The Dictionary of Human Geography (53 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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endogeneity
The property that a variable is determined within a model or geographical system, rather than being ?exogenous? or determined outside the model and so taken as fixed. In statistical models such as regres sion and the generalized linear model, the right hand side or independent variables are assumed to be exogenous, but situations arise where they are in fact endogenous, creating problems for model estimation. One widely applied example is in fiscal competition and ?tax mimicking? between neighbouring local or regional governments (such as states within the USA): a state or local government?s expenditure (or tax rate) is determined by sev eral (exogenous) characteristics of the state but also by the expenditure (or tax rate) behaviour of neighbouring states, so that there is spatial endogeneity; such models are an important topic in spatial econometrics. A second example is where school pupil per formance levels are influenced by the average income levels of families within the school catchments: the family income levels are assumed to be exogenous, but affluent families may have moved to the catchments of high performance schools, and so not be exogenous after all, the so called ?selection problem? in estimation. There are several methods for tak ing endogeneity into account in the estimation process, including instrumental variables, maximum likelihood and bayesian analysis, all of which are employed in spatial economet rics. For studies employing individual level data (as in some pupil performance analyses), there is a technique of ?matching? the charac teristics of individuals between areas to elim inate endogeneity bias. lwh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Manski (1995). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
energy
The capacity of a physical system for doing work. All species harness energy. Human beings harness, convert, release and (re)deploy energy to do work and yield goods and services. This is the basis for the material evolution of human societies. While all life forms ultimately depend on solar energy, since the industriaL revoLution developed coun tries have increasingly relied on non renew able resources for energy. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Worldwide energy consumption is increas ing. This is partly due to increases in global population, high levels of energy consumption in developed countries, and rising energy use in rapidly developing economies such as China and India. Per capita energy consump tion varies significantly throughout the world. It is also important to recognize patterns of economic activity; for example, energy is con sumed in developing countries to make cheap products for export to wealthier countries. Despite increased efficiencies in energy con sumption in most developed countries, redis tribution in energy consumption has occurred. Reducing material consumption, reusing existing materials and recycLing may achieve reductions in energy demand. Human geog raphers have studied cultural and urban aspects of energy use, including transitions to more sustainable cities (Pacione, 2001a). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Reduction in the use of energy through improved design, greater insulation and changes in use patterns can lower economic costs to an organization. Businesses have worked with parts of the environmentaL movement on energy efficiency since the oil crises of 1973 and 1979. These crises signalled the end of cheap, abundant oil and highlighted the dependency of industrialized countries on the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the vulnerability of economies in some developing countries (see von Weizsacker, Lovins and Lovins, 1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Major concerns about energy include the continued supply of oil and the cumulative impacts of fossil fuel consumption (see gLobaL warming). Predictions of ?peak oil? at the scale of individual oilfields, countries and the globe highlight the finite nature of this NAturaL resource (Deffeyes, 2001). Every year, the world consumes billions of barrels of oil more than are discovered. Estimates of known reserves in various countries are not always reliable. Therefore, regardless of the environmental impacts of oil consumption, other sources of energy are required to con tinue present levels of economic activity. Natural gas (the cleanest burning fossil fuel) is gaining importance, wind power is increas ing rapidly from a low base and ?hybrid? cars are gaining popularity. The nuclear industry is advocating nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels to combat global warming. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The dependence on fossil fuels inhibits the transition to renewable forms of energy such as solar, wind, biomass, hydrogen fuel cells and wave power. While fossil fuels are subsid ized (Riedy and Diesendorf, 2003), the cost of renewable energy forms is not reduced sig nificantly, due to inadequate research funding and difficulties in achieving economies of scaLe in production processes. Total world energy demand is anticipated to grow, despite efforts at reduction through greater efficiency. sustainabiLity is crucial, including the use of appropriate technologies and energy sources in developing countries, transitions to benign energy sources throughout the world and reduc tions in energy use in developed countries. pm (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Enlightenment
