Geography Commons^™

Cultural Policy In Singapore: Negotiating Economic And Socio-Cultural Agendas, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, I examine the role of cultural policy in a newly industrialised economy, which is at the same time a state with a short history and only nascent beginnings in nation-building and efforts to construct a distinctive cultural identity. Using Singapore as the site of analyses, develop an understanding of the intersection between the economic and socio-cultural agendas behind cultural development policies. I illustrate the hegemony of the economic, supported by the ideology and language of pragmatism and globalisation. At the same time, I explore the reception of and attempts to negotiate (and at times, contest) state policies …

Crop-Raiding Elephants And Conservation Implications At Way Kambas National Park, Sumatra, Indonesia, Philip J. Nyhus, Sumianto, Ronald Tilson

Faculty Scholarship

Crop raiding by wild elephants is one of the most significant sources of park–people conflict in Sumatra, Indonesia. The distribution, impact and conservation implications of elephant crop-raiding in 13 villages that border Way Kambas National Park in southern Sumatra were studied for 18 months. The data are based on rapid village and field assessments, data logs maintained by village observers and a quantitative household survey. Elephants raided crops year-round at a mean rate of 0.53 elephants per day for the entire study area. The frequency of crop raiding was related to vegetation type along the park border, the size and …

Religion And Modernity: Ritual Transformations And The Reconstruction Of Space And Time, Chee Kiong Tong, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, we use the case of Chinese religion in Singapore to examine the relationships between religion and modernity, and between social processes, on the one hand, and spatial conceptions, forms and structures and temporal practices, on the other. Specifically, we look at how traditional Chinese rituals are being modified, reinterpreted and invented to fit with modern living. Such ritual transformations entail reconstructed notions of space and time. Through such transformations, modernity does not simply lead to the demise of religious beliefs and practices but allows for a continued role for religion in providing a meaning system for Chinese …

Globalisation And Singaporean Transmigration: Re-Imagining And Negotiating National Identity, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Within the context of globalisation that confronts the world today, I aim in this paper to illustrate one particular state's attempts at constructing a 'nation' amidst efforts to encourage its citizens to globalise, actions which are ostensibly, or at least, potentially, contradictory; and to analyse how these citizens who became transmigrants construct and negotiate their sense of 'nation' and national identity. Specifically, my empirical questions centre on Singaporean transmigrants working in China. I ask the following questions. What happens to the sense of national identity among Singaporeans and their relationship with the 'nation' when confronted with transnational conditions? What are …

Cemetaries And Columbaria, Memorials And Mausoleums: Narrative And Interpretation In The Study Of Deathscapes In Geography, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper reviews research on deathscapes, particularly by geographers in the last decade, and argues that many of the issues addressed reflect the concerns that have engaged cultural geographers during the same period. In particular, necrogeographical research reveals the relevance of deathscapes to theoretical arguments about the social constructedness of race, class, gender, nation and nature; the ideological underpinnings of landscapes, the contestation of space, the centrality of place and the multiplicity of meanings. This paper therefore highlights how the focus on one particular form of landscape reveals macro-cultural geographical research interests and trends.

From Chiefly Provisioning To Commercial Fishery: Long-Term Economic Change In Arctic Norway, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Stratified farm mounds with excellent organic preservation in the Lofoten and Vesterålen islands in Arctic Norway provide a long-term record of changing human use of fish. In Arctic Norway, zooarchaeological signatures of intensive dried fish production extend back into the Iron Age, indicating a substantial role for cured cod prior to the beginning of the historical stockfish trade in c. AD 1200. North Norwegian chieftains of the late Iron Age and Viking periods clearly disposed of substantial staple surpluses of stockfish as well as the better documented prestige goods (furs and ivory). A comparative study of substantial collections spanning the …

The Construction And Experience Of Nature: Perspectives Of Urban Youths, Lily Kong, Belinda Yuen, Navjot S. Sodhi, Clive Briffett

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, we explore the ways in which young people in a highly urbanised setting experience and develop constructions of nature. We do so by using Singapore as our case study, an Asian context in which urbanisation is total (Singapore's population is totally urbanised), Based on focus group discussions, we conclude that young Singaporeans have little interest in and affinity for nature. This stems from a few factors: growing up in a highly urban environment in which contact with nature is limited; over-protective parents of two-children families who worry about the 'dangers' their children are exposed to when playing …

