THINGS THAT ARE ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE WELL KNOWN IN PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

The author, a physical geographer, sees no need to despair about the present state of the discipline and the future of geography. He places geography in context among the sciences and finds a need for a synthesizing discipline that pulls together the findings of the particular disciplines. Such a function might be performed by landscape science and regional geography. In general, geographers are found to go too far afield in their research and there is a need to define the focus of the disciplines to eliminate the present centrifugal tendencies. Such a unifying focus might be found in geographical prediction. Geographers should be aware of the limits and capabilities of their discipline; geography is most effective in fostering solutions in conjunction with other disciplines. Fieldwork per se is criticized; some geographers make a fetish of fieldwork, spending their life in the field without ever writing up the results as a contribution to science. The language of geographical exposition must be cleansed of pseudoscientific jargon; too much geographical writing is incomprehensible. The use of mathematics in geography should be placed in historical perspective; it is not the panacea for all that ails geography.     

INTERACTION BETWEEN PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

The chairmen of the departments of physical geography and economic geography of the USSR at Moscow University call for greater interplay between the two major subfields of geography, particularly in the context of geographical research for regional planning and geographical prediction generally. The demands of a modern economy require a more integrated approach to the study of spatial systems encompassing the totality of the natural environment, settlement, production and living conditions. Such close interaction between physical and economic geography needs to be pursued at all levels of geography as a discipline, from international geographical congresses down to ordinary student field practice.     

The emergence and institutionalization of feminist geography in Ghana

Abstract

The emergence and institutionalization of feminist geography in Ghana was in tandem with the global feminist movement in the 1970s and its subsequent international women’s conferences. This paper discusses the pioneering work and research at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, and its effect on the institutionalization and diffusion of feminist geography in Ghana. Through research and external collaborations, the need for gender as an academic discipline was strongly argued for and instituted as an undergraduate course at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana. These external collaborations with other feminist geographers in international geography associations and universities served as a boost as they created opportunities for highlighting the spatial variations in the role and situation of particularly women’s lives in Ghana. Subsequently, there was a diffusion of feminist geography research and its institutionalization as an academic sub-discipline in Geography departments in other Ghanaian universities. These notwithstanding, the departments of Geography in Ghanaian universities are still dominated by male faculty members. Moreover, research work has been mainly in the field of human geography more than the physical aspects calling for the mainstreaming of gender issues in all the systematic branches of the discipline.     

Problems of Geographical Education in the USSR

Geography education in the Soviet Union is found to lag behind advances in geography as a research discipline. Courses in both elementary and secondary schools and at the college and university level are overloaded with factual material at the expense of theoretical problems and general concepts. An essential requisite for improving the content of geography education is better training of geography teachers. Soviet geography teachers are now being trained mainly in the combined geography-biology faculties of teachers colleges. Combined training in more than one teaching discipline is essential because a teacher trained in geography alone would not have a full teaching load of 18 hours a week in most schools. However, the geography-biology combination does not appear to be optimal because the emphasis in biology is no longer on botany and zoology, as in the past, but on human physiology and genetics, with less relevance to geography. It is recommended that geography as a teaching discipline be combined with other subjects of instruction having greater relevance to geography teaching, possibly chemistry, physical education or foreign languages. Less emphasis on fact-loaded regional courses and more stress on systematic courses is recommended, together with training in mathematical techniques.     

Caring practices: the connection between logics of state and domestic violence in Cairo,Egypt

This article analyzes the multiscalar relationship between state violence and domestic violence among low-income residents of Cairo, Egypt. To do so, I look at the concept of care and how notions of care are intimately linked with interpretations of violence within daily life. In the accounts of research participants, acts of violence are instances that are understood as lacking regard for the other’s well-being. Violence is juxtaposed against ‘discipline’ and is generally understood as an act of care meant to correct inappropriate behavior. Here, discipline can encompass acts of physical force. Finally, findings show that for low-income Egyptians, the violence of the state not only shapes but also happens simultaneously to violence in the home.     

THEORIES, PARADIGMS, MAPPING, AND GEOMORPHOLOGY

A past-president's address is a unique opportunity to reflect on one's experience in a discipline or to examine that discipline with a critical eye. This is best done during the brashness of youth or from the comfortable position of maturity. Obviously it is from the latter vantage point that I wish to probe this branch of science, geomorphology, which for twenty years has given me renewed intellectual challenges, beauty that only a field scientist has the privilege to behold, physical difficulties which result in a minimum of middle-age bulge, and lessons in humility which keep proposed explanations honest.     

On the distribution of certain forest trees in Scotland,as shown by the investigation of post‐glacial deposits

An attempt is made to identify the main trends in the development of physical geography as a distinctive discipline. In particular the relationship between physical and human geography is examined with a view to identifying possible paths for the future development of physical geography as an integrated discipline.     

