The Dictionary of Human Geography (190 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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software for qualitative research
Some quaLitative research methods generate large quantities of ?data? for which computer based software has been developed. Most of the available software packages focus on the analy sis of textual (including transcribed inter view) material and undertake various forms of content analysis through a variety of user informed coding schemes. Among the early such packages, NUD*ist (Non numerical Unstructured Data [for] index searching and theory building) was particularly popular: it facilitates indexing and the structuring of indexes as well as rapid searches for words and phrases and producing statistical reports on, for example, word associations and allow ing researchers to insert memos within the text. More recent developments building on that foundation include NViVo and XSight: all privilege certain approaches to textual analysis focusing on associations and count ing and thereby to some extent constrain if not direct the enterprise. As with software for quantitative research, an increasing number of freeware packages is available for interrogating qualitative data such as those made available through CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data (NEW PARAGRAPH) Comments (NEW PARAGRAPH) Name (NEW PARAGRAPH) Available fromR (NEW PARAGRAPH) http://cran.r project.org. (NEW PARAGRAPH) GEODA (NEW PARAGRAPH) https://www.geoda.uiuc.edu/ (NEW PARAGRAPH) GeoBUGS http://www.mrc bsu.cam.ac.uk/ (NEW PARAGRAPH) bugs/winbugs/geobugs.shtml BAYESX http://www.stat.uni muenchen. (NEW PARAGRAPH) de/~bayesx/bayesx.html (NEW PARAGRAPH) software for quantitative analysis (NEW PARAGRAPH) MLwiN (NEW PARAGRAPH) http://www.cmm.bristol.ac.uk/ (NEW PARAGRAPH) R is a general system for statistical computation and graphics: it offers facilities for data manipulation, calculation and graphical display either through built in functions or add on packages contributed by users this includes spdep, which has facilities to create spatial weights, tests for spatial autocorrelation, and procedures for spatial regression. (NEW PARAGRAPH) This implements techniques for exploratory spatial data analysis: descriptive spatial data analysis, spatial autocorrelation tests, and some spatial regression functionality. (NEW PARAGRAPH) This is a Bayesian based package that fits spatial models and produces a range of maps as output. (NEW PARAGRAPH) This has a number of distinctive features including handling structured and/or uncorrelated effects of spatial covariates. It allows non parametric, smoothed relationships between the response and the predictors, and does this for continuous and discrete outcomes: it can manipulate and display geographical maps. (NEW PARAGRAPH) A comprehensive package for the analysis and display of multi level models, this uses likelihood and Bayesian approaches to estimation: it includes spatial models. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Analysis) and centres have been established (such as Qualidata, part of the Data Archive at the University of Essex) to promote the shared use of qualitative data. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Crang, Hudson, Reimer and Hinchliffe (1997); Gibbs (2002); Richards (2005). For CAQDAS, see http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk/resources.htm and http://www.lboro.ac.uk/ research/mmethods/ research/software/caqdas primer.html. For Qua lidata, see http://www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/. (NEW PARAGRAPH)
software for quantitative analysis
Soft ware, a term invented by the statistician John Tukey, refers to the instructions executed by a computer, as opposed to the hardware, the physical device on which the software runs. Over the past 40 years, statistical software has revolutionized the way in which we approach data analysis, by allowing a much more computationally intensive approach. This has led to working with much larger data sets; using more realistic models (e.g. cat egorical data analysis; geographically weighted regression; multi level models); and better ways of visualizing data sets and models (see visualization) as part of an exploratory data analysis approach. However, Ripley (2005) argues that ?software availability now drives what we do, probably much more than we consciously realize': if it is not readily available, we tend not to do the analyses. This has been particularly problematic in holding back development and adoption of geographical modeling and spatial analysis, because the widely used and otherwise reasonably comprehensive software, such as the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS#), has limited capacity in this area. This is finally changing and a new gen eration of software (much of it ?freeware') has these capabilities, as in the table on page 703. kj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Anselin (2000). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
South, the
