TRANSNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS, LOCAL COMPETITIVENESS: MAPPING THE GEOGRAPHIES OF FILMMAKING IN/THROUGH HONG KONG

ABSTRACT. Through the Global Production Networks (GPN) analytical lens, this paper shows how politico-economic developments in China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia are instrumental in developing Hong Kong as a premier filmmaking centre, and how Hong Kong-based filmmakers have to weave new cross-scalar production networks and target new markets so as to remain competitive. The broader objective of the paper is to contribute to extant debates on urban-based, cluster-driven policies by showing how cities, in developing their industrial capacities, need not necessarily be in competition with other places at different geographical scales. Rather, as the empirical materials evince, cities should collaborate to compete. Apart from the presentation of available historical and statistical materials, the discussion is informed by twenty-seven in-depth interviews with Hong Kong-based film workers, government agency executives and film industrial association heads, as well as an interview with a Singapore-based film producer with ongoing production linkages with Hong Kong-based film production companies.     

The Tung Oil Boom in Australasia: a Network Perspective

Ideas about networks are explored in the context of the interest within the British Empire and the United States of America in planting Tung Oil trees (Aleurites fordii) during the 1920s and 1930s. Closer attention is paid to the Australian and New Zealand experience and short-lived enthusiasm for the search for seeds, the collation of information on growth rates, and the planting of Tung trees. The paper briefly distinguishes various types of network research in human geography and concludes by raising some questions about space and time in network approaches in the social sciences more generally.     

ON LONELINESS

Contemporary Western societies are characterized by ‘until further notice’ relationships (and precarious or very loose social bonds), historically high levels of mobility of both capital and labour and growing numbers of single person households. As artefacts of freedom and choice these social arrangements do not inevitably give cause for concern but they may come at a price and that might involve more frequent and more sustained experiences of loneliness. This article argues that we know very little about loneliness even though some observers have described it as a new plague. The article sets out to describe the dimensions of a sociology of contemporary loneliness in terms of its social distribution, its extent and impact as well as its nature as an emotional and ontological experience. While we may be heading towards a civilization which, as Michel Houellebecq darkly hints in the recent novel The Possibility of an Island (2006), may have little further need for ‘the social’, for the time being it seems as though this problem (that would ‘rather not’ speak its name) is the cause of considerable suffering and pain.     

A space for feminist mentoring: the role of Geographic Perspectives on Women (GPOW) specialty group in higher education

Abstract

Higher education and organizations within academic disciplines are important spaces for mentoring and other forms of networking. These spaces, however, are often situated in environments that limit equitable and inclusive opportunities for early career and underrepresented scholars to effectively engage in mentoring. This paper contributes to critical feminist scholarship that examines how organizations in higher education can offer supportive mentoring spaces for women, early career faculty, and scholars from diverse backgrounds. The analysis focuses on the Geographic Perspectives on Women (GPOW) Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) as a space for faculty, students and other geographers to enhance their professional and personal success. Our analysis draws from the results of an international survey, a focus group discussion, and reflexive participation of feminist geographers aligned with this specialty group. We examine the ways in which this academic organization, and the informal and formal networks it cultivates, attempts to foster an anti-oppressive mentoring community of feminist geographers. We also analyze how these networks are shaped by and embedded in neoliberal institutions in the discipline of geography and higher education as a whole. This discussion offers important insights to growing research and initiatives that support mentoring for women, feminists, and others concerned with building more inclusive and socially just spaces in academia.     

THE POLITICS OF KNOWING: SPATIAL ISOLATION,DISCONNECTION AND SOCIAL WITHDRAWAL

Overarching connectivity, technologically mediated co‐presence and the flow of social association have become taken‐for‐granted features in the central narratives used to characterize our contemporary condition. Yet the pervasiveness of such perspectives risks theoretical hubris; there is a need to codify suitable antidotes that reflect on the relative limitations of such positions. This article provides the opening discussion for this special issue on socio‐spatial formations of isolation and disconnection. It is argued that to render visible those spaces and populations often ignored become important theoretical, empirical and political projects because of the way that assumptions about the extension of networks has tended to amplify the marginalization of those not attached to them. A consideration of disparate examples, including loneliness, electronic isolation and purposive concealment, guide us perhaps to a less strident and more finely graded account of the fuller range of human experience and myriad contexts in which it occurs.     

