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Geographers
Kinds of Geographers Selected AbstractsTHE GEOGRAPHER AS VOYEURGEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 1-2 2001WILBUR ZELINSKY First page of article [source] GEOGRAPHERS AND THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY,GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 1 2004RONALD REED BOYCE ABSTRACT. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was the largest, most comprehensive, and most controversial regional development and planning project in U.S. history. Geographers were involved from its inception and made impressive contributions. Aside from the unit area method of data gathering and mapping, little is known about their contributions, some of which were truly ahead of their time. Although their work and recommendations were often discarded and unheeded because of political turbulence, the geographers rarely complained or entered into the political arena. Their work in the TVA has generally gone unheralded and even unappreciated within the geography profession. The primary purpose of this article is to document their contributions. [source] Geographers Mobilize: A Network-Diffusion Analysis of the Campaign to Free Ghazi-Walid Falah1ANTIPODE, Issue 2 2010Mark De Socio Abstract:, In summer 2006, Professor Ghazi-Walid Falah, a political geographer and editor-in-chief of the journal,Arab World Geographer, was arrested by Israeli police after taking photographs of rural landscapes in Northern Galilee. Falah was subsequently held for 23 days,,incommunicado,,and without charge. An international campaign to "Free Ghazi" was launched by his family, friends and colleagues, largely over academic listservs and other media. Utilizing social network analysis and contextualizing the campaign within structures of telecommunications technologies, the purpose of this paper is to assess the various factors that contributed to the campaign's coalescence, its rapid development, and its global reach. [source] Learning to Become a Geographer: Reproduction and Transformation in AcademiaANTIPODE, Issue 4 2006Harald Bauder First page of article [source] Geography's Emerging Cross-Disciplinary Links: Process, Causes, Outcomes and ChallengesGEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2002J.H. Holmes In Australian universities the discipline of Geography has been the pace-setter in forging cross-disciplinary links to create multidisciplinary departments and schools, well ahead of other disciplines in humanities, social sciences and sciences, and also to a greater extent than in comparable overseas university systems. Details on all cross-disciplinary links and on immediate outcomes have been obtained by surveys of all heads of departments/schools with undergraduate Geography programs. These programs have traced their own distinctive trajectories, with ramifying links to cognate fields of enquiry, achieved through mergers, transfers, internal initiatives and, more recently, faculty-wide restructuring to create supradisciplinary schools. Geography's ,exceptionalism' has proved short-lived. Disciplinary flux is now extending more widely within Australian universities, driven by a variety of internal and external forces, including: intellectual questioning and new ways of constituting knowledge; technological change and the information revolution; the growth of instrumentalism and credentialism, and managerialism and entre-preneurial imperatives; reinforced by a powerful budgetary squeeze. Geographers are proving highly adaptive in pursuit of cross-disciplinary connections, offering analytical tools and selected disciplinary insights useful to non-geographers. However, this may be at cost to undergraduate programs focussing on Geography's intellectual core. Whereas formerly Geography had high reproductive capacity but low instrumental value it may now be in a phase of enhanced utility but perilously low reproductive capacity. [source] GEOGRAPHERS AND THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY,GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 1 2004RONALD REED BOYCE ABSTRACT. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was the largest, most comprehensive, and most controversial regional development and planning project in U.S. history. Geographers were involved from its inception and made impressive contributions. Aside from the unit area method of data gathering and mapping, little is known about their contributions, some of which were truly ahead of their time. Although their work and recommendations were often discarded and unheeded because of political turbulence, the geographers rarely complained or entered into the political arena. Their work in the TVA has generally gone unheralded and even unappreciated within the geography profession. The primary purpose of this article is to document their contributions. [source] Media Geographies: Uncovering the Spatial Politics of ImagesGEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2007Clayton Rosati Geographers are increasingly interested in the study of media. This article thinks through media geographies via a review of the recent literature on media, space, and place. In doing so, it suggests that geographers are situated in a particularly useful place to think about the spatial politics of media and images. But, in order to do so, they must wrestle with some unaddressed issues regarding those politics, particularly regarding the struggles over social power through media and images. It is argued that geographers' most important contributions to these questions will come from a focus on the spatial processes, terrain, and built environment of these struggles, not just on the images