Original Articles

Soil hydrodynamics and controls in prairie potholes of central Canada
T S Gala, R J Trueman and S Carlyle
Article first published online: 23 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01103.x

Paying for interviews? Negotiating ethics, power and expectation
Daniel Hammett and Deborah Sporton
Article first published online: 23 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01102.x

Domestication and the dog: embodying home
Emma R Power
Article first published online: 23 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01098.x

Ging gang goolie goolie goolie goolie watcha,

Ging gang goo, ging gang goo…..

Gibberish perhaps, but these lyrics evoke memories of singing round the campfire when I was in the Brownies.  It is also a popular song among Boy Scouts and was written by Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement more than one hundred years ago.  Last month, it was reported that a record number of young people in the UK are involved with Scouts, and also that 10,000 of those teenagers (aged 14-18) have become Scout leaders through the Scout Association’s Young Leaders’ Scheme (2002).

The Scout movement, followed later by the Girl Guide movement, was established to enhance the physical, mental and spiritual development of young people, and to encourage youngsters to play constructive roles in society.  With similar aims, National Citizen Service was established by the UK government in 2010 as a programme to encourage teenagers to develop skills towards responsible citizenship and to foster deeper engagement with their communities.

Sarah Mills (2012) refers to these two schemes as informal citizen training in a recent paper that explores cultural and historical geographies of youth citizenship outside of school education.  Mills’ analysis draws on British scouting in the first half of the twentieth century and provides an embodied historical geography of the organisation.  In her paper, Mills links scouting to concepts of citizenship and nationhood, arguing that the movement has always made reference to young people as ‘active’, ‘moral’ and ‘British’ citizens.

Thus, a range of opportunities are available for young people to engage in citizen training.  While Scouting continues to attract large numbers of young people, it is worth considering who might be excluded from this movement and whether the National Citizen Service is able to address these gaps.  With choice, I’d opt for scouting: the campfire, baked potatoes and gibberish songs any day:

…Hayla, oh hayla shayla, oh hayla shayla, shayla, oh-ho,

Hayla, oh hayla shayla, ohhayla shayla, shayla, oh.

Shally wally, shally wally, shally wally, shally wally

Oompah, oompah, oompah, oompah

  Mills, S. (2012) ‘An instruction in good citizenship’: scouting and the historical geographies of citizenship education. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00500.x

  More teenagers opt to be scout leaders.  BBC News report

  National Citizen Service

Click past the break for a full list of articles in this issue.

Editorial

Editorial: looking forward (pages 134–135)
Kevin Ward
Article first published online: 11 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01094.x

Articles

Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments (pages 136–143)
Simon Springer
Article first published online: 24 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01084.x

The paradigm of structural engineering approaches for river flood risk reduction in Norway (pages 144–151)
Ilan Kelman and Trude Rauken
Article first published online: 23 JAN 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01074.x

Who loses if flood risk is reduced: should we be concerned? (pages 152–159)
Edmund C Penning‐Rowsell and Joanna Pardoe
Article first published online: 28 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01085.x

Using Google Maps to collect spatial responses in a survey environment (pages 160–169)
Nick Bearman and Katy Appleton
Article first published online: 20 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01081.x

‘At the next junction, turn left’: attitudes towards Sat Nav use (pages 170–177)
Stephen Axon, Janet Speake and Kevin Crawford
Article first published online: 28 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01086.x

External examiners and the continuing inflation of UK undergraduate geography degree results (pages 178–185)
John E Thornes
Article first published online: 7 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01077.x

Critical distance: doing development education through international volunteering (pages 186–192)
Kristina Diprose
Article first published online: 16 JAN 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01076.x

A tale of two teens: disciplinary boundaries and geographical opportunities in youth consumption and sustainability research (pages 193–199)
Rebecca Collins and Russell Hitchings
Article first published online: 16 JAN 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01075.x

Lightness and weight: (re)reading urban potentialities through photographs (pages 200–207)
Cian O’Callaghan
Article first published online: 18 JAN 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01078.x

Resisting gentrification‐induced displacement: Advantages and disadvantages to ‘staying put’ among non‐profit social services in London and Los Angeles (pages 208–216)
Geoffrey DeVerteuil
Article first published online: 9 NOV 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01061.x

Water quality standards or carbon reduction: is there a balance? (pages 217–225)
Hannah Baleta and Rachael McDonnell
Article first published online: 8 NOV 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01066.x

Anthropogenic controls on large wood input, removal and mobility: examples from rivers in the Czech Republic (pages 226–236)
Lukáš Krejčí and Zdeněk Máčka
Article first published online: 23 DEC 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01071.x

Anticipatory objects and uncertain imminence: cattle grids, landscape and the presencing of climate change on the Lizard Peninsula, UK (pages 237–244)
Catherine Leyshon (née Brace) and Hilary Geoghegan
Article first published online: 16 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01082.x

Classics Revisited

Apparitions of neoliberalism: revisiting ‘Jungle law breaks out’ (pages 245–249)
Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell
Article first published online: 11 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01091.x

The lore of the jungle: neoliberalism and statecraft in the global‐local disorder (revisiting Peck and Tickell) (pages 250–253)
Julie MacLeavy
Article first published online: 11 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01093.x

Updating the global‐local disorder concept (revisiting Peck and Tickell) (pages 254–257)
David Wilson
Article first published online: 11 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01092.x

Area Prize

Area Prize (page 258)
Article first published online: 11 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01095.x

