Progress in Human Geography recent issues

Reimagining impossible worlds: beyond circumcized geographical imaginations: A play in many acts

Datta, A., De, A. — 2008-09-18

Diverse economies: performative practices for `other worlds'

Gibson-Graham, J.K. — 2008-09-18

How might academic practices contribute to the exciting proliferation of economic experiments occurring worldwide in the current moment? In this paper we describe the work of a nascent research community of economic geographers and other scholars who are making the choice to bring marginalized, hidden and alternative economic activities to light in order to make them more real and more credible as objects of policy and activism. The diverse economies research program is, we argue, a performative ontological project that builds upon and draws forth a different kind of academic practice and subjectivity. Using contemporary examples, we illustrate the thinking practices of ontological reframing, re-reading for difference and cultivating creativity and we sketch out some of the productive lines of inquiry that emerge from an experimental, performative and ethical orientation to the world. The paper is accompanied by an electronic bibliography of diverse economies research with over 200 entries.

Beyond the clearing: towards a dwelt animal geography

Johnston, C. — 2008-09-18

This paper reviews recent developments at the intersection between culture—nature and animal geographies debates in order to consider the ways in which issues of anthropomorphism and beastliness have beset attempts to write the nonhuman. Seeking to move beyond the theoretical impasse that these two concepts have engendered, the paper explores engagement with the concept of dwelling developed by Ingold as a possible theoretical tool for a re-animated animal geography, one which seeks to take its cue from those individuals and groups whose lives depend on and are embedded in their daily connections and understandings with nonhumans.

History and philosophy of geography: life and death 2005--2007

Barnes, T. J. — 2008-09-18

Contemporary geographies of exclusion I: traversing Skid Road

Herbert, S. — 2008-09-18

Environmental issues: inventive life

Braun, B. — 2008-09-18

Geography, pedagogy and politics

2008-09-18

This Forum takes seriously the proposition that everything we do as geographers is potentially `relevant' to the affairs of the wider society. Using expanded conceptions of `pedagogy' and `politics', the Forum suggests why and how we are always engaged in processes of shaping and steering this wider society, wittingly or not, and intentionally or not. In the minds of many of us, this shaping and steering only (or mostly) occurs through activities we assume to be self-evidently `relevant' in intention or effect — like undertaking policy-relevant research. However, this Forum argues that it is misplaced to regard only a select group of our activities as socially consequential. Pulling together recent debates on `participatory', `activist' and `public' geographies, the Forum offers arguments and examples that show readers the potential relevance of the whole range of diverse practices in which we professionally engage. The introduction and five subsequent contributions together suggest that we aim for a `joined-up' conception of ourselves and our activities as professional geographers embedded in a wider society. As such, the Forum aims to make a distinctive contribution to ongoing discussions of how big-G academic geography relates to the plethora of small-g quotidian geographies — imagined and real — that are the stuff of our world.

Book review: Gandy, M. and Zumla, A., editors, 2003: The return of the white plague: global poverty and the `new' tuberculosis. London: Verso. 320 pp. {pound}25 cloth. ISBN: 1 85984 669 6. Bashford, A., editor, 2006: Medicine at the border: disease, globalization and security, 1850 to the present. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 288 pp. {pound}58 cloth. ISBN: 0 230 50706 9

Brown, T. — 2008-09-18

Book review: Hackworth, J. 2007: The neoliberal city: governance, ideology, and development in American urbanism. New York: Cornell University Press. 248 pp. US$62.95 cloth, $22.95 paper. ISBN: 978 0 8014 4483 3 cloth, 978 0 8014 7306 6 paper

Brown, E. — 2008-09-18

Book review: Kincaid, A. 2006: Postcolonial Dublin: imperial legacies and the built environment. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 296 pp. US$75 cloth, $25 paper. ISBN: 978 0 8166 4345 5 cloth, 978 0 8166 4346 2 paper

Duffy, P. — 2008-09-18

Book review: Mason, A. 2006: Levelling the playing field: the idea of equal opportunity and its place in egalitarian thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 256 pp. {pound}27 cloth. ISBN: 978 0 19 926441 4