themselves. [source] PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY: The 2009 UN Climate Talks: Alternate Media and Participation from AnthropologistsAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 3 2010Edward M. Maclin ABSTRACT, The United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen during December of 2009 were surrounded by numerous side events. Some anthropologists and other social scientists at these events used the Web as a technology for reporting on activities as they occurred. The success of alternate publishing fora is difficult to gauge, but these weblogs reflect some of the difficulties faced by lone researchers in observing and reporting on large-scale meetings. Some geographers, in contrast, came to Copenhagen as part of an effort organized through the Association of American Geographers. Such a planned and collaborative process may be useful for anthropologists at future meetings. [source] Historical Auckland on footNEW ZEALAND GEOGRAPHER, Issue 1 2006Gordon M. Winder Abstract:, This paper discusses three walking tour guides prepared for the 12th International Conference of Historical Geographers. It argues that the guides are innovative in terms of format, content and ironic sensibility. It construes them as devices for re-imagining Auckland's urban heritage. [source] From jellied seas to open waterways: redefining the northern limit of the knowable worldRENAISSANCE STUDIES, Issue 3 2007Margaret Small In the ancient world, the northern limits of Europe were unknown, and believed to be unknowable. Geographers constructed a mental framework for the continent that restricted human inhabitation to more southerly regions. The constituents of this frame were: a region of monstrous creatures, a zone of uninhabitable wastelands, and ultimately, limitless ocean. By the sixteenth century, classically educated Europeans were sailing into the unknown Arctic regions in search of a north-east passage, but their descriptions and even goals for exploration were still influenced by the classical preconceptions. The three elements of the classical frame were altered, but persisted in European geographical thought even after fifty years of northern exploration. [source] A test for geographers: the geography of educational achievement in Toronto and Hamilton, 1997THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 3 2000RICHARD HARRIS The recent introduction of standardised achievement tests in several provinces has created an opportunity for Canadian geographers to contribute to public and theoretical debates. Geographers are well-equipped to comprehend and analyse the effects that neighbourhoods have upon pupil achievement. Independent of family background and school funding, such effects may be stronger in education than in other fields, such as voting behaviour and health research, but they have been ignored in recent public debates. They should be considered if informed judgements are to be made about whether specific teachers, schools, and boards are doing an adequate job. Analysis of the Ontario Grade 3 test results for 1997 in public schools in the City of Toronto and in Hamilton-Wentworth indicate that social class had a greater effect on pupil achievement than language background. Differences in the determinants of achievement between these two urban centres may be attributable to local variations in occupational structure and residential patterns. L'introduction récente en éducation des tests de compêtences standardisés, dans plusieurs provinces, offre aux géographes canadiens l'occasion de contribuer aux débats publics et théoriques. Les géographes sont bien placés pour comprendre et analyser les effets de quartier sur le rendement scolaire des élèves. Indépendamment du milieu socioculturel et du financement scolaire, ces effets ont peut être plus d'impact en éducation que dans les domaines tels que le comportement électoral et la recherche dans le milieu de la santé, cependant, ils demeurent à l'écart des débats publics. Ces éléments doivent être considérés si l'on prétend juger en connaissance de cause l'efficacité et le rendement des écoles, le corps enseignant et les conseils scolaires. L'analyse des résultats d'examens de l'Ontario en 1997, pour les élèves des écoles publiques de la troisième année des villes de Toronto et Hamilton-Wentworth, démontre que la réussite scolaire est plus liée au niveau socio-économique qu'à l'origine linguistique. La divergence des facteurs de réussites des deux centres urbains est peut-être attribuable aux variations des structures d'occupation locales et résidentielles. [source] Geographers Mobilize: A Network-Diffusion Analysis of the Campaign to Free Ghazi-Walid Falah1ANTIPODE, Issue 2 2010Mark De Socio Abstract:, In summer 2006, Professor Ghazi-Walid Falah, a political geographer and editor-in-chief of the journal,Arab World Geographer, was arrested by Israeli police after taking photographs of rural landscapes in Northern Galilee. Falah was subsequently held for 23 days,,incommunicado,,and without charge. An international campaign to "Free Ghazi" was launched by his family, friends and colleagues, largely over academic listservs and other media. Utilizing social network analysis and contextualizing the campaign within structures of telecommunications technologies, the purpose of this paper is to assess the various factors that contributed to the campaign's coalescence, its rapid development, and its global reach. [source] The Battle in Seattle: A Response from Local Geographers in the Midst of the WTO Ministeral MeetingsANTIPODE, Issue 3 2000Maria Fannin [source] Geographers and geography: making waves for the wrong reasonsAREA, Issue 3 2010Phil O'Keefe First page of article [source] DECOLONIZING THE PRODUCTION OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGES?GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2006REFLECTIONS ON RESEARCH WITH INDIGENOUS MUSICIANS ABSTRACT. This paper contributes to debates on decolonizing geography, by reflecting on the ethical and political considerations involved in research on indigenous music in Australia. The research collaboration involved two non-indigenous researchers,an academic geographer and a music educator,engaging with indigenous music and musicians in a number of ways. The paper reflects on these engagements, and draws attention to a series of key binaries and boundaries that were highlighted and unsettled: ,outsider/insider'; ,traditional/contemporary'; ,authenticity/inauthenticity'. It also discusses the politics of publishing and draws attention to the ways in which the objects of our work,in this case a book,influence decisions about representation, subject matter, and interpretations of speaking positions. Rather than seeking validation for attempts to ,speak for' or ,speak to' indigenous musical perspectives, contemporary Aboriginality was understood as a field of intersubjective relations where multiple voices, representations and interventions are made. I discuss some ways in which the authors sought to situate their own musical, and geographical, knowledges in this problematic, and inherently political, research context. [source] Geographers Mobilize: A Network-Diffusion Analysis of the Campaign to Free Ghazi-Walid Falah1ANTIPODE, Issue 2 2010Mark De Socio Abstract:, In summer 2006, Professor Ghazi-Walid Falah, a political geographer and editor-in-chief of the journal,Arab World Geographer, was arrested by Israeli police after taking photographs of rural landscapes in Northern Galilee. Falah was subsequently held for 23 days,,incommunicado,,and without charge. An international campaign to "Free Ghazi" was launched by his family, friends and colleagues, largely over academic listservs and other media. Utilizing social network analysis and contextualizing the campaign within structures of telecommunications technologies, the purpose of this paper is to assess the various factors that contributed to the campaign's coalescence, its rapid development, and its global reach. [source] Tales from the archive: methodological and ethical issues in historical geography researchAREA, Issue 3 2010Francesca P L Moore This paper is an exploration of methodological and ethical issues in historical geography research. Drawing on the experience of researching the historical geographies of abortion in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Lancashire, the paper discusses some of the ethical and methodological questions that historical research on sensitive topics raises. This paper investigates the politics of the archive and the forms of censorship researchers may encounter. It also explores the possibility of a conflict of interest between researcher and participant, including the dilemmas researchers face when research participants are dead, but remain important figures in the community. Moreover, the paper argues that the recent burgeoning interest in family and local history makes questions of method and ethics far more urgent for the geographer. In conclusion, the paper calls for more dialogue within geography about researching sensitive subjects, and also between geography and other disciplines. [source] Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in AfricaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2006Christian Lund ABSTRACT Public authority does not always fall within the exclusive realm of government institutions; in some contexts, institutional competition is intense and a range of ostensibly a-political situations become actively politicized. Africa has no shortage of institutions which attempt to exercise public authority: not only are multiple layers and branches of government institutions present and active to various degrees, but so-called traditional institutions bolstered by government recognition also vie for public authority, and new emerging institutions and organizations also enter the field. The practices of these institutions make concepts such as public authority, legitimacy, belonging, citizenship and territory highly relevant. This article proposes an analytical strategy for the understanding of public authority in such contexts. It draws on research from anthropologists, geographers, political scientists and social scientists working on Africa, in an attempt to explore a set of questions related to a variety of political practices and their institutional ramifications. [source] Prospects for an Environmental Economic Geography: Linking Ecological Modernization and Regulationist ApproachesECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2006David Gibbs Abstract: Although the "new" economic geography has explored links between the subdiscipline's traditional areas of study and cultural, institutional, and political realms, environmental issues remain comparatively underresearched within the subdiscipline. This article contends not only that the environment is of key importance to economic geography, but also that economic geographers can make an important contribution to environmental debates, through providing not just a better analysis and theoretical understanding, but also better policy proscription. Rather than claim new intellectual territory, the intention is to suggest potential creative opportunities for linking economic geography's strengths with those insights from other theoretical perspectives. In particular, this article focuses upon linking insights from ecological modernization theory, developed by