Book reviews

Richard Higgott, The Evolving World Economy: Some Alternative Security Questions for Australia. Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence No. 51. Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University 1989. 90 pp. $10.00.

Andrew Mack and Paul Keal (eds), Security and Arms Control in the North Pacific. Sydney, Allen and Unwin Australia, 1989. xiii + 324 pp. $39.95 (cloth), $27.50 (paper).

Francis Stuart, Towards Coming of Age. A Foreign Service Odyssey. Centre for the Study of Australian‐Asian Relations, Griffith University, 1989. vi + 264 pp. $12.00.

Bruce S. Bennett, New Zealand's Moral Foreign Policy 1935–39: The Promotion of Collective Security Through the League of Nations. Wellington, New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1988. vii + 134 pp. $NZ21.00.

E.E. Azar and Chung‐In Moon (eds), National Security in the Third World, The Management of Internal and External Threats. Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1988. 308 pp. £25.00.

Robert P. Haffa Jr, Rational Methods, Prudent Choices: Planning US Forces. Washington D.C., National Defense University Press, 1988. xv + 165 pp. No price given.

William Bunge, Nuclear War Atlas. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1989. 204 pp. $29.95.

David H. Price, Atlas of World Cultures. A Geographical Guide to Ethnographic Literature. Newbury Park, California, Sage Publications, 1989. 156 pp. $US35.00.

Richard Sakwa, Soviet Politics: An Introduction. London and New York, Routledge, 1989. xvi + 356 pp. $120.00.

Terence Thomas (ed.), The British, Their Religious Beliefs and Practices 1800–1986. London and New York, Routledge, 1988. vii + 247 pp. $82.95 (doth), $29.95 (paper).

Robert A. Scalapino, Seizaburo Sato, Jusuf Wanandi and Sung‐joo Han (eds). Asia and the Major Powers. Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy. Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1988. vi + 386 pp. $US20.00.

Robert A. Scalapino, Seizaburo Sato, Jusuf Wanandi and Sung‐joo Han (eds). Asian Security Issues. Regional and Global. Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1988. vi + 394 pp. $US20.00.

Robert A. Scalapino and Dalchoong Kim, Asian Communism, Continuity and Transition. Berkeley, Korea Research Monograph 15, Center for Korean Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1988. vi + 364 pp. $US20.00.

Ngok Lee, China's Defence Modernisation and Military Leadership. Canberra, Australian National University/Pergamon Press, 1989. xxi + 395 pp. No price given.

David G. Mart and Christine P. White (eds), Postwar Vietnam: Dilemmas in Socialist Developments. Ithaca, NY, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1988. 248 pp. $US12.00.

Philip Eldridge, NGOs in Indonesia: Popular Movement or Arm of Government? Working Paper 55, The Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University. 59 pp. $6.00.

Saw Swee‐Hock. The Population of Peninsular Malaysia. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1988. xv + 342 pp. $US32.00 (doth), $US25.00 (paper).

Colin Legum, The Battlefronts of Southern Africa. New York, Africana Publishing Company, 1988. xxiv + 451 pp. No price given.

Morris H. Morley, Imperial State and Revolution: The United States and Cuba, 1952–1986. Melbourne; Cambridge University Press, 1987. ix + 571 pp. $51.00.     

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.     

SOME NOTES ON GEOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING

"A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view of the use of our words." Ludwig Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations . "Instead of posing as prophets we must become the makers of our fate. We must learn to do things as well as we can and to look out for our mistakes." Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies .     

Public game funding in the Nordic region

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore the policies related to support structures surrounding national game industries, with focus on the three Nordic countries Finland, Norway and Sweden, and investigate what kind of context the Nordic welfare state model has provided for game development. The three cases illustrate how Nordic welfare state measures have interacted with the games industry over time. While the political ideals have been fairly similar, our study demonstrates how the objectives and practical means of state engagement have differed significantly. We argue that although the three countries all have support schemes of which game companies can take advantage, there are significant differences in the degree to which each individual country has organized government interventions and support. While the Finnish state has treated game development as an endeavour in business development, the regional Nordic game program and the Norwegian state has developed a cultural policy that primarily aims to protect the cultural heritage. The Swedish state has not established a tailormade policy directed towards game development but has a broad spectrum of general policies for supporting research and business development. We suggest that future research should investigate how the public funding is structured and how discourses are formulated around appeals for more public funding for the games industry.     

Evaluations of diaries and GPS-enabled trackers to plot young peoples’ geographies – asking the participants what they think

Insights into the personal geographies of young people can be gained in many ways, but there is not always a focus on the effectiveness of the methodologies used, through a comparison of the different approaches, nor is there often an examination of how the participants in the study perceive the effectiveness of the research methods. Two methodologies are explored in this study: self-completion mobility diaries and the wearing of global positioning system-enabled tracking devices. The study focuses on the perceptions of the teenage school student respondents in the study (n?=?15) with relation to the user friendliness, the perceived accuracy, and the ease with which travel patterns can be recreated from the data. The participants were able to evaluate the two methodologies and to make judgements on the criteria provided. We argue that participants can contribute significantly to post-research methodological reflection.     

Proselytizing Islam — Problematizing “Salafism”

This article discusses the contemporary European setting pertaining to Islamic interpretations, mainly so called Salafi Islam. The empirical material is based on publications by a Swedish group that conducts street da?wa, aiming to proselytize among non‐Muslims. The ideology, as presented in official publications to be used for da?wa, is described and analyzed as part of a larger da?wa‐movement with Salafi‐inclinations in Europe. The group is not unique, but rather one example of many in Europe, at least concerning the activism advocated. The presentation of the group serves to reflect upon global influences and similarities among contemporary Islamic da?wa activism, as well as effects that the national context has on the choice of predominant themes addressed by the group as well as interpretative strategies used. The overarching aim with the article is to problematize the common usage of the concept Salafi among scholars of religion to describe and characterize contemporary Islamic groups of various kinds. The conclusion calls for a more nuanced approach concerning conceptualizations and the use of typologies in studying contemporary Islamic groups in a minority setting.