Women’s changing domestic responsibilities in neoliberal Africa: a relational time-space analysis of Lesotho’s garment industry

Since 2001 when Lesotho embraced the neoliberal African Growth and Opportunities Act that offers preferential access to the US market, its garment industry has expanded dramatically to become the nation’s leading employer. Elsewhere, large-scale employment of women in low-paid factory jobs has entailed spatial restructuring of gender and age relations. Lesotho is a distinctive context, with socio-spatial relations historically adjusted to male labour migration, high levels of contemporary male unemployment and alarming AIDS prevalence. Based on semi-structured interviews with 40 female factoryworkers and 37 dependents, this article applies a relational time-space analysis to explore how financial and spatio-temporal aspects of factory employment articulate to alter women’s relationships with those for whom they have culturally determined responsibilities: their children, those suffering from ill health and their (generally rural) home communities. The analysis highlights that such employment is not merely adding to women’s responsibilities, but transforming how they are able to undertake social reproduction, as practical, social and emotional roles are converted to largely financial obligations.     

COVID-19 is expanding global consciousness and the sustainability of travel and tourism

Abstract

The sustainable development model has largely failed to address the social and environmental challenges of the 21^st century. True sustainability will only occur when it is valued as a part of the taken-for-granted daily life of individuals and cultures across the globe. This has not yet happened because humanity has not evolved a global consciousness quickly enough to match the global advances in telecommunications and transportation technologies that have created a socially and economically ever-shrinking planet. Travel and tourism contributes to the expansion of global consciousness, although only in a haphazard and unintentional manner. The COVID-19 pandemic is a result of planetary time-space compression and is forcing an expansion in human consciousness that will make humankind better able to address global problems. There will still be considerable diversity on the planet, as now, but the pandemic will stimulate growing numbers of people, businesses and governments to adopt new ways of thinking, behaving and operating that are more closely aligned with the goals of sustainable development. This could be further enhanced if travel and tourism were to adopt the expansion and awakening of global conscious as a fundamental and transformational value in the products and experiences that it offers.     

Playing and affective time-spaces

In this paper I have two objectives. The first is to critically explore definitions of playing that have underpinned a great deal of research in children's geography. In so doing I want to highlight some of the assumptions that various authors within geography have made (often implicitly) about the ontological status of playing. This will in turn, lead me to work with, between and sometimes against three authors who have tried to theorize playing. In following this route, I hope to come to some tentative conclusions about the status of playing, which paradoxically will eschew any (strong) ontological commitment at all. This leads to my second objective, which is to explore four particular aspects of playing—embodiment, affect, objects and time-space—to examine how they are interleaved with spaces and spacing. In necessarily situating this work within my research at Hilltop Primary School1 1. This is a pseudonym, used as part of a confidentiality agreement signed with the school. View all notes in the summer of 2001, I hope to show that geographical studies can contribute to definitions of playing as much as playing can inflect certain notions of space.     

"时空缩减"背景下客源市场空间分布及演变趋势分析

距离因素是影响旅游地客源空间分布与演化的关键因素,现代交通技术的变革,信息化及网络技术的普及造成的时空汇聚使距离因素弱化。以距离因素的多维尺度特征为切入点,分析了“时空缩减”背景下的游客出游距离的变化趋势;构建旅游地客源市场演化的理论模型,用逆向思维的方法,探讨了旅游地吸引半径的变化动向;结合游客出游距离和旅游地吸引半径的演化趋势,阐述了旅游地客源市场的时空动态演化过程并剖析了其内在机理;最后通过实证研究对理论模型进行扩展和检验,为旅游地客源拓展提供了理论依据及实践参考。     

多尺度下中国人口老龄化风险集群的时空格局——Flexible空间扫描计量方法的应用

运用Flexible空间扫描计量方法,对比分析了省、市和县域尺度上的老龄化风险集群的时空格局。发现：老龄化成为全国人口结构转型的主旋律,少子化成为新常态,老龄化区域非均衡加剧,并存多种区域模式;三种尺度识别出的风险集群都集中分布于东南半壁;集群的风险程度与地域范围随时间不断扩大,但集群间的风险差异趋于缩小。总体而言,尺度越小,识别出的集群分布越分散,定位越精确,风险越高,差异越大。针对不同地区的人口-经济发展情况,提出保障生育,发展养老产业,基本公共服务均等化,就地、近城镇化等的老龄化风险应对策略。     

