From local turn to space-relational analysis: Participatory peacebuilding in a Colombian borderland

This paper offers a space-relational extension to the local turn in peace studies. We argue that unflattening the local in research on peace and conflict has the potential to explain why multi-modal participatory peacebuilding produces tensions, disappointments, and adaptations across a volatile and fluid state-society interface. Our analysis focuses on three space-relational dimensions: contested claims to territorial representation; the scalar organisation of the state; and the dynamics of extensive uneven urbanisation in peripheral regions. Catatumbo, a conflict-affected borderland region of Colombia, constitutes the empirical focus of our study, which covers both the protracted negotiations leading to the 2016 national peace agreement and its ongoing fraught implementation. Drawing on mixed-methods research, our findings show that despite vibrant forms of pro-peace participation, a regional consensus failed to emerge amidst ongoing violence, unfulfilled state promises and new threats to the economy and environment. Yet, grassroots peacebuilding continues to be reinvented and includes innovative forms of socio-territorial dialogue. Concluding remarks reflect on opportunities to broaden space-relational analysis of socially and geographically complex peacebuilding efforts across and beyond Colombia.     

宁夏赴阿拉伯国家出境商务旅游影响因素及机理研究

以宁夏赴阿拉伯国家商务游客为研究对象,通过问卷调查获取相关数据信息,采用主成分分析方法和地理探测器分析方法,对商务旅游的影响因素及机理进行了研究,结果发现：①宁夏赴阿出境商务游客呈现出高学历、高收入、高回访率的“三高”特征。②按影响因子解释力由大到小依次为：增加贸易量 > 收集产品信息 > 广告效应 > 商贸信息传播 > 文化交流 > 旅游购物。商贸活动是赴阿商务旅游的启动因素,其中“增加贸易量”是其最主要的影响因素,文化交流因子影响力较弱,但在赴阿商务旅游与贸易活动中作用独特。③各影响因素之间的互动影响,形成了赴阿商务旅游影响机理：“商贸目的激发商务旅游-形成商贸订单和合作关系-提升贸易额-推动信息传播-产生广告效应-促进文化交流-构建了人际关系-产生了新的商机-引发更大规模的旅游和贸易活动”。     

Infrastructural territorialisations: Mega-infrastructures and the (re)making of Kenya

This paper, based on historical and contemporary dynamics of railway infrastructures in Kenya, analyses how mega-infrastructures are central in state practices of infrastructural territorialisation – an infrastructure-based production of territoriality as a historically and geographically specific form of spatio-political order and organisation, imbued with social tensions, stemming from the state-led imposition of a techno-politics onto its territory. Focusing on territorial and political objectives of the state advanced through the Uganda Railway and the Standard Gauge Railway, the paper demonstrates how both of these projects have been central in colonial and contemporary practices of infrastructural territorialisation, albeit in mercurial ways that do not fully represent original techno-political intensions of the state. This discussion, first, highlights how megaprojects – although primarily analysed by recent geographical scholarship as advancing contemporary geographies of global capitalism – also contingently coalesce with state (re)territorialisation practices. Second, undertaking these analyses in the Kenyan context, the paper shows how, despite shared historical dynamics of contingent state territorialisation – and the reconstitution of racial and socio-economic inequalities, advanced through megaprojects that in Kenya are socially interpreted through historical experiences of colonialism – current infrastructural territorialisations are also different; whilst the colonial territorialisation of Kenya emerged as relatively unchallenged, its present state territory-making is undermined by both the global character of megaprojects and the external actors that the state relies on for its practices of infrastructural territorialisation.     

Rethinking Territory

Abstract: Territory is the quintessential state space and appears to be of growing political importance. It is also a key concept in geography, but it has not been subject to as much critical attention as related geographical terms and remains under‐theorised. Taking my cue from Timothy Mitchell's suggestion that the state should be understood as the effect of social practices, I argue that the phenomenon that we call territory is not an irreducible foundation of state power, let alone the expression of a biological imperative. Instead, territory too must be interpreted principally as an effect. This “territory‐effect” can best be understood as the outcome of networked socio‐technical practices. Thus, far from refuting or falsifying network theories of spatiality, the current resurgence of territory can be seen as itself a product of relational networks. Drawing on an empirical case study of the monitoring of regional economic performance through the measurement of gross value added (GVA), I show that “territory” and “network” are not, as is often assumed, incommensurable and rival principles of spatial organisation, but are intimately connected.     

