Author Archives: fionaferbrache

Relational Geographies: Sea – shore and the Super-rich

by Fiona Ferbrache

Super yachts at St Tropez (author’s own image)

In 2012, the Economist noted that even in troubling economic times it was still possible to discern rich people, alongside the poor. It then asked “will there also be the really rich, the super-rich?”.

There seems to be substantial evidence for the category ‘super-rich’. Geographer Danny Dorling notes that the (super-)richest 1% in Britain (“people with a pre-tax household income of at least £160,000”) are growing wealthier and that the gap is increasing between them and the remaining 99%. In 2013, “Geographies of the Super-rich” (authored by Professor Iain Hay) was introduced to bookshelves and identified a class of individuals with investable assets in excess of $1 million. In recent weeks, the British media have reported on the super-rich overseas buyers of prime London addresses who buy properties as investments and then leave them empty; drawing Kensington and Chelsea nearer the top of the ranking, alongside northern towns such as Blackpool and Bradford, of areas with the highest number of empty homes. Another article reported that for those coming to visit their London investments, the most popular mode of travel is private jet.

As the above examples demonstrate, the lives and mobilities of the super-rich are being opened up to enquiry. Contributing to this trend, a paper by Spence, in Area, explores leisure activities of super-rich mobility along the Cote-d’Azur – “between sea, super-yacht and the shore” (and air, via private jets) (p.203). While examining the leisure activities of the super-rich on board luxury yachts, Spence also provides insight to the lives of the crew catering to them through a relational framework spanning sea, shore and ship. Spence uses this case study to argue for a more-than-sea approach to maritime geographies, which plays on the idea of more-than-human geographies and indeed captures the relationality of human and non-human materialities. A more-than-sea geography aims to promote a perspective from the sea, to incorporate the land, rather than the other way around. Spence achieves this by discussing cabin fever, seasicknes and the meaning of going ashore. Here, the experiences of the super-rich (guests, tourists and yacht owners) and the necessary supporting and waiting crew, differ in a cyclical series of relations between sea, shore and ship, as the yachts move into and out of port.

Spence’s paper offers two key insights: a conceptual framework for exploring geographies of the sea, and which complements earlier works by authors such as Peters (2010) and Hasty and Peters (2012); and micro-geographies of the super-rich that help to flesh out media representations and existing geographical knowledge of this group.

Spence, E. 2014. Towards a more-than-sea geography: exploring the relational geographies of superrich mobility between sea, superyacht and shore in the Cote d’Azur. Area 46(2): pp.203-209
Hasty, W. and Peters, K. 2012. The ship in geography and the geographies of ships. Geography Compass 6: pp.660-676
Peters, K. 2010. Future promises for contemporary social and cultural geographies of the sea. Geography Compass 4: pp.1260-1272

Danny Dorling on the super-rich

The super-rich will always be with us (and so will the repo man). The Economist

A passage to Mayfair: India’s super-rich elite are colonising the heart of the former British empire. The Economist
The ghost town of the super-rich: Kensington and Chelsea’s ‘buy-to-leave’ phenomenon. The Evening Standard

Academic Writing and Geography Narrated

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by Fiona Ferbrache

The ruins of Erskine Beveridge, is Fraser MacDonald’s (2013) narrative essay available as an early view article in Transactions. It tells the story of a house – Taigh Mòr, built by Erskine Beveridge on an intertidal island in the Outer Hebrides – and its inhabitants – the Beveridge family, who used the property as a summer retreat. It is also a first class piece of geographical writing.

Ruined_house_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1428145

House ruins (Source: Wikimedia Commons: Graham Horn)

MacDonald’s narrative non-fiction is unusual in style and form, and may at first appear unconventional for some geographers. This is not a style that appears frequently in published journals of our discipline, but may be situated within a renewed interest in literary geographies, including geographies of storytelling, and bio-geo-geography (see for example Lorimer and Wylie). In another way, the text reminded me of the personalised and enquiring travels made and recounted by Robert Macfarlane in The Old Ways. The style and methods are not dissimilar.

