Spatializing transnational history: European spaces and territories

This article introduces the dossier ‘Spatializing Transnational History: European spaces and territories’. It examines the intersections between transnational history and the so-called ‘spatial turn’ in social sciences, and points at future directions in historical research. It reviews two main different methodological approaches to the problem of space in transnational, comparative and global history and examines recent contributions on the history of territory. Finally, it introduces the contributions to this dossier, which approach the history of modern Europe from a number of transnational and spatial perspectives. The dossier argues that incorporating a combination of spatial approaches, ranging from the examination of transnational spaces, to the interplay between different scales of analysis, and to the historicization of territoriality, into the practice of transnational, comparative and global history may contribute to a deeper, wider and more complex understanding of ‘Europe’.     

The evolution of elite high-rise condominiums in India: from the global to the neo-colonial?

The article focuses on the neo-liberal model of elite residence in India—the high-rise, high-density condominium. The growing presence of this model as an expression of social mobility indicates the critical role played by this new housing type in relation to the socio-cultural transformations advanced by neo-liberalism. This article, then, is an architectural inquiry into this new residential type within the contemporary setting of globalisation. I employ the idea of physical and social thresholds as a conceptual tool to investigate the progress of this spatial and cultural typology, following its injection into the Indian architectural landscape. I explore the multiplicity of physical thresholds within its spatial planning as a signal of manifest social relationships of increasing complexity. The two case studies in the global node of Mumbai explored in this research represent the beginning and the peak of development of this gated housing type. The methods used include spatial analyses of the design of the condominiums, participant observation and a reading of marketing material. The findings reveal that what started as a global residential type devoid of socio-cultural overlays has now evolved into a residential form with deeply entrenched cultural hierarchies echoing many attributes of colonial elite-status building.     

Dividing Societies: The Socio‐Political Spatial Implications of Restructuring in Australia

This paper reviews trends over the last two to three decades in the socio‐economic divisions in Australia, focusing on their spatial dimensions. It provides empirical evidence that our society is dividing on multiple dimensions – including shifts in industry and occupational structure, income distribution, the incidence of poverty. And it demonstrates that the differentiations across space in socio‐economic phenomena also have complex multiple dimensions, which are explained inadequately by a ‘city/bush’ dichotomy popularly espoused by politicians and reported in the media. Processes of globalisation, economic restructuring and employment shifts, and changing patterns of population movement are combining to create stark differentials between places both within the major cities as well as in regional Australia. As demonstrated by the recent One Nation phenomenon, voter backlash is strong, and it too has specific spatial characteristics.     

Organising regional production networks in Southeast Asia: implications for production fragmentation, trade, and rules of origin

The globalisation of economic activities has fundamentally reshapedthe relationships between production and trade. The cross-borderproduction activities of transnational corporations (TNCs) havenot only deepened spatial divisions of labour, but also complicatedour understanding of international trade patterns. The developmentof intricate regional production networks by global corporationshas major implications for production fragmentation, internationaltrade, and rules of origin in the global economy. Empiricallygrounded in a study of regional production networks controlledby Singapore-based TNCs, this paper aims to make a modest contributionto the emerging literature on production fragmentation and rulesof origin. Based on an analysis of empirical data from a surveyof 63 parent Singapore-based manufacturing TNCs that have cross-borderoperations in Southeast Asia, I found that their spatial productionfragmentation is rather limited. Most of their Southeast Asiansubsidiaries cater to local markets, or manufacture components/partsfor the regional production facilities of their major globalcorporation customers. I also consider the implications forbusiness strategies and public policies in relation to productionfragmentation and rules of origin in Southeast Asia.     

技术、产业和地方:互联网的经济地理学

从技术与经济的角度入手,在已有的文献资料基础上,对互联网的经济地理学研究进展进行了总结和评述。互联网技术条件下,新空间的产生孕育了新地理学的浮现。文章从互联网的技术基础设施、数码空间区隔、互联网内容产业和电子商务等四个方面总结了互联网经济地理学的研究动态及主要观点。最后还重新审视了网络空间和地理空间之间的相互辨证关系,并提供了进一步研究的方向。     

A Socially Engaged Archaeology: Spatiality and Governance of Asylum Seekers in Ireland

This paper draws on Wobst’s concerns ideas of material culture, style and the implications of contemporary archaeology. In a socially engaged “archaeology of now”, I examine the spatiality and material culture of asylum seekers in Irish society as the Irish State governs and thus engineers their social and physical space. Housed in State-operated accommodation centers around the country, the spatial governance of asylum seekers in Ireland creates a structured, exclusionary transnational landscape of difference. The State thereby controls the movement, social borders, place, identity and social relations of asylum seekers in a newly global Ireland.     

