Une histoire de résidus : à propos des facteurs généraux et locaux de croissance régionale au Canada,de 1971 à 2001

Starting from an econometric model of local employment growth, applied to Canada (1971–2001), residuals—relative to model predictions—are analyzed over time and over space, in turn allowing us to draw a distinction between general explanatory variables and factors of a more local, cyclical or accidental nature. The model's explanatory power grows over time, founded on variables such as urban size, market access and industrial structure, allowing us to conclude that local employment growth in Canada follows an increasingly geographically predictable pattern. However, an examination of the residuals reveals more localized processes. Growth volatility is most manifest in Alberta and British Columbia, home to the most erratic local economies. Emerging patterns are visible in the last period, most notably the underperformance of Northern Ontario and of non‐metropolitan communities between Windsor and Québec City, lying along the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence. The over‐performance—compared to model predictions — of small and mid‐sized towns in south‐eastern Québec can, on the other hand, be interpreted as a sign of truly local social processes, generally associated with a particularly dynamic local entrepreneurial class.     

Québec et la géographie sociale en questions

Questioning Québec through social geography In the early 1960s, two revolutions were underway: the quiet revolution in Québec and the quantitative revolution in geography. Apparently unrelated, these episodes of change probably shared common underlying values associated with modernity. Since then, the transformations experienced in Québec have been interpreted in a multitude of ways, including geographical considerations. Research careers, mine included, have been shaped by this undertaking. All along, I have found that social geography, with the capacity it has to reinvent itself, has helped making sense of this turbulent environment. In the 1970s, exploring the structural dynamics of Canada's social space helped in figuring out the place occupied by Québec in this ensemble. Then, analyzing the historical relationships between cosmopolitan Montréal and provincial Québec City suggested that the oxymoron ‘quiet revolution’ stood for a central process in the cultural dynamics of Québec's social space, where new ideas arriving through Montréal are sifted and institutionalized by the state in Québec City. Nevertheless, Québec City is also capable of initiating progressive urban movements, as illustrated by the odyssey of the Rassemblement populaire de Québec, documented through participant observation. Such urban movements may affect the urban fabric but, as intense and creative social networks, they may affect even more their interacting members, as it seems to have been the case with regard to rapidly evolving gender relations during the last decades. All in all, after more than four decades, I keep the conviction that a practice of social geography that is open to various theories and methods is capable of producing liberating knowledge.     

La frontière asymétrique : Franco‐Ontariens et Anglo‐Québécois dans la région de la capitale nationale

The francophone and anglophone minorities of Gatineau‐Ottawa appear to benefit from a privileged location. Living very close to their respective majorities, they simply have to cross the border in order to access resources to live in their own language and share their culture. However, a qualitative analysis of the discourse by Anglo‐Quebeckers and Franco‐Ontarians about their everyday life in the Nation's Capital Region shows that the border has more complex and often contradictory effects. In this article, we focus our attention on four particular manifestations of the border: (1) the border is transparent so that one can cross the Ottawa River without hindrance in certain contexts yet rather opaque in others; (2) one may transcend minority status through the strategic use of the border; (3) it creates a multi‐topic imaginary geography in which the border itself often becomes mobile; and (4) finally, the border can act as a mirror when the cross‐cultural intermixing it allows causes the Anglo‐Quebeckers and Franco‐Ontarians to question their identities, a questioning which would not be as intense in the absence of the border. The comparison of these two minorities makes it possible to highlight the asymmetrical nature of the effects of the border on their everyday life, identities, and sense of belonging.     

Variabilité et fréquence des cycles de gel‐dégel dans la région de Québec, 1977–2006

Freeze‐thaw cycles are most common at the beginning or near the end of the winter season. These cycles have various effects on the ecosystems of Eastern Canada, affecting both biotic and abiotic components of temperate cold environments. Using air temperature minima and maxima from four meteorological stations close to Québec City, we determined the frequency of daily freeze‐thaw cycles for the last 30 years. The results show no significant increase in the number of freeze‐thaw cycles despite a small increase in air temperature. Polynomial curves describing the relationship between mean air temperatures and the number of freeze‐thaw cycles were calculated. Based on these equations and anticipating a climate change scenario, we projected future freeze‐thaw cycles. Assuming a 5 °C increase in mean air temperatures by 2100, we estimated that the number of days with a freeze‐thaw cycle could increase by approximately 20 days per winter. The increase in the number of such cycles will be concentrated during the coldest months of the winter (January and February).     

