Geographical Journal最新文献

Fintech has been an emergent crucial area for enhancing national competency and transforming the global financial landscape. Financial and technological capabilities are the two key factors influencing fintech development. This study seeks to clarify the impacts of the two factors and investigate their relationships. The data mainly originate from the Orbis patent database to depict the pattern of global fintech development. The empirical findings demonstrate that both financial and technological capabilities promote fintech development, and technological capabilities are more important. As national capabilities increase, the positive effects of financial capabilities weaken and turn negative when national capabilities are high, whereas technological capabilities continue showing increasingly positive effects. Furthermore, financial and technological capabilities have a reinforcing relationship with each other. But when national capabilities are high, financial capabilities prohibit the promoting effect of technological capabilities. This study provides empirical evidence and policy implications to assist countries in their fintech development.

State-based imaginaries dominate how children are taught about the world in formal educational spaces. Geographical education in schools draws upon a range of representations from atlases to wall maps, which portray a highly ordered image of a world that is neatly divided up into bounded nation-states. While scholarship within political geography has long sought to challenge the ‘territorial trap’ which underpins these approaches, and there is increasing awareness and prominence of children's political geography within the subdiscipline, little attention has focused on how children themselves conceptualise and think about the state. This paper aims to contribute to contemporary debates on children's geopolitics and work on the production of geographical knowledge to explore children's understandings of statehood through a focus on English primary school pupils (aged 9–11). We have developed and run an educational activity which addresses the question of ‘what is a country’ and creates space for pupils to critically engage with ideas of statehood. This paper draws upon participation observation of this activity with 441 pupils from 17 classes across 10 state-maintained primary schools in England. We find that children have complex geopolitical understandings of the world which encompass nuanced articulations of the politics of difference, legitimacy, the act of recognition, and legacies of colonial practices. While the norms of a state-based international system are firmly established by the end of primary school in the UK, pupils do not merely accept the status quo of the current international system, but can offer nuanced critiques, thinking creatively about different forms the state could take, and engaging with questions of justice and equity. We thereby argue that children should be thought of as critical and creative geopolitical thinkers who can imagine more just and equitable futures.

The emerging field of emotional energy geography within energy social sciences explores the intersection of energy systems and lived experiences. Pioneering contributions emphasise the need to understand energy usage and decision-making in novel ways. This paper contributes to this discourse by examining emotions in the face of insecurity, steep price increases, and a political crisis, focusing on Germany during the 2022 European energy crises. Political actors predicted either a ‘hot autumn’ or a ‘winter of rage’. However, the massive protests that were anticipated scarcely materialised, and the groups affected internalised the crisis. The study investigates how individuals felt about the situation when rage did not manifest on the streets, exploring the emergence of other emotions. It explores emotions such as fear of costs, conflicts over energy provision, social stress, and pride in energy-saving capacities. The literature on social psychology and emotional sociology posits that emotions arise through the process of defining a given situation. Here, attribution of responsibility appears crucial for the understanding of varied emotional reactions. Shame may lead to internalised conflict avoidance, while collective anger becomes a mobilising force. Drawing on four expert interviews and 30 qualitative interviews with retirees, single parents, and students—groups vulnerable to rising energy costs—the paper challenges expectations of widespread anger. Instead, emotional experiences are intricately tied to existing strategies for coping with poverty and support networks that mitigate the impact of the crises. The findings contribute to a better empirical understanding of emotions in social crises, highlighting the roles of pre-existing coping mechanisms and support structures in shaping emotional responses.

Urbanisation is transitioning from disorderly sprawl to compact intensification, accompanied by functional differentiation and morphological changes spatially. This study addresses the relationship between urban functions and morphologies at the block scale in Hangzhou. Leveraging geo-big data, we adopt a points of interest (POI) weighting method to map four essential urban functions—residential, commercial, public service, and industrial—at the traffic analysis zones (TAZ) scale. Additionally, we estimate morphological indices using building footprint data and building volume data. Our investigation reveals intriguing patterns: residential, commercial, and public service functions exhibit a central concentration trend diminishing towards the periphery, whereas industrial functions demonstrate a multi-hotspot distribution. Morphological indices like patch density and mean volume diminishing towards the periphery, while mean patch size and patch shape index, presenting a pronounced peripheral and multi-hotspot distribution trend. Significantly, nuanced associations between urban functions and morphologies were elucidated. Residential zones tend to display dense and small patches, while commercial areas showcase larger patches, volumes, and complex shapes. Furthermore, construction intensity-based heterogeneity analysis unveils dynamics in the relationship between functions and morphologies, particularly pronounced in high-density areas. These findings underscore the importance of integrating morphological considerations into urban planning, offering a fresh perspective for functional zoning planning.

Drones are a growing feature of everyday airspace, with more-than-military drones deployed across diverse civil, commercial, and recreational applications. Yet, from reports of drones flying in proximity to manned aircraft and transporting contraband into prisons to drones used to spy on ex-partners, so too have concerns grown around drone incidents and misuse. Drawing on the testimony of Mass Observation Archive (MOA) correspondents, this article explores everyday understandings of drone incidents and misuse, while bringing drone geographies into novel dialogue with feminist geographical and geopolitical work on the everyday, storytelling, and (digital) technology. An established UK archival project, the MOA seeks the views of ‘ordinary’ people to inform an understanding of everyday life in Britain through issuing questionnaire-style ‘directives’ on wide-ranging themes, from current events to articles of interest, to its panel of volunteer correspondents. Drawing on the author's development of a drone-themed directive, this article examines everyday understandings of growing and anticipated drone presence, while reflecting on the geopolitical implications of increasingly diffuse airpower as access to drones widens. In so doing, it responds to calls from drone geographies to diversify the methodologies deployed in the drone's critical accounting, while bringing the MOA dataset into dialogue with feminist work to deepen understandings of ‘everyday droning’.

