histories was combined with classification methods. Besides confirming the importance of the availability resources and some well known adaptive responses, such as workload intensification, expenses reduction or the importance of social networks, the classification of households reveals a sequence in the implementation of flexibility mechanisms. The focus on the combination of coffee and honey productions also suggests changing the traditional approaches to agricultural processes toward the adoption of a more systemic perspective. The possible impacts of these findings on technical extension and construction of public policies are then discussed.

  March 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12004   open full text
• Towards financial geographies of the unbanked: international financial markets, ‘bancarizacion’ and access to financial services in Latin America.
  Ed Brown, Francisco Castañeda, Jonathon Cloke, Peter Taylor.
  Geographical Journal. March 08, 2013
  Within the context of an exploration of the recent financial geographies literature, which laments the lack of attention paid to the dynamics and impacts of financial globalisation in Latin America and the global South, this paper examines the links between exclusion from formal financial services provision for low‐income sectors across Latin America and the unstable nature of regional financial services architecture and economies. The paper examines a range of issues, including control of the financial services infrastructure by foreign corporations, the role of regional elites and (as importantly) the decision making processes of the poor themselves. This contextual analysis is employed to investigate the premise that the future sustainability of Latin American economies and societies more than ever depends on what efforts are made to develop the extension of financial services provision for the excluded and in so doing broaden the complexity, increase the heterogeneity and enhance the stability of the region's economies. To this end, the paper outlines the technical and non‐technical barriers to banking the unbanked in the region within the context of an engagement with the dynamics of the radical changes in the international financial services sector that have impacted upon the region over recent years.

  March 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12000   open full text
• The emergence of the geoengineering debate in the UK print media: a frame analysis.
  Kate Elizabeth Porter, Mike Hulme.
  Geographical Journal. February 26, 2013
  Effective and just decisionmaking on geoengineering will require greater appreciation of the diverse ways in which people conceive of and relate to the idea of climate control. This study targets the UK national press as a domain in which to begin intercepting discourses of geoengineering forming within the UK. Frame analysis is conducted and the issue frames of Innovation, Risk, Governance and Accountability, Economics, Morality, Security and Justice are identified within the corpus of articles surveyed. These frames amplify different priorities and values, engaging a rich and diverse portfolio of attitudes to climate risks. Rather than being, as we envisaged, ‘issue specific’, the frames that emerged from our analysis are actually categorised most effectively according to ‘generic’ frames that could apply to a range of other issues. Underlying assumptions about the nature–human relationship are found to be an interesting influence on frame construction. Further research is needed to explore this relationship in wider cultural contexts.

  February 26, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12003   open full text
• Documenting glacial changes between 1910, 1970, 1992 and 2010 in the Turgen Mountains, Mongolian Altai, using repeat photographs, topographic maps, and satellite imagery.
  Ulrich Kamp, Kevin G McManigal, Avirmed Dashtseren, Michael Walther.
  Geographical Journal. February 18, 2013
  The Turgen Mountains lie in northwestern Mongolia, roughly 80 km south of the Russian border. The area was visited in 1910 by a Royal Geographical Society expedition led by Douglas Carruthers. The party undertook an extensive survey of the range and also documented the extent of the glaciers with photographs. One hundred years later, in summer 2010, a US–Mongolian expedition retraced portions of the 1910 expedition. Camera locations were matched to the historical photographs and repeated photographs taken. In addition, the termini of the two main glacial lobes were surveyed by GPS. Analyses of field data, repeated photographs from 1910 and 2010, topographic maps from 1970, and satellite imagery from 1992 and 2010 were used to describe the changes in the glacial system. The results suggest that while the snow and ice volume on the summits appears to be intact, lower elevation glaciers show significant recession and ablation. From 1910 to 2010, West Turgen Glacier receded by c. 600 m and down‐wasted by c. 70 m. This study successively demonstrates the utility of using historic expedition documents to extend the modern record of glacial change.

  February 18, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00486.x   open full text
• Resilience and responsibility: governing uncertainty in a complex world.
  Marc Welsh.
  Geographical Journal. January 25, 2013
  ‘Resilience’ has risen to prominence across a range of academic disciplines and political discourses. Situating resilience theories in historical context the paper argues that the resilience discourse of complex adaptive systems, for all its utility as a means for conceptualising and managing change, is allied with contemporary governmental discourses that responsibilise risk away from the state and on to individuals and institutions. Further, in arguing that resilience theories originate in two distinct epistemological communities (natural and social science) in its mobilisation as a ‘boundary object’ resilience naturalises an ontology of ‘the system’. Resilience approaches increasingly structure, not only academic, but also government policy discourses, with each influencing the development of the other. It is argued that by mobilising ‘the system’ as the metaconcept for capturing socio‐natural and socio‐economic relations resilience theories naturalise and reify two abstractions: firstly, the system itself – enrolling citizens into practices that give it meaning and presence; secondly, the naturalisation of shocks to the system, locating them in a post‐political space where the only certainty is uncertainty. With reference to an emerging governmentality through resilience, this paper argues for a critical interrogation of plural resilience theories and wonders at their emancipatory possibilities.

