Emergent Geographies of International Education and Social Exclusion

This paper explores the socio‐spatial implications of recent developments in the internationalisation of education, which includes the growth in numbers of foreign students and the establishment of offshore schools. It demonstrates the relationship between emergent geographies of international education in the “West” and social reproduction in both student “sending” and “receiving” societies. Drawing on fieldwork in Hong Kong and Canada, it argues that international education is transforming the spatial scales over which social reproduction is achieved: on the one hand, upper‐middle‐class populations in East Asia are able to secure their social status through the acquisition of a “Western education”, thereby creating new geographies of social exclusion within “student‐sending” societies. On the other hand, primary and secondary schools in Canada are able to harness the benefits of internationalisation in order to offset the negative effects of neoliberal educational reform, thereby facilitating local social reproduction.     

Relational coupling of multiple streams: The case of COVID-19 infections in German abattoirs

After a series of COVID-19 outbreaks among employees in the German meat-processing industry, the Work Safety Control Act protecting these workers made it on the government's agenda in July 2020. From a Multiple Streams perspective, local corona hotspots may be understood as policy windows for introducing respective measures. However, this alone is not sufficient to explain agenda setting. This study investigates the coupling of streams within policy windows. Introducing the notion of relational coupling to the MSF research agenda, discourse network analysis provides a new methodology to reveal entrepreneurial activities. Studying the German mass media discourse on the issue identifies two stages: (1) An initial problem brokerage without coupling of core policies, followed by (2) a coupling across all streams based on a focusing event. We argue that relational coupling allows for an enhanced understanding of agenda setting.     

New forms of multi-local working: identifying multi-locality in planning as well as public and private organizations’ strategies in the Helsinki region

Over the last decades, there has been a significant development towards new forms of multi-locality, particularly for job-related reasons. In addition to offices, many can work in multiple places (such as the home, co-working spaces, coffee shops and public libraries). In addition to workers in start-ups and small entrepreneurs, who are traditionally known to be more mobile, white-collar workers employed by organizations are increasingly becoming multi-local. However, little is known about the ways in which multi-locality is addressed within the urban regions. This phenomenon has been studied at Aalto and NMBU University within the BEMINE research project by analysing recent policy and planning documents, as well as organizations’ strategies within the Helsinki region. In addition to a literature review, a qualitative analysis of planning documents was conducted as well as semi-structured interviews with five organizations (both private and public) in Finland employing mobile white-collars. The findings reveal that while policy-makers and city planners have not yet addressed the complexity of multi-locality, both private and public organizations are focusing on more concrete multi-local strategies and working practices. More dialogue is needed amongst policy-makers, city planners and organizations to address multi-locality at different levels of analysis and planning.     

Street children's lives and actor-networks

This article investigates the street-children phenomenon and their view of street life as actor-networks in Pelotas, Brazil. Street children manipulate actor-networks to reach their life goals. They physically approach certain actors and withdraw from others. To explore this phenomenon, I acquired qualitative data about the lives of 19 street children over 7 years. Manifold methods were utilised: observation, interviews, poems, walkabouts and drawings. The most important actors from the children's perspective affecting street life, such as other street children, police, violence, trees offering safety, street knowledge, sunglasses, drugs and states of mind, were discovered. I analysed children's lives by combining actor-network theory and time-geography, which clarified why same actors may hold varying meanings depending on the other actors in the networks. Furthermore, the capacity of actors is influenced by the intensity of the connection between actors and the reasons why certain actors are enrolled in the networks.     

When Bereaved of Everything: Objects from the Concentration Camp of Ravensbrück as Expressions of Resistance,Memory, and Identity

When survivors from the Ravensbrück concentration camp arrived in Sweden in spring 1945, some of the objects they brought with them from the camp were collected and preserved. These are modest in appearance, but were – as oral testimonies show – invaluable in camp. The concentration camp context of obliteration stretches the limits of interpretation of material culture to its extreme. In this article the objects are discussed as expressions of resistance, memory, and identity. These immaterial values were among the most vital coping strategies used by the prisoners against the dehumanization laid upon them by the camp administration. The material culture was central in enabling, upholding, and realizing these.     

Studying Incremental Institutional Change: A Systematic and Critical Meta‐Review of the Literature from 2005 to 2015

Since the early 2000s, theorizing on incremental institutional change has made inroads in comparative historical analysis. In particular, the ideas, concepts, and theory introduced by Kathleen Thelen and her collaborators have been widely adopted by scholars. These scholars are not, however, univocally positive about the theory. Three main critiques have been plaguing the theory since its early days: the concepts it builds on lack clarity, the model of agency it uses is too static, and the theory lacks analytical power overall. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analysis method, this article presents a meta‐analysis of the peer‐reviewed empirical literature from 2005 to 2015 that applies this theory. It seeks to better understand the reach of the critiques expressed, as this may provide a starting point for improvement. It finds considerable quantitative support for the critiques, and uncovers an additional problematic issue: the tendency for concept stretching and concept proliferation by scholars seeking to overcome the shortcomings of the theory. Paradoxically, concept stretching and proliferation only further reduce the analytical power of the theory. The article concludes with suggestions for improvement of the development and application of the theory.     

Learning across distances: an international collaborative learning project between Berlin and Turku

Many geographers graduating from universities enter an international and project-based professional life, which includes working in geographically dispersed project teams. In Europe, the Bologna process aligned study programs and supported student mobility to prepare students for such a work environment. However, research on higher education has reported few examples of international courses that include collaborative learning during which students have experience of both co-location and geographical dispersion. This paper reports on a pilot course that implemented international student-led research projects in two Geography Departments: the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the University of Turku. We monitored the students’ learning processes via a survey that was administered at the beginning, middle and end of the course, complemented by observations, informal discussions and student team reports. We analysed the survey and observations within a proximity-distance framework to identify the key challenges and good practices for supporting collaborative learning. We developed a model for organising an international course that applies both geographical distance and co-location.     

Policy dimension: A new concept to distinguish substance from process in the Narrative Policy Framework

This article introduces the distinction between substance (questions of policy design) and process (questions of power in the policy process) to the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). While both occur in existing NPF research, so far, they are not separated analytically. We conceptualize them as categories of the “policy dimension,” a new aspect of narrative content. Applying this dimension to an exploratory case, we show that such an analysis leads to useful insights for NPF scholars. Substance policy narrative elements show a debate about a policy's implementation model, whereas process policy narrative elements reveal that this debate is permeated by power conflicts. Furthermore, we find that the two categories' occurrence in narratives is influenced by the debate venue, whereas political parties as narrators do not seem to be relevant. The policy dimension allows for new research avenues and provides practitioners with a new tool to understand and intervene in policy debates.