Smith, D. M. — 2008-09-18

Book review: Meinig, D.W. 2004: The shaping of America, a geographical perspective on 500 years of history. Volume 4: Global America, 1915--2000. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 483 pp. US$50 cloth, $30 paper. ISBN: 978 0 300 10432 5 cloth, 978 0 300 11528 4 paper

Kirby, R. S. — 2008-09-18

Book review: Ramirez, R.K. 2006: Native hubs: culture, community, and belonging in Silicon Valley and beyond. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 288 pp. US$79.95 cloth, $22.95 paper. ISBN: 978 0 8223 4006 5 cloth, 978 0 8223 4030 0 paper

Peters, E. J. — 2008-09-18

Book review: Sangtin Writers Collective and Nagar, R. 2006: Playing with fire: feminist thought and activism through seven lives in India. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 216 pp. US$60 cloth, $20 paper. ISBN: 978 0 8166 4769 9 cloth, 978 0 8166 4770 5 paper

Ellis, R. — 2008-09-18

Book review: Wall, D. 2005: Babylon and beyond: the economics of anti-capitalist, anti-globalist and radical green movements. London: Pluto Press and the Green Economics Institute. 232 pp. {pound}50 cloth, {pound}15.99 paper. ISBN: 978 0 7453 2391 6 cloth, 978 0 7453 2390 9 paper

North, P. — 2008-09-18

Book review: Yiftachel, O. 2006: Ethnocracy: land and identitypoliticsin Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 368 pp. US$69.95 cloth. ISBN: 978 0 8122 3927 0

Paasi, A. — 2008-09-18

Thinking through work: complex inequalities, constructions of difference and trans-national migrants

McDowell, L. — 2008-07-22

This paper raises questions — rather than providing answers — about the theorization of intersectionality: the complex inequalities that result from connections between gender, class, ethnicity and other dimensions of identity in the making of subjects. I draw on Ong's work on cultural citizenship and notions of subjectification from Foucault and Butler to think through feminist theorizations of intersectionality and the philosophical status of different approaches to complexity and difference. I also address methodological issues. While this is not primarily an empirical paper, I use the example of the labour market position of recent migrants into the UK as an examplar of intersectionality at work.

Spaces of every-night life: for geographies of sleep, sleeping and sleepiness

Kraftl, P., Horton, J. — 2008-07-22

Over one third of most human lives — and hence one third of human geographies — is spent asleep. It is our contention in this paper that human geographers should take sleep, sleeping and sleepiness more seriously as topics for theoretical, empirical and critical research than has hitherto been the case. This paper provides a preliminary indication of potentially fruitful directions for geographical research on sleep, reviewing salient extant work in geography and (especially) in cognate disciplines in order to develop a case for research and enquiry in four domains: sleep and consumption; sleep and health; sleep and difference; sleep and bodily practice. The potential ramifications of `sleepy geographies' for prevailing assumptions habitually underpinning wakeful, cognate geographies (ie, the vast majority of human geographies to date) are also considered.

Industrial ecosystems? The use of tropes in the literature of industrial ecology and eco-industrial parks

McManus, P., Gibbs, D. — 2008-07-22

Industrial ecology is often promoted as a practice to close industrial production loops and reduce waste, thereby making better use of resources and preventing the overuse of raw materials. Eco-industrial parks (EIPs) are the spatial concentrations of businesses that use the by-products of one industrial process as inputs to another. Both sets of practices are based on particular tropes involving nature. This paper explores the use of various tropes in the literature of industrial ecology and EIPs. It highlights the need better to understand the pre-theoretical and theoretical bases of industrial ecology and to increase the potential for practical implementation by applying insights from the literatures of urban planning, social science and economic geography.