In traditional interpret ations, the Enlightenment is held to be that period of intellectual enquiry, broadly syn onymous with the ?long? eighteenth century in europe (c.1680 1820), in which ?modern? ideas of rationality, public criticism and the emancipation of civiL society through rea soned reform took shape. Thus considered, the Enlightenment was distinguished by chal lenges to established ideas of ?ancient author ity? and by the rejection of Classical and Renaissance conceptions of the world and of ?traditional? scholarship. phiLosophy and science were widely believed to be the basis to universal social betterment. Secular toler ance would overcome religious intolerance. In sum, humankind would free itself from ignorance and error. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Other interpretations are current. Indeed, even during its development and certainly since, the Enlightenment has been the subject of detailed scrutiny as to what it was, why it hap pened and what its consequences have been. Conventional views of the Enlightenment as a largely philosophical and uniform phenom enon evident in urban Europe especially in the lives and writings of great men, have been decisively challenged (Schmidt, 1996; Kors et al., 2003). Conceptions of the Enlightenment as a ?moment? of philosophical critique for a European elite (which still endure: see Darnton, 2003) have been supple mented by views of it as a sociaL movement. Ideas of the Enlightenment as a uniform intel lectual movement with particular national expression have been challenged by work that stresses Enlightenment, even enlightenments, as a social process or processes. As study of the Enlightenment has become more diverse embracing, for instance, medical knowledge, questions of gender, exoticism, race and sexuaLity so studies of the Enlightenment have diversified (Outram, 2005). Questions of geography are central to these revised and revitalized conceptions of the Enlightenment (Livingstone and Withers, 1999). (NEW PARAGRAPH) In traditional interpretation, little attention was paid to the geography of the Enlightenment. Where it was, emphasis was given to its distinc tive features and differences at the level of the nation state, chiefly within Europe. Attention concentrated upon the idea of the Enlightenment?s originating cuLturaL hearth or its ?core? nations France, England, Scotland, Holland, Germany and to a ?periph ery? where the Enlightenment was evident later or in different form: in Russia, for example, or in the Scandinavian countries. Relatively limited atten tion was given to the Enlightenment in the amer icas and to its presence and making in Portugal, Spain or the Greek speaking countries of Eastern Europe (Porter and Teich, 1981). More recent work has moved beyond these concerns and scales of analysis. Three distinct but interrelated themes may be noted. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The first is geographical knowledge and the Enlightenment. Geographical knowledge, (NEW PARAGRAPH) gleaned through oceanic navigation, terrestrial expLoration, mapping and natural history survey, was crucial in the Enlightenment to new ideas about the shape and size of the Earth, terrestrial diversity and the nature of human cultures. In this first sense, the Enlightenment depended upon new geograph ical knowledge about the extent of what European contemporaries understood as terra incognita and then called the ?fourth world?, the Americas, and, crucially, about the ?fifth division? of the world, the Pacific world or, in modern terms, austraLasia. For example, one distinctively Enlightenment idea (and ideal), that of society?s development through a series of stages, was profoundly shaped by the ?discovery? of new peoples on the islands of the Southern Oceans, and by the extent of human cultural difference. Contemporaries referred to these geographies of human difference as ?The Great Map of Mankind? and devoted considerable time to theories explaining the development of human society in relation to factors such as cLimate, the role of custom and commercial capacity. In such ways, Enlightenment was closely con nected with empire (see also traveL writing). (NEW PARAGRAPH) We may secondly think in terms of geography in the Enlightenment. Geography as one form of modern intellectual endeavour was itself shaped by the evolving encounter with new peoples and lands during the Enlightenment. This was apparent in terms of emphases upon realism in description, systematic classification in collection and comparative method in explanation. Geography in the Enlightenment was a discourse, a set of practices by which the world was revealed and ordered, and it was a discipline and a scale of study, the whole Earth, in which formal education was possible, in schools and universities. It was also a popular subject, taught in academies and in public lectures alongside history, astronomy and mathematics, in order to educate citizens about the extent and content of the globe (Mayhew, 2000). In these ways, geography in the Enlightenment was part of what thinkers then called ?The Science of Man?, that con cern to understand the human world through the same observational and methodological principles as the natural world (see also geog raphy, history of). