The myth and the stones of Venice: an historical geography of a symbolic landscape

John Ruskin's Stones of Venice criticized the Victorian city and Victorian society in the light of a reconstruction of medieval Venice. But Ruskin's reconstruction embodied elements of a long-standing myth propagated by Venetians themselves and inscribed in their organization of urban space and urban landscape. The geographical dimensions of the myth, its changing character through time, its iconographic expressions and its significance for English attitudes to Venice are described and explained. Ruskin used the myth to support his ideology, constructing a homology between architectural development and social structure. But the appeal of Venice transcends historical contingency and may, in part, be understood by reference to psychoanalytic categories, specifically sexual symbolism.     

‘Taken captive by the mystery of the Great River’: towards an historical geography of British geography and Atlantic slavery

By examining the case of James MacQueen (1778–1870), this paper initiates a research agenda that contributes to what David N. Livingstone has argued remains the most pressing task for historians of geography: to write ‘the historical geography of geography’. Born in Scotland in 1778, MacQueen was one of the many ‘arm-chair’ geographers whose efforts at synthesising contemporary and historical sources were a significant feature of the encounter between Europe and the rest of the world. Indeed, although he never visited Africa, his speculations about the course and termination of the River Niger turned out to be broadly correct. What makes MacQueen a particularly significant figure was the original source of his theory: enslaved Africans in a Caribbean plantation-colony. In this light, a remark that MacQueen's imagination was ‘taken captive by the mystery of the Great River’ carries a dark double-meaning, because ‘captive’ knowledge was the very source of MacQueen's interest in African geography. Beginning with MacQueen's time in Grenada, the paper explores a series of personal relations, textual traces and West African ethno-histories to reveal how his geographical knowledge and expertise were bound up with Atlantic slavery. This shows not only how the colonial economy, centred on the Caribbean, underwrote the production of geographical knowledge about Africa, but also how British geographical discourse and practice might be probed for traces of Atlantic slavery and enslaved African lives. More generally, the case of James MacQueen illuminates a broader field of relationships between Atlantic slavery, West African exploration, and the development of modern British geography in the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Examining these relationships is key to writing a ‘historical geography of British geography and Atlantic slavery’ and contributes to postcolonial histories of the discipline by revealing the tangled relationships that bound geography and slavery, knowledge and subjugation, that which ‘captivates’ and those held ‘captive’.     

The "cradle of glass": incubators for infants in late nineteenth-century France

This article examines the development of the incubator for premature infants in fin-de-siècle France. During a period of widespread anxiety in France regarding infant mortality and its implications for population growth, physicians in Paris developed and widely promoted the lifesaving technology. This article explores the ways in which the incubator reflected new scientific and symbolic approaches to creating hygienic spaces as well as how it reflected new scientific and symbolic approaches to the traditionally feminine project of infant care. By creating such an isolating and protective milieu around premature infants—an entirely new population of patients—the incubator, I argue, heralded a renegotiation of the boundary between motherhood and medical authority.     

Spaces of violence: A typology of the political geography of violence against migrants seeking asylum in the EU

This paper, based on research conducted with asylum seekers in three European Union (EU) member-states, examines the connections among various forms of violence against forced migrants in different state settings. Because violence that is produced within states is not uniform and often transcends borders, understanding how it varies across different geographical settings illustrates the complexity of the risks that migrants face. This paper presents a typology that examines interconnections between the production of various forms of violence and the complex spaces that constitute irregular migration into the EU to better understand these multifaceted factors and why we can anticipate certain forms of violence in a particular space. It also fosters future avenues of research as it provides a foundation for greater collaboration and advocacy to expose and rectify hierarchical imbalances of power and actors responsible for such violence.     

A mansion for the mad: an archaeology of Brooke House,Hackney

Abstract

Socio-cultural perceptions towards madness in the 18th century maintained the madhouse as private and isolated. This contributes to the relative absence of historical records that would allow a thorough scrutiny of the 18th-century madhouse as a social, political and psychological residence. Yet, the surviving collection of material culture retained from Brooke House offers a unique opportunity to reveal contemporary ideologies regarding madness in the 18th century. Utilizing archaeological approaches in the analysis of the building and its interiors, this paper seeks to explore this unique building and its impact on residents, revealing experiences of the confined in 18th-century England.     

Visa requirements,carrier sanctions, "safe third countries" and "readmission": the development of an asylum "buffer zone" in Europe

"This paper explores the development of a so-called asylum 'buffer zone' around the eastern frontiers of the west European region as a result of the Schengen, EU and EFTA member states' introduction of more restrictive asylum policies during the first half of the 1990s. Restrictive policies in western Europe are forcing central and east European states into a 'buffer role', obliging them to absorb asylum-seekers who fail to gain entry into western Europe and/or restrict asylum-seekers' access to the borders of potential 'receiving' states. In addition to examining the mechanisms by which this 'buffer zone' is developing and questioning what it might mean for future asylum trends and policies in Europe, the paper considers the wider questions raised by this development in relation to the changing geopolitical landscape of Europe, particularly in relation to the changing political and security relations between western, central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union."     

