bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Public Sector Unions Shaping Hospital Privatization: The Creation of Boston Medical Center
Authors: Savage Lydia
Published: March 2004

In this paper the author examines, through a case study of a hospital merger in Boston, MA, the ways in which a locally scaled union strategy can shape privatization. She first examines recent economic changes in the US hospital industry, which have resulted in a record number of mergers, closures, and conversions. A case study of the merger between a public hospital, Boston City Hospital, and a private hospital, Boston University Hospital, into the private, nonprofit, Boston Medical Center is presented to demonstrate the ways in which unions can participate in setting the terms of such mergers. The strategy of one labor union local in particular, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 285, is examined in regard to protecting both the provision of public healthcare and the conditions of employment during and after the process of privatization. By utilizing a local strategy and waging a highly public campaign, leaders of SEIU Local 285 were able to build coalitions with other labor unions and public healthcare advocates and played an instrumental role in setting the terms of the merger. As a result, the final merger agreement contained significant protection for quality public healthcare and labor practices favorable for workers. Unions that previously represented public sector workers now represent private sector workers, and wages for all employees moved upward as part of the agreement. In addition, the new private sector entity was charged with what had formerly been a public sector mission. In effect, although the public hospital was ultimately privatized, the private sector was restructured by local level, public sector union activism.
“I Can't Talk Now, I'm in a Fitting Room”: Formulating Availability and Location in Mobile-Phone Conversations
Authors: Weilenmann Alexandra
Published: March 2004

In this paper I investigate the ways in which participants in mobile-phone conversations orient to each other's location, activities, and availability. By looking at data from recorded mobile-phone conversations, I use a conversation analytic approach to make initial observations on the character of mobile-phone conversations. I found that the frequent question “what are you doing?” sometimes caused a location to be given as part of the answer which shows how location, activity, and availability are strongly related. The participants thus obtained information about location, when this was considered relevant, through asking about activity. Location seemed especially relevant if it provided information about a future meeting. In some of the conversations where it seemed there was something going on where the ‘called party’ was located, the ‘caller’ reacted by initiating the conversation with a strategy which gave the called party a chance to end the conversation.
Representational Politics in Virtual Urban Places
Authors: Whyte Angus , Macintosh Ann
Published: March 2004

EDEN, a famous garden, is also an acronym for the Electronic Democracy European Network, a project involving a consortium of public administrations (local authorities), academic institutions and technology companies. The thirty-month project aims to improve communication between the administrations and citizens in decision-making processes to do with urban planning, and at time of writing is in the transition from ‘requirements analysis’ to implementation of a software toolkit. The EDEN project is concerned, amongst other things, with the mobility of messages to and from urban planning officers in public administrations. Mobility, that is, from people ‘outside’ a city administration to people ‘inside’ it via a website, a virtual place from where messages are to be routed to a correct destination. The planning of virtual urban places is a new concern for both urban planners and systems designers working to implement ‘information society’ initiatives. These two occupations and research fields share similar methodologies, models, and artifacts used to intervene in the practices of their clients. This paper describes how the practices through which planning is made political have been represented in the ‘requirements analysis’ of the EDEN toolkit. The politics of the project do not just lie in its objective, the reconfiguring of ‘virtual’ political geographies in parallel with the ‘real’. The distinctions made between virtual and real politics are themselves political. Setting aside any essential differences between the two, we will look instead at the politics of representation and representations embedded in the EDEN project and software.
Natural Environments—Healthy Environments? An Exploratory Analysis of the Relationship between Greenspace and Health
Authors: de Vries Sjerp , Verheij Robert A , Groenewegen Peter P , Spreeuwenberg Peter
Published: March 2004

Are people living in greener areas healthier than people living in less green areas? This hypothesis was empirically tested by combining Dutch data on the self-reported health of over 10 000 people with land-use data on the amount of greenspace in their living environment. In the multilevel analysis we controlled for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, as well as urbanity. Living in a green environment was positively related to all three available health indicators, even stronger than urbanity at the municipal level. Analyses on subgroups showed that the relationship between greenspace and one of the health indicators was somewhat stronger for housewives and the elderly, two groups that are assumed to be more dependent on, and therefore exposed to, the local environment. Furthermore, for all three health indicators the relationship with greenspace was somewhat stronger for lower educated people. Implications for policymaking and spatial planning are discussed briefly.
GIS–Multicriteria Evaluation with Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA): Case Study of Developing Watershed Management Strategies
Authors: Malczewski Jacek , Chapman Terry , Flegel Cindy , Walters Dan , Shrubsole Dan , Healy Martin A
Published: March 2004

