The Dictionary of Human Geography (11 page)

artificial intelligence
Computerized deci sion making that simulates human expert decision making. In its simplest form, artificial intelligence (AI) consists of a body of proced ural rules (e.g. the linear IF THEN ELSE rules that are the mainstay of computer program ming). Or it can describe a heuristic type of intelligence that surpasses simple procedural instructions. Artificial intelligence can relieve humans of tedious tasks such as addition of grocery prices. For such simple tasks, it often surpasses humans in speed and accuracy but can fall short when asked to codify knowledge in a holistic manner. Since the early 1990s, more sophisticated AI has sought to emulate human thinking using parallel computing (e.g. neuraL nets and genetic aLgorithms). These techniques have been more successful than traditional linear rule based systems in classi fying area types or identifying regional zones. They have also been used for map generali zation a task that requires processing of multiple decision making facets including context, intention, scaLe and contiguity. In each case, neural nets and genetic algorithms teach themselves based on positive or negative reinforcement during ?training?. In the case of neural nets, a series of images corresponding to a given classification may be ?fed? into the net. Subsequent training rewards the net for choosing the right classification. At the pre sent, AI is only able to emulate very simple human decision making though the promise of truly intelligent computing. ns (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Openshaw and Openshaw (1997); Weibel (1991). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Asia (idea of)
Considered the world?s largest continent but actually part of a single land mass with Europe (the conventional dividing line being the Ural and Caucasus mountains), Asia lays claims to being the ?cradle of human civilization? as it is home to important ancient civiLizations including those of China, India, Japan and Persia that generated major developments in agriculture, urbanism, religion and other fields of human expression (Parker, 1994, p. 4). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Derived from Greek and first used to de scribe the region later known as Asia Minor, (NEW PARAGRAPH) ?Asia?, like other related terms such as the ?Orient? or the ?Far East?, is a cartographic construct imposed from the outside rather than a pre existing geographical reality. Depicted on eurocentric maps of the world as the ?east?, European colonizers tended to frame Asia in oppositional terms to Europe: as culturally degenerate, environmentally de bilitating and inherently backward, in contrast to Europe?s civilizational progress and enLightenment (Weightman, 2006). As a conceptual category, the term ?Asia? has con tinued to evolve, often in response to external categorization. The term for the sub region of South East Asia, for example, has only gained currency since the Second World War, when the region gained visibility in military and strategic terms under the South East Asia Command established in 1943, and conse quently achieved legitimacy in international eyes (Savage, Kong and Yeoh, 1993). ?Asia? as a construct is also subject to internal pres sures. For example, the term ?Asiatic? to refer to the inhabitants of Asia or as an adjective pertaining to Asia has now been superseded in common usage by ?Asian?: the former no menclature fell out of favour in the postwar era, as it had become laden with pejorative implications during European coLoniALism. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Today, Asia?s 3.6 billion people account for about three fifths of the world?s population. China, the most populous nation in the world, has a current population of more than 1.2 billion people, followed closely by India, with a population of slightly over a billion (United Nations, 2005). Although the world?s population growth rate is now generally declining, and in Asia it is likely to fall even further below the global rate, nonetheless, the developing countries of Asia will still be major contributors to world population growth for many decades to come. More than a third of Asia?s population live in urban areas, includ ing some of the largest megacities in the world. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Considering Asia as one geographical entity, however, belies the diversity in cultures and peoples, as well as a wide range of economic, political and demographic structures. Migra tion, trade, war and European colonization in the past had contributed to contact, exchange and syncretism in many spheres of life within the region. Despite the new sense of Asian solidarity expressed during the Bandung Con ference of 1955 to sever ties of dependency on the West, different approaches to decoloniza tion and nationalism in the mid twentieth cen tury led the countries in Asia down divergent pathways (Parker, 1994, p. 10). The more (NEW PARAGRAPH) recent pursuit of modernity and global futures has also been characterized by uneven and dif ferent trajectories for countries in Asia. Optimism about the region based on the runaway success of some East and South East Asian ?miracle? economies (see Asian miracle / TigErs) was suddenly brought up short as the region floundered in crisis in the closing years of the twentieth century (Chapman and Baker, 1992; Forbes, 2005). bY (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Weightman (2006). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Asian miracle/tigers