Lesbian collaborative web mapping: disrupting heteronormativity in Portugal

Public spaces are constructed around hidden, subtle, non-verbalized and implicit codes of behaviour. These hidden and implicit codes of behaviour are pervasive heteronormative expressions that inscribe socio-spatial landscapes. As a consequence, same-sex public displays of affection are modified, or entirely absent. In the Portuguese sociocultural context public displays of heterosexual and familial affection are common, which prompted us to research how lesbians and bisexual women negotiate same-sex displays of affection in public spaces. The article begins by examining: the co-production of space, gender and sexualities; the pervasive invisibility of lesbian sexualities in public spaces; and the potentialities of participatory geospatial web that connects geographic location to photographs, text and other media shared online. The second half of the article presents the research project ‘Creating Landscapes’. It is argued that a collaboratively created web map by lesbians with positive public space experiences may promote agency and empowerment for lesbian and bisexual women. The article concludes by arguing that creating and sharing collaborative web maps of positive experiences of same-sex public displays of affection can disrupt heteronormativity and create public spaces that are empowering for lesbians and bisexual women.     

Une méthode illustrée pour la sectorisation morphodynamique de la rivière Neigette (Québec)

An illustrated methodology for the morphodynamic sectoring of the Neigette River (Québec) Fluvial hydrogeomorphology is little recognized in policy management and planning in Québec. A better understanding would result in more enlightened planning for waterways. The deficiency could result from the fact that too few methodologies have been developed that take account of the particular nature of Québec rivers. This study tests the applicability of a methodology of dividing rivers into homogeneous morphodynamic units. This compartmentalization results from the analysis of longitudinal changes in stream power, sedimentary composition of the banks, channel entrenchment, and planform geometry. The method is tested on a section of the Neigette River, which encompasses a wide variety of forms and processes frequently found in Québec rivers. Results suggest the presence of three morphodynamic sections: wandering with multiple channels, dynamic meandering and stable meandering. The method provides an effective basis for discriminating between these morphodynamic environments and their respective limits. Stream power is the variable with the greatest discriminating capacity. The efficacy of the approach, the ease of its application, and its flexibility make this a valuable tool for the management of fluvial environments.     

Essai de typologie des centres de santé et de services sociaux au Québec

Given the importance of contextual factors—physical, social and institutional environments—for understanding health landscapes, this article examines the situation in the province of Québec and suggests a spatial typology at the scale of the health and social services centres (CSSS). These CSSS provide services for 95 areas which are the finest territorial delineation in terms of health policies since a reform instituted in 2003. While delivery of primary health and social services is defined at this local scale, overall health policy is decided at the provincial scale. The challenge for stakeholders is to supplement their local knowledge with that of the broader context. In this article, we use principal components analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis to identify eight profiles of CSSS. The final results of the cluster analysis demonstrate that two‐thirds of the health and social services centres correspond with two marginally differentiated profiles and the remaining third shows specificities that are highly spatially anchored.     

Neither ‘America’ nor ‘Québec’: constructing the Canadian multicultural nation

ABSTRACT. Although researchers have deconstructed the myth of stark social differences between the various North American sub‐societies, an assimilating American melting pot and an ethnically oppressive monocultural Québec are still popular representations within Canadian majority discourses, such as the English‐language mainstream media and parts of academia. In this paper, I argue that images of ‘America’ and ‘Québec’ play important roles for the multicultural reconstruction of Canadian nationhood. Examining selected op‐ed articles from two Toronto‐based mainstream newspapers during the 1990s, I develop and exemplify a theoretical understanding of how national identities are constituted and transformed within inter‐ and intra‐national relations of power and alterity. I pay special attention to the particularisation of Canada through the confrontation with American nationhood, the ambiguities of recognising the distinctiveness of Québec inside Canada, and the consequences of projecting Québec's supposedly ‘ethnic’ nationalism outside the boundaries of Canadianness.     

