‘The Ghost Ship’. An Intact Fluyt from c.1650 in the Middle of the Baltic Sea

We report an exceptionally well preserved 17th‐century shipwreck in the Baltic Sea. The investigation of the intact 3‐dimensional hull at 130 m depth in the cold dark water has demanded new methods of documentation. Field investigation of ‘The Ghost Ship’ has been done in co‐operation with a nautical survey company, combining archaeological skills with advanced technology and filming for a television documentary. The discovery offers detailed knowledge about Dutch shipbuilding and the construction of fluyts. We also believe that study of the social organisation aboard this small trading ship can give insights into the mentality and ideology of the period. © 2012 The Authors     

Staying Power: What Influences Micro-firm Survival in Tourism?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how previous experience and location of entrepreneurs influence the survival of new tourism firms. The paper departs from recent evolutionary economic geography advancements, highlighting the importance of routines and skills as well as location-specific knowledge for firm success. While having been well-researched for manufacturing industries characterized by high entry barriers, little knowledge is currently available on the factors influencing survival rates in service sectors with low entry barriers. A quantitative approach applies hazard models to investigate the survival rates over a seven-year period of a total of 133 new micro-tourism firms started between 1999 and 2001 in the four northernmost counties of Sweden. The geo-referenced micro-database ASTRID links information on firm features (e.g. firm births and deaths, spatial coordinates and industry codes) to characteristics of entrepreneurs (e.g. age, education, previous experience). The main finding is that entrepreneurs with previous work experience in related sectors are more likely to survive and, in this case, entrepreneurs without local experience tend to be less successful. We find no evidence that new firms operating in regions specialized in tourism have a survival advantage. Our analysis also indicates that surviving firms improve performance over time. The paper thus contributes new knowledge on the determinants of micro-firm survival in tourism.     

Regional Policy as Interaction between National Institutions and Regional Science

As a reaction to emerging regional imbalances, discussions regarding growth centre policy began in the Nordic countries during the latter part of the 1960s. At this time, a working group within the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) provided a policy option based on international theories from urban and agglomeration economics. Within the actual growth centre policies in Norway, Sweden and Finland, central elements from the EFTA concept related to the scale of the centres were, however, not adopted. Instead, growth centres were located to places that had a smaller population than the 30,000 inhabitants recommended by the EFTA concept. This outcome was related to the fact that the EFTA concept was adapted to the existing regional policy institutions. As these institutions were egalitarian and redistributive in character, the Nordic growth centre policies favoured a more dispersed settlement structure than suggested by the EFTA concept.     

Localized mobility clusters: impacts of labour market externalities on firm performance

This article analyses the impact of labour market-induced externalitieson firm performance by using a unique database that connectsattributes of individuals to workplaces for the entire Swedisheconomy. Based on the analysis of 256,985 workplaces, our resultsshow that firms belonging to networks of local job mobility(i.e. ‘localized mobility clusters’) significantlyoutperform other similar firms within the local labour market.The results also indicate that concentrations of similar andrelated firms do not explain any considerable part of the variationsin firm competitiveness. Labour market externalities derivedvia local job mobility produce significantly more powerful effectsfor the involved firms as compared to the degree of co-location,diversity and scale.     

Quelques réflexions sur l'apophatisme de śankara

Sans résumé     

Being international in times of war: Arthur Sweetser and the shifting of the League of Nations to the United Nations

Transnational actors are increasingly surfacing when it comes to understanding the global dimensions of the modern nation-state. Thinking of the modern state from the diversity of its personnel and its many intersections with private and semi-private actors or institutions with a transnational reach, the new diplomatic history acknowledges the embeddedness of states in border-crossing agencies. What has been conceptualized as ‘network diplomacy’ grasps both the role of transnational epistemic communities for the making of particular policy fields and the perception of diplomats as an integral part of transnational initiatives. Taking the League of Nations as a case study, this article analyses how its personnel attempted to spell out ideas of network diplomacy and to make their exposed position at the intersection of transnational civil society, state politics and international institutions work to effect political change. We focus on the transnational career of Arthur Sweetser (1888–1968) who, as a journalist, a long-term member of the League secretariat, the UN staff and the US administration, was at the forefront of developing new techniques of diplomatic practices beyond institutional mandates. Sweetser’s trajectory allows us to illuminate the mechanisms of network diplomacy by probing into multi-layered negotiation processes that engaged state practices, international institutions and the border-crossing agency of individuals. Characterizing him as transnational enables one to interlink his mobile trajectory with a particular scope of action that unfolded beyond the political demarcation of the nation-state and its instituted logics of rule and diplomacy. We further carve out the main features of a diplomatic practice that was formally non-existent yet crucial to the transfer of League principles, practices and personnel to the new United Nations.     

Unpacking children in migration research

In the light of calls for children's geographers to attend to happenings beyond the localised perception of children themselves, this piece considers the state of migration studies when it comes to the experiences of children and young people. It provides an overview of existing research and suggests that in the context of migration, more could be done to foreground the perspectives of children in their own right. Given that attending to everyday experience is an endeavour of concern to adult-centric migration research, the paper concludes by suggesting that this might be an area in which children's geographers could contribute to another sub-discipline.     

“The artifice of eternity”: The Wanderings of Oisin and the Byzantium poems

Yeats’s poetry and drama centre on conflict, and crucially, on the clash between the mortal and the eternal. In this essay, I focus on the way in which The Wanderings of Oisin foreshadows and informs the treatment of eternity in Yeats’s later Byzantium poems. The Wanderings of Oisin explores the intensity of human longing for the eternal despite our time-bound nature, prefiguring his later impassioned though analytical Byzantium poems. Although the Byzantium poems seem initially to glorify eternity at the expense of human life, this essay traces the complexity of Yeats’s desire. Previous criticism has understated the extent to which Yeats’s poetry actively resists the siren song of eternity. The Byzantium poems problematise the eternity that they seem to desire, and this article reveals them as inflected by the way in which The Wanderings of Oisin questions the value of the eternal realm in the light of mortal heroic values. The “intensity, solitude, defeat” of the artist are inevitable, but there is a victory of sorts won from the poet’s deliberate inability to commit to any version of the eternal that preclude his own power and humanity. Yeats’s poetry runs the gamut between versions of desire that express an overweening desire for resolution even as they retain their resistance to any single pure state of being, if any such state is possible.     

Employment growth and regional development: industrial change and contextual differences between Denmark and Sweden

This paper explores the potential drivers behind uneven regional development in the context of employment growth in Denmark and Sweden. In particular, we are interested in the roles of urbanization, industrial change and the rise of the new economy as manifested in the growth of the two economies in 2002–2007. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to analyse the impact of a number of key industrial sectors on regional employment growth in the two countries. The empirical analysis is based on longitudinal matched employer–employee data retrieved from official registers in each economy from 2002 to 2007, a period of strong national growth following the crisis of early 2000. Our findings indicate that the two economies follow a similar pattern in addressing total employment growth; but looking at changes in employment levels across the national borders of these two relatively similar open economies, we find that, although in general these economies react relatively similarly to changes, embarking on a narrower analysis of the individual sectors reveals marked national differences. This indicates that context matters in the analysis of regional economic dynamics in terms of structure, system and policy.