Can a preservationist ideology halt the process of creative destruction? Evidence from Salt Spring Island,British Columbia

For more than 50 years, rural municipalities across the developed world have struggled to redefine themselves in the face of declining primary sector employment. In some places, this struggle has led to the creation of landscapes that provide heritage‐seekers with tangible commodities and intangible experiences reflecting a by‐gone past. Recent research suggests that these post‐productivist heritage‐scapes may evolve into leisure‐scapes of mass consumption, if profit or economic growth are the key motives underlying development ( Mitchell and Vanderwerf 2010 ). This article questions whether a dominant ideology of preservation can prevent this scenario. We studied Salt Spring Island, British Columbia: (i) to determine if the island displays the characteristics of a heritage‐scape, (ii) to discover if a preservationist ideology has contributed to its current state, and (iii) to ponder if this state can be maintained, in light of recent regional and provincial discourse. Our analysis reveals that the creation, and maintenance, of this heritage‐scape has been guided largely by public discourse underlain by a preservationist ideology. This prolonged state, however, may be drawing to an end. Recent provincial directives to double tourist revenues suggest that local (and regional) discourse soon may be overshadowed by the province's mandate to promote economic growth. The response of local stakeholders will ultimately dictate the Island's ability to maintain its present state as a post‐productivist heritage‐scape.     

War and peace? An agenda for peace research and practice in geography

In 1885, Kropotkin called for geography to be ‘a means of dissipating [hostile] prejudices’ between nations that make conflicts more likely, and ‘creating other feelings more worthy of humanity’. As a body of scholars, we have risen far more ably to the negative task of ‘dissipating’ than to the positive charge of ‘creating’: Geography is better at researching war than peace. To redress that imbalance, we need both to conceptualise more clearly what we mean by peace, and make a commitment to researching and practising it. These arguments are made with reference to the broader literature and research along the Danish/German, Israeli/Palestinian and Kyrgyz/Uzbek interfaces.     

Woman Traveller/Colonial Tourist

I promised to show you a map but you say this is a mural

Then yes let it be these are small distinctions

Where do we see it from is the question1 ?1. Adrienne Rich, cited in Kaplan Kaplan, Karen. 2000. Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement, London: Duke University Press.  [Google Scholar], Questions of Travel, 8. View all notes     

St Bega – myth,maiden, or bracelet? An Insular cult and its origins

This short article examines the origins of the cult of St Bega in Ireland and Britain. Insular and Scandinavian analogues of her Life are explored and so is the popularity of Celtic saints in northern Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This topic can shed light on broader issues of cultural identity in the Irish Sea Region during the middle ages.     

Living through,living with and living on from breast cancer in the UK: creative cathartic methodologies,cancerous spaces and a politics of compassion

This paper contributes to a growing literature exploring the embodied emotions involved in death studies. It does so through a creative cathartic autobiographical account of living through and on from breast cancer. In presenting this ‘storifying experience’, this UK-based paper has three key aims: first, it attempts to counter the disjuncture between the fleshy and emotional cancer journey I have travelled through and the sometimes abstract, disembodied accounts of cancer circulating in some geographical texts; second, it reveals some geographical insights that are uncovered through the use of creative cathartic methodologies which unsettle commonly held discourses about dying and surviving; and third, it poses some troubling questions for geographers working in this field with respect to the methodologies, politics and emotions of such research. In the paper, I argue that employing a creative cathartic methodology gestures towards ‘an opening into learning’ that provokes emotional enquiries about what it means to be taught by the experience of (traumatised) others. In particular, I advocate for a politicised compassion that both cares for those who are living through, with or living on from life-threatening illnesses and also cares about the complex conditions that shape their experiences, both within and beyond the academy.     

Poromoi Tamu and the Case of the Drowning Village: History, Lost Places and the Stories We Tell

Archaeological excavations at an ancestral village site within rainforest in Papua New Guinea has revealed buried cultural evidence that can be explained in a number of ways. While interpretations based on Western archaeological methods suggest regional landscape dynamics informed by geomorphological processes, Indigenous Rumu oral traditions suggest an interpretation of the site’s stratigraphy based on the workings of spiritual forces. The role of story-telling and new information in site interpretation and understanding is explored in light of these different yet complementary accounts.