environmental sociologists, with regulationist approaches. [source] Entrepreneurial Geographies: Support Networks in Three High-Technology IndustriesECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2005Martin Kenney Abstract: Using a unique database derived from prospectuses for U.S. initial public stock offerings, we examine the location of four actors (the firm's lawyers, the venture capitalists on the board of directors, the other members of the board of directors, and the lead investment banker) of the entrepreneurial support network for startup firms in three high-technology industries: semiconductors, telecommunications equipment, and biotechnology. We demonstrate that the economic geography of the biotechnology support network differs significantly from the networks in semiconductors and telecommunications equipment. Biotechnology has a far-more-dispersed entrepreneurial support network structure than do the two electronics-related industries. The case of biotechnology indicates that if the source of seeds for new firms is highly dispersed, then an industry may not experience the path-dependent clustering suggested by geographers. We argue that contrary to common belief, biotechnology and its support network do not exhibit as great a clustering as do semiconductors and telecommunications equipment and their support networks. This argument leads to an epistemological issue, namely, the lack of interindustry comparative work. This is an odd omission, since nearly all authors agree that industries are based on particular knowledge bases, yet few consider that the knowledge and the sources of it may have an impact on spatial distributions. [source] Developmental and Quiescent Subsidiaries in the Asia Pacific: Evidence from Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, and SydneyECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2003Jessie P. H. Poon Abstract: Examining "embedded" economic and social relations has become a popular theme among economic geographers who are interested in explaining the durability of place in supporting economic activities. This article explores the relationship between embeddedness and technology-oriented functions among three types of subsidiaries (regional headquarters, regional offices, and local offices) and for four cities: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney. Using survey data from firms, we show that quiescent or branch plant-like subsidiaries, rather than developmental firms, dominate the region. But among developmental subsidiaries, returns on embeddedness are not always obvious. Embeddedness and developmental subsidiaries are most significantly correlated with manufacturing regional headquarters. However, a small group of subsidiaries (local and regional offices) also perform developmental functions, despite their relative newness and lack of embed-dedness in the region. [source] THEORIZING GLOBAL BUSINESS SPACESGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2009Andrew Jones ABSTRACT. Over the last decade, geographers have paid a great deal of attention to transnational firms (TNCs) and global production networks (GPNs) in the global economy, to the emergence of a mobile transnational business class and also to the development of global or globalizing cities. All three literatures have made important contributions to understanding the spatiality of global economic activity, but each adopts a fairly discreet theoretical and empirical focus. This article aims to outline a number of theoretical dimensions for thinking about how these key strands to the globalization debate can be brought together through the concept of global business spaces. It will propose a framework for understanding the spatialities of global economic activity that seeks to capture the complex interaction of material, social, organizational and virtual spaces that form the context through which it is constituted. With reference to business travel as a key form of economic practice which plays a central role in (re)producing these spaces, it assesses how these emerging spaces of global economic activity present problems for the conceptual categories commonly used by both urban and economic geographers. In so doing, it proposes a series of ways in which a different research agenda can produce new insight into the complex forms of social practice at the centre of global economic activity. [source] CLASSIFYING PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHIC FEATURES: THE CASE OF MANINKA FARMERS IN SOUTHWESTERN MALIGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2008Chris S. Duvall ABSTRACT. This article argues that understanding how people classify physical geographic features is necessary for identifying fundamental, cross-cultural geographic concepts that are required for successful communication of geographic knowledge. Academic geographers have not given sufficient attention to systems of local geographic knowledge, even though promising theoretical frameworks exist, particularly in the field of ethnoecology. However, the research approach that has characterized ethnoecology is insufficient to develop ethnogeography as a field of inquiry, because ethnoecologists have overemphasized limited aspects of local knowledge systems, such as soils, which has often led researchers to incompletely sample local knowledge systems. Using ethnographic methods, this article analyses the content and structure of physical geographic knowledge in the Maninka language as spoken in southwestern Mali, and compares Maninka knowledge to that of other cultural groups. The results suggest that broad physical geographic concepts may be shared pan-environmentally, but that most physical geographic knowledge is contained