MacDonald’s aim in this piece is to “maintain a primary commitment to storytelling as an exemplar of geographical writing” (p.2). Yet, it goes further than this as it is inherently about (historical) geography. The deteriorating Taigh Mòr is situated at the centre of the tale, around which the lives of its inhabitants are explored and retold. The work touches at least three geographical themes: ruins, spaces of science and antiquarian knowledge, and fieldwork. The methods underpinning the ‘fieldwork’ included walking, interviewing, synthesising published sources, interpreting material remains in the landscape, and triangulating observations against other archives. Thus, the rich text is descriptive and analytical as it probes, explores and lays a thread for the reader to follow.

MacDonald argues that geographers “have some way to go before matters of form and style receive the same sort of attention currently given to methodology” (p.2). For young geographers, this commitment to storytelling, as an exemplar of geographical writing, will hopefully inspire creativity and originality, beyond geography’s more familiar writing conventions.

MacDonald, F. 2013 The ruins of Erskine Beveridge. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. DOI: 10.1111/tran.12042

Lorimer, H. 2003 Telling small stories: spaces of knowledge and the practice of geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 28, pp.197-217

Wiley, J. 2009 Landscape, absence and the geographies of love . Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 34, pp.275-289

Stylish Academic Writing – a guide

Sustainable Urbanism: Transport Hubs and City Exchanges

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by Fiona Ferbrache

Rotterdam’s Centraal Station as a gateway to the city

Travel by train through Reading or Northampton and you will be able to observe the construction works of the station redevelopment programmes currently being carried out in those urban areas. According to last week’s Economist these are two of Network Rail’s 11 stations being redeveloped.

This development is not just about improving stations as transportation nodes, it is also about enhancing the city and making stations desirable destinations in their own right as ‘exchange spaces’ or ‘meeting places’ for city residents, workers and visitors.

“Without a bigger and better station, Northampton’s vital economic growth will be constrained” announces the Northampton Station website. “Cities now measure their appeal by their stations” claims the Economist, and if we consider St Pancras International, Rotterdam station in the Netherlands, or Schiphol Airportcity in Amsterdam, we can begin to understand how this might work, for in these locations one is encouraged to invest time and money, and to stay a while.

Developments of this type can complement sustainable urbanism, a theme taken up by Rapoport in Area. Her 2014 paper explores the actors who guide sustainable urban projects – the masterplanners – of large-scale programmes that create sustainable urban areas or ‘eco-cities’ from scratch. Rapoport identifies an elite group of international architecture, engineering and planning firms known as the global intelligence corps (GIC), and analyses their role in shaping an international model of sustainable urbanism. She unearths a rather standardised set of ideas for enhancing urban development that, she argues, creates a discourse defining what is unsustainable about current urbanisation patterns, and what solutions can and should be used in response (e.g. bus rapid transit, bicycle lanes, sustainable urban drainage systems, and renewable energy).

While sustainable urban projects such as Vauban in Freiburg, or the Bogotá and Curitibas bus rapid transit systems provide examples that GIC rate as ‘good practice’, Reading and Northampton might soon provide a template for visionary urban regeneration where the station is developed as a more sustainable and intricate part of contemporary urban living in Britain.

Rapoport, E. 2014 Globalising sustainable urbanism: the role of international masterplanners. Area. DOI: 10.1111/area.12079

Urban Planning: Rail ambition. The Economist (March 1st)

Northampton Station redevelopment

Accommodating Students: recent trends and the University of the Channel Islands

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by Fiona Ferbrache

Queen Margaret University Accommodation

Like many Channel Islanders, I attended university in the UK as there is no such establishment in the islands. Proposals are in place, however, to realise ‘The University of the Channel Islands in Guernsey’ – an institution that would eventually host up to 2,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students (from across the globe).

Accommodating students can be challenging anywhere, but the issues are often intensified on an island where space and land are at a premium. While there has been much positive feedback for the proposals, concerns have been raised over where students would live, and what impact they might have on the existing community. In a radio broadcast, Susan Jackson (Executive Project Director) commented: “we will be very careful about preserving Guernsey as it is now” and “we aim to insert ourselves delicately in all around existing structures”. These intentions differ to current trends of UK studentification, identified by Smith & Hubbard (2014), but I argue that this might be a key marketing perspective for the Islands’ University.