Review Forum

Engaging global political ecologies

Global natures: from utter failures to the possible (pages 259–260)
Brian Grabbatin and Patrick Bigger
Article first published online: 18 NOV 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01036.x

Food, health and the body: the political ecology of sustainability (pages 260–261)
Michele Flippo Bolduc
Article first published online: 18 NOV 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01037.x

Capital’s margins and the political ecology of security (pages 261–262)
Jon Otto
Article first published online: 18 NOV 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01038.x

Going global in Global political ecology (pages 262–264)
Patrick Bigger
Article first published online: 18 NOV 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01039.x

The political ecology of water scarcity and molecular biopolitics (pages 264–265)
Jairus Rossi
Article first published online: 18 NOV 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01040.x

Response from the book’s editors (pages 265–268)
Richard Peet, Paul Robbins and Michael Watts
Article first published online: 18 NOV 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01041.x

Original Articles

Migration, urban growth and commuting distance in Toronto’s commuter shed
Jeffrey J Axisa, K Bruce Newbold and Darren M Scott
Article first published online: 8 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01097.x

Original Articles

Creating and destroying diaspora strategies: New Zealand’s emigration policies re-examined
Alan Gamlen
Article first published online: 27 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00522.x

The demographic impacts of the Irish famine: towards a greater geographical understanding
A Stewart Fotheringham, Mary H Kelly and Martin Charlton
Article first published online: 27 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00517.x

Transnational religious networks: sexuality and the changing power geometries of the Anglican Communion
Gill Valentine, Robert M Vanderbeck, Joanna Sadgrove, Johan Andersson and Kevin Ward
Article first published online: 25 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00507.x

Geographies of transition and the separation of lower and higher attaining pupils in the move from primary to secondary school in London
Richard Harris
Article first published online: 23 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.519.x

Rethinking governance and value in commodity chains through global recycling networks
Mike Crang, Alex Hughes, Nicky Gregson, Lucy Norris and Farid Ahamed
Article first published online: 23 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00515.x

The ‘missing middle’: class and urban governance in Delhi’s unauthorised colonies
Charlotte Lemanski and Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal
Article first published online: 20 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00514.x

Science, scientific instruments and questions of method in nineteenth-century British geography
Charles W J Withers
Article first published online: 20 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00513.x

Genome geographies: mapping national ancestry and diversity in human population genetics
Catherine Nash
Article first published online: 18 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00512.x

Militant tropicality: war, revolution and the reconfiguration of ‘the tropics’c.1940–c.1975
Daniel Clayton
Article first published online: 18 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00510.x

Scaling up by law? Canadian labour law, the nation-state and the case of the British Columbia Health Employees Union
Tod D Rutherford
Article first published online: 13 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00506.x

Urban Exploring in verlassenen Bunkeranlagen

A fortnight ago, Geography Directions reported on exploration and adventure in Geography.  While exploration is often associated with ventures into the wilderness and unchartered territories, it is also very much about less physical scientific discovery and search for deeper understanding.  This week, I introduce an alternative group of inquisitives: urban explorers who scale the heights and depths of abandoned or derelict buildings, landmarks and transport infrastructure as a means of rediscovering build environments.

The London Consolidation Crew is a group of urban explorers that physically explores closed or (usually) inaccessible urban spaces.  The Guardian linked these often illicit and high-risk excursions to a celebration of capitalist space, while geographer David Clarke suggested that they were embodied reactions to increased control and surveillance over urban spaces.  Analysis of these activities (the basis of a recent geographical PhD by urban explorer Brad Garrett), informs existing geographical research on contemporary urban exploration (Garrett, 2010) and advances theories that concern how places are experienced through the body: concepts such as affect, performance and embodiment.

Bodily experiences of climbing are described, analysed and theorised by Barratt (2012) in Area.  While Barratt’s empirical research was undertaken among outdoor climbers more familiar with ascending rocks, his arguments also apply to urban explorers.  Barratt argues for an understanding of climbing as a complex assemblage of body-material-environment relations i.e. that the experience can be understood through interactions between body, clothing and kit, and the place or surface where climbing is practised.  Barratt’s paper offers a more-than-representational approach to this leisure activity, and thus provides a framework to reconsider urban explorers’ engagement with their environment.  From this perspective, not only do urban explorers inspire new ways of discovering spaces, but they also provide a context where emerging theoretical ideas can be refined.

  The Guardian: Shard explorers seek out new targets after scaling London landmark

  Place Hacking: Explore Everything

  Barratt, P. (2012) ‘My magic cam’: a more-than-representational account of the climbing assemblage. Area. 44.1, pp.46-53

  Garrett, B.L. (2010) Urban Explorers: Quests for Myth, Mystery and Meaning. Geography Compass. 4.10, pp.1448-1461

Bush House, London. Longtime home of the BBC World Service. © 2012 Wikimedia Commons.

Benjamin Sacks

This year the BBC World Service, the oldest and largest international broadcaster in the world, celebrates its eightieth birthday. Founded in 1932 as the Empire Service, it has become a vital fixture in global news and information, available on FM, mediumwave, shortwave, longwave, satellite, and the internet. In many respects, the World Service has shaped Britain’s international persona and culture. Like the rest of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), its editorial independence has  repeatedly drawn the ire of British politicians and diplomats as well as the respect of millions of peoples, many of whom were (or remain) unable to obtain impartial news from their local services. In its storied history, both the World Service and the BBC have developed into explorative spaces for geographers, scholars, and activists. The Royal Geographical Society actively documented the roles the BBC played in geographic exploration and education.