Geographical information science: agent-based models

O'Sullivan, D. — 2008-07-22

Cultural geography: non-representational conditions and concerns

Lorimer, H. — 2008-07-22

Political geography: difference, recognition, and the contested terrains of political claims-making

Staeheli, L. A. — 2008-07-22

Peck, J. 1996: Work-place: the social regulation of labor markets. New York: The Guilford Press

Rutherford, T. D., Jessop, B., Peck, J. — 2008-07-22

Book review: Birkmann, J., editor 2006: Measuring vulnerability to natural hazards. Towards disaster resilient societies. New York: United Nations Publications. 550 pages. US$39 paper. ISBN: 978 92 808 1135 3

Hilhorst, D., de Man, R. — 2008-07-22

Book review: Butcher, J. 2007: Ecotourism, NGOs and development: a critical analysis. London: Routledge. 208 pp. {pound}75 cloth. ISBN: 978 0 415 39367 6

Ficklin, L. — 2008-07-22

Book review: Chesters, G. and Welsh, I. 2006: Complexity and social movements: multitudes at the edge of chaos. London: Routledge. 208 pp. {pound}70 cloth, {pound}20 paper. ISBN: 978 0 415 34414 2 cloth, 978 0 415 43974 9 paper; Lipschutz, R.D. 2006: Civil societies and social movements: domestic, transnational, global. Aldershot: Ashgate. 568 pp. {pound}120 cloth. ISBN: 978 0 7546 2633 6

Castree, N. — 2008-07-22

Book review: Coe, N.M., Kelly, P.F. and Yeung, H.W.C. 2007: Economic geography: a contemporary introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. 456 pp. {pound}55 cloth, {pound}19.99 paper. ISBN: 978 1 4051 3215 2 cloth, 978 1 4051 3219 0 paper

Christophers, B. — 2008-07-22

Book review: Peet, R. and Watts, M., editors 2004: Liberation ecologies: environment, development, social movements (second edition). London: Routledge. 464 pp. {pound}110 cloth, {pound}26.99 paper. ISBN: 978 0 415 31235 6 cloth, 978 0 415 31236 3 paper

Bridge, G. — 2008-07-22

Book review: Tvedt, T. 2004: The River Nile in the age of the British. Political ecology and the quest for economic power. London: I.B. Tauris. 480 pp. {pound}55 cloth. ISBN: 978 1 86064 835 9

Sutton, K. — 2008-07-22

Book review: Williams, C.C. 2005: A commodified world? Mapping the limits of capitalism. London: Zed Books. 308 pp. {pound}55 cloth, {pound}19.99 paper. ISBN: 978 1 84277 354 3 cloth, 978 1 84277 355 0 paper

Kent, A. — 2008-07-22

Living with difference: reflections on geographies of encounter

Valentine, G. — 2008-05-09

In this Progress in Human Geography annual lecture I reflect on geographical contributions to academic and policy debates about how we might forge civic culture out of difference. In doing so I begin by tracing a set of disparate geographical writings — about the micro-publics of everyday life, cosmopolitanism hospitality, and new urban citizenship — that have sought to understand the role of shared space in providing the opportunity for encounter between `strangers'. This literature is considered in the light of an older tradition of work about `the contact hypothesis' from psychology. Then, employing original empirical material, I critically reflect on the notion of `meaningful contact' to explore the paradoxical gap that emerges in geographies of encounter between values and practices. In the conclusion I argue for the need for geographers to pay more attention to sociospatial inequalities and the insecurities they breed, and to unpacking the complex and intersecting ways in which power operates.

Ethnographies of postsocialist change

Horschelmann, K., Stenning, A. — 2008-05-09

In this paper, we examine the value of ethnographic research for developing a critical area studies approach that promotes cosmopolitan scholarship and contributes to the decentring of universal knowledge claims. We focus on the potential of ethnographic research on postsocialist change to form part of such a re-envisaged, critical area studies. The paper seeks to demonstrate to what extent ethnographic research not only offers a better understanding of the social and cultural practices through which postsocialist transformations are lived and negotiated, but also produces new conceptual insights on the basis of engaging with empirical complexity. Problems of researcher positionality, the politics of representation, methodology and ethics are discussed in relation to recent critiques of anthropological writing and research. We draw on Massey's (2005) concept of space-time and Robinson's (2003) and Gibson-Graham's (2004) proposals for a postcolonial, critical area studies to identify ways of reimagining ethnography as a mode of engagement rather than observation and of producing rather than surveying difference.