Providing an overview of student housing markets since the 1990s, Smith and Hubbard identify a shift from the integration of students within socially mixed neighbourhoods, to concentrations of student accommodation in purpose-built blocks, often on the margins of other social groups. This trend towards segregated living has had considerable consequences on social relations between students and longer-term residents.

In the case of Guernsey, there seems little inclination (or scope to build at the margins) to construct purpose-built student accommodation. Hence, it seems likely that students and existing populations will have to reside more closely. Although Smith and Hubbard note that students appear to like living apart, the opportunities for students to live among Islanders could be employed as a key marketing strategy for the University of the Channel Islands. Rather than a life apart, it might be an opportunity for students to interact with longer-term residents through daily encounters, and to the benefit of both groups.

BBC Radio Guernsey: Plans for a Channel Island University in Guernsey

Channel Island ‘well equipped’ for university students

The University of the Channel Islands in Guernsey – Vision statement

Smith, D. P. & Hubbard, P. 2014 The segregation of educated youth and dynamic geographies of studentification. Area. DOI: 10.1111/area.1205

Climate Change Adapatation: Greening Urban Environments

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by Fiona Ferbrache

Examples of green infrastructure from an exhibition entitled ‘La Ville Fertile’ (Gaillac, 2012)

What happened to your Christmas tree at the end of December? Did you recycle wrapping paper and Christmas cards? Perhaps you experienced some flooding from the severe weather during the festive season? This post explores environmental and climate change adaptation strategies – namely green infrastructure – but first a light-hearted piece of research with a festive theme.

In December, academics from Leeds University calculated Santa’s carbon footprint if he successfully delivered stockings to 7.7 million UK homes. Travelling roughly 1.5 million km, Santa’s carbon footprint would be equivalent to 9 tonnes per stocking (UK annual CO2 emissions are roughly 7 tonnes per person). Exploring less costly ways of delivering Christmas gifts, the scientists calculated that stockings arriving from China by container ship, and then to one’s home by van, would result in lower CO2 emissions at 800 grams per stocking.

We are asked to take environmental and climate change seriously, not least because without adequate adaptation, lives and landscapes may be put at risk. This point is made by Jones and Somper in an Early View article exploring how climate change adaptations in London are being integrated into the landscape. Their focus is on green infrastructure: “natural or semi-natural networks of green (soil-covered or vegetated) and blue (water-covered) spaces and corridors that maintain and enhance ecosystem services” (p.1), and how such spaces can be encouraged and used more effectively (e.g. the Green Roofs Scheme). Jones and Somper present some examples of existing measures towards green infrastructure in the capital, and also make three key recommendations for policymakers, highlighting, among them, the need for stronger planning initiatives to turn ideals into standard practice.

Next time you visit London, you might observe what measures have been taken towards furthering green infrastructure, and consider whether such strategies might be successful in your own hometown.

Greening Roofs and Walls in London, Greater London Authority

Jones, S. & Somper, C. 2013 The role of green infrastructure in climate change adaptation in London. The Geographical Journal. DOI: 10.1111/geoj.12059

Santa’s Emissions, United Bank of Carbon

“Are We Whistling in the Wind?”, Turner, B. 2012 Geography Directions 19 October

Glocal Finance: bounded forms of global financial capitalism

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By Fiona Ferbrache

Warehouses being built adjacent to airport runways may be used as ‘freeports’ to store valuable goods

Entrepôts, freeports, bonded warehouses… these terms refer to special economic zones in which regulations are relatively relaxed in comparison with those of surrounding jurisdictions. Such spaces are often part of international trading networks and may be analysed to gain insight to financial relations across and within bounded spaces.

Guernsey (Channel Islands) is one example of an historical entrepôt. During the 17th and 18th centuries, it developed a key role in Anglo-French trade in wine, spirits and tobacco. Not only was the island strategically located between France and England, but it was used by both countries, at different time, to reduce the costs of import/export. Today, Guernsey provides another example of a special economic zone through status as an offshore financial centre. The attractions of such spaces (security, tax advantages (relative to mainland jurisdictions) and confidentiality) are also found in a growing number of freeports.

