Debunking the Myth of Localized Agglomerations: The Development of a Regionalized Service Economy in South-East England

The central argument of this paper is that localized clusters of economic activity, or 'agglomerations', have been overemphasized in economic geography since the mid-1980s. In particular, such analyses are too manufacturing-biased, and place too much weight on the importance of local supply, market and partnership linkages. We will re-emphasize the service-based nature of growth in the core region of the UK economy, and will explore how a broad band of producer service activity is emerging in the Western Arc, owing largely to common locational logics, including back-office decentralization and the new firm-formation process. Such growth is both stimulated and supported by the high demand levels of the regional economy, but evidence suggests that the linkages of such firms extend well beyond the 'local', to cover at least the 'Greater South-East'. Furthermore, the international element in service growth needs to be recognized, as highlighted by the concentration of US foreign direct investment in the software industry along the M4 corridor. When areas outside the South-East are considered (such as Edinburgh, Tyne and Wear, Cheshire), the evidence appears to support Allen's (1992) notion of a 'regionalized mode of service growth' in the South-East.     

Ancient DNA provides new insights into the origin of the Chinese domestic horse

Domestic horses played a pivotal role in ancient China, but their exact origin remains controversial. To investigate the origin of Chinese domestic horses, we analyzed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 35 horse remains, aged between 4000 and 2000 years, excavated from nine archaeological sites in northern China. The Chinese ancient horses exhibited high matrilineal diversity, falling into all the seven haplogroups (A–G) observed in modern horses. These results suggest that several maternal lines were introduced into the gene pool of Chinese horses in the past. Haplogroups A and F were more prevalent in ancient horses than the other haplogroups. Interestingly, only haplogroups A and F were present in the samples older than 4000 years, while the more recent horses (between 2000 and 3000 years BP) fell into all seven haplogroups. Comparison with DNA data of present-day horses suggests that haplogroup F is like to be an ancient haplogroup of East Asian origin. These analyses also suggest that the origin of Chinese domestic horses is complex, and external mtDNA input occurred after initial domestication. Our results indicate that the Chinese ancient horses are more related to the modern Mongolian horses. Lastly, our results cannot support the previous hypothesis that early Chinese domestic horses were derived from the Przewalski horse.     

New technological path creation and the role of institutions in different geo-political spaces

This paper analyses the roles of institutions in facilitating or impeding the creation of new technological pathways in different countries. It is argued that the successful invention, innovation and diffusion of new technologies require the co-evolution of relevant institutions. It is argued that informal institutions, through their impact on people’s beliefs, perceptions and consequential behaviour, crucially influence whether formal institutions co-evolve with technological development and changing circumstances. At the same time, the rigidity of the pre-existing formal institutional arrangements impacts on whether agents can stimulate their co-evolution with the introduction of new technologies. These arguments are explored by comparing the creation of new wind power technologies in Britain and Germany since the 1970s.     

Towards a Living Archive: Making Multi Layered Research Data and Knowledge Generation Transparent

ABSTRACT

Çatalhöyük was first discovered as one of the earliest urban settlements in the late 1950s and excavated by James Mellaart between 1961 and 1965. The 9000-year-old town in central Turkey rapidly became famous internationally due to the large size and dense occupation of the settlement, as well as the spectacular wall paintings and other art that were uncovered inside the houses. Since 1993, under the direction of Ian Hodder, research at Çatalhöyük has pioneered a reflexive approach to archaeological practice, in which information is permanently open to reinterpretation by both scholars and the public. This approach acknowledges the mutual dependence of knowledge and the underlying research, to which end the Çatalhöyük Project decided to make its records available via the Web and to invite public comment since its onset. After 25 years of excavation, the project’s digital assets now amount to close to 5TB, including formal textual and numeric records, freetext documents, audiovisual materials, and a comprehensive collection of spatial data. The reflexive method, or ‘documentation of the documentation process,’ adds a separate layer of information that specifies how data have been gathered, and facilitates critique, understanding, and the evolution of knowledge.

In this paper we lay out our vision of an interactive archive that provides access to the multi layered information contained in this massive amount of data and how web technological advances have been incorporated into the digital data management at Çatalhöyük. Ultimately, the goal is to support an interdisciplinary process of assembling data into arguments on the basis of multiple lines of evidence. The ‘Living Archive’ will enable intuitive engagement across the entire variety of research, making use of the rich reflexive information stored with the data. The results of new analyses can in turn be reintegrated with the already existing data. The application will use open standards so that the knowledge gathered at Çatalhöyük can be linked with other projects that follow similar publication procedures based on the semantic web approach.     

SPATIAL HETEROGENEITY IN KNOWLEDGE,INNOVATION, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH NEXUS: CONCEPTUAL REFLECTIONS AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

By drawing on the Schumpeterian distinction between invention (i.e., new ideas and knowledge creation) and commercialization of new ideas (i.e., innovation), this paper shows that knowledge and innovation are both important drivers of economic growth, but have heterogeneous spatial impacts. In particular, the growth benefits accruing from knowledge seem rather selective and concentrated across space whereas the growth benefits generated by innovation seem more diffusive, and regions innovating in the absence of a strong local knowledge base can be as successful as more knowledge‐intensive regions in turning innovation into a higher growth rate, possibly by exploiting local informal knowledge and/or knowledge spillovers. These results are of great importance for the design of research and innovation policies within the frame of the Europe 2020 strategy.     

Religious Reforming Currents in Sixteenth‐Century Italy: The Spirituali and the Tridentine Debates over Church Reform

The history of religious reform in sixteenth century Italy has been the subject of much scholarly debate in recent decades, as well as uncertainty about how best to conceptualise the period, so indelibly marked by epoch‐changing events, such as the Protestant Reformation (from 1517) and the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Reforming currents in Italy were swept along by these events, and indeed appear to have been overwhelmed by them. Commonly, these currents are explored for their theological nature and especially their heterodox, even Protestant, character. Less well studied is their role in the debates over organisational church reform. It is here that we can discern the tenacity of these currents well into the Tridentine period. This article explores key protagonists of reform, known as the spirituali, with particular reference to the humanist bishop, Ludovico Beccadelli, and his role in the debate over episcopal residence. Through an analysis of his contribution to this divisive debate at the Council of Trent, the article seeks to shed light on a strand of the spirituali that was both resilient and prominent in the battle for the future direction of the Catholic Church.     

Complexity,Dynamism, and Agency: How Can Dialectical Biology Inform Geography?

Dialectical approaches, variously interpreted, have been advocated for by geographers for several decades. At the same time, critical environmental geography has recently become dominated by vital materialist strands of thought, the advocates of which have sometimes framed their own work in opposition to dialectics. Critics perceive two major problems with a dialectical framework; that it cements a nature–society dualism and that it insufficiently accounts for the agency or vitality of non‐human life. This paper seeks to address these criticisms by engaging with work by biologists who have been influenced by dialectical ideas. I outline two examples, Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins’ understanding of the way organism and environment mutually construct each other and research by Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer that offers a non‐dualist approach to wildlife conservation in agricultural ecosystems. The article discusses some of the ways in which these understandings might inform contemporary debates in political ecology.