Rural mental health and social geographies of caring

This paper contributes to an emerging geographical literature on the social geographies of caring. Drawing on recently undertaken empirical work in the Scottish Highlands, personal accounts about the provision of both formal and informal care for people with mental health problems are evaluated. The notion of ‘community care’ is critiqued, as too are claims about how rural and remote rural locations engender particular configurations of caring roles, practices and relations. It is shown that geographical distance, social proximity, stoic cultures and rural gossip networks all have a part to play in how caring occurs in such places. The paper concludes by suggesting areas of future research.     

‘It’s a very isolating world’: the journey to HIV care for women living with HIV in British Columbia,Canada

HIV health services research conventionally defines place in terms of proximity to care. However, understandings of place must also include the social spaces that women living with HIV (WLWH) occupy which shape their experience of health and access to care. Drawing on focus group data from the Canadian HIV Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Cohort Study, we explored how 28 WLWH navigate geographic place and social space in attempting to access HIV-related healthcare within and across a range of urban to rural localities in British Columbia (BC), Canada. We describe how existing services, even if physically close, can be socially marginalizing as women confront HIV stigma, racism, and classism, which operate to exclude women from the places and spaces they must access for care. We also emphasize how women enact ‘geographies of resistance’ and succeed in carving out their own safe options for care and support. Finally, we share recommendations identified by women themselves towards developing local and community-driven ‘geographies of change’ that support the health and healing of diverse communities of WLWH. Our findings stress the urgent need to acknowledge and redress socio-spatial barriers to care and to work with WLWH to co-create a therapeutic landscape that reflects women’s diverse identities, localities, emotions, and experiences.     

Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea: Place,Personhood and Exchange

In Papua New Guinea (PNG) more rural people, and especially rural women, earn cash from selling in marketplaces than from any other source. PNG's marketplaces are critical for food security, and for the redistribution of wealth. They are also important meeting places where people gather to see friends, hear the latest news, attend court cases, play cards and be entertained. This introduction to this special issue on ‘Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea’ reviews the history of PNG marketplaces and their contemporary forms. It charts their transformation from introduced colonial spaces into dynamic Melanesian places, which, as places to buy, sell and socialise, have become pervasive institutions in the lives of both urban and rural Papua New Guineans, and places where people interact with both known and unknown others. From this, marketplaces emerge as important spaces of moral evaluation and contestation in relation to what constitutes morally acceptable exchange and what practices are acceptable in these places. The paper demonstrates that exchange in the marketplace should not be reduced to commodity transactions, and questions assumptions about the types of people marketplaces create. It argues that the country's marketplaces are productive sites to consider ideas of exchange, social relations and social personhood, and that there is a critical need to understand the concrete details of what takes place in contemporary marketplaces.     

‘You aren’t from around here’: race,masculinity, and rural transgender men

Both scholarly and everyday understandings of transgender people tend to assume that they can only live well in urban places, yet there is little research on the transgender people actually living in rural communities. This article uses an intersectional analysis of 45 interviews conducted between 2010 and 2013 with transgender men living in the Southeast and Midwest United States to understand how some rural transgender people may not necessarily and automatically fare worse than those in cities. Indeed, these data demonstrate that a more productive question might be, which transgender people integrate into rural communities? The reported experiences of trans men suggest that the claims to sameness that are crucial to inclusion in rural communities are articulated centrally through whiteness and enacting appropriate rural working-class heterosexual masculinities. The claim to sameness allows for a measure of acceptance in rural communities under economic and demographic strain in the twenty-first century.     

URBAN‐TO‐RURAL POPULATION GROWTH LINKAGES: EVIDENCE FROM OECD TL3 REGIONS*

The objective of this paper is to understand, from an international comparative perspective, how population growth in rural regions is affected by the relationship with their nearby urban centers. By means of a cross‐sectional analysis on OECD small regions (Territorial Level 3), the paper distinguishes spread effects—positive spillovers arising from urban growth—from the net effect of distance to nonrural places. The results show that spread effects outweigh backwash effects, so that rural regions benefit from growth in urban places. A rural region's distance from urban and intermediate regions has a negative effect on its population growth rate. Nevertheless, both the strength of this effect and the growth spillovers decline with distance, and this occurs relatively faster in Europe. The results further suggest that proximity to large urban areas has a higher positive influence than proximity to intermediate areas, but only outside Europe.     