Exalting The Past: Nostalgia And The Construction Of Heritage In Children's Literature, Lily Kong, Lily Tay

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, we analyse the portrayal of Singapore in local children's literature and seek to understand why such a portrayal was prominent, and to what effect. We argue that this literature is characterized by a nostalgic recollection of past times and places. This emergence of the past as an important concern in Singapore is not limited to the literary arena, but reflects a larger condition: a broader adult yearning to transcend the constrictions of present place and time. We suggest that this nostalgia has surfaced because of the phenomenal changes in Singapore, which have caused people to come face …

Keeping Problem Tigers From Becoming A Problem Species, Philip J. Nyhus, R L. Tilson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Coming Age Of Scarcity : Preventing Mass Death And Genocide In The Twenty-First Century, Michael N. Dobkowski, Isidor Wallimann

Books

The structure of the book is simple. The first part analyzes major forces having an impact on the survivability of civilization as we know it into the twenty-first century. It outlines the challenges we face, including overpopulation, pressure upon the land, migration, ecological damage, and social instability. In part two, we present more detailed discussion of the problem of scarcity and how it relates to conflict. The authors in this section argue that the current level of human activity is unsustain­able. They demonstrate that population growth in particular affects the natural world and can affect the social order and international …

Africa: A Continent Revealed (Exhibit Pamphlet), Osher Map Library And Smith Center For Cartographic Education

Osher Map Library Miscellaneous Publications

Africa: A Continent Revealed . Mapping the Continent from the 16th Century to the 21st Century (Exhibit Pamphlet).

January 21, 1998 to May 17, 1998

A Central Intelligence Agency Exhibit on the Portland Campus of the University of Maine.

This traveling exhibition traces the development of European mapping, from the 16th to the 21st century, of the African continent, or one fifth of the world's landmass.

Beyond Borders, Kathleen Braden, Wilbur Zelinsky, Sergei Rogachev, Thomas Baerwald, Aleksei Naumov, John Florin, Raymond Krishchyunas, Aleksei Novikov, Stanley Brunn

SPU Works

Is it possible to look out over the Ural Mountains and see Appalachia? To find the character of the American West in the vast open space of Siberia? To smell the citrus and feel the warm sun of the Black Sea coast and be struck with a sense of Florida?

This book is based on just such an idea: that we can look beyond our borders and discover fundamental realities about places that transcend differences of culture, language, and politics. Five American and four Russian geographers wrote this book to provide glimpses of understanding about the United States and Russia. …

Trading Places: Cross-Border Traders And The South African Informal Sector, Jonathan Crush, Sally Peberdy

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Perfection Of The Morning: An Apprenticeship In Nature By Sharon Butala, Lisa Knopp

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

"One would hardly have sufficient motive to write an autobiography had not some radical change occurred in his life-conversion, entry into a new life, the operation of Grace," writes theorist Jean Starobinski in his 1980 essay, "Style of Autobiography." The radical change that led to Sharon Butala's transformation occurred in 1976 when, at the age of thirty six, she left the "urban, academic, feminist world" she had known in Saskatoon to marry Peter Butala, a forty-one-year-old bachelor who lived and worked on his family's ranch in extreme southwestern Saskatchewan. Employing the language of conversion, Butala says that her "fateful decision …

The Construction Of National Identity Through The Production Of Ritual And Spectacle: An Analysis Of National Day Parades In Singapore, Lily Kong, Brenda S. A. Yeoh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, we adopt the view that 'nation' and 'national identity' are social constructions, created to serve ideological ends. We discuss this in the specific empirical context of Singapore's National Day parades. By drawing on officially produced souvenir programmes and magazines, newspaper reports, and interviews with participants and spectators, we analyse the parades between 1965 and 1994, showing how, as an annual ritual and landscape spectacle, the parades succeed to a large extent in creating a sense of awe, wonderment and admiration. Discussion focuses on four aspects of the celebrations: the site of the parades, their display and theatricality, …

