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We present a performance in festival laughter that unfolds in three movements. Movement I traces the emergence and proliferation of Renaissance “faires” in America as spectacle, a Rabelaisian landscape of pleasure and excess that speaks to nostalgia and escape as cultural elixirs. In Movement II, we sketch the history of festival and wink to Ren Fest as contemporary expression of the carnivalesque, sanitized remnants of transgression and subversion that marked premodern carnivals and festivals. This catapults us to the third, and culminating, movement—an eruption in festival laughter that reverberates and shakes high-minded seriousness, leaving in its wake questions of being qua becoming. Our entanglement in laughter moves in streams of anti- or nonrepresentational thought, most notably that of Georges Bataille. Laughter is spontaneous, a contagion that “communicates” that we beings called human are thoroughly relational, most united in “senseless” detachment. We end the performance with a coda, sounding eruptions of laughter as moments of the unexpected, moments of vitality, moments of communitas ripe with possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Time and collective historical experience loom large in the formation of generations. I argue that spatial proximity cements generational consciousness among seniors in Arizona retirement communities who identify themselves as members of the Second World War generation. The argument twins Karl Mannheim's social-historical conception of generations and Hannah Arendt's political philosophy which underscores the space of appearance in the public realm in identity formation. It is through congregating, interacting and conversing on a daily basis that seniors in retirement enclaves affirm and reaffirm who they are, both to themselves and outsiders. I draw upon a suite of Arizona case studies, 1988-2000, in revealing `voices' for a slice of the Second World War generation. Discussions revolving around family, community and national life reveal beliefs and values coalescing around four themes: (1) splendid isolation; (2) dissolution of values; (3) absence of children; and (4) fraying the social compact. The space of appearance within retirement enclaves engenders a strong sense of collective identity and belonging in ageing and, simultaneously, leads to questions about implications and consequences of intergenerational separation. I conclude with a poignant multigenerational experience as suggestive of the potency of intergenerational contact and exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Filmmaker Doug Hawes-Davis presents an ironic and strangely dissonant interpretation of American culture in the documentary This is Nowhere, an exposé of RV travelers who circumnavigate the country "camping" in Wal-Mart parking lots. I proffer an interpretation of the film that explodes the fiction of placelessness, as nowhere serves as a poignant foil in evoking the meaning of mobility, place and landscape in America. Through ingenious editing and timely cuts to eclectic film footage, the viewer is taken on a journey of cultural contradictions, driven by the balderdash of Wal-Mart campers who speak their minds on a panoply of issues: mobility, freedom, nature, resources, consumption, government, social class, community, globalization and homogenization, suburban sprawl, urban poverty and blight. The result is a theater of the absurd acted out in surreal Wal-Mart and highway commercial strip scapes, vehicles and people jiggling in fast motion staccato, going nowhere. This is Nowhere takes us on an existential journey, enticing viewers to pause and reflect on American society, culture and place: what have we wrought? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper elucidates and champions a spatiality perspective in social gerontology, by arguing that relationships between older people and the spaces and places they inhabit illuminate deeply-ingrained societal attitudes and values. The trilogy of society, image and place is explored through an interpretive reading of images and scripts in 'successful ageing' and 'anti-ageing' created and promoted by the booming 'retirement industry' in the United States. Six tropes are revealed in an interpretation of prevalent images of 'Sunbelt Retirement Land': geographic cornucopia, ageless selves, near perfection, the right stuff, down home living, and nomads of desire. This reading serves as a springboard in elaborating Cole's (1992) notion of bipolar ageism, as we vacillate between negative stereotypes of old age and positive elixirs, such as anti-ageing and agelessness, that are cloaked denials of decline, disease and death. The paper concludes with a series of troubling questions about the perpetuation and depth of ageism in society and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confusion about the role of residential satisfaction vis-à-vis structural factors in the mobility process stems from the failure to examine the determinants of mobility over varying time frames and housing tenures. Using survey data for a random sample of 580 Phoenix-area households, we test models of short-term (1 year) and long-term (5 years) mobility expectations for home owners and renters. The results show that residential satisfaction mediates the effects of structural variables on mobility expectations in the short term for home owners. In the long-term model for home owners and the short-term model for renters, the role of satisfaction as an intervening force declines in relative importance. Among renters, structural variables operate directly on long-term mobility expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and tests a regression-based model of black interstate migration. Explanatory variables include characteristics of origins and destinations, distance, and two migrant stock measures. The model is tested using black interstate migration flows published by the U.S. Bureau of the Census for 1965-70 and 1975-80. Three findings stand out. Firstly, the stock measures are strong determinants of black migration. They tap behavioral processes that channelize black migration streams, including information flows through familial and social networks and return migration. Secondly, the migrant stock measures attenuate effects of other explanatory variables indicating that other variables influence current migration both directly and indirectly through the stock measures. Thirdly, changes in coefficients of explanatory variables between the two periods reflect shifts in black migration patterns that occurred during the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proposes a life course framework as an explanatory schema in the study of multiple residence and recurrent mobility. Literature relating to multiple residence and cyclical movements; Types of multiple residence associated with life course transitions and stages; Prevalence of selected types of multiple residence by age and other socio-demographic measures.

