Institutional Geography Research Articles

Youth on Streets and Bob-a-Job Week: Urban Geographies of Masculinity, Risk, and Home in Postwar Britain

After World War Two, youth in Britain was constructed as unruly, troublesome, and deviant, particularly in public urban space and streets. However, not all children and young people were discouraged from entering these environments or engaging with the general public. Drawing from literature published by the Boy Scout Association and a case study of Bob-a-Job Week in Britain launched in 1949, I examine the institutional geographies of responsibility, risk, and reward embedded in this youth activity, orchestrated by the most popular youth organisation in Britain. This fundraising scheme involved Boy Scouts completing domestic tasks for householders and encouraged uniformed youth to be visible, proficient, and useful. Significantly, this also took place in largely urban areas—complicating our understanding of scouting as an idealised ‘rural’ practice with camping as its central activity. Furthermore, this paper explores how this fundraising spectacle also functioned as a hybrid space that permitted ‘feminine’ domestic tasks as appropriate for ‘British boyhood’ until the scheme's eventual demise in the 1990s. Overall, the complex geographies of Bob-a-Job Week reveal how this organisation negotiated the boundaries between domestic and public space, providing an insight into broader constructions of youth and gender in the postwar period.

Open Brief*

To commence the thirtieth annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ), held on Australia's Gold Coast in July 2013, ten delegates were invited, with very little warning, to take five minutes and one image and offer a provocation on the open matters of architectural history in the present moment. The term 'open' was taken as the conference theme-a device used by SAHANZ meetings not so much to define the scope of papers presented as to declare the conference flavour year by year. It was not, therefore, an open conference ( anything goes) so much as a conference on open issues ( where, indeed, to go). The ten interlocutors were invited after the conference to document their interventions. They are presented here as a record of the preoccupations of a specific moment and a specific institutional geography, with all the idiosyncrasies and commonalities it might reveal to a broader audience.

New community in a new space: artificial, natural, created, contested. An idea from a golf estate in Johannesburg

Attention is constantly devoted to the question of living together and sharing spaces, which is often translated as a matter of social and spatial segregation and belonging to a community. New spatial, social and institutional geographies have emerged as a potential cornerstone of separateness and togetherness in South Africa with the emergence of the gated community. This article tackles the concept of “community” within the space of a golf estate (a type of gated community) located in the West Rand, Johannesburg. It aims to understand new geographies of the city through an analysis of the organisation and social life inside and outside the estate. The notion of community is explored by looking at the system engendered by the main legal actor within the estate, the Homeowners Association (HOA). It will be argued that some of these new spaces are made neutral through the action of the HOA, an agent that institutionally constructs a communitarian lifestyle, accepted and contested simultaneously by the residents. Through the formalisation of a system in which holiday-style living is promoted, life is represented as real to the residents but lived in a virtual way when linked to broader societal and urban changes, thus reframing the notion of segregation.

ORGANIZATIONAL GEOGRAPHY AND INSTITUTIONAL DUALITY IN THE DIFFUSION OF CSR PRACTICES

This study combines the concepts of institutional duality and organizational geography to add additional insights into the diffusion analysis of certifiable Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. We rely on institutional duality to explain the existence of diversity in organizational practices, rather than homogeneity as institutional isomorphism would predict. We propose geographically related organizational hypotheses to explain this duality. To study the question of institutional duality and persistence of two management practices, we use the case of certifiable CSR practices in Mexico, where two certifiable environmental programs have become institutionalized over the last 10 years.

Connecting scientific observations to stakeholder needs in sea ice social–environmental systems: the institutional geography of northern Alaska

The institutions governing sea ice system services in the Arctic are associated with particular places, species, and environments. Yet scholars rarely consider the way these associations may present barriers to, or facilitate, effective translation of scientific data into broadly available information for stakeholders to create and debate policy. In light of rapidly changing arctic environments how can data best be collected and disseminated to affected stakeholders as usable information to facilitate effective planning? This article explores the linkages between scientific data production and policy implementation related to sea ice loss in the Arctic. The rapid decline of arctic summer sea ice is currently tracked and studied intensively but a comprehensive approach to address the changes is lacking. Our work builds upon earlier research establishing the need to approach sea ice as a complex multi-jurisdictional geophysical–social–ecological feature from a services standpoint. Our research catalogs the geography of sea ice institutions in northern Alaska to demonstrate the fragmentation in data production and distribution. We then examine two case studies. The first is a newly established cross-scale information bridge improving sea-ice and weather information relevant to walrus hunting and management. The second is the case of the emerging arctic marine traffic regime. We argue that in order to maximize data production, dissemination, and participatory capacity across stakeholders: (1) scientific observations should be tied to institutional density and sea ice services, and (2) information bridges should exist across major institutional actors.

