The Geography of Thatcherism: 1979-1983

April 27, 2013

By Benjamin Sacks

Margaret_Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013). © Wikimedia Commons.

Irrespective of one’s opinion of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister, few would disagree that her policies and legacies deeply impacted the British Isles, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and much of the developed and developing world. Her domestic and overseas endeavours altered our geographical focus, highlighting new lands, peoples, and conceptions of the world even while others faded from view. But this presents us with new, underlying questions: how, where, and why?

To begin our investigation, one must go back in time, before Thatcher’s famed 1979 election, to 1973, a year that would symbolise heightened, competing tensions. That year, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark officially joined the European Community (later European Union, or EU). Britain’s ascession marked the end of a turbulent decade in colonial relations. Since the early 1960s, the country had pulled out of Kuwait, Aden, much of Africa, and the Caribbean. Increasingly, Britain’s economists, industries, and politicians looked to Europe and the United States for a solution. Watching Britain’s imperial retreat from his office in New Zealand, that year historian J G A Pocock called for a new approach to British history and international affairs, which he termed ‘New British History’. He sought to remind the British of their international responsibilities and legacies, their historically intimate and fluid relationships with the so-called ‘settler colonies’ – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the British West Indies, and South Africa (India is often included as well) (p. 431), and pondered on where Britain’s path lay next. For early observers, the answer was unpredictable at best.

What is most evident from this period was the Thatcher movement’s profound influence in determining where geographers would focus their attention and resources, as well as what areas slipped into relative negligence. It is therefore possible to construct a geopolitical ‘roadmap’ of 1980s British geographical scholarship, demonstrating that, in an effort to maintain their relevance and avail themselves to the broadest possible audience, geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and political experts largely published in lockstep with upcoming trends and changing situations at home and abroad. In the aftermath of the government’s struggle with mining unions, scholars took advantage of national attention on the North to publish a series of related studies. These articles, importantly, were not narrowly limited to union organisation, nor to mining, but rather sought to engage with broader geographical and ethnographic themes. In 1980, for instance, Alec H Paul and Paul Simpson-Housley published ‘The Novelist’s Image of the North’, reminding audiences of the region’s immense natural beauty and cultural clout. I M Evans stuck to a closer, geopolitical analysis in his examination of how the then-international steel crisis had affected other EEC states, rather than simply Britain. Two years later, John North and Derek Spooner returned to Northern England, to re-examine the wider implications of the Coal Board’s investment programme in the heavily-affected (and marginalised) Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire regions.

The Falklands War directly catalysed a flurry of investigative discussions and scholarly explorations of the contested British territory. As a previous Geography Directions article discussed in detail, the war presented the RGS-IBG with a unique opportunity: to educate itself, the government, and the public about a series of islands that had already been in Britain’s continuous (but largely ignored) possession for over 150 years in 1982. Similarly, the United States’ invasion of Grenada – a Commonwealth Realm – in 1983 spurred a similar rush to, as Brian J Hudson suggested, ‘Put Grenada on the map’. In response to his September 1985 Area article, however, Rex Walford conducted a series of impromptu surveys with British and American audiences to determine whether recent popular and academic coverage of the invasion (and of the island more generally) had actually resulted in greater awareness of Grenada’s location, society, and affairs. The answer, Walford discovered, was certainly not encouraging. ‘At only one venue (a joint RGS/GA lecture at Hull) has a majority of the audience identified the island [of Grenada] correctly[!]‘ (p. 57). John S Brierley, then an associate professor of geography at the University of Manitoba, preferred a less humorous, more serious approach, arguing that the social and economic development programmes created by the People’s Revolutionary Government of Grenada, led by Maurice Bishop, should be closely examined to determine what lessons could be learned. He uncovered that some social welfare initiatives could prove quite useful in other Caribbean states. Writing nearly a decade later, Robert Potter recalled Brierley’s assessment, and reminded contemporary development anthropologists, geographers, and planners of how ideas gained from Grenada, brought by the RGS-IBG in the war’s aftermath to public attention, could be incorporated into current grassroots/NGO/small government schemes.

books_icon Armitage, David, 1999, Greater Britain: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis?, The American Historical Review 104.2, 427-45.

