Proclaiming place: Towards a geography of place name pronunciation

This paper provides a critical review of recent geographical scholarship on place naming and contends that aural aspects of naming have yet to be fully worked into the research agenda. To begin to address this gap in the literature, we consider pronunciation to be an important element of the cultural politics of place naming within post-colonial societies. In asserting links between speaking and naming we are contributing to recent scholarship in cultural geography that has moved beyond the visual to consider a wider sensory spectrum in the constitution of place. Our case material is drawn from Aotearoa/New Zealand where conservative reactions to sympathetic pronunciations of Maori names by media personalities are a frequent occurrence. By way of example, we interpret selected examples of unsolicited comment gleaned from newspapers during the period 1994-1999. We conclude that identity is at least in part narrated through place-referenced linguistic tactics such as pronunciation. Cet article se veut un inventaire critique des récents travaux académiques sur la toponymie et soutient que la question des aspects 'auditifs' du nom mérite davantage l'attention des chercheurs. Afin de remédier à ce manque dans la littérature existante, nous suggérons que la problématique de la prononciation constitue un élément important des débats culturels entourant l'attribution de noms de lieux, surtout chez les sociétés postcoloniales. En insistant sur les liens entre le fait de parler et celui de nommer, notre discussion s'inscrit dans les travaux récents en géographie culturelle allant au-delà du visuel afin de concevoir une gamme sensorielle beaucoup plus large en ce qui a trait à la conception du lieu. Nos données sont tirées de la Aotearoa/Nouvelle-Zélande où les réactions conservatrices sont fréquentes lorsque des noms d'origine Maori sont utilisés par des personnalités médiatiques. A titre d'exemple, nous interprétons des commentaires receuillis dans les journaux entre 1994-1999. Nous concluons que l'identité est en partie rattachée à des références toponymiques et linguistiques tactiques telles que la prononciation. Este papel da un análisis crítico de reciente erudición geográfica sobre el nombramiento de lugares y afirma que el aspecto auditivo del nombramiento todavía no forma uno de los asuntos de investigación. Para empezar a cerrar esta brecha en la literatura, consideramos que la pronunciación constituye un elemento importante en la política cultural del nombramiento de lugares dentro de las sociedades pos-coloniales. Al acertar vínculos entre el hablar y el nombrar contribuimos a erudición reciente en la geografía cultural que se ha ido más alláde lo visual para considerar un espectro sensorio más amplio en la constitución de lugar. La materia de nuestro estudio viene de Aotearoa/Nueva Zelanda donde son frecuentes las reacciones conservadores a pronunciaciones comprensivas de los nombres Maorí por personajes de los medios de comunicación. Como ejemplo, interpretamos ejemplos de comentarios no solicitados, recogidos de periódicos de los años 1994 a 1999. Concluimos que, por lo menos en parte, la identidad es narrada por tácticas lingüísticas que se refieren a un lugar, tal como pronunciación.     

Embodying vertical geopolitics: Towards a political geography of falling

The emergence of air power in the 20th Century marked a new era of warfare. Speed, covertness, mobility, and verticality emerged as the buzzwords. This paper examines experimental body-centred encounters with verticality during preparatory parachute training at Ringway Aerodrome 1940–1945. I trace how falling bodies encountered, were organised in, and harnessed space for air-led warfare and, by extension, how vertically moving bodies perform alternative geopolitical realities. First, the paper outlines a political geography of falling and calls for greater critical conceptual thinking on the micro-practices capable of exerting geopolitical influence. Second, I outline three design principles cultivated through military parachuting. Repetition, relationality, and alignment advance theorisations of the organisation of aerial space, and affirm the entangled geographies of embodiment, verticality, and geopolitics. I draw upon the Royal Air Force's practical airborne training programme as a means for enacting ‘high readiness, forced entry’ operations through the amalgamation of man, technological-non-human, and air. The paper argues for the achievement of air power and the performance of aerial supremacy through gravity and falling. This has important implications for unpacking the corporeal mobilities and training practices by which geopolitical realities are known, embodied, made, and articulated, and of the role of elite performances of aerial mobility in disrupting inter/national aerial sovereignty.     

Towards a geography of tolerance: Post-politics and political forms of toleration

This paper argues for a closer inspection of how tolerance and politics interact. Within geography and beyond there is rising concern about post-political situations, whereby potential disagreements are foreclosed and situated beyond the remit of political debate. This is conceptualised as a process of de-politicisation that operates ‘much more effectively’ than alternative ways in which politics can be and has been disavowed (?i?ek, 1999: 198). While ?i?ek associates liberal tolerance with the post-political condition, however, theories of tolerance are at odds over whether it represents an everyday enactment of the political. Although some authors have indeed associated tolerance with a depoliticising tendency (Brown, 2006), others insist that certain types of tolerance are capable of nurturing simultaneous recognition and disagreement, which directly contradicts the conditions of post-politics (Forst, 2003). We therefore ask, contra ?i?ek, whether certain forms of tolerance can be an antidote to the post-political practice of foreclosing politics, and offer a set of considerations pertinent to the geographical analysis of this issue.     

