Social Geography

Regional unemployment and industrial restructuring in Poland

by Francesco Pastore

Co-authored with Andrew Newell.
Eastern European Economics, 2006, 44(3): 5-28.
(also available as IZA DP, n. 194, November 2000, University of Sussex DP, n. 63, May 2000, e CELPE DP, n. 51, February 2000)

This paper studies regional unemployment inequality in Poland. We find that regions experiencing greater change in... more This paper studies regional unemployment inequality in Poland. We find that regions experiencing greater change in industrial structure have higher unemployment rates. We also find that high-unemployment regions have higher inflow rates to unemployment rather than longer spells of unemployment. These findings suggest that regional unemployment varies importantly with job destruction in Poland. Econometric analysis of the determinants of employment to unemployment flows reinforces this impression. We use our estimates to assess the extent to which regional unemployment variation is due to economic restructuring. We show that this cannot be done unambiguously, and offer reasons why many previous attempts to separate out the effects of restructuring on unemployment have been unsuccessful.

Exploring the Extraordinary 4th Conference

by Hannah Gilbert

21st-23rd September, 2012, York UK

FRIDAY, 21st September

1.00-1.15    Introduction

1.15-1.45    ‘The... more FRIDAY, 21st September

1.00-1.15    Introduction

1.15-1.45    ‘The spectacular supernatural: Victoria Spiritualism and the rise of modern show business’ Simone Natale, University of Cologne
1.45-2.15    ‘Extraordinary claims, uncanny history: Testing historical
interpretations of Spiritualism and the First World War’ Ben McDonald, University of Melbourne
2.15-2.45    ‘Reconstructing Seaford: A historical methodology to trace the rise of the psychokinetic theory of the poltergeist phenomenon’ Christopher Laursen, University of British  Columbia

2.45-3.00    Break

3.00-3.30    ‘A qualitative study of anomalous telephonic experiences’ Callum Cooper, University of Northampton
3.30-4.00    ‘The nature and quality of child-parent relationships as predictors of adult paranormal and new age beliefs’ Dr Paul Rogers, University of Central Lancashire

4.00-4.15    Break

4.15-4.45    ‘Listening for vampiric and ‘other’ worldly voices: Navigating dark occultural cyberspace in search of the extraordinary’ Dr Sean O’Callaghan, University of Lancaster
4.45-5.15    ‘Revenant revolutions’ Jonathan Ferguson, Leeds Royal Armouries

6.30-8.00    Dinner

Evening Activity: Films
8.00          The Fortean tales of Lapis Lazu, Christopher Laursen, University of British Columbia
8.30          Science and spirit(s), Prof Charles Emmons, Gettysburg College 


SATURDAY, 22nd September

10.00-10.30    ‘Exploring extraordinary geographies: The overlapping spaces of the practical, the social and the otherworldly’, Dr Nadia Bartolini, Dr Sara MacKian & Dr Steve Pile, Open University
10.30-11.00    ‘Crystals, angels and a discourse of healing: Exploring extraordinary therapeutic landscapes,’ Dr Sara MacKian, Open University

11.00-11.15    Break

11.15-11.45    ‘GHosts, guests and hosts, and how to make them’ Sarah Sparkes, University of London
11.45-12.15    ‘English heretic:  An application of magical psychogeography and modern necromancy’ Andy Sharp
12.15-12.45    ‘Expressions of spirithood: Performance and the manifestation of spirits,’ Jack Hunter, University of Bristol

12.45-2.00    Lunch

2.00-2.30    ‘In the light and shadow: Turning the dead to keep the world alive,’ Dr Christel Mattheuws, University of Aberdeen
2.30-3.00    ‘The shamanic journey: Ordinary into extraordinary reality’, Dr Zoe Bran
3.00-3.30    ‘Magic, materialism and mushrooms: Psilocybin mushrooms user’s constructions of the reality of psychedelic entity encounters’ James Thompson, University of Bath

3.30-3.45    Break

3.45-4.15    ‘“Knock, knock… who’s there?” Orientating to spirits in the spatial and personal environment’ Rachael Hayward, University of York     
4.15-4.45    ‘Ghostly interventions: Revenant landscapes and para-places’ James Thurgill, Royal Holloway University of London
4.45-5.15    ‘The material remains of presence on an excavated hauntscape: A transductive ethnography of a spectral soundscape’ John Sabol
                               
Evening Activity: Dinner and Social Evening
7.00    Dinner venue tbc


SUNDAY, 23rd September

10.00-10.30    ‘Noise and the infinite’ Adam Potts, Newcastle University
10.30-11.00    ‘Paramusicology: The fusion of music and the paranormal’ Dr Melvyn Willin

11.00-11.15    Break

11.15-11.45    ‘Religion and the paranormal in pragmatist philosophy,’ Dr Guy Bennett-Hunter, University of Edinburgh
11.45-12.15    ‘It takes one to know one: Imaginal cognition and the question of spiritual reality’ Dr Angela Voss

12.15-12.30    Break

12.30-1.00    ‘Emotion, extraordinary experience and ethics’ Dr Madeleine Castro, Leeds Metropolitan University & Dr Hannah Gilbert, York St John University

1.00            Lunch

Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2012. Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments. Area 44 (2), 136-143.