books_icon Paul, Alec H and Paul Simpson-Housley, 1980, The Novelist’s Image of the North: Discussion, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series 5.3, 174-84.

books_icon Evans, I M, 1980, Aspects of the Steel Crisis in Europe, with Particular Reference to Belgium and Luxembourg, The Geographical Journal 146.3, 396-407.

books_icon North, John and Derek Spooner, 1982, The Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Coalfield: The Focus of the Coal Board’s Investment Strategy, The Geographical Journal 148.1, 22-37.

books_icon Hudson, Brian J, 1985, Putting Grenada on the Map, Area 17.3, 233-35.

books_icon Walford, Rex, 1986, Finding Grenada on the Map, Area 18.1, 56-57.

books_icon Brierley, John S, A Review of Development Strategies and Programmes of the People’s Revolutionary Government in Grenada, 1979-83, The Geographical Journal 151.1, 40-52.

books_icon Potter, Robert, 1995, Urbanisation and Development in the Caribbean, Geography 80.4, 334-41.

60-world2

Sacks, Benjamin, 2012, (Re)Introducing the Falklands: The March 1983 ‘Geographical Journal’, Geography Directions, 18 February.

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Posted by Benjamin Sacks

Mapping Class

April 8, 2013

By Benjamin Sacks

Five Boys

Conceptions of class remain inseparable from contemporary society, according to a BBC-commissioned study. The Great British Class Survey, undertaken by the BBC’s Lab UK and faculty at LSE, University of Manchester, University of York, City University London, Universitetet i Bergen, and Université Paris Descartes, surveyed 161,000 people across the British Isles. The study’s authors argued that ‘class’, as twentieth century writers tended to define it, was ‘too simplistic’.  Rather than an equation of ‘occupation, wealth and education’, class was actually formulated around ‘economic, social and cultural’ dimensions, of which the traditional structure only formed a part. Along with the traditional classes – elite/upper class, middle class (itself a category distinct from US conceptions), and working class – new divisions had arisen: technical middle class, new affluent workers, traditional working class, emergent service workers, or ‘precariat’, the authors’ term for ‘precarious proletariat’. Predictably, the study’s publication catalysed a diverse range of media responses. The Financial Times reminded its readers of how deeply entrenched class was in British history. Tristram Hunt recalled William Harrison’s 1577 Description of England: there were ‘four degrees of people’, led by ‘those whome their race or blood or at least their virtues doo make noble and knowne’. A letter to The Guardian compared it to the hierarchy used by the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification scheme (NS-SEC). The Guardian itself wondered whether the new hierarchy was more reflective of the television programme ‘The Wire‘ rather than of British society.

Critics aside, the BBC survey indicated the continuing influence of class, whether desired or not, in shaping how different people think, act, speak, travel, and shop. Geographers have long been aware of the role and perception class played in British and international cultures. Indeed, in 1995, Gary Bridge (Rodney Lodge) called for a standardised, ‘consistent application of class analysis’ when examining urban and rural gentrification. In a 2004 Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers study, Anthony J Fielding (University of Sussex) documented the spatial organization of Japanese cities by class. Critiquing previous, recent accounts that suggested that Japan’s rapid, postwar capitalist transformation had erased, or at least minimised cities’ ‘social geography’ (defined by Fielding as the distinction of classes or groups in space), Fielding used GIS programming to visually and textually demonstrate how major cities have, in fact, been organised by class and social standing, as is the case in most European and North American cities. Interestingly (and importantly) however, through the collection of mapping of this aggregate data, he suggested that the degree of spatial ‘segregation’ was generally lower than in the West. Comparing Kyoto and Edinburgh, Fielding proposed that the former’s spatial organisation was different, and it experienced a lower, but still quite identifiable level of segregation (p. 83). Indeed, Fielding’s study of Japan implicitly mirrored Jon May’s study, also from the University of Sussex, seven years previously. In the 1996 study, May, evidently fatigued from ‘theoretical literature’ on London’s complex social dynamic, created visual and textual maps of Stoke Newington (p. 195).

