From the Inside Looking out and the Outside Looking in: Whatever Happened to ‘Behavioural Geography’?

As part of the Institute of Australian Geographers' Millennium Project, this article examines the shift of behavioural geography from a cutting edge sub-discipline to a branch of enquiry that is now much less prominent in mainstream human geography, especially in Australia. Through an exploration of the rationale for behavioural geography, a brief outline of the nature of the work that was done, and a consideration of the critiques of behavioural geography, the paper argues that behavioural geography enriched the discipline in several ways: it was instrumental in encouraging geographers to consider the epistemological foundations of the discipline; it fostered consideration of a variety of philosophical and methodological positions; and it highlighted the need to consider interrelationships between individuals, groups, society and environment thereby bringing into prominence the ways in which shared environmental meanings are contested and negotiated. Behavioural geography might be a term that is used much less than it once was and behaviourally-orientated research might increasingly find expression in interdisciplinary outlets rather than in mainstream geography journals but contemporary geography is heir to the endeavours of behavioural geography.     

SITUATED KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS: A CASE STUDY OF INDUSTRY SPECIFICITY IN URBAN KNOWLEDGE SOURCING

Theorizing within the umbrella of evolutionary economic geography (EEG) has improved the understanding of how inter‐firm relatedness conditions knowledge spillovers, and how this affects the long‐term evolution of regions. Still, there are shortcomings in this approach associated with a quantitative and generic methodology, a static notion of relatedness, and a weakly developed policy and institutional perspective. In particular, there is a need for a better understanding of the mechanisms through which relatedness is developed and how policy affects existing and emerging relatedness. Certain mechanisms for knowledge transfer have been suggested, such as labour mobility, firm diversification, spin‐offs and social networks. But do the same mechanisms apply to all industries and in all territories, or are there specific mechanisms of knowledge sourcing at work in different contexts? To shed light on these questions, the article reports on a comparative case study of two knowledge‐intensive industries (life science and publishing) located in the Oslo metropolitan region. Based on a case study, the article suggests that both industries source knowledge through similar types of channels. However, despite similarities in how knowledge is accessed and absorbed in this diverse urban context, knowledge sourcing also seems to be conditioned by industry‐specific dynamics, policies and institutions.     

Skiffle in the U.K.: the indigenization of a musical genre

ABSTRACT

This article examines the creation and diffusion of skiffle, and analyses how it emerged from the transatlantic flow of popular music from the United States to the United Kingdom, and the process by which it became “indigenized” in the U.K. I have also looked at the salience of race, the legacy of English music hall song traditions, and the idea of indigenization of music in post-WWII Britain. I have highlighted how skiffle eventually became “English,” its later impact on popular music in the U.K. in the 1960s and thereafter, and the complexities inherent in the idea of musical genre.     

MAPPING CHILDREN'S POLITICS: SPATIAL STORIES,DIALOGIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL FORMATION

This article confronts a persistent challenge in research on children's geographies and politics: the difficulty of recognizing forms of political agency and practice that by definition fall outside of existing political theory. Children are effectively “always already” positioned outside most of the structures and ideals of modernist democratic theory, such as the public sphere and abstracted notions of communicative action or “rational” speech. Recent emphases on embodied tactics of everyday life have offered important ways to recognize children's political agency and practice. However, we argue here that a focus on spatial practices and critical knowledge alone cannot capture the full range of children's politics, and show how representational and dialogic practices remain a critical element of their politics in everyday life. Drawing on de Certeau's notion of spatial stories, and Bakhtin's concept of dialogic relations, we argue that children's representations and dialogues comprise a significant space of their political agency and formation, in which they can make and negotiate social meanings, subjectivities, and relationships. We develop these arguments with evidence from an after‐school activity programme we conducted with 10–13 year olds in Seattle, Washington, in which participants explored, mapped, wrote and spoke about the spaces and experiences of their everyday lives. Within these practices, children negotiate autonomy and self‐determination, and forward ideas, representations, and expressions of agreement or disagreement that are critical to their formation as political actors.     

