This paper develops the concept of the non-encounter for geography in the context of the changing experience of gig economy work during COVID-19. Supplementing political economy insights with a cultural geographic sensitivity to embodiment, we explore the fluctuating bodily capacities of food delivery drivers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Melbourne, Australia. We reflect on fieldwork with gig workers which drew our attention to how the practice of doorstep food delivery became ‘contact-free’ during the pandemic. In dialogue with cultural geographical literatures on boredom and interruptions, our paper highlights the deleterious impacts of repetition without interruption on workers' bodies. We argue that the felt absences of previously enjoyed light-touch interactions with customers and other delivery drivers has created a strange kind of ‘non-encounter’ for gig workers, intensifying feelings of boredom and a sense of detachment. We speculate on what this means for the future of gig work and for cultural geographers.
{"title":"Working in the gig economy is boring: Non-encounters and the politics of detachment in platform capitalism","authors":"Elizabeth R. Straughan, David Bissell","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12453","DOIUrl":"10.1111/geoj.12453","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper develops the concept of the non-encounter for geography in the context of the changing experience of gig economy work during COVID-19. Supplementing political economy insights with a cultural geographic sensitivity to embodiment, we explore the fluctuating bodily capacities of food delivery drivers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Melbourne, Australia. We reflect on fieldwork with gig workers which drew our attention to how the practice of doorstep food delivery became ‘contact-free’ during the pandemic. In dialogue with cultural geographical literatures on boredom and interruptions, our paper highlights the deleterious impacts of repetition without interruption on workers' bodies. We argue that the felt absences of previously enjoyed light-touch interactions with customers and other delivery drivers has created a strange kind of ‘non-encounter’ for gig workers, intensifying feelings of boredom and a sense of detachment. We speculate on what this means for the future of gig work and for cultural geographers.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"188 4","pages":"534-545"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/geoj.12453","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75086996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The environment is a central axis of academic discussion, but even so, there are theoretical difficulties in understanding environmental problems. Environmental Geography provides arguments to articulate the relationships between society and nature and the possibility of focusing on the environmental system as an object of study. The aim of this article is to provide theoretical, methodological and operational elements for the evaluation of the interrelationship between wetland ecosystems and urban localities in Uruguay based on three case studies and analysing them from the theoretical and conceptual context of Environmental Geography. The methodological strategy is based on a multi-scale analysis: at the national scale, studying the situation of the interrelationship between wetlands and urban areas, and at the basin scale, case studies are selected to address the specific conditions of the relationship. In Uruguay, 50% of urban localities are located in wetland territories, but no national strategy can be identified to solve the problem of flooding events in urban areas. Environmental Geography offers the possibility of making the interrelationships between urban spaces and the environments where they develop visible as it makes it possible to analyse the causes of the problem at the basin level in order to achieve sustainable management.
{"title":"Urban wetlands, their dynamics and management strategies from the perspective of Environmental Geography","authors":"Feline Schön, Ana Domínguez, Marcel Achkar","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12445","DOIUrl":"10.1111/geoj.12445","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The environment is a central axis of academic discussion, but even so, there are theoretical difficulties in understanding environmental problems. Environmental Geography provides arguments to articulate the relationships between society and nature and the possibility of focusing on the environmental system as an object of study. The aim of this article is to provide theoretical, methodological and operational elements for the evaluation of the interrelationship between wetland ecosystems and urban localities in Uruguay based on three case studies and analysing them from the theoretical and conceptual context of Environmental Geography. The methodological strategy is based on a multi-scale analysis: at the national scale, studying the situation of the interrelationship between wetlands and urban areas, and at the basin scale, case studies are selected to address the specific conditions of the relationship. In Uruguay, 50% of urban localities are located in wetland territories, but no national strategy can be identified to solve the problem of flooding events in urban areas. Environmental Geography offers the possibility of making the interrelationships between urban spaces and the environments where they develop visible as it makes it possible to analyse the causes of the problem at the basin level in order to achieve sustainable management.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"188 3","pages":"415-428"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79000589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This commentary reflects on the pandemic commute and its significance for, on one hand, engaging with the problematic category of essential work, and on the other, future geographical research on transport and mobilities. Drawing on essential workers' contributions to the ‘Not working from home’ public engagement project, I outline some experiences of commuting during the COVID-19 pandemic. I illustrate the role of pandemic commuting in defining, and wrestling with, what the category of essential work might mean. I then discuss the ways in which attending to pandemic commutes may extend and reshape existing research on unequal mobilities. Some of the future research directions made more urgent by a focus on pandemic commutes include critical engagements with: first, intersectional inequalities in the journey to work; second, the category of ‘essential journeys’ as used in transport policy and practice; third, the positionality of academic researchers who work on the topic of commuting; and finally, the treatment of commuting time as an integral part of working time.