in culturally specific classifications embedded within a broad cross-cultural framework. Academic geographers should expect only broad correspondence between their categories of physical geographic variation and those of people who classify biophysical features according to local knowledge systems. Finally, this article also shows that ethnoecological research will be advanced if geographic theories of place are given more prominence in ethnoecological studies. [source] SPACES OF DIZZINESS AND DREAD: NAVIGATING ACROPHOBIAGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2007Gavin J. Andrews ABSTRACT As part of emerging disciplinary interests in well-being and emotions, geographers have recently begun to pay attention to common but often neglected psychological conditions that have the potential to impact considerably upon individuals and their daily lives. Specifically extending the scope of geographical inquiry on phobias, this paper considers acrophobia (known as being scared of heights). Through interviews with ten sufferers, the spatial character and intensity of the condition is articulated. The findings tell us that underpinning acrophobia is mathematical height: the vertical elevation from the lowest possible resting point of the body to the point at which the symptoms of acrophobia occur. This point is however - even for each individual - highly variable, context dependant and, in terms of explanatory potential, does not convey personal experiences. Instead, the idea of ,encounter spaces' provides far greater elaboration. Created by sufferers ,dysfunctional' spatial perceptions, these are the occupied spaces of mixed emotional and physical responses (such as fear and rapid breathing) and reactionary practices that are tactical yet somewhat involuntary in nature (such as gripping tighter or getting lower). Depending on the particular circumstances, sufferers might choose to, feel forced to, or might inadvertently enter encounter spaces. Their impacts also extend beyond immediate effects to sufferers' longer term lives and well-being. This might be negatively impacted, for example, through cumulative encounters, worrying about potential encounters or missing out on life events. At this level, reactionary practices - again which are tactical yet somewhat involuntary - are often employed in order to avoid height. Ultimately, the overall impact of acrophobia on an individual depends on a number of factors including the severity of their condition, the attitudes of the people they associate with, their job, lifestyle and the environments which they have to, or would like to, frequent. Consequently, while some sufferers cope with ease, others constantly navigate the altitude of their lives. [source] "SCENOPHOBIA", GEOGRAPHY AND THE AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPEGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2007Karl Benediktsson ABSTRACT. Recent critiques of the nature,culture dualism, influenced by diverse theoretical stances, have effectively destabilized the "naturalness" of nature and highlighted its pervasive and intricate sociality. Yet the practical, ethical and political effects of this theoretical turn are open to question. In particular, the emphasis on the sociality of nature has not led to reinvigorated environmental or landscape politics. Meanwhile, the need for such politics has if anything increased, as evident when ongoing and, arguably, accelerating landscape transformations are taken into account. These concerns are illustrated in the paper with an example from Iceland. In its uninhabited central highland, serious battles are now being fought over landscape values. Capital and state have joined forces in an investment-driven scramble for hydropower and geothermal resources to facilitate heavy industry, irrevocably transforming landscapes in the process. Dissonant voices arguing for caution and conservation have been sidelined or silenced by the power(ful) alliance. The author argues for renewed attention to the aesthetic, including the visual, if responsible politics of landscape are to be achieved. Aesthetic appreciation is an important part of the everyday experiences of most people. Yet, enthusiastic as they have been in deconstructing conventional narratives of nature, geographers have been rather timid when it comes to analysing aesthetic values of landscape and their significance, let alone in suggesting progressive landscape politics. A political geography of landscape is needed which takes aesthetics seriously, and which acknowledges the merit of engagement and enchantment. [source] Economic Geography as Dissenting Institutionalism: The Embeddedness, Evolution and Differentiation of RegionsGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2004Roger Hayter Abstract This paper endorses recent pleas for an ,institutional turn' within economic geography. In particular, it reveals and connects the coherence and distinctiveness of dissenting institutional economics as a way of thinking for economic geography. Economic geographers have recognized this tradition but its continuity and compass is not fully appreciated. To provide such an appreciation, this paper argues that the paradigmatic distinctiveness of dissenting institutionalism rests especially on its recognition that real world economies are embedded, have histories or evolve, and are different. The discussion is based around these three cornerstone principles of embeddedness, evolution and difference. For the future, greater attention to the region as an institution, albeit a complex one, along with greater attention to the synthesis of multi-dimensional processes that are normally analyzes as separate conceptual categories, is