Search

This conceptual review identifies the contributions of the Sociology of Sport Journal to the subfield of feminist sport media studies. Since the first issue of Sociology of Sport Journal, over 60 articles addressed primarily the media representations research area of feminist sport media studies, using a range of theoretical frameworks that mirrored theoretical shifts in the field. An empirical analysis of geographies of knowledge production indicates that the scholarship in Sociology of Sport Journal in this subfield is primarily based in the United States and focuses on Western contexts. The article concludes with a reflection on the importance of special issues and interdisciplinary collaborations in feminist sport media studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile technology has been recognized as a tool in reducing the inequality gap, especially for those in developing communities. With a Gini score of 63 in 2014, South Africa is regarded as one of the most unequal countries in the world. Furthermore, 86% of total wealth is controlled by 10% of the population with 7% of the wealth shared by 60% of the citizens. In 2017 Urglobal initiated a concept of driving technology training for rural schools and communities using mobility. In this paper we contribute to the debate by exploring the question of how providing access to technology for rural communities can lead to inclusion and social justice. Pre- and post-training surveys together with dialogue sessions were held with the pertinent respondents to explore this question. Empirical findings reflect that driving technology training on a mobile basis can be an entry point for rural communities in achieving social justice. The study is significant in that it provides a citizen-centred design for technology training and substantiates that mobility does ensure societal access regardless of geography. The study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing proof of concept that can be used for the integration of technology into rural schools and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We revise the conventional wisdom that Africa's international borders were drawn arbitrarily. Europeans knew very little about most of Africa in the mid-1880s, but their self-interested goals of amassing territory prompted intensive examination of on-the-ground conditions as they formed borders. Europeans negotiated with African rulers to secure treaties and to learn about historical state frontiers, which enabled Africans to influence the border-formation process. Major water bodies, which shaped precolonial civilizations and trade, also served as focal points. We find support for these new theoretical implications using two original datasets. Quantitatively, we analyze border-location correlates using grid cells and an original spatial dataset on precolonial states. Qualitatively, we compiled information from treaties and diplomatic histories to code causal process observations for every bilateral border. Historical political frontiers directly affected 62% of all bilateral borders. Water bodies, often major ones, comprised the primary border feature much more frequently than straight lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing availability of geospatial data that document both how violent actors are connected and where their attacks take place offers a unique opportunity to produce a more integrated approach to the evolution of armed conflicts. The goal of this article is to contribute to this agenda, by introducing the concept of the spatial conflict life cycle. This new concept allows for spatializing conflict networks over time by bringing together three approaches that have been developed separately: spatial analysis, network analysis, and temporal analysis. After reviewing the literature, we note that applications of space, networks, and time have been limited to combinations in pairs. The article then discusses how the concept of spatial conflict life cycle can conceptually bring them all together and how it can be applied to study the evolution of armed conflicts in Africa using disaggregated data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) Project. Our results suggest that African armed conflicts express regularities in the way violence is spatially and temporally distributed. Conflicts tend to follow a certain number of common temporal stages in their geography that resemble a cycle, from the moment they emerge in specific regions, until they end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid proliferation of geospatial technologies and the widespread utilization of Web and mobile maps by nonexpert audiences spurred new perspectives and research paradigms within geography. One area affected by this transformation is citizen science, where geospatial technologies facilitated its more widespread use and revolutionized the way scientific knowledge is coproduced, especially in the environmental context. Geographic citizen science is widely used to support the collection and analysis of geolocated scientific data, extend existing geographic data coverage, and enable communities to address local issues. The inherent complexity of geospatial interfaces and data is widely recognized and there is a wealth of geographic research focusing on improving human–map interactions, with less emphasis, nevertheless, given to citizen science. Not only do these applications have their unique characteristics, but inclusiveness is paramount, which further adds to these complexities. Through an investigation of 229 geographic citizen science applications, we provide an overview of how geographic interfaces are currently employed in citizen science. We then evaluate a selection of applications to identify critical usability barriers, which might have a detrimental impact on the overall user experience and the success of these projects. Among others, we found that geographic citizen science applications need to better support visual thinking and leverage participants' geographic knowledge. We subsequently provide a set of recommendations for map design and functionality and identify opportunities for future geovisualization research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial "Divergent futures – a geography of unequal concerns" explores the disparities in how the Global North and Global South envision the future, particularly regarding climate change and sustainability. While the Global North focuses on innovation and mitigation strategies, the Global South grapples with survival amidst climate vulnerability and socioeconomic challenges. The article emphasizes the need for geography and environmental education to address these inequalities, foster global citizenship, and empower students to navigate diverse futures with empathy and solidarity. Additionally, it highlights research on climate change learning, immersive virtual environments, and strategies for enhancing environmental initiatives to inspire action and sustainable solutions. [Extracted from the article]

