Organic Public Geographies: “Making the Connection”

Abstract: A new field of “public geographies” is taking shape ( Fuller 2008 ) in geography's mainstream journals. While much is “traditional”, with intellectuals disseminating academic research via non‐ academic outlets ( Castree 2006 ; Mitchell 2008 ; Oslender 2007 ), less visible is the “organic” work and its “more involved intellectualizing, pursued through working with area‐based or single‐interest groups, in which the process itself may be the outcome” ( Ward 2006 :499; see Fuller and Askins 2010 ). A number of well‐known projects exist where research has been “done not merely for the people we write about but with them” ( Gregory 2005 :188; see also Cahill 2004 ; Johnston and Pratt 2010 ). However, collaborative writing of academic publications which gives research participants authorial credit is unusual ( mrs kinpainsby 2008 ; although see Sangtin Writers and Nagar 2006 ). This paper is about an organic public geographies project called “Making the connection”. It is written by a diverse collection of (non‐)academic participants who contributed to the project before it had started, as it was undertaken, and/or after it had finished. This is a “messy”, process‐oriented text ( Cook et al. 2007 ) working through the threads (partially) connecting the activities of its main collaborators, including a referee who helped get the paper to publication.     

Gentrification Interrupted in Salford,UK: From New Deal to “Limbo‐Land” in a Contemporary Urban Periphery

This paper examines two potential lacunae in understanding low‐income residents’ experiences of contemporary state‐led gentrification via a study of neighbourhood restructuring in Salford, UK, 2004–2014. The first is the localised politics preparing the ground for neighbourhood “redevelopment” and housing demolition. The second is the blighted social landscape which emerges with the subsequent stalling of this project. A focus on “before” and “after” is adopted in order to disrupt the linear policy and “effects” temporalities that much qualitative gentrification research tends to inhabit. We see how state‐led neighbourhood restructuring does not simply displace, but carries residents from “empowerment” to abandonment and transfers them from active struggle into devitalised limbo. As such, the paper demarcates challenges and opportunities for resident mobilisation inherent in a vacillating urban renewal programme, powerful in its inception but which has since “hit the buffers” (Lees 2014, Antipode 46(4):921–947) in light of global and municipal fiscal crises.     

Human Trafficking and Online Networks: Policy,Analysis, and Ignorance

Dominant anti‐trafficking policy discourses represent trafficking as an issue of crime, “illegal” migration, victimhood and humanitarianism. Such a narrow focus is not an adequate response to the interplay between technology, trafficking and anti‐trafficking. This article explores different levels of analysis and the interplay between human trafficking and technology. We argue for a shift from policy discourses with a very limited focus on crime and victimisation to more systemic understandings of trafficking and more robust micro‐analyses of trafficking and everyday life. The article calls for an agnotological understanding of policy responses to trafficking and technology: these depend upon the production of ignorance. We critique limitations in policy understandings of trafficking‐related aspects of online spaces, and argue for better engagement with online networks. We conclude that there is a need to move beyond a focus on “new” technology and exceptionalist claims about “modern slavery” towards greater attention to everyday exploitation within neoliberalism.     

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AFTER 1945: A BIBLIOMETRIC STUDY

Much has been said about what philosophy of history should be. This bibliometric assessment of research in the philosophy of history examines what scholars in this field have actually produced. The study covers a dataset—a subsection of the bibliography of the International Network for Theory of History—of 13,953 books, articles, book chapters, dissertations, and other scholarly publications, encompassing materials written in seven different languages published between 1945 and 2014. This material was classified according to a multilayered system of taxonomy consisting of keywords representative of themes discussed in the field. Separate quantitative analyses were made to elucidate characteristics about the publication outputs in the field in the different language groups. Changes in paradigm, often referred to as “turns” or “trends,” have been mapped in this study, according to a quantitative analysis of the most recurrent keywords within a five‐year interval, which give an indication of the most debated themes in each period. ?Religion/theology/secularization? is the most frequent keyword during the period 1945 to 1969, followed by ?Marxism/historical‐materialism?¹ from 1970 to 1984, in what can be considered a second period of the field. Although many of the key publications of the linguistic turn were written within this second period, our dataset shows that it is not until the third period (1985–2014) that their writing goes on to influence other authors in the field.     

