DOMESTICATING POSTMODERNISM

This paper proceeds in three steps. First, it gives more focus and rigor to the geographic reception of "postmodernism," through an investigation of the problem of representation as it has evolved from Kant through de Saussure and Wittgenstein to Derrida. Second, it arranges historical materialist encounters with the problem of representation along a spectrum of increasing seriousness leading from Palmer through Jameson to Adorno. Third, the various geographic responses to and avoidances of the key issues involved in postmodernism are read against the backdrop of possible seriousness opened up by the first two sections of the paper. The essay concludes by considering implications, for both social science and politics, not limited to questions about the possibility of disciplinary legitimacy.     

Space and the Structuring of Disciplinary Power: An Interpretive Review

This paper is an attempt to provide an organizing framework for understanding geographic (and related) research that deals with modern social control. The basic panoptic logic of what Foucault termed disciplinary power can be understood to operate at a variety of scales, from that of buildings to that of national territories. But the particular way in which disciplinary power plays out, the way in which the logic of visibility interacts with other forms of power, varies systematically with scale and context. Thus I offer a more scale- and context-sensitive typology of "disciplines", and the bulk of the essay is devoted to explaining the categories of this typology with reference to existing research. The larger purpose of this paper is to improve our understanding of how modern social control is bound up with larger socio-spatial relations.     

Between nationalism and regionalism: Higher education policy and national/regional identity in Quebec and Wallonia

This article explores the nexus between nationalism/regionalism and higher education policy at the subnational scale. Relying on a Critical Discourse Analysis, the study investigates how notions of national/regional identity are discursively embedded in the higher education policy discussions of Quebec and Wallonia. A comparative approach based on the distinct logics of subnational politics in both cases is used. Whereas Quebec is considered a quintessential example of ‘subnationalism’, the Walloon case is defined as a political regionalist movement. The findings reveal the permeation of substate identity interests in both Quebec and Wallonia's higher education policy discussions, underscoring parallels between them despite their diverging characters. At the same time, the discourse analysis sheds light on important distinctions in the manner in which this identity discourse is articulated. By juxtaposing identity politics in ‘nationalist’ and ‘regionalist’ movements, the study aims to bridge their conceptualisation and critically reflect on the categorisation of subnational movements.     

Secularisation,anticlericalism and cremation within Italian cemeteries of the nineteenth century

This article examines the monumental cemeteries of nineteenth-century Italy with regard to their role as platforms for the tensions between Church and state. In that burial grounds were publically owned yet administered by the clergy, they represented a space where conflicts between secular and clerical powers might be played out – conflicts that reached a peak in the final decades of the Ottocento following the annexation of the Papal State to unified Italy. Particular attention is given to the adoption of cremation as a practice that was advocated by anticlerical, liberal and radical factions in opposition to the Catholic Church. That opposition was manifested in the design and layout of Italian burial grounds and in construction of new crematoria.     

Personal,Political, Pedagogic: Challenging the Binary Bind in Archaeological Teaching,Learning and Fieldwork

In this paper, we consider how we can undercut the various binaries of gender and sexuality in archaeological practice and particularly in our teaching. We argue that taking an assemblage theory approach enables us to look at the multiplicity of identities of those practicing archaeology as different and intersecting assemblages that bring one another into being through their connections at different scales. In particular, we examine how this approach can be applied to archaeological pedagogy and how this in turn enables us to move away from modern binary distinctions about sex and gender identities from the ‘bottom up’, fostering an approach in our students that will then go on to be developed in professional practice.     

Innovations in the afterlife of the Cold War: German-language human geography

This commentary will coalesce around two main points. First, the articles by Markus Hesse on urban geography, by Annika Mattissek and Georg Glasze on recent developments in discourse-analytic approaches, and by Ulrich Best on the genealogy of radical–Marxist or critical German-language geography all support the contention that key features of Germanophone human geography still mark it out as a ‘Cold War’ human geography. As will become clear, this contention goes well beyond noting the marginality (until recently) of radical–Marxist positions (Belina, B., Best, U., & Naumann, M. (2009). Critical geography in Germany: From exclusion to inclusion via internationalization. Social Geography, 4, 47–58). Second, I will argue that although this configuration has had real costs, including both analytic and ‘civic’ deficits, it has also allowed the development of distinctive strengths and innovative emphases in human geographic research that can and should be engaged by other sub-communities in the international discourse.     

Development of a systems model to visualise the complexity of children's independent mobility

Substantial changes to the built environment, urbanisation patterns, and societal norms have contributed to limiting children's opportunities for being independently mobile. Several linear causal pathway models have been developed to understand the influences on children's independent mobility; however feedback loops between and within the various levels of influence cannot be modelled using such an approach. The purpose of this paper is to refine the interrelationships of factors related to children's independent mobility, taking into account earlier models, broader contextual factors, recent children's geographies literature, and feedback loops. Systems model components were informed by attributes known to influence children's independent mobility, related qualitative findings, and the development of a framework that could lend itself to multilevel modelling approaches. This systems model may provide a useful structure for identifying how best to develop and monitor interventions to halt the declining rates of children's independent mobility.