The mental maps of Italian entrepreneurs: a quali-quantitative approach

ABSTRACT

Geographers interested in how entrepreneurs perceive locational environments have studied their mental maps in several European countries, within the theoretical framework provided by behavioral approach. Such studies have typically employed quantitative techniques, but qualitative studies are relatively new to this line of research. In this article, I examine the mental maps of entrepreneurs in Italy by using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods. I present and discuss the qualitative outcomes of this research, focusing in particular on the explanatory location factors and the key influences on the mental maps of entrepreneurs. What emerges is the realization that entrepreneurs are far from being fully rational economic actors, who exploit optimally all information and who are driven only by objective considerations. Rather, their views are also affected by subjective factors, individual’s own insights, commonplaces, stereotypes, and prejudices, particularly with reference to the southern regions of Italy (Mezzogiorno), and of other peripheral areas.     

Regional Aspects of Collaborative Invention Across National Innovation Systems

Abstract

This article analyzes the association between intraregional collaboration and levels of invention in nine developed countries. Patent data of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regions of nine inventive countries are used to determine if a significant positive correlation exists between reliance on own region partners and overall invention. Strong intraregional collaboration is also related to the knowledge bases of technologies and to the tendency for inventors to team up in the first place. Results show strong evidence that inventors in highly inventive regions co-patent more with own region partners and that they have a greater tendency to collaborate in the first place. Support for the hypothesis that information and computer technologies favour own region collaboration and that more biotechnology invention encourages external alliances is mixed. However, there is far less evidence that more biotechnology invention encourages more external alliances. Variation in the results between countries is interpreted as evidence that national innovation systems have distinctive internal locational attributes. The findings refute the assertion that strengthening aspatial network proximities has eclipsed the pivotal role of intraregional linkages in technological advance.     

Mental maps of global regions: identifying and characterizing “hard” and “soft” regions

ABSTRACT

This article presents the quantitative synthesis of mental maps that identify different types of world regions. It is the result of a large-scale survey conducted in 18 countries, based on a sketch map approach. The number, shape, and extension of these vernacular world regions vary according to countries, cultures, and the personal styles of respondents who drew the maps. However, when we collectively analyze the regions identified by respondents, we observe that the figures of global regions are more or less recurrent. While the most commonly used division of the world is into “continents”, we can identify “hard” and “soft” regions of the world. Whereas a “hard” region, such as Africa, can be recognized relatively unambiguously as a continent, “soft” regions may include numerous regional distinctions such as East Asia, Russia, South East Asia, and the Middle East. Our methodology involves defining a set of characteristics that discriminate between “hard” and “soft” regions (measuring spatial uncertainty and the relative vagueness of limits and fringes), then accounting for the correlation of these areas on the world map.     

Some reflections on mental maps

ABSTRACT

The point of departure for this essay is a map drawn in 1963 by the writer’s maternal grandfather. It represents the village of Berg, located in northern Sweden, and depicts his activities as a farmer and hunter. But it is also based on grandfather’s collective knowledge of the village. In what follows I will examine mental maps of microspaces that reflect what is important to an individual or to the members of a community. One shows how Aivilik Inuits perceive their local environment; another set of urban maps from Los Angeles, California, are based on the views of residents in different areas. The social divides become strikingly apparent on these mental maps. Among the conspicuous features of my grandfather’s map are the images he drew to supplement the various geographical locations he laid out. In this respect one might compare medieval mappae mundi that is, maps of the world representing compendiums of all things worth knowing. I also consider the appearance of mysterious gaps on grandfather’s map, that is, “the silences”. Many general perspectives on mental mapping are suggested by a consideration of the map my grandfather drew.     

Europe’s other? The Turks and shifting borders of memory

Abstract

Since the fifteenth century, the ‘Turks’ have represented the paradigmatic other of Europe. Even in times without violent conflict, the ‘Turks’ delimited the mental border of Europe towards the ‘Orient’ and served for identity-building in East Central Europe. In that region, the commemoration of the Turkish menace substantiated claims of being part of Europe over the last 200 years. Societies in peripheral regions could thereby redraw Europe’s frontiers in their favour. A comparison across Eastern European countries demonstrates how attempts at an inner homogenization through instrumentalization of an imagined external enemy contradict the plurality of interpretations of the past.     