This is the last of three reports on Black Geographies. Through theories then practices of Black creativity, the report highlights the need for critical engagements with creativity, as necessary to Black life but not innocent in racial capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work offers an ecocritical reading of the Holocaust from the perspective of liberator accounts concerning the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. It focuses on how Allied military personnel expressed their descriptions in two distinct ways. First, liberators offer a unique spatial orientation in their narratives, communicating values that are presented through geography and ecology. Second, the survivors were repeatedly viewed by liberators through the lens of animal metaphors, a type of zoomorphic language. This paper argues that the horrific suffering experienced by the survivors in Bergen-Belsen created a linguistic frontier or divide between themselves and Allied military personnel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thalassopoetics is an aesthetic and ethic-oriented approach of literature as an ocean of forms. Jules Verne's novels, in particular L'Archipel en feu and L'Île mystérieuse, in addition to the worldwide famous 20 000 lieues sous les mers, bring together the asymmetric relations between nations and people through the image of the shore, the contact zone between the finite land and the seemingly infinite sea, indirectly referring to the problems posed by colonial wars enforced under the guise of justice and 'civilisation'. This article argues that the underlying consistency of Verne's art lies in the way he intertwines ideas in geography and in particular in magnificent seascapes. The enduring fascination he had for the sea is the locus of a thalassopoetic vision of fiction and a sense of shifting, and sometimes drifting values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency departments in many nations worldwide have been struggling for many years with crowding and the subsequent provision of care in hallways and other unconventional spaces. While this issue has been investigated and analyzed from multiple perspectives, the ethical dimensions of the place of emergency department care have been underexamined. Specifically, the impacts of the place of care on patients and their caregivers have not been robustly explored in the literature. In this article, a feminist ethics and human geography framing is utilized to argue that care provision in open and unconventional spaces in the emergency department can be unethical, as vulnerability can be amplified by the place of care for patients and their caregivers. The situational and pathogenic vulnerability of patients can be heightened by the place of the emergency department and by the constraints to healthcare providers' capacity to promote patient comfort, privacy, communication, and autonomy in this setting. The arrangements of care in the emergency department are of particular concern for older adults given the potential increased risks for vulnerability in this population. As such, hallway healthcare can reflect the normalized inequities of structural ageism. Recommendations are provided to address this complicated ethical issue, including making visible the moral experiences of patients and their caregivers, as well as those of healthcare providers in the emergency department, advocating for a systems-level accounting for the needs of older adults in the emergency department and more broadly in healthcare, as well as highlighting the need for further research to examine how to foster autonomy and care in the emergency department to reduce the risk for vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sheds light on how large-scale school fundraising efforts differ according to locations in unequal and segregated cities, putting a greater burden on schools in under-resourced areas. In particular, we compare the large-scale fundraising campaigns of two high schools in contrastingly unequal urban neighbourhoods in one of Canada's prairie provinces. We apply critical space analysis to compare their respective communities, actors, strategies, discourses as well as time. Our comparison indicates that unequal levels of community wealth led to inherently uneven processes, with a greater and more prolonged fundraising burden on schools in low-income and under-resourced areas. We conclude by discussing how these large-scale school fundraising inequities constitute new structural inequities, symbolic domination, and spatial violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is a desert? What is a desert to a geomorphologist, a geoclimatologist, a biogeographer, a geoanthropologist, a cartographer or a geopolitologist? Geography, as a discipline that is as much concerned with terrestrial morphology and climates as it is with ecosystems and human societies, shed light on the various meanings of the term 'desert' in different fields of language and knowledge, providing insights into the significance of deserts for our contemporary societies. The ambition of this reflection is to unravel the complexities of deserts and help to grasp what deserts are and what they 'do' by encouraging geographers to merge bioclimatic analyses and geo-historical understandings, establishing the geographical discipline as the quintessential science of deserts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the contemporary Chinese history of geography, geographical engineering has consistently played a pivotal role as a fundamental scientific activity. It possesses its distinct ontological basis and value orientation, rendering it inseparable from being merely a derivative of geographical science or technology. This paper defines geographical engineering and introduces its development history through the lens of Chinese geographical engineering praxises. Furthermore, it is highlighted the logical and functional consistency between the theory of human-earth system and the praxis of geographical engineering. Six modern cases of geographical engineering projects are presented in detail to demonstrate the points and characteristics of different types of modern geographical engineering. Geographical engineering serves as an engine for promoting integrated geography research, and in response to the challenge posed by fragmented geographies, this paper advocates for an urgent revitalization of geographical engineering. The feasibility of revitalizing geographical engineering is guaranteed because it aligns with China's national strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors describe a comparison of the approaches taken to the conservation of two American Indian eagle feather warbonnet headdresses, one in the USA and the other in Italy. We begin with a brief exploration of the status and history of this headdress form, and go on to outline some of the differences in the standing of this Indigenous heritage in American versus Italian institutions, and how those may impact their conservation priorities. No effort is made to be comprehensive about reported conservation approaches to eagle feathers or warbonnets. Instead, the authors illustrate the influence of context, that is geography, culture, language, legal frameworks, and education, on what is considered most important in the conservation study and treatment of materially related items in two different countries. The authors conclude by reflecting upon an earlier need for consultation with Indigenous communities to establish conservation priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the fields of critical geography and cartography, Ukrainians between empires have not lacked states or the national agency to make maps, but there have been severe conceptual and empirical limitations imposed upon map production, consumption, and circulation over the course of Ukraine’s early modern and modern history. Such restrictions can be viewed geopolitically and regionally, and externally and internally to Ukraine. Ukrainian expertise is visible in humanistic stories of displaced map-minded men and women. Ukraine’s ethnographic and diasporic cultures of map collecting exist apart from common educational and functional purposes of previous European ‘ethnic' or Soviet Russocentric nationalities traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Spatial data are often aggregated by area to protect the confidentiality of individuals and aid the calculation of pertinent risks and rates. However, the analysis of spatially aggregated data is susceptible to the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP), which arises when inference varies with boundary or aggregation changes. While the impact of the MAUP has been examined previously, typically these studies have focused on well-populated areas. Understanding how the MAUP behaves when data are sparse is particularly important for countries with less populated areas, such as Australia. This study aims to assess different geographical regions' vulnerability to the MAUP when data are relatively sparse to inform researchers' choice of aggregation level for fitting spatial models. Methods: To understand the impact of the MAUP in Queensland, Australia, the present study investigates inference from simulated lung cancer incidence data using the five levels of spatial aggregation defined by the Australian Statistical Geography Standard. To this end, Bayesian spatial BYM models with and without covariates were fitted. Results and conclusion: The MAUP impacted inference in the analysis of cancer counts for data aggregated to coarsest areal structures. However, area structures with moderate resolution were not greatly impacted by the MAUP, and offer advantages in terms of data sparsity, computational intensity and availability of data sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately calculating suicide rates among law enforcement officers has been a longstanding challenge. Since 2016, the nonprofit organization First H.E.L.P. has implemented a standardized and rigorous methodology to collect data on public safety personnel suicides. This study utilizes First H.E.L.P.