Where are the storytellers? A quest to (re)enchant geography through writing as method

The standardization of writing styles and formats and the use of jargon in the social sciences have had considerable consequences on the quality of academic work. Due to the emphasis on method, theory, and empirical rigor, creativity, personal narrative, and storytelling no longer play a large role in academic writing. Addressing the growing concern for researchers losing their sense of self, the suppression of emotional reflection, the inaccessibility of jargon-filled work to the public, and the overall deterioration of writing quality, this paper argues for a renewed focus on teaching writing as a foundational qualitative method in the social sciences. Using creative writing examples by students from a graduate course in landscape geography, I suggest strategies for teaching, practicing, and reflecting on writing as method. Addressing the significance of creative and reflective writing earlier on in higher education will help young academics foster their own narrative voices, and will ultimately contribute to more interesting, accessible, and affective research that (re)enchants geography and other fields in the social sciences.     

五四时期个人观念的历史内涵

五四时期,个人观念的提出构成了反传统道德的历史性力量,个体的独立和觉醒作为现代的原则被确立下来,这标志着对传统的批评和国民性改造所能达到的历史与人性深度。当然,批判传统文化,提倡个人独立的文化运动也不能完全被个人主义话语所涵盖。五四时期的个人观念也必须被置于与民族、社会、国家的关系中加以理解,个人观念的张力性结构在五四的思想表述中是一个普遍存在的事实。     

Preparation for teaching in a research degree: a model to prepare geographers for academic careers

This paper considers the possibility of overt political disagreement between human geographers and their students. Recent literature suggests that geographers should encourage their students to become more politically engaged through innovative teaching methods that could include frank discussion of the various positions taken by lecturers and students alike. Yet this same strategy could easily run against established pedagogical arguments about how teacher neutrality gives students the space to develop their views in whatever direction they choose. This paper investigates the practical management of this tension by drawing on qualitative interviews with a sample of current practitioners that centred on the occasions when personal politics have previously featured in their undergraduate teaching. It describes why overt political discussion is often squeezed out of these encounters, the careful ways in which these academics manage their political views during the times when such discussion occurs along with the degree to which they felt they should reveal them, and how students themselves commonly seemed to perform opinion in a relatively superficial way because doing so could be much less stressful. The conclusion that follows reflects on the broader implications of these findings for current debate and future practice in the discipline where it particularly emphasizes the importance of being sensitive to the interpersonal dynamics at hand.     

In spite of our own best interests: lessons from an interdisciplinary project on urban sustainability

To contribute effectively to academic discourse on urban sustainability, disciplines need to think outside their silos and work together more collaboratively. Although straightforward to posit in theory, the practical realities of bringing together people with different worldviews, languages and skills can be frustrating and lead to loss of motivation. This paper presents the findings from a qualitative study of interdisciplinary team working on an urban sustainability project. Through analysis of archival materials, observations and interviews, a major theme of motivation was uncovered and explored. We conclude with some suggestions for working more effectively interdisciplinary, urban sustainability projects.     

Feeling insecure: a personal account in a psychoanalytic voice

The concept of ontological security has been taken up in human geography primarily through Giddens' (1990 Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar], 1991 Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]) formulation, but the idea has its origins in the writings of the existential psychoanalyst R.D. Laing. Returning to the psychoanalytic underpinnings of the concept, I use autobiographical vignettes to evoke and explore what it means to feel insecure. Using psychoanalytically informed illustrations of melancholia, ordinary acute anxiety and unconscious splitting, I develop a personal, subjective emotional geography of insecurity, and I caution against confusing certainty with ontological security.     

From A Paleolithic Art to Pleistocene Visual Cultures (Introduction to two Special Issues on ‘Advances in the Study of Pleistocene Imagery and Symbol Use’)

This paper serves as an introduction to two special issues on advances in the method and theory of Pleistocene imagery and symbol use. In order to contextualize the contributions that comprise these two issues, this paper defines the temporal and geographic scope of Pleistocene imagery, outlines the contexts in which the images are found, briefly reviews the history of interpretation of the images and discusses some of the current trends and future directions of the field.     

Feminist geographies in Greece: a personal trajectory between ‘local’ and ‘international’

Abstract

Feminist debates in the context of an active women's/feminist movement found their way into the Greek academy in the second half of the 1970s, initially in history. Urban studies and geography were ‘late-comers’ in these debates which took place in different disciplinary environments where geography courses were taught. The article presents a personal account in and through the development of feminist approaches in urban geography, drawing from my teaching and research experience since 1982 in a department of urban and regional planning. This experience has been accumulated as a hard exercise in navigating through the denial and reluctant consent of various levels of administration, students’ changing acceptance, some women’s valuable active support, in the university and beyond, and other colleagues’ opposition or indifference. In this process, recent and longer-term developments have contributed to form a (continuously negotiated and contested) space for feminism, for tolerance, diversity and difference, in which a ‘we’ has been tortuously formed which speaks across worlds, participates in a plurality of communities, communicates in more than one languages and in a plurality of voices between ‘local’ and ‘international’.     

基于社交网络的个人.com社区行动者行为空间及其未来

社交网络应用催生了新一代互联网空间重新分配。本文旨在从一些细微迹象中透视个人.com社区行动者行为空间的形成及其组织形式并感知其未来变化趋势。研究认为：社交网络提供的精益性和异步性信息交互引领个人.com社区行动者行为空间形成、更新和融汇，这是一个与现实地理社区相联系并向虚拟社区理性跳跃和空间系统重构的过程；个人.com社区行动者行为空间源于自我呈现并由受众“第二度可见”所决定，它是由若干特殊空间形式组织起来的；社交网络赋予草民行动者个人权力从而使其成为未来行为空间再塑造的决定性力量。基此提出社交网络背景下个人.com社区行动者行为空间存续的三个基本观点：信息方式转变、生活需求新维度产生和网络价值等效兑现。