A place to transform: creating caring spaces by challenging normativity and identity

Like all spaces, concrete caring places both shape and are shaped by understandings and constructions of normativity and identity. The traditional understanding of care for older people, imagining clearly demarcated dyadic roles, is firmly embedded in heterosexual logics of relationships within families, the own (family) home and institutional support. Social and residential places for older people thus both assume particular gender and sexual identities and contribute to a (re)production of the very normativity. But how can this interlinkage between the construction of caring spaces and the normativity of identities be understood and, possibly, challenged? In this article we discuss the transformative potential of the social (and partly residential) space of La Fundación 26 de Diciembre, in Madrid, Spain, which opened up to specifically support older LGBT people. Drawing on an in-depth case study we explore a space that allows visibility of different forms of living and caring practices of people with different genders, sexual preferences, origins, classes or political backgrounds. Through the daily life narratives of the people who work, volunteer or simply use the centre we discuss the potential of challenging the restricted notions, assumptions and constructions through which particular places gain both social and political meaning. The article highlights the transformative power of the active and collective making of caring spaces through which narratives of care, collective sexual and gender recognition and practices of caring relationships can replace both traditional/informal forms of living together and institutional spaces that provide professional care.     

The working and living conditions of college-educated rural migrants in China

In the past one and a half decades, Chinese cities have witnessed an influx of college-educated rural migrants. Until now, there has been little systematic research on the working and living conditions of this growing population. The objective of this paper is to empirically examine similarities and differences in living conditions between college-educated rural migrants, non-college-educated rural migrants, and local urban workers. The data are from the 2010 National Health and Family Planning Commission Survey of China’s migrant population. Our study has produced several findings. First, the monthly income of college-educated rural migrants is significantly higher than that of non-college-educated rural migrants and is similar to that of college-educated local urban workers. However, less-educated rural migrants earn more than local urban workers with similar levels of education. Second, while college-educated rural migrants work fewer hours than non-college-educated rural migrants, they work longer hours than their local urban counterparts. Third, local urban workers receive greater social benefits than college-educated rural migrants, whose benefits are better than those of non-college-educated rural migrants. Overall, while college-educated rural migrants enjoy more favourable working and living conditions than non-college-educated rural migrants, they remain disadvantaged when compared to urban workers with a similar level of education. These findings highlight the insurmountable institutionalised exclusion and discrimination that imposes significant barriers on rural-origin people to reap the benefits of higher education.     

近代江南都市中的苏北人:地缘矛盾与社会分层

近代江南都市中．地缘关系直接决定了工人的职业分层。由于缺乏充足的、可供利用的各种乡谊资源,苏北人在江南都市中只能处于社会最低的层级。地缘关系造成的社会分层．极大地迟滞了阶级关系的形成。地缘差异在工人中造成的矛盾．有时相当尖锐．下层工人感受最深的不是“帝国主义”和本国资本家阶级的压榨,而是来自发达地区地位较高的社会阶层的歧视和偏见。这种矛盾尽管不同于阶级矛盾和种族矛盾,但在一定条件下,甚至比后两者更明显,影响更深远。     

国外对零售业及其附生——衍生的营业性娱乐场所的空间关系研究

零售业及其附生-衍生的营业性娱乐场所是城市居民日常生活(闲暇娱乐)行为的四大场所之一,零售业中附生-衍生的娱乐场所的类型、结构与空间模式是揭示城市社会-生活空间质量的重要方面,本文从城市社会地理学以及人类文化生态学等多学科的研究角度,分析与总结国外学者对零售业及其附生-衍生的营业性娱乐场所的研究现状、内容以及其在城市中的空间作用与(社会)空间关系。     

基于城市适应的外来民工群岭南文化融入剖析

在珠三角地区,外来民工因数量庞大而逐渐成为相对独立的社会群体。作为迁移者,外来民工异地打工的同时,自身原有的文化基因会与迁入地的文化产生交融和碰撞,这种文化冲融伴随着外来民工城市适应的全过程。笔者首先通过走访,明晰外来民工对岭南文化的基本感知点:生活商业化、观念开放化、人情淡漠化和行事务实化,进而以此构筑外来民工基于经济、社会、文化的城市适应研究视点,采用问卷对外来民工的岭南文化认知和适应范式进行调研,剖析外来民工群基于城市适应的岭南文化融入特征。     

