DOES DIVERSITY IN URBAN SPACE ENHANCE INTERGROUP CONTACT AND TOLERANCE?

Contemporary urban theory has started to question the elevation of diversity as a panacea for enduring urban problems – segregation, prejudice and intergroup hostility. This critique coincides with an opposite tendency within classic contact theory and research. The latter tradition has developed an increasing enthusiasm for face-to-face interaction. The contact hypothesis, which presupposes established contact, has received conclusive support independent of target groups and contact settings. Research on 'lived diversity', which includes both contact and lack of contact, offers two supplementary insights. It shows, on the one hand, that boundaries are inscribed in social spaces. Physical proximity between ethnic and social groups tends to have a minor effect on interaction. Interaction, on the other hand, is not essential to attitude formation. Both subfields within contact research have confirmed that urban space may act as a catalyst for tolerant attitudes. This observation corresponds with increasing recognition of affective states, such as empathy, anxiety and group threat. Contact research has therefore, in summary, transcended the scope of the contact hypothesis. It has expanded into the realm of urban theory, which foreshadows future collaboration between the two traditions. Some key points for such exchange are suggested at the end of the article. Future research should combine an open-ended approach to casual contact with a diversified conception of diversity and a richer conception of urban space. A move in this direction would leave substantial space for geographical research.     

Ambitions and realities in Norwegian regional planning

The article illustrates how regional planning processes in Norway are performed under the terms of the Planning and Building Act, considering the communicative turn in planning theory. It also analyses the coordination of nature management, regulated by the Nature Conservation Act, with regional planning and development. Discourse analysis is used and the story-lines, the discourse coalitions and the emblematic issues in planning and conservation are identified. It is concluded that planning in practice is quite different from the prevailing, theoretical understanding of regional planning. Nature management and regional planning are performed through separate, uncoordinated processes.     

Hydrology and Empire: The Nile,Water Imperialism and the Partition of Africa

Why did the British march up the Nile in the 1890s? The answers to this crucial question of imperial historiography have direct relevance for narratives and theories about imperialism, in general, and the partition of Africa in the nineteenth century, in particular. They will also influence our understanding of some of the main issues in the modern history of the whole region, including state developments and resource utilisation. This article presents an alternative to dominant interpretations of the partition of Africa and the role of British Nile policies in this context. It differs from mainstream diplomatic history, which dominates this research field, in its emphasis on how geographical factors and the hydrological characteristics of the Nile influenced and framed British thinking and actions in the region. Realising the importance of such factors and the specific character of the regional water system does not imply less attention to traditional diplomatic correspondence or to the role of individual imperial entrepreneurs. The strength of this analytical approach theoretically is that it makes it possible to locate the intentions and acts of historical subjects within specific geographical contexts. Empirically, it opens up a whole new set of source material, embedding the reconstruction of the British Nile discourse in a world of Nile plans, water works and hydrological discourses.     

Interpreting cultural remains in airborne laser scanning generated digital terrain models: effects of size and shape on detection success rates

In this study, detection success rates were evaluated for cultural remains that were detected manually based on interpretation of digital terrain models (DTM) derived from airborne laser scanning data and with a resolution of 1, 5 and 10 points m⁻². The group of cultural remains included charcoal kilns, charcoal pits, hollow-roads, various pits, house foundations, tar kilns, grave mounds and pit-falls. The effects on the interpretation success of different types of cultural remains and their physical properties were studied: size, shape and elevation difference showing that the detection success rates varied considerably. The main tendency was that large cultural remains with clear geometrical shape (ovals and circles) and large elevation difference were much more successfully detected and classified compared to the smaller ones, especially those without a clear geometrical shape. The study also showed that it was the identification of the larger structures which profited most from an increased resolution of the DTM, and it was of no help to increase resolution in order to improve the identification of the irregularly shaped cultural remains.     

UPWARDS,OUTWARDS AND WESTWARDS: RELOCATION OF ETHNIC MINORITY GROUPS IN THE OSLO REGION

Our purpose in this article is to examine socio‐economic and spatial integration of ethnic minorities in the Oslo region. We analyse relocation between 1998 and 2008 for members of ten minority groups along three overlapping dimensions: upwards in the neighbourhood hierarchy, outwards from the inner city to all suburbs, and westwards from a less affluent to a more affluent part of the region. The results provide some limited support for spatial assimilation theory. Two minority groups, Iranians and Vietnamese, comply partly with the theory. Another group, Filipinos, has stagnated in its socio‐economic and spatial integration. The remaining groups do not relocate in accordance with the native pattern, or fail to integrate in socio‐economic terms. The discrepancy between theory and results is most pronounced along the westward axis. We interpret the results in a broader context of regional and national circumstances: spatial assimilation theory may have different utility in different welfare regimes, depending on spatial inequality and the politics of place.