Is “Threat” in the Eye of the Researcher? Theory and Measurement in the Study of State‐Level Immigration Policymaking

This study initiates a methodological critique of the state‐level immigration policy literature through the lens of the racial threat and group power perspectives. First, I highlight the conceptual problems related to the application of such theories to legislature‐level data analysis. Next, I demonstrate the methodological and analytical problems that raise concerns about ad hoc theorizing in this field. Using counts of hostile and welcoming immigration legislation (2005–2011), I demonstrate that outgroup size measures correlate positively with both dependent variables while measures of population growth rate yield null results unless used on their own. These results suggest that the use of legislature‐level models with demographic indicators does not allow us to gain a clear understanding of whether and how population dynamics influence immigration policymaking. Based on these findings, I recommend that when using demographic indicators as key explanatory variables, researchers provide evidence of result consistency across multiple model specifications and also test the models with both hostile and inclusive policy variables. Such protocols would help avoid ad hoc theorizing.     

What to do with the “Tubby Hubby”?“Obesity,” the Crisis of Masculinity,and the Nuclear Family in Early Cold War Canada

Abstract:  Despite current insistence that obesity is a new problem, obesity and fat were discussed frequently in the medical and popular presses and by state officials during the early Cold War in Canada. Using Kristeva's (1982,  Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection ) concept of abjection, I argue that Cold War anxieties about fat, and specifically the obesity of white, middle-class men, had less to do with the growing girth of bodies than it did with a post-war crisis in masculinity related to the collapse of the public and private spheres. Through an analysis of fitness regimes and female-administered diets for men, I argue that anti-obesity rhetoric served to assuage dominant worries about degenerating masculinity by reasserting both the gendered division of labour and the white, middle-class, nuclear family as Canadian norms.     

A “Caesarian,”“Augustan,” or “Justinian” Worldview of Theoretical and Quantitative Geography?

An evolving world view of theoretical and quantitative geography is presented using an analogy from the development of the ancient Roman and Byzantine Empires between Julius Caesar in the first century BC to Justinian in the sixth century AD. This is used to set the discussion platform for a series of papers presented by participants from the early days of quantitative revolution in geography and its transformation into a robust and relevant spatial science. Current theoretical and quantitative geography needs to be, first, active in developing new ideas and applications, second, to continue to transform its methodology to be more societally relevant and scientifically robust and, third, to actively engage cultural critiques of these processes.     

“Academic War” over Geography? Death of Human Geography at the Australian National University

This article analyses how neoliberal economic policies decide what particular aspects of knowledge are valuable and what are not, and who might be the true holder of that knowledge within the tertiary education system. This assessment leads to some disciplines being seen as less valuable to the system. It argues that the more recent “academic wars” in geography are over the very concept of the university and its role in the contemporary society, what comprises useful knowledge, and who comprises the authoritative figure in the production and distribution of that knowledge. Gender of the geographer therefore becomes a crucial element that determines “authority” in the production of geographical knowledge. To substantiate this argument, the paper takes up the important task of analysing the complex career trajectory of geography within the Australian National University (ANU), the department that was gradually reduced leading eventually to its unfortunate closure in 2009.     

The Epistemological Challenge of Higher Education Student Volunteering: “Reproductive” or “Deconstructive” Volunteering?

Abstract: This paper addresses student volunteering as an important socio‐cultural trend which is generally taken for granted and un‐interrogated. We explore tensions inherent in the practice and articulation of higher education student volunteering, via biographical narratives of contrasting student volunteers and employ Rose's (1993, Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge, University of Minnesota Press) theory of “paradoxical space” to unpick and understand these narratives, as this has proven a generative approach to re‐conceptualising students’ engagement with universities and communities. Building on this theoretical approach, we propose a new conceptual framework to analyse students’ learning and understanding of social justice through volunteering. This framework contrasts reproductive altruism, or volunteering which reproduces social inequalities, with a deconstructive form that provides students with resources to recognise and challenge power relations and inequality in society.     

Why Do We Ask “What If?” Reflections on the Function of Alternate History

The new prominence of alternate history in Western popular culture has increasingly prompted scholars to historicize it as a broader phenomenon. What has largely escaped notice until now, however, has been the question of the underlying function of alternate history as a genre of speculative narrative representation. In this essay, I argue that writers and scholars have long produced "allohistorical narratives" out of fundamentally presentist motives. Allohistorical tales have assumed different typological forms depending upon how their authors have viewed the present. Nightmare scenarios, for example, have depicted the alternate past as worse than the real historical record in order to vindicate the present, while fantasy scenarios have portrayed the alternate past as superior to the real historical record in order to express dissatisfaction with the present. The presentist character of alternate histories allows them to shed light upon the evolving place of various historical events in the collective memory of a given society. In this essay, I examine American alternate histories of three popular themes—the Nazis winning World War II, the South winning the Civil War, and the American Revolution failing to occur—in order to show how present–day concerns have influenced how these events have been remembered. In the process, I hope to demonstrate that alternate histories lend themselves quite well to being studied as documents of memory. By examining accounts of what never happened, we can better understand the memory of what did.     

Champions of the Movement or Fair‐weather Heroes? Individualization and the (A)politics of Local Food

We ask to what degree consumers who act out movement practices (eg local food consumption) may do so without regard for larger environmental and social justice implications, and how focus on individual concerns reflects the partial (but increasing) neoliberalization and depoliticization of the alternative food movement. Coupling narratives from five citizen‐consumers with analysis of organizational discourse from a major food movement organization in Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley, we examine the interplay of individual and collective identity to point to places where modified discourse and movement tactics may produce more fruitful outcomes (eg greater community food security). Ultimately, we argue that individualistic interpretations of alternative food are reinforced by organizational campaigns that shape collective identity, casting “buying local” as a heroic act, thereby re‐casting others as anti‐heroes. Counteracting individualization with a new politics of possibility should be prioritized, as citizen‐consumers will inevitably determine future landscapes of food, environmental sustainability and social justice.     

Mundane Myths: Heritage and the Politics of the Photographic Cliché

This paper considers the impact of photographic clichés on the management, conceptualization, and experience of heritage. Working along the grain of pejorative readings of ‘snapshot’ photography, this account views the repetitiveness and redundancy of the cliché as a critical point of departure, rather than a cause for reproach. Taking the World Heritage Site of Angkor as a core case study, three intersecting axes of political concern are sketched out to elucidate the broad social, material, and affective implications of clichéd photography for heritage. First, processes of dehistoricization and depoliticization are interrogated in relation to the role certain images play in constructing a mythic sense of the past in the present. This leads directly in to the second strand of analysis, which examines the various ways in which individuals negotiate these myths through the production of their own highly personalized photographic clichés. Here I develop the concept of an embodied politics of heritage photography to grasp the multivalent resonances of tourist clichés in particular. Finally, the implicit and explicit forms of spatial control that permeate sites such as Angkor are examined in relation to the photographic clichés they respond to and help shape.     

“Wachstum” oder “Revolution”? Ernst Cassirer und die Wissenschaftsgeschichte

“Growth” or “Revolution”? Ernst Cassirer and History of Science. Ernst Cassirer's contributions to history of science have been long time neglected. The aim of this paper is to show the historical and philosophical framework of Cassirer's engagement in this field, starting from his seminal work about the problem of knowledge in science and philosophy of the modern age. Moreover the author suggests that Cassirer's late studies about Galilei and the origins of mathematical science are of some interest in order to comprehend both his commitment to contemporary history of science (from Burtt to Koyré) and his intellectual heritage for our agendas in a post‐Kuhnian era.