Knowledge Transfer at the Research–Policy Interface: The Geography Postgraduates' Experiences of Collaborative Studentships

The need for effective knowledge transfer has been well documented; however, few narratives reflect on postgraduates as brokers of knowledge when participating in collaborative studentships. This paper reports on the authors' experiences of undertaking Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Scottish Government (SG) collaborative PhD studentships in geography, a new studentship which trains doctoral students to be employable in both academe and government. Particular focus is given to the experiences related to an annual month-long SG placement, which increases opportunities for knowledge transfer by engendering a deeper awareness of the needs of all partners. It concludes by considering what the experiences offer to the PhD process, authors' future prospects, and the issue of knowledge transfer more broadly.     

Reflections on the ESRC internship scheme for postgraduates

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the UK is one of the main sources of funding for postgraduate study in human geography. For some years now, the ESRC has offered funded students the opportunity to apply to undertake a short internship in a government department or with a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). This paper provides a collective reflection from the perspective of four former postgraduates who completed different ESRC supported internships in the UK. We discuss the enhancement of writing skills for diverse audiences, the advancement of knowledge in diverse subject areas, and the opening up of employment opportunities as key benefits of participating in the ESRC internship scheme.     

Lost in Translation: Cross-Cultural Experiences in Teaching Geo-Genealogy

This paper reports on a cross-cultural outreach activity of the current UK ‘Spatial Literacy in Teaching’ (SPLINT) Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), a past UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant, and shared interests in family names between Japanese and UK academics. It describes a pedagogic programme developed for Japanese postgraduates and advanced undergraduates that entailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the spatial distributions of Japanese family names. The authors describe some specific semantic, procedural and theoretical issues and, more generally, suggest how names analysis provides a common framework for engaging student interest in GIS.     

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND ANALYZING ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOUR

Encouraging environmental action by citizens in developed nations has become a major priority for governments who are seeking to reach environmental targets by exhorting individuals to participate in a range of behaviours to ameliorate the negative impact of their lifestyles. Such activities conventionally include energy saving, water conservation, waste management and forms of ‘green’ consumption. Current policy discourses are focused around a linear model of behaviour, which assumes that an awareness of environmental problems and knowledge of how to tackle them will lead to individual ameliorative actions. This paper explores these assumptions by applying a previously developed conceptual framework (Barr et al. 2001) to a range of environmental actions, to show how a variety of different factors influence environmental action. Using data from a major (UK) Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded research project in Devon, United Kingdom, data on environmental actions collected during the project are interrogated to uncover the relationships between environmental actions and how these are influenced by values, personal situations and attitudes. The research demonstrates that environmental action is structured around people's everyday lifestyles (rather than a compartmentalized notion of behaviour) and that these have radically different antecedents.     

Creating Critical Mass of Research Excellence in the Region: The Case of Scottish Research Pooling Initiatives

This article examines the recent development of, and policy rationale for “research pooling” initiatives in Scotland. Research pooling initiatives have been started with financial support from the Scottish Funding Council in order to form inter-organizational “international critical mass” of research excellence at universities at the regional level. This article examines the development of university cooperations at the regional level as vehicles for obtaining “strategic resources”. Then the “multi-level governance” structure of research pooling is explored in light of the future development of a Scottish regional innovation system (RIS). Particular attention is drawn to challenges concerning knowledge transfer, which is critical in integrating research pooling initiatives in the development of RIS in Scotland.     

News and Short Contributions

Abstract

A Controlled Archaeological Test Site (CATS) facility has been constructed in Champaign, Illinois, by the Cultural Resources Research Center at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, with funding provided by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training. The test site will be utilized for research and training with geophysical applications in archaeology. The CATS facility replicates a range of archaeological features commonly encountered in North American archaeological sites and offers a controlled environment for the application of non-destructive investigative techniques. The site provides the opportunity for geophysicists and archaeologists to work with features of known geophysical attributes in a controlled geomorphological setting. In addition to providing a controlled “test bed” for training students in the use of geophysical techniques, the CATS facility will be available for research in a broad range of problems associated with archaeogeophysics, such as the effects of environmental conditions on geophysical expression, sensor type and configuration, data sample density, image processing and pattern recognition, operator variation, and feature variability. This research will contribute to our ability to interpret geophysical data and refine field methods for application in archaeological investigations.     

'A field for private members': The Wolfenden committee and Scottish homosexual law reform, 1950-67

The proceedings and report of the Wolfenden Committee on Prostitution and Homosexual Offences (1954-7) figure prominently in the historiography of homosexuality in later twentieth-century Britain. However, in the main, research has centred on the social politics of the Committee and its implications for sexual law reform in England, and there is a notable lack of regional studies. Using a range of government archives, this article focuses on the written and oral evidence of Scottish witnesses to the Committee. It documents the pre-existing legal and medical provisions for the treatment of 'homosexual offences' in Scotland, and surveys the Scottish evidence for and against the decriminalization of homosexual practices. Thereafter, it examines the views of the Scottish members of the Committee in the context of the Wolfenden Report. The article then surveys the wide-ranging opposition to homosexual law reform within Scotland in the period 1957-67, culminating in its exclusion from the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. Finally, it evaluates the implications of the Scottish experience and concludes that, in some important respects, it does not conform to the innovative and transitional picture advanced in many previous interpretations of the Wolfenden Committee and its aftermath.     