This paper focuses on the parameterized-ordered weighted averaging (OWA) method. OWA is a family of multicriteria evaluation (or combination) rules. The proposed approach uses a parameter that serves as a mechanism for guiding multicriteria evaluation procedures. The parameter is incorporated into a method for obtaining the optimal order weights and for developing a transformation function. The function provides us with a consistent way of modifying the criterion values so that the multicriteria combination procedures can be guided by specifying a single parameter. The parameterized-OWA method has been implemented in a GIS environment as a GIS–OWA module and it has been tested in a real-world situation for developing management strategies in the Cedar Creek watershed in Ontario, Canada. Given a set of evaluation criteria, the problem is to evaluate areas in the watershed for rehabilitation and enhancement projects. Using the GIS–OWA method, a number of alternative strategies for rehabilitation and enhancement projects have been generated and evaluated.
Change in the German Model of Corporate Governance: Evidence from Blockholdings 1997–2001
Authors: Wójcik Dariusz
Published: March 2004

In order to research the dynamics of the German model of corporate governance, data pertaining to major holdings of voting rights in listed companies between 1997 and 2001 were examined. The change that took place in this short period of time is striking, with a falling level of ownership concentration, dissolving cross-holdings, and financial sector institutions losing their position as blockholders. The concentration of voting rights is lowest in companies included in the DAX30 stock-market index. Factors affecting the types of holders of voting rights in a company include the company size, age, economic sector, and location. The analysis shows that Germany made a quick step towards some aspects of the Anglo-American system of corporate governance. However, there are also areas of strong persistence of the German model. In addition, I show that the German model is far from uniform, with different types of companies and different regions demonstrating a variety of corporate governance arrangements as well as distinctive development trajectories.
Potential Accessibility, Travel Time, and Consumer Choice: Geographical Variations in General Medical Practice Registrations in Eastern England
Authors: Haynes Robin , Lovett Andrew , Sünnenberg Gisela
Published: March 2004

The availability of choice is a neglected aspect in studies of geographical accessibility, which typically concentrate on distance to the nearest service. Records of patient registrations with general medical practices offer the opportunity to examine the geographical distribution of choice for an essential service. This population study of two million residents of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk used postcodes extracted from patient registers and estimated car travel times from residential locations to general practice surgeries in a geographic information system. Only 56% of the population were registered with the practice nearest their home. People were more likely to use the nearest practice if they lived in rural rather than urban areas and where a surgery was within walking distance. Choice, as measured by the number of practices used by 95% of residents, was highest in the larger urban areas and lowest in small towns and rural areas with a local surgery. Ten percent of the population were served by monopoly practices. Overall, the distribution of registrations reflected a regular and predictable substitution of choice for increased travel time. People were 29% less likely to register with a practice for every additional minute of travel time: an almost perfect distance-decay relationship that was used to calibrate a potential model of accessibility over the study area. The resulting values of potential accessibility were found to approximate the combination of travel time to the nearest surgery and the actual range of choice exercised by residents. This demonstration that the potential accessibility model reflects consumer behaviour has applications beyond the health field.
Trojan Pig: Paradoxes of Food Safety Regulation
Authors: Dunn Elizabeth C
Published: March 2004

Standards, including food safety standards, have become a key tool in the governance of the world economy. The current drive to harmonize these standards on a global scale is supposed to reduce technical barriers to trade and create conditions for fair and free trade. However, as the case of the Polish meatpacking industry shows, standards often create new barriers because they are embedded in specific geographies. On the one hand, many harmonized standards favor large-scale multinational capital and bar local small-scale producers. On the other hand, the social legacies of previous economic systems—in this case, state socialism—give small-scale producers tools such as informal markets, personal social ties, and political organizing skills that can be used to create barriers for large multinational competitors.
Exploring Spatial Effects on Urban Housing Duration
Authors: Kim Tae-Kyung , Horner Mark W
Published: March 2004

