Intensive Agricultural Landscapes of Oceania

Pacific Islanders have adapted over time to a wide range of social and environmental conditions. Subsistence regimes include broad-based fishing and gathering along with horticulture, particularly the cultivation of staple tubers. Agricultural ecosystems on many islands manifest elaborate expressions of greater inputs of labor or the necessity to overcome agronomic constraints to production. Landscapes of intensive agriculture once found throughout Oceania include yam mounds, raised fields, and irrigated terracing. Most of these systems are either abandoned or greatly diminished in scale. Findings from research in the Fiji Islands exemplify some of the forms and functions of these landscapes. Field study at an active system of irrigated terraces for growing taro (Colocasia esculenta) on the remote southern island of Kadavu elucidates the dynamic operations of a gardening strategy that was once much more prevalent throughout the archipelago. Changing political economies across the region may have radically altered humanenvironment relations, but intensive agricultural landscapes endure, providing visible evidence and imparting valuable lessons for traditional cultural ecology in Oceania.     

Sign Geography

Signs are significant elements of cultural landscapes throughout the world. Through their form and content, signs reveal a variety of information about places ranging from locational and physical geographic data through social, economic and political characteristics. Signs, which tell of past events, current conditions and future expectations, are landscape notes on the geography of change. Signs are frequently evidence of cultural diffusion and convergence. Many signs give direction to human activity and symbolize societal quest for order. Others reflect tastes, values and attitudes, in concert with prevailing belief systems. Signs are both cultural phenomena and landscape statements that attest to the way of life in a place.     

A New Approach to Analyzing Historical Urban Growth of Ottoman Cities: Manisa Case Study

Abstract

The physical growth of cities is usually used to define the main direction of a city's development. This definition is key to understanding the city's current state and to plan for the future. Many urban planners agree that master plans should include historical urban growth and aim to specify the effective factors driving urban growth. However, defining urban boundaries and historical urban areas is a difficult task. The lack of satellite images, air photos, and real maps to use as base maps for historical urban studies is a problem that a researcher may face when determining patterns of urban development or conducting other analyses. In this article, the authors examine historical changes of the urban boundaries of the Ottoman city of Manisa. They analyze the physical growth of this large city by using the historical buildings (mosques, masjids, madrasas, baths, caravansary, and others) as markers.     

Rock art and social geography in the Upper Paleolithic. Contribution to the socio-cultural function of the Roc-aux-Sorciers rock-shelter (Angles-sur-l’Anglin,France) from the viewpoint of its sculpted frieze

This article is about the contribution of rock art to current studies on the social geography of European Paleolithic populations. The socio-cultural function of the Roc-aux-Sorciers decorated and occupied rock-shelter is considered through its monumental sculpted frieze. This approach is based on the intended audience, analyzed through the perception of this rock art and the archaeological context of the associated occupations. The site is also considered with regard to the other local decorated sites dated to the Middle Magdalenian with which it shares strong similarities (La Marche, Les Fadets, Réseau Guy Martin).     

The World under the Stars: Astrological Geography and the Bologna 1477 Edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia

ABSTRACT

This article is a re-examination of the first complete printed edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia (Bologna, de Lapis, 1477), hitherto considered flawed and defective. An investigation of the status and priorities of the team of court astrologers responsible for this edition, and an examination of the alterations they made to Ptolemy’s maps, suggests that their aim was a redaction intentionally different from existing versions of the Geography. It is suggested that the editors sought to adjust the arrangement of provinces from that recommended in Ptolemy’s Geography (book VIII) to the astrological arrangement detailed in his Tetrabiblos (book II) and that they modified the content of the key regional maps accordingly. In this light, the Bologna 1477 edition underlines the importance of assessing the reception of Ptolemy’s geographical work against a cultural background in which astrology prevailed as an integrated system of knowledge, practices and beliefs.     

