Relevance Of Geography Research Articles

EPISTEMIC WOUNDED ATTACHMENTS: RECOVERING DEFINITIONAL SUBJECTIVITY THROUGH COLONIAL LIBRARIES

ABSTRACTPostcolonial theorizing on empires and subjects focuses on governance and infrastructure as relevant geographies of relation. However, when governance‐driven knowledge production migrates from colony to metropole, what postcolonial subjectivity formations are recovered from colonial archives, particularly if these archives are structured by epistemic difference? We theorize a wounded attachment to a colonial library, or the construction of subjectivity through colonial archival recovery, as a means of transforming a colonial library of governance into an academic discipline. Through the case study of Sikh studies, a discipline originating out of colonial governance of Sikhs, we argue that epistemic difference is transformed into epistemic distancing as a tool by which scholars pursue legibility to the Euro‐American academy. We contextualize the ongoing investment in measures of academic legibility (for example, objectivity, distance, and validity) as how area and region are tied to the production of universal knowledge; these measures result in the elision of embodied knowledge as a valid framework for intellectual pursuit.

Mapping for Awareness of Indigenous Stories

Joseph Kerski has identified five converging global trends—geo-awareness, geo-enablement, geotechnologies, citizen science, and storytelling—which contribute to the increased relevance of geography for education and society. While these trends are discussed by Kerski in the context of the proliferating significance of geography in teaching and education, they also provide a useful lens for considering the increasing ubiquity of critical approaches to cartography both in general and in the context of teaching and education, where mapping can include participatory collaborations with individuals from a variety of knowledge communities and extend to the mapping of experiences, emotions, and Indigenous perspectives. In this paper, we consider these trends and related ideas such as Kerski’s “geoliteracy” and metaliteracy in light of some relatively current examples and in light of the evolution of research and teaching linked with a series of interrelated map-based projects and courses that take a multidimensional approach to teaching and learning about the Residential Schools Legacy in Canada.

Placing a housing lens on neighbourhood disadvantage, socioeconomic position and mortality

Placing a housing lens on neighbourhood disadvantage, socioeconomic position and mortality

Geography and embeddedness in city networks

ABSTRACT This research assesses the empirical relevance of geography as a driver of the position of the nodes within a city network. We first propose a measure of the strength of network ties between municipalities based on the observed migratory flows and compute network centrality indexes to characterize the degree of embeddedness of each place. Second, we filter the network ties to account for the fact that a non-negligible fraction of the flows is induced by geographical proximity and, therefore, do not accurately measure the strength of the relationship between places. The empirical results (data from Spanish municipalities for the period 2001–16) suggest that network ties between municipalities, beyond those directly related to geographical proximity, explain, on average, about a third of network centrality.

Contextualizing powerful geographic knowledge in higher education: Data-driven curriculum design to interweave student aspirations with workforce applications

This article describes a data-driven approach to contextualize geography subject matter using student aspirations and workforce data. To test this teaching strategy, undergraduate students in two world geography courses taught at Texas State University were surveyed and interviewed about their career and life aspirations. Using this information, the course instructor selected relevant geography resources and applications using workforce data obtained from a sample of geographers employed in private and public sectors. Over the semester, students encountered those applications through class presentations, videos, and individual advising sessions. At the end, students completed a post-test survey. Resulting datasets offered the instructor a means to reflect upon and select geographic content that is accessible and applicable to what students aspire to be and do in the future. Analysis of the pre- and post-test survey data indicate positive gains in student attitudes but suggest additional culturally relevant pedagogical enhancements are needed to account for student diversity and context. The article concludes with a critical assessment of how future instructors might leverage aspirations and workforce data to address the underrepresentation of women and minorities in the discipline and workforce.

A utilização do jogo eletrônico nas aulas de Geografia: relatos de experiência

RESUMO: Apesar da relevância da Geografia na educação de sujeitos autônomos, críticos e conscientes de seu papel social, ela ainda é vista como uma disciplina mnemônica e enfadonha. Nesse sentido, cabe ao docente mostrar a importância da Geografia enquanto disciplina escolar e buscar meios de favorecer um processo de ensino-aprendizagem mais dinâmico, atraente e prazeroso, sendo os jogos um forte aliado da Geografia nesse processo. Assim sendo, o objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar um relato de experiência na utilização do aplicativo Roleta das Decisões nas aulas de Geografia, vivenciado durante o Estágio Supervisionado II do curso de Licenciatura em Geografia da Universidade Federal de Alagoas (UFAL), em uma turma de segundo ano do Ensino Médio. O desenvolvimento da atividade promoveu, de uma forma diferente do habitual, a revisão do conteúdo e ajudou a estimular a participação e interação dos estudantes através da aplicação do jogo eletrônico em sala de aula.
 PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Estágio Supervisionado, Jogo Eletrônico, Ensino de Geografia.

