School of Geography - Research Publications
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ItemCommuter lives: a review symposium on David Bissell's Transit Life(WILEY, 2020-02-01)Abstract This article presents a series of commentaries on Transit Life: How Commuting is Transforming Our Cities, published by MIT Press in 2018. Centring on an in—depth case study of Sydney, the book argues the need to attend carefully to the fine—grained detail of the commuting experience. In all sorts of ways, Transit Life presents a way of thinking about urban transportation radically different from that used by mainstream transport planners and geographers. Geographical Research asked six researchers—Tim Edensor, Michele Lobo, Debbie Hopkins, Helen Fitt, Juliana Mansvelt, and Donald McNeill—to reflect on what kind of research vistas might be opened up bring the tools of cultural geography and mobility research to the world of commuting. Here are their responses, rounded out by a reply by David Bissell, Transit Life's author.
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ItemWalking the creek: reconnecting place through light projection(WILEY, 2019-08-01)Abstract In this paper, we explore how a light projection sought to convey a range of qualities: conviviality, a sense of place, playfulness, defamiliarisation, and the affective and sensory capacities that were experienced through walking in the distinctive, liminal realm of Bendigo Creek in Victoria, Australia. The projection aspired to solicit a sensory and affective empathy that chimed with the experiences of an earlier event in which dozens of pedestrians were filmed walking in the creek. The projection contributed to a local campaign to reappraise the much‐maligned creek as a local public amenity. We discuss the productive potential of solitary and collective walking and, subsequently, the attributes of the projection in its static and mobile manifestation. In so doing, we suggest that publicly engaged, inclusive, creative practice can offer potent place‐making possibilities.
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ItemPublic open space exposure measures in Australian health research: a critical review of the literature(WILEY, 2019-02)Abstract Numerous studies have shown associations between public open space and a variety of health outcomes. Yet the extent to which firm conclusions and planning policy recommendations can be drawn from this body of work depends on how public open space availability has been measured and reported. Other researchers have highlighted potential issues with the way that public open space has been measured but have not systematically assessed the extent of this problem. This paper provides a comprehensive critical review of studies of public open space and health conducted in Australia to identify and compare public open space measurement and data treatment. Our analysis showed wide variation in how public open space was measured, as well as a lack of consistency in reporting public open space exposure measures and under‐reporting of measurement methods. We find that such tendencies limit how much these studies can be compared and contrasted with each other. The corollary of that finding is that without more detailed reporting of exposure measures, it will be difficult to establish an evidence base that informs planning for healthy, liveable environments. In response, we develop and present a checklist for reporting public open space exposure to address this challenge.
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ItemMining, movements and sustainable development: Concepts for a framework(WILEY, 2018-09-01)Abstract Mining disrupts: it ruptures the boundary between the surface and the sub‐surface, it upsets pre‐existing modes of living on the surface, it changes biogeochemical, social and economic flows across surfaces, and it transforms imaginations of the future. Mining not only moves mountains, it also moves people – physically, emotionally, politically and economically. Some people leave, some refuse to get out of the way, some carry on, some stay but build new livelihoods, and others arrive in pursuit of the livelihoods made possible by this particular form of development. Development also disrupts: it modifies modes of living and social organization, it alters relations between humans and nature, it deepens the integration of places into broader flows of finance and ideas, and it shifts ideas about the future. Development is also implicated in the forced, voluntary and induced movement of people. Analytically, mining and development are therefore not dissimilar. This paper works from this similarity to suggest concepts for thinking about the relationships between mining, movement and development. These concepts are drawn from literature in Human Geography, Rural Territorial Development and Development Studies. It then uses these concepts to frame the relationships between mining and sustainable development.
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ItemRe-casting experience and risk along rocky coasts: A relational analysis using qualitative GIS(WILEY, 2019-03-01)This study invites readers to experience risk on Australia’s hazardous rocky coasts with the rock fishing community. In the paper, we offer an understanding of risk that is relational, a process that emerges within human–environment interactions in a dynamic coastal space that is constantly changing. Exploring the in situ and ongoing sensory attunement of the fishers, we contend, expands upon the quantitative understandings that tend to be deployed by risk managers, offering an innovative approach to conceptualising risk. In identifying how fishers perceive and experience a rocky coastal location in Sydney, Australia, we track rock fishers’ movements using global positioning systems (GPS), undertake participant observation, and draw on video footage, semi‐structured interviews and participatory sketch maps. In doing so, fishers’ perceptions of socio‐environmental stimuli were spatially represented in a GIS, with sketch mapping being the proxy and/or the window into perception–environment relations that produce risk. We contend that the findings show that experienced fishers are more capable of anticipating and reacting to hazardous situations “safely” because they are more attuned to how changing coastal conditions affect risk. This study draws attention to the spatial and temporal phenomena that drive risk perceptions as well as the implications for future perception‐oriented research that adopt a relational understanding.