In one of the earliest BBC/RGS collaborations, the nascent broadcaster permitted portions of explorer and aviator George Binney’s commentary on Roald Amundsen’s 1925 Arctic flight to be reprinted with analysis in The Geographical Journal. The collaboration resulted in Amundsen’s feat being broadcasted across Europe and to be simultaneously disseminated by the RGS to the British imperial scholarly community. The 1925 work catalysed a series of intersections between RGS-IBG and BBC projects, reports, and activities throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. In a 1955 discussion of geographical and social descriptions of domestic landscapes, A E Smailes resourced Michael Robbins’s BBC home service talks concerning the ‘anatomy of the countryside ‘(p. 100).

The BBC also filled an important role for the geographer of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s: often, it was the only relatively reliable means of communicating with explorers traversing Earth’s extremes. In 1955, Commander C J W Simpson, DSC, of the Royal Navy, recounted in detail to the RGS, HM The Queen, and The Duke of Edinburgh his 1952-1954 expedition to the northern fringes of Danish-controlled Greenland. He led some thirty scientists and specialists on a major venture involving the RGS, the Royal Society, the RAF, Royal Navy, and Army, and the Scott Polar Research Institute (p. 276). The group traversed across the vast island, from Germania Land and Britannia Sø on the eastern coast to Thule near Canada (pp. 277-79). In a harrowing 1953-1954 Arctic winter, the BBC broadcast special messages each month; a collection of well-wishes from family, friends, and admirers of the British expeditionary effort (pp. 285-86). In 1958, designated the International Geophysical Year, the RGS described the role of the BBC in transmitting national and international solar weather warnings and praised UK engineers and scientists (p. 28). The BBC’s political and scientific roles were further explored in a 1966 article recounting the experiences of Charles Swithinbank, of the Scott Polar Research Institute, who spent a year living and working with Soviet specialists at Antarctic stations (p. 469). The men, despondent for news and culture from home, listened for updates from both the BBC World Service and Radio Moscow shortwave services in a rare moment of Cold War friendship.

 ’Amundsen’s Polar Flight‘, The Geographical Journal 66.1 (Jul., 1925): 48-53.

 A E Smailes, ‘Some Reflections on the Geographical Description and Analysis of Townscapes‘, Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers) 21 (1955): 99-115.

 C J W Simpson, ‘The British North Greenland Expedition‘, The Geographical Journal 121.3 (Sep., 1955): 274-89.

 D C Martin, ‘The International Geophysical Year‘, The Geographical Journal 124.1 (Mar., 1958): 18-29.

 Charles Swithinbank, ‘A Year with the Russians in Antarctica‘, The Geographical Journal 132.4 (Dec., 1966): 463-74. Also see Dudley Stamp and Vivian Fuch’s discussion here.

The authors: Josh Lepawsky is  Associate Professor and Charles Mather is Head of Department both at the Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.

Lepawsky J and Mather C 2011 From beginnings and endings to boundaries and edges: rethinking circulation and exchange through electronic waste Area 43 242–249

[N.B.: This is the first open access paper published in the journal Area, which means anyone can read it for free rather than having to pay a subscription to access it]

Captain Scott in 1911

The Royal Geographical Society (-IBG) has a strong historical association with exploration.  Famous explorers such as David Livingston, Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Edmund Hillary are part of our subject history (also see Sacks‘ post below).  This year marks the centenary of the ill-fated Antarctic Terra Nova expedition (1910-13), led by Captain Scott (Lewis-Jones, 2007).  The centenary will be marked through a variety of events, including RGS talks and presentations, and a commemorative exhibition at the Natural History Museum, which runs until September.  While we celebrate and commemorate such adventurous feats, what does exploration mean for Geography?

Scott’s link to the RGS was established when he was selected by then President, Sir Clements Markham, to lead an expedition to Antarctic in 1901.  At that time, little was known about the frozen continent, and the legacy of their southern adventures, including Terra Nova, is one of scientific discovery and understanding.  In other words, exploration was valued as a desire to know and understand more about the world’s places, environments and peoples.  In a similar way, professional geographers were among those invited to Buckingham Palace when the Queen hosted a reception in honour of exploration and adventure last December.

In connection with the RGS Medals and Awards ceremony, which celebrates contemporary geographical research, fieldwork and photography, Michael Palin (in Palin et al. 2011) draws attention to the symbiosis of exploration and geography and highlights links between earlier geographical exploration and its modern counterparts.  He writes about a shared spirit of enquiry and a desire to keep asking and trying to answer questions to satisfy a need to know geography (and geographically).  In all these feats, receptions and commemorations, the people involved appear to share a desire for scientific investigation, discovery and greater understanding.

The theme of exploration will be developed in my next post (8th May) through discussion of a group of urban explorers seeking to know and remap the city in new ways.

  Lewis-Jones, H. (2007) Review: Scott of the Antarctic: A Life of Courage and Tragedy in the Extreme South. The Geographical Journal. 173,2. pp.188

  Palin, M., Earle, S., Livingstone, D., Elden, S., Lowe, J. & Owen, L. (2011) Honouring geographers and contemporary exploration: from the archive to the ocean at the RGS-IBG Medals and Awards Ceremony 2011. The Geographical Journal. 177,3. pp.279-287

  RGS-IBG What’s On guide

  Captain Scott centenary marked at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Dangerous, fun or pretty sweet? Attitudes towards Sat Nav use
(Artist: George Sneyd)

The rapid popularisation and extensive distribution of Sat Nav technologies represents the first widespread adoption of location-aware systems for journey planning and navigation. Sat Nav technologies illustrate the advancement and accessibility of technology used for journey planning and navigation. Despite the advantages, the media tend to focus on the negativities of over-dependence on the technology, reduced spatial awareness as well as the potential hazards of Sat Nav use.