McGuggenisation? National identity and globalisation in the Basque country

This paper examines recent debates about the globalisation of cities and regions through a discussion of the recent opening of a Guggenheim Foundation art gallery in Bilbao. Through an analysis of the political context surrounding the project, I aim to explore the role of cities as crucibles for the negotiation of globalisation, and in particular how this relates to national identity.In the paper I set out several layered narratives which try to capture the significance of this event for Basque political identity. After discussing issues of globalisation, political strategy and European territorial restructuring, I explore the following: first, the process of ‘McGuggenisation’ and its consonance with ideas of global cultural imperialism; second, the ‘indigenisation’ of the Guggenheim by the Basque political elite, a strategic engagement with globalisation; third, the contestation of the museum by particularist radicalism.In summary, the Guggenheim event is seen as a collision between Basque extremism, modernising ‘bourgeois regionalism’, and the interests of a museum poised to become a global art corporation, providing a context for examining theories of globalisation in the European city.     

媒介-空间辩证法:创意城市理论新解

本文采用思辨方法,以作者对现代城市空间的观察,以及"媒介物"和"媒介表征"在城市空间的渗透,作为出发点,探讨媒介与城市空间的辩证关系,增进有关媒介和城市及其相互作用的认识。文章指出媒介-空间辩证法的知识基础,来自于新兴交叉学科"媒介与传播地理学";然后对媒体的空间性和空间化过程及其在城市空间的具体表现和可能影响,进行了初步分析,建立了媒体与城市空间的交互分类体系;通过借用"媒介的物化"和"物的媒介化"思想,将媒体与城市空间的辩证关系,与创意城市的理论探讨相关联,指出媒介-城市空间辩证法对于创意城市的理论建构,具有重要的启发意义。     

Pilgrimage,devotional practices and the consumption of sacred places in ancient Egypt and contemporary Syria

Pilgrimages are often messy affairs, not only leaving all sorts of material detritus behind, but also in many cases severely damaging or even destroying the sites that are visited as part of journeys to a sacred place. As such, this immensely popular religious tradition constitutes a social practice that is deeply tied to the landscapes and places that are considered to be holy and thus principally worthy of preservation (at least by many definitions of heritage), but which also in many cases ultimately consumes them over time, sometimes in very direct ways that immediately affect their physical state. This paper explores the contemporary and historical dimensions of this paradox, and considers the wider implications of seemingly destructive uses of sacred space by investigating the social and religious significance of so-called ‘pilgrims’ gouges’ observable at numerous pilgrimage sites in the Eastern Mediterranean. It, thereby, sheds light on the connections between the religious experience of pilgrimage and the material consumption of sacred places by juxtaposing cases from contemporary Islamic Syria and ancient Egypt, providing a long-term perspective on the use and consumption of sacred places. Lastly, it discusses the potential ramifications of the gouges for current approaches to heritage management and conservation.     

Challenging the grammar of difference: Benoy Kumar Sarkar,global mobility and anti-imperialism around the First World War

The new imperial history has advanced our understanding of empires in many ways: it enhanced a networked interpretation of empires, brought space back into the discussion, and suggested a fresh reading of imperial careers to comprehend early forms of global inter-dependencies. This article discusses selected aspects of the life and work of Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887–1949), a Bengali social scientist and political activist, to illustrate that anti-imperial biographies were simultaneously rooted in local as well as transnational spaces. They thus connected national struggles with globe-spanning processes. Biographies like this are underacknowledged in their meaning for how empires functioned and failed, and in their potential for understanding transnational actors. Sarkar’s efforts to challenge the legitimacy of the British Empire were the result of his life in a transnational social field, which was equally shaped by his extensive experience abroad and his continuous rootedness in local Bengali affairs. Sarkar’s anti-imperialism was enhanced by the mobility structures of the British Empire and resulted in new constellations of imperial, cosmopolitan, local and regional orientations and attachments. In this view, anti-imperialism was less the result of local struggles but of life practices reaching beyond the borders of the empire and a high awareness of acting in a global context that located its protagonists in numerous social and spatial contexts.     