Reset redux: possible evolutionary pathways towards the transformation of tourism in a COVID-19 world

Abstract

With international arrivals surpassing 1.5 billion for the first time in 2019 the long-term evolution of tourism demonstrates prolific path dependence with a decade of growth since the global financial crisis. This latest period of unfettered international tourism development has come to an abrupt end as the impact of COVID-19 has brought the sector to a near standstill. As the world grapples with the realities of the global pandemic there is an opportunity to rethink exactly what tourism will look like for the decades ahead. Key concepts in evolutionary economic geography, especially path dependence/creation and institutional inertia/innovation, show variations in pathways for travel and tourism in a COVID-19 world. A path that leads to transformation in tourism can be realized if sufficient institutional innovation occurs on both the demand and supply side of tourism that can foster the emergence of new paths. COVID-19 presents a once in a generation opportunity where the institutional pump is primed for transformation. Whether that leads to a radical transformation of the tourism sector remains to be seen, but the imprint it will leave on both the demand and supply of tourism will have long-term, incremental impacts for years to come and ultimately move us closer towards the transformation of tourism.     

EMBEDDED AND DISEMBEDDED PRACTICE IN THE FIRM–PLACE NEXUS: A STUDY OF TWO WORLD‐LEADING MANUFACTURERS OF SKI EQUIPMENT IN THE LILLEHAMMER SKI CLUSTER

Studies of agglomerations and clusters in economic geography anticipate strong interdependency between firms and places. However, despite the extensive literature, we lack a coherent micro‐theoretical foundation. The relationship between the rationales and practices of firms remains somewhat unspecified. In this article, we analyse the diversity of rationales and practices in a firm–place nexus. Possible rationales for firm practice are outlined, examining the assumptions of three, main theoretical perspectives in economic geography. This microeconomic approach is applied through an analysis of the two key firms in the Lillehammer skiing industry cluster in Norway. The study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how the agency of firms influence and are influenced by co‐location.     

Asserting Europe's technological sovereignty amid American platform finance: Countering financial sector dependence on Big Tech?

Spearheaded by major technology companies (Big Tech), digital platforms have rapidly become key infrastructures for accumulation under global financialized capitalism, with consumer convenience and underlying practices of data collection, control and analysis giving rise to platform finance. While financial institutions are partnering with financial technology (FinTech) start-ups to digitally enclose customers, American and Chinese Big Techs increasingly mobilize their platforms to offer payment services, next to expanding their platformed services to financial incumbents. Observing the growing dependence of finance on American Big Tech platforms, this paper investigates how the shift toward platform finance in the European Union (EU) unfolds as a state-mediated and power-laden process between mostly ‘domestic’ (EU) financial incumbents and ‘foreign’ (non-EU) Big Tech firms. The starting point of the analysis is the European Strategy for Data launched by the European Commission in 2020. Through document analysis, we reconstruct the circulation of code words within ‘the Brussels Bubble’ in anticipation of- and in direct response to the proposal. We find that, despite its implication in the global financial crisis, incumbent EU finance presents itself as a fix for non-EU platform domination by Big Tech. The ‘technological sovereignty’ of the EU is marshalled by incumbent finance to defend market share as would-be pan-European digital financial champions. The Big Tech ‘threat’ is thereby transformed into an argument for strategic deregulation and forced data sharing by Big Tech for the sake of maintaining a ‘level playing field’. The outcome of these processes of strategic coupling is an alignment between the interests of EU data protection and the commercial interests of platformizing European banks.     

Avoiding the “F” word: feminist geography in Iran

Abstract

Little attention has been given to how feminist geography is defined, applied, and taught in non-Anglophone countries, especially in Muslim majority societies where Women’s Rights are quite different from the western world. The case of Iran among other Middle Eastern countries becomes even more isolated due to the several political, linguistic, and cultural limitations opposed on Iranian academics and international collaborations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women make half of Iran’s 80 million population, 63% of university graduates, almost half of informal workers, 30% of Iranian professors, 13% of high level management position holders, and under 5% of the Islamic Majlis (Iran’s Parliament). However, feminist geography, the sub-discipline that has been traditionally dedicated to the inclusion of gender as an analytical lens within Geography, is not a recognized field at any departments in Iran. This essay aims to present the current status of feminist geographic research and teaching at selected Iranian Universities. My goal is to offer a better understanding of how the local social and political context affect what constitute feminist geographic work and how geographers navigate the political and hierarchal university systems to engage in gender studies. Through informal interviews via emails and Skype with several Iranian geographers, I illustrate why Iranian geographers often avoid using “feminist” terminology in recognizing their work, even though their work is feminist.