Class, it almost goes without saying, infected the storied halls of Lowther Lodge. For some two decades at the turn of the twentieth century, the Royal Geographical Society had debated whether to elect women to the fellowship (women had applied for admission as early as 1847, but the issue was not seriously considered until the 1890s). If women were to be admitted, as Morag Bell (Loughborough University) and Cheryl McEwan (Durham University) recalled, then, as the debaters proceeded to argue, they must be of the right social and economic standing. Returning to more recent issues, JoAnn McGregor posited the rapid growth of Britain’s Zimbabwean community within class ‘differences and identities’, in a fascinating shift from more mainstream studies of Robert Mugabe-era emigration. Regardless of whether the BBC survey has lasting impact, geographers will continue to observe, critique, and play with class.

60-world2 ’Huge survey reveals seven social classes in UK‘, BBC News, 3 April 2013, accessed 7 April 2013.

60-world2 Tristram Hunt, ‘The rise of the precariat and the loss of collective sensibility‘, Financial Times, 7 April 2013, accessed 7 April 2013.

60-world2 David Rose and Eric Harrison, ‘Little solidarity over the question of social class‘, The Guardian, 5 April 2013, accessed 7 April 2013.

60-world2 Paul Owen, ‘BBC’s seven social classes: The Wire version‘, The Guardian, 4 April 2013, accessed 7 April 2013. 

books_icon Mike Savage et al., 2013, A New Model of Social Class: Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey Experiment, Sociology 1-32.

books_icon Gary Bridge, 1995, The Space for Class? On Class Analysis in the Study of Gentrification, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series 20.2, 236-47.

books_icon Anthony J Fielding, 2004, Class and Space: Social Segregation in Japanese Cities, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series 29.1, 64-84.

books_icon Jon May, 1996, ‘Globalization and the Politics of Place: Place and Identity in an Inner London Neighbourhood‘, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series 21.1, 194-215.

books_icon Morag Bell and Cheryl McEwan, 1996, The Admission of Women Fellows to the Royal Geographical Society, 1892-1914; the Controversy and the Outcome‘, The Geographical Journal 162.3, 295-312.

books_icon JoAnn McGregor, 2008, ‘Abject Spaces, Transnational Calculations: Zimbabweans in Britain Navigating Work, Class and the Law‘, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series 33.4, 466-82.

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Posted by Benjamin Sacks

The Rise of the South: Beyond Expectations or a Warning about Our Future?

March 21, 2013

Jen Dickie

New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: A Texas Army National Guard Blackhawk black deposits a 6,000 pound-plus bag of sand and gravel on-target, Sunday, September 4, 2005as work progresses to close the breach in the 17th Street Canal, New Orleans. (U.S. Army Corp of Engineers photo by Alan Dooley). This work is in the public domain.On the 14th March, the United Nations Development Programme published the 2013 Human Development Report, The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, which describes how the “rise of the South is radically reshaping the world of the 21st century, with developing nations driving economic growth, lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and propelling billions more into a new global middle class”.  Crediting sustained investment in education, health care and social programmes as well as increasing international engagement, the report states that the “world is witnessing an epochal global rebalancing”.  Whilst the UN’s press release focuses on the “massive poverty reduction” and that more than 40 developing countries have demonstrated growth beyond expectations, Claire Provost highlights some of the more negative findings from the report in her article for The Guardian.  Her article focuses on the warning from the UN that unless action is taken to tackle environmental threats such as climate change, deforestation and air and water pollution, the number of people living in extreme poverty could increase by up to 3 billion by 2050.  The report highlights that climate change is already exacerbating “chronic” environmental threats, and stresses that although everyone is affected, “they hurt poor countries and poor communities the most”.

In an article for The Geographical Journal, Nigel Clark, Vasudha Chhotray and Roger Few discuss the relationship between natural hazards and disasters and how best to address the “uneven exposure and resilience of different social groups”.  They argue that human-induced climate change and its associated impacts have further added to the already complex nature of natural disasters.  Questioning the concept of global environmental justice, they discuss issues such as the tendency of powerful political and economic actors to take advantage of disasters and how traditional coping mechanisms have been eroded by ‘global modernising forces’; however, they state that whilst aid responses can be distributional and/or rights-based, the idea of justice is likely to stem from “ordinary human virtues of care and compassion”.  Following this argument, Clark et al., offer the notion that current generations of humans may be more likely care about the environment and the challenges it, and our future generations, face if we consider ourselves as owing an incalculable debt to past generations who survived a magnitude of natural disasters and therefore made our existence possible.