Voluntarism, municipalism and welfare: the geography of hospital utilization in England in 1938

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the pattern of hospital utilization (rather than provision) in England prior to the establishment of the NHS, showing the extent to which the probability of obtaining hospital treatment was a function of residence. Access to hospital care depended on the vigour of voluntarism and the political priorities of local governments. The pattern of voluntary hospital utilization is shown to have been markedly unequal, but the effect of municipal provision was to reduce disparities in access to services. The paper demonstrates variations in hospital utilization and discusses contemporary assessments of the situation. This work contributes to debates about the efficacy of non-profit forms of welfare delivery; it provides a novel British study to complement American work in this field. It also raises questions about the contemporary vogue for partnerships in health care delivery between the public and private sectors, arguing that such proposals rest on an optimistic view of history.     

Adding the past to the policy mix: an historical approach to the issue of access to general practice in England

Historical perspectives can be embedded into policy initiatives through a process of ‘past-proofing’—ensuring new policies take the study of the past into consideration. We describe how this was done in a project looking at patient access to general practice in the NHS. We argue that current preoccupations with timeliness which have led to the marginalisation of other dimensions of access are connected to a broader process of neo-liberal reform since the 1970s. This reflection can support a reframing of the terms of current debates on a major issue in British health care. It has wider implications for the policy relevance of history.     

Towards an embodied securityscape: Brian Chikwava's Harare North and the asylum seeking body as site of articulation

This article introduces the concept of an embodied securityscape, arguing that asylum seekers embody a point of articulation between two differently located security nexuses: security-migration and security-development. Drawing on Brian Chikwava's novel Harare North, the article illustrates this articulation, not only in the thematic development of the embodied experiences of the narrator, but also in the way the novel articulates differently located conventions of form. Ultimately, the article argues that this embodied securityscape, as illustrated through this novel, produces an alternative narrative space for the messy politics of asylum.     

The Perthes geographical archive: an unplumbed resource for the history of geography

Abstract

Starting with the Kondratieff waves, about 57 years in duration, now recognised in the capitalist economy, Schumpeter's insight that each starting point of a Kondratieff wave coincides with a new technology or progress in industrial organisation is discussed. Furthermore, each new wave has been characterised by transport developments, which in their turn shaped urban growth, leading recently, for example, to deconcentration of cities. The rapid growth of telecommunications technology for the information economy has allowed telecommuting, so far to only a limited extent, and will affect the future of all grades of cities, from capitals to provincial and regional conurbations, as the economy adapts to the international age.     

A critical approach to discipline of human geography as an apparatus for state hegemony in Turkey

This study examines the hegemony of political power on the discipline of human geography in Turkey. Throughout the history of the country, human geography curricula have been aligned with the nationalist and hegemonic power politics of state authorities instead of being guided by universal norms, thus ignoring Turkey’s sociopolitical and cultural geography. This is reflected in the contents of human geography text books at the high school and college level. Similarly, the subjects of articles that have appeared in the 12 academic geography journals published in Turkey within the last 71 years also support this claim. The intervention of political power in the academic identity of human geography and the efforts to align human geography curricula with a certain ideological view have resulted in the emergence of apolitical geographers, who remain deaf and blind to social issues. This study analyzes the negative features of human geography education curricula and their political implications in Turkey, and proposes several recommendations.     

"Fill the Earth and Subdue it": Biblical Warrants for Colonization in Seventeenth Century England

The importance of conceptions of natural law in early-modern debates about the legitimacy of colonization is well known. The role played by specific arguments drawn from Scripture is less recognized. In seventeenth century England the biblical injunction to "fill the earth and subdue it," along with the account of the Exodus and the occupation of "the promised land," informed debates about the origins of private property, and was directly relevant to developing conceptions of indigenous property rights and the legitimacy of dispossession. Although there were powerful economic and evangelical incentives for the establishment of foreign plantations in the early-modern period, these were strongly reinforced, in the English context at least, by particular readings of Old Testament narratives.     

A walk of art: the potential of the sound walk as practice in cultural geography

Some of the most experimental and exciting work using sound and spatiality has come from the art world. This essay traces how an exciting hybrid of sound art and walking – the sound walk - has evolved over the last century. Examining the latest examples of sound walks in London and New York, and reflecting on the author's experience of creating a sound walk route, this essay focuses on the potential of this medium to create flowing, multi-sensory and embodied ways for social and cultural geographers to research the outside environment. The essay concludes that the medium could also be useful for presenting site-specific cultural geography to the public in an accessible and inclusive way.