Examines the issues of housing affordability and commuting in Sedona, Arizona, and its environs. Emergence of amenity towns on the nonmetropolitan landscape; Emergence of long-distance commuting; Sedona's natural and economic history, demography and housing values; Survey of Sedona's workforce; Residential satisfaction of long-distance commuters.

Addresses several problem areas in the prospective migration literature. Deficiencies in the measurement of intentions and behavior; Failure to examine destination selection; Need to more clearly specify social psychological aspects of the migration decision process.

While vacation travel to Yellowstone National Park may be considered the epitome of American travel traditions, measurement and analysis of this important national phe nomenon is surprisingly limited. This survey of 600 Yellowstone visitors focuses upon the spatial pattern of their travel movements to and from Yellowstone. Four types of trip configurations are discovered: Direct Route, Partial Orbit, Full Orbit, and Fly/Drive. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examines health care use and issues among seasonal migrants in an urban setting in Phoenix. Methodology of the study; Characteristics of the sample; Health status of migrants in Phoenix; Health care use at home and in Arizona; How Phoenix snowbirds view their lifestyle; Other findings.

Examines the role of Miami, Florida in the system of urban settlements that make up a Cuban ethnic archipelago in the United States (US). Segmented-assimilation theory on the diverse trajectories in the US; Details on the Cuban ethnic archipelago; Patterns and rate of migration to Miami; Segmented paths of migration; Migration and the evolving Cuban settlement system.

Explores the meaning of home, place and migration among elders residing in multiple locales linked to seasonal movements and travel. Elderly migrants' evolving attachments and relationships with place over the course of their lives; Varying migration and life histories of elderly couples involved in the study; Collective identity in RV communities.

Examines the conditions under which seasonal movement of the aged serves as a substitute for permanent migration among winter visitors to recreational vehicle parks in Phoenix, Arizona. Ties to the home community; Ties to the seasonal residence demographic characteristics; Commitment to a mobile lifestyle.

Identifies short-term fluctuations in the interstate migration system with the use of annual state-to-state migration flow data from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) records. Background on the study; IRS migration data; Migration efficiency measures; Migration efficiency and economic performance; Geographic patterns of migration efficiency.

The article focuses on the geographic and virtual dissemination of a global climatic announcement released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in September 2012. Topics discussed include an article about global weather extreme, the role of social media in the dissemination of such announcement, and the web traffic involving the WMO Extremes website. Also mentioned is the impact of digital media on atmospheric research.

This article comments on a previous article "Spatial Choice and Constraints on Behavior," by Jacqueline Desbarats, published in the June 1984 issue of the journal "Annals of the Association of American Geographers." The author says that Jacqueline Desbarats call for incorporating constraints into models of spatial behavior is an important contribution to the emerging perspective on constraints in behavioral geography. A critical issue raised by Desbarats is that explanatory frameworks in behavioral geography have advanced rather loosely conceptualized subjective determinants of behavior.

Comments on the sensitivity of professor McNee to social differences in migration. Importance for a behavioral geographer to examine process aspects of migration at the individual level; Development of sample using a random digit-dialing telephone procedure in each study area; Assessment of a longitudinal research design in which respondents completed two major surveys.