  January 25, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12012   open full text
• A ‘post‐aid world'? Paradigm shift in foreign aid and development cooperation at the 2011 Busan High Level Forum.
  Emma Mawdsley, Laura Savage, Sung‐Mi Kim.
  Geographical Journal. January 24, 2013
  In this paper we suggest that 2011–2012 may mark a paradigm shift in dominant constructions of ‘foreign aid’ and a substantive shift of power within the architecture of global development governance. We evaluate critically the emergence and central principles of the ‘aid effectiveness paradigm’ over the last 10–15 years, and the various internal and external pressures that have mounted around it. We then discuss the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, a global conference which was held in Busan, South Korea in 2011, which we suggest can be seen as a pivot point in the emergence of a new ‘development effectiveness’ paradigm. Among other things, this elevates the role of the private sector and re‐centres economic growth and enhanced productivity to the core of mainstream ‘development’ thinking. At the same time, the emerging aid architecture aims to enrol more fully the ‘(re‐)emerging’ donors and development partners, and is likely to involve more differentiated commitments to global aid targets and renegotiated ‘norms’. This paper provides a commentary on the debates, omissions and achievements of the Busan High Level Forum, with the wider aim of providing critical insights into the current state of flux around foreign aid norms, institutions and governance.

  January 24, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00490.x   open full text
• Making their own futures? Research change and diversity amongst contemporary British human geographers.
  Tim Hall.
  Geographical Journal. January 24, 2013
  The paper discusses a survey of British academic human geographers enquiring about change and diversification within personal research activities, their nature, motivations and impacts. It argues that this is widespread and a significant aspect of the production of contemporary geographical knowledge. The findings highlight the range of motivations underpinning research change, its impacts and mediation through the institutional context of British human geography. It concludes that despite a more prescriptive institutional context geographers have a degree of autonomy, albeit somewhat fettered, to shape their own research trajectories to some extent. This provides some important capacity with which to engage with imminent challenges facing the discipline in the UK). The paper complements recent critical histories of geography and sociological accounts of the discipline.

  January 24, 2013   doi: 10.1111/geoj.12002   open full text
• Knowledge exchange, ‘impact’ and engagement: exploring low‐carbon urban transitions.
  Peter North.
  Geographical Journal. January 24, 2013
  This paper engages with recent discussions about new requirements for the consideration of the ‘impact’ of research by the UK research councils, and in the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework (REF). The paper argues that the need to consider impact should be critically welcomed, and, given that research is always subjectively evaluated, for academics to take a broad, rather than self‐limiting conceptionalisation of what constitutes impact in their research funding bids and submissions to the REF. The paper argues that the emerging Knowledge Exchange (KE) agenda provides a welcome mechanism for funding critically engaged research with real world partners on a participatory basis, and explores experiences of one such KE partnership, Low Carbon Liverpool, to discuss potentialities and problems.

  January 24, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00488.x   open full text
• Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system: case studies on the role of regional characteristics and adaptive reuse in green building in Denver and Boulder, Colorado.
  E Eric Boschmann, Jessica N Gabriel.
  Geographical Journal. January 24, 2013
  Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is the most widely recognised green building assessment system in the United States but is increasingly criticised for only rewarding incremental solutions towards sustainability. With differing perceptions of how green building is best achieved, here we focus on how geographical context and reuse of existing buildings are rewarded. The conceptual framework for our analysis draws upon a light green/deep green dichotomy in sustainability and architectural design. While a light green perspective achieves reduced energy consumption and pollution through technology and green gadgetry, a deep green approach focuses on local geographic conditions to work with natural climate systems through design informed by vernacular architecture, as well as the benefits of adaptive reuse. This study uses a descriptive case study analysis of LEED credit points earned in six certified buildings in Denver and Boulder, Colorado. Our analysis confirms that LEED rewards more light green approaches. There is limited motivation in pursuing sustainability through deep green methods, as recognition of them in LEED is quite minimal. We conclude that the balance against rewarding deep green design limits more transformative paradigm‐shifting advances in sustainability. Recommendations for improvements to LEED are given, as well as a discussion on emerging local governance in regulating green building. This paper contributes to the emerging body of literature focusing on green building as a mechanism of urban sustainability, and draws up the geographic perspectives of scale, place, and the political and economic linkages between humans and the environment in cities.

  January 24, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00493.x   open full text
• Interrogating participatory catchment organisations: cases from Canada, New Zealand, Scotland and the Scottish–English Borderlands.
  B R Cook, M Atkinson, H Chalmers, L Comins, S Cooksley, N Deans, I Fazey, A Fenemor, M Kesby, S Litke, D Marshall, C Spray.
  Geographical Journal. January 24, 2013
  Catchment management in the developed world is undergoing a fundamental reconfiguration in which top‐down governance is being challenged by local organisations promoting collaborative decisionmaking. Local, participation‐based organisations are emerging as mediators of relations between governments and publics. These organisations, defined here as participatory catchment organisations (PCOs), are emergent at a time when developed world catchment management is itself undergoing substantial change. Through in‐depth engagement with four PCOs, and using six case studies, we identify the principles associated with successful problem resolution. The findings illustrate the importance of PCOs as two‐way bridges between publics and governments. We identify three principles shared by these organisations (i.e. trust brokers, collaborative decisionmaking and win‐wins) that show how, through participatory approaches founded on trust, complex problems can be resolved in ways that do not unduly punish groups or individuals. In conclusion, we identify four questions that highlight the need to consider the practicality of evolving relations amongst governments, publics, and the organisations that have come to mediate catchment management.

  January 24, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00492.x   open full text