The decision to buy or sell a dwelling is complex. As such, researchers have considered models of housing price, location choice, and other dimensions of the problem. However, one potentially overlooked aspect of the decision to buy or sell a home concerns the spatial characteristics associated with the property itself. To this end, the authors utilize the Cox proportional hazards approach to model housing duration as a function of spatial and property-specific variables. They incorporate exogenous spatial variables into their model by using GIS-based spatial modeling. They find that spatial factors, such as commuting time zones, as well as aspatial characteristics, such as equity constraints, are important for explaining housing turnover. Moreover, the applicability of the Cox proportional hazard model to the spatial analysis of housing duration is demonstrated.
Practical Management of Mobility: The Case of the Emergency Medical System
Authors: Ikeya Nozomi
Published: March 2004

In an attempt to understand some of the issues involved in the problem of mobility, the author examines the notion of mobility by locating it in the actual and local context where people try to deal with it as their practical problem, following ethnomethodological policy. This way of understanding the local character of mobility has two advantages: one is that it allows us to understand the notion in terms of the social organization of activities as part of which it is managed by relevant members, rather than understanding it in a purely theoretical manner. The other advantage is that it offers us a detailed and concrete understanding of the environment in relation to people's activities that potentially can be used as a basis for some sensitive tools for designing or redesigning the environment in terms of its specific arrangement of mobility. Detailed observations are made on the emergency medical system to illustrate the complex temporal and spatial arrangements involved in moving a patient from one place to another, providing necessary medical treatment on the way, and coordinating different expertise in organizationally and geographically different locations.
The Social Relations of Business Representation and Devolved Governance in the United Kingdom
Authors: Raco Mike
Published: March 2004

The reform of regional governance in the United Kingdom has been, in part, premised on the notion that regions provide new territories of action in which cooperative networks between business communities and state agencies can be established. Promoting business interests is seen as one mechanism for enhancing the economic competitiveness and performance of ‘laggard’ regions. Yet, within this context of change, business agendas and capacities are often assumed to exist ‘out there’, as a resource waiting to be tapped by state institutions. There is little recognition that business organisations' involvement in networks of governance owes much to historical patterns and practices of business representation, to the types of activities that exist within the business sector, and to interpretations of their own role and position within wider policymaking and implementation networks. This paper, drawing on a study of business agendas in post-devolution Scotland, demonstrates that in practice business agendas are highly complex. Their formation in any particular place depends on the actions of reflexive agents, whose perspectives and capacities are shaped by the social, economic, and political contexts within which they are operating. As such, any understanding of business agendas needs to identify the social relations of business as a whole, rather than assuming away such complexities.
Learning Communities in a Learning Region: The Soft Infrastructure of Cross-Firm Learning Networks in Silicon Valley
Authors: Benner Chris
Published: March 2004

The ability of firms, industries, and regions continually to translate information and knowledge into viable new products, services, and production processes in the face of constantly changing technology and market conditions is increasingly at the core of competitive success in the contemporary economy. Such economic learning is ultimately dependent on the ability of individuals to learn, and yet most of the literature in this area has focused on firms and organizational learning processes, and is only beginning to engage seriously with people's learning processes. This paper explores the links between social learning processes and dynamics of innovation in Silicon Valley, arguing that cross-firm, occupationally based, ‘communities of practice’ provide a critical context for individuals to learn and maintain the competencies they need to be successful in the region's dynamic but volatile economy. These cross-firm occupational learning communities in many cases are being built through the activities of formal professional associations, which are playing an increasingly important role in providing the organizational infrastructure to sustain these learning communities. Using a case study of an association of women in Internet design and development occupations, the author illustrates the value of such communities in supporting individual and collective learning processes. These findings suggest that economic development strategies could productively be focused on identifying, strengthening, and expanding access to such cross-firm occupational learning communities.
Innovation, Collaboration, and Learning in Regional Clusters: A Study of SMEs in the Aberdeen Oil Complex
Authors: Cumbers Andrew , Mackinnon Danny , Chapman Keith
Published: March 2004

Issues of regional innovation and learning have attracted growing interest from economic geographers and related specialists in recent years. The advantages to be gained from localised networks and learning are claimed to be particularly important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in helping offset the size-related advantages of larger firms. Such claims are part of a wider rediscovery of the benefits of clustering and agglomeration in economic geography. Yet, to date, theoretical speculation about the renewed importance of geographical clustering for SMEs has run ahead of detailed empirical research. Beyond a few well-known case studies of high-technology clusters, there have been few attempts systematically to ‘test’ assertions made about the links between innovation, collaboration, and learning. The authors' purpose in this paper is to contribute new empirical evidence to this debate through a case study of SMEs in the Aberdeen oil complex. Although they find some evidence to support the role of localised forms of collaboration among the most innovative SMEs, the authors' results also indicate the importance of extralocal networks of knowledge transfer and the unequal power relations that underpin interfirm relations. These findings reinforce recent calls for a shift of focus from ‘regions’ to ‘networks’, raising some fundamental questions about the substantive basis of clusters policy.
Determinants of Residence and Migration in the Soviet Union after World War 2: The Immigrant Population in Estonia
Authors: Kulu Hill
Published: March 2004