Mapping women in Tehran's public spaces: a geo-visualization perspective

Functioning public spaces, as ‘public’ political, social, and cultural arenas of citizen discourse, affect not only the citizen's quality of life, but are also indispensable infrastructure in democratic societies. This article offers a nuanced understanding of Iranian women's usage, feelings, and preferences in public spaces in present-day Tehran by not simply importing Western theories that sustain distinctions between traditional and modern women, but instead by hearing women's stories. This article raises concerns related to the gender identities, the politics of space, and design of these places. Meidan-e-Tajrish, Sabz-e-Meidan, and Marvi Meidancheh in Tehran accommodate an ethnographic visualization of gendering space. The process by which Iranian women attach symbolic meanings to those public spaces offers insight into the mutual construction of gender identities and space politics. The contrasting urban locations, different design styles, and distinct social activities provide an excellent comparison between the selected public spaces. Findings suggest caution in using gender as an essential category in feminist geography research to better represent the diversity of experiences in public spaces. Binary categorization of modern versus traditional, secular versus religious, public versus private, and male versus female in urban studies should be carefully validated as Iranian women's lived experiences challenge the homogenizing Western theories, particularly the predominant critics of modern public spaces in North America. The research process also highlights the benefits of geo-visualization in understanding the complex interaction between gender identities and the built environment.     

L’émergence de la grappe industrielle de l'intelligence artificielle (IA) à Montréal

The paper analyses the emergence of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) cluster in Montreal and investigates two questions: (1) What are the different theoretical interpretations related to the emergence of industrial cluster? And (2) What are the factors underlying the emergence of the AI cluster in Montreal and to what extent have local and global factors been decisive in this respect? The AI cluster emerges through a process that brings into play the interaction between the local initial conditions and the birth of a new industry. Moreover, it also involves an interaction between the local and the global, which is supported by interactions with foreign actors located in different parts of the world.     

‘That street is taking us to home’: young children’s photographs of public spaces

ABSTRACT

Children’s identities constitute and are constituted by the everyday spaces they inhabit. Though there are innumerable accounts of what adults think public spaces like subways and city streets mean to children, fewer recorded accounts exist from young children themselves (Faulkner and Zolkos 2016, “Introduction.” In Critical Childhood Studies and the Practice of Interdisciplinarity, ix–xvii. Lexington: Lanham.). In this work I explored 2- – 5-year-old children’s conceptions of public space through the photographs they took and the narratives they told in and around those images. I focused on how children imaged their spaces, how their narrative fragments added layers of story to the images’ contents, and how their photographic performances acted as ‘visual voice’ (Burke 2005, “‘Play in Focus’: Children Researching Their Own Spaces and Places for Play.” Children Youth and Environments 15 (1): 27–53.), highlighting for us how they see themselves and their positions within the larger urban environment. The young children’s photographs depicted their growing autonomy and mobility within an urban context, attunements to non-human forms of the city, and knowledge of what it means to live in their communities.     

Territoire et actions collectives atikamekw nehirowisiwok dans l'espace médiatique québécois: légitimité politique ou persistance d'une vision coloniale?

The reception by the media of Indigenous peoples' political actions raises the issues of the discourses and representations at work in the public space. This paper examines how the Atikamekw Nehirowisiw Nation, their territorialities and political actions are represented by French‐speaking written media in Quebec. What are the discourses mobilized to apprehend the issues related to their land claims and contestation? By mobilizing a corpus of newspapers' articles published between 2000 and 2015, this study underlines the coexistence of opposed discourses. On the one hand, a colonial conception remains, reinterpreting the legal and historical legitimacy of the Atikamekw occupation and claims on the territory. On the other hand, the presence and reproduction, particularly through the words of Indigenous leaders, of an accommodating discourse towards Atikamekw's political actions cannot be ignored. The cohabitation between these two discourses highlights different sets of representations, emphasizing the ongoing colonial imaginaries in Quebec.     