SOCIAL-GEOGRAPHIC PROBLEMS IN THE REGULATION OF SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS IN A DEVELOPED SOCIALIST SOCIETY

An analysis of the impact of social development on forms of settlement and of the reverse impact of settlement forms on social processes. The author challenges the view that spatial forms have no bearing on social processes. The point is made by tabulating types of social contacts at various spatial levels and for different forms of settlement, from household to large urban agglomeration. The significance of information flows at different spatial levels is discussed. Large cities are found to have potential for the development of material and spiritual benefits that are lacking in smaller places. But since an integrated economy also requires smaller forms of settlement, ways must be found to provide a minimum set of material and cultural services at the lower level as well. Recommendations for raising the level of living in smaller Soviet populated places are offered.     

Urban–Rural Interactions in Latvian Changing Policy and Practice Context

Abstract

This article aims at a better comprehension of urban–rural interactions as a spatial concept and its utilization for spatial and regional policies. Based on literature review and on interviews with planners and experts, the article explores how the concept of urban–rural interactions is defined, characterized and structured. The understanding of urban and rural, how they are connected provides a basis for capturing complexities and development of urban–rural interactions. The study, reviews urban–rural policies and practises in Latvia. Contemporary built-up areas and lifestyles are influenced by imprints of past urban–rural interactions. Aspects of contextuality, cross-sectorality and informality have to be taken into consideration when urban–rural interactions are applied to the policy field. The article introduces a typology to capture both the diversity and particularity of places in terms of urban–rural connectivity. An insight is given how the current Latvian local government territorial structure can contribute to building target-oriented urban–rural partnerships.     

“They want a different life”: Rural northern settlement dynamics and pathways to homelessness in Yellowknife and Inuvik,Northwest Territories

Visible homelessness in the Northwest Territories, Canada is often described as a recent phenomenon by policy makers and the popular media alike. Indeed, since the late 1990s, homeless shelters in Yellowknife and Inuvik report a steady increase in demand for beds and other support for homeless people. Homelessness in these two communities disproportionately affects Aboriginal northerners, however little is known about their individual pathways to homelessness. Moreover, homelessness in the Northwest Territories is often portrayed as an issue confined to larger “urbanizing” regional centres, yet many homeless Aboriginal northerners have originated from small, rural settlement communities. Despite this, little concern has been paid to how factors at the small community level intersect with more visible forms of homelessness in larger, urban centres, not to mention how these intersections shape a territorial geography of homelessness. In this article, I aim to uncover and explore the often hidden factors at the northern rural settlement level that ultimately contribute to more visible forms of homelessness in northern urban centres. I suggest that uneven and fragmented social, institutional, and economic geographies result in a unique landscape of vulnerability to homelessness in the Northwest Territories. This geography emerges through the production of particular dynamics between rural settlement communities and northern urban centres. In particular, four main factors represent these rural‐urban dynamics: 1) the attractions of opportunity in northern urban centres; 2) rural settlement‐urban institutional flows; 3) chronic housing need in the settlements; and, 4) disintegrating social relationships in the settlements. I explore the particular ways in which these factors influence rural‐urban migration among the homeless population and what roles this mobility plays in individual pathways to homelessness.     

Working the Spaces of Neoliberal Subjectivity: Psychotherapeutic Technologies, Professionalisation and Counselling

An analysis is presented of how a particular psychotherapeutic practice, namely voluntary sector counselling, contributes to and resists neoliberal forms of governance. Neoliberal governmentality invokes a concept of the human subject as an autonomous, individualised, self‐directing, decision‐making agent, attributes fostered in different ways by psychotherapies and processes of professionalisation. In this context I explore accounts of counselling offered by voluntary sector counsellors in Scotland, focusing on practitioners' use of the idea of empowerment to describe what they do, and on how this idea intersects with the professionalisation of counselling. I argue that empowerment and professionalisation both privilege autonomy in ways that are consonant with neoliberal subjectivity, but I also argue that there are points of resistance to the individualisation associated with technologies of calculation on which neoliberal subject formation depends.     

Peripheral Visions? A Cross-cultural Study of Rural Youths' Views on Migration

This study sets out to investigate anticipatory views concerning out-migration amongst rural youth. Utilising three age-group samples from rural Norway, Scotland and Sweden, young people were classified as prospective 'stayers', 'leavers' or 'returners'. Both qualitative and quantitative data show that 'stayers' see themselves as most contented with rurality. 'Leavers' are most negative to rural living. 'Returners', though also critical about rural living, are highly positive towards social relations in their communities. Furthermore, national and gender differences are evident. These varying adolescent constructions of rurality are discussed in relation to possible national policies.     

