Landscapes Of Desire Research Articles

The influence of landscape context on the distribution of flightless mammals in exurban developments

Broad-acre subdivisions constitute an increasing form of residential development known as exurbia. Despite significant impacts on biodiversity, exurbia is critically understudied in Australia. Exurban developments are distributed non-uniformly around city margins and are typically clustered adjacent to desirable landscape elements, such as forests and water. Forested peninsulas are thus popular sites for exurban development. Developments on these relatively insular regions have the potential to reduce local populations of species with limited dispersal capabilities and an aversion to exurbia. Two exurban regions of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, one a peninsula and one inland, were surveyed for flightless mammals using spotlight observations and a survey of landowners. The frequencies of mammals within exurbia were compared with their frequencies in wildlands and tested against life history traits. Within the exurbanised peninsula, there were disproportionately fewer individuals of species with large home range sizes. Overall, two very fecund species, including a threatened native bandicoot, Perameles gunnii, were more frequent in exurbia than in wildlands. We cannot conclude that any of female body mass, female home range size and fecundity can provide consistently strong predictions of the likelihood of negative or positive effects of urbanisation, but we can conclude that each of these variables can be predictive within particular regional and faunal contexts. We suggest that, until further information is gained, planners could use fecundity as a predictor of mammal survival in exurbia, except where the exurban area is isolated from other areas that contain native vegetation, in which case, female home range negatively predicts survival.

European cloth and "tropical" skin: clothing material and British ideas of health and hygiene in tropical climates.

As Britain's imperial and colonial ambitions intensified toward the end of the nineteenth century, the preservation of white European health in tropical climates became an increasingly important concern. Since at least the seventeenth century, the "tropics" had been seen as spaces holding vast potential wealth but also death and disease. To combat these deadly but desirable landscapes, the British built a considerable commodity culture around the preservation of white European health, and for many, tropical clothing was one of the most important and essential items in their "kits." This article investigates the composition and use of such clothing in relation to British ideas of health and hygiene in tropical climates. First, it considers debates that ensued over the best material--wool, cotton, linen, silk, or a combination of these materials--and the role of "black" skin and local practice in the development of tropical clothing. Second, it demonstrates the importance of location in any discussion of tropical medicine and hygiene, and the tension and ambiguity that still surrounded British ideas of health and hygiene in the tropical colonies. Third, it argues that tropical clothing was important in the maintenance of climatic etiologies despite advances in parasitology and sanitary science. Finally, it considers the relationship of tropical clothing to the formation of a unique colonial identity. To British men and women embarking for any number of tropical destinations, proper clothing was not a banal and mundane component of their outfitting. For many, the clothing signified a departure from the safe and "civil" climes of Britain for adventure in the expanding tropical empire.

An integrated approach for ex-ante evaluation of public policies for sustainable agriculture at landscape level

An integrated methodological framework for ex-ante evaluation and planning of public policies for sustainable agriculture at agro-landscape level is proposed. The components of the framework are to: (1) determine the private, i.e. farmers’, and public benefits associated to agro-landscapes, consisting of an agricultural land-use system, according to its performance for several market and non-market functions. Market forces determine the market benefits and preferences of society the non-market benefits; (2) explore and select potential sustainable agro-landscapes based on the private and public benefits associated with possible land-use alternatives; (3) define efficient public policy mechanisms for improving social net benefit of agro-landscapes. The framework is illustrated with a case study in a small dairy farming dominated agro-landscape in The Netherlands, with gross margin, landscape quality, nature value and environmental health as the analysed ecosystem functions. Alternative landscapes consisting of hedgerow configurations and grassland management practices were explored, yielding a set of alternatives representing the solution space in terms of change in private and public benefits. Policy mechanisms were defined to move from the current to a desired landscape based on changes in social net benefits. Moreover, the necessity of a modification in the current agri-environmental support was analysed for each landscape. The analysis considered all farmers in the agro-landscape jointly. The results for the case study showed potential prototypes of landscapes and their performance compared to the current landscape. Extension was the most efficient policy mechanism to promote the change to the socially optimum landscape alternative.

Music in the Fields: Constructing Narratives of the Late 19 th Century Hawaiian Plantation Cultural Landscape

Musical lyrics can infuse semantic breath and cultural meaning to particular localities, helping to transform abstract environments into specific and definable places . Despite this, the literature of geography has been slow to conceptualize and systematically study musical lyrics as source material to decipher the social context for the production and consumption of music with any rigueur. To partially address this gap, this paper is theoretically underpinned first by more contemporary discourses on the “contested” nature intrinsic to cultural landscapes. Secondly, it draws on the small body of literature of music geography seeking to explore music as a means of exploring social-cultural contexts. Methodologically, this paper then employs discourse analysis to explore as case study the limited set of published lyrics of hole hole bushi , the music of Japanese plantation workers in late 19th century Hawai‘i. The imagined and constructed cultural landscapes of this immigrant group are extrapolated from their own lyrical narratives to show, in example, conceptual shifts in their constructions of “landscapes of desire” and “landscapes of despair.” Overall, this paper links the existing frameworks of cultural and music geography in applying musical lyrics as source material for teasing out historical narratives centered in the perception, construction, and interaction with the cultural landscapes of people in a highly contested place .