This paper sets out to develop two related ideas. First, it seeks to identify how both violence and neoliberalism can... more This paper sets out to develop two related ideas. First, it seeks to identify how both violence and neoliberalism can be considered as moments. From this shared conceptualisation of process and fluidity, I argue that it becomes easier to recognise how these two phenomena actually converge. Building upon this conceived coalescence of neoliberalism and violence, the second aim is to recognise how the hegemony of neoliberalism positions it as an abuser, which facilitates the abandonment of those ‘Others’ who fall outside of neoliberal normativity. I argue that the widespread banishment of ‘Others’ under neoliberalism produces a ‘state of exception’, wherein because of its inherently dialectic nature, exceptional violence is transformed into exemplary violence. This metamorphosis occurs as aversion for alterity intensifies under neoliberalism and its associated violence against ‘Others’ comes to form the rule.

Familial relations: spaces, subjects, and politics

by Lauren Martin

co-authored with Chris Harker

Introduction to our themed issue on the family in geographical research.

Other articles include:
more Introduction to our themed issue on the family in geographical research.

Other articles include:

Do as I say, not as I do: the affective space of family life and the generational transmission of drinking cultures 776 – 792
Gill Valentine, Mark Jayne, Myles Gould

Transnational families and the family nexus: perspectives of Indonesian and Filipino children left behind by migrant parent(s) 793 – 815
Elspeth Graham, Lucy P Jordan, Brenda S A Yeoh, Theodora Lam, Maruja Asis, Su-kamdi

‘The church is ... my family’: exploring the interrelationship between familial and religious practices and spaces 816 – 831
Sonya Sharma

Women in waiting? Singlehood, marriage, and family in Singapore 832 – 848
Kamalini Ramdas

Precariousness, precarity, and family: notes from Palestine 849 – 865
Christopher Harker

Governing through the family: struggles over US noncitizen family detention policy 866 – 888
Lauren L Martin

The spectacular and the mundane: racialised state violence, Filipino migrant workers, and their families 889 – 904
Elizabeth Lee, Geraldine Pratt

Technologies of Mobility in the Americas: Introduction

by Phillip Vannini

Introductory chapter co-authored with Lucy Budd, Ole B. Jensen, Christian Fisker, and Paola Jiron

What do road infrastructures, media networks, ferry boats, cell phones, automobiles, and airplanes have in common? As... more What do road infrastructures, media networks, ferry boats, cell phones, automobiles, and airplanes have in common? As attempts to come to terms with the virtual and material distance separating people, objects, and information they are all technologies of mobility which deeply shape our ways of life, informing ideas, demanding new skills and practices, facilitating or impeding relationships, and restricting or enabling access to crucial resources.

Mobility studies concentrate on the intersecting movements of bodies, objects, capital, and signs across time-space, dissecting how practices, experiences, representations, and political dynamics shape new networks and lifeworlds. This book aims to reflect on the simultaneously technological and cultural (hence, technocultural) processes underpinning many of these forms of mobility, concentrating in particular in the North, Central, and South American social context.

Whereas in Europe the study of mobilities has begun to take a strong hold in academic units, professional research networks, and recognized publication outlets, the study of mobilities is still in its adolescence in the Americas. Yet, in contrast, mobility is very much part of the core of the social imaginary, geo-politics, and cultural life of the Americas. Indeed, to be "on the move" is among the most quintessential characteristics of what it means to be a citizen of the Americas. This book is the first to reflect on these dynamics within this large geo-cultural context.
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Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia. Journal of Agrarian Change.

The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of... more The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of landholding, which are entrenched in notions of community consensus and existing occupation. The discrepancy between such orally recognized antecedents and the written word of law have been at the heart of the recent wave of dispossessions that have swept across the country. Contra the standard critique that corruption has set the tone, this paper argues that evictions in Cambodia are often literally underwritten by the articles of law. Whereas ‘possession’ is a well-understood and accepted concept in Cambodia, a cultural basis rooted in what James C. Scott refers to as ‘orality’, coupled with a long history of subsistence agriculture, semi-nomadic lifestyles, barter economies, and–until recently–widespread land availability have all ensured that notions of ‘property’ are vague among the country’s majority rural poor. In drawing a firm distinction between possessions and property, where the former is premised upon actual use and the latter is embedded in exploitation, this article examines how proprietorship is inextricably bound to the violence of law.

