Rural mental health and social geographies of caring

This paper contributes to an emerging geographical literature on the social geographies of caring. Drawing on recently undertaken empirical work in the Scottish Highlands, personal accounts about the provision of both formal and informal care for people with mental health problems are evaluated. The notion of ‘community care’ is critiqued, as too are claims about how rural and remote rural locations engender particular configurations of caring roles, practices and relations. It is shown that geographical distance, social proximity, stoic cultures and rural gossip networks all have a part to play in how caring occurs in such places. The paper concludes by suggesting areas of future research.     

Space syntax analysis of Central Inuit snow houses

Space syntax is a graph-based theory used by architects to examine how the spatial layout of buildings and cities influences the economic, social, and environmental outcomes of human movement and social interaction. Archaeologists have explored this concept by analyzing how social structure is reflected in the spatial configuration of public and domestic architecture. In this paper, space syntax is used to examine the spatial morphology of snow houses built by three Central Inuit groups in the Canadian Arctic, based on ethnohistoric and ethnographic accounts. The results of this study demonstrate that variation in family structure and the behavioral directives present in Inuit kinship systems are reflected in the spatial configurations of snow house architecture. This has important implications for understanding how architecture might be used to identify enduring and changing patterns of household and community organization in the archaeological record.     

Youth organizations and the reproduction of nationalism in Britain: the role of Urdd Gobaith Cymru

Youth organizations have long played significant roles in promoting particular forms of nationalism among young people in the UK. To date, however, academic studies of UK youth organizations have been Anglocentric, focusing on youth organizations associated with a hegemonic British state and imperial project. This paper seeks to show how youth organizations have also been used to promote alternative forms of nationalism in the UK, which have sought to challenge a British state and imperial project. Focusing explicitly on Wales, it examines how Urdd Gobaith Cymru – the Welsh League of Youth – has played a significant role over the past 90 years in promoting a Welsh and Welsh-speaking citizenship amongst Welsh youth. Drawing on documentary and archival research, the paper discusses how the organization has fostered particular practices and identities among its members and the way in which these have been challenged in recent years; most notably as a result of a decline in the numbers of Welsh speakers in Wales and changing configurations of the meanings of Welshness. The paper concludes by arguing for the need to take seriously the role played by youth organizations in helping to shape political geographies in a devolved Britain.     

Intimacies of global toxins: Exposure & resistance in ‘Chemical Valley’

This paper examines the geopolitics of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation's reserve, situated in a toxic petrochemical complex known as Canada's ‘Chemical Valley.’ While this reserve holds the perilous title of worst air-pollution in the country, research exploring the profound impacts that this toxic environment has on Indigenous communities remains limited and tends to resort to simplistic framings. In this paper we suggest that Michel Foucault's concept of the ‘heterotopia’ is a helpful prism through which to view Aamjiwnaang in more complex, political terms. We also suggest, however, that this prism has a limited scope when it comes to exposing intimate experiences of global toxins. Drawing on a feminist geopolitics, we seek to stretch Foucault's heterotopic approach in order to show how the reserve is intimately colonized and contaminated by Canada's chemical production. Vitally, our approach gleans insight into the everyday ways that Aamjiwnaang is governed by and also disrupts colonial configurations. Moreover, our paper illuminates how a feminist heterotopic approach can re-orient research towards a deepened understanding of Indigenous-led modes of environmental justice.     

Of floods and droughts: The uneven politics of stormwater in Los Angeles

Stormwater is a complex political and geographical problem. It is at once bound to land-use decisions, tied to geographical features such as lakes and rivers, and capable of flowing across different political boundaries and jurisdictions. In this paper, I empirically focus on how disparate understandings of stormwater are forged through different institutional arrangements and the ways multiple actors interact across scales of governance in Los Angeles. The results indicate four discourses influence decisions on urban stormwater management and are articulated through different forms of knowledge and power in environmental governance. The discourses diverge over contrasting perspectives on infrastructural interventions, the role of economic approaches, and the need for new institutions and rules. I suggest that disagreement may not deter integration and collaboration across different scales of governance, but without addressing conflict over key discursive claims about how stormwater governance should proceed, broadly accepted outcomes may remain elusive. With current trends in environmental governance moving towards hybrid forms that bring together groups that transcend traditional organizational structures, this paper reveals how more sustainable outcomes are being devised through current configurations of knowledge and power.     