Straddling the Boundaries Between Sciences

The author reverts to the theme that, in addition to the particular disciplines in physical geography and in economic geography, there is a genuine need for a general geographic approach to study of the geographical environment and of the man-nature relationship. As a result of the growing social impact on the environment, the operation of natural laws and social laws becomes so closely intertwined that no single discipline operating with one particular set of laws is capable of understanding the complex processes and phenomena in the interplay between nature and society. The growing specialized differentiation of geography as a science does not eliminate it as a distinct field of human knowledge with a common object of study. However there is a danger that the process of differentiation may be going too far, with an increasing number of scholars from adjacent disciplines coming into geography. The trend is said to be evident in the advanced training of geographers in universities, where geography facilities are turning into collections of departments turning out, say, meteorologists with little general geographic background. And yet there is a growing need for broadly trained geographers, particularly in the entire field of long-range planning and pre-planning research, in which the author is engaged.     

中国华侨华人研究的学科建设与学术定位

在前期研究的基础上,进一步对当前华侨华人学科建设与学术定位中的一些认识问题、理论问题进行了阐述。主要观点为:学术研究与政策宣传是相辅相成的。相对独立和自由的学术研究是制定政策的基础工作和必要前提;华人研究不应该以中国社会为中心,而应该以海外华人社会为研究的主要对象;华侨华人研究应该摆脱功利主义的考量和民族情绪的影响,坚持理性思考的科学精神;华侨华人研究应该有宽松的氛围、宽阔的视野和宽容的态度。     

Physical Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology in Europe: History,Current Trends and Challenges

This paper provides an overview of the development and current practice of physical anthropology as relating to the treatment of archaeological skeletal remains in Europe. The evolution of physical anthropology as a discipline is covered in detail from the 18th century onwards, and current trends in education and research are also discussed. Additional topics include a synthesis of the legislative framework for studying human skeletal remains in over 40 European countries while also addressing challenges, future trends and emerging ethical questions. This overview is the product of an extensive review of the literature partnered with information received via questionnaires completed by colleagues working in nearly 50 European countries. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

空间理论的图景拓展——基于哈格斯特朗与布迪厄的理论互构研究

哈格斯特朗与布迪厄作为同一时代的学术巨擘，他们的时间地理学与实践理论皆在各自学科领域占据着重要的研究阵地，然而由于学科体系的分化，两种学术理论至今仍“各自为战”。本研究希望以时间地理学与实践理论的互构为契机，拓展空间理论图景。首先，本文分析了时间地理学与实践理论在认识论层面上的亲和性；其次，阐述了时间地理学与实践理论在方法论层面上的地理空间与社会空间以及它们的应用场景；第三，在认识论与方法论的基础上，通过贯通时间地理学与实践理论的概念，提出了一套“地理空间-群体-社会空间”研究框架；最终，在实践层面上提出了研究展望。值此，希望为探索社会空间综合体的本质与深化关于空间议题的思考增加新的体悟。     

Climate,History, and Culture: The Power of Change

Global climate change and its consequences for humankind opens up a research field for exploring the diverse dimensions and forces of change through time. Chief among the objects of inquiry is how climatic shifts impact on ecological and social structures and developments and what human agencies are able to unfold under given conditions. Conclusions from such reciprocities can help to deliver a differentiated approach to the inroads of anthropogenic climate change. Central to this enterprise are such analytic perspectives as the discipline of anthropology can bring to researching the impact of climate change on human societies.     

International relations research performance among Australian universities

In this research note, the authors briefly report the results of an exercise measuring the relative research performance of Australian universities in the field of international relations (IR). The findings are based on counting articles in the leading journals in the field, as determined by the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) journal ranking. The authors also present the number of IR scholars in each university according to a 2011 survey. Three issues are addressed: the logic of journal rankings, especially in light of the decision to drop these from the ERA exercise; the method by which the data was compiled; and a discussion of the findings. These results build on and update those reported earlier for the broader discipline of political science, extending to the period 2003–11.     

Anglo-American followers or Antipodean iconoclasts? The 2008 TRIP survey of international relations in Australia and New Zealand

This article examines the results of the world's largest ever survey of international relations (IR) scholars with an eye to establishing the particularities of the discipline in Australia and New Zealand. The survey covered the areas of teaching, research, the structure of the profession and scholars’ views on foreign policy. From these results, this paper compares IR in New Zealand and Australia, and discusses the extent to which the discipline in these two countries is distinctive from its overseas counterparts, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. The particular areas of focus include the degree to which the field in Australasia conforms to or differs from US or Commonwealth identities; epistemological and gender divides; the distinctive foci of what IR scholars in both countries teach and research; which publications are favoured and disfavoured; and the contrasting linkages between academia and the world of government and policy. We conclude with some suggestions about how the field in both countries might be improved.     