‘s data to examine suicide rates among sworn law enforcement officers from 2016 to 2022, disaggregated by year, sex, and geographic region and division. Findings reveal an average suicide rate of 21.4 per 100,000 officers over the seven-year period, with male officers showing a significantly higher rate (22.7) than their female counterparts (12.7). Regionally, the Midwest (27.5) and Northeast (24.0) had higher suicide rates than the South (19.4) and West (19.7), although variation was noted across divisions within these regions. The paper concludes by exploring potential reasons for these discrepancies and highlighting the potential benefits of systematic data collection in improving our understanding of law enforcement officer suicides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractLandform type recognition presents significant implications for understanding landform origins, evolutionary mechanisms, and morphological differences. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques based on sample learning often lead to unsatisfactory outcomes due to the intricate genesis and regional heterogeneity of landforms. This study combines domain knowledge with a deep learning (DL) model to improve landform type recognition. Contour data serves as a valuable resource, offering rich morphological information across horizontal, vertical, local, and macro scales. Our approach incorporated morphological knowledge and proximity relationships derived from contours into a graph convolutional network using the DiffPool technique (GCN-DP). Guided by the First Law of Geography, contours within each landform unit were represented as graphs, incorporating morphological knowledge as node features. The GCN-DP model then employed convolution and pooling to extract hierarchical features from these graphs for landform type recognition. A performance evaluation demonstrated the effectiveness of our method with an F1-score of 87.40%, surpassing RF and GCN methods by 5.24–12.50%, respectively. Ablation experiments confirmed the usefulness of morphological knowledge. This study offers an efficient strategy for landform type recognition, improving the level of intelligent mining using contour data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractObjectiveDesignSettingSubjectsOutcome measuresResultsConclusionRelative one-year cancer survival rates in the Baltic states are lower than the European mean; in the Nordic countries they are higher than the mean. This study investigated the likelihood of General Practitioners (GPs) investigating or referring patients with a low but significant risk of cancer in these two regions, and how this was affected by GP demographics.A survey of GPs using clinical vignettes.General Practice in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden.General Practitioners.A regional comparison of GPs’ stated immediate diagnostic actions (whether or not they would perform a key diagnostic test and/or refer to a specialist) for patients with a low but significant risk of cancer (between 1.2 and 3.6%).Of the 427 GPs that completed the questionnaire, those in the Baltic states, and GPs that were more experienced, were more likely to arrange a key diagnostic test and/or refer their patient to a specialist than those in Nordic Countries or who were less experienced (p < 0.001 for both measures). Neither GP sex nor practice location within a country showed a significant association with these measures.While relative one-year cancer survival rates are lower in the Baltic states than in four Nordic countries, we found no evidence that this is due to their GPs’ reluctance to take immediate diagnostic action, as GPs in the Baltic states were more likely to investigate and/or refer at the first consultation. Research on patient and secondary care factors is needed to explain the survival differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Port system evolution is an important topic in the domain of port geography. This review study focuses on the evolution of container port systems by summarising the main evolutionary trajectories of port systems based on the existing literature. We sorted 142 relevant studies to form the literature collection according to a six-step approach. Port system evolution research is overall characterised by a growing number of relevant studies, dominant journals for publication, various analyzed geographical scopes and diverse research methods. The review results show that port systems have generally experienced the processes from concentration to deconcentration, and from interport and intraport competition to coopetition in foreland and maritime space, and the development from limited inland access to improved port-hinterland accessibility. There exist a number of debates and gaps surrounding the evolutionary processes of port systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fieldwork is often cited as one of the most important and effective parts of geography education, despite increasing scrutiny over its environmental and financial cost. As a result, it is imperative that any overseas fieldwork is as impactful as possible, enabling deep experiential learning. Here, we investigate the success of a joint field trip (Liverpool John Moores University, UK and Southern Connecticut State University, USA) to East Iceland. Such field trips are rare but have the potential to be extremely impactful on both cohorts of students. We outline the origins of the field trip, the considerations taken into account during planning, and the student skills we embedded into teaching. Surveys and interviews demonstrated that the field trip was highly successful, with students reporting excellent development of environmental and global awareness as well as research and leadership skills. Students also developed strong, lasting social networks, including those in the alternate university, and in Iceland. Cohorts responded similarly, suggesting that the trip presents similar opportunities to all students. We demonstrate that undertaking a joint field trip can deliver huge benefits to students, becoming a “perspective changing, and a once in a lifetime opportunity” affecting future study and career choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractGeographic depictions of fictional spaces present a unique combination of features relevant to an array of disciplines. Scholars interested in cartography, the narrative functions of maps in literature, the specific universe which the materials depict, and the relationships between fictional and extant geography all have cause to seek out these resources. However, standard map cataloging practices can create records that do not prioritize elements most relevant to users searching for them. This paper compares different types of fictional maps, examines which aspects might be most important to users, and suggests how to best ensure their discovery as MARC records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic review examines the empirical research conducted in the past decade to investigate the application of immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) in