Paving the way for new regional industrial paths: actors and modes of change in Scania’s games industry

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarly work has enhanced our understanding of how new path development activities are enabled or constrained by ‘regional environments’, made up of pre-existing industrial structures, knowledge organizations, support structures and institutional configurations. This paper moves beyond overly static views on regional environments. We develop a dynamic perspective by analysing conceptually and empirically how a constraining environment can be transformed into one that enables the development of new growth paths. The paper offers a typology of various modes of change, including layering, adaptation and novel application that are used by key actors to ‘manipulate’ the regional support structures to facilitate new regional industrial path development. The conceptual framework is applied to a case study of the digital games industry in the region of Scania, southern Sweden. Our findings suggest that the creation of a more enabling environment for the growth of the digital games industry has been the outcome of multi-scalar processes and combinations of various modes of change employed by a few key individuals operating in the newly emerging path.     

Repertoires of national boundaries in France and Germany—within‐country cleavages and their political consequences

This article analyses how members of the majority population in France and Germany define membership in the nation and how they relate to the various civic, cultural, or ethnic visions of national belonging available in the cultural repertoires of historical models, institutional arrangements, and elite discourses. To scrutinize within‐country differences in the configurations of the symbolic boundaries of national belonging, this article applies cluster analysis techniques for each country separately using data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). Overall, the results suggest that people choose and arrange different criteria from cultural repertoires, resulting in various configurations of national boundaries. Furthermore, the number and types of symbolic boundaries used are decisive for explaining restrictive and hostile attitudes towards immigrants. Contrary to the civic and ethnic historical models, the national boundary configurations display very similar patterns across the two countries, especially attesting to the considerable process of liberalization of citizenship regulations in Germany.     

Development at the Edge of Difference: Rethinking Capital and Market Relations from Lugu Lake,Southwest China

This paper rethinks the relationships between capitalist development in indigenous places and the fabric of local differences and specificities. It first develops a critical appraisal of the celebration of ethnic identities, local agency and indigenous knowledge in existing literatures. It suggests that, based on such insights, we can further envision the possibility of questioning and problematising the ontology and concept of the capitalist economy. Above all, this paper is interested in non-capitalist factors percolating into capitalist economies and creating fissures in their logical and ontological coherence. It examines how capitalist economies depend on local specificities to achieve particular configurations. We elucidate this argument with a case study of indigenous development in Lugu Lake, Southwest China, which is inhabited by the ethnic Mosuo people. Through the dual lenses of land and labour, we pay special attention to the transition from grassroots development initiatives to heavy dependence on exogenous capital and entrepreneurs.     

Inherently vulnerable? Ethnic geography and the intensity of violence in the Bosnian civil war

Which geographic configurations of ethnic settlements are most susceptible to violence in ethnic conflict? Existing research on ethnic conflict focuses on regional configurations of ethnicity, thus neglecting how local vulnerable pockets of minorities may become primary targets for violence. The mechanism linking minority enclaves to more violence posits that the regional majority group will fight local minorities in order to (i) create ethnically homogeneous areas and (ii) remove potential support for the other group by the local minority. Minority enclaves that cannot easily receive outside support from their ethnic brethren are vulnerable and thus provide incentives to attack. The paper thus argues that the presence of vulnerable ethnic minorities in areas dominated by other ethnic groups heightens the perception of threat, suggesting that the implications of the ethnic security dilemma are more pronounced. The paper uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop measures of isolated and vulnerable minority enclaves. This novel measure captures local (micro) and regional (macro) patterns of ethnic settlements that remain veiled behind a focus on ethnicity in larger administrative units. In a quantitative case study of the Bosnian war (1992–1994), I show that the presence of local minorities within territories controlled by an enemy ethnic majority is associated with more violence. The results remain robust when accounting for the presence of the UN peacekeeping mission (UNPROFOR) and across several robustness checks.     