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Finally, it is now commonplace to refer to the different geographies of the Enlightenment. These different geographies are distinguished by attention to the intrinsic diversity of the Enlightenment, to the social processes and contradictions underlying its intellectual and practical claims and, above all, by sensi tivity to the importance of geographical scale in locating and explaining the Enlightenment and its constituent practices. Although the Enlightenment continues to be much studied in national context, greater attention than before is now paid to its global expression and consequences, to the local institutional sites and social settings in which the Enlightenment?s defining ideas were produced and debated, to the uneven transmission of those ideas across geographical space and to the variant nature of their reception (Clark, Golinski and Schaffer, 1999; Livingstone and Withers, 1999; CaÃÂ8fizares Esguerra, 2001). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Questions to do with the ?where? of the Enlightenment are thus as important as those of its ?what?, ?why? and ?who?. Many of the architects of postmodernism have speculated on the end of what, ignoring its diversity, they have sometimes clumsily termed the ?Enlightenment Project? (Geras and Wokler, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . Whilst initially critical of Enlightenment writers? emphases upon rationality, reform and the power of critical argument, many such theorists would now confirm the enduring significance of the Enlightenment as a set (NEW PARAGRAPH) of critical political issues and as an object of historical and geographical study. cw (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Clark, Golinski and Schaffer (1999); Kors et al. (2003); Livingstone and Withers (1999); Outram (2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
enterprise zone
An area in which special policies apply to encourage economic devel opment. Enterprise zones typically offer tax concessions and reduced planning and other regulations to private companies. Critics argue that their effect is often to move existing jobs rather than to create new ones, and that they produce a concentration of power in the cen tral state and a loss of control by the local state over development strategies. Enterprise zones are common in the USA and the UK, but similar arrangements are found in many countries, including export processing zones, special economic zones (notably in China and India) and tax and duty free zones. jpa (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Ong (2000). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
entrepreneurship
The geography of entre preneurship explores the relationship of entre preneurship to space and place; to date, interest has focused mainly on identifying the characteristics of places that foster the formation of businesses in high technology industries. This kind of entrepreneurship has interested economic geographers because of its presumed importance to innov ation and to regional economic growth and development. In his review of the literature on entrepreneurs, networks and economic development, Malecki (1997) points to the importance of regional industrial mix, skilled labour, the spatial concentration or agglom eration of similar industries, and networks that provide access to technology and capital. He concludes, however, by noting how rela tively little is known about the relationship between entrepreneurship and territory. (For the entrepreneurial behaviour of places, see urban entrepreneurialism.) (NEW PARAGRAPH) The culture of entrepreneurship is another place based characteristic that affects eco nomic development trajectories. In her com parison of the high technology clusters of Route 128 outside Boston, Massachusetts and Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, Saxenian (1994) under lines the importance of cultural difference (in patterns of networking, in degrees of hierarchy in organizations, and in the amount of formal ity expected in the organization of work, for example) in shaping economic outcomes (growth versus stagnation). (NEW PARAGRAPH) In view of the degree to which social struc tures are gendered and racialized, characteristics of the entrepreneur affect the relationship of entrepreneurship to place. Feminist geographers have pointed to the importance of the gender of the entrepreneur and the ways in which gender shapes the meaning of innovation (what is considered innovative in a place) as well as an entrepreneur?s access to resources; female owned businesses often contribute to the development of places differently from male owned businesses, and women entrepre neurs have greater difficulty obtaining bank loans, although this difficulty varies signifi cantly from place to place even within a met ropolitan area (Blake and Hanson, 2005). Entrepreneurship among members of ethnic groups is facilitated by ethnic ties, some of which may stretch to other countries, which enhance access to resources (Zhou, 1998; see ethnicity). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Much remains unknown about the relation ship of entrepreneurship to place and space. For example, how does local context relate to the formation and nurturing of firms in non high technology industries? How do different kinds of businesses and business owners contribute to local economic and social well being? How does local context enable and constrain the process of business ownership for different kinds of people? SHa (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Blake and Hanson (2005); Malecki (1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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