Spatializing transnational history: European spaces and territories

This article introduces the dossier ‘Spatializing Transnational History: European spaces and territories’. It examines the intersections between transnational history and the so-called ‘spatial turn’ in social sciences, and points at future directions in historical research. It reviews two main different methodological approaches to the problem of space in transnational, comparative and global history and examines recent contributions on the history of territory. Finally, it introduces the contributions to this dossier, which approach the history of modern Europe from a number of transnational and spatial perspectives. The dossier argues that incorporating a combination of spatial approaches, ranging from the examination of transnational spaces, to the interplay between different scales of analysis, and to the historicization of territoriality, into the practice of transnational, comparative and global history may contribute to a deeper, wider and more complex understanding of ‘Europe’.     

DEPROVINCIALIZING THE STUDY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS: A CRITIQUE

Though the fourteen contributors to this volume bring varied perspectives on method, most striking is their common engagement with contextualist approaches. While some of the essays advocate a temporally and spatially extended, renewed history of ideas with debts to Arthur Lovejoy, and are critical of excessive contextualization, several either defend contextualism, or the culture concept, or offer a more robust materialist foundation for the history of thought and culture. This review focuses on the logic and metaphors used to criticize contextual methods and highlights problems with both the new history of ideas and the new materialist gestures.     

人文地理学研究方法论的进展与"文化转向"以来的流派

欧美发达国家现代人文地理学研究的方法论已成系统。本文以国外文献与著名人文地理学者论点为依据,以现代人文地理学哲学思潮与衍生的研究方法论为基础,探讨了方法论与衍生的研究方法与其拓展的研究领域及其动力关系,追索并总结出前沿研究与研究流派脉络,以及探讨不同流派不断延伸的具体研究内容。     

China and Geography in the 21st Century: A Cultural (Geographical) Revolution?

A noted Singapore-based cultural geographer and specialist on Asia reviews the recent emergence of cultural geographic research on and within China and the implications of China's rise for the study of 21st century cultural geography more broadly. She identifies six major issues modern China is confronting that, when addressed from a cultural geographical perspective, may both enhance an understanding of the country and reshape the practice of cultural geography as a subdiscipline: agricultural reform, economic reform, urban change, rural-urban migration and related social inequalities, the changing family structure, and environmental change. The author argues that if China's cultural geography is to help the subdiscipline at large develop a more international and inclusive approach, it must be driven by questions of significance in China, yield constructive answers of relevance to China, and at the same time derive theoretical ideas that diversify the collective geographical imagination.     

美国早期史研究中的自我探索与历史叙事 --评《透过一块晦暗的玻璃》

《透过一块晦暗的玻璃》体现了美国早期史研究领域的较新的发展趋势。这本论文集从小历史的角度来论述了早期美国史研究中关于个人认同的自我探索与边缘化状态的问题,并较好地弥补了大历史的缺陷,使人们从历史叙述、文本细读和语言学转向这三个方面更新了对小历史长处的认识。     

西方现代劳动力地理学研究进展及对中国研究的意义

劳动力地理学研究有助于理解全球化背景下劳动力作为当前国际国内经济转型和产业区位的一个重要因素及其发生作用的内在机制,对指导劳动力市场调节、促进地方劳动力市场发展具有重要意义。本文总结了国外劳动力地理学理论研究的起源,认为其理论演变经历了由新古典经济地理学区位理论,到马克思主义新经济地理理论,到近年来"文化、制度转向"的劳动力市场地理发展历程。介绍了近年来地方化劳动力市场地理理论和实证研究领域,及其对产业空间组织的影响等方面所取得的最新进展。在对当前的研究进行评述的基础上,指出不足和未来方向。与西方学术界相比,我国相关理论研究较为欠缺,尤其是文化、制度等因素对我国劳动力市场影响的研究有待进一步加强。     

国外健康地理学研究进展

传统医学地理学研究从自然生态学角度出发,着重探讨自然环境对人类身体健康的影响。随着社会经济的发展,自然环境对人类健康的作用逐渐减小,社会文化环境成为影响人类健康,特别是城市居民身体健康的主要因素。本文回顾了20世纪70年代社会文化转型以来,医学地理学研究的重点转向以社会文化视角探究社会文化环境对人们身体健康,特别是心理健康的影响,以及医学地理学向一门新的健康地理学转变的过程,并梳理了新的健康地理学理论和研究内容的变化,总结了当前学科存在的一些问题,最后对新时期我国健康地理学的发展提出了展望。     

流动、旅游与后现代——一个研究视角与一种精神转向

后现代思潮作为对现代性的全面反思甚至批判,为我们理解今天的社会现实和社会生活提供了一个系统的视角。在这一背景下,人们可以开始重新思考和重构旅游的意义,并在新的后现代和后结构哲学思潮以及更广阔的流动背景下探讨旅游的新特征和旅游体验的新方向。流动作为一种批判语境,意味着对传统以稳定和界限为主体的文明形式的挑战,也在更深层意义上代表着新的社会精神内涵。随着社会流动的增加和人们意识的改变,人们将习惯一种流动的生存和生活方式,在流动中居住,在居住中流动。在此意义上,旅游的内涵或者是生活化了,又或者是生活旅游化了。文章最后从"何为旅游世界"、"旅游体验"以及"再谈游的精神"等三个方面对后现代语境下旅游发展的趋势进行了论述分析。     

Experiments in Cross‐Scalar Labour Organizing: Reflections on Trade Union‐Building Work in Aceh after the 2004 Tsunami

Abstract: As part of the post‐tsunami reconstruction effort in Aceh, international labour movement organizations “jumped scale” in an attempt to revitalize a moribund local labour movement. This article provides a close analysis of the four internationally sponsored trade union building projects undertaken as part of that process. This unique intervention sheds light on the crucial role of local context and the extent to which the principles of international solidarity and the pragmatics of trade union diplomacy are mediated through money, institutions, individuals and day‐to‐day activities. The Aceh case underscores the importance of contingency and the agency of individuals in shaping an international intervention of this kind. In doing so it demonstrates how circuits of labour activism can be affected by constraints and opportunities unrelated to trade union politics or the relations of production.     

Geographies of steam: mapping the entrepreneurial activities of steam engineers in France during the second half of the eighteenth century

Entrepreneurship played a crucial role in the development and diffusion of steam technology. To account for this, we need to map the entrepreneurial activities that helped spread steam technology across Europe and beyond. Because tracing this history’s contours requires attending to local contexts, strategies and uses along with large-scale trajectories, it makes sense to speak of historical ‘geographies’ rather than of steam technology’s historical ‘geography’. Speaking of geographies in the plural also refers to the recognition that places can simultaneously be located in multiple spatial situations, their geographical identities the product of historical work, negotiation and perspective. To illustrate these points, this essay begins by reflecting on what might be called the ‘spatial turn’ in the history of technology and the role of entrepreneurship in the spread of steam technology in France during the second half of the eighteenth century, which is the historical focus of this essay. It then discusses a small number of representative cases of entrepreneurial engagement with steam technology in France and concludes by considering what this tells us about the relationship between the French state and its regions and the impact of the French Revolution in this geographically complex history.