Corporate foundations in the mining industry: the relationship between responsible investment and social investment

This article explores the relationship between responsible investment (RI) initiatives in capital markets and lending institutions, and the performance of social investment as a specific form of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the mining industry. It focuses on how the nature of institutional investment initiatives encourages certain organizational structures for CSR activities. The argument is developed by exploring an inherent conflict between the business case motivations for CSR as promoted by RI initiatives, and the legitimacy of CSR activities being based on their performance-fulfilling normative CSR values. Corporate foundations in the mining industry provide the empirical context for examination. These organizations distribute the benefits of mining operations through social investment. They are – interestingly – both connected to their sponsoring mining firms and yet self-governed. The organizational form of corporate foundations works as a strategic response to RI initiatives because the form allows social investment practices at a distance from the corporation to maintain its normative legitimacy and thus create the CSR desired by investors. Framed by an institutional economic geography lens, this organizational dynamic indicates that the inherent conflict in RI initiatives produces greater attention to the form of delivery of CSR than to its functions.

Institutional and Evolutionary Economic Geography

Evolutionary theory has been regarded as a promising paradigm in economic geography but it has not yet taken off due to the paucity of theoretical and empirical work. This paper develops an analytic approach – the institutional and evolutionary economic geography - to examine how geography matters to the evolution of institutions that govern the commons as an economic unit. This approach is then applied to an interesting case study from the Philippines to illustrate the evolution of ingenious institutions based on principles of equity, legitimacy and adaptive efficiency. It concludes with implications for the study of institutional and evolutionary economic geography.

The Geography of Economic Inequality, Institutions and Party System Territorialization

This paper tackles a familiar question in the study of parties and party systems: why some countries develop party systems dominated by regional or local parties whereas other countries have party systems dominated by parties with broad national constituencies and broad programmatic appeals (Cox 1997, 2003; Chhibber and Kollman 2004; Hicken 2009; Morgenstern 2009). Scholars have mostly focused on institutions to explain variation in the territorial structure of party systems. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the societal structure under which these institutions operate. This paper points to this theoretical gap, and argues that societal preferences and especially the geographic distribution of these preferences are important to understand the incentives of candidates and voters to coordinate across districts. I explore this claim by focusing on the geography of economic preferences. I show that an uneven distribution of income across regions in a country creates incentives for candidates and voters to go regional. Furthermore, I show that the effect of an unequal geography of income can be mitigated by loose/weakly disciplined party organizations. In sum, I show that contrary to the expectations of scholars, institutions seldom have a direct effect on the territorial nature of party systems; instead, how preferences are distributed in space (in interaction with institutions) better explains the strategies of candidates and voters to coordinate across territorial units.

Institutional geographies in dying: Nurses’ actions and observations on dying spaces inside and outside intensive care units

This paper articulates the geographies associated with intensive care nursing work with dying patients and their families. Six focus groups were conducted with 27 registered critical care nurses who practice in hospitals in a mid-western city in the United States. The analysis is structured by three emerging themes (i) the importance of a ‘good’ and ‘sacred’ place, (ii) the body as mapped by medical specialties, and (iii) problems with procedurally driven suspension of ‘do not resuscitate’ orders beyond intensive care units (ICUs). Recommendations describe the need for institutional recognition of the moral importance of strong relationships between nurses, clients, and their families, and nurses’ wide-ranging roles in bridging the various spatial domains of intensive care.

Putting Geography in Its Place

The ‘place’ of Geography in Higher Education Institutions reflects the outcome of a range of social practices that in some locations have enabled the discipline to grow and prosper and elsewhere have forced it to struggle and even disappear. It is argued that local practices are of particular importance, but are often ignored in the history of Geography. The paper also asks the question ‘Why should a University have a Geography Department?’ and offers some answers from the local context of 75 years of Geography at the University of Dundee.

Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools

A growing interest in the geographies of schooling has led to an exploration of a variety of school spaces. An increasing number of secondary schools offer internal fixed‐term exclusions so that temporary removal from school is not seen as ‘time off’ for students. This particular strategy has led to the creation of a new type of space in schools. Drawing upon research undertaken in a London secondary school, this paper explores the geography of these new secluded spaces. We highlight that the configuration of physical space in Seclusion Units and the regulation of spatial practices create highly controlled and segregated spaces of punishment. We explore the powerful transformative effects of these spaces to change students' behaviour, social interaction and attitudes to learning. However, rather than simply creating docile subjects, we recognise that domination is never complete and we explore the extent and the limit of student resistance to the discipline and control of the Seclusion Unit.

Thematic networks as toolboxes: The case of the HERODOT Network for Geography in Europe

In some countries, Geography is struggling to survive as a subject as other disciplines develop and absorb geographical thoughts and methods into them. The survival of Geography in schools and higher education institutions is critical to the understanding of world phenomena, particularly in view of the problems with climate change, global warming and globalisation among others. There is very little understanding of the importance and role of geography in modern societies. This paper looks at the role of the HERODOT thematic network as a toolbox for the promotion of geography. By analysing the current state of geography promotion across higher education institutions, the Network aims to provide a toolbox of materials to support teachers and academics, but also parents, students and the general public to understand the role of geography in society. This is achieved through a number of initiatives, particularly the development of the GEOCUBE. This paper concludes by arguing the importance of such Networks in providing tools for the promotion and awareness of geography.

Sovereignty in the Era of Global Capitalism: The Rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Power of Finance

Over the past few decades, the institutional logics of the capitalist market and the bureaucratic state have been pushed into association at an increasing rate through processes we have come to know as ‘globalization’ and ‘financialization’. The power of financial markets threatens governments around the world, from the communist to the most conservative. In response, governments have sought ways of realizing their interests in a rapidly changing economic environment. Nothing illustrates this phenomenon more than the rise of sovereign wealth funds; governments have been using these special purpose vehicles to invest assets in private financial markets at an increasing rate, independent of their variety of capitalism. While SWFs are an implicit acceptance by the state of the power of finance, they are, however, also an attempt by the state to leverage finance and filter global capitalism’s transformative forces. Drawing on institutional theory and economic geography, the paper conceptualizes the impetus behind SWFs’ existence, and concludes that SWFs exist to preserve local autonomy and state sovereignty by harnessing the power of finance.

THE IMPACT OF THE INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT ON THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Economic literature recognizes three “deep determinants” of economic development: institutions, geography and openness to trade. Discussion in the literature focuses on what part of the income per capita variation can be explained by institutions, geography and openness to trade. The empirical results can’t offer a clear answer, but there is a broader agreement in the literature that institutions play a more important role than geography and openness to trade. What is unclear whether the institutions also can explain variation in per capita income across countries, in which institutional environment is to some degree similar..This article aims to explore and quantify the relationship of the income level with institutional environment, geography and openness to trade across countries, grouped according their institutional environment quality.The results reveal that extent to which the variation in GDP per capita can be associated with the quality of institutional environment differs a lot between good and bad institutional environment samples. The results in good institutional environment sample come in line with series of studies in which the strong and positive link between various measures of institutions and economic development was established and support primacy of institutions over openness to trade and geography. I In bad institutional environment sample, on the contrary,no evidence was found that institutions mean a lot in respect of differences in GDP per capita. These results should not be interpreted so as to mean that institutional environment is not important, rather the degree of “badness” makes no difference.

Economic development and the geography of institutions

To explain cross-country income differences, research has recently focused on the so-called deep determinants of economic development, notably institutions and geography. This article shows that it is not only absolute geography, in terms of for instance climate or being landlocked, but also relative geography, the spatial linkages between countries, that matters for a country's GDP per capita. More specifically, we analyze the importance of the geography of institutions. We show that apart from its own institutions, the institutional quality in neighboring countries is also important for a country's economic development. This finding is robust to various alternative specifications of relative geography, sample size and the inclusion of additional controls.

The Power of Finance: Global Influence with Local Differences

Once a key human resource tool for tying workers to the firm for life, final salary defined benefit (DB) pensions today are outmoded and increasingly costly corporate burdens and are now in decline. However, the transformation of DB is found to be contingent on the institutional setting in which transformation occurs. In this paper we offer a modest conceptualization of the interplay between global pressures for change and convergence (e.g. accounting harmonization) and the local institutional environment and geography that filters these forces in the context of DB pensions. We demonstrate this behavior through analyses of DB transformation and decline in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.A subsequent version of this paper appears in the Journal of Economic Geography under the title: 'The power of finance: accounting harmonization’s effect on pension provision.'