{"title":"Essential workers' pandemic mobilities and the changing meanings of the commute","authors":"Anna Plyushteva","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12447","DOIUrl":"10.1111/geoj.12447","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This commentary reflects on the pandemic commute and its significance for, on one hand, engaging with the problematic category of essential work, and on the other, future geographical research on transport and mobilities. Drawing on essential workers' contributions to the ‘Not working from home’ public engagement project, I outline some experiences of commuting during the COVID-19 pandemic. I illustrate the role of pandemic commuting in defining, and wrestling with, what the category of essential work might mean. I then discuss the ways in which attending to pandemic commutes may extend and reshape existing research on unequal mobilities. Some of the future research directions made more urgent by a focus on pandemic commutes include critical engagements with: first, intersectional inequalities in the journey to work; second, the category of ‘essential journeys’ as used in transport policy and practice; third, the positionality of academic researchers who work on the topic of commuting; and finally, the treatment of commuting time as an integral part of working time.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"188 3","pages":"459-463"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9347858/pdf/GEOJ-9999-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40680258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Stanislav Kraft, Miroslav Marada, Jakub Petříček, Vojtěch Blažek, Tomáš Mrkvička
In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of newly registered motorcycles worldwide. However, there is not only an increase in the number of motorcycles in traffic but also an increase in the number of conflicts between motorcyclists and the surrounding environment. A relatively significant research gap can be identified in the relationship between spatial factors and motorcycle accident rates. This paper analyses the spatiotemporal patterns of motorcycle accidents and studies their underlying factors. The KDE+ method (an extension of the kernel density estimation method) is used to identify concentrations of motorcycle accident key hotspots. To study the underlying traffic accident determinants, a two-step cluster analysis is used. The analysis is based on the database of motorcycle accidents in the Czech Republic from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2020. The paper achieves a few main findings. By applying the KDE+ method, the most dangerous sections of the road network in the Czech Republic were identified, where a significant accumulation of motorcycle accidents occur. Motorcycle accidents are highly seasonal. Motorcycle accidents tend to accumulate in the afternoon, especially during the summer months. Concerning the frequency of accidents and the collective risk index, urban traffic, that is the traffic density, is an important cause of motorcycle accidents, along with the winter period with rather unfavourable weather conditions, and especially the directional conditions—curves and intersections—are among the hazardous sections.
