The Dictionary of Human Geography (70 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

BOOK: The Dictionary of Human Geography
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film
An inherently spatial technology through which fragments of images and sounds from different times and spaces are reassembled, and then transported to audi ences in many different locations. It can be studied as a mobile cultural representation, a public gathering (at the cinema or movie theatre), a political opportunity, a mode of governance and an economic activity. The boundaries of film now blur into television, video, music and amusement park culture. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Much film analysis focuses on the film itself for example, the narrative structure, the sets, camera shots and editing and it can be a means of studying how dominant social and geopolitical understandings and anxieties are expressed, produced, transmitted and resisted. US noir films of the 1940s and 1950s, for instance, have been interpreted as expressions of geopolitical and social anxieties: about nuclear war, the migration of southern African Americans to northern cities, and relations between women and men. The geog raphies scripted into noir films (e.g. the dark and foreboding city) express and fuel these anxieties (Farish, 2005). Alternatively, as a mode of storytelling and site seeing, film can be a medium for travelling across and juxta posing different worlds, and rupturing domin ant narratives about pLace; Taylor (2000) assesses the ways in which The Coolboroo Club, a film made by and about Perth?s Nyungah community (an aboriginal commu nity that was banned from entering the central metropolitan area in the 1930s and 1940s), draws on aboriginal memories to supplement and disrupt hegemonic white history of ?sunny? Perth. Because film is such a good vehicle to think with and about dominant and resistant social meanings, it can be an excellent pedagogical tool; the Journal of Latin American Geography instituted an exten sive film reviews section for this purpose in (NEW PARAGRAPH) and Cresswell (2000) chronicles his use of the film, Falling Down, to generate nuanced classroom discussion of resistance. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Film is more than another medium for storytelling, and a long tradition of cultural criticism and avant garde films make larger claims about the capacity of film to stimulate novel sense experiences and generate critical thought. Close up shots, cross cutting, slow motion and flickering effects, montages of images that juxtapose the far and near, the present and the past, and spaces that are ordi narily segregated or otherwise kept apart these are some of the cinematic techniques that can be used to dis order and re order space and time, and shock the senses. Walter Benjamin (1978) theorized film?s potential to de naturalize social relations and social space; Deleuze (2001) wrote of the promise of ?pure optical? situations in (particularly neo realist) film: to release the viewer from linear cause and effect perceptions and bring the senses into a new relation with time and thought. Both theorists draw connections between film and the city: the modern city in the case of the former, the rupture forced by devastated post Second World War European cities for the latter. It is not just theorists who have appre ciated the transformational potential of film; Olund (2006) argues that urban reformers in the early twentieth century USA embraced some similar ideas about the ways in which film works on sense perception, and recog nized film as a powerful tool for governance, especially for assimilating immigrants into middle cLass norms of whiteness. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Aitken and Zonn speculated that geograph ers have been slow to make a serious study of film because of ?the geographer?s traditional emphasis on the material conditions of social life wherein representation is subsidiary to ??physical reality?? ? (1994, p. 5). Even so, there are rich opportunities for investigating the play between filmic representations and concrete spaces. Analysing the Nigerian film industry, Marston, Woodward and Jones (2007) argue that the distinctive aesthetic of ?Nollywood? films (long sequences with extensive and repetitive dialogue, and little or no action) emerges out of local material circumstances of small budgets, fast shooting schedules, small crews and reliance on readily available locations. At the same time, filmic representa tions have material consequences. The nega tive portrayal of the inner city in post Second World War Hollywood film, it has been argued, created a popular disposition in the USA for massive demolition of inner city neighbourhoods and urban restructuring. The film Chinatown, a fictionalized rendition of political corruption, personal greed, capit alist development and water policy in Los Angeles, is now understood to be and deployed as the historical ?truth? by environ mental groups who wish to stop contemporary dam proposals (both case studies are found in Sheil and Fitzmaurice, 2001). The Hollywood film Entrapment created an uproar in Malaysia when it was released in 1999, because images of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur were spliced with those of a distant shanty town, to suggest that the two geographies lie side by side. This was at odds with the impression that city boosters wished to project, that of Kuala Lumpur as a clean, modernizing ?world class? city. As the government?s Information Minister