Indigenous Island Empires: Yap and Tonga Considered

The indigenous social‐political‐economic spheres whose nexuses were located, respectively, in Yap and Tonga, and which included adjacent islands and archipelagoes, are frequently referred to as ‘empires’. This work summarises and examines historical and ethnographic data on these two cases, and then compares them both with one another and with more general concepts of empire. While stressing that these instances only remotely resemble modern empires, it concludes that for broader comparative purposes the Yap and Tonga spheres can usefully be termed empires.     

The Geography of Air Transport in Australasia: a Global Perspective

The air transport industry world-wide is undergoing radical restructuring, largely driven by the effects of deregulation, enhanced competition and the general processes of globalisation in the world economy. The impacts of these changes vary spatially, however, as local and historical forces remain important in shaping the geography of air transport. This review has been prompted by the collection of papers on the geography of air transport published in a recent issue of Australian Geographical Studies. It seeks to explore the wider international context of these researches, using the Australasian experience to analyse the ways in which local factors interact with global processes to produce a complex mix of global similarities and regional particularities in air transport provision.     

China's Air Passenger Transport: An Analysis of Recent Trends

Two China-based transportation geographers examine trends and developments revealed by the release of the most recent official data on traffic and airport capacity within mainland China's domestic air passenger transport system. The focus of the study is the uneven spatial distribution of airports and airport service hinterlands, as well as the hierarchical nature of passenger flows centered within the axis Beijing-Shanghai-Guangzhou (Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are not included in the analysis). Among the questions investigated are the efficiency/balance within the system, as well as the extent to which the distribution of airports and air passenger flow volumes reflect basic patterns of economic and urban development within the country, and conform with a hub-and-spoke model. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L50, L93, O18, R40. 5 figures, 5 tables, 30 references.     

The quest for constitutional reform in Tonga

Tonga's constitution was originally a liberal, 19th century document that economically combined popular representation and aristocratic direction in a unicameral vehicle instead of the conventional bicameral legislature. Subsequent amendments strengthened the executive, and the greatest of all, in 1914, significantly reduced representation of both nobles and people. The configuration of power sharing has not changed despite numerous minor constitutional amendments since. There was no significant pressure for fundamental constitutional changes until the 1990s. Whereas earlier reforms were initiated by the executive, the modern reform movement comes from the people's representatives and a small group of supporters drawn from the foreign-educated sector. This pressure has been ignored by the executive, and commands insignificant support from the nobles. The dissatisfaction with the system of representation and the distribution of power arose from the exposure of lavish provisions for overtime payments for members of parliament. Earlier dissatisfaction with government over land tenure had no such result. The impotence of people's representatives was revealed and grievances became focused on the principle of accountability. Failure to make progress on this issue drew attention to the concentration of power by custom as well as law, in the hands of the executive. Reformists began to consider institutional ways of making government accountable. Unfocused talk of democracy coalesced into a series of formal conferences in 1992, 1998 and 1999, all of them dismissed by government. Undeterred, the reform movement became better organised and, in 2002, produced two discussion documents outlining alternative constitutions in an attempt to frame a solution that co-opts modernity without abandoning Tongan tradition. The conservatism of these proposals suggests that in modern politics, culture will continue to prevail over institutional rationality.     

The Global Flea Market: Migration,Remittances and the Informal Economy in Tonga

Some common assumptions about the form and use of migrants' remittances in the South Pacific are examined and questioned in the light of information from a micro-economic study of one group of remittance recipients in the flea market of Nuku'alofa, the capital of the Kingdom of Tonga. The findings of this study suggest that economic analysis and policy recommendations based on the existing macro-economic data on recorded remittances and other economic aggregates should be treated with caution. The unrecorded inflows of remittances in kind and the associated spread of the domestic informal sector have had some important implications for the functioning of Tonga's economy. There is some evidence to suggest that the growth of informal, international trade is fostering other significant changes in the domestic economy. The functioning of remittance-dependent economies such as Tonga is much more complex than existing economic analysis suggests, and involves substantial investment – not just consumption – with the emergence of entrepreneurs and the manipulation of dependence, rather than merely passive receipt of cash and expenditure focused on consumption.     

The Impact of Energy,Transport, and Trade on Air Pollution in China

A team of U.S.- and China-based geographers examines the relationship between China's economic development and its environment by modeling the effects of energy, transport, and trade on local air pollution emissions (sulfur dioxide and soot particulates) using the Environmental Kuznets model. Specifically, the latter model is investigated using spatial econometrics that take into account potential regional spillover effects from high-polluting neighbors. The analysis finds an inverted-U relationship for sulfur dioxide but a U-shaped curve for soot particulates. This suggests that soot particulates such as black carbon may pose a more serious environmental problem in China than sulfur dioxide. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: C50, F10, Q43, R40. 4 figures, 3 tables, 47 references.     

‘Traditional’ Healers,Speaking and Motivation in Vava'u,Tonga: Explaining Syncretism and Addressing Health Policy

ABSTRACT Bilateral health system development in Tonga is implicated in a misrepresentation of ‘traditional’ healing that has serious implications for the provision of health care. It has strengthened the tendency to homogenise and stereotype a diverse body of healers in counter distinction with biomedicine. The diversity of and syncretism in non‐biomedical local healing practice is little appreciated in policy debates. Addressing the epistemological, social and linguistic context of syncretism in terms sensitive to healers' concerns and conceptualisations is vital to build on the pre‐existing collaborations between health professionals and a diverse body of healers in a country that has experienced a marked shift from communicable to non‐communicable disorders. This paper examines the diversity and syncretism of five of the most popular ‘spirit’ healers in Vava'u, Tonga in terms suggested by healers themselves using the Tongan concept and value of tauhi vaha'a (to evoke and intensify relatedness) as an analytic tool. The creativity implied in healers' socially constitutive use of language with ancestors, relatives, patients, churches and the hospital questions the value of any notion of traditionality and suggests considerable grounds for collaboration.     

FACE TO FACE: Connecting proximity and Distance

'Face to face: Connecting proximity and distance', Eighth Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), Vienna, 8–12 September 2004     

Soft Transport Policies and Ground‐Level Ozone: An Evaluation of the “Clear the Air Challenge” in Salt Lake City

In recent years, communities have begun to implement both “soft” and mandatory policies designed to address worsening air quality. Voluntary or soft transportation policies have included air quality alert systems that encourage people not to drive on days when the air quality index is above a specified threshold and public education/action campaigns that focus on reducing automobile related travel. In this article, we evaluate the effectiveness of one such soft policy, the Clear the Air Challenge (CAC), in reducing ground‐level ozone during the Wasatch Front's summer ozone season. Using daily ozone data and color‐coded daily air quality designations from 2006 through 2012, we estimate a range of nonequivalent control group models. In only one of the models does the CAC generate a statistically significant but small reduction in ground‐level ozone. Future research should assess the full range of costs and benefits to the public associated with such soft transport policies.     

Distance Distributions and Trip Behavior in Defined Regions

This paper discusses applications of the statistical distribution of distances between random pairs of points in bounded regions. The existing literature on convex figures is first described, and applications of the analytically tractable distributions to point pattern analysis are given. New statistics are then introduced with applications in shape analysis and trip distribution studies. Finally a brief discussion is made of directional bias, and of alternative sampling rules and distance metrics.