Soviet migration literature stresses the importance both of the interests of people and of state policy in shaping the migration process in the Soviet Union. However, most empirical studies are descriptive and rely on bivariate analysis; multivariate analysis is scarcely used. Conventional Western research, in turn, mostly stresses the importance of structural factors in explaining migration in the Soviet Union. The author aims to look at the extent to which structural factors and personal characteristics determine the first residence and first migration of immigrants in Estonia after World War 2. Individual-level data of the Estonian Family and Fertility Survey (1994) on 1067 foreign-born females are used and multivariate analysis applied. The analysis shows that the first residence and first migration of the foreign-born population in Estonia differ significantly by immigration cohort—a variable reflecting structural factors. However, when the personal characteristics of immigrants are included in the model, the role of the immigration cohort (as a determinant of migration) decreases significantly. The results support the belief that migration in the Soviet Union is a complex outcome of the interaction between structural forces and the interests of people, as it is elsewhere in the world.
Disaggregating the Space–Time Layers of City-Centre Activities and Their Users
Authors: Bromley Rosemary D F , Tallon Andrew R , Thomas Colin J
Published: March 2004

Adopting a focus on both time and space, the authors aim to unpack the complexity of uses and users in the city centre. Evidence from Swansea reveals a stark twofold temporal division between a frequently visited daytime city and a much less frequently visited evening and nighttime city. Furthermore, lower intensity evening activities such as theatres and cinemas are distinguished from the higher intensity nighttime activities of pubs and clubs, with restaurants and cafés occupying an intermediate position. The evening clientele visit less frequently and are disproportionately drawn from the older and higher status social groups, whereas later at night, pubs and clubs are visited more frequently, and by imbalances of the young, lower status groups, and students. The city centre is seen as an area of spatial, temporal, and social segregation, with implications for policies that aim towards a more inclusive and safer 24-hour city. The conclusions emphasise the importance of time in urban geographical research and in policies for city-centre revitalisation.
Numerical Experiments with Central Place Theory and Spatial Interaction Modelling
Authors: Openshaw Stan , Veneris Yannis
Published: March 2004

A method is described for obtaining zonal based trip and cost data that characterise a hypothetical K = 3 Christaller landscape. These data provide the basis for numerical investigations of the relationships between central place theory and spatial interaction models.
Organised for Inward Investment? Development Agencies, Local Government, and Firms in the Inward Investment Process
Authors: Fuller Crispian , Bennett Robert J , Ramsden Mark
Published: March 2004

Inward investment promotion and aftercare remain central aspects of local economic development for English Regional Development Agencies, Scottish and Welsh development bodies, and local authorities in Britain. In many cases, partnership and consultation mechanisms have become integral to attracting inward investment and providing aftercare. Inward investment is thus an important area in which to explore interinstitutional relations between agents operating along diverse spatial boundaries and with different responsibilities. In this paper we analyse the local and regional institutional structures and relations characterising the inward investment process in Britain using new survey data from local authorities, regional bodies, and inward investors. We find that promotional activities have clearly defined structures which are chiefly led by the regional level. Aftercare is characterised by more collaborative arrangements involving both regional bodies and local government. However, many bodies are little used, with competition and tension between partners remaining frequent within English regions, regardless of recent institutional changes designed to reduce such problems. In Scotland and Wales, however, their national institutions are not only widely used, but they create high levels of satisfaction from firms. Hence, England has yet to respond to the effective challenges of Scotland and Wales. The analysis also highlights the limited importance of all national, regional, and local public institutions in attracting inward investors and their subsequent aftercare. The critical inputs to business decisions appear to be driven chiefly by more general supply-side conditions (for example, general skills versus local public packages) and the general attractions of a particular location.
Demand-Pull and Cost-Push Effects on Labor Income in Turkey, 1973–90
Authors: Dietzenbacher Erik , Günlük-Şenesen Gülay
Published: March 2004

