The Whereabouts of Power: Politics, Government and Space

Abstract In a world where it has become almost commonplace to talk about power as centralised or distributed, concentrated or diffuse, deterritorialized or dispersed even, it is all too easy to miss the diverse geographies of power that put us in place. The binary talk that forces us to choose between a centred or a decentred view of power, or to shuffle between them in an effort to blur clearly demarcated scales, leaves little room to move beyond defined distances and settled proximities in relation to the exercise of power. In this paper, a more spatially‐curious dialogue of power is opened up which foregrounds associational as well as instrumental forms of power which can make a difference to how we act politically.     

中国传统室内空间的价值探讨

多维度的分析可以为室内设计作品的客观评价提供一个基本框架,也可使室内设计实践者在其作品中的追求有一个价值标准。本文通过分析空间价值的构成信息,解释了空间价值对社会和自然的适应性和包容性,并阐述了空间中哲学与文化的价值体现。     

Space and the Structuring of Disciplinary Power: An Interpretive Review

This paper is an attempt to provide an organizing framework for understanding geographic (and related) research that deals with modern social control. The basic panoptic logic of what Foucault termed disciplinary power can be understood to operate at a variety of scales, from that of buildings to that of national territories. But the particular way in which disciplinary power plays out, the way in which the logic of visibility interacts with other forms of power, varies systematically with scale and context. Thus I offer a more scale- and context-sensitive typology of "disciplines", and the bulk of the essay is devoted to explaining the categories of this typology with reference to existing research. The larger purpose of this paper is to improve our understanding of how modern social control is bound up with larger socio-spatial relations.     

Structures of Geographical and Social Space and Their Consequences for Human Health

There is a growing body of evidence, involving both international comparisons and national studies, which suggests that inequality is bad for human health, even when absolute levels of income, or material deprivation, are controlled for. Yet much of the literature exploring links between health outcomes and either absolute or relative deprivation has failed to consider sufficiently fully a spatial perspective. This paper attempts to redress this balance, drawing upon empirical work first for England and Wales as a whole and, in more detail, for a health authority in north-west England. Evidence is presented that a measure of relative deprivation that takes account of the locations of small areas in relation to each other performs well as a correlate of morbidity and mortality. Some theoretical arguments are advanced to support the relationships between health outcome and relative deprivation, and especially the role of location in geographical and social space in mediating this relationship.     

Pope,Province, and Power

The Nidaros province, founded in 1152–1153 with Nidaros/Trondheim in Norway as its metropolitan see, was a wide-spanning unit encompassing the episcopal sees in Norway, Iceland, Greenland, The Faeroes, Orkney, and The Isle of Man. This article discusses a period in the history of the province which has attracted little scholarly attention to date. The point of departure is the archbishop’s apparent disappearance from the Icelandic scene in the 1240s, and the author addresses the question of ecclesiastical integration by examining the Nidaros metropolitan’s authority in the mid-13th century. The subject is approached from three perspectives: the archbishop’s relationship with the pope; the struggle for power between the archbishop and the Norwegian king; and the archbishop’s executive authority within his province, exemplified by the Icelandic Church. The article reveals that in the mid-13th century the archbishop was facing several challenges to his authority. The analysis also provides compelling insights into the dynamics at work within the wider context of the high medieval Church.     

Power,property, and preservation

MacKenzie, Melody Kapilialoha, ed. Native Hawaiian Rights Handbook. Honolulu: Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, 1991. xi + 320 pp. including notes, glossary, table of cases, and index [distributed by University of Hawaii Press]. $25.00 paper.

Price, H. Marcus. Disputing the Dead: U.S. Law on Aboriginal Remains and Grave Goods. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991. ix + 136 pp. including appendix and bibliography. $37.50 cloth.

West, Patrick C. and Steven R. Brechin, eds. Resident Peoples and National Parks: Social Dilemmas and Strategies in International Conservation. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991. xxiv + 443 pp. including bibliography and index. $29.95 cloth.     

Islam,Territory, and Contested Space in Post-Soviet Russia

A noted American specialist on nationalism and identity politics in the former USSR reviews the political, institutional, and territorial complexities identified with the Muslim minority in the Russian Federation. Coverage includes the size and distribution of Muslim communities, the government's approach to the diverse adherents of Islam (including Wahhabis), fragmentation of Islamic institutions, and federal policies before and after the October 2004 terrorist attack on the school in Beslan, North Ossetia. Considerable attention is devoted to differences between Islamo-internationalism and Islamo-nationalism in Chechnya, as well as similarities and differences among approaches to Muslim affairs in Russia and other parts of Europe. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O15, O18, Z13. 1 table, 53 references.     

The Taliban,Public Space,and Terror in Pakistan

Two UK-based specialists on terrorism in Pakistan use empirical evidence to document and analyze the Pakistani Taliban's (Tehrik-e-Taliban) practice of targeting spaces of public interaction for terrorism intended to suppress expressions of public unity and restrict venues for open discussion. In tracing the rise of the Taliban in Pakistan, the authors review the country's history of state and civil society formation, its relations with Afghanistan, and U.S. and Western policy in the region. The authors present timely information and insights that enhance understanding of the recent surge in terrorist attacks on civilians in Pakistan and its ties to the eastward spread of conflict from neighboring Afghanistan.     

Power,politics and business

The study of business and politics is attracting new interest, perhaps due to changing configurations of power in Western societies undergoing rapid but uneven structural and cultural change. Previous debates have demonstrated the inadequacy of the pressure group model, primarily because of its insensitivity to the socio‐economic foundations of power and the significance of the cultural context. This paper reviews the approach proposed by Charles E. Lindblom's Politics and Markets, examines some attempts to refine that approach and advances some criticisms of a general methodological nature. It is suggested that neo‐marxist perspectives are more likely than post‐pluralist ones to be able to comprehend the articulation of agency and context, or behaviour and structure. A concluding section points to the relative paucity of Australian work on business and politics, notes the contributions of Connell and Irving and Tsokhas, and suggests that the increasingly important and volatile field of banking and finance has been especially neglected.     

Power,Energy and Structure

Richard Newbold Adams. Energy and Structure: A Theory of Social Power. Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1975. xviii + 353 pp. Figures, tables, references and index. $15.00 cloth, $4.95 paper.     

Feminism,Praxis, and Human Geography

In this paper, we discuss the methodological implications of combining feminist and geographic research. In feminist research efforts, theory, method, and purpose of research are inextricable. We examine the meaning of this blending for the language, conceptualizations, methods, and scale used in feminist geographic research. Through feminist geographic research, we can build a continuity of women and men as feminist writers inside the academy and in the community. The goal of this more inclusive research and knowledge is the transformation of gendered power relations.