Social Dimensions of Urban Restructuring: Urban Gardening, Residents' Participation, Gardening Exhibitions

by Martin Klamt

Reisen In Den Film. Filmtourismus In Nordafrika

by Stefan Zimmermann

Zimmermann, Stefan (2003): „Reisen in den Film“ – Filmtourismus in Nordafrika. In: Egner, H (Hrsg.): Tourismus – Lösung oder Fluch?: Die Frage nach der nachhaltigen Entwicklung peripherer Regionen. Mainz, S. 75-83. (= Mainzer Kontaktstudium Geographie 9).

Labour turnover and the spatial distribution of unemployment. A panel data analysis using employment registry data

by Francesco Pastore

Co-augthored with Joanna Tyrowicz-
Paper presented at the XXV AIEL Conference, University of Chieti and Pescara, 2010.

This paper aims to study whether the local variation in unemployment rates is related to labour turnover and what is... more This paper aims to study whether the local variation in unemployment rates is related to labour turnover and what is the sign of such relationship. In addition, the paper aims to assess the relative impact of inflow and outflow from unemployment on the dynamics of the local unemployment rate. The empirical analysis is based on a newly available unique dataset from the employment registry of a transition economy (Poland), encompassing nine years of monthly data (from 2000 to 2008) at a county (poviat) level. We find that turnover, as well as inflows and outflows separately, are ceteris paribus positively related to the unemployment level. This general conclusion is robust to sub-sampling that addresses potential heterogeneity of the analysed local labour markets. It is also robust to the use of different panel estimators, such as fixed effect and alternative GMM specifications, as well as for spatial clustering of poviats. Nonetheless, point estimators differ, reflecting the diverse adjustment patterns. We also find that elasticity is larger in the case of the inflow rate than for the outflow rate. Finally, we demonstrate that the effect is stronger in low unemployment regions.

Between Heaven and Here: Inner-City Apartheid and Socio-Spatial Marginalization in The Wire

by Ioana Literat

Mediascape 8 (Winter 2011)

Violence, democracy, and the neoliberal ''order'': the contestation of public space in posttransitional Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2009. Violence, democracy, and the neoliberal "order": the contestation of public space in posttransitional Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 99 (1), 138-162.

Neoliberal policies explain why authoritarianism and violence remain the principal modes of governance among many... more Neoliberal policies explain why authoritarianism and violence remain the principal modes of governance among many ruling elites in posttransitional settings. Using Cambodia as an empirical case to illustrate the neoliberalizing process, the promotion of intense marketization is revealed as a foremost causal factor in a country's inability to consolidate democracy following political transition. Neoliberalization effectively acts to suffocate an indigenous burgeoning of democratic politics. Such asphyxiation is brought to bear under the neoliberal rhetoric of order and stability, which can be read through the (re)production of public space. The preoccupation with order and stability serves the interests of capital at the global level and political elites at the level of the nation-state. Citizens themselves may fiercely contest these particular interests in a quest for a more radical democracy, as evidenced by the burgeoning geographies of protest that have emerged in Cambodian public spaces in the posttransition era.

Constructing a social geography of grandparenthood: a new focus for intergenerationality

by Anna Tarrant

'Maturing'a Sub‐discipline: The Intersectional Geographies of Masculinities and Old Age

by Anna Tarrant

Arnarvatnsheiði and the Space for Outlaws

by Joonas Ahola

Published in Stanzas of Friendship. Studies in Honour of Tatjana N. Jackson, ed. Natalja Gvorzdetskaja, Irina Konovalova, Elena Melnikova, and Alexandr Podossinov (Moscow: Dmitriy Pozharskiy University, 2011), 35-47

Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism. Critical Discourse Studies.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies... more Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

Review article: “Térlátók” – Barney Warf – Santa Arias (ed.): The Spatial Turn Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Routledge Studies in Human Geography)

by Vadas András

Published in: Korall 44 (2011), 187–193.

Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign... more Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign power, this article examines the dialectics of capitalism/primitive accumulation, civilization/savagery, and law/violence, which are argued to exist in a mutually reinforcing 'trilateral of logics'. In deciphering this triadic system, this article offers a radical (re)appraisal of capitalism, its legal process, and its civilizing effects, which together serve to mask the originary and ongoing violences of primitive accumulation and the property system. Such obfuscation suggests that wherever the trilateral of logics is enacted, so too is the state of exception called into being, exposing us all as potential homo sacer (life that does not count). Proceeding as a diagnostic assessment of sovereign power, where although signposted by Cambodia's contemporary experiences of violent land conflict, this article is not intended as a fine-grained empirical analysis. Instead, it forwards a theoretical dialogue where Cambodia's neoliberalizing processes offer a window on how sovereign power configures itself around the three discursive-institutional constellations (i.e., capitalism, civilization, and law) that form the trilateral of logics. Rather than formulating prescriptive solutions, the intention here is critique, where in particular it is argued that the preoccupation with strengthening Cambodia's legal system should not be read as a panacea for contemporary social ills, but as an imposition that serves to legitimize the violences of property.

