Environment and Planning A

Radicalism, antiracism, and nostalgia: the burden of loss in the search for convivial culture. Alastair Bonnett

Drawing on the example of British antiracism, I argue that nostalgia is an integral and constitutive force within the radical imagination. The first section of the paper is historical and contextual. It shows how attachments to the past and associated feelings of loss and regret (attachments and emotions which combine to form nostalgia) became marginalised and repressed within modern radicalism. The second section looks at how antinostalgia and nostalgia were mapped onto radical antiracism in Britain in the 1980s. It is suggested that the stereotype of the ‘black rebel’ concealed and cohered the tensions between a declining socialist movement and the politics of loss. The third part of the paper explores the issue of nostalgia in the company of Gilroy’s After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? My critique of After Empire is in two parts. First I look at the stereotyping and repression of themes of loss that sustain Gilroy’s account. Second, I address After Empire as a nostalgic text, burdened with a yearning for lost political potency. The essay concludes with a call for radicals and antiracists to move beyond the a priori suspicion of nostalgia.

Skin, affect, aggregation: Guattarian variations on Fanon. Arun Saldanha

Geography has turned to phenomenology, poststructuralism, and psychoanalysis to understand human bodies in non-Cartesian terms as always-already positioned within social formations. But how exactly do we conceive of the constitution of many bodies at once? Specifically, how do bodies ‘aggregate’ into racial formations? ‘The body’ is not a target of socialization—racializing, gendering, disciplining—as if it sits alone until its senses and viscera are stirred by the environment. Bodies never come alone. Racial formations are from the start phenomena of collective embodiment, not ideological structures that secondarily have corporeal effects. In this paper I will argue that racial difference (like all social relations) is a reality involving the interactions, imaginations, and biologies of human bodies. First, Frantz Fanon’s influential theory of racialization and racial difference is recast in an embodied framework through one of his own examples. This framework will be construed through the concept of affect in Baruch Spinoza, the phenomenology of Michel Henry, and the ‘machinic’ approach to psychoanalysis suggested by Félix Guattari. Aggregation is thereafter explained through the contemporary Spinozism of Antonio Negri and population biology. Finally, the political implications of a machinic theory of race are explored using another concrete example from Fanon.

Race, affect, and emotion: young people, racism, and graffiti in the postcolonial English suburbs. Anoop Nayak

The majority of studies on young people, race, and racism have focused upon multiethnic inner-city areas. This can have the unintended effect of locating the ‘problem’ of race within the sites where ethnic minorities reside and upon their racially marked bodies. To disrupt this way of looking I attempt to turn the geography of racism ‘inside out’ by recognising the predominantly white English suburbs as a complex site of emotion where racist graffiti, violence, and social deprivation may preside. Here, it is suggested that a ‘global sense of place’ can be evoked through a postcolonial reading of the suburbs and used to unsettle the familiar emotional-laden landscapes of whiteness. Secondly, through ethnography with young people who self-identify as a Skinhead gang, I seek to provide a meaningful geography of racism that engages with emotion, bodily encounters, and events as they become charged with feeling and affect. Thirdly, the ethnography considers the practice of whiteness and white territoriality. In these encounters race and racism are approached as an event or happening that may be given material weight through inscriptions of racist graffiti, emotional sentiments regarding ideas of white suburban belonging, and physical manifestations of popular racism. I conclude that studies of race and racism need to better engage with the visceral way in which affect and emotion seep into the lives of young people and enable the idea of race to pass from immanence to emergence in daily encounters.

Sorting bodies: race, affect, and everyday multiculture in a mill town in northern England. Dan Swanton

This paper examines how race might be understood differently when social interaction is taken as the starting point of analysis. I argue that dominant modes of theorising race as a biological construct or epistemological marker remain insufficient for understanding the multiple, contingent, and devious ways in which race takes form in, and gives shape to, encounters. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Keighley—a former mill town in northern England—the paper assembles narrative fragments that reconstruct encounters with difference (that vary in intensity from the mundane to terror alerts). In each of these encounters I return to the question: what does race do? The paper offers a reconsideration of race and racism. I theorise race as a technology of differentiation that sorts human difference in ways that acknowledge the malleability of race and the more-than-human composition of social relations. I go on to outline an understanding of racism—a racism of assemblages—that recognises that the sorting of human difference is also accompanied by judgments that prefigure encounters. The racism of assemblages offers an opportunity to address the operation of race at the level of nonconscious thinking and the affective intensities through which the sorting and judging of human differences are performed. The work of gathering fragments to reconstruct encounters also generates insights into the microsociality of multicultural life in Keighley, disrupting narratives that argue that white and Asian communities lead ‘parallel lives’ in northern mill towns.

