Debating the moral and economic foundations of a democratic polity

From around the middle of the 18th century, agrarian reforms came on the agenda in most countries of western Europe. Although Norway’s economy was not manorial like that of Denmark and much of the rest of the continent, a debate emerged on how to improve Norwegian agriculture as well. Contrary to what the idealized picture of the typical Norwegian peasant might make us believe, the Norwegian right of redemption, odelsretten, was at the heart of these discussions. This article explores the differing opinions voiced over the ancient familial right from the viewpoint of intellectual history, drawing on the European historiography on political languages and the rise of commercial society and arguing that they should be interpreted as different responses to the societal changes caused by the economic growth in Norway from the middle of the 18th century.     

Between human capital and human worth

This study concerns the history of Swedish public everyday discourse about knowledge and its benefits for the individual, c. 1920–1974. We examine the value(s) ascribed to knowledge – in economic and/or idealistic terms – using private correspondence institutes as our point of departure. These were immensely popular, yet have hitherto been overlooked by historians. First, we argue that commercially driven correspondence education, which was a mass phenomenon in early and mid-20^th-century Sweden, blurred the demarcation lines between general and vocational education, and more importantly between formal and so-called popular education (folkbildning). Second, we examine how knowledge and education were promoted and justified in the widely circulated advertisements for Hermods Korrespondensinstitut, the largest of the Swedish correspondence schools. By analysing and contextualizing advertisements over six decades, we find a strong dominance of individualistic economic valuations from the beginning, a successive increase in idealistic valuations over the decades, and an increasing amalgamation of idealistic and economic justifications for knowledge. We argue that the extensive scale of Hermods’ and similar institutes’ educational activities offers an important key for understanding the social context in which the overall marketization and capitalization of knowledge in the latest decades was able to take root.     

“Where nothing was before”: (re)producing population and place in Ghana's Volta River Project

Significant infrastructural projects, and especially large hydroelectric dams, were envisioned and deployed by postcolonial governments to promote particular visions of industrialization, agriculture, democracy, and modernity. Newly independent states sought to annihilate formerly so-called backward and primitive landscapes and populations alike, promising to re-create both places and people as rational, economically productive entities. In this article, we re-examine such narratives as they related to Ghana's Volta River Project (VRP). Relying on archival and media sources between the 1950s and 1960s, we interrogate the Ghanaian state's pursuit of the VRP from a perspective rooted firmly in cultural geography and pay careful attention to the issues of population displacement/resettlement and landscape reconfiguration that permeated all dimensions of the project. We analyze the ways in which Ghanaian leaders used the VRP to translate a particular suite of cultural, economic, and political values into material reality, utilizing the techniques of displacement and population resettlement in efforts to enroll Ghana into a modern, global, industrial economic system. As such, this article augments the body of literature examining the modernist and state-building aspects of the VRP as well as studies critiquing the various processes of development that have unfolded in West Africa since the mid-twentieth century.     

Making Banks Fit for the People: Confidence,Democracy, and the Rise of Banking Alternatives in America, 1880–1914

At the turn of the twentieth century, many Americans lacked confidence in the nation's banks. In various ways, privately owned or operated banking institutions were viewed to be adverse to the interests of “the people.” Still, beginning in the late nineteenth century, deposit banking came to be accepted as a vital “public service.” This article explains how that happened and illustrates how multiple people-oriented alternatives gradually emerged. While these have been explored previously, this article demonstrates how new ideas about the importance of banking facilitated the emergence of a broad movement aimed at popular participation and control. To reveal this history and to gauge popular ideas, it favors materials that appeared within the public sphere. This approach demonstrates how underlying confidence issues motivated a broad movement that aimed to democratize banking institutions.     

A Canadian Scholar'S Views on Geography in Canada and in the USSR

There has long been controversy over the exact location of the middle segment of the great medieval trade route from the Varangians (Northmen) in the Baltic to the Greeks (Byzantium) in the Black Sea. There is no ambiguity about the northern segment, between Novgorod and the Baltic, or the southern segment, from Smolensk down the Dnieper to the Black Sea, but authors have tended to disagree about the various rivers, lakes and portages used by traders in the Russian heartland between Novgorod and Smolensk. A Russian chronicle describing a campaign led by Aleksandr Nevskiy against a Lithuanian force in 1245 sheds light on the alignment of the middle segment of the trade route. It appears that the route originally passed through Velikiye Luki in the 10th century. As this area became embroiled in clashes between warring Russian principalities, the trade route shifted eastward to the Toropets area, which became dominant by the 13th century. The existence of two additional minor routes is also noted.     

Transnational Flows of E-Waste and Spatial Patterns of Recycling in China

Two geographers residing in Beijing discuss the inflows, processing, and consumption of electronic waste—a topic largely neglected in the current literature on globalization. Based on extensive interviews with electronics producers and recyclers in China, the paper explores the global flows of e-waste and concentration of related recycling in coastal China. The authors suggest that recycling activities (authorized as well as illegal) grew in tandem with the dramatic increase in electronics production during the last decade. They note that the country's recycling sector has played a significant role in rural industrialization and local economic development, albeit in conflict with the objectives of environmental protection. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F20, L63, O17, O19. 6 figures, 23 references.     

Manufacturing regional disparity in the pursuit of economic equality: Alberta's First Nations Gaming Policy, 2006–2010

The Province of Alberta in 2001 implemented the First Nations Gaming Policy (FNGP) to improve First Nations development potential by permitting the construction of reserve casinos. This article argues that during the policy development stages provincial and First Nations leaders failed to consider the geographic placement of reserve communities, both in terms of where casinos would be placed and how gaming revenues would ultimately be distributed. Therefore, a policy intended to assist with First Nations economic rejuvenation in Alberta has benefitted a small proportion of First Nations while exacerbating regional economic difficulties the policy was in part calculated to ameliorate. The authors recommend revisiting the FNGP to establish a more equitable revenue distribution formula, thus resulting in a greater distribution of gaming revenues to a larger number of First Nations.     

Returning to the Kamp Mound Group (11C12): Results from Geomagnetic Survey and High-Density Topographic Mapping in Calhoun County,Illinois

This article addresses the use of high-density topographic mapping and geomagnetic fieldwork as part of an ongoing research program focused on evaluating the role of monumental architecture in the construction and maintenance of differing scales of community during Middle (ca. 50 cal B.C.–cal A.D. 400) and Late (ca. cal A.D. 400–1000) Woodland periods in the Lower Illinois River Valley. At the 2013 Center for American Archeology and Arizona State University field school, a 2.46-ha area at the Kamp Mound Group (11C12) containing Mounds 1, 6, 7, 8, and 9 was surveyed using magnetic fluxgate gradiometry and mapped using a high-density robotic total station. Our survey results demonstrate that highly disturbed mounds have significant interpretable structure that can be used as primary data to better understand spatial attributes related to evaluating site organization, distribution of activity areas in nonmounded space, and internal mound structure and composition.     

From Urban Social Space to Social and Environmental Justice: Observations on Laurence Ma's Essay

A senior American specialist on China and noted geographer evaluates the merits of an essay by an equally prominent specialist who advocates reflexive activism as a method designed to generate more relevant studies of the country. The author of the evaluation stresses the value of empirically based work, noting a number of contributions by geographers to the study of China's transition from doctrinaire communism to "socialism with Chinese characteristics." While not denying the need for geographical research focused on deficiencies in social and environmental justice, he is not in favor of excessive activism that may overlook advances in economic development and related accomplishments of China's governing regime. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P30. 24 references.