Critical approaches, integration of research and relevance of geography

Critical approaches, integration of research and relevance of geography

Wondering about …. Geography—Its nature and its relevance?

In the context of the current review of New Zealand's National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), the paper reflects on the nature and relevance of geography in education, life and work. The context of school geography programmes is critically examined, and a checklist of points for further consideration and action is presented.

Macroregional sociolinguistics: Uses and preferences on null direct objects in Spanish

AbstractThis article explores two fundamental dimensions in sociolinguistics: the dynamics of linguistic variation and change in international languages and the exploitation of data proceeding from significant countries. These issues will be addressed through examination of a particular syntactic feature and a possible change in progress: the occurrence of null direct objects in Spanish. It is shown that for Spanish, a widely used international language, social factors have not been decisive in explaining the distribution of the phenomenon under investigation. This study shows that while direct object omission is not conditioned by typical social variables such as sex, age, and gender, it is unevenly spread throughout the Spanish-speaking world: Mexico and the continental Caribbean use it more than other countries, such as Spain or Chile. Besides the relevance of geography, some semantic, discourse, and contextual factors are shown as determinant for the direct object omission. Finally, this paper reflects on methodology, specifically the use of a macroregional sociolinguistic method for data analysis as well as the advantages and shortcomings of a specific data collection technique that capitalizes on technological tools with global reach: the internet survey in an international scenario.

Biomass yield in a genetically diverse Miscanthus sinensis germplasm panel evaluated at five locations revealed individuals with exceptional potential

AbstractTo breed improved biomass cultivars of Miscanthus ×giganteus, it will be necessary to select the highest‐yielding and best‐adapted genotypes of its parental species, Miscanthus sinensis and Miscanthus sacchariflorus. We phenotyped a diverse clonally propagated panel of 569 M. sinensis and nine natural diploid M. ×giganteus at one subtropical (Zhuji, China) and five temperate locations (Sapporo, Japan; Leamington, Ontario, Canada; Fort Collins, CO; Urbana, IL; and Chuncheon, Korea) for dry biomass yield and 14 yield‐component traits, in trials grown for 3 years. Notably, dry biomass yield of four Miscanthus accessions exceeded 80 Mg/ha in Zhuji, China, approaching the highest observed for any land plant. Additionally, six M. sinensis in Sapporo, Japan and one in Leamington, Canada also yielded more than the triploid M. ×giganteus ‘1993‐1780’ control, with values exceeding 20 Mg/ha. Diploid M. ×giganteus was the best‐yielding group at the northern sites. Genotype‐by‐environment interactions were modest among the five northern trial sites but large between Zhuji, and the northern sites. M. sinensis accessions typically yielded best at trial sites with latitudes similar to collection sites, although broad adaptation was observed for accessions from southern Japan. Genotypic heritabilities for third year yields ranged from 0.71 to 0.88 within locations. Compressed circumference was the best predictor of yield. These results establish a baseline of data for initiating selection to improve biomass yield of M. sinensis and M. ×giganteus in a diverse set of relevant geographies.

Spatial and Social Distance at the Onset of the Fertility Transition: Sweden, 1880\u20131900

Most studies on the fertility transition have focused either on macro-level trends or on micro-level patterns with limited geographic scope. Much less attention has been given to the interplay between individual characteristics and contextual conditions, including geographic location. Here we investigate the relevance of geography and socioeconomic status for understanding fertility variation in the initial phase of the Swedish fertility transition. We conduct spatially sensitive multilevel analyses on full-count individual-level census data. Our results show that the elite constituted the vanguard group in the fertility decline and that the shift in fertility behavior occurred quickly among them in virtually all parts of Sweden. Other socioeconomic status groups experienced the decline with some delay, and their decline patterns were more clustered around early centers of the decline. Long-distance migrants initially had higher fertility than people living close to their birthplace. However, as the fertility decline unfolded, this advantage was either reduced or reversed. This supports the view that migration and fertility are linked in this process. Our results confirm that socioeconomic status differences were of considerable relevance in structuring the fertility transition. The degree to which spatial distance fostered spatial variation in the fertility decline seems to have been negatively correlated with socioeconomic status, with the pattern of decline among the elite showing the lowest degree of spatial variation.