Remnants of Scottish stone architecture in Nova Scotia

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, thousands of Scottish emigrants travelled to Canada. This paper concerns those buildings that were designed and constructed by Scottish settlers, utilising skills and materials transported from their homeland. The research concerns the extent to which buildings of those early generations of settler might still be intact, with specific reference to selected case studies from Nova Scotia. One is faced with still intact examples of Scottish architectural heritage, located thousands of miles from Scotland. This has interesting and important implications for the manner in which we value, care for and understand meaning within the built heritage.     

The making of classical Edinburgh: A review

The proposed Scottish Environmental Protection Agency is one mechanism by which Government is seeking to put into practice the principles of sustainable development. This is an acknowledgement in part that to effect sustainable development demands innovative policies and institutional arrangements. The paper sets out the nature of the existing and administrative and regulatory arrangements for environmental protection and pollution in Scotland. The established administrative hierarchy of individual bodies, responsibilities, functions and powers provides the context within which the proposed agency will operate. The article reviews the distinctive structure and remit of the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and considers the advantages and disadvantages of creating a centralised, independent organisation.     

The Scottish national Antarctic expedition (1902–04) and the founding of Base Orcadas

The history of the establishment of the scientific research station on Laurie Island, South Orkney Islands, is recounted. Its founding by the Scottish National Antarctic (Scotia) Expedition (1902–04) and the subsequent operation by Argentina resulted in it becoming the first all‐year‐round permanently‐staffed research facility in Antarctica. The networks of government and non‐government personnel involved in the rivalry between British and Scottish interests and aspirations and the transfer of the Laurie Island facility from the Scottish expedition to Argentine government control are investigated. The narrative is set against the background of the centennial celebrations of that transfer.     

Rational Religion: Economic Patterns in Old Testament Thought

By tracing institutional and constitutional economic patterns to Old Testament thought, the thesis of a rational economic dimension of the biblical text can be advanced and the actual nature and substance of religion can be conceptualised in economic terms. Here the paper questions the widespread assumption that religion will be radically different from modern ethics (“economics as ethics”) in the tradition of the Scottish Enlightenment. In this regard the paper specifically addresses the call for a concept of “rational religion” as early on identified by Smith but contests the explicit claims of Smith or modern institutional economists like Buchanan that a concept of rational religion or “economics as ethics” necessarily is separated from the Bible. An institutional economic theory of Old Testament-based religion is proposed through a set of four theses. On the basis of these arguments, the paper outlines why Old Testament-based religion still has and could have a persistent and pervasive influence in contemporary, capitalist society.     

The evolution of the high plateau of brazil

Abstract

It has been claimed that geography journals located in so-called ‘small nations’ face special challenges. This paper suggests that three processes have demanded rapid responses from all geographical journals: globalisation of research-publishing, changing professional practices and the restructuring of the institutional context within which research is undertaken. These processes have been powerful in re-shaping geographical research. Examining the case of Scottish Geography over the last 20 years, the paper concludes there is much to be optimistic about, even though some might regret that ‘Geography’, as we once knew it, no longer exists. Recognising the challenges of the current research environment provides a useful starting point for the Scottish Geographical Journal to chart a new future for itself and for Scottish geographical endeavours.     

Scottish Rights and ‘Centralisation’ in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Abstract. This article will address the assumption that the essential definition of nationalism is parliamentary political. By highlighting the solitary Scottish nationalist movement in the mid-nineteenth century, the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights, this article asks whether a ‘centralised’ state for the Scottish nation should be the model against which nationalism is interpreted. By developing the concept of ‘civil society’ as both ‘container’ and ‘director’ of nationalism, this article will show the influence of a ‘decentralised’ state to conceptions of ‘best-governing’. By stressing the contradictions in the legitimacy of the British state mid-century, it will be argued that Scottish nationalism can not be regarded as merely romantic, nor, as its outcome, can Scottish culture be presented as somehow weak. This article will argue that intellectual thought regarding the state meant that the only form of nationalism at this time was ‘Unionist-nationalism’, more union with England, not less.     