“绩效”二元视角下高速交通对旅游发展的影响及空间效应研究——以长三角地区为例

以长三角地区为研究对象,采用改进TOPSIS法和Super-SBM DEA模型分别测算高速交通优势度和旅游绩效,综合运用双变量LISA方法和空间面板杜宾模型,实证研究2005—2018年长三角高速交通对旅游绩效影响的空间效应及机理。结果表明:(1)2005—2018年,长三角高速交通优势度呈现“东高西低,中间高、南北两翼低”空间格局,且趋向相对均衡化态势。(2)旅游规模高值区集中于省会城市及高速交通干线附近;旅游效率高、较高值区沿“沪宁合—沪杭—杭甬”交通干线分布明显。(3)长三角高速交通对本地和邻近地区旅游规模、旅游效率均存在显著正向驱动效应;高速交通对旅游规模正向影响的直接和间接边际效应系数均大于旅游效率,这与高速交通的“双刃性”、“虹吸效应”及“错配效应”相关。(4)经济实力、旅游资源、产业机构高级化等对本地旅游绩效具有正向促进作用,而旅游资源、人力资本对邻近地区旅游绩效呈现负向外部性。     

CREATIVE CLUSTERS IN BERLIN: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE QUALITY OF PLACE IN PRENZLAUER BERG AND KREUZBERG

Urban creative clusters are currently a major focus of attention, as their prominent position in both local political and academic circles makes evident. Many authors stress the importance of spatial concentration for creative industries. However, only a few studies have focused on the individual entrepreneur. As a result, empirical evidence of the meaning of urban place as a site for social networks and a space for inspiration is still scarce. This is of some consequence as entrepreneurs provide a crucial link between creative activities and economic change and development. This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating how different creative entrepreneurs choose and evaluate their location. Using qualitative interviews with entrepreneurs in two creative clusters in the Berlin neighbourhoods Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg, this article shows the significance of the look and feel of specific places and explains how and for whom local networks are important.     

BRANDS,TRUST AND QUALITY IN AGRO‐FOOD PRODUCTION NETWORKS: THE CASE OF LAYER HENS

The expansion of primary breeding companies for layer hens has reached a global scale. Two groups of companies, the Dutch Hendrix Genetics BV and the German EW Group GmbH, dominate the trade with layer hens for industrial egg production in most countries of the world. This article aims to identify the main actors of industrial egg production and to analyse the structure of the global layer hen production network. Furthermore, this paper examines the importance of brands and quality within the production network. While the primary breeding level is discussed on a global scale, the secondary breeding level and the egg production is analysed at a national level for Germany. Since the importance of brands is strongly related to the quality of the products and the trust therein, the structure of the layer hen production network in regard to the role of brands and trust is evaluated. For this evaluation, the authors combined the global production network approach with elements of the convention theory.     

Mentoring with: reimagining mentoring across the university

Abstract

Traditional, formal mentoring structures established within the space of the university can be rooted in patriarchal systems of power, hierarchy, and exclusion that perpetuate neoliberal and capitalist understandings of individualism and exceptionalism. This model privileges certain forms of knowledge and expertise, often that of senior, tenured faculty rather than those who are ignored or overlooked as ‘experts’ such as historically underrepresented tenured and untenured faculty, contingent faculty, and staff. In this paper, we seek to reimagine the concept of the traditional mentoring relationship rooted in power and hierarchy into a more democratic, empowering model across the space of the university. We do this by expanding upon the concept of power mentoring which emphasizes mentoring networks rather than individual relationships. Power mentoring centers reciprocal support and mutual benefit, infusing a feminist ethics of care into the spaces and structures of the neoliberal university. We draw on Joan Tronto’s caring with to frame mentoring as collective, collaborative, and democratic: mentoring with. Based upon a collective reading of Ensher and Murphy ’s Power Mentoring: How Successful Mentors and Protégés Get the Most Out of their Relationships and conversations from our faculty learning community about mentoring, we argue that mentoring relationships within the spaces of the university should emphasize the role of dynamic networks between faculty, staff, and administrators to build upon existing feminist praxis to develop a more inclusive, geographic system of mentoring, which enables participants to grow, develop, and learn with one another.     

NETWORKING, KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATIONS AND AEROMOBILITY

This article explores networking and travel in two international knowledge organizations located in Denmark. It shows that these knowledge organizations are organized in various ways through different types of network on different scales. Therefore the individual employees in both organizations are dependent on their ability to create and maintain relations within networks. The article argues that such networking activities cannot be understood separately from air travel. However, work and travel decisions are also highly individualized, meaning that a number of more individual and non-work rationalities are also significant in employees deciding whether to travel or not. Therefore the article concludes that, in a number of social situations, individual rationalities function as a barrier to the increased use of video technology. It is therefore necessary to create new mechanisms to support the increased use of virtual communications in order to reduce the environmental impact of air travel in knowledge organizations.