In the Shell of the Old: Anarchist Geographies of Territorialisation

Abstract: This paper applies an anarchist approach to ongoing debates on the politics, nature and function of territory. Recent work in geography has problematised dominant modes of territory, but has stopped short of a systematic critique of how statist spatial imaginations and practices reproduce and perpetuate the dominance of both capitalism and authority in society. In this paper, I deploy anarchist thought and practice to argue that territory must be viewed as a processual and contested product of social relations. This is linked to the notion of prefiguration; a distinctive concept in anarchist thought and practice embedding envisioned future modes of social organisation into the present. Using examples from fieldwork with anarchist‐inspired groups, I explore anarchist prefigurative politics as a means to re‐imagine how practices of territorialisation and bordering might be deployed as part of a broader project of social transformation.     

European Union Competition Policy and the European Territorial Cohesion Agenda: An Impossible Reconciliation? State Aid Rules and Public Service Liberalization through the European Spatial Planning Lens

The territorial and spatial planning impacts of European Union (EU) economic and competition policies have remained under-researched in the field of European spatial planning, in contrast to other EU policy fields. This briefing explores how two elements of the EU competition policy, the regulation of “state aid” and the liberalization of “services of general interest (SGI)”, have significant implications for the pursuit of the objective of territorial cohesion through spatial planning and territorial development policies at different scales. The paper first reviews the development of the concept of territorial cohesion in the EU discourse and policy agenda since the mid-1990s, as well as the contribution of public services (Services of General Interest, or SGI in EU jargon) to it. It, then, reviews how the EU state aid rules and liberalization policies affect the state's ability to intervene (i) in support of sub-national territories which are lagging behind or suffering decline, and (ii) in the provision of public services across the national territory, specifically in peripheral regions or areas where the provision is not catered for by the market. The conclusion of the paper outlines the additional challenges to the pursuit of territorial cohesion in the EU posed by the post-2008 economic crisis and suggests avenues for future research.     

古代西北疆域研究若干问题的思考

古代西北疆域是我国疆域的重要组成部分,对古代西北疆域的研究也是边疆史地研究中的重点之一。本文分析了西北疆域研究中应该注意的几个问题,认为以动态的标准确定我国不同时期的历史疆域是研究西北疆域的基本前提;西北疆域地位不断演变,是西北疆域变迁史的基本特点之一,也是西北疆域形成过程的基本形式。同时,文章还就民族、地理环境、国防安全等方面说明了西北疆域形成和发展的内在原因。     

The Big Buddha of Hong Kong: an accidental Buddhist theme park

ABSTRACT

The Tian Tan Buddha is the core of a tourism site on Lantau Island, Hong Kong, around which a cable car ride, the Po-Lin monastery and its museum, and the village of Ngong Ping have come to comprise an eclectic set of tourism nuclei that ‘accidentally’ became the ‘Buddhist theme park’ of Hong Kong due to the spatial juxtaposition in an isolated site of these disconnected and even dissonant components built at different times by different jurisdictions. The first objective of this article is to explore the developmental process of a religious site into a theme park of sort through a lengthy process filled with contestation and manipulations. The history-dependent and erratic nature of this process validates the notion of ‘accidental’ theme park used here. It is shown that over time, the Big Buddha went from being a Buddhism-themed leisure site to being generally perceived and promoted as essentially a theme park through a process of partial Disneyization. The second objective is to examine how the ‘theme park’ is perceived by its visitors, more precisely how they see it after their visit and what first-time visitors expect from it beforehand. The first enquiry, performed through the analysis of TripAdvisor reviews, indicates that ex-post, the visitors typically describe having experienced a visit to a theme park. The second enquiry, performed by interviewing first-time visitors about to access the site, suggests that while many first-time visitors expect to visit a theme park as well, others, mainly Western tourists, are expecting a more cultural experience. The findings of the two inquiries are compared to each other and to the image of the site promoted by the local tourism authorities. The subdued political message of the Big Buddha and the degree to which it is discerned by visitors are also discussed.     

Falling Apart at the Margins? Neighbourhood Transformations in Peri‐Urban Chennai

This article explores the peri‐urban dynamics in developing cities using a theoretical examination of the metropolis as the new urban condition. Although a western conceptualization, the notion of the metropolis, and particularly metropolitan planning, was exported to the developing world to address its urbanization problems. Metropolitan development authorities were established for wider city regions and accorded legislative powers to prepare master plans for the metropolitan areas. However, in most instances, their planning strategies resulted in a conflation of the urban–rural interface into a more complex peri‐urban condition, marked by heterogeneity and fragmentation. The article illustrates this through an empirical investigation in the Indian city of Chennai, where socio‐spatial transformations of two borderland neighbourhoods on its southern periphery are assessed mainly in terms of metropolitan planning decisions over the decades. In outlining their metamorphosis, the study is careful not to perceive such conflicts as simple forms of polarization between the rich and the poor. Rather, it sets the class conflicts against the politico‐economic dynamics yielding newer forms of polarization in the peri‐urban spaces.     

