The Duplicity of Space: Germanic 'Raum' and Swedish 'Rum' in English Language Geographical Discourse

The modern definition of geography as the science of 'space' derives in important measure, it will be argued, from the Germanic concept of Raum . The implications of the importation of this concept into English are masked, however, by its translation as 'space', an English word with very different connotations from the German Raum . Whereas the English space is conceptually distinct from place, Raum has a double meaning, combining elements of both space and place. This doubleness becomes duplicitous when Raum is transmogrified into the English space, thereby blurring the distinction; allowing space to appropriate the meaning of place. The problem is further complicated by the fact that this process of transmogrification occurred largely via contact with Swedish geography–in which rum is cognate to the German Raum . Geography, this essay concludes, would do well to apply the same reflexive critique to its concept of space as it has applied, with great success, to landscape , a Germanic concept that can also refer to both place and space.     

Tailored for Panama: Offshore Banking at the Crossroads of the Americas

With the steady integration of a deregulated world of hypermobile capital, offshore banking has become an increasingly significant part of the geography of international finance. Many interpretations tend to treat offshore banking centres as identical sites of investment that can be easily substituted for one another by completely mobile, fungible capital. This paper explores the nature of offshore banking in one largely overlooked centre, Panama. It charts the historic context that led to the creation of Latin America's most important centre of international banking, emphasizing the unique qualities that stand in contrast to hyperglobalist interpretations, including the Canal and the role of the US dollar. Second, it summarizes the regulatory changes initiated in the face of global neoliberalism, including the absence of a central bank and recent reforms designed to attract foreign capital. Using primary and secondary data, the paper maps Panama's growing role as a net capital exporter, charting domestic and foreign loan markets. Finally, it also addresses the trade–offs between confidentiality, and transparency in the context of illicit activities frequently alleged to occur in offshore banking centres, which in Panama revolve around drug trafficking and money laundering. It concludes by noting that even in an ostensibly seamless world, offshore banking exhibits the place–based embeddedness of financial capital within local institutional relations.     

To whom,and for whom,must I respond? Negotiating responsibility during the last years of East German state socialism

This paper reconsiders the practice of responsibility during the last years of East German state socialism. It treats the matter of responsibility as a kind of dialogue, attending to the various ways in which people were called upon to respond to and account for their actions and those of others across a range of circumstances and predicaments. It addresses several basic questions, among them: What did the ordinary practice of responsibility look like in the East? How did this requirement to respond to and for others affect the arrangements of ordinary living? More specifically, how did the practice of responsibility work out geographically? The approach taken here is both practical and analytic. It attends to the practical and constitutive aspects of dilemmas of responsibility across a range of situations. It is also historical and ethnographic, based on the city and district of Rostock, and drawing upon a range of primary source materials, from security reports to interviews to sermons delivered during the 1980s. The paper shows some of the ways in which the practice of responsibility played itself out in relation to place. For example, residents themselves invoked a rhetoric of responsibility, criticizing local officials for being unresponsive or indifferent to their concerns. Others found ways to generate ambiguity about how the rules of the state were to be applied in particular circumstances. Finally, some residents simply refused to socialize and otherwise assume responsibility for certain others both at work and at home.     

Shared places,unshared identities: vernacular discourses and spatialised constructions of identity in the linguistic landscape of Trieste

Language as it appears in the public space is at the centre of investigations into linguistic landscapes. Language agents immersed in a given geo-historical context contribute to the construction of spatialised meaning and to the transformation of space into place. The visibility of a language in a linguistic landscape does not just index a reality, i.e. the use of one or more languages within a community, but contributes to the symbolic construction of a given space. The current study aims to investigate the peculiarities of place-making and -marking of the Slovenian-speaking community in the area of Trieste via an analysis of written signs displaying the minority language. The paper will show that the tension resulting from achieved equality in the legal status of Slovenian and the perception of unequal power relations between different ethnic groups is reproduced in the construction of the local linguistic landscape. The final part of the discussion will suggest that public use of the Slovenian language is central to the performance of a material border.     