Invoked implicitly or explicitly in relation to its assumed opposite (the North), the idea of the South emerged as an alternative to the term third world for distinguishing former colonies and less industrialized nations from countries of the more affluent and indus trialized North. South is preferred by those who see Third World as connoting third ranked, rather than its original meaning of a non aligned or third path, independent of the capitalist First World and the socialist Second World. However, the term ?South? is also prob lematic in that the countries of the South are (a) defined through their location with respect to the USA and Western Europe, and (b) concentrated in the tropics and sub tropics of both the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres. To avoid such binaries, some scholars deploy the language of a ?One Third (1/3) World' typically in conjunction with the notion of the ?First World/North? and a ?Two Thirds (2/3) World' in conjunction with a ?Third World/South? to represent the relative fractions of global population based on quality of life (Mohanty, 2003). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The popularization of the terms ?South' and ?North' is sometimes attributed to the publication of two reports by the Brandt Commission: North South (1980) and The common crisis (1983). Convened by Willy Brandt of the then West Germany to study critical issues arising from the economic and social disparities of the global community, this self appointed commission highlighted a co dependent relationship between the northern nations, which relied on the poor countries for their wealth, and the southern nations, which depended on the wealthier North for their development. With food, agriculture, aid, energy, trade, financial reform and global negotiations as their focus, the Brandt Reports sought to promote ?adequate solutions to the problems involved in development and in attacking absolute poverty?, while also addressing issues concerning the environment, the arms race, population growth and the uncertain prospects of the global economy that the commission viewed as common to both North and South (Brandt Commission, 1980; Porter and Sheppard, 1998, p. 26). (NEW PARAGRAPH) However, it is in the post Cold War era that the idea of the South became significant as a metaphor to define the global landscape of political and economic power. Throughout the 1980s, the two rival cold war military and political systems shaped development possibilities in the Third World. While rela tions between either superpower bloc and the Third World frequently provided only lim ited development opportunities for recently decolonized nations and latin america, Third World leaders did have some choice of political economic system. This room for manoeuvre was at times exploited by Third World elites to resist capitalist or communist incursion, and to develop social democratic and welfare state systems (see capitalism; communism). The period after 1989 witnessed the demise of the second worLd, the rise of the USA as the dominant econo mic, ideological and military power, and the hegemony of neo liberal economic discourse (see neo liberalism). East West rivalries have been replaced by north south tensions around such issues as the power and role of the worLd trade organization, the United Nations and international finance institutions, global civiL society and donor driven NGOs, mobility of labour versus that of capitaL and commodities, and public health crises related to AIDS (Sheppard and Nagar, 2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH) However, Mamdani?s (2004, p. 250) point that ?the Cold War was largely not fought in Europe but in what came to be called the Third World? serves as an important reminder that the East West politics have been at all times North South politics. Not surprisingly, then, while the post 9/11 ?anti terrorism? discourse is couched in terms of West versus radical Islam, the US war on terror has simultaneously metamorphosed into an offensive imperial war, in which southern nations are denied the right to defend their sovereignty as well as the right to reform (Mamdani, 2004, p. 260). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Two noteworthy fissures in the concept of the South have emerged in this environment. First, with the emergence of the so called newly industrializing countries (NICs), such as Taiwan and South Korea, and growing impoverishment, particularly in africa, the countries of the South have become increas ingly differentiated. Second, whereas East West rivalries predominantly played out at the nation state scale, North South tensions operate on multiple scales. As political and economic elites in most countries of the Third and erstwhile Second Worlds accepted the tenets of neo liberalism, they repositioned themselves ideologically and materially along side the more wealthy residents of the First World. At the same time, ongoing socio economic polarization within the industrial ized world (reinforced by post 9/11 reforms), together with the devolution of responsibilities for citizens? welfare from nation states to regions and cities, has meant that livelihood possibilities in marginal localities within the former First World become more similar to those of the less well off in the former Second and Third Worlds than to the elites in their own countries. In