A popular description of East and South East Asian countries that had exceptionally high rates of economic growTh from the 1960s until the Asian economic crisis of 1997. Some lists of the Asian miracle economies include Japan, but most early discussions focused on Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, also called the ?first tier' Asian newly industri alizing countries (NICs). After the economic boom extended to Southeast Asia in the 1980s and 1990s, authors began to speak of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand as part of the miracle, and some discussions of China's rapid growth since the 1990s also place it on the list of tigers/miracle economies. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The World Bank's East Asian Miracle report (1993) put an official seal on the language of miracles, though the bank's analysis argued that the rapid growth of these economies was not in fact miraculous and could be replicated by other countries. The report was met with varied forms of criticism, however, and there have been analysts who question whether the performance of the Asian NICs is replicable or should be celebrated as uncritically as it often has been. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The East Asian Miracle report generally credited neo liberal policies with responsibility for the boom, including maintenance of export oriented trade regimes, though it acknowledged some benefits from policies of ?financial repression', such as state imposed below market interest rates for loans to specific exporting industries. Various institu tionalist analysts criticized the bank for over looking a range of other state policies that facilitated growth, but that do not fit the tenets of neo LibErALiSM (Wade, 1996). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Other analysts have criticized celebration of the Asian NICs performance, regardless of the specific role ofstates in their growth. Criticisms have included concerns about the political re pressiveness of Asian states and environmental (NEW PARAGRAPH) destruction caused by rapid growth. After the economic crisis hit many of the tigers in 1997, some analysts also began to question the eco nomic sustainability of the Asian NIC growth model (Hart Landsberg and Burkett, 1998). In addition, some authors have noted that the Asian miracle has much to do with the devel opment of a networked, cold war era, regional production hierarchy, led by Japan, which is both geographically and historically specific and thus not readily replicated even if it does present a desirable model (Cumings, 1984; Bernard and Ravenhill, 1995). jgl (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bernard and Ravenhill (1995); Cumings (1984); Hart Landsberg and Burkett (1998); Wade (NEW PARAGRAPH) ; World Bank (1993). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
assemblage
The process by which a collect ive asian miracle/tigers entry entity (thing or meaning) is created from the connection of a range of heterogeneous components. A trans lation of the French word agencement, the so lidity of the English term tends to make it sound more static, rational and calculated than the original term signifies. In fact, it is precisely the sense of an aggregate with a cer tain consistency being created from an active, ad hoc and ongoing entanglement of elements that has made the notion so attractive to authors working in a post structuraList vein. The concept has been put to work not ably in science and technology studies (STS) (see Law, 2004), the work of Jacques Derrida, and most significantly the combined writ ings of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (NEW PARAGRAPH) . Nb (NEW PARAGRAPH)
assimilation
integration, which include social ex clusion (denying migrants basic social rights), assimilation, laissez faire approaches (leaving migrants alone to choose their own mode of social engagement with mainstream society) and pluralism (allowing migrants to retain their cultural traditions and live separately from mainstream society). Assimilation is a process whereby migrants give up their cul tural traditions, including attire, language, cuisines and ways of thinking, and take on the cultural traditions of the society in their destination country (Gordon, 1964; Glazer and Moynihan, 1970). The classic iMMlgra tion based countries the USA, Canada, (NEW PARAGRAPH) Australia and New Zealand all expected mi grants to assimilate for most of their history. Recently, Canada and Australia have adopted the policy of muLticuLturaLism as a new mode of migrant integration, which is a kind of hybrid between assimilation and pluralism (Hiebert and Ley, 2003). Several European countries also adopted multicultural policies in the latter decades of the twentieth century, notably the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Other European countries, such as France and Germany, have been wary of multiculturalism and continue to expect migrants to assimilate. In the aftermath of terrorist incidents and sev eral episodes of social unrest, those European countries that adopted multiculturalism appear to be reconsidering that decision, and may be returning to assimilation as a means of integration (Vasta, 2005). These debates have been highly politically charged, and critics of the return to assimilation have argued that it reflects an Islamophobic agenda. dH (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading Massey and Denton (1993). