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In this paper, we show how mobile drawing methodologies can bring the dynamic, relational and non-representational qualities of landscape encounters to the foreground. The research paper discusses a mobile drawing project that took place in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. The project entitled 'Taxi Guff-Gaff' invited participants to undertake a collaborative drawing and conversational journey. Mobile drawing together on a bumpy taxi journey required artist participants to move together and literally 'pay attention to the moment at hand'. In so doing it produced imagery that foregrounds the inherent dynamic quality of all our landscape encounters. We propose that mobile drawing offers an immersive way to relate to the urban landscape and each other and can open up spaces of landscape research that centre on speculative forms of thinking, being, drawing and conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relational values are values of desirable relationships between people and nature and among people (through nature). We report on the approach to capture relational values of nature's contributions to people in the regional assessment for Europe and Central Asia of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). We present a framework considering indicators along four relational value dimensions about people's relationships with nature: security and sovereignty; health; equity and justice; and heritage, social identity and stewardship. The framework has been operationalized for three nature's contributions to people (NCP): regulation of freshwater quality and quantity, food and feed, and physical and psychological experiences derived from nature. We identify ways to empirically assess relational values of nature's contributions to people at regional and continental scales with social-ecological indicators and proxies, ranging from biophysical indicators to indicators that intersect socio-economic with biophysical data. We conclude that many of the identified indicators can be considered as useful proxies of relational values in a quantitative way. The analysis shows that relational values are essential to consider at the science-policy interface as they are an important set of values that people hold about nature and that go beyond instrumental relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of regular participation in physical activity in youth has seen attention turn to the role of lifestyle sports. Existing research on lifestyle sports lacks consideration of young people's use of green spaces and the approaches of managers to conflicts in these spaces. Young people's experiences of leisure are closely tied to those who oversee their use of leisure spaces and this paper is a rare example of research that draws upon qualitative methods from 40 mountain biking participants and 9 managers to explore both perspectives. Findings reveal young people seek opportunities for autonomy in green spaces through mountain biking but contest normative management practices. Managers recognized the benefits of engaging young people in mountain biking and discussed experimenting with various strategies to accommodate their practices. The paper therefore discusses the importance of moving beyond constructions of young people's participation in lifestyle sports as transgressive and troublesome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published in 2005, the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) stressed that influencing governments, businesses and communities to address the supra-national challenge of limiting biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation requires a fuller understanding of the range of values and benefits people derive from ecosystems, including tourism. The MA was informed by, and has shaped, several conceptually and methodologically distinctive sub-global assessments (SGAs) of ecosystem services. Through content analysis, this paper is the first detailed examination of how tourism features in 14 extant SGAs identified in a database held by a major supra-national environmental organization. Although the SGAs should have incorporated the widest range of specialist subject expertise, tourism scholars played only peripheral roles in producing them even for territories where tourism is a significant land use. The SGAs examined did not benefit from the extensive body of knowledge relating to sustainable tourism. Limited portrayals of tourism restrict the capacity of SGAs in their current format as management solutions. It is also contradictory to the ethos, principles and purpose of ecosystem assessments. With the ecosystem services perspective set to become more important to policy and decision making, the paper argues for greater incorporation of recent progress in sustainable tourism in ecosystem assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lifestyle and informal sports have been recognised by policy makers as offering opportunities to increase participation in physical activity, particularly amongst hard to reach groups. Lifestyle sports are, however, double edged in their potential to achieve these goals. Their playful and non-traditional features may attract new participants less interested in traditional sports but the very liquidity of these activities may mean that the engagement of participants is fragmented and not sustained beyond a particular period in their lives. This article presents the perspective of mountain biking user-managers; those involved in the delivery, clubs and communities of mountain bikers across the United Kingdom. Findings suggest that whilst lifestyle sport communities are dependent on the work of formalised clubs to gain access to the funding and resources they need to sustain their activities, core participants will not always want to have to liaise or become involved formally within a club structure. In addition, clubs will not succeed in delivering sustained activities in line with sport policy to increase and maintain participation by relying on individual grants and without the support of an active informal user community. Accounts highlight the importance of engaging informal user communities with a sense of ownership such as locals to ensure new participants are integrated and the community is able to replenish. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Young people have been identified as a key target group for whom participation in sport and physical activity could have important benefits to health and well-being and consequently have been the focus of several government policies to increase participation in the UK. Lifestyle sports represent one such strategy for encouraging and sustaining new engagements in sport and physical activity in youth groups, however, there is at present a lack of understanding of the use of these activities within policy contexts. This paper presents findings from a government initiative which sought to increase participation in sport for young people through provision of facilities for mountain biking in a forest in south-east England. Findings from qualitative research with 40 young people who participated in mountain biking at the case study location highlight the importance of non-traditional sports as a means to experience the natural environments through forms of consumption which are healthy, active and appeal to their identities. In addition, however, the paper raises questions over the accessibility of schemes for some individuals and social groups, and the ability to incorporate sports which are inherently participant-led into state-managed schemes. Lifestyle sports such as mountain biking involve distinct forms of participation which present a challenge for policy-makers who seek to create and maintain sustainable communities of youth participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses narrative accounts of private gardens in Britain from the Mass-Observation Archive (MO) to explore ideas of landscape, privacy and attachment that emerge from daily practices and routines in these ordinary domestic spaces. We argue for the domestic garden as a vernacular or ordinary landscape that displays tensions between the private and the public nature of home within ambivalent emotional responses. Extended personal narratives offer privileged access to a site of intense engagement and carefully guarded privacy, yet with varying levels of attachment. The garden is a space well described in Britain in its public form but less well known as a private, everyday landscape. In this way a cultural landscape study becomes a contemporary critical geography of an ordinary space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many sports, but especially professional soccer in the UK, clubs have recently relocated to new stadiums so as to meet new health and safety requirements and also develop new opportunities for income generation. The process of stadium relocation involves the emergence of new spaces that have implications for the power relations between stadium owners, managers and sport supporters. Existing studies provide a limited understanding of the changing nature of power relations in new stadiums. This paper reveals the power modalities and resources involved in the constantly changing new stadium spaces. A case study of Arsenal Football Club in London and the process of ‘Arsenalisation’ in the club's new stadium reveals how material and virtual spaces are used by supporters to resist, confirm and negotiate the resources and practices of stadium managers seeking to control their activities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the politics of recreational access to the natural environment has long been associated with walking, there is growing recognition that other forms of access can, in political terms, be more problematic. One such case is recreational access to inland waters in England and Wales, which has long been dominated by the oppositional politics of anglers and canoeists. Recognising the limitations of conventional evidence-based approaches to policy-making, this paper offers a phenomenological perspective on the politics of water related recreation, suggesting that approaches to the ‘solution’ of access problems may be found by understanding better the lifeworlds of those involved in the debates. This is illustrated by reference to a recent official inquiry into access along inland waters in Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how the domestic garden is experienced as an intimate place in everyday life. With reference to Bachelard we seek to analyse prosaic pleasures and enchanting encounters that are revealed through multi-sensorial engagements and emotional attachments within the social/natural world. In particular we focus on three modalities of the everyday: work or tasks involved in gardening; that is, sensuous and embodied experiences explored through the notion of haptic perception; 'cultivation' in the sense of taking care of the garden, as well as caring for the self and others; and emotional attachments invoking body/place memories, especially of childhood gardens. To illustrate these themes we use garden narratives drawn from the Mass Observation Archive (MOA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses recreational conflict between anglers and boaters in England. While recognizing that interpersonal conflicts between individual anglers and boaters exist much as they do in other countries, the article argues that the position in England is mediated through complex land and property rights that position the stakeholders asymmetrically, as legal rights holders (anglers) and moral rights claimants (boaters). Under this scenario, negotiated attempts to increase access for boaters are interpreted not primarily as a means of addressing the asymmetry, but as a mechanism for underwriting the dominant property power of the anglers. Using data collected from focus groups involving stakeholders, the article suggests that in cases where recreational access to natural resources is mediated through sociopolitical institutions such as law, weaker stakeholders have very limited options in terms of the legal or social mechanisms through which he can pursue or assert their claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global cities, such as London, are viewed as distinctive in terms of their role in the increasingly globalized economy. There has been considerable academic debate over the nature of global city labour markets and how these can be explained in relation to global city functions. New empirical evidence is presented for the tourism labour market in London and the UK. The pay, conditions and social characteristics of tourism workers in London are examined, and they appear distinctive in terms of their full-time, gender (male), student, ethnicity and migrant characteristics. An explanation is developed that explores the interactions between the global city role of London and other scaled geographical processes that originate, especially at the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Talks about topics discussed during the annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers in London, England. Recent developments in tourism and leisure; Explanation concerning the term creative tourism; Views related to critical reappraisal of tourism and sustainability.