Mapping languages from inside: Notes on perceptual dialectology

Language maps can represent many aspects of the linguistic situation in a certain territory. They usually draw particular views of the language setting as seen from outside, i.e. by linguists or scholars in general. However, maps can also be used to show the geographical distribution of the perception of language variation from the point of view of the speakers. The starting point for every kind of language map is the language border (and its definition): thus a perceptual language map needs a definition of border from the point of view of the speaker. To do that it is necessary to analyse 'perceptual data', that is to study the opinion the speaker has of the language diversities and compare the different kinds of perception. Points of interest can be, for example: the influence of the perceived ethnic diversity on the language variation—or vice versa, the fact that perceived ethnic borders do not match with perceived language borders; or moreover that perceived language borders do not necessarily match with the perceived comprehensibility of other language varieties (symbolic versus communicative function of language). Hence a possible linguistic borderline on perceptual language maps could be the limit among social language behaviours. From this point of view, sociolinguistic studies can be a good tool to draw perceptual language maps, since quantitative sociolinguistic researches provide the diatopic/diasthratic variation of the data, whilst qualitative research provides the perception of the variation. The paper discusses some field research case studies, coming from the Eastern and Western Alps in Italy, to better introduce this kind of perceptual geolinguistic explanation.     

Chronicle for 1993

Abstract

Theory is not a goal in itself but a means of enriching the history of cartography by stimulating new research questions and objectives. In this paper the concept of ‘transparent maps’ (carriers of an image of the external reality of the world) and ‘opaque maps’ is introduced. The notion is approached structurally (standards of graphical representation, drawing, geometry, text); through the sociology of the map (map makers, institutions, the public); and through seeing maps in their cultural and historical context (an approach which raises issues of the definitional boundaries of the history of cartography and which is arguably one of the most stimulating perspectives today as fostered by, in particular, contributors to the History of Cartography). Finally, attention is drawn to three important topics for the research agenda: the links between maps and culture; maps as a language of communication and as instruments of power; and the links between perception, logic and mnemonics.     

Examining Gender and Community Through Critical Pedagogy

A growing body of literature in critical geography challenges authoritative approaches to the production (and consumption) of knowledge in higher education. Feminist perspectives have contributed to this literature by emphasising the multiple and often conflicting voices of subjects, including those within the classroom. This paper draws from critical and feminist pedagogy in geography to examine student engagement with gender issues in the community. The case study for this analysis is a project in which students volunteer at community organisations and construct their own knowledges of social and political issues.     

Mapping the soft city: using cognitive mapping to respond to London-based literature and explore the construction of teenage place-related identity

ABSTRACT

Raban (1974. Soft City: What Cities Do To Us, and How They Change the Way We Live, Think and Feel. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2) distinguishes between the ‘hard’ city of statistics and maps, versus the ‘soft’ city of the ‘creative play of urban living’, ‘an art’ which enables urbanites to mould cities in their desired image. This case study reviews approaches to conceptualising urban space, exploring practical tasks through which London students can engage with, and write about, their place-related identities in order to enhance their readings of the rich range of literature set in their city. Developing an unconventional approach to teaching two A-level (16–18 years old) English Literature coursework texts – John Gay’s (1716) Trivia and Geoff Nicholson’s (1997) Bleeding London – it was hoped that students might be helped to ask whether a comprehensive (‘hard’) knowledge of London can ever be achieved. This case study is primarily an account of the students’ own London maps, a creative task designed to help them engage thematically with the coursework texts.     

