On Dittmer's Popular Culture,Geopolitics, and Identity as a classroom resource

In this intervention, four geographers, all of whom have used Jason Dittmer's book, Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity, in their classes, assess its status as a teaching resource. All have had considerable success using Dittmer's book, alongside other resources, to cultivate critical thinking and critical knowledge production in a wide range of classes.     

Avoiding the “F” word: feminist geography in Iran

Abstract

Little attention has been given to how feminist geography is defined, applied, and taught in non-Anglophone countries, especially in Muslim majority societies where Women’s Rights are quite different from the western world. The case of Iran among other Middle Eastern countries becomes even more isolated due to the several political, linguistic, and cultural limitations opposed on Iranian academics and international collaborations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women make half of Iran’s 80 million population, 63% of university graduates, almost half of informal workers, 30% of Iranian professors, 13% of high level management position holders, and under 5% of the Islamic Majlis (Iran’s Parliament). However, feminist geography, the sub-discipline that has been traditionally dedicated to the inclusion of gender as an analytical lens within Geography, is not a recognized field at any departments in Iran. This essay aims to present the current status of feminist geographic research and teaching at selected Iranian Universities. My goal is to offer a better understanding of how the local social and political context affect what constitute feminist geographic work and how geographers navigate the political and hierarchal university systems to engage in gender studies. Through informal interviews via emails and Skype with several Iranian geographers, I illustrate why Iranian geographers often avoid using “feminist” terminology in recognizing their work, even though their work is feminist.     

近10年国际社会与文化地理研究的发展及启示——基于《Social and Cultural Geography》论文的统计分析

世纪交替之际\"批判\"社会地理学和新文化地理学不断得到发展和壮大。在这样的背景下,2000年《Social and Cultural Geography》杂志应运而生。经过10多年的发展,目前该杂志已成为展示国际社会和文化地理学术研究成果的重要窗口之一。本文对《Social and Cultural Geography》2000-2010年刊发的516篇论文进行统计分析,从载文量变化、研究案例地分布和研究领域的关注度等方面分析其特征,在此基础上,对期刊设立的22个研究议题进行了内容分析,以期为国内社会和文化地理学者把握国际最新研究趋势,提升自身研究水平、拓展研究新领域,以及加强与国际研究的融合和促进自身发展等提供借鉴。     

文化生态保护区建设的时间性和空间性研究

文化生态保护区建设是基于非物质文化遗产整体性特征,借鉴吸收西方文化生态学的理论,根据中国具体国情而实施的一项重要文化工程。对文化生态保护区建设的时间性和空间性予以综合探讨,既关乎学理,也是一个重要的现实实践问题。从时间性上来说,应尊重区域历史文化发展脉络、贴近民众当下生活,在当代生活时间中维护传统的连续性;从空间性上而言,应基于文化空间的完整性、行政管理的有效性而划定合理边界,并鼓励在维护文化特色的同时促进交流互鉴。文化生态保护的核心是人,文化生态保护区通过建设历史文化底蕴深厚、特色鲜明的自然人文空间,实现人与自然、人与社会、人与历史、人与自身关系的构建。     

公正价值理念下中国文化地理学的使命——文化地理学的价值“阶乘”观

本文系统地提出了后工业化阶段文化地理学应转向探讨文化区社会价值水平及其文明建构使命的观点。其理念可以称为文化地理学的价值“阶乘”观。首先,以社会科学的社会发展阶段与社会价值演进关系的立论出发,指出了空间社会价值耦合取向与构建社会空间文明的学科方向;第二,以哲学质性研究的推理出发,首次论述了哲学价值观下的文化地理学质性研究理念使命;第三,从哲学方法论与知识观角度,系统论证了文化地理学对文化空间文明的质性探讨。最后,以讨论的形式,提出文化地理学的哲学质性研究的学理与理论指向。     

文化锋面的地理学诠释

文化锋面是指两种不同特质的文化相遇所形成的文化过渡现象,是两种社会气团之间的交错带。文化锋面具有不均质性、动态性、复杂性和地域性等特点。根据成因、形态、要素和演化状况等标准,文化锋面可分为许多不同的类型。与文化过渡区(带)、文化边界(界面)等概念相比,文化锋面不仅形象通俗,而且表达准确,内涵丰富。文化锋面和传统文化地理学主题具有密切的联系,但又相互独立,其研究对文化地理学具有重大的理论与现实意义。     

‘The races and conditions of men’: women in nineteenth-century geography school texts in the United States

Geography schoolbooks published in the United States were important opinion makers in the nineteenth century, often joining the Bible as the main source of information about the world outside North America. The texts examined here are noteworthy for their static and pejorative treatment of non-American cultures and may be seen as playing a key role in forming isolationist and chauvinist American public opinion. They also played a role in reinforcing ideas about the proper niche for women in American society, even though it may seem at first that these books could not have had much influence on ideas about American women because they barely mentioned women, almost always relegating them to illustrations and captions. The few women depicted were usually characterized as ‘poor souls’ in distant lands worthy of pity. We discuss the national political context in which these writers (many of whom were women) were producing geography school texts, the social roles they were fulfilling by reinforcing such limited images of ‘foreign’ women, and the sources they may have used in their research. Furthermore, we demonstrate that much more could have been drawn ethnographically from the illustrations of women. The images of women in these geography schoolbooks reinforced the marginalization of women, particularly non-white and non-western women.     

新文化地理学视角下的女性主义地理学研究

在文化地理学研究向新文化地理学转向、女性主义运动蓬勃发展、女性主义理论在跨学科过程中日益完善的背景下,西方女性主义地理学从女性经验、性别权利、女性内部差异入手,提供了以女性主义视角分析地理学问题的新的发展领域,并发展出质疑与抵抗男性权威话语的学科范式。本文依循女性主义地理学中对身体、工作、空间和国家/民族等主要议题的探讨,梳理西方学者的研究进展,以期对本土研究提供有益借鉴。     

China and Geography in the 21st Century: A Cultural (Geographical) Revolution?

A noted Singapore-based cultural geographer and specialist on Asia reviews the recent emergence of cultural geographic research on and within China and the implications of China's rise for the study of 21st century cultural geography more broadly. She identifies six major issues modern China is confronting that, when addressed from a cultural geographical perspective, may both enhance an understanding of the country and reshape the practice of cultural geography as a subdiscipline: agricultural reform, economic reform, urban change, rural-urban migration and related social inequalities, the changing family structure, and environmental change. The author argues that if China's cultural geography is to help the subdiscipline at large develop a more international and inclusive approach, it must be driven by questions of significance in China, yield constructive answers of relevance to China, and at the same time derive theoretical ideas that diversify the collective geographical imagination.