Nationalism,party political discourse and Scottish independence: comparing discursive visions of Scotland's constitutional status

This article critically examines the predominant narratives which emanated from party political discourse in relation to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Utilising a methodological approach centring on political discourse analysis (Fairclough and Fairclough 2012), this paper analyses party manifestos and constitutional policy documents produced by the three largest political parties represented in the Scottish Parliament, namely, the pro‐independence Scottish National Party, and two pro‐union parties, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. The emergent discourse of each party is interrogated by drawing upon pertinent theoretical concepts from previous academic analyses of Scottish nationalism, with particular attention given to those which have deployed modernist and ethnosymbolist theoretical approaches when analysing the Scottish context. This facilitates a critical reflection on the contrasting and nuanced narratives of the Scottish nation's past and future espoused by each political party vis‐à‐vis modernist and ethnosymbolist theory, illustrating the ways in which contrasting theorisations of nationalism are empirically tangible within political discourse and are thus not simply theoretical abstractions.     

Explaining accommodation and resistance to demands for independence referendums in the UK and Spain

This article examines why the UK Government accepted the 2014 Scottish independence referendum while the Spanish Government opposes a similar referendum in Catalonia. Adopting a most similar research design, we argue that the variation is best explained by perceived political opportunities by the two ruling parties. These are embedded in different conceptions of the state and constitutional designs, mostly mononational in Spain and mostly plurinational in the UK but multiple and contested in both cases. In Spain, vote‐seeking calculations incentivise the Popular Party to oppose a referendum, while its mononational conception of the state and the Spanish constitutional design provide a further constraint and a discursive justification for their position. In the UK, David Cameron's accommodating position was based on the view that the Scottish referendum was low risk – as support for independence was minimal – with a high reward: the annihilation of the independence demand. The Conservatives have recently adopted a more restrictive position because seeming political advantage has changed. The findings suggest that independence referendums will continue to be rare events.     

“Where Can a Gypsy Stop?” Rethinking Mobility in Scotland

Abstract: This article examines mobile practices of Scottish Gypsy/Travellers and analyses how their mobility affects their socio‐spatial access to participation within Scottish society. It explores how different representations of mobility set up boundaries and limitations on travel, unravels everyday practices of mobility by Gypsy Travellers and discusses their embeddedness within Scottish society and culture. The discussion draws on empirical research results to assess attempts to accommodate mobile practices of Travellers within existing structures of political and economic organisation. It exposes dominant “punctual” understanding of movement, which lacks information about what happens during the move and overlooks important elements of ambulant lifestyles. Findings from this study suggest that formalised definitions of travel privilege specific forms of mobility to the neglect of the others and serve to perpetuate the marginalised identities of itinerant people. The paper concludes with theoretically informed observations about the new ways of re‐connecting policies tackling disadvantage with mobility.     

An International Scottish Historical Archaeology?

This paper serves as an introduction to the special edition of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology on the theme of Scottish historical archaeology in its international context. The introduction aims to provide a context for the individual papers in the collection by briefly outlining some of the main characteristics of Scottish historical archaeology—as it has developed in the past, as it is at present and as it might develop in the future. The paper also discusses the ambiguous relationship between Scottish historical archaeology and wider historical archaeology.     

Mankind and its Histories: William Robertson,Georg Forster,and a Late Eighteenth-Century German Debate

The Scottish historian William Robertson's works on European encounter with non-European civilizations (History of America, 1777; Historical Disquisition […] of India, 1791) received a great deal of attention in contemporary Germany. Through correspondence with Robertson, as well as by reviewing and translating his texts, Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg took an active part in this process. The younger Forster also became simultaneously involved in a debate which was unfolding on the German intellectual scene concerning the different or equal “value” (Wert) of the various “races of mankind” (Menschenrassen), engaging especially the relevant views advanced by the Göttingen historian Christoph Meiners and Immanuel Kant. The debate was firmly embedded in the context of an emerging ‘science of man’ in the German Enlightenment, to which Forster contributed an almost incomparable richness of empirical knowledge as well as theoretical sophistication. Forster's direct engagement with Robertson's work during the same period (mid-1780s to the early 1790s) creates a context through which the Wissenschaft vom Menschen in the Aufklärung and the Scottish version of the science of man – built on the neighbour disciplines to which Robertson's historiography was crucially indebted – is set in an interesting comparative light. This paper, part of a comprehensive project tracing the German reception of Robertson as an instance of inter-cultural exchange in the Enlightenment, will exploit the opportunities presented by one particular and documented case for a general comparison of enlightened ‘sciences of man’.     

THE FORMATION OF “TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNITIES”

This article will explore the multicultural challenges resulting from increasing numbers of migrant workers and foreign (non‐Chinese) brides in Taiwan, and discuss how such outside cultural influences create new forms of cultural expression, identity and citizenship. It will further describe experiences and present theories specific to Taiwan’s experience. Research on “transnational communities” is fairly advanced in Taiwan. “Transnational communities” in Taiwan are expected to “assimilate” quickly into mainstream Taiwanese society, and personal cultural needs and influences are largely ignored. These communities continue to remain isolated from mainstream Taiwanese society, thus making them “invisible” to society as a whole. Therefore, this research hopes to encourage research into “transnational communities” within the field of cultural policy studies and provide a basic picture of the cultural influence and development of these communities in Taiwan.