Towards a more emotional geography of civic pride: a view from an English city

This article argues that civic pride has been relatively under-explored in geography and deserves greater attention as an emotional and political value associated with place. Through a case study of Nottingham, England, I examine how local civic actors perceive and express civic pride and the values it encompasses, using a discourse analysis of interviews, policy material and local media. I illustrate how civic pride is connected with everyday feelings of identity, community and what people value and aspire to in a given place, and demonstrate how we might think critically about civic pride’s connections to and relevance beyond local government. The analysis illustrates how, in the context of recent developments across British cities, civic actors and institutions engage with and value the city in different ways and that a diverse set of discourses and practices can emerge from a shared concern to protect civic identity and autonomy. Bringing together emotional and urban geographies literature, this paper challenges geographers to think carefully about how place-based values like civic pride can shape and reproduce often well-meaning but problematic discourses and practices within cities, but also how the underlying meanings and values associated with pride can surface in resistive and progressive ways.     

Towards a critical service learning in geography education: exploring challenges and possibilities through testimonio

There has been an increasing interest in exploring the transformational possibilities of experiential learning approaches like service learning, across post-secondary education, including geography. At the same time, scholars caution that such initiatives can entrench neoliberalism, white supremacy and other power structures and call for implementing a critical service learning (CSL) approach that is rooted in action against injustice. In response, this paper uses testimonio methodology to explore the experiences of a student and instructor engaging in a graduate geography course that implements CSL. We demonstrate how CSL is a complex process that is mired in the very power structures and institutional barriers it attempts to disrupt. Nonetheless, CSL creates opportunities for social change in the classroom and community, which make it a promising pedagogical strategy for geographers aiming to create alternative teaching approaches in their classrooms.     

Toward a relational economic geography

In this paper, we argue that a paradigmatic shift is occurringin economic geography toward a relational economic geography.This rests on three propositions. First, from a structural perspectiveeconomic actors are situated in contexts of social and institutionalrelations. Second, in dynamic perspective economic processesare path-dependent, constrained by history. Third, economicprocesses are contingent in that the agents' strategies andactions are open-ended. Drawing on Storper's holy trinity, wedefine four ions as the basis for analysis in economic geography:organization, evolution, innovation, and interaction. Therein,we employ a particular spatial perspective of economic processesusing a geographical lens.     

Statistical analysis of a geography examination

The development of North Sea oil and gas resources is related to technological problems, cost and government involvement. Most activity has centred on Norway and Scotland; nevertheless, countries such as France and West Germany, with a lack of indigenous offshore resources, have broken into the offshore supplies market in other sectors.     

Towards an archaeology and geography of Second World War German munitions storage sites in north-west Europe

This paper reviews the signature characteristics of extant Second World War German army munitions storage landscapes in forested areas of north-west Europe with particular reference to sites in north-west France and the Netherlands. Archaeological survey, aerial photographs and documentary archives show the geography of munitions sites exhibit a regulated pattern of bunker disposition and spacing that is adapted to local road configurations and terrain. Non-hardened bunkers form the predominant feature in munitions depots and conform to a five-/six-fold typology defined by non-invasive survey and excavated examples from the Netherlands. The typology reflects an evolution of storage protocols towards all-round protection from the effects of weather and blast, but also reveals variation in size, structural characteristics and function that poses questions for further study. It is anticipated that these results will be of diagnostic value in future Second World War conflict archaeological survey of German military support structures in formerly occupied territories.     

Sonic geography in a nature region

This paper considers the sonic geography of a region since the late nineteenth century, taking material from the Norfolk Broads, a wetland region in eastern England. This area has been defined through competing cultures of nature and leisure, with the presence, absence and nature of sound a key concern. The theme of sonic geography is set within debates concerning the nature of regional identity, moral geographies of conduct in landscape, and uses of the term ‘soundscape’. The paper draws on surveys of sound, travel guides, press reports, private journals and fictional accounts, showing how in the contested valuation of a regional landscape the aesthetic, ecological and social are enfolded through sonic geography.     

Teaching Indigenous geography in a neo-colonial world

Australian universities are increasingly embedding Indigenous content and perspectives within curriculum to promote Indigenous cultural competency. We present teaching challenges in an Indigenous geography course designed to present an engaged, intercultural learning experience. We critically reflect on student evaluations, informal discussions and observations to complement scholarly debates. Course design and delivery was seen as stimulating and illuminating in terms of course content. While diversity of student cohorts, backgrounds and learning styles remain challenging, the romanticism of some students can override critical engagement with the geographical context of the course material and their positionality. There remains a tendency in both student constructions and the geographical literature to create an Indigenous/non-Indigenous binary that not only essentializes both, but can be culturally unsafe for Indigenous students. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students may share a sense of pessimism in confronting apparently unstoppable development and environmental destruction. We argue for scholarship around the fundamentally intercultural nature of coexistence to contextualize the spatial diversity of Indigenous lives in landscapes, currently obscured by dominant constructions of Indigeneity. Critical reflection on settler educators’ and learners’ positionalities with respect to neocolonial structures will help to transcend both essentialism and pessimism.