geography higher education. Our analysis includes 29 empirical studies published across 25 peer-reviewed articles and delves into IVR applications from four key perspectives: the temporal and spatial distribution of studies and specific devices used, the subdomains of geography in which IVR is applied, the research methodologies employed, and the impact on learning outcomes and experiences. The review highlights the emergence of IVR in geography higher education from 2015. There was a notable surge in studies between 2020 and 2022, predominantly conducted in Europe and the United States. The primary focus of these studies was on topics related to physical geography. Research methodologies are well-balanced among these studies, incorporating a mix of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. The majority of these studies reported positive effects on learning outcomes and experiences, although some noted side effects like motion sickness. Future research should integrate reliability, validity, and fairness testing, link to learning theories in instructional design, and explore the application of advanced machine learning or artificial intelligence models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research that better aligns policy, practice, and research communities is gaining momentum around the world. This includes engaged research strategies that bring partners, and their diverse perspectives and kinds of knowledge, together to shape research agendas with on-the-ground-needs and to create dynamic problem-solving processes. These approaches aim to generate more equitable and effective solutions to societal challenges. Although many of these partnered strategies have a longstanding history, entrenched research cultures, practices, and institutional structures stand in the way of scaling them. Given the outsized role funders play in shaping research efforts, funders are a critical lever for change. This perspective describes the efforts of a global collaborative of philanthropic and public funders who are adapting their practices, supporting the development of infrastructure (e.g., capacity-strengthening, facilitation expertise, processes to guide relational work, etc.), and targeting system-level challenges to enable engaged research to maximize its potential. The authors integrate insights from different issue areas, geographies, and funding areas to provide concrete examples of funder activities that support engaged research and to suggest areas for further action. Recommendations include scaling changes in funding practices, deepening understanding of how and when engaged research leads to improved outcomes, and reshaping how success is defined and measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn this work, we introduce a method to develop a population grid in a historical context. Our approach is based on generating numerous points (geographic coordinates) and delineating contours, and it has been applied to a specific case, the Valencia region in late nineteenth century. To generate points, we digitized and georeferenced the Nomenclator of Spain of 1888 (NE1888), a directory of the population entities. Besides, and using detailed building information from the Spanish Cadastre, we delineated contours that were linked to the NE1888 population entities. Population can therefore be allocated not only to points but to 1 km×1km cells. Finally, we discuss the limitations and potential of this approach for historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is critical and urgent for China to enhance its young people’s climate literacy through effective climate change education. However, little is known about Chinese college students’ climate change education experiences and their knowledge of climate change. In this study, we surveyed first-year geography-major students (n = 437) from Central China Normal University in Wuhan, China. We first analyzed the requirements of secondary school geography curriculum standards on climate and climate change. Then, we surveyed their secondary school learning experiences and knowledge of scientific concepts underlying the climate system and climate change. Despite most students reporting that they have received climate change education of some kind, misconceptions, or lack of knowledge about climate change were common. Students’ secondary school climate change education experiences, especially in the geography curriculum, could possibly explain the large variations in students’ knowledge levels. We further provide policy and curriculum suggestions on future improvements in climate change education in geography programs in higher education of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The annual cycles of long-distance migrant species are synchronized with the local climatic conditions at their breeding areas, as they impact the availability of food resources. A timely arrival of individuals to the breeding grounds is crucial for achieving high fitness. Variation in factors influencing timing, including climate, may thus impact the life history of individuals. We studied between-individual variation in migration timing, in particular how local breeding climate influences arrival time and how early-arriving individuals achieve a timely arrival. We tracked individual Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni) with GPS tags across a gradient of latitude (37°–42° N) and longitude (6.5° W–16.5° E). Arrival time was influenced by the breeding latitude, the breeding longitude, and the local temperature, without any apparent influence of sex. The time of arrival at the breeding grounds was 6 days later for every degree increase in latitude and 2 days later for every degree increase in longitude. Lesser Kestrels from southwestern colonies achieve earlier arrival than conspecifics breeding at northeastern colonies, mostly due to earlier departure from their non-breeding grounds. While we found some effects of travel speed and stopover duration on arrival date, the latter was primarily influenced by food abundance and wind conditions en route. The large effect of departure date from West Africa on arrival date, relative to the more moderate influence of stopover duration close to breeding colonies, supports the idea that geographically uneven climate change may negatively affect fitness via ecological mismatches in the breeding area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States identifies, monitors, and defends a vast network of controlled airspaces surrounding its own and allied territories. These controlled airspaces include civilian aviation classes (A through G), drone flying regions, and special use (military) air classifications. These controlled spaces are invisible to the naked eye and often go unnoticed. Managing and portraying data that function in two and three dimensions poses significant challenges that have hindered prior analyses or geovisualizations of controlled airspaces, but we demonstrate here how many of these can be surmounted to visually represent the spatial extent and patterns of US-controlled airspace. In this paper, we demonstrate how these complex spaces can be graphically represented and highlight how cartographic and geovisual representations of often-overlooked domains contribute to a richer understanding of the reach and character of US airspace. The methods described for this work can be extended to other types of multidimensional objects and may facilitate more robust considerations of how Geographical Information Science (GIS) can be useful in analyzing and depicting airspace and territorial claims in three dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The states of the Mountain West region of the United States consistently have the highest rates of suicide in the country, a pattern particularly pronounced in older White men. Although multiple constructs have been proposed to explain this long-standing pattern, including social isolation, cultural values, and psychopathology, relatively little research has been conducted to directly examine the predictive role of these risk factors and