IN THE FOLDS OF TIME: RASHĪD AL‐DĪN ON THEORIES OF HISTORICITY

By focusing on Rashīd al‐Dīn's (d. 718/1318) historiographical oeuvre and here in particular his “History of the World,” this article challenges the usual approach to his Jāmi? al‐tawārīkh (Compendium of Chronicles) and argues that his was a deeply pluralistic enterprise in a world with many centers, tremendous demographic change, high social mobility, and constantly shifting truth‐claims in an ever expanding cosmos, to which Rashīd al‐Dīn's method, language, and the shape of his history were perfectly adaptable. This article introduces the notion of “parallel pasts” to account for Rashīd al‐Dīn's method. By placing the Jāmi? al‐tawārīkh and its author in their historical and intellectual context, this article also argues that this method is not restricted to Rashīd al‐Dīn's historiography: His historiographical work ought to be seen as part of his larger theological and philosophical oeuvre into which the author placed it consciously and explicitly, an oeuvre that is, like Rashīd al‐Dīn's historiography, pluralist at heart, and that could be as easily classified as “theology” or “philosophy” as “historiography.”     

CT and micro‐CT analysis of a case of Paget's disease (osteitis deformans) in the Grant skeletal collection

This paper presents a case study in which Paget's disease of bone is differentially diagnosed in an individual from the Grant skeletal collection using non‐destructive computed tomography (CT) and micro‐computed tomography (micro‐CT) analyses of the pubis, in addition to plain film radiography and macroscopic examination. In archaeological and modern osteological samples diagnosis frequently relies on macroscopic examination, plain film radiography and histological examination of bone samples. CT and micro‐CT modalities provide researchers with a non‐destructive view of the internal structure of bone unhampered by the superimposition that is characteristic of plain film radiographs. Given the importance of the increased cortical and trabecular thickness in the differential diagnosis of Paget's disease, these techniques are ideal means by which to non‐destructively examine culturally‐sensitive and scientifically‐valuable human remains for signs of Paget's disease of bone. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

No Place for the Political: Micro‐Geographies of the Paris Climate Conference 2015

Building upon post‐foundational political philosophies, this article scrutinizes the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015 from a micro‐geographical perspective. The analysis suggests that three different spaces exist at the site of the summit and reveals how their constituting practices and material arrangements rendered “Paris” post‐democratic. We begin with exposing the staged statements of the world's political elites in the meticulously orchestrated Leaders Event as different phenotypes of the post‐democratic condition. We then investigate the formal negotiations in the cordoned‐off backrooms, where positions within the system were at stake, but not the system as such. Finally, we wander through the strictly policed “trade fair” and unveil attempts to entice delegates into techno‐managerial solutions to the climate crisis. In the conclusion, we ponder over the prospects of environmental activism at the COPs in the light of their massive depoliticization.     

Navigating the Methodological Landscape in Spatial Analysis: A Comment on “A Route Map for Successful Applications of Geographically-Weighted Regression”

The development of “route maps” for spatial analytical methods is a pursuit with important ramifications. Comber et al. propose a route map to guide applications of geographically weighted regression consisting of a three-step primary pathway and a series of secondary arterials. This comment first highlights some concerns about the underlying “map” (i.e., experimental setup and assumptions) and then with the proposed “route” (i.e., core decisions and evaluation criteria). It closes by suggesting a more general focus on identifying modeling issues with the highest impact and facilitating consensus-building, which could improve the future production of route maps for navigating the methodological landscape in spatial analysis.     

Radiocarbon Dates Reveal Serpent Mound Is More than Two Thousand Years Old

Recent radiocarbon dating (Herrmann et al. 2014) found that Serpent Mound was likely built during the Early Woodland period—around 320 BC. Herrmann et al. (2014) also suggested that the effigy was repaired or restored during Fort Ancient times, thereby accounting for the late prehistoric radiocarbon-dated samples recovered by Fletcher et al. (1996). The present article presents new data in support of the Early Woodland construction date. These data include lidar analyses, electrical resistivity ground imaging (ERGI) studies, and iconographic assessments.     

Class,Citizenship and Regeneration: Glasgow and the Commonwealth Games 2014

Abstract: Through a focus on “consumer‐citizenship” this paper foregrounds the class practices inherent in urban regeneration. Using Glasgow's 2014 Commonwealth Games (CWGs) as an illustrative example of regeneration, it seeks to highlight the market‐led processes that underpin state interventions. The paper demonstrates how these processes are implemented to transform “problem people, and problem places” ( Damer 1989 , From Moorepark to “Wine Alley”) into sites of “active” consumption and “responsible” citizenship. Yet, access to this “consumer citizenship” is stratified. In doing so, we synthesise conceptual insights from the Marxist‐influenced gentrification literature and the Foucauldian‐inspired housing renewal literature. We forward this to initiate further academic debate and empirical enquiry on the specific issue of mega sporting events.     