{"title":"Identification of motorcycle accidents hotspots in the Czech Republic and their conditional factors: The use of KDE+ and two-step cluster analysis","authors":"Stanislav Kraft, Miroslav Marada, Jakub Petříček, Vojtěch Blažek, Tomáš Mrkvička","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12446","DOIUrl":"10.1111/geoj.12446","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of newly registered motorcycles worldwide. However, there is not only an increase in the number of motorcycles in traffic but also an increase in the number of conflicts between motorcyclists and the surrounding environment. A relatively significant research gap can be identified in the relationship between spatial factors and motorcycle accident rates. This paper analyses the spatiotemporal patterns of motorcycle accidents and studies their underlying factors. The KDE+ method (an extension of the kernel density estimation method) is used to identify concentrations of motorcycle accident key hotspots. To study the underlying traffic accident determinants, a two-step cluster analysis is used. The analysis is based on the database of motorcycle accidents in the Czech Republic from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2020. The paper achieves a few main findings. By applying the KDE+ method, the most dangerous sections of the road network in the Czech Republic were identified, where a significant accumulation of motorcycle accidents occur. Motorcycle accidents are highly seasonal. Motorcycle accidents tend to accumulate in the afternoon, especially during the summer months. Concerning the frequency of accidents and the collective risk index, urban traffic, that is the traffic density, is an important cause of motorcycle accidents, along with the winter period with rather unfavourable weather conditions, and especially the directional conditions—curves and intersections—are among the hazardous sections.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"188 3","pages":"444-458"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85618576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper uses Israel's technologically advanced Iron Dome short-range missile defence system as a deep empirical case study to examine how affective atmospheres mediate the relationship between state power and the agency of technological objects deployed to govern (in)security. Drawing theoretically from productive tensions between more-than-human theories of object-oriented ontology, actor-network theory and affect theory, it evaluates Iron Dome as a scintillating ‘bright object’ with variable capacities and limitations that exceed the sum of its components. Iron Dome both overreaches and contradicts the intentions and governance logics of state elites within a spatio-temporally distributed array of architectures, infrastructures and practices. Within this milieu, its affective power is ambivalent and capricious, and can both enhance and undermine the atmospheric production of security in ways that exceed both instrumental functionality and human intentions. These findings indicate how a geography of security that attends to the affective dimension of object politics can account for the complex and non-causal ways in which technologies can either reinforce or inhibit security as an anthropocentric endeavour.
{"title":"A strange sky: Security atmospheres and the technological management of geopolitical conflict in the case of Israel's Iron Dome","authors":"Ian Slesinger","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12444","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12444","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper uses Israel's technologically advanced Iron Dome short-range missile defence system as a deep empirical case study to examine how affective atmospheres mediate the relationship between state power and the agency of technological objects deployed to govern (in)security. Drawing theoretically from productive tensions between more-than-human theories of object-oriented ontology, actor-network theory and affect theory, it evaluates Iron Dome as a scintillating ‘bright object’ with variable capacities and limitations that exceed the sum of its components. Iron Dome both overreaches and contradicts the intentions and governance logics of state elites within a spatio-temporally distributed array of architectures, infrastructures and practices. Within this milieu, its affective power is ambivalent and capricious, and can both enhance and undermine the atmospheric production of security in ways that exceed both instrumental functionality and human intentions. These findings indicate how a geography of security that attends to the affective dimension of object politics can account for the complex and non-causal ways in which technologies can either reinforce or inhibit security as an anthropocentric endeavour.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"188 3","pages":"429-443"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/geoj.12444","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"137562964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Samuel N. Chambers, Geoff Boyce, Daniel E. Martínez
US public officials frequently argue that high temperatures are responsible for increasing mortality of undocumented border crossers (UBCs) in southern Arizona. In this article, we suggest that these kinds of assertions are not only empirically misleading, they also serve to naturalise UBC deaths in the region by helping to obscure their structural causes. Indeed, although heat exposure is a primary cause of death in the region, prior studies have also shown that migration patterns have shifted toward more remote and rugged terrain, characterised by higher elevations and greater shade cover. Using physiological modelling and a spatiotemporal forensic analysis, we assess whether the distribution of recovered human remains has shifted toward locations characterised by environments where the human body is more or less capable of regulating core temperature, and thus succumbing to heat stress. We find that the distribution of recovered UBC remains has consistently trended toward locations where the potential for heat stress is lower, rather than higher. This demonstrates that UBC mortality is not principally a function of ambient or regional temperature, but rather is a result of specific policy decisions that lead to cumulative stress and prolonged exposure due to factors like difficulty and distance of travel. To contextualise these findings, we discuss the evolution of the US Border Patrol's policy of Prevention Through Deterrence, and apply the concepts of structural and cultural violence to theorize its consistently deadly outcomes.