how they interact. We review the extant research for these constructs to establish (a) whether the risk factor occurs at a higher rate or is otherwise more influential in this region compared to the rest of the country and (b) whether the risk factor may account for specific effects in older White men in order to determine whether the evidence supports the role of each risk factor in understanding the high rates of suicide among older White men in this region. Using the results of this review, we then present a possible cultural script for suicide based on cultural scripts of gender and suicide theory (Canetto, 1997, 2017, 2021) that describes who dies by suicide, the methods they use, their emotions and motives, and the cultural understanding of the causes and acceptability of their suicidal behaviors within the Mountain West. This cultural script can serve as a guide for researchers investigating the complex mechanisms that account for elevated rates of suicide in this region. Public Significance Statement: Based on a review of the research on elevated suicide rates in the Mountain West, we propose a cultural script for suicide that describes who dies by suicide, how people in this region may view suicide, when it is considered acceptable, and what meanings are communicated through the act of suicide. This proposed cultural script could guide future research and policy to reduce suicides in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-quality childcare services are vital to children's development and family wellbeing but are not equitably accessed by all children. In the United States, programs supported by the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) have the potential to reduce these inequities. Economically eligible Black children use CCDF-supported services at higher rates than other children, but less is known about disparities in the characteristics of those services. This study uses weekly subsidy records from Georgia's Childcare and Parent Services (CAPS) program to examine racial, ethnic, and geographic differences in the types, modes, quality, proximity, and stability of care and in subsidy payments, co-payments, and subsidy use. The study distinguishes between unconditional differences that it observes in children's experiences and conditional disparities that it estimates after accounting for children's needs and other characteristics. It interprets the conditional disparities as evidence of inequity. The analysis uncovers many unconditional racial and ethnic differences in subsidized care outcomes and several geographic differences. However, the study finds fewer (and mostly smaller) conditional differences, including very few conditional differences between non-Hispanic Black and White children. The results suggest that there is substantial racial equity in participating children's use of CAPS services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-wage labour migration from lower- to higher-income economies has become a precondition for capital accumulation. As a part of this, neoliberal actors (businesses and states) strive to actively produce migrants with a strong work ethic. They do this in numerous ways. In this paper, we draw upon labour process theory to argue that a 'mobility–immobility dynamic' is a major way capital now controls precarious workers. The mobility–immobility dynamic relates to low-wage workers' need to move (and often circulate) internationally but, once they have moved, a desire by businesses and states to keep them in place. The fixing of migrants both across space (through transnational mobility) and in place (through immobility) underlines the importance of a multi-scalar approach to understanding the control of the transnational working-class. We draw on evidence from European horticulture – 36 in-depth interviews with migrant workers, employers and community stakeholders in Norway and the United Kingdom – to highlight the mobility–immobility dynamic in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Replications confront existing explanations with new evidence by retesting prior claims using new data and similar research procedures. Publishing replication studies remains uncommon in the geographic literature. Place-to-place variations make it unclear whether the results and claims of a study should be expected to replicate across locations, and a lack of experimental control makes it challenging to implement replications that can provide clear evidence about those same results and claims. The small number of studies that have attempted to replicate geographic research suggest that many studies cannot be fully replicated or are simply missing information needed to attempt a replication. Accordingly, it remains unclear how geographic researchers view replication and its role in the knowledge accumulation process. To address this question, we surveyed geographic researchers about their understanding of replicability, beliefs about what factors affect the chances of replicating a study, motivations to attempt replication studies, and experiences conducting replications. The results of our survey suggest that researchers are familiar with replication and believe that replication studies can serve a range of epistemic purposes. Nonetheless, only a small percentage of geographic researchers attempt or publish replications due to a lack of incentives. Researchers are similarly uncertain whether it is currently valuable to replicate geographic research. These findings could in part be due to differences between research traditions, and it might be fruitful to further examine how researchers working in different subfields perceive and use replication in their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyze the nature and main characteristics of the discourse on borderlands and border local communities during the process of delimiting the Spanish–Portuguese boundary that took place in the middle third of the nineteenth century. It examines how both local and state actors represented conflicts and violence in border areas and how these discourses played a crucial role not only in securing the involvement of central state agencies in local conflicts but also in legitimizing state intervention in border disputes. Beyond the case studied here, this research contributes to a comparative perspective across different geographical and historical contexts on how border regions and their inhabitants have been frequently represented as problematic spaces and societies. In this regard, the article provides a critical understanding of the border-delimitation process undertaken by the Spanish and Portuguese liberal states as part of a broader national and territorial building process that, among other objectives, sought to control, normalize, discipline and integrate peripheral regions and their populations. Drawing on some of the main concepts coined by Said's Orientalism and the contributions of Foucault in The Birth of the Clinic as well, it proposes the term borderism to describe the imaginative geographies that legitimized this kind of border-delimitation processes, not only in the Iberian context but also in other similar cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article features an interview with Jennifer Tosch, the founder of Amsterdam's Black Heritage Tours. Since 2013, Tosch has offered walking and boat tours, leading thousands of people through a colonial reading of Amsterdam's topography and celebrated institutions. As a cultural historian, Tosch deploys 'critical fabulation' to redress the erasures of historical archives. These efforts are part of a wider Mapping Slavery project that brings together Dutch scholars, activists, and artists who are revealing the Netherland's links to slavery and reclaiming early Black presence. As geographers, we hope this conversation informs collaborative anti-racist work in our field (and elsewhere) and furthers anti-colonial practices in the teaching of cultural geography beyond the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I examine the concept of shared or 'distributed' agency between humans