Connecting lectures to current affairs: the “letters to newspapers” assignment

This paper presents the experiences of teaching political geography, in a level 2 BA course, with the use of an innovative assignment – the letters to newspapers assignment. We provide here the aims, rationale and a detailed outline of the assignment. We also discuss student feedback from 67 questionnaires and 2 focus groups. Our findings suggest that the assignment was instrumental in (a) enabling the students to see concepts in action, that is to link abstract ideas with real-world issues and (b) initiating a move away from passive learning towards supporting students to actively and critically reflect upon their relationship with the world.     

Competitive internationalisation or grassroots practises of internationalism? The changing international practises of German-language critical geography

International connections have always been essential in critical geography in Germany. This paper aims to examine the role of international connections in German critical geography as a step towards a history of critical geography in Germany. The paper suggests four periods of internationalisation: first, an internationalist phase from ca. 1920 to 1933, with the very first critical geographers in Germany who were highly connected and internationally oriented. Second, starting in the late 1960s, there was a phase of struggles within the national framework of the discipline, and in particular against a prevailing national focus of mainstream geography. Third, the late 1970s and the 1980s saw the emergence of an international orientation as a way to escape repression in German geography. People interested in critical approaches in geography left the country, finding inspiration or positions elsewhere, or sought out international contacts that challenged ‘mainstream’ geography. Finally, the paper will draw conclusions about the development of international connections in relation to national disciplinary control, the scales of struggles and (as a fourth phase) the current situation in German geography.     

On Dittmer's Popular Culture,Geopolitics, and Identity as a classroom resource

In this intervention, four geographers, all of whom have used Jason Dittmer's book, Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity, in their classes, assess its status as a teaching resource. All have had considerable success using Dittmer's book, alongside other resources, to cultivate critical thinking and critical knowledge production in a wide range of classes.     

Avoiding the “F” word: feminist geography in Iran

Abstract

Little attention has been given to how feminist geography is defined, applied, and taught in non-Anglophone countries, especially in Muslim majority societies where Women’s Rights are quite different from the western world. The case of Iran among other Middle Eastern countries becomes even more isolated due to the several political, linguistic, and cultural limitations opposed on Iranian academics and international collaborations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women make half of Iran’s 80 million population, 63% of university graduates, almost half of informal workers, 30% of Iranian professors, 13% of high level management position holders, and under 5% of the Islamic Majlis (Iran’s Parliament). However, feminist geography, the sub-discipline that has been traditionally dedicated to the inclusion of gender as an analytical lens within Geography, is not a recognized field at any departments in Iran. This essay aims to present the current status of feminist geographic research and teaching at selected Iranian Universities. My goal is to offer a better understanding of how the local social and political context affect what constitute feminist geographic work and how geographers navigate the political and hierarchal university systems to engage in gender studies. Through informal interviews via emails and Skype with several Iranian geographers, I illustrate why Iranian geographers often avoid using “feminist” terminology in recognizing their work, even though their work is feminist.     

东西对话：中国政治地理学研究展望

中国政治地理学的发展尚处于起步阶段。中国与西方政治地理学者的学术交流相对有限,这主要是由于语言的障碍,以及中国学者对于研究课题政治敏感性的担忧,普遍缺乏对政治地理学研究内涵的理解。本文基于对中西方政治地理学发展现状及相关研究可能性的理解,指出以下五个在中国具有进一步拓展空间的政治地理学课题：广域行政与空间政治;国际关系与地理想象;边界冲突与划界研究;边界与边界区域研究;环境政治地理学。这些课题的开展不仅可以加强中国自身的政治地理学研究,而且对西方正在进行的政治地理学研究也会起到积极的推动作用。     

Pedagogical declarations: feminist engagements with the teaching statement

To produce a teaching statement, current and aspiring teachers undertake the ostensibly straightforward task of putting their teaching philosophy onto paper. But upon close examination, the teaching statement – a seemingly simple object – is much more complex. The teaching statement is full of dual functions, many of which can be conceived of as working at cross-purposes. This paper draws on the teaching statement's history along with a collaborative and feminist mentorship methodology to highlight these dual functions. We discuss how teaching statements can be negotiated and inhabited from our perspective as early career scholars.     

Research NotePork-Barrelling in Australian Politics: A Reconsideration of Leigh

This research note replicates Leigh's (2008) analysis of pork-barrelling in Australian politics and tests the validity of his findings using geographic techniques. Distributive politics is integral to nearly all theories of legislative politics because it is fundamental to the connection between legislators and constituents, and can be used to facilitate coalition-building. This note addresses an aspect of pork-barrelling that has been overlooked in most previous scholarship. It argues that distributive politics is, at its core, a geographic, constituency-centred process. It is therefore essential to reconsider the conventional models and take geography into account in both substantive and statistical terms. To that end, we replicate several of Leigh's results using a relatively new technique, Geographically Weighted Regression, and reveal substantial spatial heterogeneity in the coefficients. Our findings highlight the importance of political geography and have important implications for studies of legislative politics and elections.

本文重复了李（2008）对澳大利亚政治分肥拨款的分析,用地理学技术检测了其发现有效性。分配政治内在于几乎所有的立法政治理论,因为它是立法者与选民之间联系的基础,有利于联盟的构建。本文探讨了分肥拨款被以往学术研究所忽略的一个方面。作者认为,分配政治其核心是一个地理的、以选区为中心的过程。因此有必要重新检讨固有的模式,切实而且从统计的意义上采纳地理的视角。我们使用了一种相对新近的技术,即地理加权回归分析来重复李的几个成果,发现空间同质系数很高。我们的发现突出了政治地理的重要性,对于立法政治以及选举的研究有参考意义。