旅游地景与地方的关联机理初探——基于空间与文化的交汇视角

对landscape旅游景观的判读传统由来已久。文章对landscape同源异形的景观与地景两种译法进行了比较,区分了旅游景观与旅游地景的异同,并将旅游地景分为"成为的"旅游地景、"再造的"旅游地景和"创造的"旅游地景。选用地景主要是考虑对其原意的尊重、强调土地在中华文明中的重要地位及重视其传导的地方性信息。研究从有形的空间与无形的文化相交汇的视角来探讨旅游地景与地方的关联机理,认为空间视角下的旅游地景与地方是"依附中的割裂"关系,文化视角下的地方与旅游地景则呈现出"渗透下的不可控"的关系。研究提出了处理旅游地景与地方关系的理想模式,即由多方均衡参与的基础支持和内外融合的策略来实现神形兼备的目标的全方位一体化融入模式。     

历史层累视角下的地方形成机制探讨——以北京东高村镇为例

在工业空间的演替过程中,地方是如何形成的?这是地理学探究的问题。本文结合多琳·梅西地方历史层累理论,以北京平谷东高村镇为例,采用访谈方法,调查当地不同时期和同时期内各种动力对该镇地方性的影响。结论表明:资本作用和提琴技艺传承的能动性是决定东高村镇是否保持地方性的关键。本文认为:第一,一个地方历史层累的过程可以视为资本在当地的积累过程。第二,经济层与文化层的互动,以及多元主体的进入,使得原本不构成地方性的制琴技艺,试图转化成为地方性知识传承创新系统。第三,地方还由层内不同行动者与资本结构的博弈产生,一旦行动者无法突破资本结构的束缚,将导致地方性削弱。     

Remembering the making of Gender,Place and Culture

Separately and together we offer our memories of how Gender, Place and Culture came into being. In so doing we seek to make available the kind of histories that often remain hidden from view. At the same time we illustrate the fallibility of memory and the conditions of possibility that frame what we can narrate.     

POLITICS OF BEING‐RELATED: ON ONTO‐TOPOLOGIES AND “COMING EVENTS”

This article grows from a discontent with the equation of topology to relational thinking in the recent geographical literature operating under the rubric of post‐mathematical topology. In order to find a more subtle way for comprehending topology, the article shows that there exists an entirely different tradition of topological thought, which is explicitly connected to the problematic around the notion of ontology. An alternative approach is suggested, where not only the relational constitution of topology is properly taken into account, but where an in‐depth reading of the ontological aspect is offered. Instead of fabricating another “ontology of topology”, the article argues that it is the ontology itself, which takes place topologically, that is, it is place‐bound. By relying on Heidegger's insight about the bond between place (topos) and being (ontology), the article proposes an approach that is concentrated on the manifold modes through which topological relations are ontologically revealed, ordered, and defined. It acknowledges three topological tensions – thing‐gathering, gathering‐revealing, and concealing‐revealing – in order to highlight the structure of the place in which the question of ontology, and ontological politics are entwined.     

我们说什么?我们对谁去说?——在美国地理学家协会1987年年会上的讲话

地理学家的演讲与他们运用文字、图象所作的交流同样值得重视.美国的地理学可以通过下述途径得到加强,即围绕地点、地区和全球联系发展实质性演讲,促进自然地理的发展,恢复地理生态的传统.地理信息系统(geographic information systems)对于完成上述任务,对于改进地理学科以满足不断出现的需要,将是一个非常有用的工具.如果我们能够避免自己拆自己的台,避免不现实的空想,避免玩弄语言技巧,而是坚持在大学里进行高质量的教学,并在教师和从事地理实践工作的人员之间开展学术交流,那么地理学将会变得更加有效.我们有一个前所未有的机会来帮助改进美国的中小学地理教育.     