世界城市跨国空间研究的分野与合流

世界城市内部多种跨国要素作用形成的跨国空间已经成为一类新空间类型和客观存在。在跨国经济、跨国社会、跨国文化、跨国主义生活方式等跨国要素的交互作用下,跨国空间的形成发展、演绎逻辑表现出多样化分野。具体表现为：跨国空间在不同历史时期的分化、不同类型的差异以及全球化时代"资本"和"生活"的博弈,地方和空间的割裂与相互渗透等。在此基础上,对跨国空间的研究理念、形成机制和价值体系三方面却存在着合流的趋向,共同指向了全球化时代国家管治模式、自由主义生活方式以及软性制度的改革。     

Towards transnational feminist queer methodologies

This article introduces the possibilities of transnational feminist queer research as seeking to conceptualise the transnational as a methodology composed of a series of flows that can augment feminist and queer research. Transnational feminist queer methodologies can contest long-standing configurations of power between researcher and researched, subject and object, academics and activists across places, typically those which are embedded in the hierarchies of the Global North/Global South. Beginning with charting our roots in, and routes through, the diverse arenas of transnational, feminist, participatory and queer methodologies, the article uses a transcribed and edited conversation between members of the Liveable Lives research team in Kolkata and Brighton, to start an exploration of transnational feminist queer methodologies. Understanding the difficult, yet constructive moments of collaborative work and dialogue, we argue for engagements with the multiplicities of ‘many-many’ lives that recognise local specificities, and the complexities of lives within transnational research, avoiding creating a currency of comparison between places. We seek to work toward methodologies that take seriously the politics of place, namely by creating research that answers the same question in different places, using methods that are created in context and may not be ‘comparable’. Using a dialogue across the boundaries of activism/academia, as well as across geographical locations, the article contends that there are potentials, as well as challenges, in thinking ourselves through transnational research praxis. This seeks complexities and spatial nuances within as well as between places.     

Performing Guangzhou and Guangzhou Ren: analysing popular music in Guangzhou

The main purpose of this article is to examine the ways in which popular music in Guangzhou is implicated in the performance of places and identities, and how it is located in Guangzhou. Drawing on the qualitative methods of participant observation and interviews, this research analyses the popular music and musical performances in Guangzhou through three spatial dimensions: the place of Guangzhou, the performance venues and the human bodies. The findings of this research suggest that popular music in Guangzhou sets up the emotional communications and engenders different spaces for the participants to negotiate their embodied identities; popular music and musical performances make the connections between three spatial scales—the place of Guangzhou, the performance venues, and the human body—through its capacity of social mediation and the musical performances articulate the power relations between local residents, the local and national authorities, and the global. This research can be read as a contribution towards the wider literatures on musical performance and the exploration of doing/making place and place-based identity through popular music.     

En route to New York: diasporic networks and the reconfiguration of female entrepreneurship in Senegal

This article examines the influence of migration and transnational social networks on female entrepreneurship. It interrogates shifting patterns of market development, juxtaposed to the lure of new economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs located at the periphery, Senegal. I critically analyse how a distinct and classed category of Senegalese women entrepreneurs navigates international spaces and legal restrictions in attempts to launch profitable economic ventures in metropolitan centres such as New York City and negotiate new forms of representation and agency in contentious socio-economic spaces. By interrogating the complex interplay between women entrepreneurs and diasporic communities, I weave an often-missing gender perspective into the analysis of the emergence of female transnational entrepreneurship and diasporic social networks. This article demonstrates that diasporic social networks, transnational markets and spatial interconnections, while contributing to market revitalisation and expansion, are nonetheless fraught with tension. Diasporic social networks embody paradoxical positions. They represent an enabling economic transactional space, while embodying an informal social space that nonetheless remains sites of power struggles deeply embedded in gendered, sociocultural and economic dynamics that transfer from local to transnational contexts.     

Globalisation and Singaporean transmigration: re-imagining and negotiating national identity

Within the context of globalisation that confronts the world today, I aim in this paper to illustrate one particular state's attempts at constructing a `nation' amidst efforts to encourage its citizens to globalise, actions which are ostensibly, or at least, potentially, contradictory; and to analyse how these citizens who became transmigrants construct and negotiate their sense of `nation' and national identity. Specifically, my empirical questions centre on Singaporean transmigrants working in China. I ask the following questions. What happens to the sense of national identity among Singaporeans and their relationship with the `nation' when confronted with transnational conditions? What are the forces that impinge on the on-going construction of community and (re)construction of national identity amongst Singaporeans? What are the implications for a young state in its attempts at nation-building? This paper examines how the Singapore state continually attempts to establish the boundaries of the nation-state through hegemonic, policy and strategic actions. From the perspective of individuals, transnational location enhances their sense of national identity rather than its demise, leading to assertions of `Singaporeaness' and rootedness. I present empirical evidence that physical presence in a territory is not a necessary condition for a feeling of nationhood, and examine how Singaporeans maintain this sense of national identity through their everyday actions.     

Globalisation Lived Locally: A Labour Geography Perspective on Control,Conflict and Response among Workers in Kerala

Abstract: Supported by the labour geography framework, I analyse how spatial practices of labour shape the economic geography of capitalism, by looking into a model not at a global but at a very local scale of organisation and showing its effectiveness while confronting social actors organised at global or extra‐local scales. Questioning global stereotypes on economic responses to globalisation, I argue that labour becomes actively involved in the very process of globalisation and the expansion of capital, empirically demonstrating the relevance of this in the globalisation literature. I deal with one region—Kerala—and processes in its labour markets, taking the case of apparel workers in an export‐promoting industrial park.     