As growth in developing nations continues, the challenges facing them will change.  The UN highlights that sustainable economies and societies will rely on new policies and structural changes, and that these are needed if human development and climate change goals are to be aligned.  However, it is clear that policies alone will not be enough.  If we can show the same resilience and respect for our environment as our ancestors did, and view our actions as something we ‘owe’ our future generations, perhaps attitudes will change.

books_icon Nigel Clark, Vasudha Chhotray, Roger Few, 2013, Global justice and disasters, The Geographical Journal, DOI: 10.1111/geoj.12005

60-world2 Environmental threats could push billions into extreme poverty, warns UN, The Guardian, 14th March 2013

60-world2 Press release: “Rise of South” transforming global power balance, says 2013 Human Development Report, accessed 18th March 2013

60-world2 Human Development Report 2013, The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, accessed 18th March 2013

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Posted by Jen Dickie

Libya: Bound in Europe’s Sphere

March 12, 2013

441px-Visita_del_RE_a_BengasiBy Benjamin Sacks

Libya’s struggles continue to haunt the international community. Well over a year after Muammar Muhammad al-Qaddafi’s death at the hands of rebels forces in Sirte, midway between Tripoli and Benghazi, militant and sectarian groups compete with each other for control of key provinces and national resources. Last Thursday, an estimated one hundred militiamen disrupted proceedings of the Libyan National Congress, protesting the government’s proposal to “purge Qaddafi-era officials from public office”. Militia leaders noted that they agreed with the proposal, but feared that the National Congress would seek to dilute the bill’s efficacy in order to protect their own interests. The British Embassy waded into the protests, reminding Libyan political groups that the National Congress must be allowed to conduct its business safely, democratically  and without harassment: “These people were chosen to represent Libya and it is important to give them space and security so that they may make their decisions”. The Embassy’s commentary was unsurprising, given both the United Kingdom’s recent involvement in the outcome of the Libyan Civil War, as well as Europe’s longstanding interest in Libya, its land, and peoples.

In the December 2012 issue of The Geographical Journal, James D Sidaway (University of Singapore) recounted Europe’s twentieth century predilection with Libya. His account artfully and succinctly contextualized Britain and France’s most recent intervention within the backdrop of often-complicated European-Libyan interests. Sidaway described Libya’s twentieth and twenty-first century geopolitics as “Subaltern”, deliberately borrowing from Joanne Sharp’s 2011 Geoforum article, where state regimes implement policies largely designed to sustain the regime’s survival, not dramatically enhance the populace’s welfare. Some of the blame for this, certainly, rested with Qaddafi’s egoistic desires to control Libya for the rest of his life (and beyond, through his sons). But the initial enthusiasm for his regime, and indeed the impetus behind his removal forty-odd years on, was to alter the nation’s relationship with Europe.

In the 1960s, Qaddafi took advantage of decades of nationalist anger against Europe and the United States to gain power. From the 1920s to the end of the Second World War, Libya was a proxy state under the control of Fascist Italy. Benito Mussolini envisioned Libya as the cornerstone in a “new Roman empire, by means of Italian settlement and planning and resting on the repression of all revolts and organised resistance” (297). Italian colonisation sought to impose European, not indigenous conceptions of order and society, a policy many Libyans continued to resent long after Mussolini’s capture and execution in 1945. But the end of international war did not mark the end of Libya’s entanglement with the West. After the Italian withdrawal, the British and American installed Idris, the Allied-backed leader of wartime Cyrenaica (eastern Libya), as the first monarch of the new Kingdom of Libya. “For the best part of [the next] two decades”, Sidaway argued, “Libya’s post-colonial trajectory was exemplary in the eyes of Western powers” (298). Idris’s foreign and domestic policies alike sought to maintain the elite’s status quo. Although Qaddafi radically shifted Libya’s path towards nationalism and secular Islamic authority after the 1969 coup, he too demonstrated a tendency to prioritise measures intended, first and foremost, to protect his regime’s stability vis-à-vis the West and its allies within Libya. Qaddafi’s Libya thus continued to be governed (and defined) as a response to European and American behaviour. Even as the Qaddafi regime slid towards collapse, its leader looked not to internal negotiations, but rather to Europe for a solution amenable, of course, to his interests (299). Support was not forthcoming, in part because the Libyan opposition revolted against Qaddafi, in part, because of his anti-Europe, anti-democratic stances. For better or worse, then, Libya has long been, and remains, in Europe’s strong gravitational pull.

