Contested Regulatory Practice and the Implementation of Food Policy: Exploring the Local and National Interface

There is growing geographical interest in the nature of the 'real' regulation of the food system. The food 'scares' of the late 1980s in the UK encouraged new legislation relating to food hygiene and safety. Its local implementation created tensions which were exacerbated by the legislative consequences of the Single European Market. In response, national-level regulatory adjustments followed, which introduced new codes of practice and techniques of hazard analysis for implementation at the local level. The result was a consolidation of a system of food regulation that can be applied differentially across the 'tiers' of retailing. This paper explores the regulatory contentions of the early 1990s in the food policy arena and the nature of food regulation at the local level. It advances our understanding of the 'construction' of food quality and safety within the UK. Moreover, we argue that its depiction of the dialectical response between policy formulation and implementation confirms the need for local, as well as national level, exploration of the nature of the contemporary state.     

Consuming and living the corner shop: belonging,remembering, socialising

This paper presents findings from an ethnographic case study in Germany investigating the relationship between shopkeepers and customers of small grocery stores owned by immigrants. The focus is on social practices within the shops and how those engaged in these activities make sense of them. Shops become meaningful through shared practices that revolve around selling and buying. However, this process is complex and not without conflict. Moving through the themes of belonging, remembering and socialising, I will show how the everyday lifeworlds of customers and shopkeepers, including their aspirations, expectations and uncertainties, intersect and how the shop emerges as a meaningful space through negotiation. Rather than looking at cultural differences alone, it is concluded that there can be significant other ways to understand multicultural places by focusing on the multiple ways that consumers engage with so-called ‘ethnic’ enterprises.     

国外对零售业及其附生——衍生的营业性娱乐场所的空间关系研究

零售业及其附生-衍生的营业性娱乐场所是城市居民日常生活(闲暇娱乐)行为的四大场所之一,零售业中附生-衍生的娱乐场所的类型、结构与空间模式是揭示城市社会-生活空间质量的重要方面,本文从城市社会地理学以及人类文化生态学等多学科的研究角度,分析与总结国外学者对零售业及其附生-衍生的营业性娱乐场所的研究现状、内容以及其在城市中的空间作用与(社会)空间关系。     

广州地铁沿线零售商业形态与空间分布探讨

选取我国地铁发展速度最快的城市之一的广州作为背景,以地铁沿线商用物业的核心圈层为对象,本文在调查分析地铁沿线零售商业的串珠状组团式的空间分布特征和以百货店为主的多业态并存的业态结构特征的基础上,探讨了地铁沿线商业业态聚集的空间等级和各等级的业态空间类型,分析了其内部和外部因素,并揭示了地铁对零售空间分异、商业热点的形成及零售客流的影响作用。     

互联网技术应用对零售业空间组织影响研究进展

互联网技术应用对零售业空间组织的影响已成为当今学术界研究热点。本文利用文献资料法和对比分析法,梳理了国内外互联网技术应用对零售业空间组织结构、零售企业区位选择与布局、市场空间等方面的影响研究,并提出了未来人文地理学须进一步强化的研究内容。结果表明：20世纪90年代中期以来,互联网技术应用对零售业空间组织影响的研究成果日益丰富,且涉及到经济地理学和商业学等学科,研究方法主要以定性为主,且定量研究日益增多,但对互联网技术应用对传统零售业区位选择和销售腹地的影响、中小网络零售企业空间组织、运输距离对网络零售企业销售空间影响以及出口跨境网络零售企业销售空间格局等方面研究还需完善,未来研究应注重吸收其他学科理论和方法,强化实证研究结论的科学性。     

Barriers to 'US style' lean retailing: the case of Wal-Mart's failure in Germany

Wal-Mart's exit from the German market in 2006 after 10 yearsof attempting to achieve sustainable competitive advantage contributesan interesting case to the small but expanding literature on‘failure’ in international investment. The workon the disinvest decision in all its forms has been criticalto a re-conceptualization of the international investment processas dynamic rather than static, linear and inexorable. An importantsegment of the work on investment and disinvestment as dynamicprocesses focuses on the environment in which investment anddisinvestment decisions evolve. While the environment of thehost country market has begun to be examined, the market environmentof the country in which the retail transnational corporation(TNC) originates also affects the international disinvestmentprocess. To explore this ‘home country effect’,I examine the resources Wal-Mart brought into the German marketand their ability to use those resources in the German context.Wal-Mart's resources were shaped by the market governance regimein which the firm evolved, and not insignificantly, over whichit had and has influence. Within this theoretical frame, Wal-Mart'sreliance on the resources of network dominance and autonomousaction that made for its success in the USA contributed to unsuccessfulstrategies in the German retailing market.     

Immoral geographies and Soho’s sex shops: exploring spaces of sexual diversity in London

London’s Soho, situated in the urban heart of the city has long been understood as both a cosmopolitan and diverse space where transgression and deviance, particularly in relation to the sex industry and sexual commerce, are constitutive of this area. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork, we add to some of the existing debates on sexual spaces in Soho by documenting the changes to the social/sexual landscape of sex shops in this area, and look to geographers interested in the spatial politics of gender and sexuality to understand the importance of this particular place. Looking at two particular sex shops in Soho, we argue that the spatial practices in this very specific part of the city encourage a disruption of traditional hierarchies that often govern gender and sexed practices, and invite women, LGBTQ and kink communities to inhabit more inclusive spaces of sexual citizenship.     

上海城市老年人日常购物活动空间研究

购物活动是老年人日常生活中主要的活动类型之一,对老年人日常购物空间的研究是理解老年人与其周围商业环境相互作用的关键,然而目前国内这方面研究才刚刚起步。本文以上海城市老年人日常活动问卷调查的第一手资料为基础,首先对数据进行汇总得出了上海城市老年人日常购物活动的发生频率、出行距离等总体特征。然后进一步细化,分别总结出各小区老年人的日常购物活动空间模式并进行对比分析,发现市中心老年人的日常购物活动空间比较紧凑,而郊区老年人的日常购物活动空间则相对分散。最后着重从上海市的商业空间及零售业态的变革、商业设施的可达性、老年人购物决策过程三个方面对这种差异性进行了解释。     

郊区化背景下北京市民城市中心商业区的利用特征

通过微观层面上对北京市居民中心商业中心消费行为的调查,分析郊区化背景下城市中心商业区发展现状,通过市民对城市中心商业区利用特征及其所反映的中心商业区发展问题来认识城市商业空间的变化。虽然城市中心传统商业区仍然在北京市居民消费中保持着重要地位,但是其购物空间已经表现出逐渐向迅速发展的近郊商业区转移的趋势;同时,随着新业态的迅速发展和私家车的普及,中心商业区将面临越发严峻的挑战。     

The big box, the flagship, and beyond: impacts and trends in the Greater Toronto Area

The recent introduction of big box retailers into Canadian cities has altered dramatically the competitive retail landscape. This rapid restructuring of the urban retail economy have occurred since the introduction of the big box/power centre phenomenon in the early 1990s. The analysis integrates the extensive databases that reside at the Centre for the Study of Commercial Activity with insights gained from the popular press. These two sources of information were used to interpret the spatial and structural impacts of big box retailing on the traditional urban retail structure in the Greater Toronto Area. The growth of the big boxes illustrates the form of retail development that results from more permissive retail land use policies. A period where the development policies and processes of the past that controlled shopping centre development has been replaced by a more laissez-faire approach.