Geographical Journal最新文献

Commuting is generally considered a routine aspect of daily life. As a result of the growing importance of the tertiary sector in the economy, the increasing flexibility of work arrangements, and other individual factors, there has been a noticeable change in commuting patterns, both in terms of time and place. This study aims to characterise the spatio-temporal practices employed in commuting. We describe these spatio-temporal practices using spatio-temporal rhythms enforced among individuals in the case of the Brno Metropolitan Area. To achieve the results we use questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews. The results indicate that the major morning and afternoon commuting flows are spread out over several hours. The afternoon commute is more distributed in time. The phenomenon of the daily commute is clearly weakened. Part of the population commutes to work only some days of the week. Also, the spatial dimension of commuting is diverse, as many originally non-working places become centres where people commute, such as a café or a hotel. It turns out that commuters typically chain trips when commuting. In this paper, we demonstrate several specific practices associated with these movements, such as commuting to someone's house to work, commuting to a café or realising long-distance commuting. The observed commuting characteristics are then referred to by the terms of temporal displacement and spatial unbinding of commuting.

International student mobilities (ISM) is an important but increasingly complex and controversial topic. Politically, the contested nature of international student mobilities is driven by the confluence of immigration policies, increasing demand for global education, and new higher education funding imperatives. Academically, international student mobilities is a key field of study which intersects with three subdisciplines of geography: political, population and social. Our intervention reveals, for the first time, how current UK migration management policies are actively ‘producing’ the international student as a population category. We illustrate the effects of this production through its operationalisation into universities and everyday student lives. We achieve this by developing an analytical framework informed by theorisations of ‘dynamic nominalism’, which is complemented by data from semi-structured interviews and policy documents. Our findings uncover the existence of multiple populations within the international student category, exposing the inherent complexities, hierarchies of privilege and contradictions therein. Notably, we identify a conceptual and empirical distinction between those produced as ‘international students’ based on their visa, and those produced as ‘international students’ via their tuition fee status. The implications of this intervention are important for the contentious landscape of higher education and immigration policy because the paper challenges assumptions about, and raises ethical questions regarding the treatment of, the ‘international student’. Our analytical framework also has wider applicability beyond the subject of ISM, through its potential to aid geographers, and those in cognate disciplines, concerned with addressing fundamental questions about how and why categories are produced and the consequences of this production.

The goal of this research is to present the results of a detailed analysis of detected and projected temperature changes in Montenegro. A total of 10 temperature parameters from 18 meteorological stations were used. Initially, an analysis of temperature changes during the instrumental period (1961–2020) was conducted, followed by the results of high-resolution (12.5 km) bias-corrected projections from the regional ALADIN, REMO and CCLM4 models for the period 2021–2100, according to the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios (representative concentration pathways). The simple difference method and trend method were employed for research purposes. Compared with the period 1961–1990, the highest temperature increase during 1991–2020 is observed in summer (TSu), while the rates of increase were slower in spring, winter and autumn (TSp, TW and TA). The average annual maximum temperature (TYx) registered a higher increase compared with the average minimum (TYn). Frosty days (FD) decreased, while the number of summer and tropical days (SU and TD) increased. The projection results indicate that the period 2021–2050 is expected to be warmer, the period 2051–2080 even warmer, and the period 2081–2100 is expected to be the warmest. In the last analysed period (2081–2100), according to the RCP8.5 scenario, the average TSu is expected to be higher by 3.7–4.6°C (CCLM4), 4.1–4.7°C (ALADIN) and 4.7–5.8°C (REMO), with an anticipated increase in TW ranging between 3.3–4.5°C (ALADIN), 3.6–5.4°C (CCLM4) and 3.4–5.6°C (REMO). In the period 2021–2100, according to the RCP4.5 scenario, the expected average trend values for TYx (TYn) are expected to be (°C/decade) 0.24 (0.26), 0.16 (0.12) and 0.20 (0.23) for the ALADIN, REMO and CCLM4 models, respectively, and according to the RCP8.5 scenario, 0.47 (0.52), 0.63 (0.57) and 0.51 (0.53), respectively. These findings have implications for planning mitigation and adaptation measures to address climate change, particularly in strategic economic sectors such as tourism, agriculture and water management in Montenegro.

Nairobi's land digitisation programme presents continuous challenges to the Kenyan state's aspirations of reforming land administration. By drawing upon insights from archival sciences and digital geographies, this paper argues that digitisation of Kenya's land administration records presents us with an opportunity to pay attention to how information flows from paper to digital systems, and the nature of human condition that makes it possible. Based on research of land digitisation initiatives in Nairobi and its peripheral counties, this paper explores first, how digitisation initiates a large-scale state exercise of sorting paper in the land records departments that constitutes the archival apparatus of the state; and second, how the archival labour of state officials in this process is at the same time significant, invisible and devalued. Through interviews of state officials in county and state departments, we argue that the digitisation process is far more complex and messier than the rhetoric of seamless transition to automated land administration in Kenya. Digitisation involves a slow embodied labour in sorting paper by state officials who have little power in shaping the design of the platform that they are expected to use. The devaluation of the archival labour of state officials who are not professionally trained in ‘archival practice’ and are seemingly voiceless in the production of national land information platforms leads to subversion and non-cooperation with the platform itself. The paper concludes that an expansive lens of seeing digital platforms through the tools and technologies of archiving practices enables us to understand why platforms fail, why and how paper increases value within digital systems and how archival labour is central to the politics of digitisation and platformisation in the future.