Nation, race, and affect: senses and sensibilities at national heritage sites. Mike Crang, Divya P Tolia-Kelly

This paper picks up from extensive literatures that have addressed the relationship of heritage to national identity. Much work focuses upon the symbolic construction of the past through heritage institutions, but in so doing it tends to underplay the affective experience of heritage sites. In this paper we argue that it is the felt experience and the organisation of sensibilities towards heritage which are often as important, and that these have racialised modalities. We thus look at attempts to foster civic inclusion and argue that they need to work through not just civic openness but felt exclusions and fears. We take two canonical heritage sites to exemplify these issues. First, the British Museum was chosen as an urban national institution that is conventionally seen speaking in an unemotive, pedagogical register. The history of the museum as collecting artefacts from around the world and bringing them to London is related to diasporic communities’ feelings about the collections, focusing on the Oceanic gallery. The second exemplar is the English Lake District, chosen as a rural national park that is seen to mobilise more visceral affective responses, which is deeply bound up with national sensibilities but has attracted attention for racial exclusivity.

Social stratification in the United States. Stephen J Rose

There is no abstract for this paper.

When the tide goes out: gender, leadership and failure in the retail sector. John Pal, Dominic Medway, Gary Warnaby

There is no abstract for this paper.

On Darwin, geography, and biology: another tale of the lions and the butterflies—episode 2?. Daniel Z Sui

There is no abstract for this paper.

Ethical foodscapes?: premises, promises, and possibilities. Michael K Goodman, Damian Maye, Lewis Holloway

There is no abstract for this paper.

Collective purchase: moving local and organic foods beyond the niche market. Ruth Little, Damian Maye, Brian Ilbery

The authors draw attention to the creative possibilities offered by collective purchase as a mechanism to move local and organic foods beyond the niche market. The food-buying group and cooperative style of food purchasing has received only scant reference in the alternative food and ethical consumption literatures, but it offers much in terms of historical context and future lessons for growth in the sector. ‘We can do it better’ is an experimental ethic of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture, but it resonates strongly with the present-day ‘alternatives’ associated with the local and organic food movement. The authors use Gibson-Graham’s notion of ‘diverse economies’ to examine selected buying groups and food cooperatives in North America, Europe, and Japan. The results reveal a highly pixilated and evolving mix of motivations and ethics. The ‘ideology first, practicalities later’ approach appears to be a powerful influence, symbolising the ‘becomingness’ of ethical purchasing in these contexts.

From ‘value-for-money’ to ‘values-for-money’? Ethical food and policy in Europe. Tim Lang

The author considers how ethical food raises complex challenges for policy makers. Looking mainly at Europe and developed countries, it is suggested that the notion of ethical food is plastic, but that therein lie its strength and appeal. Civil society movements see it as a rallying point to restructure food systems, from land use to consumption. The mainstream corporate sector sees ethical food as an umbrella term under which many, sometimes even competing, aspirations nestle, but which can be incorporated as additional niche markets. Far from being new, the ethical-food banner in the late 20th century has resurrected some older traditions, including those which contested power relations in the food system. But in the 21st century, with the world’s food system under economic, environmental, social, and political stress, the ethical-food umbrella faces an uncertain future. It could be submerged by ‘value-for-money’ consumerism; or it could become a champion of what the author calls an emerging set of ‘omnistandards’, under which fragmented single issues coalesce and articulate a new paradigm.

Fairness and ethicality in their place: the regional dynamics of fair trade and ethical sourcing agendas in the plantation districts of South India. Jeff Neilson, Bill Pritchard

In this paper we argue for a ‘horizontal’ approach to the analysis of fair and ethical trade, one which asks questions about the wider eddies they create within regional production contexts. This approach runs counter to much of the existing literature on the topic, which typically examines initiatives ‘vertically’, in terms of how they affect the lives of participating producers and communities. Applying this method to critique fair and ethical trade in the tea and coffee plantation districts of South India, we find that, at present, initiatives fail to intersect with the most pressing problems of poverty and development within this regional production system. Somewhat ironically, these schemes seem to be having their greatest positive effects within industry segments that are not the most needful of support, and tend to have very limited engagement with those industry participants in direst straits (notably, smallholders and workers on abandoned estates). Consideration of these issues highlights how the uneven penetration of fair and ethical trade is contributing to transformations in the institutional formations and systems of governance. Producers oriented to servicing affluent Western markets are increasingly enmeshed within fair and ethical trade agendas and interact with dense ensembles of suprastate and civil society regulation (involving international nongovernmental organisations and audit firms). Yet, more marginalised producers remain regulated by traditional institutional mechanisms embedded within the nation-state (government departments, trade unions, etc). These assessments point to the limitations and challenges facing fair and ethical trade as a strategic intervention for addressing the social, economic, and environmental injustices of global agriculture.