Urban Systems of Accumulation: Half a Century of Chilean Neoliberal Urban Policies

We analyse a half‐century of Chilean urban reforms to explain the introduction of a system of urban accumulation by dispossession of public resources and opportunities. Three stages have been conceptualised in the imposition of a neoliberal creative‐destructive process: proto‐neoliberalism, roll‐back and roll‐out periods. Empirical studies have traditionally analysed this process by examining a single urban policy's evolution over time. In this paper, we go beyond these types of studies by performing a systemic analysis of multiple urban policy reforms in Santiago, Chile. We use a genealogical thematic analysis to track changes in laws, government programmes and planning documents from between 1952 and 2014. Our analysis identifies different “urban systems of accumulation” by looking at the interplay of four urban policies: (1) urban planning deregulation; (2) social housing privatisation; (3) devolution of territorial taxes; and (4) decreased public service provision. Moreover, our multidimensional policy analysis in Santiago characterises a more radical, fourth expression in the creative destruction process of “accumulation by dismantling”. Consequently, we advocate for more multidimensional urban policy research that goes beyond a three‐period analysis in order to gain a deeper understanding of contemporary neoliberal creative‐destructive processes in variegated geographies.     

History and folklore: a historiographical survey

This article is designed as an introduction to the other articles in this special edition of Folklore. It argues that the relationship between historians and folklorists has undergone three phases: the “age of harmony” prior to the First World War, when both disciplines were in their infancy; the “age of suspicion” from the 1920s to the 1970s, when historians tended to define their field narrowly as the development of the nation‐state, and to stress their “scientific” methodology based on contemporary archival documents; and the “age of rapprochement” since the 1970s as historians ventured into new areas—popular culture, micro‐history, “history from below”—borrowing methodologies from the social sciences as they did so. And it looks forward to an “age of co‐operation” between the two disciplines.     

Critical Geographies of Education Beyond “Value”: Moral Sentiments,Caring, and a Politics for Acting Differently

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Singapore between 2013 and 2014, this article discusses the ways in which students mobilise different moral and ethical values to perform informal care at a private educational institute. The task is to advance a critical analysis of how students can “act differently” from the dominant strategic and calculative image of a neoliberal actor as portrayed in broader literature. Specifically, I suggest more attention needs to be given to love and care as the basis for radical practices in everyday life. I discuss the themes of deconstructive empathy, friendship solidarities, and intergenerational love to demonstrate how caring practices can produce more‐than‐capitalist subjectivities in the neoliberalising spaces of higher education. The article adds theoretical and empirical flesh to ongoing efforts in exploring “alternative” experiences of neoliberalising education through care, love, and intimacy.     

Mostafa Malekian: Spirituality,Siyasat‐Zadegi and (A)political Self‐Improvement

Mostafa Malekian has yet to receive much attention in Western academic literature pertaining to Iranian intellectual life, but inside Iran, he has emerged as a popular public intellectual; seen as both a culmination of and rupture with the project of “religious intellectualism.” Rather than offer a revolutionary and politically engaged vision of Islam, or a “reformist” or “democratic” interpretation of Shi?ism, his project seeks to integrate what he calls “rationality” (?aqlaniyat) and “spirituality” (ma?naviyat). As Malekian's project has developed, it has broken, in a number of important respects, with mainstream Islam as practiced in Iran, the religious reformist project, and even organized religion as a whole. This article seeks not only to offer one of the first comprehensive analysis of his existential and social thought in English, but also to analyze his project's deep affinities with a pervasive fatigue vis‐à‐vis collective projects of political emancipation and even “politics” tout court, in the latter phases of the “reformist” President Hojjat al‐Islam Seyyed Mohammad Khatami's tenure.     

CALLING FOR A PRACTICE TURN IN GLOBAL HISTORY: PRACTICES AS DRIVERS OF GLOBALIZATION/S

Ever since the spatial turn, historians have faced major challenges regarding how to write and research global history in general and the history of globalization in particular. The four major challenges analyzed in this article are (1) the challenge of polyphony, (2) how to determine the subject of global history beyond geographical definitions, (3) the dynamic of homo‐ and heterogenization accompanying the term “globalization/s,” and (4) how to grasp the relation between the micro level of individual actions and the macro level of global structures. The challenge of polyphony stems from the growing awareness of how Eurocentric perspectives have far too long obscured academic history‐writing with inappropriate presuppositions. The same goes for other (unreflected) area‐centrisms. A biased narrative for only one voice has to make way for a polyphonic narrative that meets the requirements of an up‐to‐date global history. Accordingly, this article suggests that neither geographically defined units nor the relation between given entities should be at the center of global history. Indeed, global history should deal with the “relationing” and the “making of” entities—one of which turns out to be “the global.” This article then proposes using the term “globalization” in the plural, but also reflects on its dependence on the singular. Closely connected to the pluralization of globalizing processes is the challenge of bridging convincingly between the micro level of individual actions and the macro level of global structures without disavowing the contingency and the heterogeneity of the individual. Several theories, such as practice theory and actor–network theory, can be used and modified to address these challenges, especially in determining the relation between macro‐ and microdynamics. I argue that practice theory offers one possible solution to these four challenges by combining both the heterogeneity of the micro level and the comprehensive narrative of global changes.     