The difficulty, as Sidaway reminded us, is that Libya’s complicated history, both with Europe and its African neighbours, has done much to erase memories of the region’s violent past (and present). In the 2008 festivities marking a formal rapprochement between Libya and Italy, for instance, few officials wished to discuss Qaddafi’s extensive human rights violations, or then-Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s leaked comments on the accord’s economic benefits.

60-world2 Chris Stephen, Libyan national congress attacked by rogue militias, The Guardian, 7 March 2013.

books_icon James D Sidaway, 2012, Subaltern Geopolitics: Libya in the Mirror of Europe, The Geographical Journal 178.4, 296-301.

books_icon N Barbour, 1950, The Arabs of Cyrenaica: Review, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica by E E Evans-Pritchard, The Geographical Journal 115.1/3, 96-98.

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Posted by Benjamin Sacks

Stop Horsing Around – Governance of the Meat Industry, Consumer Confidence and the Blame Game

February 20, 2013

Jen Dickie

Basashi (raw horsemeat) from Towada. Photograph taken by Richard W.M. Jones and released under the GFDL. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.On the 15th January the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) published a report stating that horse and pig DNA had been detected in beefburger products available from retail outlets in Ireland.  The FSAI reported that whilst the presence of pig DNA had a plausible, although clearly still unacceptable, explanation –cross contamination in meat processing plants, there was no reasonable explanation for the presence of horsemeat.

Since then, the ‘horsemeat scandal’ has dominated our headlines with a steady stream of shocking revelations about the meat industry and its regulations, supply chains and possible links to the criminal underworld.  The timeline of findings and events published by the UK Food Standards Agency demonstrates not only the extent and seriousness of the investigation, but the unfolding complexity and (to some) the surprising lack of transparency of the meat industry.  What is clear, however, is that as the number of products testing positive for horse DNA rise, consumer confidence is plummeting and accusations of blame are flying. 

Whilst Felicity Lawrence provides an ‘essential guide to the horsemeat scandal’ in The Guardian, explaining the involvement of Europe in our meat supply chains in particular, Reuters report on the “accusations, denials and threats to sue (that) reverberated round Europe on Friday as meat traders, food processors, retailers and governments all rejected blame”.  However, as the pressure on Governments to act grows and claims of mis-labelling, negligence and fraud ricochet across Europe, Reuters describe how the accused believe they are being used as scapegoats for the politicians who are struggling to explain these breaches in food safety controls.     

As the saga continues, and questions are raised about how this substantial quality control failure has been allowed to happen, the meat industry will find itself under increasing scrutiny.  In a timely article for The Geographical Journal, Laura Devaney provides interesting insight to the operating logics, performance and impact of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (the institution that first reported the presence of horsemeat in beef products) since its formation 10 years ago.  Using interviews with food industry stakeholders, Devaney highlights the “dynamic coexistence of both neoliberal and biosecurity agendas” in the work of the FSAI, which reflect the “new ways of securitising food… (that attempt to) protect society and allow it to prosper, but enable the deregulated free trade of safe food”.  However, Devaney also discusses the conflict between the neoliberal agendas that promote self-regulation in the food industry and the biosecurity measures related to ensuring public health and food safety.  It is this conflict that appears to be the key component in the current horsemeat scandal.  

In these times of economic austerity the demand for cheap, mass-produced processed food has grown, it is therefore not a surprise that the complex nature of supply chains and the de-regulation of the food industry have been taken advantage of.  As always, ‘lessons will be learned’ from this latest food scare but in the meantime, instead of pointing the finger of blame, regulations need to be tightened and consumer confidence regained.

books_icon Laura Devaney, 2013, Spaces of security, surveillance and food safety: interrogating perceptions of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland’s governing technologies, power and performance, The Geographical Journal, DOI: 10.1111/geoj.12001

60-world2 Horsemeat scandal: the essential guide, The Guardian, 15th February 2013

60-world2 Horsemeat blame game ricochets across Europe, Reuters, 15th February 2013

60-world2 Timeline on horse meat issue, The Food Standards Agency, accessed on 19th February 2013

60-world2 FSAI Survey Finds Horse DNA in Some Beef Burger Products, Food Safety Authority of Ireland, accessed on 19th February 2013

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Posted by Jen Dickie

Spatialities and Physicality of the Music Industry

January 22, 2013

By Catherine Waite

The announcement last week that the music retailer HMV had been placed into administration stimulated many debates and asked many questions about contemporary society.