and non-humans in the context of coastal environments. Drawing on critical theory from the environmental humanities and cultural geography, I begin by situating distributed agency within a relational paradigm for human existence in a more-than-human world, building on the idea of receptivity to bridge the gap between an ontological and a moral-political understanding of the other-than-human capacity to act. I subsequently bring the concept of distributed agency into dialogue with the idea of 'working with nature', notably examples of the 'sand motor' coastal landscape intervention found in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Ireland. The sand motor is a method for beach nourishment that operates on the basis of autonomous sediment dispersal, and that is meant to replace existing approaches to coastal protection that are labor-intensive and have a much shorter lifespan. Using the different cases, I demonstrate how planned and accidental deployments of the sand motor can be tied to varying paradigms for human/nature relationships, which may either contradict or support the principles of distributed agency. With regard to the latter, I highlight the importance of agential indeterminacy and human accountability for the long-term sustainability of pluriagential collaborations. Ultimately, by engaging productively with other-than-human expressions of agency through an ongoing practice of receptivity, important steps can be taken toward a more resilient future for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the critical shift in geographical knowledge production under the increasingly authoritarian political regime in Turkey, particularly in the aftermath of the unsuccessful 2016 coup attempt. In this context, semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen young geographers who experienced the authoritarian shift in the political regime during their graduate studies. The narratives of the interviewees indicate that the young geographers have undergone a critical transformation with two significant aspects: firstly, they reject the traditional style of geographical knowledge production and instead embrace approaches integrated with social theory, drawing from the extensive portfolio of contemporary geography. Secondly, they approach socio-spatial phenomena in a libertarian and critical manner, distinct from the lenses of the authoritarian system. However, due to their legitimate concerns, they often refrain from presenting such research on academic platforms. In this regard, under an authoritarian regime, the critical transformation consists of two dimensions: the arena where geographical products are shared, and the underground, where geographical 'black boxes' are held and kept hidden from public view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of the geospatial services industry is increasing the demand for a workforce with training at the intersection of geography and computing (i.e., geocomputation) in terms of skills, knowledge, and disciplinary background. To be more effective at increasing the supply of geocomputational professionals, we need to better understand the existing educational pathways that are available to acquire knowledge and skills in geography, computing, or both. In this article, we aimed to enhance our understanding of the current standing of geocomputational career pathways by (1) articulating the existing curriculum pathways from school to career and identifying broadening participation challenges associated with training opportunities; and (2) identifying specific gaps in knowledge, skills, and training needs and opportunities between geographers, computer scientists, and the geospatial technology industry. Our analysis of a survey of geocomputational professionals identified significant differences in knowledge, skills, and access to training between different educational pathways and between different demographic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development in Chinese paradiplomacy in the reform period has attracted scholarly attention, especially from the perspective of central–local interactions. However, there was a lack of detailed inquiry about the diversity in paradiplomacy conducted by different provinces. This article seeks to fill the gap by exploring the diversity in Chinese paradiplomacy and the variables leading to such phenomenon. By conducting a comparative case study of the two provinces, Zhejiang and Yunnan, this article argues that variables at both national and subnational levels jointly determined the paradiplomatic activities of the two provinces, which displayed significant variations. At the national level, the timing of opening up and the detailed arrangements of national policies for the two provinces played important roles in deciding the paradiplomacy of the two provinces. At the provincial level, variables including geography, provincial resources and international linkages were responsible for paradiplomatic activities. In most cases, variables at these two levels were mutually enhanced. As a result, Zhejiang developed a globalized economic-oriented model of paradiplomacy, and Yunnan preferred a regional model of paradiplomacy, which was able to served Yunnan's inward-looking aim—improving the status of the province domestically and obtaining benefits from the central government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, requirements for flood insurance, development restrictions, and federal buyout program eligibility rely on regulatory designation of hazardous zones, i.e., inside or outside the 100-year floodplain. Extensive research has investigated floodplain development patterns across different geographies, times, and scales, yet the impacts, and potential unintended consequences, of floodplain policies beyond their boundaries have not been empirically examined. We posit that the regulatory 100-year floodplain presents a "safe development paradox", whereby attempts to reduce flood risk paradoxically intensifies it by promoting development in and near flood-prone areas. We conducted the first comprehensive national assessment of historical and future development patterns related to the regulatory 100-year floodplain, examining the spatial distribution of developed land within increasingly distant 250-m zones from floodplain boundaries. We found a disproportionate concentration of developed land (24% or 89,080 km2 of developed land by 2019) in zones immediately adjacent to the floodplain, a trend observed at the national, state, and county levels. Nationwide projections suggest that approximately 22% of all anticipated growth from 2020 to 2060 is likely to occur within 250 m from the 100-year floodplain, equivalent to 6,900 km2 of new development (SD = 2,842 km2). Understanding and anticipating the influence of flood management policies on current and future land use decisions is crucial for effective planning and mitigation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been long-lasting concern that geography in Scottish education was in poor health, but it is actually now experiencing a Scottish rejuvenation. To gain a comprehensive picture of geographers in Scottish education, the numbers were gathered for those studying geography at various levels in Scottish schools and universities, those training to teach geography in Scotland, and those employed to teach geography in Scottish state schools between 2016 and 2023. Geographical education in Scotland is now booming. The numbers of geographers in Scotland are growing at school, increasingly at each successive level of public examinations, and in both undergraduate and postgraduate university study. Despite this scenario, the targets for trainee geography teachers have increased slowly, while PGDE intake figures for geography show a rapidly growing shortfall and the drop-out rate has further undermined the subject’s specialist teacher pool. The numbers of geography teachers employed in state schools in Scotland has remained virtually static while the number of geography teachers who are not subject specialists remains a concern. This lack of