Constructing America from the Sea: Maritime Archaeology Research,International Cooperation and Best Practices in the Underwater Cultural Heritage of Latin America

This article introduces this special issue of the Journal of Maritime Archaeology by giving a brief introduction to the current situation of the practice of maritime archaeology in Latin America, as well as reviewing the main challenges that the discipline faces here. An assessment of existing regional cooperation, the presence of maritime archaeology within the international community and its importance to develop new theoretical and methodological perspectives that advance access to knowledge is made. Finally, the article focuses on some of the current work carried out in Latin America.     

Geographical Analysis: Reflections of a Recovering Editor

This paper considers the past and future of the journal Geographical Analysis (GA), as well as the broader field of spatial analysis. From my experiences as a former editor of GA, I first identify three external trends that I feel will provide the backdrop for the future evolution of spatial analysis. These surround the rise of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science as disciplines. The paper also considers the structural changes that are occurring in the organization of science, and the trend toward democratization of spatial analysis and spatial data. I identify critical areas for methodological advances along with some opportunities for the rebranding of GA in the new era of data science.     

Spatial Empirics for Economic Growth and Convergence

This paper suggests some new empirical strategies for analyzing the evolution of regional income distributions over time and space. These approaches are based on extensions to the classical Markov transition matrices that allow for a more comprehensive analysis of the geographical dimensions of the transitional dynamics. This is achieved by integrating some recently developed local spatial statistics within a Markov framework. Insights to not only the frequency with which one economy may transition across different classes in the income distribution, but also how those transitions may or may not be spatially dependent are provided by these new measures. A number of indices are suggested as ways to characterize the space‐time dynamics and are illustrated in a case study of U. S. regional income dynamics over the 1929–1994 period.