The first Sat Nav summit in London convened by the Department of Transport in March 2012 started to address the blunders associated with Sat Nav use. The key issues discussed at the summit were to identify solutions to problems of out-of-date Sat Nav technologies. The Sat Nav summit sought to address concerns that old information on Sat Nav systems is leading inappropriate vehicles down inappropriate roads.

In our paper, ‘At the next junction, turn left’, we explore geography undergraduates’ attitudes towards, and experiences of, Sat Nav use as well as its impacts on spatial awareness and cartographic literacy. In doing so, we have started to address a major gap in the geographical literature.

The navigational capacities and technological aspects of Sat Nav are regarded positively whereas its technological, safety and financial attributes are considered negatively. Distinctions are made between traditional navigational technologies such as paper-based maps and Sat Nav. Crucially, the digital spatial representations of Sat Nav are not perceived as maps but as a distinctive navigational tool. Concerns are also expressed that Sat Nav could reduce the ability to read paper-based maps and interpret spatial data.

Sat Nav use is intrinsically changing people’s wayfinding behaviour, processes and practices of navigation, and understandings of what ‘maps’ are and do. Fundamentally, Sat Nav is not viewed, or used, in the same way as more traditional technologies of navigation. We argue that geographers should engage more actively with interdisciplinary dialogues on people’s changing perspectives on wayfinding, navigation and map design.

The authors: Stephen Axon is a doctoral candidate in Geography, Dr Janet Speake is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography and Dr Kevin Crawford is a Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography at the Department of Geography, Liverpool Hope University.

Axon S, Speake J and Crawford K 2012 ‘At the next junction, turn left’: attitudes towards Sat Nav use Area DOI: 10.1111/j.1475.4762.2012.01086.x

BBC News 2012 Sat-nav summit to tackle blunders 6 March (Accessed 8 March 2012)

Department for Transport 2012 Government’s first Sat Nav summit 6 March (Accessed 8 March 2012)

Eileen Healey filming in the Alps, 1950s. Courtesy The Daily Telegraph.

Benjamin Sacks

This month, as the Royal Geographical Society marks the centenary of Robert Scott’s tragic expedition to the South Pole, it is all too easy to view exploration as ‘a man’s sport’. We conjure images of Scott, Shackleton, Hillary and Norgay, and Fuchs, bravely fighting the elements in their attempts to overcome the earth’s extremes. But women’s vital roles in the history of exploration has received considerably less attention. In the most recent issue of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Katherine Brickell and Bradley L Garrett (Royal Holloway, University of London) sought to address this discrepancy. Their article chronicled the work of women in filming expeditions during the great age of Himalayan mountain-climbing (c.1930-c.1960). Acknowledging the important use of film in nineteenth and twentieth century exploration, Brickell and Garrett recalled the experiences of Eileen Healey, ‘a visionary British female mountaineer and amateur filmmaker’, who died on 8 September 2010 at 89 (1).

In the summer of 1959, Healey joined nine other women, led by Claude Kogan, a French swimwear designer-turned-alpine climber, on a expedition to the Himalayas. They hoped to climb – and film for all to see – Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest peak. The expedition, which began amid tremendous media furore, horribly ended when an avalanche killed Kogan, the Belgian Claudine van der Stratten, and two male Sherpa guides. After the disaster, she kept her 16-mm film stored in her house; according to The Guardian, it was not publicly screened until a half-century later, in 2009.

Healey’s self-deprecating, humble style belied her true cinematographic abilities. She borrowed her husband’s portable movie camera, and began the film with a plate reminding the audience that she had no prior experience. Yet her work, as Brickell and Garrett articulated, was talented, insightful, and ultimately ‘a rich resource for geographical [and cultural] research’ (2). Their focus on Healey served two key motives: (1) to remind geographers of the critical role women have played (and will continue to play) in geographic exploration, research, and documentation; (2) a general request for geographers and explorers alike to begin filming their experiences again, and not to solely rely on internet blogs or ‘sensationalist media’ (2-3).

 Katherine Brickell and Bradley L Garrett, ‘Geography, Film and Exploration: Women and Amateur Filmmaking in the Himalayas‘, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series (2012): 1-5.

 Ed Douglas, ‘Eileen Healey Obituary‘, The Guardian, 22 November 2010, accessed 18 April 2012.

 In 2009, an all-female Commonwealth expedition successfully skied to the South Pole. Find out more at the Kaspersky Commonwealth Expedition.