complained, ?the whole world will come to believe that the scenery they saw in the movie . . . is real? (cited in Bunnell, 2004, p. 300). Alternatively, popular films can gen erate informal and formal tourism spin offs, when appreciative fans seek out the sites used in movie scenes. In many cities, the film indus try is a major economic activity, certainly in cities such as Los Angeles (Scott, 2005a), Mumbai and Hong Kong, but in many other cities as well, whether as a location or through the business of film festivals. The geographies of film production and reception have become increasingly complex: the transnational nature of many productions complicates debates about non Hollywood ?national? cinemas (Acland, 2003); and diasporic communities generate demand for films produced outside of the USA, whilst the heavy dependence of the US entertainment industry upon inter national markets disrupts simplistic assump tions about the one way, global transmission of US culture. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The cinema itself is a public space, which some have argued was particularly important for women and immigrants in the early twentieth century US city; Hansen understands it to be a site for the formation of a counter public sphere. Much of this has changed with new technologies of home vid eos and DVDs, but Hansen (1995) has been loathe to understand these new technologies as simply leading to the diminishment of cin ema as counter public sphere. She speculates that contemporary film viewers, now used to having control over their viewing at home, are more active than they were in the classical Hollywood period of film spectatorship. Certainly the material conditions of viewing film are changing. In North America through the 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in the number of screens constructed and a sim ultaneous reduction in the number of theatres, reflecting the construction of multiplexes, facilities that with multiple screens, typically located in the suburbs. These multiplex amuse ment spaces generate a different timing and spacing of film spectatorship (Acland, 2003). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Film (and video) is not simply an object, but a tool for analysis. Pryke (2002, p. 473) calls up Lefebvre?s notion of rhythmanalysis to introduce his video and audio montage of urban redevelopment of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin (http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/ geography/research/berlin/). Concerns with performance and life that exceeds discourse (see non representational theory) have fuelled interest in using film and video as a means of representation, and electronic jour nals such as ACME now allow the blending of text and video (e.g. Pratt and Kirby, 2003). Media literacy and video production training has been a useful methodological strategy in action research. gp (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Aitken and Zonn (1994); Cresswell and Dixon (NEW PARAGRAPH) ; Scott (2005); Shiel and Fitzmaurice (200l). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
filtering
A process whereby housing value and status declines over time while house holds gain access to increasingly higher quality dwellings. The theory emphasizes market forces in, and identifies triggers for, changes in the allocation of housing (see housing studies; invasion and succession). The literature includes numerous refinements to filtering models (Galster, 1996) and also strong critiques of the normative element in filtering theory, which tends to legitimate (NEW PARAGRAPH) laissez faire approaches to housing provision in which demand from wealthier households for new housing is expected to open up better housing for lower income groups (Gray and Boddy, 1979). em (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Gray and Boddy (1979). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
financial exclusion
The process by which people of poor and moderate incomes are directly and indirectly excluded from the formal financial system and denied access to mainstream retail financial services (see also money and finance). Financial exclusion plays an active part in the geographical pro duction of poverty, because those who experience difficulty in gaining access to formal financial serves tend to belong to dis advantaged social groups undergoing multiple forms of social deprivation (Leyshon and Thrift, 1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Access to mainstream financial services within contemporary societies is important because many economic exchanges are now mediated through financial institutions through direct transfers between accounts. Without access to the financial system, indi viduals and households may find it more dif ficult and expensive to pay bills, while the lack of access to products such as insurance denies them the opportunity to shield against risk. In this sense, having access to a full range of financial services at a competitive price may be taken to indicate ?financial citizenship?. In large parts of the developing world, the major ity of the population may lack financial citi zenship, whereas in industrialized countries such as the USA and the UK it is estimated that around 10 per cent of the population is financially excluded (cf. citizenship). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The process of financial exclusion is a prod uct of a broader bifurcation of the market for retail financial services. Socio technologies such as credit scoring systems sort ?prime? from ?sub prime? customers on behalf of financial institutions. Prime financial markets are made up of individuals and house holds that possess socio economic and geo demographic profiles that make them targets of the marketing and financial strategies of retail financial services firms. These middle and high income customers are actively pur sued by retail financial services firms, and may be described as the financially ?super included?, benefiting from intense competition between institutions for their business. One of the drivers of this strategy is the tendency towards the securitization of retail financial products, whereby lenders aggregate the loans made to low risk customers and sell them to investors in international securities markets (Dymski, 2005). Sub prime customers, mean while, have low to moderate incomes and/or financial assets, and are either excluded from mainstream financial marketing campaigns for new products or are denied access to services if they apply. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The geography of prime and sub prime financial markets follows established geog raphies of income and wealth. Thus, for the most part, prime retail financial customers may be found in affluent urban and suburban areas, whereas sub prime markets are concen trated in areas of low and moderate income, typically in inner city areas (and, in the UK, at least, on public sector housing estates). In the absence of mainstream financial services, which continue to close branches in such areas, a host of specialist sub prime or ?fringe? retail financial institutions ply their trade. They provide similar services to the main stream, but at a much higher cost. It is now possible to identify pronounced financial ecol ogies, made up of distinctive combinations of markets, customers and institutions (Leyshon, Burton, Knights, Alferoff and Signoretta, 2004). Public policies to counter the problems of financial exclusion were initiated with increased vigour in the late 1990s (Marshall, 2004), and the explosive growth of ?predatory lending? in sub prime markets was a key factor in the global financial crisis that detonated in 2008. al (NEW PARAGRAPH)
fiscal crisis
A fiscal crisis occurs when the revenue raised by the state is insufficient to cover the cost of its activities. All governments experience short term financial problems as a result of routine fluctuations in tax revenues and public expenditure. The term ?fiscal crisis? is usually reserved for a more serious shortfall in the state?s financial position arising from structural or systematic imbalances between the cost of providing public services and social security payments and the ability of the state to finance them through taxation. (NEW PARAGRAPH) According to O?Connor (1973), a tendency towards fiscal crisis is a logical outcome of the contradictory character of the state under capitaLism. O?Connor argues that the state has two main functions within capitalism: to promote accumuLation by private capitaL, and to ensure the legitimacy of this process among the population. To do the former, the state needs to make investments in economic infrastructure (e.g. roads, energy supply networks, the central bank), systems of regu lation (e.g. to ensure the orderly functioning of market exchange; cf. reguLation theory) and the maintenance of a productive labour force (e.g. by providing education). To do the latter, the state seeks to promote social integration through expenditure on the weLfare state and the maintenance of Law and order. (NEW PARAGRAPH) O?Connor?s analysis suggests that with the emergence of the monopoly form of capitalism in which markets are dominated by a small number of large corporations, an increasing proportion of the costs of investment must be met by the state, while expenditure on social problems also grows. This requires the state to seek to raise extra revenue from taxation, which has the effect of discouraging private investment, thereby reducing the tax base and exacerbating the problem. This can result in a fiscal crisis as the state?s revenue raising capacity is reduced at the same time as demands for increased state expenditure grow. The state may seek to resolve the crisis by trying to reduce public expenditure as a pro portion of the economy. However, this may result in a crisis of legitimation as welfare expenditure is cut. In some cases, however, powerful states (notably the USA) have been able to sustain very large budget deficits for extended periods and to stave off fiscal crises by borrowing from overseas. In 2006, approxi mately one quarter of the total US public debt of $8,500 billion was held by foreign govern ments and international investors. (NEW PARAGRAPH) A tendency to fiscal crisis may be spatially differentiated, particularly where local govern ments have autonomous revenue raising capacities. In the 1970s and 1980s, many US cities faced serious fiscal problems as manu facturing industry declined and higher income residents moved out to the suburbs (see fiscal migration). In 1975, New York City avoided bankruptcy only after the federal gov ernment intervened. Subsequently, many local governments have faced budgetary constraints as a result of restrictions imposed by the central state or because of poor credit ratings imposed by increasingly influential private rating agencies (Hackworth, 2006). jpa (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Jessop (2002, ch. 2); O?Connor (1973). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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