In this paper we attempt to assess the changes in the Turkish production structure, and labor income in particular, between the 1970s and the 1990s. During this period a shift has taken place from an inward-looking policy towards an outward-oriented one. For our analysis we use two partially closed (or extended) input–output models. The demand-driven model is traditional for this type of analysis and examines the effects of a demand pull (for example, an increase in exports). For an open economy, however, it is not only important to investigate the effects of a demand pull, but also to examine how a cost push (for example, an increase in import prices) affects total gross output, value added, or labor income, for example. To study the effects of a cost push we introduce the partially closed supply-driven input–output model. Instead of analyzing the effects of a specific exogenous demand pull or cost push, we focus on various types of multiplier.
Personal Mobility: A Corporeal Dimension of Transnationalisation. The Case of Long-Distance Travel from Sweden
Authors: Frändberg Lotta , Vilhelmson Bertil
Published: March 2004

Mobility is a key concept within recent social theorising on globalisation, transnationalisation of social relations, and new divisions of society. Mobility growth is also central to issues of global warming and the need for sustainable development. The aim of this paper is to elucidate empirically some properties of recent developments in international mobility. A theoretically informed understanding of changing patterns of long-distance travel is briefly outlined. This understanding is confronted with empirical findings concerning the actual development of international travel from Sweden during the 1990s. The findings confirm expected trends of further increasing intensity, extensity, and velocity in long-distance mobility. A tendency towards globalisation is observed, though an intraregional transnationalisation is the dominant process at work. It is concluded that an increasing short-term flexibilisation in people's use of time and space is a more important driving force behind the transnationalisation of mobility, than is the geographical extension of more enduring social relations. Influencing factors behind the social division of mobility are addressed by identifying the hypermobile segment of the population. Implications for the wider issues of globalisation and environmental sustainability are discussed.
Recognising ‘Recognition’: Social Justice and the Place of the Cultural in Social Exclusion Policy and Practice
Authors: Morrison Zoë
Published: March 2004

In this paper, I contest the claim that cultural geography is ‘irrelevant’ to policy addressing major social justice issues. Engaging both with the ‘relevance’ and the ‘culture–economy’ debates in human geography, and with wider feminist political theory, I argue that the recognition of issues of ‘cultural justice’ is crucial to an effective engagement with social justice issues. I suggest a new approach to the cultural economy debate that neither forces a choice between culture and economy, nor only ‘transcends’ their division. Instead, the concept of ‘revaluing’ is introduced, which encompasses both the cultural and the economic but allows one or the other, or both, to be asserted—depending on the spatial and political context. These points are developed through a qualitative case study of the Single Regeneration Budget, a policy which attempts to address social exclusion, inequality, and deprivation. This case study suggests that a lack of attention to cultural justice issues, such as recognition and respect, leads to a policy that fails to remedy, and even perpetuates, the exclusionary mechanisms it seeks to address. Instead, a more fundamental revaluing of socially excluded people and places needs to be carried out in order to achieve greater inclusion. Indeed, reflecting on these issues through cultural and feminist lenses, I suggest a wider remit than policy for human geographers to engage effectively with major social justice issues.
Spatial Textures: Place, Touch, and Praesentia
Authors: Hetherington Kevin
Published: March 2004

In this paper I consider the everyday ways in which people make place through touch. Beginning with discussions with visually impaired people about their experiences of museum places, I seek to offer a more general understanding of the coconstruction of place and subjectivity through the role of touch. Touch produces a form of confirmation of the subject–world at the interface between the materiality of that world and the hand. Such an encounter is understood not as initially meaningful and representational to a subject who is distinct and distally knowledgable about the world, but as constitutive—through a proximal encounter with the praesentia of a place, which is both present and absent—of the subject itself. As such, I aim to contribute to ongoing debates around the themes of performativity and nonrepresentationalist knowledge within geography.
Spacing, Performing, and Becoming: Tangles in the Mundane
Authors: Crouch David
Published: March 2004

The main concern of my paper is to consider and interpret ways in which space is performatively encountered. I critically compare ideas of performativity with those of embodied practice and their combined contributions, oriented to an exploration of spacing, with particular regard to the means to adjust, reconstitute, and reimagine one's life through encounters with space. The argument seeks to bring space into discussions of performativity, through a consideration of empirical narratives and observed encounters with surroundings, from ethnographies of the apparently mundane activities of allotment holding and caravanning. Through this discussion I examine the significance of spacing in performativity. Particular themes, worked in terms of spacing, are the emerging tensions between, for example: being and becoming; routine activities and everyday creativity; the desire to experience change or to ‘go further’ and to ‘hold on’; and, in relation contexts and flows, time and identity processes. Through the discussion the encounters and imagination of the research are reflexively considered in terms of the accessibility of performance to research investigation.
Make-Believe: Spiritual Practice, Embodiment, and Sacred Space
Authors: Holloway Julian
Published: March 2004

