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This paper contributes to the process of decolonising geographical knowledge on Indigenous people. More specifically, it seeks to critically engage with knowledge production on the Indigenous Other in early French colonial geography in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This particular moment coincided with the institutionalisation of French geography and the subsequent ambition to convert this discipline into a "science." As a result, early colonial geographers began objectifying Indigenous people. Rather than discuss how early French colonial geographers defined the Indigenous Other as a new "object of science," this paper examines how this desire to objectify other humanities resulted in the dehumanisation of Indigenous peoples. After clarifying the meaning of "colonial geography" in France, this paper focuses on early French colonial geographers' invention of the Indigenous Other based on different modalities whose common principle appears to be the concept of "race." This paper concludes that racialised determinants were key to othering, distancing, and even animalising Indigenous Others. Disparaging non‐European people through the use of biased "science" enabled early colonial geographers to inferiorise and dispossess them under the guise of "progress." This paper contributes to the process of decolonising geographical knowledge on Indigenous people. More specifically, it seeks to critically engage with knowledge production on the Indigenous Other in early French colonial geography in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the issues related to the double-sided dimension of wellbeing: subjective and objective. In the theoretical framework developed by Fleuret and Atkinson (2007, The New Zealand Geographer 63 106-29), spaces of wellbeing are shaped by four dimensions (spaces of security, spaces of capability, therapeutic spaces and integrative spaces). In the case of the student population in Angers, we observe a major imbalance: the component that really stands out is capability, which is quite logical because students are a population in a transition between youth and adulthood. The results reveal that the student population has a specific relation to space due to a transitory presence in the university town, with, as a consequence, a simultaneous embedding in different places. This could explain why the students do not perceive the characteristics of place to be a major influence on their wellbeing; instead it is the perception they have of their wellbeing that influences their perception of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: On the basis of 2402 phytoecological relevés, with complete species lists, and real pH measurements resulting from chemical analyses of the top layer of forest soils, this paper compares quantitatively the ecological response of 46 herbaceous forest species along a pH gradient in two regions of northern France. Location: The two regions investigated are oceanic north-western France (NW) and semicontinental north-eastern France (NE). Methods: For each of the 46 species with more than 50 occurrences in both NW and NE regions, an ecological response curve was computed with simple logistic regression models, and two synthetic numerical values were derived: ecological optimum (OPT) and ecological amplitude (AMP). A comparison of the ecological behaviour of species present in both regions was performed in terms of shift in optimum and/or amplitude. Results: All 46 species did reveal a reaction to pH. Our main observation was the relative stability of the behaviour of most species with reference to pH conditions, which is consistent with results from some previous studies. Slight differences regarding the two synthetic parameters (OPT and AMP) were however observed between the NW and NE regions, probably due to a form of competitive release in neutral environments in the NW. Main conclusions: Among the main possibilities that could explain a geographical shift in the ecological behaviour of herbaceous species, competitive effects are, we suggest, the most plausible explanation. In the light of former studies, it seems that further analyses of geographical shifts in the ecological behaviour of forest plant species over large areas are needed, such as for example over the European continent. Nomenclature: Tutin et al . (2001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islands have exercised a fascination on the human imagination. Yet today it is possible to identify a positive need for island experience – an island imperative – in whole sectors of society in developed countries. This condition invites the geographer to investigate the nature and fundamental causes of this ‘lure of the island’. In this paper, it is argued that the enhanced impact of islands on the human imagination is not a passing fad: there is rather an essential contribution of, and by, small islands and their inhabitants to the urban and globalised civilisation of our time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]