Vybrané Teoretické Interpretace Současné Transformace Kapitalismu (Selected Theoretical Interpretations Of The Contemporary Transition Of Capitalism), Petr Pavlinek

Geography and Geology Faculty Publications

Současná transformace kapitalismu začala na konci šedesátých a začátku sedmdesátých let dvacátého století. Jejím výsledkem je měnící se charakter kapitalistického hospodář- ského a společenského systému. Relativně rychlé změny ve způsobu kapitalistické výroby a akumulace jsou doprovázeny společenskými, politickými a kulturními změnami. Tato globální reorganizace kapitalismu byla a je rozdílně interpretována různými školami myšlení.

The contemporary transition of capitalism is changing the nature of the capitalist economic and social system. This paper focuses on the debate around the alleged transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. It identifies and critically evaluates four Western schools of thought engaged in this debate: Schumpeterian and neo-Schumpeterian …

Culture And Capital In Urban Change: The Constitutive Relationship Between Development Imperatives And Symbolic Values In Singapore's Built Environment, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Over the last three decades, Singapore has undergone tremendous urban change. These changes have been premised on the logic and rationality of economic planning, in which development goals have taken precedence over other symbolic values, be they historic, cultural, sacred, personal, social or aesthetic. In recent years, however, there has been tangible evidence that parts of the urban fabric are being retained, a reflection perhaps of increasing appreciation of the cultural and historical values of these built forms. Given this scenario, my intention in this paper is to explore the interconnections between symbolic values in the urban landscape, on the …

Singapore And The Experience Of Place In Old Age, Lily Kong, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Peggy Teo

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Through case studies of two neighborhoods in Singapore with large concentrations of elderly residents-Tiong Bahru and Chinatown-we explore the relationship between the aged's emotional attachments to place and the sustenance of their personal identities, their continued participation in life, and their adaptation to changing circumstances. In particular, we examine their feelings of physical, social, and autobiographical insideness. We emphasize the rapidly changing physical conditions in Chinatown wrought by the government's conservation strategy and their implications for the elderly. In Tiong Bahru young people are moving to newer housing developments, leaving the aged behind in an essentially little-changed physical environment; we …

Social Constructions Of Nature In Urban Singapore, Lily Kong, Brenda S. A. Yeoh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Wilderness was increasingly evaluated either as a resource to be exploited or a resource to be protected. Those who urged the protection of wilderness viewed it as a place for outdoor recreation and safe enough for the family; others saw it as a museum of natural curiosities, a tourist attraction; while the high minded revered it as nature's cathedral. [Yi-Fu Tuan 1971: 38]

Regional Zooarchaeology And Global Change: Problems And Potentials, Thomas Amorosi, James Woollett, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Zooarchaeology is a potentially critical tool for the reconstruction of past regional landscapes. The subfield is increasingly being asked to contribute to long-term studies of human interaction with the environment associated with national and international investigations of past and future global change. Intersite comparison of animal bone collections (archaeofaunas) is central to such regional approaches. However, zooarchaeologists have identified many factors of deposition, attrition, recovery, and analysis that might appear to make such comparisons problematic. Using selected examples drawn from the North Atlantic and Eastern Arctic, this paper suggests that, while intersite comparison is not a trivial problem, it may …

The Notion Of Place In The Construction Of History, Nostalgia And Heritage In Singapore, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, we investigate the links between place and time, and the intersections between the geographical imagination and the historical mind. These issues are explored in the context of Singapore by looking at the links between place and three concepts usually associated with the temporal sense - history, nostalgia and heritage. We argue that the two imaginations can be simultaneously engaged by means of a focus on the concept of place. The making of a place is closely intertwined with individual biographies and collective histories; at the same time, place does not record history in an unproblematic way. We …

Higher-Order Categories In Brunei Dusun Ethnobotany: The Folk-Classification Of Rainforest Plants, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Commercial Face Of God: Exploring The Nexus Between The Religious And The Material, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores the nexus between the cultural and the material by examining the ways in which religion and the economy are integrated in the context of economy-driven Singapore. The mutually constitutive relationships between the cultural and the material are explored through a discussion of the role of the state, capital and religious institutions in pulling together the sacred and the secular. Specifically, the analysis focuses on how the state harnesses religion ideologically in its economic development strategies; how capital harnesses the potential of religion in commercial enterprises in practical terms; and how religious institutions themselves behave as financial institutions. …

Folktales And Reality: The Social Construction Of Race In Chinese Tales, Lily Kong, Elaine Goh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper illustrates how folktales are a repository of primary material for the geographer. Using the example of The Strange Tales of Liaozhai, we discuss how these tales are not purely fictive constructs but constitute instead fictive, historical and projected realities. As an example of the value of such analysis, we discuss Chinese constructions of race as revealed in the tales.