A Paper City: On History,Maps, and Map Collections in 18th and 19th Century Paris

ABSTRACT

This essay considers how maps became implicated in historical inquiry, with particular reference to the city of Paris. Three interrelated episodes are discussed, from the early eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, each associated with specific mapmakers and collectors whose activities shaped the early development of map history. These episodes reveal how maps were historicized in different ways in this period, initially as images created in the present to reveal the past and eventually as objects of historical interest in their own right. It is further argued that this intellectual shift was associated with a growing awareness, especially among state officials, that the study and collection of historic maps had important geopolitical implications. In tracing this story across three episodes in a single urban setting, the essay seeks to make larger observations about the relationship between the map as a visual representation, the map collection as an urban ‘assemblage’ of geographical information, and the city as a physical environment.     

Mental Health in the Elderly

Abstract

Increase in life expectancy, together with a reduction in fertility, is causing unprecedented changes in the age structure of the world population. The importance of age-related diseases, mental illness among them, is increasing – in the developed countries, some 25% of the elderly population suffer from mental disorder. This review delineates the factors – social, behavioural, physical, economic, genetic – contributing to severe forms of mental disorder, particularly Alzheimer's disease, cerebrovascular dementia and depression, and discusses recent technological advances. The interaction of physical and mental health is also discussed.     

Palestine,Israel, Gaza,and the West Bank: the muddled mental maps of French and Israeli students

ABSTRACT

The Palestinian–Israeli Conflict is perceived by many – observers and parties to the conflict alike – as a struggle of two peoples over the same land. Yet, through this century-long conflict (and more so as Israel has expanded and deepened its occupation), what was once, perhaps, imagined as a single land has become an assortment of territories. These territories bear multiple names and different legal statuses, and their boundaries are often blurred. In light of the jumbled patchwork that Palestine–Israel has become, we examine the ways that the conflict’s territorial dimensions are imagined and represented. We study the mental maps of the region held by higher education students from Israel, both Jewish and Arab-Palestinian, as well as with university students from Montpellier, France. The representations indicate that while the French students were almost completely at a loss regarding the conflict’s spatial dimensions, the students from Israel were also confused, especially regarding the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We argue that these findings stem from a wider process of deterritorialization, linked to the conflicting relations between state and nation and intensified by a policy of chaotic spatial arrangements.     

The Post-Colonial Constitutional Order of the Commonwealth Caribbean: The Endurance of the Crown and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

ABSTRACT

Amongst Britain's former colonies the independent countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean represent something of an anomaly in so far as the majority of them remain constitutional monarchies and continue to retain the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) as their final appellate court, even though the region has had its own final appellate court – the Caribbean Court of Justice – since 2006. This is in marked contrast to Britain's former colonies in Africa and South Asia, the majority of which switched to republicanism soon after independence and at the same time abolished rights of appeal to the JCPC. This paper seeks to uncover the reasons for this anomaly by examining how the path that led to independence was shaped by a particular conception of Dominion status and by the willingness of nationalist leaders to embrace a dual identity: equal parts West Indian nationalist and Empire loyalist. It will also examine the phenomenon of the ‘postcolony’; being the persistence of the colonial order following the acquisition of constitutional independence. The paper has three aims. Firstly, to contribute to a better understanding of the impact of Dominion status and all that it symbolised in a region which is often overlooked in the scholarly literature on this topic. Secondly, better to understand the competing political forces that led three countries in the region to adopt republicanism, but inhibited its adoption elsewhere in the region. Thirdly, and finally, to enhance discussion of the complex nexus between republicanism and the abolition of rights of appeal to the JCPC where political and juridical considerations do not neatly align.     

A Distorting Mirror: The Sixteenth Century in the Historical Imagination of the First Hispanic Liberals

Summary

Both Iberian and Spanish American liberals in the early decades of the nineteenth century based their political stances upon a particular vision of Spanish history. This vision, nourished by the stereotypes of the so-called ‘black legend’, correspond to an extremely gloomy picture of the main events and processes that had been taking place in the Hispanic monarchy since the late fifteenth century, such as the discovery and conquest of America and the outcome of the Comunidades of Castile war. This essay shows how those first Hispanic liberals, many of whom spent several years in exile, hoping to make sense of that period of uncertainty and revolutionary crisis, sought inspiration in the philosophies of history which were beginning to spread from Northern Europe regarding the decisive role of Protestantism in the origins of modernity. In endorsing such a derogatory vision of the history of their own countries, which included an evaluation of Catholicism as a retrograde factor, those liberal writers and politicians bequeathed to their descendants an interpretative framework that would prove to be very long lasting. In fact, much of the political and intellectual historiography on the Iberian world would be conditioned for a long time by a paradigm which described its past as an anomaly in the Euroamerican context, and assumed the subordinate and peripheral position of the region, portrayed as a kind of ‘interior Orient’—that is, as an aberration of Western civilisation.     

