A Gravity Model with Variable Coefficients: The EEC Trade with Third Countries

Gravity models with fixed coefficients have been used to explain the trade flows between countries different in income levels and separated by long distances. It is unrealistic to assume that these models can hold with the same parameters across very heterogeneous countries. This paper proposes and estimates an international trade model with variable coefficients constructed by combining Pöy-hönen's and Linnemann's gravity-based trade models via the expansion method.     

Pilgrimage,devotional practices and the consumption of sacred places in ancient Egypt and contemporary Syria

Pilgrimages are often messy affairs, not only leaving all sorts of material detritus behind, but also in many cases severely damaging or even destroying the sites that are visited as part of journeys to a sacred place. As such, this immensely popular religious tradition constitutes a social practice that is deeply tied to the landscapes and places that are considered to be holy and thus principally worthy of preservation (at least by many definitions of heritage), but which also in many cases ultimately consumes them over time, sometimes in very direct ways that immediately affect their physical state. This paper explores the contemporary and historical dimensions of this paradox, and considers the wider implications of seemingly destructive uses of sacred space by investigating the social and religious significance of so-called ‘pilgrims’ gouges’ observable at numerous pilgrimage sites in the Eastern Mediterranean. It, thereby, sheds light on the connections between the religious experience of pilgrimage and the material consumption of sacred places by juxtaposing cases from contemporary Islamic Syria and ancient Egypt, providing a long-term perspective on the use and consumption of sacred places. Lastly, it discusses the potential ramifications of the gouges for current approaches to heritage management and conservation.     

Striated agency and smooth regulation: kindergarten mealtime as an ambiguous space for the construction of child and adult relations

Deploying an everyday life approach, this article focuses on the kindergarten meal, defined as a space in which humans, materials and discursive elements interact. The article identifies and discusses two co-existing perspectives on the everyday meals that emphasise children as future beings and here-and-now beings. Through the concepts of smoothing and striation the paper discusses how these perspectives produce different mechanisms of regulation and agency, and position the eaters differently. The paper emphasises kindergarten mealtime as an ambiguous space that does not offer simple discussions about good and bad meal situations. The paper thereby adds to the existing literature within children’s geographies which emphasise interactional, relational and material aspects of children’s lives. It does so by revisiting some concepts, striation and smoothing, that has been used to explore children’s spaces and child–adult relations, but argue that these concepts describe ambivalent and complex processes in children’s and adult’s everyday lives.     

Made in China: import,distribution and consumption of Chinese porcelain in Copenhagen c. 1600–1760

Excavations in a refuse dump area in Copenhagen, dated c. 1650–1760, have produced large quantities of Chinese porcelain which reveal considerable consumption of Oriental porcelain in the city, pre-dating the establishment of direct trade with China. The character of the porcelain dated to the first 30 years of the Danish China trade may indicate a socially wider consumption of Chinese porcelain than has been generally assumed. When comparing archaeological and documentary data, a differentiated picture of the import, distribution and consumption of Chinese porcelain in the Danish capital emerges.     

Outsmarting geography: implementing territorial innovation strategies in sparsely populated regions

The smart specialization literature has hardly addressed the role of geography in promoting novel approaches to local and regional innovation processes beyond classic clustering approaches. Based on empirical observations from five sparsely populated regions, the present article proposes original insights that contribute to the theoretical debate on the place-based nature and spatial dimension of entrepreneurial discovery, the key functional mechanism behind smart specialization. First, it advocates the added-value of integrating strategic spatial planning approaches at different stages of smart specialization implementation, from design to operationalization. Second, it suggests that more effective ways of creating domains through shared knowledge bases of existing sectors should aim at promoting collaboration between second-tier economic agents. Finally, the specificity of the territorial preconditions found in sparsely populated regions brings to the fore new forms of proximity relations based on institutional, cognitive and organizational proximity rather than on geographical clustering.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF DISTANCE TO SHOPPING CENTERS IN AN URBAN MODEL CONTEXT

ABSTRACT. We discuss the distance to shopping in the context of three fundamental theories: The Optimal City Theory, the Central Business District Theory and a Cost-Benefit Theory. Each is described and estimated separately by econometric models. The three theories are combined in a final model using the expansion method. The final model, including all three theories, is based on enquiry data from 15 Danish towns.