Smart eldercare is promoted as a potential solution to the urgent healthcare crisis stemming from an ageing population and a shortage of staff. The exact meaning of smart eldercare varies among stakeholders, including government bodies, eldercare firms, and the elderly. This study investigates the differing strategies of technology-focused and service-focused companies within smart care. Emphasising the political elements of intelligent eldercare, it highlights the importance of co-production. Using thematic analysis, the study demonstrates that technology-focused firms at a 2024 smart eldercare summit in Shanghai prioritise innovation and market prospects of emerging technologies, based on ethnographic research. In contrast, service-oriented firms focus on the pragmatic utilisation of technology in their eldercare services. This study contributes to the understanding of smart eldercare technology adoption and co-production by revealing the complexities and discussions associated with real-world implementation.

The institutional and multi-scale perspective provide a promising nexus between economic geography and environmental governance. They help to overcome the duality of the global–local nexus for regions in a globalising world, enabling the rediscovery of the role of states and their governance. This article proposes that the scalar structure of institutional linkages is not continuous from the global to the local, where the state level is a discontinuity. The supra-national interdependence is horizontal and the sub-national governance is hierarchical. They interact with each other to affect the path development of new economies. International trade in environmental goods during 2001–19 is used as an empirical case. The results show that the liberalising trade policies (international interdependencies) open a window of opportunity for countries to develop a green economy, while domestic industrial and environmental policies (domestic governance) help to anchor the opportunities by enhancing the effect of trade policies. These results show that an enabling system of environmental governance requires a multi-scalar structure that includes states. Domestic governance allows the states to adapt to the global governance regime, and then seize the development opportunities offered by international interdependencies. The states play a crucial role in balancing the multi-scale interactions in the global governance regime. This is different from what the conventional global–local nexus might conclude.

Amid the escalating rural gentrification, a diverse array of gentrifiers is precipitating the path from coexistence and cooperation to conflict and eventual displacement. Existing literature has primarily addressed gentrifiers as a homogeneous group and focuses on the displacement of indigenous villagers, while the staged interdependencies and the displacement of gentrifiers have remained largely understudied. Drawing on a longitudinal study of a Shanghai village on a path to rural super-gentrification, this article investigates the complex interdependencies of two waves of gentrifiers, from commensal relations to exclusion, culminating in the eventual displacement of the first-wave gentrifiers. The study further analyses the construction and deconstruction of a ‘Utopian Village’ and the role of the gentrifiers' divergent perceptions of rurality in this evolving process. First-wave gentrifiers tend to value the authenticity of villages, and seek to construct a ‘Utopian Village’ through commensal socio-economic relations and the maintenance of a sustainable ecosystem, while preserving the authenticity and openness of the landscape. Their efforts, however, attract a second wave of gentrifiers who hold differing views of rurality, and this misalignment results in the over-consumption and alienation of rurality, characterised by introverted social networks and over-decorative landscapes. The originally envisaged ‘Utopian Village’ is thus undermined, leading to the exclusion and displacement of the first-wave gentrifiers. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the evolving dynamics of rural gentrification, the super-gentrification trend, the complex interdependencies of the different types of gentrifiers and the effects on the communities in question.

The growing impacts of climate change are urging effective countermeasures in terms of adaptation, particularly through appropriate policy tools integrated across levels of governance. Local governments, often at the forefront of climate action, play a critical role. The regional level can become a key element in the adaptation chain, connecting higher-level perspectives to local implementation. The present study aimed to investigate, first, the formal development of regional adaptation policies and, second, their potential to drive local change, focusing on the case study of Italian regions. This study proposed a twofold, qualitative-quantitative assessment methodology based on the European Regional Adaptation Support Tool framework and a novel approach built on six main factors. Our analysis revealed the underdevelopment of regional adaptation policies, highlighting a critical interruption in the adaptation chain interconnecting European, national and local levels. Furthermore, even when formally issued, regional policies exhibited several significant weaknesses, severely hampering their potential to foster local change. This was especially evident in the generally limited efforts to engage internal and external climate agents through structured mechanisms. In this context, it would be beneficial for regions to embrace the role of coordinating local efforts and actions. Providing actionable solutions, along with related monitoring and evaluation tools, could enhance local climate action and inform the revision of policies across governance levels. Adaptation policies should envisage actions that progressively involve and promote change comprehensively across the territory. We conclude that further efforts should focus on strengthening local climate resilience, not only by developing formal adaptation policies but also by fostering local change.

The swift urbanisation and sprawl observed in major cities of Bangladesh have prompted a detailed examination of their spatiotemporal dynamics. Therefore, this study explores the intricate patterns of urban sprawl, aiming to provide comprehensive insights into its evolution and impact. Landsat TM images from 2003 and 2013, along with an OLI image from 2023, are employed in supervised classification to detect temporal built-up area expansion of the Rangpur City Corporation (RpCC). Urban sprawl trends and patterns were evaluated and analysed using Shannon's Entropy Model (SEM), Landscape Metrics (LMs), and the Urban Expansion Intensity Index (UEII). Findings include an increase in the urban expansion rate of 16.5% in 2023. Consequently, RpCC's urban expansion trend from 2003 to 2023 is 16 times greater. Additionally, SEM and LMs confirmed that the RpCC expanded in a dispersed manner and the uncontrolled expansion in urban areas, respectively. These results definitively measure urban sprawl and threaten the sustainable development of RpCC.