In the words of the BBC the potential loss of HMV would leave a “social gap” on the high street, as one of the few remaining stores where people, stereotypically men, could go to take refuge and browse.

The British media also considered the views of those artists who make up the music industry and were traditionally reliant on retailers such as HMV to make a living. Were the chain to disappear from the high street then given the sparse locations of independent music specialists it would leave many towns without a dedicated music store, a situation that was lamented by the band ‘Everything, Everything’ as well as many other artists.

Beyond the obvious spatial changes to the high streets the closure of HMV would have near enough signalled the physical end of the music industry. Already a significant amount of music is downloaded both legally and illegally from the internet, and the loss of HMV would have left only shops such as Asda and Tesco selling any CDs in most towns.

Whilst it has now been announced that HMV has been saved from closure, the debates and issues that have been raised over the last week about the end of the physicality of the music industry, are important considerations as society becomes increasingly dependent on the internet. As this continues, and it is hard to see an alternative pathway, it is likely that it is not only the music industry that may lose its physicality.

From this case study example of HMV and the music industry it is clear that many of the key issues are geographical in nature. Research into the production and consumption of music has been the focus of a number of recent studies published in Geography Compass and Area. Similarly the changes to the urban landscape, impacts of the financial crisis and social change are all key research topics in geography. This diverse range of research subjects and current affairs can all be seen to be brought together by geography.

books_iconBrandellero, A.M.C. and Pfeffer, K. 2011 Multiple and shifting geographies of world music production Area 43:4 495-505

books_iconJazeel, T. 2005 The world is sound? Geography, musicology and British-Asian soundscapes Area 37:3 233-241

books_iconWatson, A., Hoyler, M. and Mager, C. 2009 Spaces and Networks of Musical Creativity in the City Geography Compass 3:2 856-878

60-world2BBC News HMV leaves social gap in High Street 15th January 2013

60-world2BBC News HMV: Restructuring specialist Hilco takes control of retailer 22nd January 2013

60-world2BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat Everything Everything say the era of the CD could be over 18th January 2013

60-world2BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat Stars’ view on HMV calling in the administrators 15th January 2013

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Posted by catherinewaite

Open Borders: outsiders, immigration and moral politics

November 13, 2012

by Fiona Ferbrache

The Statue of Liberty on which a plaque displays the following: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of you teamming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

“How far should an open society go on accepting outsiders?”

This question relating to immigration control and citizenship was posed by political philosopher, Professor Sandel, to an audience at the University of Dallas, Texas.  This US state shares a border with Mexico and around one million illegal immigrants are said to be living in Texas.  The debate is available to listen to, as part of Radio 4′s Public Philosopher series in which Prof. Sandel discusses contemporary political issues at various universities.  In the most recent series, Prof. Sandel raised political-moral issues that have been at the forefront of agendas during the recent US Presidential campaigns.

Another question posed by Prof. Sandel is whether there should be any controls on migration at all.  He puts this to his audience by asking “how many would be in favour of open borders and how many would be against?”

Debates around ‘no border’ policies are raised by Bauder (2012) in Area.  Contextualised as a way of overcoming the ontology of the nation-state and associated identities and migrant subjectivities (i.e. the classification of migrants as foreigners and non-citizens), Bauder claims that no-border projects seek to liberalise migrants.  Not only does this free them from functionary classifications such as ‘immigrant’, ‘resident’, or ‘temporary worker’, it also draws attention to migrants’ complex identities beyond these classifications.  The concept of no borders effectively disrupts the dominant frameworks used to understand migration in the contemporary world.

In response to Prof. Sandel’s question, the majority of the audience was against open borders, while a small minority was in favour.  Where do you stand?

