Internationalising Learning and Teaching: A European experience

This paper focuses on experiences with international learning and teaching in a European (ERASMUS) programme on geography and gender during the period 1990-1998. This programme forms an example of collaborative work in which the author and colleagues experimented with an array of models to bring geography students and teachers of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds together. International learning and teaching is a confrontation with diversity. Diversity in language, in the mastery of English and the resulting hierarchies, in learning and teaching cultures and in defining geography form both challenges and opportunities to profit. In this paper the author will expound on the different strategies to deal with linguistic and cultural differences and to break down hierarchies. Furthermore the opportunities to "use" the differences as learning and teaching contexts will be discussed. Geography is a discipline concerning diversity. Direct contact between persons with different cultural backgrounds can form an efficient, effective and stimulating method to learn about differences in geographies and in teaching methods.     

Benchmark Standards for Geography: A personal review

The Human–Environment Research Observatory (HERO) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program aimed to develop the next generation of researchers working on place-based human–environment problems. The program followed a cooperative learning model to foster an integrated approach to geographic research and to build collaborative research skills. The program hosted 12–16 students annually, who first engaged in an intensive short course and then formed three- or four-person teams to conduct research in four biophysically and socioeconomically diverse places. The teams used cyberinfrastructure to collaborate and integrate their research and findings. Most of the REU students have opted to attend graduate school and specialize in human–environment research.     

编修《兴文县志·续编》的体会

1 .领导重视是关键我县开展修志工作 ,始终注重抓两个坚持 :一是坚持县委领导、政府主持的修志格局 ;二是坚持书记挂帅、县长负总责 ,分管领导具体抓的领导原则。近 1 8年来 ,领导班子换了一届又一届 ,领导换了一个又一个 ,但加强对方志工作的领导从未削弱过。第一部新编县志出版后 ,县领导班子明确提出修志工作不能松 ,队伍不能散 ,宣传工作要加强。传达贯彻全国地方志二次会议精神 ,就如何启动《兴文县志·续编》作了动员部署 ,并成立了县志续修领导组、编委会 ,落实了精干的编纂班子。经过努力 ,按时完成了《兴文县志·续编》任务 ,并于 …     

J.W. Burrow: A personal history

The late John Burrow, one of the most stimulating promoters of the distinctively interdisciplinary enterprise that is Intellectual History, was a vital member of what has become known as the ‘Sussex School’. In exploring the resonances of his singular and richly idiosyncratic contribution, this article places his unique historical sensibility within a series of interpretative contexts, demonstrating the vitality of writings that will continue to inspire and inform scholarship in the field for decades to come.     

Working-with: talking and sorting in personal archives

This paper draws upon experiences of working in a personal archive in a domestic space in order to contribute to recent debates about archival formation, conduct and practice. By exploring the collaborative practices of working-with an archive owner in ordering and cataloguing a collection, we provide methodological insights into how historical geography research is carried out. Although such working-with in archives is, we argue, a common practice amongst researchers, these interactions with others are often absent from published work. This paper provides an explicit discussion of these often hidden collaborations and socialities, highlighting their importance for the conduct of archival research in three specific areas. First, we show how working-with actively (re)shapes and (re)makes archival materials and the stories that emerge from them. Second, we argue that working-with the owners of archives, but doing so without clearly defined research aims and going against the grain of productivist methods of working, can be rewarding both within and beyond academia. Third, in focussing on working-with, the paper extends conceptions of the archive and archival practice. We argue that the domestic setting of archival work produces particular patterns of archival conduct and disrupts the boundaries of collections themselves.     

National identity: banal,personal and embedded

ABSTRACT. This article examines the theoretical problem of understanding the relationship between personal and social dimensions of national identity. It does this by relating ethnographic data collected during a study of a merger between a Scottish and an English bank to three conceptual frameworks. First, it considers Michael Billig's thesis of ‘banal nationalism’. Then it addresses Anthony P. Cohen's concept of ‘personal nationalism’. Finally, it adapts a conception of the relationship between personal and social identity found in the recent work of Derek Layder. Based on this it argues that national identities, like all identities, are rendered salient for persons when they seem to address personal issues of power over one's life, and that the various social organisational settings through which people realise control over their lives (in this case, the bank) are thus crucial contexts for understanding people's attachments to identities, national and otherwise.     

Geology/archaeology in action: a personal perspective

This article uses Bruno Latour’s concept of Science in Action to consider the relationship between archaeology and geology. It is argued that neither the New Archaeology nor Postprocessual Archaeology provides a strong foundation for dialogue between archaeology and geology. Significant differences in temporal scale and structure pose a significant hurdle to integration of geology and archaeology. However, the practice of both disciplines is characterized by an internal tension between the use of imagination and intuition versus a reliance on data. This dynamic provides the basis for cooperation between geology and archaeology, but it must be realized that collaboration requires that geologists be seen as equal partners in inquiry rather than as specialists in service of an archaeological research agenda.     

华侨华人学科建设的反思：东南亚历史研究的视角与经验

本文的讨论围绕三个层面展开 :华侨华人研究 ,东南亚 (华侨华人 )研究以及笔者个人对槟城—吉打州华人商业与权力关系的研究。争论的实质是这样一个理论与方法论的问题 ,即华侨华人研究应该分别被视为某一孤立的主题研究领域、区域研究和学科研究方法 ,还是一个相互关联的结合整体的问题。本文并非企图为华侨华人研究确立一个标准 ,而仅仅是呈献一个实例 ,即把个人的研究视角和经历 ,结合大的结构、进程、理论和方法论的关怀等问题 ,进行情景化的考察。     

从环境的历史到环境史——关于环境史研究的一种认识

By and large, there are three kinds of research on environment: the history of environment as a field of natural history studies, the history of environment as within the scope of history of society studies, and environmental history as the study of the relationship between human and nature. The methodological perspective of the relationship between humanity and environmental distinguishes the third from the previous two. From this perspective, when we probe the mutual effects between human and nature, we will stress on their interactions. The new era and the realities of contemporary society foster the rise of environmental history, which has not only theoretical values but also practical significance. Translated from Xueshu Yanjiu 学术研究 (Academic Research), 2006, (9):12–22     

Professionalising Teaching: enhancing the status of teaching,improving the experience of learning and supporting innovation in higher education

Extant literature on professions suggests that there is a readily recognisable set of characteristics of a profession, but this is a contested issue, particularly in the area of recognising the professionalism of those who teach and support learning in higher education. In the UK, the Institute for Learning and Teaching was set up as a result of the Dearing report to recognise the experience and expertise of those working in these areas. The ILT offers a model for professionalising teaching, to which continuous professional development (CPD) is key. Geographers and those who teach related subjects are already in the vanguard of this activity.     

Revolutionary and evolutionary change in human geography: a personal assessment

Many perspectives new to Anglo-Saxon human geography have been introduced into the discipline over the last twenty years. These are reviewed in terms of the impacts upon mainstream human geography of the quantitative/spatial organisation /theoretical revolutions, and the reactions against these in turn by advocates of the behavioural, liberal/relevance, Marxist and post-positivist perspectives. The review ends with a brief consideration of some contemporary approaches within human geography, particularly those seeking an understanding of the processes underpinning the relationships between agency and structure. By way of conclusion a personal assessment is given of the current standing of the discipline and the nature of the changes required of it in the 1980s.