HUMANS, LAND, AND LANDSCAPE: A PROPOSAL FOR CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

Four sources for the elaboration of a redefinition of culture and for the outlining of a revised method for cultural geography are examined: superorganicist and related ideas (White), symbolic and interactionist ideas (Geertz), institutional and interactionist views (Wagner), and symbolic interactionism and human ecology (Ericksen). These four are discussed within the broader context of human and land relations and of the evolution of cultural geography, especially the schools of Vidal and Sauer. Cultural geography emerged as a secondary interest within geography, despite compelling nineteenth-century input, but is now taking cognizance of an array of social science concepts. A focus on theory, on institutions and other groups, on communication, and on symboling helps both spatial and non-spatial behaviour to be understood as a consequence of group allegiance. The resulting cultural landscape can be interpreted both functionally and symbolically. En vue de redéfinir la culture et de réviser la méthodologie propre à la géographie culturelle, quatre approches sont examinées: les idées ‘superorganistes’ et celles qui s'y rapportent (White), les idées symboliques et les interactionistes (Geertz), les vues institutionnelles et interacionistes (Wagner), et l'interactionisme symbolique et l'écologie humaine (Ericksen). Ces quatre approches sont discutées dans le cadre plus large des relations en-tre les humains et la terre et de l'évolution de la géographie culturelle, particulièrement celui des écoles de Vidal et de Sauer, La géographie culturelle, qui ne présente qu'un intérêt secondaire a l'intérieur de la geographic, en dépit d'une importante contribution à la discipline au dix-neuvième siècle, emprunte maintenant une kyrielle de concepts aux sciences sociales. En insistant sur la théorie, sur les institutions et autres groupes, sur la communication et les symbols, il devient plus facile de comprendre le comportement spatial et non-spatial comme le résultat d'appartenance à un groupe. Le pays-age culturel produit peut être envisagéà la fois dans sa fonctionalité et sa symbolique.     

International nuclear order: a rejoinder

The article‘Nuclear enlightenment and counter‐enlightenment by William Walker opened the special issue of International Affairs which was published in May 2007. In it, he claimed that the United States departed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, at the height of its hegemonic influence, from a conception of international nuclear order that it had held to, with few interruptions, over several decades. By so doing, it contributed substantially to the order's currently perceived demise. In responding to criticisms from other participants in the special issue, William Walker defends his arguments while acknowledging the enlightenment trope's fragility; reemphasizes the essential contractual nature of the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which some critics denied; stresses the order's reliance on a judicious balancing (which has temporarily been lost) of realist and constitutional strategies; rejects assertions that the NPT is not a disarmament treaty; argues that the‘muddling through’advocated by some authors cannot suffice; and offers reasons why the despondency of several among them may have been overplayed, and why a new phase of consolidation of order might (just might) lie ahead, not least because of the reconsideration of US international strategies that has begun and the widely perceived urgency of preventing further proliferation and avoiding a resumption of arms racing.     

Human Adaptive Responses to Catastrophic Landscape Disruptions During the Holocene at Numundo,PNG

Prehistoric land use and social activity in West New Britain, PNG, are well documented, although the landscapes – largely shaped by catastrophic volcanic eruptions – in which these took place, and the relationships people had with these landscapes, are poorly understood. We define the evolving landscape at Numundo, from prior to the Witori-Kimbe 2 eruption (W-K2, ca. 3600 BP) to after the Witori-Kimbe 4 eruption (W-K4, ca. 1400 BP), using fossil phytolith and coral evidence at eight archaeological sites to provide environmental evidence of the human responses to periodic catastrophic events. From ca. 5900 to 3600 BP, all the sites were coastal and disturbed. Early disturbance reflected natural forest recovery after W-K1 (ca. 5900 BP), whereas the later landscape was largely shaped by human activity. In contrast, forest regrowth was limited after W-K2 and open environments typical of human activity with a mosaic of regenerating, disturbed and managed vegetation, persisted until W-K3. Environmental recovery from W-K3 and W-K4 (ca. 1700 BP and ca. 1400 BP) differed completely, reflecting severity of the volcanism and the short time between eruptions. The landscape after W-K3 was largely a naturally recovering landscape, in contrast to effective vegetation recovery and significant human exploitation of the landscape – again a mosaic of regenerating, disturbed and managed vegetation – after W-K4. The social history is one in which people evolved increasingly flexible land-use practices, enabling them to re-settle this periodically disrupted landscape, and to take advantage of an increasingly broad range of habitats suitable for cultivation. The human response to this highly dynamic landscape represents a close relationship between social and natural processes, as people became increasingly better at re-settling an unpredictably disrupted landscape; both the social and environmental processes within this landscape become equally influential and instrumental in shaping the effects of the other.