跨地区生计视角下流动人口在流出地住房投资行为的时空特征

基于流动人口流入地福建省的问卷调查数据与流出地河南、安徽两省的调研资料,采用生存分析方法、空间可视化与质性研究方法,探讨流动人口在流出地住房投资行为的时空特征和规律。研究发现：流动人口在流出地村庄内建房或在县城（镇）内购房是一较为普遍的现象,建房率明显大于购房率,且存在较为明显的住房闲置现象;在时间特征上,2005年以前的住房投资行为较少,而2005年以来渐多,购房比建房需经历更长的时间跨度,特定时期内的住房政策能推动流出地的住房投资行为;在空间特征上,流出地的住房投资行为存在区位优化选择倾向,且建房的跨地区生计走廊数量多于购房。最后,基于上述的研究结论,提出相关政策启示。     

基于集群理论的佛山禅城陶瓷产业转移时空演替机理研究

产业转移是一国或地区经济发展过程中的一种必然现象,随着我国珠江三角洲地区经济发展,产业结构升级已成为目前经济发展中重要课题。而产业转移是产业结构调整地域化的载体,是产业结构调整与升级的基本表现形式。普遍的观点认为产业集群使产业产生区域粘性,阻碍产业转移。然而本文从集群发展与升级的角度,认为中国最大的建筑陶瓷产业基地-佛山禅城的陶瓷集群在形成、发展与升级过程中存在着产业的空间转移,并发现佛山禅城陶瓷业转移在陶瓷产业集群发展与升级两个阶段表现出明显不同的特点:前者为"蔓延式扩散"、后者为"跳跃式转移"。并对两个时段的陶瓷产业转移的机理进行剖析,结果表明:市场才是驱动陶瓷产业转移的主要动力,而政府只是起了助推作用。     

广东入境旅游流西向扩散时空动态演变研究

广东入境旅游流的西向扩散是我国入境旅游流运动的一个缩影,其动态演变规律对了解我国入境旅游流运动模式具有重要意义。通过对扩散转移态、时间和空间分布集中指数及转移密度等的计算,对广东入境旅游流西向扩散的演变特征进行了定量描述和刻画。结论显示:广东入境旅游流西向扩散呈现随距离递减的特征,其动态扩散年际间变动不大,但空间集中性日益增强并流向旅游资源富集的省区,相应地这些省区入境游客的转移密度也较高。     

A CITY IN MOTION: TIME-SPACE ACTIVITY AND MOBILITY PATTERNS OF SUBURBAN INHABITANTS AND THE STRUCTURATION OF THE SPATIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE PRAGUE METROPOLITAN AREA

This contribution attempts to reveal the relations between new suburban areas and other parts of the Prague metropolitan area by investigating the time‐space activity and mobility patterns of the inhabitants of newly built suburban districts. The focus on some aspects of the everyday life of people in new suburbs helps us to identify the impact of suburbanization on the changing geography of the metropolitan region and to better understand how the spatial organization of the Prague metropolitan area is produced, reproduced and transformed. We use several interrelated concepts, which serve the theoretical foundation of our work, namely time geography, structuration theory and the post‐communist city. The empirical data utilized are primarily based on 262 diaries completed by eighty‐eight individuals from thirty‐eight households, accompanied by household questionnaires and interviews with the heads of households. The research confirmed the implicit, generally unspoken view that new suburbs in the Prague metropolitan region are heavily dependent on the core of the metropolitan area for the provision of jobs and services. However, newly built suburban shopping facilities to some extent disrupt this pattern, keeping some daily activities of inhabitants within the suburban zone. In addition to empirical observations, the key purpose of this contribution has been to discuss and apply time geography concepts and methods to the research of urban restructuring, and to understand the structuration of metropolitan spatial organization.     

生命历程视角下广州市居民日常出行的时空路径分析

作为一种研究方法,生命历程提供了一个概念框架旨在消弭宏观社会发展和个体生命成长之间的鸿沟,作为一种分析视角,生命历程展示了年龄在居民日常出行特征中所起到的重要作用。本文以广州市居民出行日志调查资料为基础,分析处于不同生命历程阶段中广州市居民的日常行为特征。研究结果表明,广州市居民的出行距离、花费时间和出行起始时间三个方面呈现出较为明显的生命历程特征,其中出现距离和花费时间随年龄变化呈现明显的"M"型曲线特征。在此基础上,文章以结婚和生小孩两个家庭性节点事件和住房体制改革等社会性节点事件为例,对出行生命历程的原因进行初步探讨。