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Second-Rate Stories? Changing Approaches to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Second-Rate Stories? Changing Approaches to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Christian Oster: From Courtly Love to Modern Malaise

Even a cursory glance at Christian Oster's work shows an author hard at work drafting a new lover's map. From Volley-ball (1989) to Mon grand appartement (1999), Oster aimed to redefine the landscape of desire for a postmodern and post-romantic environment. If anything, his most recent production has not deviated from this goal. Indeed, Une femme de menage (A Maid) (2001), Dans le train (In the Train) (2002), Les rendez-vous (2003), and L'imprevu (The Unforeseen) (2005), set the stage for an even more rigorous investigation of love, its vagaries, and modus operandi. 1 Of course, the type of love that Oster investigates is a far cry from the fatuous sentimentality of Hallmark cards and contemporary telenovellas. Rather, it is a love anchored in the domestic and the trivial. It is a minimal love, more concerned with the mundane inner workings of the human heart (ludus), and remarkably unconcerned with pathos (mania). It is a love tempered by stoicism; this love does not amount to indifference, but seeks freedom from passion, which, etymologically, incorporates anguish and suffering. In his most recent works, Oster has gone to great pains to expound an Ars Amatoria that, unsurprisingly, draws from a familiar historical model: courtly love. Eros has always played a crucial part in Oster's fiction, but even more so in his current output. In his last novels, we encounter the same amiable losers, always looking for love, drifting between the loss of a former lover and the desire for a new one. Mihaela Voicu has argued that in Chretien de Troyes' Lancelot —and by extension, in all courtly love narratives—the hero is driven by a single thought, and that… all his acts are subordinated to his amorous contemplation. 2 Love, then, becomes the hero's idee fixe; it is all he thinks and seemingly cares about. And yet, that love cannot be consummated, lest the noble lover dishonor the object of his amorous longing, and himself in the process; one could argue that courtly love narratives cease to embody fine amor once love passes from desire to attainment. Thus it is incompleteness and lack that remain the mainstays of courtly love romances. In Lancelot, the eponymous hero conceives a passion for Queen Guenevere, though she is married to King Arthur and, in other

The Treachery Of Wetness

A number of prominent critics have observed that Irish Studies is a practice configured by a sense of crisis. In Irish Classics Declan Kiberd notes that ‘Irish Studies, for all its hopes of academi...

In the Cut

Abstract Jane Campion's newest film, In the Cut, confounded critics, as it leaves her familiar territory of Anglo Australia and a high literary mode for New York City and the pop culture associations of a slasher/thriller. Transcending genre, the screenplay and cinematography unconventionally render a psychic landscape of female desire and romantic longing surviving in a male urban wasteland.

Effect of dendroremediation incentives on the profitability of short-rotation woody cropping of Eucalyptus grandis

Abstract Reclamation of municipal wastewater is one of the growing concerns of expanding urban centers. Tree crops are thought to provide not only an effective remediation solution but also a desirable rural landscape in the wildland–urban interface (WUI). Economic incentives can contribute to the economic viability of dendroremediation of reclaimed water in the WUI. A modified Faustmann optimization model has been applied to address the dendroremediation of municipal wastewater under Eucalyptus grandis coppice systems. Results suggest that each $1 kg− 1 N increase in the dendroremediation incentive increases forestland value by $223–376 ha− 1 ($90–152 acre− 1), depending on the interest rate and site productivity. Profitability is highly sensitive to the cost of irrigation and the growth function, both of which might be controllable. Accounting for the dendroremediation service as a flow benefit rather than a stock benefit increases net returns by $61–64 ha− 1 ($25–26 acre− 1) and $138–148 ha− 1 ($56–60 acre− 1) assuming dendroremediation incentives of $1.50 and $3.50 kg− 1 N, respectively.

Ecological and social evaluation of landscape in a rural area with terraced paddies in southwestern Japan

Since the 1960s, improving socio-economic conditions in rural Japan have led to the rise in man-made or man-shaped landscapes, which has in turn resulted in formerly abundant species becoming endangered. In order to conserve biodiversity in rural areas, former agricultural landscapes must be conserved. The problem is that ecologically appropriate landscapes are not always compatible with the needs of local residents or land owners. Prior to carrying out any particular conservation measures, regional landscape management must consider both ecological and social approaches and present acceptable approach-specific management goals in an open and transparent manner. This study, undertaken in the Ohaga district of southwestern Japan, a typical rural area with terraced paddy fields, sought to develop a framework for evaluating regional resources from a landscape ecology perspective. Monitoring the temporal change of landscape structures and vegetation revealed the presence of habitats, such as the pine forest and grasslands bordering the rice paddies, which harbour specific plant species or populations, some now endangered. From a social standpoint, questionnaires revealed that local inhabitants wanted landscape management options which would conserve the pine forest, paddy fields and levee grasslands. Local farmers thought that the landscape should be used and managed as a rural park, rather than for agricultural purposes. These desirable landscape element types can serve as targets for conservation, but ultimately a new system of agricultural management must be developed to sustain the rural landscape.