What does tacit knowledge actually explain?

The concept of tacit knowledge has come a long way from its origins in Michael Polanyi's work and its championing by Hayek and other Austrian economists. It is now widely, even routinely, cited not only in Austrian economics, but also in institutional economics work, industrial economics and economic geography. Further, rather than being viewed as a hypothesis requiring conceptual clarification and empirical testing, the concept of tacit knowledge is almost invariably treated as established, even incontrovertible, virtually as a fact. Conceptual disputes over tacit knowledge have instead focused on the boundaries between codifiable and tacit knowledge. Here we draw upon a critique of tacit knowledge and tacit rule following from the social philosophy literature that has not been considered in the economics literature hitherto. In brief, this critique argues that the concept of tacit knowledge is merely a term given to a phenomenon the observer does not understand; as such, it has no explanatory content. Through a philosophical examination of rule following, this critique further argues that the concept of agents tacitly following rules is highly problematic, not to say implausible.

Bases teóricas do projeto Geo-Escola: uso de computador para ensino de Geociências

The Geo-School project offers digital didactic materials to teachers of basic education of a given region. The material in CD-ROM comprises geologic data, images and maps. Three pilot-modules were developed at the basic- and medium-levels of education (the Brazilian basic education) in the Sao Paulo State: Jundiai-Atibaia, Sao Jose do Rio Preto and Campinas. The research has been started from an inquiry to teachers of Sciences and Geography of public and private educational institutions about themes that should be emphazised in classroom. After the themes are prioritized the resulting interaction involves lectures, theoretical-practical courses and fieldwork. The enrolled teachers have demanded a broader professional qualifying because they have been challenged to approach some interdisciplinary concepts as the terrestrial dynamics, water cycle and rock cycle. The project also reveals that teaching of geology / geosciences should play an active role to help forming a culture of sustainability. Education should allow any individual to recognize what the planet is, how it functions and the way life relationships develop, both in time and space. In a broad sense, Geosciences (as the modern conception of Earth System Science) may help students to construct an idea on mechanisms of planetary evolution and on the permanent interaction between the Earth spheres. The use of computers in education may explore visual language, which is strongly connected to geologic reasoning, as well as some typical methodological procedures of Geology, as multiple explanatory hypotheses, scientific descriptions, historical and analogical reasoning. This requires more incentive towards teacher training programs. Many specialists of the national community of Geology are the most capable people to decode principal concepts from a great volume of available information. Promoting interaction with teachers seems to open promising opportunities for diffusion of Geosciences.

Bases teóricas do projeto Geo-Escola: uso de computador para ensino de Geociências

The Geo-School project offers digital didactic materials to teachers of basic education of a given region. The material in CD-ROM comprises geologic data, images and maps. Three pilot-modules were developed at the basic- and medium-levels of education (the Brazilian basic education) in the São Paulo State: Jundiaí-Atibaia, São José do Rio Preto and Campinas. The research has been started from an inquiry to teachers of Sciences and Geography of public and private educational institutions about themes that should be emphazised in classroom. After the themes are prioritized the resulting interaction involves lectures, theoretical-practical courses and fieldwork. The enrolled teachers have demanded a broader professional qualifying because they have been challenged to approach some interdisciplinary concepts as the terrestrial dynamics, water cycle and rock cycle. The project also reveals that teaching of geology / geosciences should play an active role to help forming a culture of sustainability. Education should allow any individual to recognize what the planet is, how it functions and the way life relationships develop, both in time and space. In a broad sense, Geosciences (as the modern conception of Earth System Science) may help students to construct an idea on mechanisms of planetary evolution and on the permanent interaction between the Earth spheres. The use of computers in education may explore visual language, which is strongly connected to geologic reasoning, as well as some typical methodological procedures of Geology, as multiple explanatory hypotheses, scientific descriptions, historical and analogical reasoning. This requires more incentive towards teacher training programs. Many specialists of the national community of Geology are the most capable people to decode principal concepts from a great volume of available information. Promoting interaction with teachers seems to open promising opportunities for diffusion of Geosciences.

Manufacturing Culture: The Institutional Geography of Industrial Practice – By Meric Gertler

Manufacturing Culture: The Institutional Geography of Industrial Practice – By Meric Gertler