addition, multilateral and supra national agencies became increasingly influential proponents of the neo liberal agenda of the global North, shaping develop ment geographies within states (Sheppard and Nagar, 2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH) In concert, donor driven NGOs have facili tated the co optation of radical left and femi nist politics, even as they have helped to popularize the concepts of empowerment and equity in limited but critical ways. Not surpris ingly, then, the proliferation of UN confer ences on women in the post Cold War era has ?undermin[ed] nation specific resistance in the name of international solidarity?, while simultaneously creating ? ??the new subaltern?? the somewhat monolithic woman as victim who is the constituted subject of justice under (the now unrestricted) inter national capitalism? (Spivak, 2000, p. 305). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Thus, the global North is constituted through the pathways of transnational capital and networks of political and economic elites spanning privileged localities across the globe (Castells, 1996a; Mohanty, 2003). By contrast, the global South, which theoretically inhabits the ?margins?, is to be found everywhere. But this does not make all Souths ?equal?. Movements against neo liberalism are reminders of the ways in which convergences and divergences on issues such as livelihood alternatives shape the agendas of actors oper ating in multiple Souths, whose visibility, in turn, is shaped by complex politics of socio geographical locations (Glassman, 2002; Hardt, 2002; Sparke, Brown, Corva, Day and Faria, 2005). rn (NEW PARAGRAPH)
sovereign power
A philosophical concept arguing that power is the control over individ ual life. The concept is a challenge to estab lished ideas of sovereignty that concentrate upon political authority over territory. Sovereign power focuses attention to the scaLe of the body, the authority to classify individuals in a particular way to grant them life or death. The roots of the concept lie in the work of Michel Foucault and his discussion of biopower, regularization and biopoLitics. Foucault?s analysis of nineteenth century medicine and sexual behaviour described the way in which individual bodies and sexual practices were classified by state institutions as healthy/good and unhealthy/bad. The man ner in which this was done led to the regula tion of individual behaviour, or biopower, through classification and control, to the clas sification of groups of people (in terms of race, nation, sexuality, gender etc.), the political implication being that classification of people as, say, sexually deviant can be used in arguments limiting their political rights. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Usage of the concept ?sovereign power? has been promoted by the work of Giorgio (NEW PARAGRAPH) Agamben, who thought that the fate of the Jews in the hoLocaust ran counter to Foucault?s theory. Instead, Agamben argued that at times individuals and groups may be classified in such a way that their life is deemed worthless rather than something to be regulated. For Agamben, the Nazis identi fled Jews as ?bare Ufe? life that warranted (NEW PARAGRAPH) extermination. Agamben begins with the Romans, and their classification of homo sacER (from Roman law, an individual who may be killed but not sacrificed). Homines sacri may not be sacrificed as they are ?beyond the divine?, and hence meaningless to the gods. They may be killed with impunity, however, because homo sacer is beyond juridical law, and hence has no value to the citizenry. While Foucault examined how power disciplined individuals to create a subject (a person behaving within imposed rules and norms), Agamben argued that sovereign power allows for the elimination of particular subjects. Foucault?s biopolitics tries to define who can and should be included in a political commu nity, while Agamben argues that sovereign power excludes individuals and groups not just from particular territorial political com munities but from humanity itself. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Geographers have utilized the next logical step in Agamben?s work, his identification of spaces of exception (see exception, space of); the geographical construction of borders out side which the rules and norms of established legal and political order do not apply. It is in these geographical zones that sovereign power allows and enacts the killing of homo sacer with impunity. The classification of territory in this way results, for Agamben, in a mapping of our world not into nations, but into ?camps?. In the context of the ?war on terror?, Agamben?s concept was used by geographers to explain the slaughter of fighters and civil ians by the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq, the violence upon the Palestinians by Israeli forces, and the incarceration of ?terror ists? at the US Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with no recourse to US or inter national Law (Gregory, 2004b). cf (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Edkins (2000); Gregory (2004b). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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