城市地理学空间研究的新视角——都市区阴阳结构

统筹发展是新的历史条件下的现实选择,其出发点与立足点是普遍存在的客观差异。研究空间差异是城市地理学的基本命题,但对于都市区内部空间发展的差异,既有的区域层面的研究成果对此并不完全适用。笔者认为,都市区内部空间发展差异存在着明显的"阴阳结构"。本文试图以"阳面区和阴面区"界定都市区内部存在发展差异的空间地域,并对其概念、内涵、特征、机制等进行探讨与剖析,以新的辨证思维和新的视角来研究新的境遇下都市区空间的发展。     

EXPLORING THE CONNECTIONS: LAND TENURE, SOCIAL IDENTITIES, AND AGROBIODIVERSITY PRACTICES IN GHANA

This article employs qualitative and quantitative evidence from primary social research in Ghana to examine the link between land tenure security and social identities (of wealth/income and gender), and how they condition farmers' investments in practices that contribute to the rehabilitation of tree biodiversity (agrobiodiversity). Statistical analyses of the significance of the effects of farmers' de jure land tenure security regimes, and income and gender on agrobiodiversity practices were inconclusive. The conventional causation link between investments and more secure formal land tenure rights, for instance, was confirmed in investments in four out of eight agrobiodiversity practices. Testimonial-based evidence of farmers provided a clearer concept of land tenure security and an explanatory framework about the interacting and complex effects of income and gender on land tenure security. The theoretical and empirical argument developed from these testimonies portrays land tenure as embodying negotiated social processes, influenced by gender and income of individuals, whereby breadth of land rights, duration of rights over land, and assurance of rights are established, sustained, enhanced or changed through a variety of strategies to shape tenure security. These processes – tenure building and renewal processes – are critical because all farmers have lingering anxiety about land tenure rights, even among farmers with more secure formal rights. Investments are made in agrobiodiversity practices as a strategy to strengthen land tenure security and thereby minimize anxiety, leading to reverse causation effects between land tenure, social identities, and investments.     

Generative spaces of gender and feminist geography in Singapore: entanglements of the personal and political

Abstract

While geographers’ work in Southeast Asia has yet to engage substantively with theoretical developments in gender/feminist studies generated by Anglo-American academic centers, we argue that Singapore has proven to be somewhat of an exception. Focusing on the National University of Singapore, this article discusses how the development of gender and feminist geography in Singapore has benefitted from being able to engage with international debates in feminism through the country’s and NUS’ internationalization efforts, and working in the English language. Using the notion of generative spaces, we highlight first, the importance of using our teaching to engage in feminist activism to encourage feminist change in the classroom, as well as within our immediate communities and further afield; and second, the nascent yet significant contributions of feminist geographers based in Singapore to feminist theorization from and about the Global South.     

Marina Carr’s Hecuba: agency,anger and correcting Euripides

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on Marina Carr’s 2015 adaptation of Hecuba for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Hecuba sees Carr return to a fascination with Greek tragedy, difficult female characters and reimagining foundational myths. Of all Euripides’ plays Hecuba has rarely been popular, yet the themes Carr prises open – of violence, desire, gendered experience and the politics of perspective – are acutely topical. Indeed, Hecuba seemed to anticipate the frustrations that erupted on 28 October 2015 in response to the Abbey Theatre’s “Waking the Nation” programme. Drawing on twentieth and twenty-first century debates around the politics of tragic form, Roland Barthes theorising of myth, and the tradition of Greek adaptation in modern Irish drama, this paper examines how Hecuba reorients its sources. It goes on to assess the outcomes of these reorientations in order to problematise the critical predisposition to find an inevitably progressive poetics/politics in her engagement with tragic myths.     

Change within the change: pregnancy,liminality and adventure tourism in Mexico

Abstract

Despite the growing number of pregnant women engaging in outdoor adventure activities, very few studies have explored pregnancy or the specific needs and challenges of pregnant women in tourism research. To fill this gap in the literature, we examine the participation of pregnant women in adventure tourism through the theoretical lens of liminality. Conceptualising pregnancy as a liminal stage in which women are ‘suspended’ between two statuses, opens diverse possibilities to delve into women’s experiences of embodiment, bodily image and control. In this sense, pregnancy is understood as an ‘internal change’, which adds specific challenges to women’s practice of adventure tourism, including bodily changes and different perceptions of risk-taking. Similarly, the context of adventure tourism provides an ideal space to reflect on liminal transitions and the ‘outside changes’ that pregnant women go through in the predominantly masculinised spaces that characterise this tourism segment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 35 Mexican women who actively pursue adventure tourism and who had engaged in these activities during at least one pregnancy. The analysis indicates the importance of norms and social expectations experienced by pregnant women when doing adventure tourism. The concept of the ‘rhizomatic body’ proved to be a valuable tool when looking at the social taboos, prohibitions and rules that apply to pregnant women in specific sociocultural contexts (in this case, Mexico). By reframing and reconceptualising pregnant women and their practice of adventure activities, the social construction of pregnancy is elucidated. Finally, the study contributes to the understanding of alternative models and experiences of being a woman in gendered spaces, while shedding light on relevant behavioural patterns among pregnant tourists and the sociocultural impacts of these patterns.     