Original Articles

Body capital and the geography of aging
Maurizio Antoninetti and Mario Garrett
Article first published online: 4 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01089.x

Commentary

Combining sustainable agricultural production with economic and environmental benefits
Amir Kassam and Hugh Brammer
Article first published online: 10 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00465.x

Original Articles

Spatialising the refugee camp
Adam Ramadan
Article first published online: 10 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00509.x

The geographies of community-oriented unionism: scales, targets, sites and domains of union renewal in South Africa and beyond
David Jordhus-Lier
Article first published online: 10 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00504.x

Corpses, dead body politics and agency in human geography: following the corpse of Dr Petru Groza
Craig Young and Duncan Light
Article first published online: 10 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00502.x

Towards geographies of speech: proverbial utterances of home in contemporary Vietnam
Katherine Brickell
Article first published online: 10 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00503.x

The biopolitics of animal being and welfare: dog control and care in the UK and India
Krithika Srinivasan
Article first published online: 4 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00501.x

‘An instruction in good citizenship’: scouting and the historical geographies of citizenship education
Sarah Mills
Article first published online: 4 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00500.x

Boundary Crossings

Geography, film and exploration: women and amateur filmmaking in the Himalayas
Katherine Brickell and Bradley L Garrett
Article first published online: 10 APR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00505.x

Adapting water management to climate change: Putting our science into practice

Ecological benefits of creating messy rivers
Nicholas C Everall, Andrew Farmer, Andrew F Heath, Timothy E Jacklin and Robert L Wilby
Article first published online: 16 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01087.x

Original Articles

Anticipatory objects and uncertain imminence: cattle grids, landscape and the presencing of climate change on the Lizard Peninsula, UK
Catherine Leyshon (née Brace) and Hilary Geoghegan
Article first published online: 16 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01082.x

Commentary

Researching the riots
Richard Phillips, Diane Frost and Alex Singleton
Article first published online: 21 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00463.x

US cemetery, Colleville-sur-Mer Calvados (14), Normandy

Pick up a daily newspaper and you will find an obituary section providing biographical sketches of recently deceased individuals.  Last week, these included Coptic Christian Pope Shenouda III, children’s author Jan Berenstein, and Sir Alan Cottrell, chief scientific adviser to the government.  In the current volume of Area, Lakhbir Jassal (2012) writes that the subject of death has been scarce within academic material, particularly scholarly approaches that emphasise  space and place.

Among Area’s reviews this quarter, Jassal reflects on a book that does deal with the spatial study of death: Deathscapes: spaces of death, dying, mourning and remembrance.  This collection, edited by Avril Maddrell and James D. Sidaway, comprises fifteen chapters that draw from empirical and theoretical perspectives, and a multidisciplinary framework.  With the editors’ disciplinary roots in geography, this collection centralises the concept of place and space, not least through the use of the term deathscapes “to capture the spatial and place-based logics underscoring a wide range of social and cultural processes association with death and dying” (Jassal, 2012:124).  Jassel draws, for example, on the  “spatialised practices” and processes for  “managing, ordering and governing the dead” that are explored through chapters on body disposal, and private and natural burial.

The review draws attention to western traditions of death and body disposal – principally burial.  For Jassal, this is one weakness of the collection for it excludes consideration of the diversity of traditions that are shaping ‘the west’ as a partial consequence of migration.  Jassal’s other main critique is that the volume reinforces a fixed geography of death and dying that fails to adequately account for dynamic patterns of death.  Overall however, Jassal’s review shows an agreement with the Forward of Deathscapes; that this collection will “help in understanding the intensely emotional experiences of our lives” (p.125).

  Jassal, L. (2012) Review: Deathscapes: spaces for death, dying, mourning and remembrance. Area. 44.1, pp.124-125

  Obituaries in The Guardian

The peaceful Burj eslam coast belies Syria's current crisis between Ba'ath loyalists and the populist reform movement. © 2012 Wikimedia Commons.

Benjamin Sacks

In civilisation’s development, geographical location dealt Syria a bad hand. The ancient (and historically contested) region of Aleppo is hemmed in by a powerful Turkey to the north. To the west, an unstable Iraq straddles the Syrian Al-Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor governorates. Damascus, Syria’s capital, lies at an apex between Palestine, a hostile Israel, the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, and Jordan. Its centrality, claimed J L Porter FRGS in 1856, had been consistently underestimated by contemporary Western geographers (p. 43). A century and a half later, Syria’s violent upheaval would have not then likely surprised Porter. This is a landscape scarred by time and space, culture and religion. It was – and remains – one of the ‘geographical pivot[s] of history’.

It comes as little surprise that the Royal Geographical Society was involved in the surveying and analysis of Syria and its environs. Some research, as that undertaken by Dale R Lightfoot, takes on a decidedly geological twist, exploring the ancient (but still occasionally used) underground aqueducts (known as “qanat Romani” in Syria) that typify the region’s long-standing quest for water. His archaeological work provides a fascinating backdrop to Hussein A Amery’s more contemporary review of the Fertile Crescent’s ever-rising need for irrigation and drinking water.

Yet Syria’s strategic location has also piqued interest in the Royal Geographical Society’s historical role as an arm of imperial power. Under the efforts of Major Thomas Best Jervis, the Royal Geographical Society gained valuable experience in 1830s India, providing information to military and civil authorities (Heffernan 1996: pp. 505-506). ‘War’, as Michael Heffernan reminded us, ‘has been one of the greatest geographers’ (p. 504). During the First World War, the Royal Geographical Society ‘remained on an emergency, wartime footing’, benefiting in particular from T E Lawrence’s new surveys of Damascus and the Syrian plains (p. 515). The so-called ‘road to Damascus’ took on important overtones in the inter-war shuffling of European colonial designs in the Middle East, with Syria at its’ centre (see Farmer 1983: p. 73).

Echoes of Syria’s current chaos can be found in W W Harris’s classic ‘War and Settlement Change: The Golan Heights and the Jordan Rift, 1967-77′. Written when Israel’s seizure of the Golan Heights from Syria was still fresh in international minds, Harris investigated both sides’ respective claims on the region, as well as hinting at Syria’s domestic instability, supposedly quashed by the then-nascent Ba’ath Party movement. What remains constant through these accounts is the sense of Syria’s often dangerous position at the intersection of local and international desires.