Reading fair trade: political ecological imaginary and the moral economy of fair trade foods

This paper begins to explore the changing political geographies of alternative development as practiced and envisioned in the global South. Looking specifically at the growing movement and market for fair trade foods, this form of alternative development has become the moral business of latte drinkers and other reflexive consumers in Europe and the US. Fair trade attempts to re-connect producers and consumers economically, politically, and psychologically through the creation of a transnational moral economy. This re-connection is accomplished through material and semiotic commoditization processes that produce fair trade commodities. The semiotic production of these commodities and their traffic in particular ‘political ecological imaginaries’ is essential to the formation of ethical production-consumption links, acting to also politicize consumption and fair trade eaters. Fair trade's moral economy rides the tension between the ethical relationships it fosters and the need for the wily characteristics of enterprise in the construction of transnational trade networks. Bringing recent work on moral geography to bear, constructing this moral economy is an attempt to facilitate a sense of ‘solidarity in difference’ in the experiences of global economic inequalities between North and South and growers and eaters. At the same time, fair trade networks look to produce an expansive ‘spatial dynamics of concern’ in the fashioning of ethical places of production and consumption. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the continuing dilemmas critical for fair trade and suggestions for further empirical study of fair trade provisioning and alternative development networks.     

Exploring patterns of movement suspension in pedestrian mobility

One of the main tasks in analyzing pedestrian movement is to detect places where pedestrians stop, as those places usually are associated with specific human activities, and they can allow us to understand pedestrian movement behavior. Very few approaches have been proposed to detect the locations of stops in positioning data sets, and they often are based on selecting the location of candidate stops as well as potential spatial and temporal thresholds according to different application requirements. However, these approaches are not suitable for analyzing the slow movement of pedestrians where the inaccuracy of a nondifferential global positioning system commonly used for movement tracking is so significant that it can hinder the selection of adequate thresholds. In this article, we propose an exploratory statistical approach to detect patterns of movement suspension using a local indicator of spatial association (LISA) in a vector space representation. Two different positioning data sets are used to evaluate our approach in terms of exploring movement suspension patterns that can be related to different landscapes: players of an urban outdoor mobile game and visitors of a natural park. The results of both experiments show that patterns of movement suspension were located at places such as checkpoints in the game and different attractions and facilities in the park. Based on these results, we conclude that using LISA is a reliable approach for exploring movement suspension patterns that represent the places where the movement of pedestrians is temporally suspended by physical restrictions (e.g., checkpoints of a mobile game and the route choosing points of a park).     

世界城市全球化空间的演变与重塑模式——以柏林波茨坦广场为例

全球化空间的产生与发展是世界城市以及发展中的世界城市具有普遍意义的空间议题。运用问卷分析、半结构访谈及文本分析相互佐证的数据,借助三角验证法,对柏林波茨坦广场全球化空间的形成动力与影响因素进行了系统研究。研究表明：①柏林波茨坦广场全球化空间形成的核心动力是跨国政治的作用,以一种历史层累的模式,不断杂糅、混合进生产性服务业集聚的经济动力和世界性艺术文化设施集聚的文化动力。②不同时期全球政治局势、国家及城市发展历史、政府作用、城市重建是波茨坦广场全球化空间形成的影响因素。这些因素在不同历史时期作用于波茨坦广场,综合了跨国政治、跨国经济、跨国文化的空间形态要素,引发波茨坦广场数次地景变迁与功能重组,最终形成了世界上“独一无二”的全球化空间。③波茨坦广场的重建是其全球化空间重塑的关键环节,其空间重塑模式为由单一要素主导转向多种要素融合的国家主导发展模式。对中国世界城市全球化空间的建设与治理具有启示作用。     

Towards the Relational Construction of Militant Particularisms: Or Why the Geographies of Past Struggles Matter for Resistance to Neoliberal Globalisation

This paper argues that rejecting a bounded notion of past struggles can generate stories that resonate with the diverse and spatially stretched resistances to neoliberal globalisation. It explores some of the routes and connections which made up subaltern struggles in eighteenth‐century London. It uses these stories to position militant particularisms as mobile, as the product of interrelations and as actively negotiating spatial relations rather than as fixed, bounded, origins of political struggles. The final section of the paper uses this re‐imagining of militant particularisms to address key tensions in counter‐globalisation politics. The paper argues that choices between local or global resistance are false and destructive of political possibilities. It contends that connections between different place‐located struggles are crucial to opposing exclusionary nationalist oppositions to globalisation.