The Land and Maritime Delimitation of the Court of The Hague in the Affairs of Costa Rica v. Nicaragua, in Light of Their Proposals (February 2, 2018)

Costa Rica and Nicaragua, that rarely reach direct agreements, had not delimited the maritime areas in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, nor the land boundary in the northern part of Isla Portillos. Thus, Costa Rica first initiated an action in the International Court of Justice in 2014 regarding the maritime issue, and later, in 2017, requested the definition of the land boundary of that area in Isla Portillos and that it be noted that Nicaragua had set up a new military camp on its beach.This text – in view of the parties’ proposals - will analyze the recent judgment of the Court in the joined procedures, studying the proceedings followed, the relevant geography and history, the theses of the Parties and the reasoning of the Court.

Socio-spatial Self-organizing Maps: Using Social Media to Assess Relevant Geographies for Exposure to Social Processes.

Social media offers a unique window into attitudes like racism and homophobia, exposure to which are important, hard to measure and understudied social determinants of health. However, individual geo-located observations from social media are noisy and geographically inconsistent. Existing areas by which exposures are measured, like Zip codes, average over irrelevant administratively-defined boundaries. Hence, in order to enable studies of online social environmental measures like attitudes on social media and their possible relationship to health outcomes, first there is a need for a method to define the collective, underlying degree of social media attitudes by region. To address this, we create the Socio-spatial-Self organizing map, "SS-SOM" pipeline to best identify regions by their latent social attitude from Twitter posts. SS-SOMs use neural embedding for text-classification, and augment traditional SOMs to generate a controlled number of nonoverlapping, topologically-constrained and topically-similar clusters. We find that not only are SS-SOMs robust to missing data, the exposure of a cohort of men who are susceptible to multiple racism and homophobia-linked health outcomes, changes by up to 42% using SS-SOM measures as compared to using Zip code-based measures.

Effects of environmental factors on the abundances of the basket stars Astrocaneum spinosum and Astrodictyum panamense (Ophiuroidea: Gorgonocephalidae) in the northern Gulf of California, Mexico

ABSTRACTGorgonocephalid ophiuroids, or basket stars, reside in diverse ecosystems of all oceans, but there is limited information on their basic ecology worldwide; therefore, this study provides the first detailed numerical analysis published to date of the abundances and spatial distributions of gorgonocephalids from the eastern Pacific Ocean. We analysed the relevance of geography (latitude, longitude), oceanographic factors (temperature, chlorophyll a concentration) and bottom type (coral, rock, sand, fleshy algae, coralline algae and turf) on the abundances of Astrocaneum spinosum and Astrodictyum panamense in Los Angeles Bay, Mexico (29°N, 113°W), in 2006–2007. Depth did not influence the number of individuals per census, but an elevated chlorophyll a concentration resulted in a higher abundance during the autumn (possibly the reproductive season of Astrodictyum panamense and Astrocaneum spinosum). The abundances of both species were positively linked to the presence of rocky bottoms and decreased in sandy areas. Additionally, the presence of live coral favoured the occurrence of Astrodictyum panamense, while high macroalgal cover decreased its abundance. The spatial distributions of both ophiuroids were aggregated at most sites, and they were always associated with different species of octocorals, which are abundant in the area. Astrocaneum spinosum is considered among the 30 most important invertebrates in the aquarium trade in Mexico; therefore, its permanence in the study area could be affected by excessive extractions.

Using open‐ended geographic information system assessments to allow students to construct relevant geographies given the internationalisation of tertiary education in New Zealand

AbstractThe geospatial skills shortage in New Zealand requires the development of more undergraduate geographic information system (GIS) courses. However, the internationalisation of New Zealand's tertiary education system has resulted in an increasingly diverse tertiary student population, which makes it challenging to teach GIS in a way that maximises relevance to all tertiary students. One approach to this challenge is to make use of the recent proliferation of openly available GIS data, and to internationalise GIS curricula by using open‐ended assessments that provide students with the opportunity to learn GIS by constructing their own geographies of relevance.

Destinations That Older Adults Experience Within Their GPS Activity Spaces Relation to Objectively Measured Physical Activity.