Away from prying eyes? The urban geographies of `adult entertainment'

Hubbard, P., Matthews, R., Scoular, J., Agustin, L. — 2008-05-09

Most towns and cities in the UK and USA possess a number of venues offering sexually orientated entertainment in the form of exotic dance, striptease or lap dancing. Traditionally subject to moral and legal censure, the majority of these sex-related businesses have tended to be situated in marginal urban spaces. As such, their increasing visibility in more mainstream spaces of urban nightlife raises important questions about the sexual and gender geographies that characterize the contemporary city. In this paper we accordingly locate the phenomena of adult entertainment at the convergence of geographic debates concerning the evening economy, urban gentrification and the gendered consumption of urban space. We conclude that these sites are worthy of investigation not only in and of themselves, but also because their shifting location reveals much about the forms of heterosexuality and homosociality normalized in the contemporary city.

The hotel and the city

McNeill, D. — 2008-05-09

This paper examines the relationship between cities and hotels, arguing that this urban space sheds light on many of the traits of twentieth-century urbanism. First, it sketches the relationship of hotels to urban space, either as landmarks within cities, as statements of civic selfconfidence in booming central business districts, or as components of urban renewal strategies. Second, it is suggested that the design of hotel space is expressive of consumption choices, whether in terms of a standardized, hard-wearing functionality or an expression of uniqueness, reflecting contemporary trends in consumer marketing, distinction and branding. Third, these spaces are crucial to the notion of the `circulatory' city. They are representative of a form of dwelling, of a temporary domestic, for various types of traveller, as well as serving as a business space. Fourth, they are reflective of the complex social geographies of city life, and provide a microcosm of the occupational hierarchies of hospitality services.

Progress reports

Davies, G., Dwyer, C. — 2008-05-09

Locating geographies of tourism

Gibson, C. — 2008-05-09

Political geography -- political geographies of globalization III: resistance

Sparke, M. — 2008-05-09

Gottmann, J. 1961: Megalopolis. The urbanized northeastern seaboard of the United States. New York: The Twentieth Century Fund

Pawson, E. — 2008-05-09

The extraordinary career of Gilbert White

Murphy, A. B. — 2008-05-09

Gilbert White: progress in geography

Burton, I. — 2008-05-09

Perspectives on alternatives: differentiation and integration in pursuit of a better fit between society and nature

Mitchell, J. K. — 2008-05-09

Recollections of Gilbert F. White in Colorado

Palm, R. — 2008-05-09

Book review symposium: Anderson, K. 2006: Race and the crisis of humanism. London: Routledge: Commentary 1

Nash, C. — 2008-05-09

Book review symposium: Anderson, K. 2006: Race and the crisis of humanism. London: Routledge: Commentary 2

Wade, P. — 2008-05-09

Book review symposium: Anderson, K. 2006: Race and the crisis of humanism. London: Routledge: Author's response

Anderson, K. — 2008-05-09

Book review: Bell, D. and Jayne, M., editors 2006: Small cities: urban experience beyond the metropolis. Abingdon: Routledge. 296 pp. {pound}85 cloth, {pound}23.99 paper. ISBN: 978 0 415 36657 1 cloth, 978 0 415 36658 8 paper

Banks, M. — 2008-05-09

Book review: Buck, N., Gordon, I., Harding, A. and Turok, I., editors 2005: Changing cities: rethinking urban competitiveness, cohesion and governance. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 336 pp. {pound}60 cloth, {pound}23.99 paper. ISBN: 978 1 403 90679 3 cloth, 978 1 403 90680 9 paper

Cook, I. R. — 2008-05-09

Book review: Connell, J. and Waddell, E., editors 2006: Environment, development and change in rural Asia-Pacific. Between local and global. London: Routledge. 264 pp. {pound}90 cloth. ISBN: 978 0 415 40414 3

Sutton, K. — 2008-05-09

Book review: Gibson-Graham, J.K. 2006: A postcapitalist politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 360 pp. $70 cloth, $25 paper. ISBN: 978 0 8166 4803 0 cloth, 978 0 8166 4804 7 paper