In this paper I examine different forms of spiritual practice which seek to (re)enchant the everyday and the ordinary. By considering the duality of sacred and profane as the relational outcome of both embodied action and the action of other objects or things that are nominally valued as profane, an account is sought which acknowledges the corporeal enacting and sensing of the sacred both in and of the everyday. Taking empirical examples from New Age spiritual seekers, I trace the ways in which profane spatialities and temporalities are reconfigured into sacred topologies and how these seekers realise spiritual enlightenment through a reinhabited appropriation or articulation of the world. The source of signification of this spiritual comportment lies in embodied practices of the everyday that are sensed as the spiritually ‘correct’ or ‘true’ way of doing things. New ways of thinking everyday spiritual practice are thus sought and elaborated upon.
Spatial Interaction Models and Fisher Information: A New Calibration Algorithm
Authors: Berzins Martin , Wilson Alan G
Published: March 2004

The theoretical background of spatial interaction models is reviewed and used as a basis for the derivation of a novel approach for directly calibrating spatial interaction models concurrently with the main solution procedure. The analysis was prompted by a link with Fisher information. The new approach is compared with a number of earlier approaches, particularly that of Sen and Smith.
Back to the Land: The Paradox of Organic Food Standards
Authors: Guthman Julie
Published: March 2004

This paper examines how the rent-creating conventions that regulate organic food production undermine growers' abilities to farm in a less intensive manner. The paper builds on a growing literature on food governance which points to the unintended consequences of standardization and their verification. The argument is based in theories of rent, with specific attention to how the constructed scarcity of organic food creates rents that are competed away or appropriated. The author also discusses how organic regulations may manifest in monopoly ground rents, especially given the attention paid to land in organic certification. Insofar as these rents pass through to land values, they contribute to a broader pattern of land valuation that pushes farmers to grow the most valuable crops in the most productive ways—an imperative that is not necessarily conducive to organic farming as it is generally envisioned.
Persistent Variation: Flexibility, Organization, and Strategy in the Logistics of Importing Automobiles to the United States, 1980–99
Authors: Hall Peter V
Published: March 2004

The author presents case studies that reveal persistent variation in the logistics operations of firms importing new automobiles to the USA from 1980 to 1999. He argues that, in addition to the recognized differences such as national origin, product mix, and production organization, the strategic organization of logistics itself constitutes a basis for persistent variation. Firms operating at a global scale face heightened uncertainties in matching supply and demand and hence have a heightened requirement for flexibility. This is theorized in this paper as the ability to collect and transmit information, both codified and tacit, within and across various spatial scales. However, these informational goals imply very different organizational structures that are in tension. In ideal-type terms, firm organizational structures vary in the degree to which they are localized—referring to the intra-regional collection of information through horizontal relationships between the firm and external actors—or globalized—referring to the interregional transmission of information between portions of the firm. Persistent variation is the most likely outcome as firms constantly seek to reorganize their logistics operations in historically contingent, experimental, and contested ways.
Globalization and the Changing Clothing Industry in Turkey
Authors: Tokatli Nebahat
Published: March 2004

In this paper, I explore the manner in which, since the 1980s, some Turkish domestic firms in the clothing industry have found ways of connecting themselves to the global webs of manufacturing, distribution, and retailing of garments. I call attention to two related developments that have occurred during the process. First, a number of manufacturing firms have acquired enough autonomy to develop and exercise their own strategies, have upgraded their operations, and, as original brand-name manufacturers, have evolved into global competitors. Second, some large domestic manufacturers have experienced a cautious and gradual transformation from industrial capital to commercial and financial capital. The findings show the necessity of seeing firms as intentional agents of change with some autonomy of their own as well as the importance of maintaining a structural understanding of power relations in the networked relationships of the global economy.
Spatial Pricing in Interdependent Markets: A Case Study of Petrol Retailing in Sheffield
Authors: Ning Xiaoming , Haining Robert
Published: March 2004

