Less talk more drone: social research with UAVs

There is a growing body of work in geography and sociology on the impact of drones on warfare, surveillance and civil protest. This paper assesses the challenges of using drones for teaching human geography and spatial social sciences. Affordable and expensive drones are now available in the market place; however, there has been next to no reflection on how drones might impact upon the social sciences as a research tool. Yet, unmanned flying vehicles pose some profound possibilities for social and cultural inquiry and aerial data collection.     

Is Preservation In Situ an Unacceptable Option for Development Control? Can Monitoring Prove the Continued Preservation of Waterlogged Deposits?

Abstract

This paper will outline the approach taken for monitoring of two waterlogged areas in England: the multi-period deposits beneath the historic town of Nantwich, Cheshire, and the Bronze Age timber platform at Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire. These two examples allow contrast and comparison between urban and rural contexts, and between multiple ownerships and single development. The projects also illustrate how English planning guidance can be variously interpreted dependent on conflicting aims and objectives. The paper will describe the characteristics of the sites, their past history and present threats, and the suggested management strategies for each. The duration, spatial interval, and methods of monitoring (including use of in situ redox probes, Time Domain Reflectometry, sediment geochemistry, and water-level measurement) will be discussed, and how short-term data-gathering is actually what influences decision-making.     

Students as Tour Guides: Innovation in Fieldwork Assessment

This paper introduces and details an innovative mode of fieldcourse assessment in which students take on the role of tour guides to offer their lecturer and peers a themed, theoretically informed journey through the urban landscape of Havana, Cuba. Informed by notions of student-centred learning and mobile methods, the tour offers an enjoyable, challenging, rigorous yet flexible form of assessment that can be effectively transferred to a wide range of contexts. Feedback suggests that students are very positive about the tours in relation to other potential modes of assessment both in terms of what they learn and as an experience. Ongoing efforts to develop the tours since they were first used in 2003 are described.     

Intensities of Feeling: Towards a Spatial Politics of Affect

Abstract This paper attempts to take the politics of affect as not just incidental but central to the life of cities, given that cities are thought of as inhuman or transhuman entities and that politics is understood as a process of community without unity. It is in three main parts. The first part sets out the main approaches to affect that conform with this approach. The second part considers the ways in which the systematic engineering of affect has become central to the political life of Euro‐American cities, and why. The third part then sets out the different kinds of progressive politics that might become possible once affect is taken into account. There are some brief conclusions.     

论建立美术地理学之下的历史美术地理学

由于历史原因,与美术历史同样对揭示美术规律起重要作用的美术地理学至今尚未及时建立起来,因而目前在美术地理学之下首先确立历史美术地理学学科概念,并进行学科之下的实际研究,从而促进美术地理学的建立与完善,不但极为迫切而且切实可行。本文就历史美术地理学在美术地理学学科体系中的意义与地位、历史美术地理学的学科概念与性质、目的与任务、内容与时间断限、与相邻学科的关系、学科建立的学术基础与先期成果,以及进行历史美术地理研究的相关问题等诸方面作了相应的研究与探讨。     

Earning their keep: child workers at the Birmingham Asylum for the Infant Poor, 1797–1852

This article examines the attitudes of the Guardians of the Poor in Birmingham towards childhood and child labour from the end of the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. Utilising minutes of meetings for the Birmingham Asylum for the Infant Poor, it finds that children were removed from the workhouse to separate accommodation with workshops sited on the premises so that children as young as five years old could become economic contributors to their own welfare. It argues that over the course of five decades, pauper children made significant contributions to Birmingham finances.     

文化适应背景下留学生的日常行为空间特征——以英国伯明翰市中国留学生为例

空间是文化适应的反映与表征,跨文化的社会学现象呈现了“人-地”关联研究的特征与脉络。本文对英国伯明翰市的中国留学生进行了“文化适应”及“日常行为空间”等的相关调查,分析了该群体在居住、消费等行为的空间特征,并探讨了“文化适应”对“空间行为”的影响。主要结论为:(1)留学生浅层的文化适应限定了活动空间,居住和日常消费就近在大学周边,中国城则成为周末通勤中心,对“住区与学校—中国城”以外的空间感知模糊。(2)人群分异明显,英国文化越融入,越喜欢光顾英式的空间;中国文化越坚守,对中国城越依恋。(3)空间的隔离性与重叠性加剧了对英国文化的疏离。无论是对中国城的更新、还是对大学周边的拓展,政府都需要寻求国际化的城市空间管制途径,加快留学生的文化适应。     

青海乡村旅游的循环经济模式探析

本文在分析青海乡村旅游业发展现状的基础上,探讨了青海乡村旅游业发展的循环经济运行模式,并提出了一些实施的对策,以促进青海乡村旅游业的可持续发展。     

Teaching economic geography in UK higher education institutions

Abstract

This paper examines how the changes in the last decade in economic geography have been reflected in the courses taught in the UK and assesses the impact of recent changes in teaching styles and methods on how the subject is taught. It summarises the findings from a survey of 50 UK Geography Departments. The paper covers three main topics: the significance of economic geography in UK degrees courses; the characteristics of introductory economic geography courses; and the issues involved in the teaching of economic geography.     

Innovations of modern Chinese history studies since reform and opening-up

This paper reviews new developments in the study of modern Chinese history since 1979, especially key questions in modern Chinese history, together with innovations in content, structure and research methods. These new developments reflect the broadening of academic exchanges with foreign countries, the initiation of reforms, the influence of the modernization process, and far-reaching innovations in the discipline of modern Chinese history studies since the reform and opening-up of China.