J L Porter, ‘Memoir on the Map of Damascus, Hauran, and the Lebanon Mountains‘, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 26 (1856): 43-55.

H J Mackinder, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History (1904)‘, The Geographical Journal 170.4 Halford Mackinder and the ‘Geographical Pivot of History’ (Dec., 2004): 298-321.

Dale R Lightfoot, ‘The Origin and Diffusion of Qanats in Arabia: New Evidence from the Northern and Southern Peninsula‘, The Geographical Journal 166.3 (Sep., 2000): 215-26.

Hussein A Amery, ‘Water Wars in the Middle East: A Looming Threat‘, The Geographical Journal 168.4 Water Wars? Geographical Perspectives (Dec., 2002): 313-23.

Michael Heffernan, ‘Geography, Cartography and Military Intelligence: The Royal Geographical Society and the First World War‘, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series 21.3 (1996): 504-33.

B H Farmer, ‘British Geographers Overseas, 1933-1983‘, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series 8.1 The Institute of British Geographers 1933-1983: A Special Issue of Transactions to Mark the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Institute (1983): 70-79.

W W Harris, ‘War and Settlement Change: The Golan Heights and the Jordan Rift, 1967-77‘, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series 3.3 Settlement and Conflict in the Mediterranean World (1978): 309-30.

Issue Information

Issue Information (pages i–ii)
Article first published online: 15 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2012.00488.x

Atmosphere & Biosphere

Mastodons and Mammoths in the Great Lakes Region, USA and Canada: New Insights into their Diets as they Neared Extinction (pages 175–188)
Catherine H. Yansa and Kristin M. Adams
Article first published online: 15 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2012.00483.x

Ecological Disaster or the Limits of Observation? Reconciling Modern Declines with the Long‐Term Dynamics of Whitebark Pine Communities (pages 189–214)
Evan R. Larson and Kurt F. Kipfmueller
Article first published online: 15 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2012.00481.x

Development

Rethinking Territory: Social Justice and Neoliberalism in Latin America’s Territorial Turn (pages 215–226)
Joe Bryan
Article first published online: 15 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2012.00480.x

Urban

Ethnic Entrepreneurship Studies in Geography: A Review1 (pages 227–240)
Qingfang Wang
Article first published online: 15 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2012.00482.x

Original Articles

Micro-political and related barriers to stakeholder engagement in flood risk management
Chin-Pei Tseng and Edmund C Penning-Rowsell
Article first published online: 9 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00464.x

Scale in the effect of accessibility on population change: GIS and a statistical approach to road, air and rail accessibility in Finland, 1990–2008
Ossi Kotavaara, Harri Antikainen, Mathieu Marmion and Jarmo Rusanen
Article first published online: 9 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00460.x

Boundary Crossings

Progressive localism and the construction of political alternatives (pages 177–182)
David Featherstone, Anthony Ince, Danny Mackinnon, Kendra Strauss and Andrew Cumbers
Article first published online: 3 JAN 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00493.x

Urban ecosystems as ‘natural’ homes for biogeographical boundary crossings (pages 183–190)
Robert A Francis, Jamie Lorimer and Mike Raco
Article first published online: 30 AUG 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00470.x

Geography and the matter of waste mobilities (pages 191–196)
Anna R Davies
Article first published online: 16 AUG 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00472.x

Papers

Model migrations: mobility and boundary crossings in regional climate prediction (pages 197–211)
Martin Mahony and Mike Hulme
Article first published online: 17 OCT 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00473.x

Managing trade‐offs in ‘ecotopia’: becoming green at the Centre for Alternative Technology (pages 212–225)
Jon Anderson
Article first published online: 3 JUN 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00456.x

Art and gentrification: pursuing the urban pastoral in Hoxton, London (pages 226–241)
Andrew Harris
Article first published online: 17 OCT 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00465.x

Shared space, distant lives? Understanding family and intimacy at home through the lens of internet gambling (pages 242–255)
Gill Valentine and Kahryn Hughes
Article first published online: 30 AUG 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00469.x

The changing geographies of foreign aid and development cooperation: contributions from gift theory (pages 256–272)
Emma Mawdsley
Article first published online: 6 SEP 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00467.x

Assemblage and social movements: Tibet Support Groups and the spatialities of political organisation (pages 273–286)
Andrew D Davies
Article first published online: 4 OCT 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00462.x

Primo Levi and the genre of testimony (pages 287–300)
Richard Carter‐White
Article first published online: 24 JUN 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00457.x

Animal maiming, intimacy and the politics of shared life: the bestial and the beastly in eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century England (pages 301–316)
Carl J Griffin
Article first published online: 16 AUG 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00464.x

Sinification of Zhuang place names in Guangxi, China: a GIS‐based spatial analysis approach (pages 317–333)
Fahui Wang, Guanxiong Wang, John Hartmann and Wei Luo
Article first published online: 13 SEP 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00471.x

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers referees 2011

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers referees 2011 (pages 334–336)
Article first published online: 6 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00516.x

Akumaa Mama Zimbi: a Ghanaian women’s rights leader committed to enhancing the status of underprivileged women in Ghana.