广东地名语言文化空间结构及景观特征分析

作为语言符号,地名是人类群体活动、经济开发和区域文化进程中的集中体现。广东地名层从语种上明显可以分为三个层次:古越语地名层、地方方言地名层和全国通用语地名层。从时间上看,唐代以前,广东地名基本上属古越语时期,宋至明和清前期为南方方言地名时期,清末以来为北方书面语地名时期;从空间上看,广东地方方言地名层大抵在宋代已基本形成,清代最终形成粤方言、客家方言和福佬语地名文化景观三分广东的空间分布格局,粤方言地名层主要集中于珠三角及邻近地名,客家方言地名层位于北江和东江间的广大山区、丘陵地带,粤东韩江地区则多是福佬地名文化层;从形成原因分析,广东地名层主要归究于历史时期移民、区域人内口繁衍和土地大规模开发,加之人地矛盾日渐突出又为族群地名文化扩散提供了条件,而社会制度的发展和健全,最终成为广东地名层语言文化景观形成的重要机制     

HISTORY AND INCOMPLETENESS

Vera Schwarcz's Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden examines the moral, philosophical, and historical meanings of a garden built by a Manchu Chinese prince, subsequently destroyed by British imperialists, commandeered by Red Guard radicals, and finally transformed into the grounds of an art museum. Reading Singing Crane Garden in the context of Schwarcz's previous writings on Chinese intellectuals and Jewish traditions, as well as insights provided by critical philosophers and geographers, this essay explores the moral and ethical dimensions of locating history in specific "emplacements". The argument begins by examining the phenomenology of place articulated by Edward Casey, weaves through discussions of Chinese spatiality, embodiment, and garden aesthetics, and comments on Schwarcz's study of broken monuments and stele through comparisons with Classical Chinese writers and the contemporary American poet Louise Glück. Comparisons are made between the destruction of the garden by the British forces of James Elgin, the murder of the journalist Thomas Bowlby, and the purging, imprisonment, torture, and brutality against scholars and intellectuals by the Red Guards under Mao. The essay closes with commentaries on Schwarcz's reflections concerning continuing global atrocities, and new insights into the ways that understanding landscape architecture as a form of history can bring meaning to questions of memory, loss, and the desire to evoke unrecoverable experiences.     

段义孚的地方空间思想研究

地方与空间思想是段义孚人文主义地理学的核心,以人的生存为旨归,从人的感官、感情、美学的多重维度,揭示人与地方、空间两种地理环境的本质联系,呈现了人类认识地方、认识空间、重构地方的崭新视角。本文从思想内涵、历史渊源、学界评价及影响、当代价值方面对段义孚的地方空间思想进行了体系性与初步理论建构式研究,认为段义孚地方空间理论以人为本,地方是具有既定价值的安全中心,代表着真实与安定;空间跟时间一样,构成人类生活的基本坐标,代表着向往与自由。二者对立统一,在人的生存中相辅相成、缺一不可,人类生活就是穿梭于地方与空间的辩证运动,揭示了人与生存环境的本质关系,蕴含深厚的人文关怀。有助于人们进一步探讨人与地方和空间的内在联系,改善人的生存环境,为缓解身份危机和环境危机、维护精神生态和环境生态提供新的理念。     

地方记忆:空间感知基点影响地方依恋的关键因素

本文研究了空间感知基点的改变影响地方依恋持续性的关键因素。研究表明:①一个地方进行空间要素的形式改建、位置移动或色彩变换会导致空间感知基点的变化,进而引发地方依恋的减弱或中断,因变化后的空间物质要素和人们的地方记忆不符,从而引起地方的不认同。②当环境感知基点的改变迎合了人们的心理或某些功能需求后,地方记忆对地方依恋的支配地位便受到影响,因而依恋不会显著降低且可能增强。③地方记忆包括童年记忆,校园记忆和成年记忆,且内容一般与休闲活动相关,其中前两类最不容受侵犯。     