This paper reports the development of empirical models to explain spatial price variation in an urban area. Models are constructed for petrol price data collected in 1995 and 1997 in Sheffield, England. The 1995 data are modelled by using only supply-side predictors following the collection of supply-side information from field surveys of the retail sites, a site questionnaire survey, and interviews with site managers. The 1997 data are modelled by using supply-side predictors and demand-side predictors that relate to the economic characteristics of the population of consumers. This modelling is based on field surveys of the sites, a new site questionnaire survey, and a household survey. The purpose of this work is to assess supply-side and demand-side factors in explaining spatial price variation. Supply-side predictors are classified into site characteristics, location characteristics, and measures of spatial competition. We examine the relative importance of these different groups of supply-side variables in explaining price variation, with a particular interest in location and competition effects as these relate directly to the spatial and geographical aspects of the problem. Another contribution of the paper is to observe the stability of findings by contrasting the best-fitting models obtained for the 1995 price data to the best-fitting models obtained for the 1997 price data.

We find that no demand-side factors are statistically significant. For 1995 a spatial competition variable and a location variable (whether a site is attached to a supermarket) are the consistently important supply-side variables. For 1997 all three categories of supply-side variables are important.
Belaboring Gender: The Spatial Practice of Work and the Politics of ‘Making Do’ in Istanbul
Authors: Secor Anna J
Published: March 2004

From focus-group and survey research conducted in Istanbul between 1998 and 2002, I argue that the spatial practice of work is critical to the constitution of what it means to ‘be a woman’ in the Turkish context. My approach to gender and work makes use of Butler's theory of performativity in order to show how discourses and practices of work are not only implicated in the production of male and female gender identities but also provide a variety of routes through which different aspects of masculinity and femininity are performed. In my reading of the discussions and debates assembled by the focus-group texts, I try to show how work compels various performances, such as the ‘good woman’ or the ‘bad girl’ in Istanbul. Further, work not only calls forth different ways of being a woman in relation to the city but also produces differentiated female bodies. Finally, I argue that work is a spatial practice through which belonging, identity, and rights are staked in the urban environment.
The Nonmarket Benefits of Redeveloping Dockland Areas for Recreational Purposes: The Case of Castellón, Spain
Authors: Del Saz-Salazar Salvador , Garcia-Menendez Leandro
Published: March 2004

As a consequence of the decline of central harbour sites and the relocation of port activities to the outskirts of cities, today waterfront redevelopment has become a key issue in the urban revitalisation policies of port cities. Although we are aware that city-port regeneration has strong links with the real estate market, our purpose here is very different. In particular, the contingent valuation method (CVM) has been applied in order to obtain the nonmarket benefits of the environmental and urban improvements derived from redeveloping some port-related areas for recreational and leisure purposes in the city of Castellón, Spain. To date, no previous study has attempted to apply this method to this policy issue. The result is that CVM provides useful information in this context, however, like any methodology, it has its limitations and it cannot provide a definitive answer to this policy issue. Finally, the estimated benefits are compared with the costs of the provision of such recreational and leisure facilities within a cost–benefit analysis framework, and the main finding is that benefits can plausibly exceed costs.
Industrial Clusters and Peripheral Areas
Authors: Pontes José Pedro
Published: March 2004

This paper is an appraisal of the economic feasibility of the location of clusters of firms in peripheral areas. In a spatial economy formed by two asymmetric regions, an upstream firm supplies an input to two downstream firms. This economy is modelled as a three-stage noncooperative game. In the first stage, the firms choose locations simultaneously. In the second stage, the upstream firm selects a monopoly price for the downstream firms. In the third stage, the final good firms compete in quantities, taking the input price as given. If it is assumed that each firm is active in each market, the agglomeration of all firms in the large region is always a perfect equilibrium, although it need not be unique. If vertical linkages are intermediate and transport costs are high, there is a dispersed equilibrium with the upstream firm in the small region. If vertical linkages are strong and transport costs are low, a cluster can occur in the small region. In this latter case, regional policy can select the small peripheral region as a location for the industrial cluster.
The Pragmatism of Life in Poststructuralist Times
Authors: Ernste Huib
Published: March 2004

In addressing the question of what might be next in human geography I endeavour to enrich the debates between Anglo-American poststructuralist and continental European action-theoretical approaches by bringing ‘life’ to the geographical subject. In contrast to established conceptualisations of the geographical self, I will introduce a conception of the self which mediates between the subject and the subjectified, between voluntarism and determinism, and between consciousness and corporeality. Through this reconceptualisation I do not pretend to provide final answers, but rather seek to initiate a new stream of thought.
Culture Unbound
Authors: Duncan James S , Duncan Nancy G
Published: March 2004