International Women’s Day, 8th March, marks the many achievements of diverse women (past and present) around the globe.  However, this day contrasts with the poignant reminder that some women are not given opportunities to excel or achieve.  In particular I think of women in Saudi Arabia who are denied the right to practice recreational and competitive sport, and it was announced last month that the country will not be sending a female competitor to the London Olympics.  Over the years, the number of countries not sending female teams to the Games has decreased: 35 in Barcelona (1992) 10 in Sydney (2000) and Saudi Arabia will be the only country in 2012.

Choosing to focus positively on women’s achievements, I draw your attention to a Geographical Journal paper that has a sense of celebration for young Ghanaian women seizing opportunities towards employment and entrepreneurship (Langevang & Gough, 2012).  The paper contributes generally to literatures on globalisation, economic restructuring and labour market transformation in sub-Saharan Africa, but specifically focuses on young women developing their skills through hairdressing and dressmaking (two of the main trades Ghanaian women are likely to enter).  The paper provides systematic analysis of opportunities crafted (via globalisation and changing opportunities), seized (by trade associations and individuals ) and perceived (through individual experiences and perceptions of these professions).

While dressmaking is shown to have stagnated in recent years, hairdressing has modernised and developed where trade associations have been able to respond positively to expanding markets, and provide support for members.  Many of the young women at the heart of Langevang & Gough’s paper are show to have strong entrepreneurial associations by way of taking opportunities to professionalise.  It is this evaluation of their skills and aspirations that connects these women with the spirit of International Women’s Day.

  International Women’s Day

  Olympic outrage at Saudi ban on women athletes, The Guardian, 26 February 2012

  Where are Saudi Arabia’s female athletes?, The Times, 03 March 2013 (require Times+ subscription)

  Tilde Langevang and Katherine V. Gough, 2012, Diverging pathways: young female employment and entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa, The Geographical Journal, doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2011.00457.x

World Health Organisation South Face (by Yann Forget CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Health is a long-standing research field to which geographers have made significant contributions, covering subjects from the provision of health care, to environmental impacts on health and the spread of epidemics. This is salient in domestic contexts, such as in regard to the UK’s current debates on the proposed restructuring of the National Health Service; and in global ones in tackling widespread diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, and viral outbreaks – the topic of a 21^st Century Challenges event at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

Two papers published in this month’s issue of The Geographical Journal highlight the geographical contributions to health research in both local and global contexts. In terms of local health provision, Hawthorne and Kwan show how residents in a lower-income community in Columbus, Ohio (USA), judge health services in terms of quality and so even if they have a nearby facility, if they perceive it as of low-quality, they consider themselves to be a long way from health care. Scaling up, Brown and Moon provide a useful summary of past and future avenues for geographical research on global health.

BBC News 2012 Ministers promise NHS bill concessions 6 March

Global Health in the 21^st Century, 7 March 2012, 21^st Century Challenges event at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)

Brown T and Moon G 2012 Geography and global health The Geographical Journal 178 13–17 [Free to access in 2012]

Hawthorne T L and Kwan M-P 2012 Using GIS and perceived distance to understand the unequal geographies of healthcare in lower-income urban neighbourhoods The Geographical Journal 178 18–30 [Free to access in 2012]

The latest issue of Geography Compass is available on Wiley Online Library.

Issue Information

Issue Information (pages i–ii)
Article first published online: 5 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2012.00487.x

Economic Geography

Social Justice and the Creative City: Class, Gender and Racial Inequalities (pages 111–122)
Deborah Leslie and John Paul Catungal
Article first published online: 5 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2011.00472.x

Geographies of International Education: Mobilities and the Reproduction of Social (Dis)advantage (pages 123–136)
Johanna L. Waters
Article first published online: 5 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2011.00473.x

Coerced, Forced and Unfree Labour: Geographies of Exploitation in Contemporary Labour Markets (pages 137–148)
Kendra Strauss
Article first published online: 5 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2011.00474.x

Environment and Society

Measuring the Performance of Partnerships: Why, What, How, When? (pages 149–162)
Claire Kelly
Article first published online: 5 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2012.00476.x

Environment, Business and the Firm (pages 163–174)
Federico Caprotti
Article first published online: 5 MAR 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2012.00478.x

Original Articles

Land degradation in Mediterranean urban areas: an unexplored link with planning?
Luca Salvati, Roberta Gemmiti and Luigi Perini
Article first published online: 24 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01083.x

Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments
Simon Springer
Article first published online: 24 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01084.x

Who loses if flood risk is reduced: should we be concerned?
Edmund C Penning-Rowsell and Joanna Pardoe
Article first published online: 28 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01085.x

The scientific method has close connections to ideas about progress and innovation.  In 2010, a question was posed in the Guardian: “Can a human break the sound barrier?” This question may well be answered later this year when skydiver, Felix Baumgartner, will free fall to earth from the edge of space.  Taking a balloon to roughly 37km above the earth’ surface, the skydiver is expected to be the first human to break the sound barrier during his ten minute return flight.  Baumgartner’s adventure will be facilitated by a range of technical apparatus including oxygen tanks and a special suit designed to withstand temperatures of -94ºF.

The theme of adventure and exploration in this sky diving story connects with Area’s special quarterly section Exploring the Outdoors.  Celebrating the multiple ways in which geographers engage with outdoor spaces, the papers in this collection address activities such as climbing, mountaineering, mountain rescue and fieldtrips.  Each paper contributes to our knowledge of the outdoors, but the strength of this collection emerges in the co-construction of the multiple relations that link science and adventure, from both human and physical sides of geography. As Couper and Yarwood (2012) emphasise in the introduction to this collection, ‘outdoors’ provides a conceptual field from which to transgress this geographical boundary.

