Coordinated Strategic Voting in the 2008 Federal Election

Citizenship and Immigration Canada's new citizenship guide, Discover Canada, received significant coverage in the national media and among popular bloggers when it was released in late 2009. Among the more controversial responses were allegations that the guide served a partisan political purpose. It was “an incremental step in the rebranding of Canada into a conservative country, full of people more inclined to vote Conservative.” This paper investigates the veracity of this claim by documenting the historical evolution of Canada's citizenship guides. It finds that while Discover Canada departs notably from its immediate, Liberal-sponsored, predecessors, it is not so different from the initial documentation produced under the Liberal governments of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. To suggest that the new guide has fundamentally altered the national image is therefore a profound exaggeration.     

北部湾与中国近代海界问题

本根据历史事实对北部湾问题及中国近代海界问题进行了分析,提出了一些值得进一步探讨的观点。认为在历史上海界的概念至少包括以下方面,由自然洋流不同流向划分出的不同海域,自然洋流不具有主权意义;由岛屿、沙洲群划分出的海域,作为界限的岛屿、沙洲群也不具有主权意义;由军事防区划分出的不同海域,其界限都以岛屿群、沙洲群为识别标志。     

Recent British research on prehistoric territorial boundaries

The British Isles are very rich, compared to the rest of Europe, in prehistoric boundary earthworks. There are difficulties in deducing prehistoric territories from them, mainly because of the incompleteness of other evidence of settlement patterns. Fortunately, in the past two decades there have been major advances in territorial studies, in particular, of the pattern defined by the reaves (long walls) on Dartmoor in Southwest England and in the Anglo-Saxon pattern in Southern England defined by boundaries in legal documents (charters). These studies enable some general principles of early land divisions to be deduced, particularly the relations of boundaries to the natural features of the terrain. These principles can be applied to the study of other early boundary earthworks, and, in some cases, reasonable deductions on the nature of the prehistoric estates can be made. The paper concludes with a discussion of major problems, namely, the dating of earthworks, the continuity of boundaries between prehistoric and historic eras, the functions of boundary markers, their chronological development, and their social implications.     

Post conflict identities: Affiliations and practices of Somali asylum seeker children

Following the 2005 terrorist attacks on London it emerged that two of the terrorists charged with the failed 21st July bombings had arrived in the UK as child asylum seekers from East Africa. In the ensuing debate the bombers were represented as children that turned to hate. In this discussion paper we draw on empirical work conducted in Sheffield, UK to explore the identities, affiliations and practices of Somali asylum seeker children, aged 11–18.1 ¹This ongoing research is being funded by the ESRC Identities and Social Action Programme (Award No: RES-148-025-0028) View all notes Specifically, we argue that the actions of the two bombers need to be framed within a broader understanding of the complex processes of social identification that take place as young people negotiate what it means to be a child in the context of different ‘age’, gender and racialised expectations and against a backdrop of discrimination and social exclusion in different relational geographical spaces. We begin by outlining the context of UK immigration policy, before reflecting on dominant constructions of both childhood and asylum seekers. We then discuss how these may shape young refugee and asylum seekers' own narratives of the self and the role that their mobility and specific sites of identity formation may play in this process. In doing so, we contribute to children's geographies by addressing a group – refugee and asylum seekers – that has been neglected within the sub-discipline.     

Scales and networks of neoliberal climate governance: the regulatory and territorial logics of European Union emissions trading

The growing influence of neoliberal approaches to environmental governance has significantly increased the involvement of industry non-state actors in international and national climate governance. However, the implications of this neoliberalisation and hybridisation of climate governance, and particularly state–industry relations during these processes, remain under-integrated with wider geographical debates on the scalar and network politics of environmental governance. In this paper, we probe these issues by examining the regulatory and territorial logics underpinning the negotiation and implementation of the European Union emissions trading scheme (EU ETS). We argue that overlapping interpretations of the regulatory logic of emissions trading (as a cost-effective means of meeting climate objectives) by EU, state and industry actors provided the driving force for the creation of a Europeanised climate governance space and the consolidation of the EU's governing authority in respect of the formal rule-making elements of the EU ETS. However, alliances between state and industry actors, based around intersecting interpretations of their territorial interests in relation to emissions trading, strongly influenced the scheme's design. Moreover, speculative behaviour within the EU ETS market indicates the continued ability of market networks to disrupt territorially-based climate governance regimes. We argue that critical exploration of the territorial logics and practices of EU emissions trading from regime creation to operation provides new insights into the emerging spatial politics of neoliberal environmental governance and its implications for climate protection.     