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ItemVariance and Rate-of-Change as Early Warning Signals for a Critical Transition in an Aquatic Ecosystem State: A Test Case From Tasmania, Australia(AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION, 2018-02-01)Abstract Critical transitions in ecosystem states are often sudden and unpredictable. Consequently, there is a concerted effort to identify measurable early warning signals (EWS) for these important events. Aquatic ecosystems provide an opportunity to observe critical transitions due to their high sensitivity and rapid response times. Using palaeoecological techniques, we can measure properties of time series data to determine if critical transitions are preceded by any measurable ecosystem metrics, that is, identify EWS. Using a suite of palaeoenvironmental data spanning the last 2,400 years (diatoms, pollen, geochemistry, and charcoal influx), we assess whether a critical transition in diatom community structure was preceded by measurable EWS. Lake Vera, in the temperate rain forest of western Tasmania, Australia, has a diatom community dominated by Discostella stelligera and undergoes an abrupt compositional shift at ca. 820 cal yr BP that is concomitant with increased fire disturbance of the local vegetation. This shift is manifest as a transition from less oligotrophic acidic diatom flora (Achnanthidium minutissimum, Brachysira styriaca, and Fragilaria capucina) to more oligotrophic acidic taxa (Frustulia elongatissima, Eunotia diodon, and Gomphonema multiforme). We observe a marked increase in compositional variance and rate‐of‐change prior to this critical transition, revealing these metrics are useful EWS in this system. Interestingly, vegetation remains complacent to fire disturbance until after the shift in the diatom community. Disturbance taxa invade and the vegetation system experiences an increase in both compositional variance and rate‐of‐change. These trends imply an approaching critical transition in the vegetation and the probable collapse of the local rain forest system.
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ItemBeyond Space: Spatial (Re)Production and Middle-Class Remaking Driven by Jiaoyufication in Nanjing City, China(WILEY, 2018-01-01)Abstract An extension of gentrification, jiaoyufication–urban change driven by a desire for high‐quality education–is not only displacing previous lower‐class residents, but also replacing earlier jiaoyufiers with newcomers, turning formerly blue‐collar neighbourhoods into white‐collar ones. New middle‐class communities are emerging as spatially limited school catchment zones attract social groups who occupy these spaces in an attempt to facilitate social mobility or consolidate social status, causing tension between them. Consequently, jiaoyufication has narrowed down opportunities for intergenerational social mobility and exacerbated social polarization, gradually replacing traditional social hierarchies with intergenerational neoliberal stratification.
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ItemKeeping the family silver: The changing meanings and uses of Manchester's civic plate(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2021-06-14)This article explores the shifting uses and meanings of Manchester civic plate, a huge silver dining service purchased in 1877 to coincide with the opening of the city’s neo-Gothic Town Hall. The authors explore how the silver collection has successively forged relations with a host of different people, places and objects, exemplifying the changing processes through which objects are understood, utilized, valued, maintained, stored and curated. Three key processes are deployed to illuminate these shifting entanglements: the use of the silver to express municipal prestige and advance particular cultural values, the maintenance procedures that have responded to the silver’s vital material constituency and practices of display, storage and curation. In accounting for these diverse and volatile processes, the article argues for the virtues of theoretical breadth in exploring the multiplicities of material culture.
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ItemGlobal-scale remote sensing of mine areas and analysis of factors explaining their extent(ELSEVIER SCI LTD, 2020-01)Mines are composed of features like open cut pits, water storage ponds, milling infrastructure, waste rock dumps, and tailings storage facilities that are often associated with impacts to surrounding areas. The size and location of mine features can be determined from satellite imagery, but to date a systematic analysis of these features across commodities and countries has not been conducted. We created detailed maps of 295 mines producing copper, gold, silver, platinum group elements, molybdenum, lead-zinc, nickel, uranium or diamonds, representing the dominant share of global production of these commodities. The mapping entailed the delineation and classification of 3,736 open pits, waste rock dumps, water ponds, tailings storage facilities, heap leach pads, milling infrastructure and other features, totalling ~3,633 km2. Collectively, our maps highlight that mine areas can be highly heterogeneous in composition and diverse in form, reflecting variations in underlying geology, commodities produced, topography and mining methods. Our study therefore emphasises that distinguishing between specific mine features in satellite imagery may foster more refined assessments of mine-related impacts. We also compiled detailed annual data on the operational characteristics of 129 mines to show via regression analysis that the sum area of a mine's features is mainly explained by its cumulative production volume (cross-validated R2 of 0.73). This suggests that the extent of future mine areas can be estimated with reasonable certainty based on expected total production volume. Our research may inform environmental impact assessments of new mining proposals, or provide land use data for life cycle analyses of mined products.
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ItemRendering mine closure governable and constraints to inclusive development in the Andean region(Elsevier BV, 2021-08-01)Although the early stages of mining are often associated with promises of socioeconomic development based on economic growth, limited oversight of mine closure practices has tended to deliver lingering social, economic, and environmental problems across the Andean region. New and revised legislation, policies, and regulations that address mine closure in the region demonstrate what I argue are attempts to render mine closure governable—that is, the circumscribing of mine closure as an ‘intelligible’ and strictly technical problem, amenable to state intervention, without challenging existing bureaucratic processes or political economic structures. Such narrow framings of mine closure exclude possibilities for local consultation and participation, and, by extension, hinder the relationship between mine closure and a more socioeconomically inclusive and less environmentally damaging form of post-mine development. I outline discrete attempts to make mine closure more easily governable in the Andean region, with detailed focus on the cases of Colombia and Chile, and show that this process also tends to render local populations invisible. I point to the conspicuous disconnect between high hopes for mining's contribution to Andean states' economic growth and concrete possibilities for post-mine development based on ideas of equity, inclusion, and social justice. I conclude by pointing to the need for legal and regulatory institutions in the Andean region that more actively facilitate the creation and distribution of benefits, services, and livelihood opportunities following mine closure.