Most of the literature on fires focuses on the wild or rural environment. Nevertheless, urban fires, and in particular those related to criminal activity, have recently begun to receive greater attention. This study focuses on the analysis of fires in shopping malls, public markets and businesses in Mexico City to study the criminal intention of arson in cities. Using spatial analysis and count models, we study emergency calls (911) from January 2019 to February 2021 to explore the occurrence of fires and extortion in order to predict these events. Our main finding indicates a spatial concentration of fires in the city, with extortion as a significant predictor that increases the occurrence of fires by an average of 16.63%, controlling for non-intentional factors. In commercial nodes, extortionists may burn down premises that resist extortion in reprisal and as an indirect threat to future victims. The results contribute to the understanding of a new line of research on arson, real estate fraud and financially profitable activities for organised crime. It is possible that ‘professional torches’ are also linked to another, previously unconsidered crime: that of extortion.

Humans and water have a complex relationship that includes various dimensions such as sociocultural, political, legal and ecological. Considering the ubiquity of water, we need a more holistic perspective to help us see water not as a static entity but rather as one in constant movement, physically and conceptually; acknowledging the interplay between water and humans is essential to understanding societal narratives deeply embedded in places. In this special section, an interdisciplinary group of scholars explore inland waters, taking a water-centric view instead of a land-centric one. The special section delves into the emerging hydro-social connections, diverse forms of expertise, governance models, collective and spontaneous actions, and resilience strategies within the context of inland water bodies, exploring how canals, rivers and wetlands are experienced and represented as places. The papers in this collection show that any form of placemaking should take responsible stewardship of water, embrace its dynamic nature, and present a realistic pathway towards sustainable solutions for present and future water challenges.

The study deals with the issue of core–periphery relations in the European Union, investigating its patterns in relation to the participation of Central and Eastern European (CEE) member states in European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) programmes between 2007 and 2020. Core–periphery patterns do exist in the European space, where besides the North-Western core (‘Core’), there are two distinct peripheries, CEE and Southern Europe. The peripheral position is reflected in the weak performance of CEE in European-wide RDI networks subsidised by the EU. On the basis of the KEEP database, the study analyses the signs of core–periphery relations by identifying whether there is asymmetry in the participation of CEE and Core countries in cooperation projects under the transnational (INTERREG B) and interregional (INTERREG C) strands (together, TI) of ETC. The findings of the study show that there is a significant difference in the forms of involvement of actors from North-Western Europe and CEE in the TI programmes. Actors from CEE countries are very motivated to become involved in TI projects. However, they are significantly underrepresented in lead partner positions, especially in funding. The study's results suggest that participation activity patterns are significantly asymmetric in TI programmes, showing signs of a core–periphery dynamic even in such place-based, cohesion-oriented programmes. The consequence is that the articulation of geographic characteristics, special needs and issues associated with CEE is limited as they play a rather adaptive and imitating role in those territorial cooperation programmes that are influential in discourses and policies about territorial development in the European arena.

In this introduction to the special issue on massive urbanisation, the collective that has prepared this issue reviews the thinking and experiences that have been important to them. The reflections centre on the use of ‘massive’ in Jamaican patois, where it has two countervailing meanings. On the one hand, it means an inordinate lack of sensitivity to the real conditions taking place, a sense of extreme self-inflation beyond reason. On the other, it means a collectivity coming into being without a set form, but reflective of a desire for collaboration and mutuality. Massive urbanisation thus means here both the voluminous expansion of speculative accumulation, extraction of land value, replication of vast inequities and disfunction, and the continuous emergence of new forms of urban inhabitation, a constant remaking of the social field by what has been called the urban majority. All of the contributions attempt to work with this sense of doubleness, amplifying the creation of particular atmospheres of the urban as a materiality of its heterogeneity.

This commentary explores the promises surrounding the construction of a new coalmine in Whitehaven in the UK. The impacts of the closure of carbon-heavy coal facilities increasingly feature in scholarship and policy understandings of energy transitions: illuminating the importance of the temporalities of transition. We seek to further such temporal understandings to highlight the importance of ‘futures’ in discussions of coal, which despite promises of abatement maintains a significant presence in global energy relations. We explore how the Woodhouse Colliery at Whitehaven has come to represent a series of fixes—in both socio-ecological and affective terms: promising new futures of work, energy and regional development. These futures are contested by opponents of the project, who highlight the emissions to be associated with the site. In tracing these competing futures, we illuminate the intricate ties between historic industry, present-day regional identity and economies, and the role and presence of carbon in visions of what comes next.

Urban geography suffers a considerable disciplinary deficiency in studying urban intentional communities (ICs). Particularly lacking, also in general social sciences, are studies on ICs’ comprehensive impact on cities. The major reason for this might be a failure to realise that there are sub-city geographical entities which contribute to shaping cityscape, and that an intentional community is not only a social entity but also a geographical entity.   Viewing them from this perspective provides a vehicle for understanding the impact of ICs, thereby enriching the field of urban geography. Following an explanation of the concept of geographical entities and ICs as geographical entities, we present a case study from Israel with a comprehensive analysis of the impact of an IC on a city from various demographic, social, spatial, economic, political, and cultural perspectives as viewed by the residents. By studying the geographies of ICs in this approach and raising questions for further geographical research, we highlight the important role geography can play in this emerging field of urban studies.