‘It was entirely his fault’: constructing white masculinities and the Haga Man assaults in Umeå, Sweden 1998–2006

Several cases of single repeat offenders in urban space have raised public concern in Sweden during recent decades. Few studies have been conducted on the consequences of the ‘hostage situations’ that emerge when one individual offender causes fear and affects a large group of people in a specific place. The concern of this article is to examine consequences of the Haga Man phenomenon: the case of a serial rapist operating between 1998 and 2006 in Umeå, a medium-sized Swedish city. The article focuses on the construction of white masculinities among male respondents in Umeå during the time of the attacks. I examine how men positioned themselves in relation to the public image of the offender as a ‘normal Swede’ and how they related to women's increasing fear of violence in urban space. Three prominent constructions of masculinity emerged from the research data: the dangerous stranger, the suspect and the protector. These three constructions of masculinity were not clear-cut and did not ‘belong’ to specific men – several of the interviewees articulated various forms of masculinities but stressed them in different ways depending on, for instance, age and/or ethnicity/race. I conclude that men largely positioned themselves as protectors as a strategy to distance themselves from the perpetrator (the image of the ‘normal Swedish man’ performing the rapes) and to ensure that they would not be perceived as suspects. However, men largely perceived that women's increased fear of crime was ‘one man's fault’ and broader issues about gendered power relations in space were not raised.     

Geographical imaginations,public education and the everyday worlds of Fascist Italy

This article explores the phenomena of geographical imaginations and their seldom-noted promotion within various corners of Fascist Italy. Imagined geographies are socially constructed understandings of other places and regions and, as such, they are malleable, contingent, shifting and unquantifiable. Nevertheless, these imaginaries help us to navigate our imaginative worlds and our relative place in the material world. In 1930s Italy, various interest groups associated with the colonial and expansionist projects of Fascism promoted the development of wider geographical imaginaries among Italians. Academic geographers were often key figures in these initiatives: some prompted these projects, while others did so at the behest of the regime and its desire to expand Italians' coscienza geografica (the geographical imagination) to an ‘imperial level’. This article explores how academic geographers from Trieste sought to contribute to this project and to embed their geographical knowledge into the ordinary, everyday circuits of public life. The article therefore outlines the notion of the geographical imagination and demonstrates via case studies how Triestine geographers tried to nurture these phenomena. Finally, it suggests that, although elusive and amorphous, geographical imaginations were a feature of everyday life in some corners of Fascist Italy and, as such, they deserve academic attention.     

客家传统聚落景观基因识别及其地学视角的解析

根据景观基因理念,借助聚落形态学的方法,遵循地学中的内在唯一性、外在唯一性、局部唯一性和总体优势性等原则,可以从民居特征、布局形态、主体性公共建筑、参照性环境因子、客家装饰、建筑脸面、建筑色彩、墙头造型等方面识别出客家传统聚落的景观基因特征,这与客家传统聚落的自然环境、客家精神、传统观念、历史文化交融、社会氛围等地学因子密切相关。     

新文化地理学视角下的文化景观研究进展

论文梳理近三十年英美新文化地理学有关文化景观的研究脉络,介绍文化、意义和表征等基本概念。按哲学基础将其分为社会马克思主义影响下的景观面纱、生产研究,语言学影响下的景观文本研究,知识建构论的景观作为梭子,女性主义影响下的景观作为凝视,以及景观想象与身份问题研究。多元化的哲学基础和研究方法开拓了研究视野,也促进了人文地理学研究范式的转变。     

国外宗教地理研究回顾与进展

20世纪60年代以来,国外宗教地理研究日益成熟,已成为文化地理学的重要组成部分之一。除传统文化地理学之外,国外宗教地理研究也出现了诸如新文化地理学、宗教生态学、社会学等研究方向;其研究内容也从最初对宗教与地理环境关系的单一研究逐渐趋向多样化,宗教的分布与扩散、宗教文化区和宗教景观研究都得到了充分重视。新文化地理学由于融合了更多跨学科知识,而逐渐在宗教地理研究中占据主流。总体来看,国外宗教地理研究仍处于一个边缘地位,研究的内容和方法体系都有待进一步完善。