Freeports refer to repositories at airports that are becoming increasingly popular places to store and trade valuable or luxury goods. You can read about them in a recent article from The Economist (2013). Goods may arrive by plane, be transported to freeport warehouse (literally alongside the runway), and then traded without incurring import or other taxation duties. This occurs partly because goods in freeports can be considered ‘in transit’ – neither ‘here’ nor ‘there’ (another interesting link for geographers might be how this connects with ‘mobilities’).

The Economist suggests that rising interest in freeports is entangled with global processes and regulations that have evolved since the start of the financial crisis. It is here that I wish to make a link with a new TIBG paper by Hendrike and Sidaway (2013), and their exploration of how the global financial crisis was mediated in one very specific place: Pforzheim, southwest Germany. Pforzheim is treated as a ‘glocal’ display of the crisis in which financial decisions were taken at the local level but complexly interlinked with broader processes and structures of financial capitalism. Through this study, Hendrike and Sidaway provide a symptomatic example of how the financial crisis was mediated through particular scales and polity.

It is not the intention here to present these spaces as negative or deviant, but as localised or ‘bounded spaces’ in an interconnected world. A commonality between entrepôts, freeports and Pforzheim, is the way in which global issues (such as the financial crisis or trade networks) are interpreted, negotiated and contested through bounded spaces; examination of which can inform out understanding or broader processes and structures.

Hendrikse, R.P. & Sidaway, J.D. 2013 Financial wizardry and the Golden City: tracking the financial crisis through Pforzheim, Germany. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. DOI: 10.1111/tran.12024

Aalbers, M. (2009) Geographies of the financial crisis. Area. 41(1): 34-42

Derudder, B., Hoyler, M. & Taylor, P. (2011) Goodbye Reykjavik: international banking centres and the global financial crisis. Area. 43(2): 173-182

The Economist (2013) Freeports: Uber-warehouses for the ultra-rich.

The New York Times (2012) Swiss Freeports are home for a growing treasury of art

Historical Geographies: creating geography in 18th century France

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by Fiona Ferbrache

Paul Vidal de la Blache (1845-1918) commands an especially important position in the history of modern geography, as the acknowledged ‘founding father’ of the French School of Human Geography.

This is how Howard (1986:174) introduces the man whose name is displayed on the road sign, illustrated on the right. Vidal de la Blache was born in Pézenas and one of the town’s main thoroughfares is named after the geographer (see earlier post on place-naming).

Vidal de la Blache’s Tableau de la Geographie de la France is perhaps his best known book, and his ideas on regional geography strongly shaped geographical paradigms at that time (see Baker 2002). However, we need to look further back than the Vidalian era to better understand the development of geography, both in France and more generally.

Heffernan’s article in TIBG provides this “deeper history” by exploring the scientific value of geography during the early 18th century “before the first geographical societies were established in Paris, Berlin and London” (p.1). He draws on archives and publications of the Paris Academy of Sciences to explain how geography became recognised as a science, particularly with the election of a specialist in geography in 1730 – Philippe Buache. Heffernan’s broader argument proposes this organisation as one of the key sites in which geography became defined, practised and produced in Europe (linking to the creation of scientific knowledge and epistemic formation). So how was geography defined at this time?

Geography emerged, as scientific practices such as cartographic survey were re-allocated from astronomy. This, Heffernan suggests, laid “the conceptual terrain on which the modern discipline would later be enacted” (p.9). The influence of Buache’s work in the mid 18th century (notably his 1752 memoire) is also said to have laid the path for political debates about the role of ‘natural’ regions to French administrative geography. These geographical ideas are perhaps linked to those that came later in the work of Vidal de la Blache.

Overall, Heffernan’s paper provides a deeper insight to the historical creation of geography as a recognised discipline.

Baker, A.R.H. 2002 Book Review: Le tableau de la géographie de la France de Paul Vidal de la Blache. Dans le labyrinthe des formes. Progress in Human Geography. 26:707

Heffernan, M. 2013 Geography and the Paris Academy of Sciences: politics and patronage in early 18th-century France. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. DOI: 10.1111/tran.12008

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