Suburban citizenship? The rise of targeting and the eclipse of social rights in Toronto

The decline of ‘universal’, welfarist forms of social citizenship and the rise of selective or targeted social policy is generally considered to be a recent phenomenon, and a constituent element of neo-liberal citizenship and state forms (Brodie ), or ‘advanced liberal’ technologies of government (Rose ). This paper documents how targeted policies were in fact being defined at the height of Keynesian welfarism, in the newly consolidating post-war suburbs of Toronto. I suggest an alternative account of the genesis of these practices, which sees the spatiality of the post-war metropolis as key. The analysis considers how the mutual consolidation of these social and material spaces, and of hegemonic suburban political practices enabled the articulation of a suburban style of citizenship, which was both intensely familial and entrepreneurial in form. Through a case study in recreation policy in the Toronto region, this paper demonstrates how selective, targeted and residual approaches to service delivery evolved in suburban municipalities in the immediate post-war period, and were only generalized across the city more recently through the restructuring of a municipal amalgamation. It documents how these approaches have relied on radically different assumptions about citizenship that were dependent on the articulation of suburban life, literally built around the private family in private space. Thus this paper also documents ways in which these approaches to social policy, increasingly dominant across a range of policy areas and at a variety of spatial scales, construct gendered and racialized identities and problematize non-nuclear family forms.     

Entre souveraineté indigène et sécurité nationale : Négocier la sécurité frontalière et la culture Mohawk à Akwesasne

Based on the case of the Mohawk territory of Akwesasne, wedged between Ontario, Quebec, and New York state, this paper provides an analysis of the links between the affirmation of indigenous culture and the implementation of security policies on borderlands. The focus extends beyond political conflicts over border issues to encompass the ways in which Aboriginal sovereignty is affirmed within processes of negotiation and cooperation in the matters of identification requirements, border agents’ cultural sensitivity, and law enforcement. We find that the enhancement of border security can paradoxically be a political opportunity for local leaders to reaffirm indigenous sovereignty, and that this reaffirmation through cooperation is, at the same time, emerging as a key factor in the implementation of border security policies.     

MAPPING CHILDREN'S POLITICS: SPATIAL STORIES,DIALOGIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL FORMATION

This article confronts a persistent challenge in research on children's geographies and politics: the difficulty of recognizing forms of political agency and practice that by definition fall outside of existing political theory. Children are effectively “always already” positioned outside most of the structures and ideals of modernist democratic theory, such as the public sphere and abstracted notions of communicative action or “rational” speech. Recent emphases on embodied tactics of everyday life have offered important ways to recognize children's political agency and practice. However, we argue here that a focus on spatial practices and critical knowledge alone cannot capture the full range of children's politics, and show how representational and dialogic practices remain a critical element of their politics in everyday life. Drawing on de Certeau's notion of spatial stories, and Bakhtin's concept of dialogic relations, we argue that children's representations and dialogues comprise a significant space of their political agency and formation, in which they can make and negotiate social meanings, subjectivities, and relationships. We develop these arguments with evidence from an after‐school activity programme we conducted with 10–13 year olds in Seattle, Washington, in which participants explored, mapped, wrote and spoke about the spaces and experiences of their everyday lives. Within these practices, children negotiate autonomy and self‐determination, and forward ideas, representations, and expressions of agreement or disagreement that are critical to their formation as political actors.     