Local and green, global and fair: the ethical foodscape and the politics of care <body>. Kevin Morgan

The core values of the ethical foodscape—ecological integrity and social justice—can assume very different political forms unless they are fashioned into a coherent and progressive narrative of sustainability. This paper explores the politics of sustainability through the prism of three major issues. First, the carbon-labelling controversy is used to highlight the potential conflict between green campaigners (who extol the benefits of local food) and social justice campaigners (who support fairly traded food from afar). Second, school-food reform is used to demonstrate that local and global food, far from being mutually exclusive options, can both be part of the constitution of a sustainable food system if global food is framed in cosmopolitan terms. Third, the paper engages with the politics of care literature to explore a question that underlies the above issues, namely, how and why we care for others. It is argued that ethical consumerism, a key part of a progressive narrative of care, is not sufficient to counter the challenge of climate change—the greatest threat to ecological integrity and social justice.

Perspective and power in the ethical foodscape. Susanne Freidberg

There is no abstract for this paper.

Palatable ethics. Henry Buller

There is no abstract for this paper.

The politics of behavior change. Clive Barnett

There is no abstract for this paper.

The politics of inequality in globalizing cities: how the middle classes matter in the governing of Buenos Aires. J Miguel Kanai

This paper contributes to the literature on the new politics of social inclusion and spatial justice in globalizing cities. My main argument is that accounts of such politics should focus on the multiple intervening social actors without neglecting or assuming the roles played by the urban middle classes. Focusing on the case of the City of Buenos Aires (CBA) after Argentina’s neoliberal crisis of 2001, I show the importance of mobilized middle-class social actors in shaping institutional and territorial outcomes in a globalizing city that is highly polarized and fragmented. This study is based on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and archival research focused on (a) subscribers of state-sponsored citizen participation processes and (b) neighborhood activists with middle-class profiles—middle incomes, relative housing stability, and residency in neighborhoods with middle levels of development. Findings show that, although middle-class politics in the city evidenced a primary concern with place, neighborhood, and local territories, mobilized actors were also responding to deeper transformations brought about by processes of neoliberal globalization. Their repertoires of collective action also moved beyond the local scale and had significance for the wider governing of the city. Finally, it is shown that middle-class politics in the postcrisis CBA departed from the exclusionary attitudes evidenced in studies of other cities, which leads to the question of how such politics may be reconciled into broader coalitions seeking more egalitarian forms of urban globalization. Further inquiries for comparative analysis beyond the CBA are suggested in the paper’s conclusion.

Regional economic policy &#8216;in-the-making&#8217;: imaginaries, political projects and institutions for Auckland&#8217;s economic transformation. Steffen Wetzstein, Richard Le Heron

This paper explores the utility of investigating regional economic policy (REP) as constituted through the interplay of imaginaries, political projects, and institutional arrangements. It frames REP in process terms—as continually ‘in-the-making’ and emerging out of the intersecting trajectories of ideas, policy, individuals, and other resources. The empirical focus is economic governance in Auckland, New Zealand, in the years following the widely publicised neoliberal reforms and profound economic restructuring of the 1980s and early 1990s. The analysis draws on the authors’ particular positionality of being involved in knowledge production, both in academic and in policy arenas, and benefits from the development of a range of poststructural political economy methodologies by Auckland-based researchers. The concept of ‘political project’ is argued to be a useful analytical tool for linking circulating academic imaginaries, political initiatives, and particular policy rationales. By means of juxtaposing key aspects of particular economic imaginaries with political/policy initiatives and developments, it is shown that knowledge production for subnational economic governance is coconstitutive, contradictory, occurs on multiple geographical scales, and is mediated and remediated by place-specific and time-specific institutional actors. The methodological strategy of highlighting associations with the potential for interaction, rather than seeking causal processes, not only reveals the politicised nature of contextual facets of contemporary interventions, but promises to make a richer base for exploring possibilities for acting differently in urban and regional policy worlds.

Sex offenders and residential location: a predictive&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;analytical framework. Elizabeth A Mack, Tony H Grubesic

Despite the growing body of research examining the collateral consequences of legislation governing sex offenders, a complete understanding of their residential choices post release remains elusive. This paper develops a predictive – analytical framework that helps determine which demographic and socioeconomic factors best forecast the residential choices of convicted sex offenders. Specifically, a derived index of social disorganization (ISDOR) is implemented in both statistical and nonlinear data mining approaches to predict the presence of sex offenders in a community. The results of the analysis are encouraging, predicting nearly 75% of registered offender locations correctly. The utility of this framework as a tool for public policy and law enforcement is discussed.