THE INCEST PASSIONS:AN OUTLINE OF THE LOGIC OF THE IQWAYE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

In the first part of this paper (Oceania 62(1)) I presented the mythopoeic-cosmological foundations of incest among the Iqwaye people, a Yagwoia-Anga group of the West Menyamya Census Division, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The core of incest passions derives from the primordial autosexual-autonutritive, i.e. self-procreative, cosmic man. Here I am demonstrating how incest as autocreation is realized in the main structural configurations of Iqwaye social organization, specifically the naming system, patrifiliation, matrifiliation, affinity, cross-sex siblingship and, finally, institutionalized male homosexuality.     

Identifying institutional configurations for policy outcomes: A comparison of ecosystem services delivery

This paper employs the Institutional Analysis and Development framework across six ecosystem delivery measures in the European Union to develop a configurational explanation of (un)successful outcomes. By undertaking comparative institutional analysis, we systematically examine the effect of variation across rule types and generate insights on how different institutional configurations result in varying degrees of successful implementation of ecosystem delivery measures. We apply explanatory typology methods to identify the institutional features that best explain variation in implementation success across a number of cases. We argue that institutional rules shape outcomes in conjunction rather than in isolation. The findings show that differences in implementation success across cases can be explained by the interplay of differences in knowledge exchange, flexibility in implementation, and participation in the policy design process.     

Uncontrolled urban housing in interwar Greece: the rise of the city in urban and national politics

The case of urban housing in interwar Greece was unique. After the end of the war in Asia Minor in 1922 almost 1.3 million Greek Orthodox refugees transferred from Turkey to Greece in the first obligatory exchange of populations in world history. Until that time accommodation and property were the privilege of the rich and there was no consideration for public housing as welfare to cater for the needs of low-income people. This paper explores how the impact of uncontrolled housing in the urban centres of interwar Greece led to the emergence of the town in urban and national politics. It will investigate how the uncontrolled housing defined different spatial configurations and reflected various forms of power relations. It will examine how the need for housing of the masses of refugees led to the collapse of the limited infrastructure and had a catalytic effect on town planning. It will also analyse how urban issues were raised on the political agenda and the way that cities produced electoral behaviours that changed the political map of the country.     

Mapping Manila's Mega-Urban Region

The global rise of mega-urban regions (MUR) signifies the impending dominance of this new urban form. Focusing on Manila's MUR, this paper contributes by mapping the demographic landscape of the MUR to account for its spatial form, patterns and trajectories. Using a hotspot analysis of disaggregated barangay-level data, significant ‘local’ clusters of population growth and decline are calculated over two decades. When mapped, three local patterns are observed: (1) outward expansion of high- and low-growth clusters; (2) development of new growth nodes on the fringes; and (3) recent emergence of high-growth clusters in the core. The patterns illustrate the volatile and chameleon-like configurations of the MUR. The paper also demonstrates how calculated clusters may be used as contextual compasses to expose critical mega-urban processes. With local-level data on settlement histories, development projects and socio-political events, the paper historicises landuse change, demolitions and relocations to unveil site-specific dispossessions in the MUR.     

Floor Response Spectra for Bare and Infilled Reinforced Concrete Frames

The objective of this article is to study the effects of structural nonlinear behavior on Floor Response Spectra (FRS) of existing reinforced concrete frames. This study examines how the FRS vary with the level of post-elastic behavior in buildings of different number of stories and masonry infill wall configurations. The effect of damping modeling assumptions is also investigated. Differences and similarities with findings from the literature are discussed. On the basis of the obtained results, a commentary on the adequacy of basic assumptions used in predictive equations proposed by different seismic codes is offered.     

Nations-of-intent: from counterfactual history to counterfactual geography

The locations of international borders reflect political aspirations as well as power politics and attempts to bring state boundaries in line with nations. The expulsion of Singapore from Malaysia and the exclusion of the Philippines from the United States indicate the power of narrowly defined borders to govern national identity. The concept ‘nations-of-intent’ allows us to explore counterfactual borders as a way of examining how political aspirations translate into national borders. The paper explores three Asian cases – Malaysia, Mongolia and Vietnam – and makes reference to Indonesia in considering how different senses of what was possible and desirable in the context of decolonization generated different ideas about where borders should lie. This approach also allows us to interrogate losing forces retrospectively about the policies they would have followed within different border configurations.     