Networks of connectivity,territorial fragmentation,uneven development: The new politics of city-regionalism

Over the past decade much has been written about the centrality of city-regions to accounts of economic success. But despite a rich and varied literature highlighting the importance of city-centric capitalism, the concept of the city-region remains ambiguous. Defined in economic terms, all too often what is missing from these accounts is how city-regions are constructed politically, and the processes by which they are rendered visible spaces. While recent interventions have done much to advance debates on the former, this paper explores the struggle to define, delimit and designate city-regions through recent endeavours to construct a spatial map of city-regions in England. The aim is to demonstrate how the processes by which city-regions are constructed politically are the mediated outcome of trans-regional economic flows and political claims to territory. The paper concludes by relating these findings to ongoing debates around state, space and scalar geographies, and speculates what they might mean for the future of city-regional debate.     

时空交互视角下的中国入境客流分布动态分析

运用探索性时空分析框架(ESTDA),从时空交互视角分析1987-2013年入境港澳台和外国人市场的客流省区分布动态。研究发现:(1)省区差异趋于缩小,空间集聚增强。(2)港澳台市场全域极化突出,外国人市场局部时空模式多元;港澳台市场局部空间稳定性由西南部向中北部递减;东南省区间时空依赖效应较强,西北省区较弱。外国人市场局部空间稳定性由沿海、沿边向内陆递减;西部省区间时空依赖效应较强,东南省区较弱。(3)各省区的市场地位相对稳定,外国人客流空间格局变动性相对较高。(4)客流变动以省区协同增长为主,竞合格局因市场和局部区域而异。提出进一步壮大中西部旅游增长极;构建无障碍旅游区;区域合作差异化;加大宣传力度等对策。     

景区游客游憩行为计算机仿真模型

本文针对我国重点景区在“十一”黄金周以及“五一”等小长假期间持续出现客流高峰而导致的游客游憩质量下降、游憩安全以及景区环境资源可持续利用等问题,从景区游客游憩行为出发,以基于Agent的RepastSimphony建模框架与地理信息系统ArcGISShape数据模型为元模型,建立了可动态模拟景区游客时空分布的游客行为仿真模型。以颐和园景区长廊游览区为研究对象,基于“五一”小长假现场观测与跟踪数据对模型进行了校核与验证,对实验输出数据所反映的客流时空分布进行了分析,并对其在景区管理的实际应用进行了讨论。     

传统夷夏观与中国疆域的形成--中国疆域形成理论探讨之一

文章主要对传统夷夏观在中国疆域形成中的作用进行了探讨,认为如果从汉族和边疆民族对中国疆域形成的贡献看,中国疆域的形成可以分为两大时期,唐以前是汉族起着主导作用,汉、唐的两次大统一都是以汉族为主体实现的;唐以后则是边疆民族主导着疆域发展的进程,元、清两次大统一都是由边疆民族实现的。传统的夷夏观是导致这种状况一个很主要的因素。受传统夷夏观的束缚,以汉族为主体建立的王朝往往难以突破人为设置的“夷夏”界限,对边疆地区采取羁縻统治或“不治”,因而阻碍了疆域形成的进程;而边疆民族所建王朝则没有这些束缚,并不断冲击着传统的夷夏观,中国疆域的最终形成就是伴随着这种观念的不断突破而实现的。     

AGGLOMERATION,TRADE, AND SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT: BRINGING DYNAMICS BACK IN*

ABSTRACT The field of spatial economics has made enormous progress in theorizing and measuring agglomeration effects, trade costs, and urbanization. Typical models establish structural determinants by making strong assumptions about which forces are relevant and how these forces interact. But many of these assumptions, about firms, agents, spatial costs, and market structures, are questionable. As a result, the field has a long way to go to establish causality, and to be able to account for spatial economic dynamics.     

Tourism as a vehicle for regional development in peripheral areas – myth or reality? A longitudinal case study of Swedish regions

In the contemporary so-called ‘competition state era’, many rural and peripheral regions are in decline. Tourism is increasingly viewed as being able to alleviate and rejuvenate regions that are facing economic difficulties. The European Union has launched several programmes with the goal of stimulating growth and employment in peripheral areas. These programmes are often used to support tourism development projects. In this paper, a longitudinal analysis of spatial changes in Swedish tourism is conducted. The analysis is based on statistics regarding overnight stays in Swedish commercial accommodation facilities. The aim is to investigate if tourism and tourism policy contribute to the reduction in disparities between regions. Although there are exceptions, the main findings indicate that the potential for creating sustainable rural tourism growth through tourism policy seems to be much less than the popular discourse suggests.     