Health Care in Rural Texas

The purpose of this article is to assess the quality of health and health care services available to rural Texans. Specifically, we seek to answer two related questions. First, do people living in rural areas of Texas generally suffer from poorer health than people living in urban Texas? One undoubtedly would think so, given frequent references to the low quality of personal services in general for rural America. Moreover, the persistence of the congressional Rural Health Care Caucus over the past two decades points to a rural health care crisis. Second, to what extent are these differences in health conditions explained by differences in access to health care enjoyed by people living in the two different regions? Access certainly appears to be the problem alluded to above. Rural people apparently lack physician care. In addition to providing answers to these questions, we also examine the difference in the health conditions and access to care enjoyed by minority and non‐minority rural Texans. Is this a part of the rural health care problem given the high incidence of non‐whites in rural Texas? If so this may be minority rather than rural neglect. We briefly conclude the article with some recommendations for improving the problems we identify.     

城市社会区域体系结构公正配置的空间控制原理与路径

从现代人本主义思维出发,以城市社会地理学原理,即从社会空间结构与社区规划角度,探讨城市居民的生活空间的质量构成,体现在城市要满足各阶层居民(社会)生活的空间结构上。而城市(社会)生活的空间结构的健全与否取决于生活空间行为的社区体系与场所体系的空间构成上。主要体现在居民以居住为主的生活行为对立的居舍类型的可获性上。由此,不同阶层居舍类型体系是城市(社会)生活空间质量的区域基础,其空间分布类型的可获性决定对应阶层人群能否获得以居舍为主的生活空间。本文首次从居民选择居住地行为规律以及形成的城市居舍类型空间结构演化的理念下论及城市社会区域空间体系公正配置与空间控制原理。     

城市紧凑度对中国城市创新的影响

城市空间特征与创新的关系是创新地理的重要研究议题.论文构建了城市紧凑度与城市创新的理论分析框架,提出研究假设,并选取中国地级及以上城市作为研究空间单元,从密度、土地混合利用、街道连通性和交通通达性四个方面构建了城市紧凑度指数,对2010年中国城市紧凑度进行了评价,分析了中国城市紧凑度的空间分布特征,在此基础上,采用空间...     

Progressive localism for an ethics of care: Local Area Co-ordination with people with learning disabilities

In the UK devolution to ‘new’ nations and localities is generating differences in the tone and substance of social care. In Scotland there is an apparent rejection of the ‘personalisation’ model dominant in England and other neoliberal welfare states; in its place, there is an emphasis on locally based co-produced care provision, involving local organisations, practitioners and individuals. The paper argues that this is an outcome of the open and deliberative nature of policy-making, and the further devolution of social care provision to local authorities in Scotland. Local scale networks and spaces of provision are generating a ‘progressive localism’, contesting the association between the local scale and financial austerity, drawing on a relational understanding of place. Non-commodified and locally-based provision expands the discourse of care from ‘caring for’ individuals to ‘caring about’ people and places, in what is termed an ‘ethics of care’. The paper uses the example of people with learning disabilities to examine a more broadly conceived ‘caring’ within local communities, offering possibilities for inclusion and belonging. The paper draws on interviews with key policy makers and place-based care practitioners, known as ‘Local Area Co-ordinators’.     

Farmwomen's emotional geographies of care: a view from rural Ontario

This article contributes to geographies of rural women's health by investigating farmwomen's perceptions of their caring roles and responsibilities, which are crucial to the wellbeing and sustainability of rural people and their communities. Featuring a thematic analysis of interviews and a focus group with farmwomen from Ontario, Canada, the research examines farms and farming as unique places and spaces of care. Informed by the literature on emotional geographies, the article examines how care is situated and performed through farmwomen's negotiation of multiple, overlapping identities and how these are embodied and affective in emotional work. The findings not only confirm the paramount role of women in rural care, they demonstrate the interdependence of family, community and work as central to the challenges of rural women's health. The article argues that the link between health and productivity on the farm is crucial to understanding farmwomen's caring, and highlights the paradox that their emotional work is as much about opportunities for power and resistance as it is about obligation and subordination.