Archaeological prospecting: A progress report

This article has two main aims: to show how the quality of resistivity surveys may be improved by the use of new probe configurations and consideration of seasonal effects on detectability of features; and secondly to describe the value of the new fluxgate gradiometers for rapid detailed magnetic surveys and for scanning substantial tracts of country for archaeological remains. Methods of survey presentation are also briefly described.     

Assessing side-payment and cost-sharing patterns in international water agreements: The geographic and economic connection

To a large degree, conflicts over transboundary freshwater resources arise because property rights have not been clearly defined. International water law provides only hints and suggestions as to how states should resolve their water disputes, since legal principles and clauses are ambiguous and contradictory. But conflict often creates a need for cooperation, which is achieved by means of negotiations, and the specific outcome of negotiations is almost always codified in an international treaty. This article considers bilateral water agreements for rivers with particular geographical configurations and aims to answer a fundamental question: how and why do bilateral treaties vary in their design? Further, it examines international freshwater treaties to deduce the nature of treaty remedies, particularly the side-payment and cost-sharing arrangements, used for resolving conflict over rivers shared by two countries. The theory and testable hypotheses consider geography and economics in order to explore treaty design. In essence, the ‘willingness to pay’ of one of the states reflects on the property rights solution and can be explained by geography and economics. Three geographical configurations are investigated here. The findings affirm that side-payments frequently occur to offset an asymmetric geographical relationship between upstream and downstream states, and are commonly regarded as an appropriate instrumentality for solving a property rights dispute. Side-payments are non-existent when the geographic relationship among the riparians is symmetric and costs for the joint project are most always equally shared. As expected, in this latter case, the geography of the river acts as a focal point for equal participation. When economic differences are taken into account, especially when the upstream state is richer, the side-payment outcome is reversed. As expected, richer states internalize the costs of taking action in favor of poorer downstream states. When the geographical relationship between the riparians is of a symmetrical nature, while the economic relationship between the states is of an asymmetrical nature, the richer state often assumes the bulk of the cost burden. In this way, it provides a side-payment to the poorer state. Such patterns reveal how property rights disputes over issues such as water quantity, hydropower, pollution abatement, and flood control have been concluded. They suggest how ongoing disputes may be resolved.     

Finding resolution for the Howiesons Poort through the microscope: micro-residue analysis of segments from Sibudu Cave,South Africa

In this paper I present the results of a micro-residue analysis of stone segments, the type fossils of the Howiesons Poort technocomplex in South Africa, with an age of more than 60 ka at Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal. Fifty-three segments were systematically analysed and 1826 organic micro-residue occurrences were documented on the sample. The distribution patterns of micro-residues and other use-traces are interpreted in terms of hafting and function. It is shown that most of the tools were indeed hafted and most were probably used as inserts for hunting weapons. There is evidence for differences and changes over time in haft materials and hafting configurations of the segments. The study demonstrates how functional studies could improve our understanding of change and variability in human behaviour during the Middle Stone Age, a period that used to be portrayed as static or slow changing.     

A practice theoretical perspective on the Europeanization of spatial planning

This paper provides a practice theoretical approach for examining the processes of the Europeanization of spatial planning. While the supply of studies on the questions of how, where and when the Europeanization of spatial planning takes place is rich and diverse, the temporal and spatial aspects of the processes have been studied from a rather narrow perspective. In many of the studies, time and space have been examined as objective, pre-existing features of the processes, which has resulted in interpretations of Europeanization as a temporally successive and spatially scalar process. The paper has two main goals. First, it seeks to outline European spatial planning as a distinctive field of political and academic interaction whose central constitutive elements are interconnected policy and research practices. Second, as a more general theoretical goal, the paper develops a practice theoretical approach for examining the processes of Europeanization. In this paper, it is argued that the policy and research practices constitute a temporal–spatial infrastructure for Europeanization. This infrastructure consists of both objective configurations of the practices and the existential temporal–spatial dimensions opened in the practices.     

This is Not an Answer to the Question “Who is Indigenous?”

‘Indigenous’ is a colonial category, and it is always related to particular colonial configurations of diversity and in relationship to particular colonial/national states. In this paper, the many historical configurations in which the terms ‘Indian’ and ‘Indigenous’ have figured are traced, including the Spanish colonial state and the Argentine state. The ways in which these successive systems of categorization are juxtaposed is described. Finally, post-Western understandings of what it could mean ‘to be Indigenous’ are explored.