North, P. — 2008-05-09

Book review: Graham, G. 2005: The institution of intellectual values: realism and idealism in higher education. Exeter: Imprint Academic. 295 pp. {pound}25 cloth. ISBN: 1 84540 002 X

Kent, A. — 2008-05-09

Book review: Hale, A. and Wills, J., editors 2005: Threads of labour: garment industry supply chains from the workers' perspective. Oxford: Blackwell. 288 pp. {pound}60 cloth, {pound}20.99 paper. ISBN: 978 1 4051 2637 3 cloth, 978 1 4051 2638 0 paper

Pattison, V. — 2008-05-09

Book review: Harvey, D. 2007: The limits to capital (third edition). London: Verso. 478 pp. {pound}17.99 paper. ISBN: 978 1 84467 095 6

Harvey, T. — 2008-05-09

Book review: Pooley, C.G., Turnbull, J. and Adams, M. 2005: A mobile century: changes in everyday mobility in Britain in the twentieth century. Aldershot: Ashgate. 270 pp. {pound}55 cloth. ISBN: 978 0 7546 4181 0

Laurier, E. — 2008-05-09

The triumph of geography

Sanders, R. — 2008-03-14

The entangled geographies of global justice networks

Cumbers, A., Routledge, P., Nativel, C. — 2008-03-14

The recent emergence of global justice networks (GJNs) to counter neoliberal globalization has been an important political and geographical phenomenon. Much has been written about the emergence of a new global civil society, centred upon a new `network' ontology. In engaging with these debates in this paper, our purpose is to develop a more critical spatial perspective. We argue that issues of space and place are critical in understanding the operation of GJNs and their potential to contribute to an alternative global politics. Spatially, the global linkages of GJNs can be seen as creating cultural and spatial configurations that connect places with each other in opposition to neoliberalism. However, the individual movements that comprise networks, while not necessarily place-restricted, remain heavily territorialized in their struggles. Additionally, networks evolve unevenly over space. Some groups and actors within them are able to develop extensive translocal connections and associations whereas others remain relatively more localized. Potential conflicts arise from such complex geographies, which only become evident through analysing the operation and evolution of different networks. This leads us to focus not solely on the transnational character of networks but also upon how the global is enacted through the localized practices of movements within them, in considering the potential for GJNs to form more sustainable political alternatives to neoliberalism.

Rethinking scale as a geographical category: from analysis to practice

Moore, A. — 2008-03-14

In the past two decades human geographers have intensely theorized scale, and extended claims that it is a foundational element of geographic theory. Yet attendant with this move has been a growing concern that scale has become an unwieldy concept laden with multiple, contradictory and problematic meanings. I share that concern, and argue that a similar debate about the usefulness of `identity' as a conceptual category in social science offers instructive insights. Paralleling recent critiques of identity categories such as nation and race, I view the conceptual confusion surrounding scale — and scale politics — as, in part, the consequence of failing to make a clear distinction between scale as a category of practice and category of analysis. In adopting scale as a category of analysis geographers tend to reify it as a fundamental ontological entity, thereby treating a social category employed in the practice of sociospatial politics as a central theoretical tool. I argue that this analytical manoeuvre is neither helpful nor necessary, and outline its consequences in analyses of the politics of scale. Finally, I sketch the altered contours of a research programme for the politics of scale if we take this injunction seriously — both in terms of how we theorize scale as a category of practice and what becomes the focus of scale politics research.

Embodied social capital and geographic perspectives: performing the habitus

Holt, L. — 2008-03-14

This paper reopens debates of geographic theorizations and conceptualizations of social capital. I argue that human geographers have tended to underplay the analytic value of social capital, by equating the concept with dominant policy interpretations. It is contended that geographers could more explicitly contribute to pervasive critical social science accounts. With this in mind, an embodied perspective of social capital is constructed. This synthesizes Bourdieu's capitals and performative theorizations of identity, to progress the concept of social capital in four key ways. First, this theorization more fully reconnects embodied differences to broader socio-economic processes. Second, an exploration of how embodied social differences can emerge directly from the political-economy and/or via broader operations of power is facilitated. Third, a path is charted through the endurance of embodied inequalities and the potential for social transformation. Finally, embodied social capital can advance social science conceptualizations of the spatiality of social capital, by illuminating the importance of broader sociospatial contexts and relations to the embodiment of social capital within individuals.