{"title":"Climate impact or policy choice? The spatiotemporality of thermoregulation and border crosser mortality in southern Arizona","authors":"Samuel N. Chambers, Geoff Boyce, Daniel E. Martínez","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12443","DOIUrl":"10.1111/geoj.12443","url":null,"abstract":"<p>US public officials frequently argue that high temperatures are responsible for increasing mortality of undocumented border crossers (UBCs) in southern Arizona. In this article, we suggest that these kinds of assertions are not only empirically misleading, they also serve to naturalise UBC deaths in the region by helping to obscure their structural causes. Indeed, although heat exposure is a primary cause of death in the region, prior studies have also shown that migration patterns have shifted toward more remote and rugged terrain, characterised by higher elevations and greater shade cover. Using physiological modelling and a spatiotemporal forensic analysis, we assess whether the distribution of recovered human remains has shifted toward locations characterised by environments where the human body is more or less capable of regulating core temperature, and thus succumbing to heat stress. We find that the distribution of recovered UBC remains has consistently trended toward locations where the potential for heat stress is lower, rather than higher. This demonstrates that UBC mortality is not principally a function of ambient or regional temperature, but rather is a result of specific policy decisions that lead to cumulative stress and prolonged exposure due to factors like difficulty and distance of travel. To contextualise these findings, we discuss the evolution of the US Border Patrol's policy of Prevention Through Deterrence, and apply the concepts of structural and cultural violence to theorize its consistently deadly outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"188 3","pages":"401-414"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80041476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Beginning in the 2010s, rivers have captured the legal imagination of judges, legislators and activists alike, as part of a rapidly growing phenomenon described by UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, David Boyd as ‘a legal revolution that could save the world’. Investigating river cases in jurisdictions as diverse as Aotearoa New Zealand, Colombia, India, the United States and Australia, and following Nicole Graham's suggestion that the non-human world is constantly reconstituted within an all-encompassing legal cosmology for which any observable ‘thing’, any ‘object’, any landscape, is always, inherently, and inevitably a ‘lawscape’, this paper explores the legal and the ontological nature of ‘the river’. By casting traditional riparian doctrines against novel rights of Nature judgments, the paper highlights the interconnected and interdependent legal relationship between artificially construed human and non-human worlds, and observes a series of perceptible generational shifts in the legal and ontological treatment of rivers, from an abstract near-neglect, to a rights-based discourse, and ending (for the moment at least) in a deeply relational re-conceptualisation.
{"title":"Of rivers, law and justice in the Anthropocene","authors":"John Page, Alessandro Pelizzon","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12442","DOIUrl":"10.1111/geoj.12442","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Beginning in the 2010s, rivers have captured the legal imagination of judges, legislators and activists alike, as part of a rapidly growing phenomenon described by UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, David Boyd as ‘a legal revolution that could save the world’. Investigating river cases in jurisdictions as diverse as Aotearoa New Zealand, Colombia, India, the United States and Australia, and following Nicole Graham's suggestion that the non-human world is constantly reconstituted within an all-encompassing legal cosmology for which any observable ‘thing’, any ‘object’, any landscape, is always, inherently, and inevitably a ‘lawscape’, this paper explores the legal and the ontological nature of ‘the river’. By casting traditional riparian doctrines against novel rights of Nature judgments, the paper highlights the interconnected and interdependent legal relationship between artificially construed human and non-human worlds, and observes a series of perceptible generational shifts in the legal and ontological treatment of rivers, from an abstract near-neglect, to a rights-based discourse, and ending (for the moment at least) in a deeply relational re-conceptualisation.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"190 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/geoj.12442","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82087800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores how uncertainty has become a central constitutive feature under the ongoing attempts at rapid extension of highway corridors across India. Contrary to the terra nullius assumption that India's highway programmes operate under, the pathways to accumulation they seek to open present a palimpsest of pre-existing claims, occupancies and forms of dwelling that come into conflict with the attempts to extend urban space. The paper specifically follows the prolonged uncertainty surrounding a regional highway corridor between the cities of Delhi and Gurgaon, the Dwarka Expressway, which underwent multiple legal contestations over evictions and land disputes. In doing so, it analyses how managing uncertainty in the production of highway corridors becomes profitable for the state, powerful corporate actors and middle-class homebuyer-investors, presenting a form of value that can be commodified and exchanged. However, on the other hand, owing to its double-edged nature, uncertainty also becomes productive for the urban majority in laying claims to urban space. As rapid extended urbanisation increasingly disrupts the lifeworlds of marginal communities, this paper calls for embracing the politics and practices of uncertainty in the continued efforts to push ex-centric urban analysis beyond the narrow focus on state processes and commodification.
