Edna O'Brien and narrative diaspora space

Given the persistent presence of migration in the work of Edna O'Brien, it is surprising how marginal a theme it is in critiques of her work. This article explores how questions of diaspora have reached a renewed level of depth and intensity in her novel The Light of Evening (2006) and the related short story ‘My Two Mothers’ (2011). Looking, in particular, at how letters play a central role in the relationships of three generations of Irish women across three countries, it analyses how issues of mother(land), diaspora and belonging are mediated through migrant fiction. It draws on the work of Avtar Brah and Paul Ricoeur to argue that, along with related forms of textuality within O'Brien's oeuvre, letters represent a ‘narrative diaspora space’ which illuminates the relationship between mothers, daughters and writing in Irish migrant experience.     

An Introduction to Spatial Discounting

Research on the valuation of environmental externalities shows that decision makers tend to discount not only over time but across space. Just as time discounting has implications for intergenerational equity, geographical or spatial discounting has implications for intragenerational equity. Similarly, just as positive time discount rates are warranted by positive net rates of growth of the capital stock, positive spatial discount rates may be warranted by the fact that enviironmental (or other external effects of economic activity are diffused at positive rates. This paper introduces the notion of spatial discounting and explores its welfare implications through a simple diffusion model.     

Spatial Characteristics and Comparisons of Interaction and Median Clustering Models

Cluster analysis has been pursued from a number of directions for identifying interesting relationships and patterns in spatial information. A major emphasis is currently on the development and refinement of optimization‐based clustering models for the purpose of exploring spatially referenced data. Within this context, two basic methods exist for identifying clusters that are most similar. An interesting feature of these two approaches is that one method approximates the relationships inherent in the other method. This is significant given that the approximation approach is invariably utilized for cluster detection in spatial and aspatial analysis. A number of spatial applications are investigated which highlight the differences in clusters produced by each model. This is an important contribution because the differences are in fact quite significant, yet these contrasts are not widely known or acknowledged.