Geographies of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness: a review of progress

Jayne, M., Valentine, G., Holloway, S. L. — 2008-03-14

This paper explores geographical contributions to the study of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness. We argue that where alcohol studies have engaged with geographical issues research has been dominated by a case study approach that has undertheorized the relationship between practices and processes relating to alcohol, drinking and drunkenness and the people and places being studied. We then go on to show the ways in which human geographers are approaching alcohol, drinking and drunkenness via complex interpenetrations of political, economic, social, cultural and spatial issues and unpacking connections, similarities, differences and mobilities between supranational, national, regional and local spatial scales. We argue that such an approach represents a conceptually and empirically important contribution to alcohol studies research. The paper concludes, however, that if geographers are to have a central role in shaping future research agendas then they must engage with theoretical issues in a more detailed and sustained manner, particularly in relation to epistemological and ontological impasses that have to date characterized the study of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness.

Historical geography: geographies and historiographies

Naylor, S. — 2008-03-14

Transportation geography - new regional mobilities

Keeling, D. J. — 2008-03-14

The spaces of critical geography

Blomley, N. — 2008-03-14

Biological invasions - the widening debate: a response to Charles Warren

Richardson, D.M., Pysek, P., Simberloff, D., Rejmanek, M., Mader, A.D. — 2008-03-14

Alien concepts: a response to Richardson et al

Warren, C. R. — 2008-03-14

Book review: Barnett, C., Robinson, J. and Rose, G., editors 2006: A demanding world. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. ix + 426 pp. {pound}23.95 paper. ISBN: 978 0 7492 6831 2. Plus a 2-disc audio-DVD of the same name {pound}12.95. ISBN: 978 0 7492 2598 8. Clark, N., Massey, D. and Sarre, P., editors 2006: A world in the making. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. ix + 456 pp. {pound}23.95 paper. ISBN: 978 0 7492 6790 2

Castree, N. — 2008-03-14

Book review: Jacob, C. 2006: The sovereign map: theoretical approaches in cartography throughout history. Translated by T. Conley; edited by E.H. Dahl. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 464 pp. US$60 cloth. ISBN: 978 0 226 38953 0

Perkins, C. — 2008-03-14

Book review: Kjellen, M. 2006: From public pipes to private hands: water access and distribution in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Stockholm: Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University. 332 pp. Price unknown. ISBN: 91 85445 43 6

Lier, D. C. — 2008-03-14

Book review: Lees, L., editor 2004: The emancipatory city? Paradoxes and possibilities. London: Sage. xii + 243 pp. {pound}74 cloth, {pound}23.99 paper. ISBN: 978 0 7619 7386 7 cloth, 978 0 7619 7387 4 paper

Shaw, K. — 2008-03-14

Book review: Neumayer, E. 2003: Weak versus strong sustainability: exploring the limits of two opposing paradigms (second edition). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. xvii + 271 pp. {pound}75 cloth. ISBN: 978 1 84376 488 5

Redclift, M. — 2008-03-14

Book review: Schram, S.F. and Caterino, B., editors 2006: Making political science matter. New York: New York University Press. vii + 304 pp. {pound}18.99 paper. ISBN: 978 0 8147 4033 0

Harvey, T. — 2008-03-14

Book review: Unger, R.M. 2005: What should the Left propose? London: Verso. 179 pp. {pound}15 cloth. ISBN: 1 84467 048 1

Agnew, J. — 2008-03-14

Book review: Wallach, B. 2005: Understanding the cultural landscape. New York: Guilford Press. x + 406 pp. US$69 cloth, US$35 paper. ISBN: 978 1 59385 120 0 cloth, 978 1 59385 119 4 paper

Butzer, K. W. — 2008-03-14