Neoliberalising Education: New Geographies of Private Tuition,Class Privilege,and Minority Ethnic Advancement

Geographic research on neoliberalism has explored the restructuring of educational landscapes wrought through marketisation of preschool, school and higher-education provision and considered the responsibilisation of parents and children for educational outcomes. This study develops understanding of the contingent emergence of neoliberal educational reform, and its progressive and regressive impacts, through an examination of the burgeoning private tuition market in England and Wales. The paper outlines the contours of the previously hidden supplementary education industry, demonstrating that it reinforces regional and classed inequalities, while opening possibilities for ethnic minority advancement. Conceptually, the paper advances debate about socio-spatial specificity in neoliberal change, showing that the intersection of policy, free markets and consumer behaviour reshapes the educational landscape in ways that extend beyond state intention and control. Through these processes, contingent market forms are produced that offer social mobility for some, but ensure the social reproduction of enduring regimes of power.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
M. Steiner (ed.), Clusters and Regional Specialisation. On Geography,Technology, and Networks
Denis J.B. Shaw, Russia in the Modern World. A New Geography
Ron Martin, Money and the Space Economy     

“合”与“分”的地理效应及民族个性差异

本文从人文地理学的角度剖析了地理环境对于中国历史上国家统一与分裂的重大影响,暨阐述了通常所说的自然与人文的历史的辩证的关系。高山大川的“长城效应”与各区域民族个性差异形成对国家统一的威胁。但同时也是多民族国家统一体的再造与地域文化发展的前提条件之一。     

What can supraspecies richness tell us?

Biogeographers, ecologists, palaeontologists, and conservation managers often deal with checklists in which not all individuals have been identified to a species level, or the accuracy of species identification is questionable. Is it possible and credible to investigate species richness based on such checklists? Studies on macrofauna in the Far Eastern seas, eastern Arctic seas, and adjacent waters of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans suggest that in different habitats and for diverse taxa, species, and higher taxa richness strongly correlate with each other and increase with an expansion in the study area and sample size according to the species–area law. Such an increase is higher in the bottom zone than in the pelagic. Species and higher taxa richness also show a decrease from lower to higher latitudes, which is in line with the Humboldt–Wallace’s law. According to Willis’ law and self-similarity in the organisation of taxonomic levels, species richness can be assessed based on the genus, family, and order richness. In other words, supraspecies richness itself can tell us the same as species richness and therefore certain global patterns revealed at the species level may also be revealed at the supraspecies level. Such a concordance in general trends among richness parameters at different taxonomic levels in practice implies that species richness can be studied based on lists that lack species identifications or lists with doubtful species identification. We suggest bolder use of supraspecies richness in science and practice, discussing the disadvantages and advantages of this approach.     

“In Front of the World”: Translating Beatriz Nascimento

This collection translates some of the work of the influential Black Brazilian thinker and activist Beatriz Nascimento (1942–1995) for the first time into English, in collaboration with her only daughter, Bethânia Gomes. Historian, poet, theorist and organiser, Beatriz Nascimento was a key figure in Brazil’s Black Movement until her untimely death in 1995. She dangerously wrote at the height of Brazil’s Military Dictatorship (1964–1985), and theorised extensively on the Black condition in Brazil; the unique experience of Black women; and quilombos—Brazilian maroon societies that she imagined as spaces of both historical and contemporary fugitivity. Following Alex Ratts, this introduction outlines her contribution to radical geography, in particular Black geographies, territoriality and embodiment. It also positions Nascimento within the trans‐Atlantic Black radical tradition. We present two of Nascimento’s essays in translation here. The first, “The Concept of Quilombo and Black Cultural Resistance”, introduces a crucial strand of her scholarly work, on the history and socio‐political significance of quilombos (maroon communities). The second, “For a (New) Existential and Physical Territory”, shows Nascimento in a different mood: philosophical, reflective and iconoclastic. In addition, two of her poems—“Dream” and “Sun and Blue”—are also translated here for the first time.     

Bringing Chinese Law in Line with Western Standards? Problematizing “Chinese” and “Western” in the Late Qing Debate over the New Criminal Code of Great Qing

This article examines the intense debates over the New Criminal Code of Great Qing (Da-Qing xin xinglü) in the National Assembly (Zizheng yuan) during the Qing empire’s New Policy Reform (1901–11). The focus is on the conflict between those who drafted and supported the new code and those who expressed reservations, especially over reform of the laws on filial piety and fornication. The issue of reconfiguring the family and social order through law was closely related to the overarching agenda of twentieth century legal reform in China—making an empire that “ruled through the principle of filial piety” into a modern nation-state that had direct relationships with its citizens. More importantly, an analysis of the late Qing debate over family law enables this article to problematize such concepts as “Chinese” and “Western” during this crucial moment of China’s empire-to-nation transformation. It showcases the paradox of China’s modern-era reforms—a contradiction between imposing Western-inspired order with a largely indigenous logic and maintaining existing sociopolitical order in the name of preserving national identity.     

COVID-19, mental health,and rurality: A pilot study

COVID-19 has caused enormous economic and social disruptions that may have lasting effects on employment, income, and working conditions. Critically, these disruptions often have a negative impact on mental health. While significant research has examined the relationship between COVID-19 and mental health, most of these studies focus on urban centres. This paper presents results from a pilot study conducted in two rural counties in Ontario, Canada on the experiences of residents from small and rural communities related to COVID-19. Based on 3496 survey results, this study quantifies the negative impact of COVID-19 on overall mental health and the confounding role of gender, income, and age. Results must be used to expand the dialogue around rural mental health and to ensure appropriate programs and policies are developed.     

Research collaboration beyond the boundary: Evidence from university patents in China

Geographical distance constitutes friction in searching for research collaborators. Taking advantage of a quasinatural experiment featured by High-Speed Railway (HSR) lines in China, this paper employs the difference-in-differences model to identify the causal impact of a substantial improvement in the intercity transportation infrastructure on collaborative innovation across cities. The data pertain to a universe of patent applications filed by Chinese universities and their citations. We find that HSR contributes to a substantial increase in the innovation quantity and quality of collaborative patenting innovation between universities and corporates. It contributes to industry collaboration by utilizing university academic disciplines in the related technology fields. Lastly, HSR facilitates universities to search for new research partners with better quality beyond the geographical boundary.     

“You don't go there”: Spatial Strategies of Stigma Negotiation in a Post-Industrial Town

This paper draws on a multimethod ethnographic study, conducted between 2016 and 2017 in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, England—a small and relatively isolated deindustrialising colliery town—examining how residents negotiate living in stigmatised territory. In doing so, microspatial strategies of distancing, avoidance, and deflection are illustrated, revealing how residents reassign and deepen stigma in particular locations within a stigmatised territory. This highlights the relationship between social and physical space, and while spatial strategies of negotiation do not mitigate stigma, they do (re)produce internal social hierarchies within a place that is homogenised from the outside through disparaging narratives. A key contribution reveals the significance of the racialised production of space in shaping how territorial stigma is negotiated within this distinct socio-spatial location. Residents use strategies to redirect the stigma toward those seen as out of place and draw attention away from sticky sites of racialised urban stigma towards symbols of unspoilt rural Englishness.