A missing link? Network analysis as an empirical approach for critical physical geography

Critical physical geography (CPG) calls for integrative research on material landscapes and the socio-political dynamics of scientific knowledge production. Network analysis, a rich tradition of tools and approaches for analyzing relational information, has seen little use in the CPG literature to date. This represents a fruitful opportunity, as many of CPG's core interests—knowledge politics, histories of scientific concepts, and ecosocial relations—can be effectively analyzed using network techniques. In this article, I argue for adapting network approaches to CPG. First, I provide an overview of various network concepts, approaches, and their origins. I then discuss bibliometric network techniques for “science mapping” including co-word, co-authorship, and citation analyses. Next, I describe discourse network analysis, a recent mixed-method approach from political science. Finally, I discuss overlaps with emerging approaches from qualitative and visual network analysis. In each section, I provide existing and hypothetical examples, as well as software and visualization techniques, that demonstrate how network approaches could add new insights to CPG and related scholarship. Linking CPG with the diverse traditions of network analysis has the potential to produce new empirical understandings and bring the field into conversation with a growing body of research that spans the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities.     

Mapping Local‐Scale Ecological Research to Aid Management at Landscape Scales

Natural resource management is typically defined by landscape‐scale management zones, such as the Catchment Management Authority boundaries of the southern Murray‐Darling Basin in Australia. Ecological research generally deals with local‐scale phenomena, with studies at the scale of such landscape management units arising only recently. We developed a method that links local‐scale ecological research to landscape‐scale management zones, which is presented here as a geographical bibliographic database. This research proceeded in four phases. First, we assessed three decades of ecological research in the Goulburn‐Broken Catchment in Victoria, Australia, using this method, revealing the locations where research has taken place across the landscape, and the research themes dominant in different bioregions. Second, we assessed the purposes to which the method could be applied. Third, we tested the method against one of these potential purposes to review ecological research in a subcatchment case study. Last, we interrogated the method to answer an ecological question. This methodological analysis demonstrated that mapping ecological research in this way allows the user to identify geographic gaps in research coverage, assist in limiting search results to a location of interest and to address location‐specific ecological questions. In combination with landscape classification methods, such as biogeographic regionalisation units, this method can be used to evaluate research coverage across similar ecological communities.     

国际生态旅游研究的知识图谱分析——基于SSCI数据库2005年以来文献的科学计量研究

本文对2005年以来国际生态旅游研究文献进行科学计量分析,展示国际生态旅游研究的知识图谱。对高频词汇、源刊、引文和作者进行频率分析,对关键词进行共现和聚类分析,探讨国际生态旅游研究前沿和热点,并对国内生态旅游研究进行比较分析,为生态旅游实践提供借鉴。