Where are the women? Evaluating visibility of Nigerian female politicians in news media space

This study examines the spatial representation of Nigerian women politicians in the news media of Africa’s most populous country. Through a content analysis of newspaper coverage of four high-profile women politicians during the 2015 electoral cycle, the study investigates the visibility of the women in three national newspapers. The analysis shows that women do not only occupy limited space in the news media but are also marginalised in political news despite decades of advocacy for gender equality. Although women have become more active politically since the end of military dictatorship in 1999, their participation and engagement in politics is not reflected in media coverage. The study argues that the degree of visibility of women in political news entrenches marginalisation and reinforces assumptions that ‘only men do politics.’ From this standpoint, the study illustrates how newspapers reinforce patriarchal understanding of politics and consequently highlights the manifest and latent obstacles that women encounter in the political arena. It comes to the conclusion that the relative absence of women in media spaces is emblematic of public perception of their political status.     

社交媒体对广州饮食文化空间的建构与重塑

研究选取国内四大社交媒体——新浪博客、新浪微博、豆瓣网和土豆网作为研究案例,通过文本分析的方法,探讨了社交媒体对广州饮食文化空间的构建与重塑,得出以下结论:①社交媒体构建了广州饮食文化空间的结构以及全球地方特征。社交媒体将广州饮食文化空间结构塑造为承载饮食内容、饮食文化及其相关社会活动的物质和社会文化空间,具有全球化和本地化交融的特征;②基于网民对社交媒体空间的生产,及其之间的社会互动,社交媒体消解了广州饮食文化空间原有的社会文化意义,并将其重塑为一个承载多元社会文化、消费文化、权力和情感的空间,而且这些空间意义具有流动性。研究结论丰富了现有媒体和饮食文化空间地理研究成果,同时为广州饮食文化发展和地方品牌构建提供了参考。     

‘It's a public,I reckon’: Publicness and a Suburban Shopping Mall in Sydney's Southwest

Traditionally, public space has been perceived as an integral part of fully functioning liberal democracy. Yet much research argues that public space is in decline due to regimes of neoliberal governance paralleled with a growth in quasi-public spaces such as shopping malls, casinos and gated communities. It is argued that these new spatial forms posit a commercialised, sanitised and ultimately exclusionary urban form in place of more egalitarian, engaging and ultimately democratic public spaces. Increasingly, however, urban research has questioned the veracity of the claims made about the nature of traditional public space as well as investigating the marginal and contingent nature of publicness as constituted by and enacted in a variety of places. Drawing on Foucault's concept of heterotopic space, this paper reports on a qualitative study based on focus group interviews conducted with users of a suburban shopping mall in Sydney's southwest. The research uncovers both a more complex and less overtly deterministic publicness than has previously been identified in such spaces. From these findings the paper argues for a conception of publicity which moves beyond the zero-sum game approach endemic in much work in this area to one which analyses the qualitative effect quasi-public spaces are having on the nature of publicness in the Australian context. The paper concludes by arguing that a rethinking of publicness allows room for the emergence of a more progressive public ethic.     

Gender differences in teenage alcohol consumption and spatial practices

In recent years teenagers have reported a decline in under-age drinking at the same time as their access to public space has been increasingly curtailed. In this paper we explore the spatial practices and drinking behaviours of a group of teenage girls and boys aged 13–14 years in Liverpool, UK. Our analysis considers how their use of space was bound up with experimentation with alcohol and how this varied by gender. We find in support of previous research that both boys and girls report nuanced experiences of public space, with some enjoying greater freedom while others have moved into more domestic and supervised leisure spaces in response to fears about their safety in public spaces. The boys also reported less alcohol consumption than the girls. These gendered experiences were mediated by social relationships and encounters with other young people, their parents and carers and also other adults in positions of authority.     

L'identification des zones calmes et un diagnostic d’équité environnementale à Montréal

Quiet urban areas are places with low noise levels that can help people to support physical and mental wellness. This paper has two objectives: to identify quiet urban areas in Montreal and to check for the presence of environmental inequities in access to such areas for vulnerable groups (children, older people, low‐income individuals, and visible minorities). Using a GIS‐based methodology, 2,282 quiet urban areas were identified in Montreal. The results of a mixed effects logistic regression model analysis showed that there are no major inequities in access to quiet urban areas for the population groups studied. The analysis did, however, revealed substantial spatial disparities in terms of the distribution of quiet urban areas across the boroughs and municipalities examined.