Providing an overview of this collection, Couper and Yarwood also acknowledge its limitations. They note, among other things, that “it remains predominantly land-based in its consideration of outdoor-spaces” (p.5).  With this in mind, Baumgartner’s upcoming adventure may offer some alternative approaches for geographic engagement with the outdoors.

  Skydiving from the edge of space: can a human break the sound barrier?, The Guardian

  Sky diver to break sound barrier with jump from edge of space, The Telegraph

  Pauline Couper & Richard Yarwood, 2012, Confluences of human and physical geography research on the outdoors: an introduction to the special section on ‘Exploring the outdoors’, Area 44 2-6

Original Articles

Using Google Maps to collect spatial responses in a survey environment
Nick Bearman and Katy Appleton
Article first published online: 20 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01081.x

Satellite image of the Falkland Islands. © 2012 Wikimedia Commons.

Benjamin Sacks

The upcoming thirtieth anniversary of the short, but brutal Falklands War has catalysed renewed tension between the United Kingdom and the Argentine Republic. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner declared that London had ‘remilitarised’ the Falklands to provoke conflict with Buenos Aires. London responded that while the deployments were routine, and had nothing to do with the anniversary of Argentina’s 2 April 1982 invasion of the islands, they renewed their vows to defend the Overseas Territory and its estimated three thousand inhabitants, the vast majority of whom expressly wish to remain British.

In many respects, the Falklands War was the world’s last colonial conflict, the climax of decades of mutual distrust between Argentina and Britain. At the turn of the century Britain included Argentina as an economic member in its’ informal empire; largely thanks to British and American investment, the Argentine Republic was one of the world’s great economies in the years immediately preceding the First World War. During the Perón regime and later the military junta led by Leopoldo Galtieri, the Falklands became a rallying cry for Argentine nationalists, and a distraction from domestic economic problems. Nearly a thousand men (adding both British and Argentine forces) perished in the three month battle, before British Major General Jeremy Moore declared that ‘the Falkland Islands are once more under the government desired by their inhabitants’.

The Falkland Islands conflict catapulted the isolated British colony into the public conscience for the first time since the Battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914 and Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expeditions. The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute for British Geographers) resurrected the Falklands’ position with discussions of the islands’ role in British and international history. In July 1982, for instance, Ann Savours recalled Captain John Biscoe’s 1830-33 expedition to the Falklands and its dependencies, including South Georgia Island and the South Shetland Islands (p. 293). At the November annual RGS-IBG annual meeting, directors congratulated the Directorate of Overseas Surveys for their accurate charts utilised by the armed forces, and displayed the war charts throughout Lowther Lodge (Meetings: p. 413).

After the victory’s initial glow had passed, the RGS-IBG turned a substantially more analytical and educational eye to the Falkland Islands and its inhabitants, a motley assortment of sheep herders, small business families, and fishermen. In early 1983 they decided to re-familiarise (a now interested) British public about the Falkland Islands’ geography, history, and ecology. Patrick Vincent, a native-born Falkland Islander, wrote in The Geographical Journal‘s classically detached language, ‘The characteristics of the Islanders are largely dictated by isolation and remoteness. They are a simple straightforward people…ingenious and inventive…’ (p. 17). Inigo Everson updated RGS-IBG audiences on the Falklands’ maritime life. Similarly, Sir George Deacon, then a former director of the National Institute of Oceanography, provided a detailed explanation of the Falkland Islands seabed, currents, flora and fauna. This article, in turn, was immediately followed with an overview of the history and current local economic importance of the Islands’ sheep farming industry (pp. 11-13). The Geographical Journal‘s March 1983 issue thus proved to be a necessary and important document, intended to reintroduce Britain to one of its most devoted (yet up until 1982 least-remembered) colonial outposts. It continues to be an excellent introduction to Falkland Islands affairs to the present.

 Jon Swaine and Raf Sanchez, ‘Argentina to complain to UN over “militarisation” of Falklands‘, The Telegraph, 8 February 2012, accessed 18 February 2012.

 ’Falklands War surrender telex to be auctioned‘, BBC News, 15 February 2012, accessed 18 February 2012.

 Ann Savours, ‘Biscoe’s Antarctic Voyage 1830-33‘, The Geographical Journal 148.2 (July, 1982): 293-96.

 ’Meetings: Session 1981-82‘, The Geographical Journal 148.3 (November, 1982): 411-18.

 Patrick Vincent, ‘The Falkland Islanders‘, The Geographical Journal 149.1 (March, 1983): 16-17.

 Inigo Everson, ‘Krill‘, The Geographical Journal 149.1 (March, 1983): 19.

 George Deacon, ‘The Falkland Region‘, The Geographical Journal 149.1 (March, 1983): 11-13.

 Huw Williams, ‘Sheep Farming in the Falklands‘, The Geographical Journal 149.1 (March, 1983): 14-16.

Also see:

 ’Background to 1 Kensington Gore‘, Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute for British Geographers), accessed 18 February 2012.

Original Articles

Diverging pathways: young female employment and entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa
Thilde Langevang and Katherine V Gough
Article first published online: 13 JAN 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2011.00457.x

Original Articles

Decolonising the diaspora: neo-colonial performances of Indian history in East Africa
Jen Dickinson
Article first published online: 13 FEB 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00496.x