{"title":"Extended urbanisation and the politics of uncertainty: The contested pathways of highway corridors in India","authors":"Nitin Bathla","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12441","DOIUrl":"10.1111/geoj.12441","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper explores how uncertainty has become a central constitutive feature under the ongoing attempts at rapid extension of highway corridors across India. Contrary to the <i>terra nullius</i> assumption that India's highway programmes operate under, the pathways to accumulation they seek to open present a palimpsest of pre-existing claims, occupancies and forms of dwelling that come into conflict with the attempts to extend urban space. The paper specifically follows the prolonged uncertainty surrounding a regional highway corridor between the cities of Delhi and Gurgaon, the Dwarka Expressway, which underwent multiple legal contestations over evictions and land disputes. In doing so, it analyses how managing uncertainty in the production of highway corridors becomes profitable for the state, powerful corporate actors and middle-class homebuyer-investors, presenting a form of value that can be commodified and exchanged. However, on the other hand, owing to its double-edged nature, uncertainty also becomes productive for the urban majority in laying claims to urban space. As rapid extended urbanisation increasingly disrupts the lifeworlds of marginal communities, this paper calls for embracing the politics and practices of uncertainty in the continued efforts to push ex-centric urban analysis beyond the narrow focus on state processes and commodification.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"190 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/geoj.12441","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72628946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrew S. Maclaren, Jennifer Cleland, Louise Locock, Zoë Skea, Alan Denison, Rosemary Hollick, Peter Murchie, Philip Wilson
Recruitment and retention of medical practitioners is a challenging contemporary policy issue for rural areas. In this paper we explore this issue in the context of doctors in rural and remote Scotland, drawing on findings from a service mapping exercise into the recruitment and retention of doctors in rural areas, conducted by interviewing key stakeholders in the delivery of healthcare in rural and remote Scotland, most of whom combine clinical and organisational responsibilities. The aim of this paper is to understand the key issues, drawing on what the stakeholders see across the day-to-day delivery of their clinical roles and within the varied levels of the organisational structure of Scottish healthcare to which they contribute. Our findings build on a review of key literature of contemporary issues in rural Scotland, healthcare delivery in rural areas and wider international literature on recruitment and retention of medical practitioners. Our findings focus around three key themes: power of place; how people make place; and place and policy. In our conclusion, we argue that the importance of this stakeholder research is three-fold. First, that such insights from stakeholders are important in shaping and preparing for future research on the topic, particularly interviewing those currently working. Second, it adds to and echoes the growing body of literature globally focused on recruitment and retention by expanding on the Scottish context. Finally, it proposes that appropriate and effective rural proofing is important in the implementation of new policies where place-based challenges or differences can emerge.
