Population geography

The author reviews recent research activities and policy-oriented studies that reflect the increasing concern of population geographers with population redistribution and related government policies     

Population geography

"This is the last of three reports discussing major avenues of progress in the alleviation of population geography's poor reputation. The first examined the route of policy-relevant research, the second considered the importance of sound scholarship and, as promised, this report will explore the part that can be played by improved communication and dissemination of our work...."     

Population geography

The author reviews current trends in the study of population geography and identifies a movement of the subdiscipline during the 1980s toward a possible redefinition as spatial demography. He then outlines the main research topics pursued by population geographers during this period. The geographical scope is worldwide.     

Population geography

This paper reviews the general patterns of demographic change, historical population geography and migration and works that were published during 1995-96. The review includes works of geographers, demographers, historians, and others, where there are clear geographical implications. The aim of the review is to show that population geography thrives and indicates some of the challenges it faces in the light of developments both in related areas of geography and beyond the discipline in, for example, demography and history. The paper begins by examining recent methodological and substantive trends in economic, social and cultural geography. Then, it demonstrates the relevance of demographic phenomena to those fields where they are largely ignored.     

Population geography

Population geographers are involved in contemporary policy issues, the production of quality work, and successful communication of research findings. This article reviewed some contributions population geographers have made to the understanding of the geographic impact of aging and the consequences of migration. Geographers have come late to the study of aging and have focused primarily on four main policy issues: 1) fertility decline, 2) housing demography, 3) aged patterns of housing and migration, and 4) government policy. Fertility decline research has highlighted information diffusion theories for fertility decline by researchers such as Zelinsky, Skeldon, and Noin. Changes in attitudes and the removal on constraints has been examined by Woods. Residential mobility studies have been the focus of researchers such as Gober, Moore, and Clark, and Myers. Regional labor markets and the movement of the "baby boom" through the life course have been examined by Miron, Plane and Rogerson, and Clout, who studied the empty nesters and the movement out of suburbia. Private residential housing has increased for the elderly in England and Wales (Hamnett and Mullings), and seasonal migration of Minnesotans results in lost sales revenues and high health and social costs for those too ill to travel (Craig). Geographers have not accomplished a significant thrust into the literature on demographic aging. Contributions to the transnational and international literature have resulted in internal migration studies by Clout on "counterurbanization" in northwestern industrial Europe, while Fielding, Baltensperger, Marchand and Scott, and Jones have examined the continuing rural-urban migration. The loss of urban population has been associated with inner city problems, the impact of labor supply and market demand, and the revenue and health care consequences in the work of Champion, Gibson, and Champion and Illeris, and Craig. Impacts are felt differently by geographic location, and assorted models have been developed for examining interregional migration. Population movement between countries will be a future major policy issue associated with disparities in development. The benefits and disadvantages of immigration have been examined. Refugee movements have been a neglected are of study.     

Population geography

The author reviews recent changes in population research from a geographical perspective. "The deaths in 1990 of two of France's most distinguished demographers, Alfred Sauvy (1899-1990) and Jean Bourgeois-Pichat (1912-90)...seem an appropriate starting point from which to review progress in population research in the early 1990s....Relative to the lifespans and works of Bourgeois-Pichat and Sauvy, it is possible to discern progress in population studies as a whole and population geography in particular. Advances in technical aspects of measuring mortality, fertility and migration have been most marked, as have attempts to inter-relate these demographic processes. Progress towards explanation of population-related phenomena has been slower. Advances have not been towards building more sophisticated general theories, but towards new and more insightful forms of explanation." The author then summarizes other research literature on fertility, migration, and population subgroups. The geographical scope is worldwide.     

Population geography

The status of population geography as a field of study in Australian universities is first discussed. The author then reviews studies on various aspects of Australian population geography, including fertility, mortality, international migration, internal migration, and the geography of aging populations.     

Gendering environmental geography

Despite sharing common interests in being advocates for social change, feminist and environmental geographers have yet to acknowledge interests they share in common. Environmental geographers, particularly those focused on policy and institutional analysis, have not embraced feminist theories or methodologies, while few feminist geographers have engaged issues associated with environmental policy-making. Our purpose is to initiate a dialogue about how linkages might be forged between feminist and environmental geography, particularly among Canadian environmental geographers working on institutional and policy analysis. We begin by illustrating that environmental geographers working on Canadian problems have neglected to introduce gender as an analytical category or feminist conceptual frameworks to guide their research. Second, we identify four feminist research approaches that should also be pursued in environmental geography. Third, we consider examples of how feminist perspectives might be incorporated in three themes of environmental geography: institutional and policy analysis, participatory environmental and management systems and alternative knowledge systems. Fourth, we consider two research frameworks—political ecology and environmental justice—and suggest that these may be useful starting points for integrating feminist analysis into environmental geography. Last, we summarise our suggestions for how future research of feminist and environmental geographers could benefit from a closer association.     

Restructuring physical geography

The tripartite division of physical geography into geomorphology, climatology and biogeography is still often quoted, but developments in the last two decades have resulted in restructuring of the discipline. Significant publications by physical geographers now occur dominantly in multidisciplinary rather than in core geography journals. Analysis of the contents of ten journals and of the submissions to the 1996 UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) demonstrate the current pre-eminence of two sub-disciplines: geomorphology with hydrology, and Quaternary environmental change. Complementing research in the sub-disciplines, six trends towards a more integrated physical geography are identified as indicators of restructuring that has already occurred. Three futures are suggested for physical geography. The first, the status quo, is thought to be unlikely. The second, the disappearance of physical geography into other disciplinary areas would leave holistic investigations to other disciplines and so is undesirable. Thus, the third alternative, a renaissance of a more integrated physical geography, provides the most likely future. It is supported by existing integrative trends, provides a natural sequel to reductionist specialization, reflects the strong identity for the geographical approach to the earth and environmental sciences and the spatio-analytical approach integrating deductive and inductive studies, and it focuses on human–environmental interactions that could have implications for geography as a whole.     

China's urban geography

"In this paper I seek to review recent work on Chinese urban geography and to appraise the development of China's urban geography as a field of study both inside and outside China. The temporal scope will span scholarship finished and published mainly during the 1980s." The focus is on works published in English. The author examines the primary topics of interest, methodologies and theories, and available sources of data.     

Reassessing Kant's geography

This article offers a critical reassessment of Immanuel Kant's lectures on Physische Geographie and his contribution to geographical thought more generally. There are a number of reasons why this reassessment is needed: the lectures are finally about to be published in English translation; careful philological work in German has exposed how corrupted the standard text of the lectures is; and philosophers are finally beginning to critically integrate an understanding of the Geography into their overall assessment of Kant's work. English speaking geographers will therefore soon have access to the lectures in a way that they have not done before, but they need to be aware both of the problems of the edition being translated and the work philosophers have undertaken on their situation in Kant's work and their impact. More broadly, the reassessment requires us to reconsider the position Kant occupies in the discipline of geography as a whole. The article examines the history of the lectures and their publication in some detail; discusses Kant's purpose in giving them; and looks at the way in which he structured geographical knowledge and understood its relation to history and philosophy. In terms of the broader focus particular attention is given to the topics of race and space. While these lectures are undoubtedly of largely historical interest, it is for precisely that reason that an examination of them and Kant's thought more generally is of relevance today to the history of the discipline of geography.