The challenges of feminist geography in Taiwan

Abstract

This article explores the development of feminist geography in Taiwan within the time frame of last three decades, since the first author became involved in the IGU Gender and Geography Working Group in 1988. It is found that Anglo-American influences have contributed significantly to the feminist movement in Taiwan. An important outcome over time has been the improved visibility of Women and Gender studies courses in academe. As social geographer and cultural anthropologist respectively, the authors trace important dynamics of growth in the academic fields of geography and the social sciences in post-secondary education. Owing to the history and the nature of the discipline of geography, and the structural constraints due to male-domination, there is still a high fence to cross over. Statistics show that a rising number of women in Taiwan have received PhD degrees. The authors note the mitigating development that younger women geographers have taken up administration positions as chairs of four of the five geography departments. However, up to the present time, in academic meetings and conferences, it is unlikely that any presentations on the topic of gender will be offered. The authors encourage younger generations of scholars in Taiwan to continue to look for and connect with feminist geographers abroad, to embrace diversity and inclusiveness in their research, and to help our society to grow in the level of gender equity.     

Feminist geographies: fight and achievement of a place in the Brazilian scientific production

Abstract

This paper examines the development of the field of feminist geographies in Brazil, proposing a reflection upon the different aspects of the policy (personal, institutional and national/international) which are intertwined with the geographical scientific production on gender and sexualities. This research is based on a data survey comprising 17,636 papers published between 1974 and 2015 in 90 scientific journals kept by Brazilian geographical entities at all levels of the ranking established by the government. The study emphasizes that there was an expansion of the gender and sexualities approach after the 2000s, characterized for its production from the peripheral universities, by young researchers and its publication in scientific journals of lower scientific impact, when the formal criteria of evaluation recently set in Brazil are taken into consideration. The gender studies field can be considered consolidated in Brazil, however, the approach of sexualities in the Brazilian geography still requires some work to be finally recognized.     

Vibrant mentoring landscapes in feminist geography

Abstract

Building on the feminist geography tradition of mentoring, in this brief introduction, I advance a vision of vibrant mentoring landscapes that are alive with difference and that continually renew the discipline. The diverse contributions to this themed issue approach questions around mentoring from a variety of perspectives and positionalities, including: gender, national origin, racialized identity, sexuality, career stage, life stage, parenting status, scale, geography, and type of educational institution. Some articles divulge personal experiences while others focus on roles that mentors play within a continuum of change versus stasis in institutions of higher education. Of particular note is a call to those with relative privilege to engage self-reflexively with the ways in which one may become more accessible to those who are structurally oppressed. Anything less than a truly diverse mentoring landscape within feminist geography impoverishes us collectively as well as the knowledge we produce.     

The female body as the bearer of national identity in Iran: a critical discourse analysis of the representation of women's bodies in official online outlets

Abstract

The female body has been in the foreground of nation-building in Iran especially since the 1930s projects of modernization, when unveiling women and adaptation to Western clothing became a crucial factor of bolstering modern Iranian national identity as opposed to a religion-based national identity. After the 1979 Revolution, the Islamic dress code became compulsory and female imagery depicting modesty and piety became a source of national identity. Although the representation of women's bodies in nationalist discourses has been subject of different studies, women's representation in official online outlets is still understudied. This article discusses how women's bodily appearance and representation in official online outlets feed into the nationalist discourses in Iran. Three key cases between 2014 and 2017 are addressed: (i) actress Leila Hatami kissing a man at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival; (ii) the public debate on women's entrance to sports stadiums in 2014–2015; (iii) the public revelation of actress Taraneh Alidoosti's tattooed forearm in 2016. Data were collected from multiple Iranian official online platforms and a critical discourse analysis was undertaken to analyse different forms of discursive articulation regarding women's bodies and national identity. Drawing on feminist literature inspired by the Foucauldian concept of biopolitics, the article discusses the ways in which women's bodies are discursively constructed to illustrate a uniform Islamic nationalistic discourse.