Queering Homoerotic Desire, Silence, and Violence in Zeno Wilde's Blue Jeans: A Performance-Sensitive Reading for the Twenty-first Century

In Blue Jeans, Brazilian playwright Zeno Wilde pits a middle-class male homosexual against a series of young hustlers, but preemptively and inexplicably silences the former to foreground the socioeconomic underpinnings of prostitution. In this essay, I argue that, in front of an audience, the queer landscape of desire and identity which Wilde creates through the hustlers' confessional stories transforms the homosexual protagonist's silence into a powerful rhetorical and performative space. In the final part of the essay, I read the death of the voiceless "faggot" in juxtaposition with the play's erotic epilogue to reclaim Blue Jeans's potential as a powerful and necessary protest in opposition to the violence perpetrated against homosexuals and other members of the queer community in Brazil today.

Landscape of Desire: Identity and Nature in Utah's Canyon Country

Journal Article Landscape of Desire: Identity and Nature in Utah's Canyon Country Get access Landscape of Desire: Identity and Nature in Utah's Canyon Country. By Gordon Greg. (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2003. xii + 213 pp. Charts, tables, bibliography. $39.95, cloth; $19.95, paper.) Peter H. DeLafosse Peter H. DeLafosse Salt Lake City, Utah Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 35, Issue 2, Summer 2004, Pages 228–229, https://doi.org/10.2307/25442976 Published: 01 May 2004

Response of Individual Plant Actual Evapotranspiration to Canopy Closure: A Three Dimensional Model Derived from Viburnum odoratissimum

ng production and in landscapes, woody plants are initially spaced apart to develop to desirable landscape quality. As plants grow and canopies begin to interact, canopies transform from individual isolated canopies to one large, closed canopy system. Changes in individual plant actual evapotranspiration (ETA) during the transitions between isolated and closed canopies are 30% on average. Such changes can have a substantial impact on supplemental irrigation requirements, both decreasing with closure and increasing with random removal of plants from a closed canopy. Data will be presented demonstrating changes in ETA as canopy closure progresses from isolated plants through 33%, 67%, and 100% canopy closure. Concurrent data from plants of marketable size grown in 3.8, 10.4, and 26.6 L containers were used to evaluate effects of canopy vertical thickness, and total canopy height, on the changes in ETA relative to degree of canopy closure. Contributions to ETA at 100% canopy closure and isolated plants from leaves at various depths within a canopy will be discussed.

Landscape of Desire: Identity and Nature in Utah's Canyon Country

Landscape of Desire: Identity and Nature in Utah's Canyon Country

Nature's Domain: Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire (review)

Nature's Domain: Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire (review)

The field as a landscape of desire: sex and sexuality in geographical fieldwork

This article calls for greater attention to be paid to the way that sex and sexuality impact on geographical fieldwork. By concentrating in particular on cross–cultural fieldwork, the article focuses on the ways in which attention to these questions has the potential to bring about greater self–reflexivity and to expose the contingency of the researcher's sexuality.

Pleasure, Politics, and the “Public Interest”: Melbourne's Riverscape Revitalization

As global forces have reshaped urban landscapes over the past 2 decades, cities have typically responded with a range of “spectacular” developments, the most common of which have been waterfront projects. In this article we describe the transformation of Melbourne's urban riverscape from an industrial junkyard into a postindustrial “landscape of desire.” A primary concern is identifying winners and losers in this restructuring. To this end, we resurrect and redefine the concept of the public interest. In Melbourne, the production of signature projects geared to global place marketing coincided with a collapse of democratic public planning. Urban development became design driven, more seductive, and more secretive. Urban planning practice was restructured along with the urban landscape.

The botany of desire: a plant's eye view of the world

A farmer cultivates genetically modified potatoes so that a customer at McDonald's half a world away can enjoy a long, golden french fry. A gardener plants tulip bulbs in the autumn and in the spring has a riotous patch of colour to admire. Two simple examples of how humans act on nature to get what we want. Or are they? What if those potatoes and tulips have evolved to gratify certain human desires so that humans will help them multiply? What if, in other words, these plants are using us just as we use them? In blending history, memoir and superb science writing, Pollan tells the story of four domesticated species - the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato. All four plants are integral to our everyday lives and Pollan demonstrates how each has thrived by satisfying one of humankind's most basic desires. Weaving fascinating anecdote and accessible science, Pollan takes the reader on an absorbing journey through the landscape of botany and desire. It is a journey that will change the way we think about our place in nature

Shadows in the Sun: Travels to Landscapes of Spirit and Desire

Shadows in the Sun: Travels to Landscapes of Spirit and Desire

Review: Landscapes of Desire: Anglo Mythologies of Los Angeles, by William Alexander McClung and Eden by Design: The 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew Plan for the Los Angeles Region, by Greg Hise and William Deverell

Review: <i>Landscapes of Desire: Anglo Mythologies of Los Angeles</i>, by William Alexander McClung and <i>Eden by Design: The 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew Plan for the Los Angeles Region</i>, by Greg Hise and William Deverell