positive intergenerational reinforcement to inspire geographers throughout the education system may mean that the current geographer boom in Scotland will be short-lived. Positive developments are considered that could place geography more centrally in educational thinking and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sraffian tradition has mostly overlooked the role of space, treating it as a static and abstract concept. This work introduces a fresh perspective, with a reappraisal of its significance in economic modeling and the examination of the locational distribution of economic agents. Our research bridges the gap in economic theories between the Surplus approach and the Critical Quantitative Geography literature. This study has multiple objectives. First, the reappraisal of the linkages between these two theories occurred from the publication of Sraffa's seminal contribution. Second, novel concepts such as space capacity, the physical location of workers, and its simple graphical representation are introduced. Third, a demand-side closure of the model in line with the Sraffian Supermultiplier tradition. In conclusion, our research introduces a novel possibility to incorporate space into economic analysis, shedding light on how the spatial distribution of economic agents affects prices, distribution, and growth. Space as much as institutions, should play a central role in economic analysis. The direction taken in this work promises to facilitate the exchange of ideas between Critical Geography and the Surplus Approach literature, offering valuable insights for policy-making and a better understanding of regional economic dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractClimate change education is a complex and controversial undertaking in the United States given the federated nature of educational policy and the partisan nature of climate change discourse. Despite international treaty obligations, the United States struggles to implement climate change education across its educational sector. This article examines the political and geographic factors at play in the standardization of climate change science education in Delaware. Using a geographically representative sample of science teachers, we explore the specificity of NGSS-informed climate change science standards enactment, including its relationship to both voting patterns and individual teacher politics. We show how teachers’ political orientation and cultural worldview shapes climate change education independent of local context, raising important questions about professional ethics and the limitations of standards-driven science education reform during a time of intense partisan science denial and socially organized misinformation and disinformation campaigns. Specifically, we find that local political context has no effect on reports of teaching practice; instead, a science teacher’s political orientation influences if and how they enact NGSS-driven climate change science education reforms. We conclude with considerations for the field of climate change science education given the social and political realities of the modern United States educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies insight from the field of Black geography to the performance work of Henry Box Brown, a man who in 1849 mailed himself in a large postal crate from slavery in Richmond, Virginia to freedom in Philadelphia, PA. As a mobile subject, Brown had a unique purchase on how space and place could be sources of psychological and physical enslavement but also how they offered speculative geographies of liberation. During the (nearly) half century in which Brown performed, he sought to create an oppositional geography through four specific sites deployed during his performance work in England: the box in which he escaped; the slave ship he reproduced in his performance work; the panoramas he enacted in England until 1863 (with special attention to Brown’s Civil War panorama and its veiled indictment of the UK’s support for the Confederate Army); and the auction block he performed in his stage work during 1857. Geographical reconfiguration was, then, vital to the ways in which Brown manipulated and performed enslavement and to his strategies of performative resistance. Even as Brown demonstrated the omnipresence of enslavement, his geographical wake work struggled to create speculative, potentiate spaces where his fugitivity might be reconfigured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In parallel with political culture, different cultural contexts experience economic, political, and social global restructuring processes differently. Particularly in the field of planning, cultural factors are reflected through institutional structures, prevailing codes, actors, and operational traditions that have evolved over time, becoming written and unwritten practice traditions. These elements accumulate to create an experiential domain, giving rise to unique planning cultures shaped by factors such as changing actors and roles, power relationships, behaviors, representation, and policy norms over time. The research, therefore, primarily examines planning practices that create specific conditions within the political-cultural context and planning practices that emerge as a tool in the spiral of institutionalization-excessive institutionalization. It begins with reviewing studies on planning and culture, followed by a detailing in Othengrafen's "Planning Culture" model. Subsequently, it explores the historical development Turkey's planning system evolving to a direct intervention tool in urban space by the state. It also addresses the redistribution processes of institutionalized power indicating deinstitutionalization, alongside power conflicts among different levels of governance. This study highlights the multifaceted nature of planning culture and its relationship with broader socio-political transformations. It underscores the need to move beyond the limitations of specific models of research limited to specific geography and rather establish a more universal foundation for studies on the relationship between planning and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideas of islands shaped Britain's self-identity and its relationship with the wider world in the early and mid-nineteenth century. Existing interpretations of Anglo-Japanese relations have emphasized the development of the idea of Japan as the 'Britain of the East' in the late nineteenth century with the significance of Japan adopting a western model of development. This article argues for a critical re-evaluation that directly engages with the crucial developments within early nineteenth-century ideas of Japan as Britain's eastern reflection. It argues that the idea of Japan as Britain's eastern reflection did not arise out of Japanese reforms during the mid-nineteenth century but significantly predated these developments, grounded in ideas of geographical and cartographical connections between the two island nations and reinforced by firsthand travel accounts from the late 1850s onwards. Crucially, it argues that these ideas of twin isles of East and West exerted a powerful, at times eclipsing, influence over British conceptions of Japan in the early and mid-nineteenth century, employing geographical imaginaries in the face of geographical and cartographical difference. • Addresses climatic imaginaries in British ideas of Japan. • Analyses early nineteenth-century intersections of cartography and geography. • Utilizes a trans-island approach centring the island as a conceptual category. • Critically engages with the embodied meanings and interpretations of islands. • Explores environmental determinism in ideas of historical development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engaging with the literature that since Horden's and Purcell's The Corrupting Sea has reflected on the multicultural dimension of the Mediterranean over the long period, this paper aims to discuss Carlo Maranelli's (1876–1939) perspective on the Adriatic Sea, highlighting his radical democratic view