  Bauder, H. (2012) Nation, ‘migration’ and critical practice. Area. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01129.x

  The Public Philosopher: Immigration. Radio 4

  Latino’s immigration issue brings mixed feelings towards Obama. BBC News online

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Posted by fionaferbrache

Food, Glorious Food… What Next is the Question?

October 17, 2012

By Jen Dickie

Corn in drought, Western Kentucky, August, 2012 by CraneStation via Flickr (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en_GB)

This week, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation are hosting the ‘Committee on World Food Security’ in Rome. This follows an announcement last Wednesday from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) stating that the UK suffered its worst wheat harvest since the 1980s, blaming the combined forces of a spring drought followed by the wettest summer in 100 years (Met Office). Describing this year’s weather as “a rollcoaster for British farmers that most now just want to forget”, Fiona Harvey and Rebecca Smithers from The Guardian describe both the difficulties farmers face after a disastrous growing season, and in a related article, how this has impacted on British consumers by not only increasing our shopping bills but by changing our shopping habits. In response to a 32% rise in food prices in the UK since 2007, they report how ethical provenance has dropped down the consumer’s list of considerations when food shopping; instead, affordability is now the key priority.

It is not only the UK that is suffering; in The Observer this weekend, John Vidal highlighted the rising concerns over food security and the potential onset of a global food crisis due to failing harvests across the world. Quoting experts such as Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Research Centre in Washington, and Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the UN Food and agriculture Organisation, Vidal stresses the complex interplay among concurrent global issues such as climate change, increasing consumption and decreasing production of food, population growth, water shortages and rising food prices.

In a recent article for The Geographical Journal, Tim Lang and David Barling acknowledge the complex nature of the concept of food security, arguing that even the term ‘food security’ is interpreted and used in different ways. They argue that “Much of the food security discourse still is about governments, farmers and the hungry” whereas more coherent policy frameworks are needed that address the development and understanding of a food system that “is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable”.

Whilst policymakers meet this week to discuss how to keep global food prices in check, earlier this month the UN reported that one in eight people in the world are starving or under-nourished. A global food crisis has not yet been declared, however, Lester Brown warns us that “As food prices climb, the worldwide competition for control of land and water resources is intensifying… Food is the new oil, land is the new gold”. This is food for thought!

Tim Lang and David Barling, 2012, Food security and food sustainability: reformulating the debate, The Geographical Journal, DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00480.x

Weather-beaten UK farmers lament a dismal year for food production, The Guardian, 12 October 2012

 Food prices: ‘Bread, coffee and fresh fruit have become a bit of a luxury’, The Guardian, 12 October 2012

A mixed harvest, but wheat well down, The NFU website, 10th October 2012

 UN warns of looming worldwide food crisis in 2013, The Observer, 13th October 2012

Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity, Earth Policy Institute Press Release

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Posted by Jen Dickie

The ‘Foreign Dimension’ in Transport Geography

September 15, 2012

By Benjamin Sacks

‘A platitude is that which every one admits and no one remembers’, W L Grant surmised in May, 1911, ‘[t]he platitude with which I begin is that Canada is a large country…a great truth’. In the aftermath of the American Civil War, British and Canadian officials scrambled to strengthen Canada’s authority from the relatively urbanised Atlantic and Great Lakes regions to the sparsely populated West. They undertook construction of one of the longest railroads in the world, a line traveling west from the rivers and inlets of Québec, across the expansive Alberta prairie, and through the Rocky Mountains to British Columbia. Today, Canadian National Railways (CN) stands as one of Canada’s most important assets, a symbol of the Dominion and Canadian pride, and an economic lifeline stretching the length of the North American continent (p. 598). But its name, Canadian National, is perhaps misleading, for CN’s network, through corporate acquisition, now extends south, through the Midwest and down the length of the Mississippi River, through the heartland of the United States (see image).

Julie Cidell’s (University of Illinois) analysis in the most recent edition of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers both acknowledges resurgent interest in transport geography and explores a contentious recent episode in CN’s expansion into the United States. In late 2007, CN approached US Steel with an offer to purchase Elgin, Joliet, and Eastern (EJ&E), a vital connector railroad network in Chicago. Similar in scope to Boston’s (in)famous ‘Big Dig’, the EJ&E was constructed to increase transport efficiency in one of the United States’s busiest railroad centres. As is often the case in densely populated areas, local residents protested against CN’s plans to increase railroad traffic from an estimated five trains per day to nearly thirty trains per day (pp. 598-601).