Technology and crisis; Marx,Schumpeter and beyond

Observing that the notion of economic crisis per se has, from its origins, been closely tied to the idea of technological progress, this article examines the roots and development of this liaison in Marx, Schumpeter and the recent contribution of Freeman, et al. (1982). A concept (the Third Sector) is proposed for the relation between the structural evolution of economic organization and technological progress; this concept is developed through a critique of Marx and Schumpeter in the light of contemporary economic circumstances, and as complementary to the more technology‐generic “new technology systems” approach of Freeman, et al. In conclusion it is found, on a cursory examination, that the organizational changes implied by the Third Sector are corroborated by the evolution of technology‐based multinational corporations, while echoing Marx and Schumpeter in their possible consequences for economic crisis in the 1980's.     

Micro‐Raman And Micro‐Stratigraphic Analysis Of The Painting Materials In The Rock‐Hewn Church Of The Forty Martyrs In Şahinefendi,Cappadocia (Turkey)

This paper presents the results of analyses carried out on the paintings on the rock‐hewn walls of the Forty Martyrs church at ?ahinefendi in Cappadocia (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), a central region of Turkey, performed during conservation work from 2007 to 2012. The micro‐samples were investigated by spectroscopic, micro‐stratigraphic and scanning electron microscopy analysis in order to study the painting technique, the materials and the degradation products. The micro‐stratigraphic analysis showed a white, sometimes pinkish, plaster. Micro‐Raman analysis, performed on cross‐sections of the mortars, enabled the detection of calcite, gypsum, anhydrite and calcium oxalate. Scanning electron microscopy and energy‐dispersive spectroscopy revealed a similar composition among all investigated phases, aside from minor differences such as the presence of diatoms in the second and third phases and of biotite, lime lumps and plants fragments in the fourth one. Apart from traditional pigments of medieval wall paintings, micro‐Raman analysis revealed the presence of lead‐based compounds and jarosite.     

Nowtopia: Strategic Exodus?

Abstract: Nowtopia identifies a new basis for a shared experience of class. Specifically, the exodus from wage labor on one side, and the embrace of meaningful, freely chosen and “free” (unpaid) work on the other. A product of three decades of decomposition of the working class, nowtopians are different from “drop‐outs” in general, or surplus populations that constitute the necessary “outside” to capital, in their conscious withdrawal from capitalist culture and concerted rejection of the value form. In emergent convivial “nowtopian” communities, largely grounded in unpaid practical work which creatively meets needs such as transportation (the bicycling subculture), food (urban gardening/agriculture), and communication (open‐source communities), we see a gradual reversal of the extreme atomization of modern life. While facing the threat of corruption via re‐integration into the system, this constellation of practices, if taken together, is an elaborate, decentralized, uncoordinated collective research and development effort exploring a potentially post‐capitalist, post‐petroleum future.     

Equation and Adequation: The World Traced by the Phillips Curve

This paper considers the power of abstract formalization in capitalism, via an account of the politics and geography of an equation. The equation in question lies behind the Phillips curve, which describes the relation between price inflation and unemployment or output. I examine the evolution of the equation and its relation to macroeconomics' renewed emphasis, since the late 1960s, on long‐run monetary neutrality. Considering the Phillips curve and its theoretical and technical armature as social practice, I discuss some of the political and distributional questions that arise from the mode of spatial and temporal abstraction particular to modern macroeconomic analysis and policy‐making. The paper has three parts: a brief history of the Phillips curve, an examination of its modern equation‐form, and an analysis of its part in the dialectical process of “real abstraction”, through which logical space and time prioritize and produce both the spatial “macro” and the temporal “long‐run”.     

Evidence for Complexities in the RHX Dating Method

The rehydroxylation (RHX) dating method applicable to virtually all baked clay fragments still requires testing and new developments. Here, we have obtained new weighing measurements from Syrian medieval ceramic fragments. In particular, they allow us to illustrate the scatter in RHX behaviour that may exist between different potsherds of the same age and found at the same archaeological site, thus having experienced the same effective lifetime temperature, and even between samples collected from the same artefact. Thanks to a so‐called time‐span analysis, we also report on some complexities in data sets previously obtained by Wilson et al. (2009, 2012, 2014).