Identifying the relevant geography is an ongoing obstacle to effectively evaluate the influence of neighborhood built environment on physical activity. We characterized density and diversity of destinations that 77 older adults experienced within individually representative GPS activity spaces and traditional residential buffers and assessed their associations with accelerometry-measured physical activity. Traditional residential buffers had lower destination density and diversity than activity spaces. Activity spaces based only on pedestrian and bicycling trips had higher destination densities than all-mode activity spaces. Regardless of neighborhood definition, adjusted associations between destinations and physical activity generally failed to reach statistical significance. However, within pedestrian and bicycling-based activity spaces each additional destination type was associated with 243.3 more steps/day (95% confidence interval (CI) 36.0, 450.7). Traditional buffers may not accurately portray the geographic space or neighborhood resources experienced by older adults. Pedestrian and bicycling activity spaces elucidate the importance of destinations for facilitating active transportation.

Toward a spatial perspective on niche development: The case of Bus Rapid Transit

This paper responds to recent criticism from geographers that the ‘local–global’ niche model in transition studies is spatially naïve. A number of relevant geography literatures (buzz-pipelines, global production networks, policy mobilities) are mobilized to develop a more geographically nuanced understanding of niche development. The result complements the original model by providing center stage to (1) the spatialities of the production and transfer of knowledge, (2) the geographies of the actor networks involved and (3) the dynamics of embeddedness by which these global networks and knowledge discourses become entangled with place-specific power relationships, institutions and infrastructures. To illustrate this empirically, we trace the tortuous innovation journey of Bus Rapid Transit – a promising new mode of urban transportation that is spreading rapidly across the globe.

Geographical imaginaries: Articulating the values of geography

AbstractThis paper explores the concept of ‘geographical imaginaries’ in New Zealand geography. It reflects on the genealogy of the concept and on the work it might perform in the world. At a time when the purpose and contribution of geography in schools is under question and the discipline is under severe strain at universities, we ask whether the idea of ‘geographical imaginaries’ offers a conceptual platform for demonstrating the potential for geography to offer meaning in the complex world of 21st‐century New Zealand and whether it will help teachers to foster geographic thought in classrooms. In short, we argue for the merits of working with the idea of geographical imaginaries in classrooms and for utilising it to interrogate accounts of the geographical gaze and its values. This, we argue, offers opportunities to catalyse geographical thought, highlight the potential of thinking geographically, and open up a thinking space in which geography teachers can examine their pedagogy and enhance the purpose of their work. This would provide a platform for building a more imaginative and more politically and culturally relevant geography at school.

Strategic directions for geography: lessons from the U.S. National Academies' Understanding the Changing Planet

The U.S. National Academies' recent effort to specify “strategic directions for the geographical sciences” identifies a variety of ways in which research drawing on geographical ideas, methods, and techniques can help address pressing social and scientific challenges. The value of the study does not lie solely in the identification of promising research areas; it also offers insights into the relevance of geography's longstanding concern with location, geographical space, place, landscape, and mapping for efforts to understand a world being remade by rapid environmental, social, and technological changes. A careful reading of the study reveals that geography's traditional concerns continue to animate forward-looking research directions, but that those concerns are evolving in the face of recent empirical, conceptual, and technological advances.

Cysticercus bovis in Slaughtered Cattle in the Afyonkarahisar and Burdur Provinces and Its Importance from the Point of View of Public Health

This study was conducted to determine the current status of bovine cysticercosis and human taeniosis in two provinces (Afyonkarahisar and Burdur in the western part of Turkey between October 2009 and October 2011). In the study period, a total of 1684 cattle and 7644 human stool samples were examined for Cysticercus bovis, and Taeniosis, respectively. Carcasses of animals were subjected to routine meat inspection. Stool samples of humans were analysed macroscopically and microscopically including direct and formaldehyde-ether sedimentation methods. C. bovis was determined in 0.24% of cattle by postmortem examination. The prevalence of infection was found to be 0.46% in Afyonkarahisar and 0.09% in Burdur. Taenia sp. eggs were shown in 0.1% of the human stool samples. The infection rate was detected as 0.1% and 0.09% in Afyonkarahisar and Burdur, respectively. This study is characterized as a preliminary investigation which offers useful information on a public health level within a short time at a low cost. Results obtained from this study cannot be generalized to study areas in epidemiological terms, but they are useful data for the relevant geography.