Cidell’s article is an excellent definitional source, explicating how planning officials understand ‘sky’, ‘airspace’, and Cidell’s own variant: ‘trainspace’ – the legal, safety, and geographical environment surrounding the trains, railroad tracks, and properties. The author seeks to explore how trainspaces interact with other spaces, including (perhaps most notably) national space.

Although the United States and Canada are traditionally extraordinarily close allies, CN’s ambitious proposal catalysed highly defensive reactions from US residents. Although those affected by the suggested changes cited noise, smog, and other intrusions, a principal concern was that a foreign corporation wanted to manage a vital American trainspace. Although CN officials were quick to point out that US employees could benefit from the company’s proposal, legitimate concerns were repeatedly raised over how the acquisition of US railroads by a Canadian firm would benefit any actors other than Canadian interests. Ciddell’s article provides an exciting framework to model other air- and trainspace conflicts throughout the world.


 W L Grant, 1911, Geographical Conditions Affecting the Development of Canada, The Geographical Journal 38 362-74.

Julie Cidell, 2012, Fear of a Foreign Railroad: Transnationalism, Trainspace, and (Im)mobility in the Chicago Suburbs, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37 593-608.

Also see: Benjamin J Sacks, 2010, Rethinking Transport Geography, Geography Directions, 25 August 2010.

1 Comment | Social Geography, Political Geography, Economic Geography, Urban Geography, Development, Environment and Society, Global Issues, General, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Benjamin Sacks

Visualising History: Geography, Art and Exhibitions

September 11, 2012

by Fiona Ferbrache

Emigration, Plymouth Cattewater (oil painting by Gordon Frickers, (www.frickers.co.uk/art/home-page/) reproduced with his kind permission).

Many different forms of representation have provided inspiration to geographers: works of literature, art, photography, political analysis, tutorials and journal articles, to name a few.

Recently, I had the opportunity to view some paintings produced by marine artist Gordon Frickers, which provide detailed insight on geographies of the modern and ancient marine world.  Frickers’ paintings are underpinned by comprehensive research of written texts, photographs and objects to produce a visual portrait that is as accurate as possible.  One of his scenes Emigration, Plymouth Cattewater, is an illustration of emigrants departing Plymouth in the 19th century¹.  This particular painting reveals a largely forgotten business at a time of significant historical migration, and invites the viewer’s curiosity.  It seems clear that geographers cannot understand the world without paying attention to such visual forms of representation.

In 2009, the RGS-IBG hosted an exhibition: Hidden Histories Made Visible.  Its aim was to bring into full view those people who have been only partially visible in other representations i.e. photographers, Sherpas and cartographers who made expeditions possible but who remain in the shadow of explorers such as Livingstone and Mallory.  The exhibition is the subject of Felix Driver’s paper in TIBG.  He illustrates the way in which the exhibition challenges assumptions about the history of exploration and geography – in this case celebrating the role of the supporting team rather than the individual explorer.  Driver demonstrates how the exhibition’s choreography conveys this message, and reminds us that any representation of the world – even an exhibition – is always partial.  For anyone organising an exhibition, this is a useful read.

After viewing Frickers’ work and reading Driver’s account of Hidden Histories, one is reminded of the value to geographers of paying critical attention to visual forms of representation.  In conjunction, a number of recent and current exhibitions might inspire geographers with alternative perspectives:

The Robinson Institute by Patrick Keiller at the Tate Modern

Writing Britain: wastelands to wonderlands at the British Library

Geographical blueprint: the art of the handcrafted globe at the Royal Geographical Society

Felix Driver, Hidden histories made visible? Reflections on a geographical exhibition,Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00529.x

Gordon Frickers’ website provides further information about his paintings and associated research.

¹ The Port of Chester was also a significant point of departure for emigrants, albeit less so than the major ports of London, Liverpool and Plymouth.  Frickers’ The Port of Chester (1863), shows this port at its busiest period.

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Posted by fionaferbrache

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