基于新地理信息技术的南京市游客流动性空间特征研究

利用新地理信息技术,采集500个游客GPS地理标记照片,运用GIS空间分析方法,分析游客在南京城市内部及其与长三角其它城市空间流动特性,并提炼游客空间行为一般模式。发现:①南京城市内部旅游流在主城区集聚,整体上呈现中心城区向四周扩散的趋势;且在空间形态上形成小型化、斑块化的布局特征。②南京与长三角周边城市的线形路线以点-点模式为主导,地域模式以便利的同城市中心流动为多数,其旅游流流动模式与已有典型模式基本吻合,同时长三角地区旅游流呈现等级扩散特征。     

Indicators of community economic development through mural-based tourism

Community Economic Development (CED) has become a recognised form of economic development, despite contention regarding its definition and applications. It is acknowledged that development planning benefits from a more holistic approach with a focus on community participation. The objective of this paper was to explore the process and selected indicators of CED success through an examination of five Saskatchewan communities that have made the conscious decision to develop tourism through the use of wall murals on the exteriors of buildings. Extensive in-person interviews were conducted with stakeholders in each of these communities. Generally, this research has found that both the CED process undertaken and the measurement of success are dependent upon the desired outcomes of mural development. For example, in communities that created murals-as-community-beautification, the process was less formalised and success was measured more qualitatively, for example in increased community pride and the development of social relationships. For those communities where murals were developed as part of an explicit economic development strategy, the process was more formalised and the outcomes measured more quantitatively, including the numbers of visitors, employment and businesses created. This research also indicates that particular attributes of rural places play a critical role in how CED is understood, defined and carried out, and how successes, both tangible and intangible, are measured.     

基于区域城市体系的旅游地域系统空间组织研究——以江苏为例

本文强调了旅游资源"集中性"的功能属性,并区分了地域、线性、等级、节点四种集中性,揭示了旅游资源经济、交通指向性的空间布局特征。通过分析旅游地域系统同区域城市体系在要素、结构及功能上的多层耦合关系,归纳出一定区域城市支持下的旅游地域系统空间组织---地域旅游城市网络等级体系模式。并通过分析城市体系空间结构、城市旅游功能结构,结合旅游业产业特性,划分出三个等级构成:中心旅游城市、旅游城市、特色旅游城镇或旅游景区。最后给出了江苏地域旅游城市网络体系空间组织。     

The culture history of Madagascar

Madagascar's culture is a unique fusion of elements drawn from the western, northern, and eastern shores of the Indian Ocean, and its past has fascinated many scholars, yet systematic archaeological research is relatively recent on the island. The oldest traces of visitors are from the first century AD. Coastal settlements, with clear evidence of ties to the western Indian Ocean trading network, were established in several places over the next millennium. Important environmental changes of both plant and animal communities are documented over this period, including the extinctions of almost all large animal species. Urban life in Madagascar began with the establishment of the entrepôt of Mahilaka on the northwest coast of the island in the twelfth century. At about the same time, communities with ties to the trade network were established around the island's coasts. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, social hierarchies developed in several regions of the island. During the succeeding two centuries, Madagascar saw the development of state polities.     

Facilitating native land reacquisition in the rural USA through collaborative research and Geographic Information Systems

A large proportion of American Indian reservation lands are owned by non‐Indian entities. A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a powerful tool for visualising land tenure changes, and public participation GIS (PPGIS) is one approach for using spatial technologies to facilitate the identification and reacquisition of reservation lands by tribes. While some tribes have successfully harnessed GIS for land management and for systematically identifying lands for reacquisition, others struggle to implement land management systems such as GIS for these purposes. This paper situates PPGIS in relation to other forms of participatory action research and outlines our use of a PPGIS framework to engage undergraduate geography students in the mapping of land tenure status on ten rural Minnesota Indian reservations as part of a collaborative partnership with the Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF). A PPGIS framework allowed us to collaboratively define research goals in response to tribal community needs and provided structure for student work with partner reservations to develop and implement tailored mapping and analysis techniques. Two sets of findings are significant. First, the assembly of a standardised set of maps for American Indian reservations in Minnesota provides a tremendous visual and analytical resource for ILTF and individual tribes to pursue land reacquisition within reservation boundaries. Second, from a PPGIS perspective, we found that working with a coordinating or ‘bridging’ organisation provided key benefits by enabling education of both the student–faculty partners and the individual tribes. The PPGIS model empowered both partners by allowing tribes to harness a powerful technology to assist in visualising land‐based assets and allowing students to contribute to native land reacquisition efforts through application of their GIS skills. This mapping helps facilitate economic and cultural viability in tribal communities by providing an important visual catalogue of existing land‐based assets, in support of future land acquisition and economic development planning.