encouraged. [source] Influence of Race on Household Residential UtilityGEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS, Issue 3 2000M William Sermons Residential location choice models are an important tool employed by urban geographers, planners, and transportation engineers for understanding household residential location behavior and for predicting future residential location activity. Racial segregation and residential racial preferences have been studied extensively using a variety of analysis techniques in social science research, but racial preferences have generally not been adequately incorporated into residential location choice models. This research develops residential location choice model specifications with a variety of alternative methods of addressing racial preferences in residential location decisions. The research tests whether social class, family structure, and in-group racial preferences are sufficient to explain household sensitivity to neighborhood racial composition. The importance of the interaction between the proportion of in-group race neighbors and other-race neighbors is also evaluated. Models for the San Francisco Bay metropolitan area are estimated and evidence of significant avoidance behavior by households of all races is found. The results suggest that social class differences, family structure differences, and in-group racial preferences alone are not sufficient to explain household residential racial preference and that households of all races practice racial avoidance behavior. Particularly pronounced avoidance of black neighbors by Asian households, Hispanic neighbors by black households, and Asian neighbors by white households are found. Evidence of a decrease in household racial avoidance intensity in neighborhoods with large numbers of own-race neighbors is also found. [source] Development Imperative, Terrae Incognitae: a Pioneer Soil Scientist 1912,1951GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2010J.M. POWELL Abstract James Arthur Prescott was a prominent soil scientist whose career responded to an increasingly complex, recognisably Australian web of interpenetrating spatial scales, served to promote revolutionary global advances in his chosen field, and in the process negotiated the blurred boundaries between ,pure' and ,applied' research. Encounters with this instructive life suggest that, while resolutions of pivotal anxieties might turn on ineluctably personal qualities, they also reflect a dynamic interplay between international, imperial, national and state contexts. Prescott's innovative contributions to soil science, fruits of a tenaciously consolidated career, influenced resource appraisal and environmental management across a prodigious continental expanse. A sustained focus on local and regional development brought him into contact with a wide range of contemporaries, including pioneering geographers, and culminated in his election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society. [source] Sport, Localism and Social Capital in Rural Western AustraliaGEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2006KIM M. ATHERLEY Abstract Whilst there has been some research conducted on the role of sport in Australian rural communities, to date there has been little detailed discussion by social scientists and geographers on the association between sport and social capital. This paper identifies elements of social capital, at a community and regional social scale, which have been expressed through the activities and adaptive strategies of twenty-five sporting clubs from the wheatbelt region of Western Australia. Most of the adaptive strategies are a direct result of the clubs being exposed to the processes of rural restructuring and include amalgamation and the spatial reorganisation of sporting competition locations. The importance of localism in rural communities is also examined through the issues of trust and distrust within a regional hierarchy context. The paper illustrates how sport is not only an important part of rural life but also an activity which plays an integral role in the formation of bonding and bridging social capital. [source] Colonial Networks, Australian Humanitarianism and the History WarsGEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2006ALAN LESTER Abstract The ,History Wars' have brought contests among Britons over the colonisation of Aboriginal land and people to the forefront of public consciousness in Australia. These contests, however, were the result of trajectories that criss-crossed British imperial spaces, connecting Australia with other settler colonies and the British metropole. A number of historians and historical geographers have recently employed the notion of the network to highlight the interconnected geographies of the British Empire. This paper begins by examining the utility of such a re-conceptualisation. It then fleshes out empirically the networked nature of early nineteenth century humanitarianism in colonial New South Wales. Both the relatively progressive potential of this humanitarian network, and its complicity in an ethnocentric politics of assimilationism are analysed. Settler networks, developed as a counter to humanitarian influence in the colony, are also examined more briefly. This account of contested networks demonstrates that they were never simply about communication, but always, fundamentally, about the organisation and contestation of dispossessive trajectories that linked diverse colonial and metropolitan sites. The paper concludes by noting some of the implications of such a networked analysis of dispossession and assimilation for Australia's ,History Wars'. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||