and situating his contribution in the present post-national and multicultural scenario. Despite not being renowned in the international debate, Maranelli is a key figure as an anti-colonialist and social-democratic geographer in the context of natural positivist and nationalist Italian geography in the Age of Empire. At the 6th Italian Geographical Congress in 1907, Maranelli discussed a paper on the economic geography of the Adriatic, in which he emphasized the multicultural dimension of trade and networks on both sides of the sea, linked to the historical framework of different languages, rules, and traditions that coexisted and shaped the Adriatic space. His views challenged the nationalist perspectives that dominated mainstream geographical analyses at the time and aimed to sustain an imperialist project of domination, later actualized by the narrative of the Mare Nostrum , linked to the fascist goal of extending Italian domination over the entire Mediterranean. We argue that rediscovering Maranelli's work on the Adriatic can be useful in the current debates for a relational and inclusive perspective on the Mediterranean and its inhabitants. • Contributes to a reflexion on the multiple geographies of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. • Recovers the works of a forgotten, critical, anti-colonialist thinker in Italian geographical thought. • Challenges nationalist perspectives and European domination over the Mediterranean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the trends in heatwave characteristics across mainland Portugal from 1980/1981 to 2022/2023, utilising ERA5-Land reanalysis data. To achieve this, the study applies the Heatwave Magnitude Index (HWMI) to identify heatwave days for minimum (Tmin) and maximum (Tmax) temperatures across 15 grid-points representing Portugal's diverse geography and climate. Three key annual parameters are analysed: the number of heatwave days (ANDH), the average temperature during heatwaves (AATW), and the intensity of heatwave events (AIHD). Results reveal a consistent increase in heatwave persistence throughout mainland Portugal, with more pronounced trends observed for Tmax compared to Tmin. ANDH Tmin shows upward trends across all grid-points, with increases ranging from 0.8 to 4.2 days per decade. ANDH Tmax exhibits even more significant increases, with 11 out of 15 grid-points showing statistically significant rises, ranging from 2.2 to 4.4 days per decade. Coastal areas, particularly in the south, demonstrate the most substantial increases in heatwave persistence. The intensity of heatwaves, as measured by AIHD, also shows positive trends across all grid-points for both Tmin and Tmax, with southern locations experiencing the most significant increases. The study also discusses decadal trends in annual averages of Tmin and Tmax, as well as extreme measures such as annual minimum (AMIN) and annual maximum (AMAX), daily temperatures spatially represented across mainland Portugal. These analyses reveal widespread warming trends, with more pronounced increases in Tmax compared to Tmin. The AMIN and AMAX trends further corroborate the overall warming pattern from the heatwave analyses, with notable spatial variations observed. The findings indicate a substantial worsening in the occurrence, duration, and intensity of heatwave events. This increased persistence of heatwaves, especially evident from the early 2000s onwards, suggests a potential climate regime shift in mainland Portugal. The results underscore the need for adaptive strategies to address the growing challenges posed by more frequent and intense heatwaves in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To create medical school service regions and examine national in-region graduate retention patterns across the medical education continuum and into professional practice as one approach to advancing social accountability in medical education. Methods: Medical school service regions were created in Canada using publicly available data and mapped using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Population size and density for each service region were calculated using census data. Retrospective data of medical graduates who completed their medical degrees between 2001–2015 (n = 19,971) were obtained from a centralized data repository and used to analyze in-region retention rates by medical specialty across the training continuum and five years into professional practice. Results: Spatial inequities were observed across medical school service regions. Graduate retention patterns also varied across service region groups and medical specialties. Quebec (86.5%) and Ontario (80.4%) had above-average retention rates across the medical education continuum. Family medicine had the highest retention rates from undergraduate to postgraduate training (81.9%), while psychiatry had the highest retention rate across the training continuum and into professional practice (71.2%). The Alberta and British Columbia service region group demonstrated high retention rates across the training continuum and into professional practice and medical specialties, except for retention from undergraduate to postgraduate medical education. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of considering both medical specialty and practice location of graduates when planning and retaining the physician workforce. The observed retention patterns among graduates are a critical aspect of addressing societal needs and represent an intermediate step towards achieving health equity. Furthermore, graduate retention patterns serve as an outcome measure for schools to demonstrate their commitment to social accountability. Tracking and monitoring graduate outcomes may lead schools to actively collaborate with government agencies responsible for healthcare policy, which may ultimately improve physician workforce planning and promote more equitable healthcare access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our changing world, there is a need for primarily well-educated people in order for societies to keep up with this rapid change and development process to improve to meet and rise appropriate standarts of the age economically and socially. Although the education of people is so important in the age we live in; This issue is not sufficiently understood in our country or the necessary importance has not been given to this issue. Education is one of the most basic elements in the development and development of a country. Educated societies develop, strengthen and progress in almost every field. The country improves in socio-economic and socio-cultural fields and sets an example for them, leaving other societies behind. For this reason, education is one of the services that a country will offer to its own people. Although the physical infrastructure in Sivas Province, located in the Central Anatolia Region, is sufficient, education and Teaching rates have not developed at the desired level. The ancestors of this situation are the local socio-economic and socio-cultural aspects of the population of the region, especially geographical conditions It appears to be due to its structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a growing number of contributions on green finance have emerged, not only within economic geography but also increasingly from disciplines beyond it. With this Special Issue, we aim to engage with the ongoing debate around green and sustainable finance and its challenges, including concerns over greenwashing. Our extended editorial provides structure to this complex discussion by identifying four primary strands of literature that frame the field. Two of these strands adopt a more critical stance, combining analytical approaches and rigorous assessments that question the impact and 'authenticity' of green and sustainable finance schemes, approaches and policies. Most of the contributions and empirical case studies featured here align with these critical perspectives, which are introduced in greater depth in the second part of this editorial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]