Social geography and rural mental health research

by Candice Boyd

The study of mental health in the rural context has moved
beyond simple notions of what defines rurality.... more The study of mental health in the rural context has moved
beyond simple notions of what defines rurality. Researchers in the field of rural mental health have realized that what constitutes ‘rural’ - in terms of its impact on the mental
health and wellbeing of rural residents - entails more than physical geography and spatial localities. They have expressed the need to progress the agenda for rural mental health research beyond simple rural-urban comparisons in the prevalence of mental health problems. In so doing, these researchers have pointed to the apparent emphasis on sociodemographic factors in the rural mental health literature as a weakness, and have argued that further research on psychological, attitudinal or contextual factors is warranted.

Ironically though, rural mental health researchers in pursuit of this broader research agenda have failed to appreciate that geography as an academic discipline is concerned with more than just the physical features of places. This article will assert that the answers to fundamental questions in rural
mental health research lie in the branch of geography known as social geography, the subject matter of which many rural mental health researchers are currently unaware. The purpose of this editorial is to introduce readers of Rural and Remote Health to the pertinent theory and findings from three main areas of social geographic research: (i) rural geography; (ii) mental health geography; and (iii) the social geographies of caring - each with the potential to inform recent research efforts in rural mental health. We conclude that rural mental health researchers would benefit from embracing what social geography has to offer.

The neoliberalization of security and violence in Cambodia’s transition

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2009. The neoliberalization of security and violence in Cambodia's transition. Human Security in East Asia: Challenges for Collaborative Action. Ed. Sorpong Peou. New York: Routledge, pp. 125-141.

This chapter seeks to deconstruct the implications of shifting security’s frame of reference from the state to the... more This chapter seeks to deconstruct the implications of shifting security’s frame of reference from the state to the individual, and the potential for this scalar adjustment to be colonized by the purely economic goal of market preservation. These concerns are placed in the empirical context of Cambodia’s UN sponsored transition in the early 1990s, which effectively served as the pilot programme of the emerging human security agenda. The UN’s orchestration of the Cambodian ‘peace process’ is argued to have allowed the organization to formalize the newly minted human security doctrine during a self-congratulatory fervor that followed in the wake of what was presumed to be a successful transition to peace. However, the violence that swelled both during and after the transition reveals the human security discourse as deceptive, having very little to do with the prevention of violence other than in a rhetorical sense. Rather, the (in)actions of the international community in response to extrajudicial murders, threats of secession, electoral fraud, and coup d'état suggest that human security can be read as a pretext that effectively translates into the acceptance and promotion of the political status quo, as secured hegemony for the reigning political party means a secured marketplace open to foreign interests.

Articulated neoliberalism: the specificity of patronage, kleptocracy, and violence in Cambodia's neoliberalization

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Articulated neoliberalism: the specificity of patronage, kleptocracy, and violence in Cambodia's neoliberalization. Environment and Planning A. 43 (11) 2554-2570.

Focusing exclusively on external forces risks producing an over-generalized account of a ubiquitous neoliberalism,... more Focusing exclusively on external forces risks producing an over-generalized account of a ubiquitous neoliberalism, which insufficiently accounts for the profusion of local variegations that currently comprise the neoliberal project as a series of articulations with existing political economic circumstances. Although neoliberal economics were initially promoted in the global south through the auspices of structural adjustment programs designed by the International Financial Institutions, powerful global south elites were only too happy to oblige. Neoliberalism frequently reveals opportunities for well-connected government officials to informally control market and material rewards, allowing them to easily line their own pockets. It is in this sense of the local appropriation of neoliberal ideas that scholars must go beyond conceiving of ‘neoliberalism-in-general’ as a singular and fully realized policy regime, ideological form, or regulatory framework, and work towards conceiving a plurality of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’ with particular characteristics arising from mutable geohistorical outcomes that are embedded within national, regional, and local process of market-driven socio-spatial transformation. What constitutes ‘actually existing’ neoliberalism in Cambodia as distinctly Cambodian is the ways in which the patronage system has allowed local elites to co-opt, transform, and (re)articulate neoliberal reforms through a framework that ‘asset strips’ public resources, thereby increasing peoples’ exposure to corruption, coercion, and violence. It is to such an 'articulation agenda' that this article attends, as in seeking to provide a more nuanced reading to recent work on neoliberalism in Cambodia by outlining some of its salient characteristics, I reveal a more empirical basis to theorizations of ‘articulated neoliberalism’.