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
asylum
Asylum has two distinct meanings in Human geograpHy. One stream of work has been directed towards the (historical) geog raphy of institutions for mental illnesss (Philo, 2004; and see medicaL geograpHy). Another body of work examines asylum as the displace ment of refugees from one state to another, in which they seek sanctuary from violence and political persecution (Hyndman, 2000). The two are very different, but both of them raise searching questions about marginalization and the production and location of ?outsiders?. jH (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Austral(as)ia, idea of
The term ?Australasia? is a construct of imperiaLism. As a means of delineating and denoting a diversity of far flung colonial territories, it had wide cur rency in the nineteenth century, both in the metropole and regionally. If it retains some utility in the former context, it is ?a repressed memory? in the latter (Denoon, 2003). This is despite continually evolving regional net works of economy, migration and, to a lesser extent, collective memory. (NEW PARAGRAPH) ?Austral? means ?belonging to the south?, so ?Australasia? is literally to the south of, but distinct from, asia. The term was coined in 1756 by the Frenchman Charles de Brosses for one of his three divisions of the great south ern continent. Belief in the existence of this continent also known as Terra Australis entered the European geograpHicaL imagin ation from sources in classical cartograpHy. The search for it was one of the purposes of James Cook's voyages to the Pacific; what eventually emerged were the islands of the Pacific and continental Australia. (NEW PARAGRAPH) ?Australasia' came to have flexible meaning, but usually encompassed the British colonies on the Australian mainland along with Tasmania, New Zealand, Fiji, British New Guinea (Papua), the Solomon Islands, the Cook Islands and Tonga. The construct reflected the shared interests of British colonists and capital in the region, their security dependent on the imperial navy and their political legitimacy on the imper ial parliament. The continuing popularity in Australia of Blainey?s book The tyranny of dis tance (1966) indicates that (western) europe remains for many a cardinal cultural reference point. (NEW PARAGRAPH) But shared interests were also undercut by other, conflicting, perspectives. The eventual outcome of the 1890 Australasian Federation Conference was the federation, in 1901, of the Australian colonies alone. The term ?Australasia' became tainted, particularly in New Zealand, one of whose representatives at the 1890 meeting had underlined its con cern about Australian dominance by describ ing his homeland as a ?rather remote part of Australasia? (in Mein Smith, 2003, p. 312). There were also anxieties, in New Zealand and the Pacific islands, that matters of ?native administration' would be silenced in an Australian dominated Federal parliament. This reflected the particularities of relations with indigenous peoples in the different territories. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In the 1920s ?Australia Unlimited' was pro moted by boosters who envisaged population capacities of 100 500 million and saw a dom inant Australia as ?the future pivot of white settlement in a secure and revivified empire' (Powell, 1988, p. 131). The geographer Griffith Taylor, whose prediction of a popula tion of only 20 million in 2000 was prescient, challenged this vision cartographically, label ling much of the Australian interior as ?un inhabited' and ?almost useless'. This echoed another colonial imaginary, that of Australia as teRRA nullius, or no one?s land, prior to European settlement. Not until the Mabo judgement of 1992 was native (or aboriginal) title recognized in Australian common Law (Whatmore, 2002c) (cf. ABorigiNALity). Mabo has ?unsettled' Australia, bringing to the fore contestations over national aspirations that also characterize the other countries of what was ?Australasia'. The past has also (NEW PARAGRAPH) returned to haunt the present in another guise: whereas Australasia was originally used to mark a separation from Asia, in recent years regional geographicaL imaginaries have been both dislocated and reoriented by deepening economic and cultural connections between the two. ep (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Denoon (2003); Whatmore (2002c). (NEW PARAGRAPH)