Figuring space,marking time: Contested identities in Canada

Abstract

Conflicting concepts of identity have long exercised the Canadian imagination. The central focus of this paper is the role of institutionalised memory in promoting centralist patriotic sentiments. The association between the development of a consciousness and knowledge of the nation is illustrated by the founding of the Canadian Club, the Champlain Society and the Canadian Geographical Society. Attention is also directed to Canada's Historic Sites and Monuments Board, founded in 1919. Throughout its 75‐year history, the HSMB has commemorated events, places and people of historical significance for Canada in some 1600 sites. As may be expected, there have been shifts in emphasis in the national meta‐narratives over time, as is also demonstrated by the recent Charles Richard Bronfman Foundation's ‘Heritage Moments’. Taken together, these initiatives demonstrate a dynamic agenda of reconstituting national memory, national self‐knowledge, and national identity.     

Crafting identities in a multinational context: evidence from Catalonia

The nationalist messages that family and school transmit are very often concurrent, making it difficult to measure their independent impact on individuals. In order to separate out the leverage of these two agents of socialisation, this article focuses on a case study in which such concurrence cannot be taken for granted: Catalonia. The article exploits variation in parents' national identification, resulting from the presence of a population born in other regions of Spain outside Catalonia, to tease out the effect of both parents and Catalan school in crafting individuals' identification. The results, which draw on the analysis of a household survey, suggest that more years of schooling makes more likely that individuals develop a dual identity; however, parents' attachment to Catalonia is key in fostering an exclusive identification with Catalonia. Results also suggest that residence in neighbourhoods in which the proportion of natives and immigrants from other regions of Spain favours contact between children from different identity backgrounds is decisive in promoting a more Catalan‐oriented identification between second generations.     

Ideological content and institutional frameworks: Unionist identities in Northern Ireland and Scotland

This article examines the complex interactions between British national identity and the territorial identities of Northern Ireland and Scotland. We argue that the current literature on national identities in Britain misunderstands the nature of British identities in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Indeed, much of this literature wrongly defines Unionists in both of these areas. By examining the content of British national identity, a comparison of Scotland and Northern Ireland reveals that Unionism finds political significance through an ideological project committed to the Union. However, we also have to account for the differences in the Unionist ideology of Scotland and Northern Ireland. We argue that the institutional framework in which these identities and ideologies are exercised explains this variation. Overall, we argue that the debate on nationalism in the United Kingdom has not adequately shown how the integrative functions of British national identity can co-exist with the separatist nature of territorial national identity.     

Public and private: national identities in a Scottish Borders community*

Abstract. This paper is an exploration of national identities among sports people in a community in the Scottish Borders. This group experiences a split in their identities. Publicly, they are ascribed an ambiguous national identity by the surrounding national communities. Privately, and among fellow community members, they unambiguously assert national identity. This paper examines the way this split is managed, arguing that the performance of public ambiguity is expected, but is supported by the private performance of nationality. National identity is analysed specifically as a performance, and sport is the context in which this performance takes place.     

Negotiating spatial identities: mobile perspectives on street life in uganda

Previous geographical research with street children has principally focused on their micro-geographies in the city. This paper draws on nomadic and episodic processes of homeless mobility, to explore street children's geographies from a wider social, spatial and temporal perspective. By examining street life in Kampala, Uganda as a continued negotiation of public/private and street/non-street locations, the fluid nature of street children's identity is illustrated. Over time, movement between spaces, such as divergent city niches, institutions, homes and other towns, is often subject to power relations operating in street/non-street spaces with each requiring conformity to a different set of values and behaviours. The paper demonstrates how this results in children's street identity changing as they move through the street life path.     