Bioarchaeology And Cod Fisheries: A New Source Of Evidence, Thomas Amorosi, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Archaeological excavations in the North Atlantic basin over the past two decades have recovered large amounts of fishbones from datable deposits extending back over 8000 years in some areas. Coverage of the last 1000 years (with particular emphasis on the climatic cooling of the “Little Ice Age”) is increasingly complete. Recent research makes it possible to reconstruct live lengths from commonly recovered fishbone elements. Preliminary findings indicate that cod of 1 to 1.5 m were being regularly taken in the eleventh to nineteenth centuries throughout the North Atlantic. Changes in fish size and mix of species taken probably reflect technological …

Hugh Clifford And Frank Swettenham: Environmental Cognition And The Malayan Colonial Process, Victor R. Savage, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

George Perkins Marsh has successfully highlighted the importance of the subjective in "seeing". Without precisely labelling the process as a "cognitive" one, Marsh nevertheless recognised that people's perceptions and evaluations are significant filters in the understanding of any social "reality". In the same vein, Gailey (1982:ix) has also pointed out that people are not "mere reflections of a period. They impose their own order and vision upon their times". In this paper, we will focus specifically on this cognitive element; in particular, we have chosen two people of similar sex, nationality and professions, working in Malaya in the same period, …

Ideological Hegemony And The Political Symbolism Of Religious Buildings In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Cultural geographers have for too long ignored the association between the 'religious' and the 'political', concentrating instead on separating the 'religious' from the sociopolitical and economic forces in society. The challenge is taken up in this paper in an analysis of the contemporary meanings and values of religious buildings in Singapore as invested by the state. Attention is paid to the state's conceptions of religion and religious space and the roles it plays in influencing such space. The ways in which, through its various roles, the state in Singapore plays a significant part in influencing context and hence in shaping …

Negotiating Conceptions Of 'Sacred Space': A Case Study Of Religious Buildings In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, I approach the study of religious place from a re-theorized cultural geographical stance. Using multi-religious Singapore as a case study, I examine the tensions which arise over the meanings and values associated with religious buildings because of the conflict between state hegemony on the one hand and the oppositional meanings and values of religious groups and individuals on the other. I also examine the ways in which individuals negotiate their conceptions of sacred space in order to cope with changes imposed on their religious places by the state. Primarily, my argument is that conflict is avoided because …

Pflanzengesellchaften Der Mongolei, Werner Hilbig

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

First paragraphs of the introduction:

In Fortführung der Forschungsreisen der russischen Floristen und Pflanzengeouraphen im vorigen und Anfang dieses Jahrhunderts wurden erste Expeditionen zur systematischen Erforschung der Naturressourcen der Mongolei in den 20er und 30er Jahren durchgeführt. Sie wurden von der Akademie der Wissenschaften der UdSSR und der Akademie der Wissenschaften der MVR (vorher Wissenschaftliches Komitee der MVR) organisiert. Auch die von der Geographischen GeselIschaft und der Akademie der Wissenschaften der UdSSR durchgeführten Expeditionen zur Erforschung der natürlichen Bedingungen und der Landwirtschaft in der Mongolei schufen Möglichkeiten zur Entwicklung der geobotanischen Forschungsrichtung (vgl. GUBANOV u. HILBIG 1989).

Als erste eigenständi"e …

Title Page, Verso Of The Title Page, And Contents For Erforschung Biologischer Ressourcen Der Mongolischen Volksrepublik, Band 8, Michael Stubbe

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Title page, verso of the title page, and contents of Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolischen Volksrepublik, Band 8 (1990).