Annie Garnett: the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Business of Textile Manufacture

Abstract

The social bearing of the Arts and Crafts movement in our country has certainly been perceived, and it has been the focus of a great amount of effort and energy…. Yet in England, which has been generally regarded as the cradle of this revival, it seems strange that there has been as yet no effective disposition, as in other countries, to treat the Arts and Crafts of Design as matters of National concern; or to establish a permanent organization or institution upon a substantial basis for their better care and fostering. At least, beyond the limited introduction as subjects of study in technological institutes, municipal and county council schools, and the Royal College of Art, it has been left to private effort, and the enthusiasm of groups of individuals or societies, mainly of hard-working artists and craftsmen, at their own risk and cost to endeavour to maintain a high standard of these arts by means of such exhibitions as those of our society.     

Feminist geography in Ecuador

Abstract

Latin American feminist geography exists in historically strong academic centers in the region, such as Brazil, Mexico and Argentina with an incipient tradition in Colombia, Chile and now Ecuador. In countries like Ecuador, where institutionalized human geography perspectives are lacking, the rise of feminist geography provides the field with important reflections regarding the flow of knowledge and practice. This paper addresses two ways in which feminist geography has entered Ecuadorian academia and activist-research circles. The first is through the work of the Critical Geography Collective of Ecuador and the second, through an incipient interest in feminist geography from different universities.     

Research and Activism in Sámi Politics: The Ideas and Achievements of Karl Nickul towards Securing Governance for the Sámi

Abstract

Pacifist, land surveyor, friend of the Sámi people, scholar studying Sámi culture, Karl Nickul's (1900–1980) life work proves that the work of a public servant and researcher can be merged into a strong ethical stand to influence society. Nickul, an early initiator of Finland's peace movement, was by training and profession a land surveyor, who worked for the Finnish government making maps of Lapland and Petsamo in northern Finland in the 1920s and 1930s. Becoming acquainted with the Skolt Sámi, he began to study them and to take part in the official discussions about their status. With a project to preserve Skolt culture Nickul's paramount idea of Sámi governance began to grow. He actively pursued this idea after World War II through his activities in Sámi politics in Finland and in Sámi cooperative efforts in the Nordic countries. The dominant idea was that the Sámi culture was to be protected from outside pressures of settlement, and that the Sámi themselves should be allowed to determine their own identity and their own needs. The paper discusses and analyses Karl Nickul's personal development and involvement in various projects and activities to secure Sámi rights.     

Renewal through Culture? The Role of Museums in the Renewal of Industrial Regions in Europe

Abstract

Bilbao has become a role model for the regeneration of declining urban and industrial regions. The debate on the so-called Bilbao effect showed that rundown industrial cities and regions might profit from culture-based development strategies, even if successful urban regeneration cannot be induced by only one flagship project without an appropriate local and regional context. Based on the comparative analysis of six, in general recently founded, museums in five countries (Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; Louvre in Lens; Centre Pompidou in Metz; Istanbul Modern Art Museum; Museum Folkwang in Essen; Museum of Natural History in Florence), the authors of this special issue discuss the role of these museums in building the image and the attractiveness of their local and regional environment, the cross-fertilization of ideas and the integration of a region in global circuits and networks. Museums can play an important role in building up “social capital”, creating networks between different professionals, groups, sectors and segments of society, bridging diverse social backgrounds, lowering coordinating costs for individuals and businesses, and increasing the capacity of firms to reconnect.