The growth in the provision of gardens has been an important feature of housing in the UK during the 20th century, and yet the significance of the humble domestic garden has been neglected in studies of housing and home. This paper examines the role of the garden in the meaning of home, and draws on theoretical discussions of nature, environmental risk and social uncertainty in late modernity. Secondary empirical data is used to investigate the changing uses of gardens and practices of gardening. A survey of garden owners provides primary empirical data to examine meanings of gardens and personal experiences of nature. The paper concludes that the garden is an important site for privacy, sociability and sensual connections to nature, and these activities can be understood as negotiations and practices to address the social and environmental paradoxes of late modern life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the changing nature of tourism policy in Great Britain. Supranational tourism policy influences of the European Union; Consequences of the uneven development of tourism policy in Britain; Proposal of a research agenda for tourism geography.

Focuses on the importance of contemporary gardens as leisure sites in the process of homemaking. Reflection of contemporary garden on social relations; Examination of the gender relations depicted in gardens and gardening; Social construction of the home; Presentation of the gendered meaning of gardens.

CHURCH A. and REID P. (1999) Cross-border co-operation, institutionalization and political space across the English Channel, Reg. Studies 33, 643-655. Cross-border initiatives are based on flexible co-operative networks and have many of the characteristics which the institutionalist perspective argues are often present in regions that have developed effective institutional forms. Transfrontier programmes involving local authorities in northern France and southern England are examined. The paper explores the significance of cross-border strategies for the development and restructuring of the role of local governance in institutional arrangements and territories. It also considers the interaction between cross-border spaces, the transnational spatial planning regions promoted by the European Commission and the emerging regional politics of South East England. CHURCH A. and REID P. (1999) La coopération transfrontalière, l'institutionnalisation et l'espace politique outre Manche, Reg. Studies 33, 643-655. Les initiatives transfrontalières sont fondées sur des réseaux de coopération souples et ont beaucoup des caractéristiques qui, du point de vue institutionnel, sont souvent présentes dans les régions qui ont développé des institutions efficaces. Des programmes transfrontaliers auxquels participent les autorités locales dans le nord de la France et dans le sud de l'Angleterre se voient examiner. Cet article étudie l'importance des stratégies trans frontalières quant au développement et à la restruct uration du rôle du gouvernement local dans les structures institutionnelles et les territoires. L'article aborde aussi l'interaction des espaces transfrontaliers, des zones d'étude et d'aménagement du territoire transnationales promues par la Commission européenne, et de la politique régionale naissante du sud-est de l'Angleterre. CHURCH A. und REID P. (1996) Grenzüberschreitende Kooperation, Institutionalisierung und politischer Raum jenseits des Ärmelkanals, Reg. Studies 33, 643–655. Grenzüberschreitende Initiativen stützen sich auf flexible kooperative Netzwerke, und weisen viele Eigenschaften auf, die sich vom Standpunkt der institutionellen Perspektive her gesehen oft in Gegenden befinden, die effektive institutionelle Formen entwickelt haben. Es werden grenzüberschreitende Programme überprüft, die Ortsverwaltungen in Nordfrankreich und Südengland einbeziehen Der Aufsatz untersucht die Bedeutung grenzüberschreitender Strategien für die Entwicklung und Umstrukturierung der Rolle der örtlichen Verwaltung in institutionellen Vereinbarungen und Staatsgebieten. Er berücksichtigt auch die Wechselwirkung zwischen grenzüberschreitenden Räumen, die übernationalen Raumplanungs regionen, die von der europäischen Kommission gefördert werden, und die aufkommende Regionalpolitik Südenglands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The involvement of urban and regional governments in transnational cooperative arrangements and policy networks has led to considerable debate regarding the political and theoretical implications. This paper examines networking and cooperation between urban areas and regions in the UK and France with a shared sea border. Such cross-border cooperation involving local authorities in Europe is a growing phenomenon and has certain implications for the analysis of local and urban politics. Three study areas are examined in detail: the Transmanche region involving Kent County Council and the French region Nord-Pas-de-Calais; the Transmanche Metropole which includes Southampton, Portsmouth, Bournemouth and Poole in Britain and Caen, Rouen and Le Havre in France; the cooperative initiative between the English county of East Sussex and the French de partements of Somme and Seine-Maritime. In all three case studies, the development of cooperation has been influenced by the availability of funds from the European Union Interreg programme which supports transfrontier networking. A number of political consequences of cross-border cooperation are identified. The implications of these policy initiatives for theories of urban politics are considered, including a discussion of the political and economic construction of competition and cooperation between cities and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines employer involvement in the evaluation of student oral presentations in geography courses in Great Britain. Description of the geography curriculum, skills teaching and employer-student program at Birkbeck College; Employer involvement in assessment and feedback for oral presentations; Benefits from employer involvement.

The sub-regional pattern of employment change from 1989 to 1991 is examined for the hotel and catering industry in Great Britain. A complex spatial pattern is identified. The effects of tourism, leisure, local economic and population change, and sub-regional economic specialisation on employment levels in hotel and catering are considered. Further analysis is undertaken of the geography of employment change in the sub-sectors of eating places, take-aways, pubs, clubs, hotels, canteens and other tourist accommodation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the progress in German- and English-speaking worlds symposium held at the University of Munster on September 13-15, 2002. Developments in leisure and tourism geography research; Outline of the historical development of tourism and leisure geography in the United Kingdom; Exploration of the governance of tourism spaces and sustainable tourism initiatives.

Highlights the annual meeting of the Geography of Parks, Recreation and Tourism (GEOPARETO) Study Group of the Canadian Association of Geographers, held in Lethbridge, Alberta. Resignation of the group's chair; Consensus that the organization should exist as a mechanism for encouraging Canadian geographers with a common interest in recreation and tourism to share their research and experiences.