The changing nature of GIS and the provision of formal GIS education in the UK: a case study

The arrival of the term Geographical Information System (GIS) in the 1960s soon created a demand for training and education in the use of this specialist hardware and software. Initially the main focus was on training people to use GIS, formal named degree programmes leading to postgraduate and undergraduate qualifications arrived later. This paper explores the changing landscape of U.K. degree level GIS education drawing on contemporary information from Higher Education Institution websites and a case study of the first single honours degree in GIS in Europe. The paper identifies a rise and fall in the number of named undergraduate “GIS” degrees since the late 1980s sandwiched between the continuation and development of postgraduate qualifications. In parallel with this trend the teaching and learning of GIS skills has emerged as a core component of undergraduate degree programmes with “Geography” in their title and in national school and degree level benchmarking statements for the discipline.     

Gendered politics of empire: the female explorateur and natural histories of the Amazon basin 1899–1901

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Brazilian Amazon was experiencing a moment of heightened exploration, mapping, border creation, and contestation. This article examines the production of the French explorateur and geographer Octavie Coudreau through analysis of the natural history/travel narrative, Voyage au Trombetas (1899), and her subsequent narrative Voyage au Cuminá (1901). Octavie Coudreau initially went to Amazonia to travel with her husband, Henri Coudreau, already a renowned explorer of the French and Brazilian Amazon. After Henri Coudreau’s death on their first voyage, Octavie Coudreau continued working under contract for the Brazilian state and published natural history narratives after each of her four exploratory and mapping missions. These travel narratives include suggestions for increased colonization along with observation of local populaces, supported by a multitude of maps and photographs. Using feminist approaches to the historiography of travel, empire, and geographical work, I look at the female European explorer’s view of imperialism during this significant period in Amazonian history and development. I examine the unfixing of gender identity as it relates to movement within a liminal space. I think of this as the in-between place in which Octavie finds herself – as a grieving widow, thrust into a position of power abroad, while still dealing with the limitations of her gender during this time period, and the space of the Amazon itself, a region in flux where multiple races and imperial powers interact in a contact zone.     

Pillars and perspective: demarcation of the Belgian Congo–Northern Rhodesia boundary

From 1911 to 1914 an Anglo-Belgian boundary commission demarcated the 885 km boundary between the Belgian Congo and Northern Rhodesia along the watershed of the Congo and Zambezi rivers with a total of just 46 markers. Such low-density boundary demarcation with widely spaced pillars was typical of early British boundary-making in southern Africa. Less than fifteen years later, a second Anglo-Belgian boundary commission was created to re-demarcate the boundary. Not only was it unique for a colonial boundary in southern Africa to be re-demarcated, this second Anglo-Belgian boundary commission worked for six years with a budget that exceeded any previous British boundary commission in colonial Africa. This commission marked the Belgian Congo–Northern Rhodesia boundary on the ground with nearly five times the number of pillars as the first commission, literally etching the boundary in the African landscape. Its techniques of survey and boundary demarcation set a new standard, serving as a model for later British colonial boundary commissions and influencing boundary-making theory through the present day.     

Illustrating the Phaenomena: Celestial Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Abstract

The Ordnance Survey's Boundary Survey, carried out between 1841 and 1888, was a major undertaking which resulted in the local administrative boundaries of the whole of Great Britain being reliably mapped for the first time. This was not achieved by imposition but by the use of local knowledge of boundaries, thus making permanent a communal memory of administrative geography and rendering it globally accessible through maps. The Boundary Survey aided the reform of local government areas, a process which started during the same period and provided derived data for the burgeoning collection of statistics in the nineteenth century.     

妈祖文化与地理环境

妈祖(又称天妃、天后)及其妈祖文化,自诞生至今已千余年了,它作为中华民族文化的组成部分,源远流长,蕴含丰富。它涉及到中国的政治、经济、文化、航海、宗教、民俗、建筑等诸多方面,已有不少学者在上述方面对其进行研究。但从地理学角度来研究这个问题甚少。本文拟从地理学角度来研究妈祖文化,探讨她的形成、发展与地理环境的关系。     

试论宗教的地理背景

本文从宗教的起源、宗教的源地、宗教的习俗和教义、宗教的分布等四个方面论述了与其地理背景的密切关系.     

“京观”及其历史轨迹

“京观”是中国古代战争的产物,贯穿于中国历史的上古和中古时期,为华夏民族和周边兄弟民族所采用,目的是张扬武功。但是,由于“京观”这种形式过于血腥与残酷,故在以后的岁月不被使用;时至现代,演变为纪念碑的形式。     

唐代贾耽的地理(地图)著述及其地图学成绩再评价

对唐代贾耽的地理(地图)著述的名目进行辨析,分析了"关中陇右及山南九州等图"、《九州图》、《海内华夷图》之间的关系,以及别录与通录的区别。指出《九州图》、《海内华夷图》是贾耽国图撰修总体事业在不同历史阶段的总称。并从地图学传统、方志学传统入手,探讨了贾耽地理(地图)著述的性质,对其中的地图学成绩进行了重新评价,进而从"近意就实,依稀像真"分析了贾耽地图学的滞后性,指出"古墨今朱"应只是文字注记的区别,并非通过图形绘制表达古今地理要素的差异,由此审视了中国古代地图史上图形绘制与文字注记的关系。     

南梁始建秦州考

《北齐地理志》据《梁书·徐文盛传》、《梁书·杜崱传》以证南梁始建秦州于今南京市六合区时在武帝太清年间。实际上,《梁书·徐文盛传》所载"秦州"不治今南京市六合区,《梁书·杜崱传》所载郭元建攻秦州刺史严超远岁非太清二年(548年),二者皆不可为据。经考证,本文认为南梁始建秦州于今南京市六合区宜在大宝三年(552年)三至五月间。