Gendered and generational experiences of place and power in the rural Irish landscape

The out-migration of young people from rural regions is a selective and highly gendered process suggesting considerable differentiation in the way young men and women identify with and experience rural life. Gender imbalance in rural youth out-migration has prompted feminist researchers to consider more carefully linkages between the gendered nature of rural space and place and the social and spatial mobility of rural young men and women. Based on 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a rural Irish fishing community, this article explores the gendered dimensions of rural youth experience. Theoretically grounded in the conceptual triad of gender, power and place, this article considers how young men and women experience ‘the rural’ as masculine and feminine subjects. Special attention is given to the ways in which relations of power in ‘the rural’ are articulated, contested and accommodated in the everyday lives of local young men and women. As well as highlighting the ways in which rural space and place is male-dominated, this article foregrounds other power relations at play in the rural. As part of this effort, I problematize male power and point to the ‘effectivity of girls as conduits of power’. I argue that subjectivities of intra-gender relations are a critical dimension of rural youth experience and cannot be overlooked in research on rural youth experience and emigration.     

Landscapes, Houses, Bodies, Things: “Place” and the Archaeology of Inuit Imaginaries

Although the dichotomization of space and place has spawned a lively archaeological discussion, it threatens to devolve into a troublesome binary like sex/gender. Local place-making and universalizing spatial science are not so neatly segregated. Rather than dividing and bounding the notion of an investment of locations with meaning, it can be extended to describe the intricate topologies of bodies and things, as well as landscapes. Places emerge as sites of the hybrid articulation of representations, practices, and things, as spatialized imaginaries. The notion of imaginaries and the rethinking of place are illustrated with Inuit archaeological and ethnographic examples.     

Geographies of Responsibility

Abstract Issues of space, place and politics run deep. There is a long history of the entanglement of the conceptualisation of space and place with the framing of political positions. The injunction to think space relationally is a very general one and, as this collection indicates, can lead in many directions. The particular avenue to be explored in this paper concerns the relationship between identity and responsibility, and the potential geographies of both.     

ROMANCE,PRACTICE AND SUBSTANTIVENESS: WHAT DO LANDSCAPES DO?

Although Torsten Hägerstrand is not known primarily as a landscape geographer, he made significant contributions to the understanding of landscape in Swedish geography. This paper argues that Hägerstrand examined the importance of representation for the understanding of landscape as place and territory, which is a key ingredient in current engagements with landscape within (Nordic) geography and the broader European political context. The current debate on landscape, however, reaches beyond Hägerstrand's rather “scientistic” approach and brings out a stronger sense of the cultural, social and political powers conveyed by landscape and representation. We show that this is made explicit in recent scholarly work on the so‐called substantive landscape. The paper also provides an introduction to the essays of this theme issue, which reflects a selection of the landscape research presented at the Inaugural Meeting of Nordic Geographers at Lund, Sweden, in May 2005.     

关于“乡愁”的空间道德和地方道德评价

乡愁涉及空间和地方,且与人之情感密切关联,故关于乡愁的研究与地理学密切相关。文化的重要功能之一就是指引人们的空间实践。文化地理学的任务之一则是从文化上理解和评判空间和地方的现象。本文分析立场是人文主义地理学,以及由之派生的道德地理学。本文从空间和地方两个维度分析乡愁的背后的道德,并列举了较为成功的乡愁实践案例。归纳出的结论有三:第一,乡愁的道德具有大小、距离、移动性的空间维度。第二,乡愁的道德具有身体层面、经验层面和社会建构层面的地方性质。第三,无论是空间道德评价还是地方道德评价,都在回答对自己、对他者、对自然的态度,在评判留住乡愁的空间规划实践是否"合理"。本文最后提出了文化地理学关于乡愁空间道德和地方道德的分析框架,以供读者讨论。