The key concept of culture has recently been undergoing critical reassessment, and in some cases replacement, by cultural theorists in a number of fields. Some commentators have argued that the concept of culture is too elusive and all encompassing to be of use and that it can be politically dangerous. We will argue instead that the problem is not inherent in all concepts of culture, but in the specific political uses to which particular concepts of culture have been put. We think there is a need to rethink the concept of culture. In fact, cultural coherence in the face of heterogeneity and porous boundaries, complexity, and complicity across far-reaching networks are some of the most challenging and intriguing issues in cultural theory today. Thus we explore alternative conceptions of culture that might hold some promise for cultural geography. Our view is that no one conception holds the answer. Rather, cultural geographers need to develop a critically eclectic mix of culture theories and allow sufficient time for these to be empirically grounded.
Reembracing Metaphysics
Authors: Rose Mitch
Published: March 2004

The following thought piece addresses the issue ‘what next’ by considering the effects of poststructural thought on the field. Specifically, I argue that poststructuralism has emerged in the field as a problem that a number of geographers have endeavoured to solve by devising new theoretical frameworks and innovative methodological principles, the purpose of which is to make social science ‘better’. In response I suggest that the problems posed by poststructuralism are fundamentally unanswerable and that they are meant to be recognised rather than resolved. While poststructuralism effectively reveals the limits of social science, it should not seduce us into thinking we can somehow do social science differently. This is because social science always involves doing some kind of metaphysics–that is, the practice of determining, delimiting, representing, and explaining how the world works. The goal of this paper is to discuss the relationship between metaphysics and deconstruction as an ontological condition that cannot be surmounted through study or thought. I conclude by suggesting that the goal of social science should not be to get around this relationship but rather to embrace it as a fundamental aspect of what we as geographers, social scientists, and human beings do.
T(r)Opes: Geographicus Interruptus
Authors: Waterstone Marv
Published: March 2004

In this paper, I raise, in polemical terms, several possible responses to the question ‘What next?’ in human geography. I am particularly concerned to address matters from a radical/critical perspective, and to suggest ways of moving current theoretical, methodological, and substantive insights more consciously (rather than tacitly) into wider circulations of dialogue and activism. I examine extant hegemonic relations of academic production and reproduction, the relationships between academia and the ‘outside’ worlds in which we operate, and conclude with possible steps toward the development of an effective counterhegemony both within and without the academy.
Financial Institutions in Disadvantaged Areas: A Comparative Analysis of Policies Encouraging Financial Inclusion in Britain and the United States
Authors: Marshall J Neill
Published: March 2004

The paper compares British and US government policy initiatives to combat financial exclusion and promote community reinvestment. Financial exclusion, a general term for those who lack financial products, is concentrated in a small number of deprived urban areas in larger cities that are also starved of private sector investment. British policies, though they have drawn on US experience, predominantly treat exclusion as an individual problem and pay insufficient attention to the wider interconnections between people and place that underlie financial exclusion. These are more prominent in the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) that has led to significant improvements in financial inclusion and community investment in the USA. The CRA is underpinned by a more compartmentalised and locally embedded system of financial regulation. Consolidation in the banking sector and the growth of competition between banks and other financial institutions in an increasingly integrated US financial sector threaten this. British policies seek to provide ‘joined-up’ solutions to financial exclusion in a manner that is more in tune with an integrated financial sector where a small number of large banks compete on a level playing field with other financial institutions. The paper highlights the difficulties that these policies face in enlisting the cooperation of financial institutions.
Housing for Health: Does the Market Work?
Authors: Smith Susan J , Easterlow Donna , Munro Moira
Published: March 2004

Markets are mechanisms for distributing goods and services according to people's ability to pay. They are also investment vehicles which can be used to secure financial gains as economies expand. Housing markets embrace both these features, and are popular in Britain as a way of maximising residential choice at the same time as protecting and enhancing personal wealth. All markets create winners and losers, but no systematic social differences in either risks or gains are expected. However, this paper shows that, as home ownership has become the British housing norm, people experiencing ill-health are one social group who can struggle to reap its benefits, either as a consumption good or as a financial asset. The way housing markets (currently) work may therefore tend to reinforce the health divide, though this is neither a necessary nor inevitable state of affairs.