Restructuring physical geography

The tripartite division of physical geography into geomorphology, climatology and biogeography is still often quoted, but developments in the last two decades have resulted in restructuring of the discipline. Significant publications by physical geographers now occur dominantly in multidisciplinary rather than in core geography journals. Analysis of the contents of ten journals and of the submissions to the 1996 UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) demonstrate the current pre-eminence of two sub-disciplines: geomorphology with hydrology, and Quaternary environmental change. Complementing research in the sub-disciplines, six trends towards a more integrated physical geography are identified as indicators of restructuring that has already occurred. Three futures are suggested for physical geography. The first, the status quo, is thought to be unlikely. The second, the disappearance of physical geography into other disciplinary areas would leave holistic investigations to other disciplines and so is undesirable. Thus, the third alternative, a renaissance of a more integrated physical geography, provides the most likely future. It is supported by existing integrative trends, provides a natural sequel to reductionist specialization, reflects the strong identity for the geographical approach to the earth and environmental sciences and the spatio-analytical approach integrating deductive and inductive studies, and it focuses on human–environmental interactions that could have implications for geography as a whole.     

Spatial Autocorrelation and Impacts on Criminology

Despite criminology's widespread application of geography, the full implications of Cliff and Ord's article have yet to be realized. In this essay the major types of spatial studies in criminology are outlined, followed by a depiction of the context of criminological research at the time the article was published. Next the major changes to the field occurring after the publication of Cliff and Ord's paper, focusing on technology advances and theory, are set out. Fortunately these changes mean the discipline is well placed to move beyond seeing the presence of spatial autocorrelation as a methodological issue that needs to be explained away.     

国际旅游研究前沿的知识图谱分析——基于对TM和ATM所载文献的考察

本文运用科学计量学中的作者共引分析、多维尺度分析、聚类分析和因子分析,对国际旅游研究领域中的两本具有代表性的期刊——Tourism Management和Annals of Tourism Research进行科学计量分析,绘制出旅游研究前沿热点主流学术群体及其代表人物的知识图谱。该图谱显示出当前国际旅游研究存在4个主流学术群体和研究领域,且旅游研究从以往的以经济学为基础向跨学科的综合研究发展。     

“公众考古学”和“公众考古理念”辨析

本文通过分析目前国际、国内关于Public Archaeology的研究现状和不同学术观点,提出Public Archaeology包括“公众考古学”和“公众考古理念”两个层面,并分别总结、归纳出公众考古学的研究内容和公众考古理念的内涵及其意义,提出我国应该重视公众考古学的学术研究,发展“有中国特色的”公众考古学。     

Debating Some Past and Present Research Frameworks and Methodologies in History on Places and their Peoples in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Histories regarding places and their peoples in South Africa can be traced to the early days of History being practised as an academic discipline. However, practising this form of history under (and outside) the flag of regional history was formalised only in the mid seventies, while informalised research practices in the field continued as methods complementing various schools of thought. Narrowly perceived local histories were considered as inclusive of the formalised and informalised regional history practices as knowledge contributing towards a broader understanding of a (geographically defined/ politically demarcated) region. Of interest is not only the historiography in this field (of which a few pointers are shared in this discussion) but some of the frameworks and methods to research and to record regional histories that have been used in the past. Equally of interest are the ways in which these frameworks and methods are still applied and thought of as dynamic and progressive to assist the historian to progress towards producing and packaging research as part of a comprehensive, all inclusive approach in creating knowledge as regional history studies. In South Africa, an extensive debate on how regional history studies should be broadly defined and understood when undertaking research, still falls short. This is due to the variety, diversity and complexity of knowledge contributing to the pool of information that should be packaged as regional history studies. To contibute towards a framework of understanding and packaging knowledge in this field of meaning to regional history studies, the reader is further exposed to an extended structure of perhaps understanding and doing research in this field: a field that has always been regarded as having the potential to be both integrative and multidisciplinary by nature. Yet its integrative analytical abilities also rest on the outcome of narrow-defined histories done on spaces and places before it is possible to embark on bigger research analyses in, for example, the spirit of modern social history applications to regional history studies. This discussion on ways to understand the limited past and present of regional studies (historiographically and methodologically) in South Africa is offered to encourage further debate.     

Present Problems in Soviet Cartography and the Tasks of the Geographical Society

After having long existed as a technical discipline serving the needs of geographers, cartography in the Soviet Union has become increasingly a research discipline involving many common interests with geography. Collaboration between cartographers and geographers is becoming increasingly essential as more attention is being given to thematic cartography involving not only particular disciplines (geomorphology, economic geography, population geography) but what may be called an integrated “geographical” cartography. Much effort continues to be devoted in the Soviet Union to the compilation of regional atlases and to a wide range of thematic maps. Increasing attention is being given to the production of evaluative maps, assessing the potential use of the physical environment and natural resources. School maps represent a major part of Soviet map production. Tourist and hiking maps need to be seriously improved.