Critical spatial learning: participatory mapping,spatial histories,and youth civic engagement

As digital technologies become ubiquitous in many places, scholars of civic engagement, youth and political life, and geographic education have explored the potential of teaching critical and spatial thinking through digital technologies. This paper examines interactive digital mapping as a technology environment for teaching and practicing critical spatial thinking, in relation to civic engagement. From this participatory and dialogic mapping project with teenage girls in Seattle, Washington, we develop a conceptualization of critical spatial thinking that emphasizes how social and spatial processes intertwine to generate societal inequalities and show how this learning informs students’ social and spatial civic responses. We show how interactive digital mapping pedagogies offer students an opportunity to develop awareness of what happens in their urban geographies, but also how and what they might do to intervene.     

Physical Geography and the Geographic Thought Course

The positioning of residential fieldwork early in students' higher education is an established way of attempting to build and engage them in a community of learning. In the study reported here, the benefits of such early residential fieldwork were investigated using Krausse and Coates's seven scales of engagement. These scales consider a number of key indicators – specifically transition, academic, beyond-class, peer, staff–student, online and intellectual engagement. Data on these scales were collected via questionnaires completed by groups of students who did and did not attend such a residential fieldwork event, both before and after the event. A Wilcoxon test of these data showed significant increases in peer and student–staff engagement in the post-fieldwork group only. A Kruskal–Wallis analysis provides evidence that students who had been on residential fieldwork became more involved in a community of learning with both their peers and virtual communities than those who had not. These results support the hypothesis that early residential fieldwork is an effective way of engaging students new to higher education in a community of learning.     

Productive tensions—engaging geography students in participatory action research with communities

This study discusses the benefits and challenges of an undergraduate module on participatory geographies, involving students in co-producing research with community partners. The module challenges the knowledge production model predominant in Geography curricula. We argue that it develops students' skills and understanding through engaging them intellectually, socially and emotionally outside the university. As a student, two community partners and a professor, we offer our perspectives on the opportunities and conflicts that arose. We do not gloss over tensions in achieving the module's diverse aims, but suggest that these are productive for teaching, learning, research and the needs of community organizations.     

Faith,Pluralism, and Public Engagement

Abstract

This essay is Miroslav Volf’s reply to the respondents to his book A Public Faith (2011). In the process of engaging his his respondents, the author articulates the main thesis and thrust of the book as well as the motivation behind writing it.     

Hands-On Heritage! Establishing Soft Authority over Heritage through Architectural Experiment: A Case Study from Jordan

This study identifies ‘heritage as practice’ as an alternative to ‘authorized’ heritage engagement. Heritage, in this sense, is perceived as a source of inspiration and creativity rather than just an asset to be preserved. ‘Heritage as practice’ is informed by the conventional identification and evaluation of heritage, coupled with the architectural and artistic instincts, capacities, creativity, and commitment found in the field of architecture, to interpret heritage. We label the work produced out of this practice as ‘creative material’ that is subjected to further re-creation when it is used as a platform for community engagement. We examine the mechanisms of these engagements through an academic experiment in which architecture students were asked to analyze the representations of the local heritage site of Umm el-Jimal, Jordan. We argue that shifting from ‘authorized’ engagement to informed ‘instinctual’ one gives the students a soft authority over heritage. However, it is the capacity to creatively engage with and about heritage, and use this to continuously and creatively interpret heritage, that makes this authority valid and just.     

The Greek-Albanian Archaeological Project on Maligrad: Shaping the Cultural Heritage in the Tri-National Zone of the Great Prespa Lake

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the collaboration of the Greek-Albanian Archaeological Expedition with the local community of the tri-national district (FYROM-Greece-Albania) of the Great Prespa Lake, in South-eastern Albania, conducted by the Institute for the Transbalkanic Cultural Cooperation (Greece) and the Institute of Archaeology of Tirana (Albania). It is argued that local cultural heritage, including the heritage of the archaeological past, can play a significant reconciliatory role in an extremely delicate national and environmental landscape throughout the work of all the bipolar participants: locals and ‘foreign experts’.     

The Indigenous Land Corporation's First Land Management Policy: Reconciling National Policy with the Contingencies of Local Context

The Indigenous Land Corporation was established to acquire lands for Indigenous peoples who were unlikely to benefit from recognition of native title. The Corporation is also charged with assisting Indigenous peoples manage their lands. The First Land Management Policy of the Indigenous Land Corporation is examined, and the strengths as well as the omissions and flaws of this initial policy approach to land management are noted. Ways to improve the assistance that the Corporation provides to Indigenous landowners in the management of their lands are proposed. The paper suggests that the Corporation's approach to land management needs to resolve the demands of a national policy mandate with the contingencies of local context.     

饭店员工敬业程度影响因素的纵断研究

作者采用纵断调研法,在22家饭店进行两次问卷调查,探讨管理人员的领导风格、部门的公平性氛围和员工群体敬业程度对员工个人敬业程度的影响。多层次线性模型分析结果表明,员工个人感知的管理人员的公仆型领导风格对员工个人的敬业程度有显著的直接或间接影响;部门的真诚型领导氛围和公平性氛围和员工群体的敬业程度对员工个人的敬业程度有显著的直接或间接影响。     

Drivers of (in)equity in collaborative environmental governance

Collaborative environmental governance seeks to engage diverse stakeholders to tackle complex challenges efficiently, sustainably, and equitably. However, mixed empirical evidence underscores a need to understand the conditions under which particularly equity is or is not achieved. Here, we use the empirical case of California Sustainable Groundwater Management to quantify the extent to which vulnerable small and rural drinking water users' needs are addressed in collaborative groundwater planning. Drawing on a diverse array of mixed method data, we then employ Boosted Regression and Classification Trees (BRCT) to assess potential driving factors including collaboration, representation, elite capture, stakeholder engagement, and problem severity/salience. We find each to be influential, highlighting their relevance for equitable planning. We also find evidence that these relationships are complex and outcome specific. Nonetheless, the overall effect on the three equity measures is modest at best. More institutional analysis of collaborative governance regimes from diverse contexts is needed to build a comprehensive understanding of how to meaningfully advance social and environmental equity in such decentralized reforms. Based on our results, we suggest the answer, if there is one, may transcend current focal domains such as stakeholder representation and engagement.     

It's the Lungfish,stupid: knowledge fights,activism, and the science–policy interface

Since the post‐positivist turn in the 20th century, many scholars and philosophers have argued for the importance of Other Ways Of Knowing – including local, embodied, situated, partial, and indigenous knowledges – in developing a better understanding of the world. This argument has been further stressed by a large subset of scholars working in the fields of geography, policy, planning, natural resource management, and community development, yet in practice, positivism retains its epistemological dominance. Drawing from a case study of a dam proposal at Traveston Crossing, Queensland, Australia, this paper will explore these epistemological tensions from the perspective of those whose first/primary ways of knowing about the issue were marginalised, namely the local activists who opposed the proposal. Using data gathered from document analysis and interviews, the paper will explore how these activists implicitly understood this epistemological marginalisation, how they adopted and employed positivist knowledge and language to further the exposure and credibility of their campaign, how this credibility was mediated by their identities, how they strategically deployed different forms of knowledge at local, national, and international scales, and how their successful navigation of these epistemological tensions was critical to the ultimate success of their campaign.