Homelessness, travel behavior, and the politics of transportation mobilities in Long Beach, California. Christine L Jocoy, Vincent J Del Casino, Jr

The geography of homelessness is often characterized as containment in marginalized spaces of cities or as placelessness necessitating continuous travel. These characterizations, which reflect discourses about ‘the homeless’ as an imagined deviant homogeneous group, have had substantial effects on policy formation and critiques of punitive turns in urban governance. Suggested policy responses frequently assume straightforward relationships between power/powerlessness and mobility/immobility binaries that do not appropriately portray actual mobility patterns of homeless individuals. Through focus groups and structured interviews, this paper examines the daily mobility of homeless adults in Long Beach, California, to identify the ways in which the everyday travel of homeless individuals compares with these ‘imagined’ characterizations and with national US household travel patterns. Results show that homeless mobility is highly spatially constrained and structured by sociocultural relations of stigmatization, economic productivity, and personal responsibility that are reflected in the operational conventions and institutional practices of transportation and social welfare systems. Nonetheless, during the course of a day, homeless individuals move among spaces where they experience varying levels of inclusion and exclusion, thus complicating static, homogeneous characterizations. This analysis contributes to both the urban transport and social geography literatures by demonstrating the value of combining sociocultural approaches to the study of mobility with more typical transportation geography analyses of individual travel behavior.

Low-income-country import competition and the structure of earnings inequality in Canada, 1996&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;2001. S&#233;bastien Breau

This paper uses a detailed employer – employee dataset to test the effects of low-income-country import competition on the earnings of workers in manufacturing industries in Canada. From 1996 to 2001 earnings inequality increased: the wage gap between manufacturing workers with a university degree and those without a high school diploma rose from 35% to 43%. Greater import competition is found to explain part of the growing wage gap, consistent with Stolper – Samuelson effects. Point estimates suggest that these effects increased slightly over the period of study and are strongest in Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia, provinces with the highest low-income-country import-penetration rates. However, the results also suggest (i) the relative wage effects of increased import competition are not as ‘clear cut’ as predicted by the Stolper – Samuelson theorem and (ii) that other individual and plant-level factors are important determinants of the structure of earnings inequality in Canada.

Industrial clustering and technological innovation in China: new evidence from the ICT industry in Shenzhen. Cassandra C Wang, George C S Lin, Guicai Li

The relationship between industrial clustering and technological innovation has been a subject of intense enquiry and heated debate. We examine the actual pattern of industrial clustering and technological innovation in China, focusing on the information and communication technology (ICT) industry. With our systematic analysis of the data gathered at the national level we found no significant relationship between spatial agglomeration and economic performance. Our questionnaire survey and personal interviews conducted in Shenzhen—China’s leading special economic zone—revealed a peculiar pattern consistent with that at the national level. Although there existed frequent and intensive production linkages among firms in the Shenzhen ICT industrial cluster, the innovative performance of these firms has been rather poor. Most of the ICT manufacturing firms obtained their core technology through internal research and development (R & D) activities rather than through technology transfer or knowledge spillover. There is a lack of interest among firms to seek cooperation and communication based on knowledge, technology, or R & D activities with other firms in the same cluster. The peculiar pattern of clustering and innovation in China suggests that technological innovation may have a divergent regional trajectory more sophisticated than that which has been described in the existing theory of industrial clusters. The study closes with a plea to go beyond a relational turn in economic geography and to take more seriously the roles played by actors and agents within different bounded and grounded institutional and regional contexts.

Mobilizing cookstoves for development: a dual adoption framework analysis of collaborative technology innovations in Western India. Gregory L Simon

Domestic cookstoves in rural India have long been targeted by development programs dedicated to solving a diverse range of problems from deforestation and indoor air pollution to global warming and rural market inefficiencies. Theories on how technologies are mobilized in these design and diffusion innovation projects and what this presages for development outcomes can be improved by explicitly detailing the composition and structure of program governance frameworks. I develop a ‘dual adoption analytic framework’ to interrogate two technology innovation programs in Western India. This framework underscores the collaborative nature of technology mobilizations and, more specifically, how power is distributed across partnerships at different stages of the development process. Local partners are shown to function as influential mediating agents operating between extrinsic agencies and targeted village groups. They reinforce funding agency planning commitments while also activating economic contingencies and generating alternative development pathways. I also reveal how the structure of technology innovation projects—as either administratively heavy handed or committed to free market principles—influences intermediary behavior, intrapartnership structures of control and, ultimately, development outcomes for targeted artisan communities and households.

Reviews.

Johnston on Szpiro: Numbers rule: the vexing mathematics of democracy from Plato to the present
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