Stubborn identities and the construction of socio-spatial boundaries: ultra-orthodox Jews living in contemporary Britain

Despite ultra-Orthodoxy being the fastest growing component of the British Jewish community (and Jewry worldwide), it has received little academic coverage by geographers. This paper provides an in-depth examination of a community of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Broughton Park, Manchester. It maps out the residential concentration of these Jews and, using in-depth qualitative interviews, discusses the construction of socio-spatial boundaries that are used to define and mark out 'them' from 'us'. Through this the paper contributes to wider geographic discussions about identity, segregation and religion. It shows how the power of religion to define people's beliefs and everyday practices remains, for certain groups, extremely strong.     

Student geographies and homemaking: personal belonging(s) and identities

Studies of the ‘geographies of students’ have become increasingly prevalent across the social sciences and are particularly concerned with the predilection for young UK University undergraduates to be mobile in their institutional choice. A more recent focus within this work has been upon student identities, with attention given to how the spaces to which students move and in which they settle can have both positive and negative consequences for the evolution of the student identity, and how such identities are often framed within the context of social activities; learning environments; friendship networks; or other sociocultural factors. This paper contributes to these discussions by considering the role of student accommodation – a site which often remains on the periphery of discussions of student identities – in offering students opportunities to construct, adapt and manage their student identities. This adds to the important contemporary geographies of student accommodation, which are currently debating, among others, purpose-built student accommodation and the broad housing ‘careers’ and strategies of students. In contrast, this paper explores the micro-geographies of student accommodation (and more specifically, the bedroom) to highlight its value in providing young, mobile students with an anchor within which they can draw together their learner, social and domestic dispositions into one geographical location.     

Everyday nationalism and international hockey: contesting Canadian national identity

This paper examines how hockey is used to construct and demarcate the Canadian national community from external others, namely, the USA, Europe and Russia/USSR. The paper suggests popular nationalist narratives around the sport of hockey construct difference from external others in ways that place them in tension with state and corporate interests. Drawing on the concept of everyday nationalism, this article explores how the interplay between international competition, national identity and commercial sport has made hockey an ambiguous and contested national symbol in Canada.     

Minority nationalism and immigrant integration in Canada

Immigrant integration is currently a prominent issue in virtually all contemporary democracies, but countries in which the historic population itself is deeply divided – particularly those with substate nations and multiple political identities – present some interesting questions where integration is concerned. The existence of multiple and potentially competing political identities may complicate the integration process, particularly if the central government and the substate nation promote different conceptions of citizenship and different nation‐building projects. What, then, are the implications of minority nationalism for immigrant integration? Are the added complexities a barrier to integration? Or do overlapping identities generate more points of contact between immigrants and their new home? This article addresses this question by probing immigrant and non‐immigrant ‘sense of belonging’ in Canada, both inside and outside Quebec. Data come from Statistics Canada's Ethnic Diversity Study. Our results suggest that competing nation‐building projects make the integration of newcomers more, rather than less, challenging.     

The failure of the Patarine movement

Although the authors of recent literature on the Patarine movement in Milan (1057-75) have very different intellectual backgrounds, they all try to study and interpret the movement in its complete historical context, and they point to the circumstances or special combination of circumstances which caused the movement to fail. Its failure was due in part to its relationship to the social structure. In this article we first show why this relationship needs to be re-examined and then go on to investigate how the place of the movement in the social structure contributed to its failure and dramatic collapse.     

The Curious Case of the Vanishing Debate over Irish Home Rule: The Dominion of Canada,Irish Home Rule,and Canadian Historiography

In the 1880s, the British Empire was abuzz with debate over the Irish Home Rule Bills being discussed at that time in the Westminster Parliament. The Dominion of Canada was no exception and the Canadian House of Commons held no fewer than three debates on the concept of Irish Home Rule. Studying these debates provides a way to explore British identity beyond the British Isles. Although the nineteenth century attempts to implement Irish Home Rule were ultimately a failure, for almost half a century the concept was discussed throughout the Empire. This article takes an in-depth look at the Canadian parliamentary response to Irish Home Rule. In doing so, it argues that the debates reveal much about British identity in the Dominion, at least at the parliamentary level, and sheds light on conceptions of Britishness in the wider British world. It also suggests that these imperial debates represent an important stage in the development of Canadian history and deserve to take their place in Canadian historiography.