{"title":"Understanding recruitment and retention of doctors in rural Scotland: Stakeholder perspectives","authors":"Andrew S. Maclaren, Jennifer Cleland, Louise Locock, Zoë Skea, Alan Denison, Rosemary Hollick, Peter Murchie, Philip Wilson","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12439","DOIUrl":"10.1111/geoj.12439","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Recruitment and retention of medical practitioners is a challenging contemporary policy issue for rural areas. In this paper we explore this issue in the context of doctors in rural and remote Scotland, drawing on findings from a service mapping exercise into the recruitment and retention of doctors in rural areas, conducted by interviewing key stakeholders in the delivery of healthcare in rural and remote Scotland, most of whom combine clinical and organisational responsibilities. The aim of this paper is to understand the key issues, drawing on what the stakeholders see across the day-to-day delivery of their clinical roles and within the varied levels of the organisational structure of Scottish healthcare to which they contribute. Our findings build on a review of key literature of contemporary issues in rural Scotland, healthcare delivery in rural areas and wider international literature on recruitment and retention of medical practitioners. Our findings focus around three key themes: power of place; how people make place; and place and policy. In our conclusion, we argue that the importance of this stakeholder research is three-fold. First, that such insights from stakeholders are important in shaping and preparing for future research on the topic, particularly interviewing those currently working. Second, it adds to and echoes the growing body of literature globally focused on recruitment and retention by expanding on the Scottish context. Finally, it proposes that appropriate and effective rural proofing is important in the implementation of new policies where place-based challenges or differences can emerge.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"188 2","pages":"261-276"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/geoj.12439","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80447573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Richard Phillips, Katie Seaborne, Angus Goldsmith, Natasha Curtis, Adele Davies, Will Haynes, Rose McEnroe, Nadia Murphy, Lucy O’Neill, Charlotte Pacey, Edward Walker, Elizabeth Wordley
Loneliness has emerged as a problem for individuals and society. A group whose loneliness has recently grown in severity and visibility is students in higher education. Complementing media reports and surveys of students’ lockdown loneliness, this paper presents qualitative research findings on students loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the how, why and where of student loneliness through research co-produced with undergraduate and postgraduate students. Student-researchers investigated loneliness as a function of relationships and interactions through self-interviews and peer interviews (n = 46) and through objects, chosen by participants to represent their experiences of lockdown. This research led to three conclusions, each with a geographical focus. First, as the spaces in which students live and study were fragmented, interactions and relationships were disrupted. Second, students struggled to put down roots in their places of study. Without a sense of belonging—to the city and institution where they studied, and the neighbourhood and accommodation where they lived—they were more likely to experience loneliness. Third, many students were unable to progress through life transitions associated with late adolescence including leaving home, learning social skills, forming sexual relationships and emerging into adulthood. Those facing bigger changes such as bereavement struggled to process these events and spoke of feeling ‘neither here nor there’—in limbo. But students displayed resilience, finding ways to cope with and mitigate their loneliness. Their coping strategies speak to the efforts of policymakers and practitioners—including those in universities, government, health and wellbeing services, and accommodation services—who are seeking ways to tackle students' (and other peoples') loneliness.
{"title":"Student loneliness through the pandemic: How, why and where?","authors":"Richard Phillips, Katie Seaborne, Angus Goldsmith, Natasha Curtis, Adele Davies, Will Haynes, Rose McEnroe, Nadia Murphy, Lucy O’Neill, Charlotte Pacey, Edward Walker, Elizabeth Wordley","doi":"10.1111/geoj.12438","DOIUrl":"10.1111/geoj.12438","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Loneliness has emerged as a problem for individuals and society. A group whose loneliness has recently grown in severity and visibility is students in higher education. Complementing media reports and surveys of students’ lockdown loneliness, this paper presents qualitative research findings on students loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the how, why and where of student loneliness through research co-produced with undergraduate and postgraduate students. Student-researchers investigated loneliness as a function of relationships and interactions through self-interviews and peer interviews (<i>n </i>= 46) and through objects, chosen by participants to represent their experiences of lockdown. This research led to three conclusions, each with a geographical focus. First, as the spaces in which students live and study were fragmented, interactions and relationships were disrupted. Second, students struggled to put down roots in their places of study. Without a sense of belonging—to the city and institution where they studied, and the neighbourhood and accommodation where they lived—they were more likely to experience loneliness. Third, many students were unable to progress through life transitions associated with late adolescence including leaving home, learning social skills, forming sexual relationships and emerging into adulthood. Those facing bigger changes such as bereavement struggled to process these events and spoke of feeling ‘neither here nor there’—in limbo. But students displayed resilience, finding ways to cope with and mitigate their loneliness. Their coping strategies speak to the efforts of policymakers and practitioners—including those in universities, government, health and wellbeing services, and accommodation services—who are seeking ways to tackle students' (and other peoples') loneliness.</p>","PeriodicalId":48023,"journal":{"name":"Geographical Journal","volume":"188 2","pages":"277-293"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/geoj.12438","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89617819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}