Representation as work in ‘America's most historic city’

This paper examines how the practices of heritage tourism reproduce identities in and of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In particular, we focus on the everyday practices of tourism workers who are essential in the representation and reproduction of this heritage space. In so doing, we want to move away from research in geography that theorizes representation and embodiment as distinct realms of experience and inquiry. Instead, we argue that representation is work and within this very material process, city workers weave memory with history as they guide visitors through ‘America’s Most Historic City'. Through an examination of three of Fredericksburg's tourism work environments we show how representations succeed in reproducing heritage tourism spaces precisely because representation is work.     

New Perspectives on Spatial Patterns of Agrarian Reform: A Comparison of Two Russian Oblasts

The author, based on field work, interviews, and examination of local and regional literature and official statistical sources, compares the experience in agrarian reform in two disparate locations—KostToma Oblast, northeast of Moscow in the Noncher-nozem Region, and Rostov Oblast on Russia's Black Sea littoral in the fertile Chernozem (Black Earth) region. It examines both the reorganization of state and collective farms and the establishment of private peasant farms in the two oblasts, with particular emphasis on the latter. The sections on private farms represent an initial attempt, based on in-depth information for a limited sample population, to garner insights, at the rayon level, into factors that may be influencing regional variations in the number, size, and location of private farms across the Russian countryside. 2 maps, 6 tables, 53 references.