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Abstract
Authors of world regional geography textbooks have recently become more interested in the broader theoretical changes that have emerged in human geography. Relying on feminist and other critical perspectives, concepts such as space, place and scale are being re‐imagined in this ‘new world regional geography’. This paper intervenes on behalf of a more critical world regional geography by suggesting how world regional geography teachers can educate students about scale as a social construction through the use of empirical data. Relying on fieldwork conducted in Thailand, this paper lays out a lesson on the HIV/AIDS crisis and how different representations of that crisis, from the national to the individual, offer different ‘ways of knowing’ the epidemic. Furthermore, this paper examines how we can push students to consider the ways in which scales of analysis are constructed and constituted through our own geographic practices.
Notes
Correspondence address: Vincent J. Del Casino Jr., Department of Geography, California State University, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840‐1101, USA. Email: [email protected]
A recent issue of the Journal of Geography (Volume 102, Number 4) is largely dedicated to pedagogical strategies in teaching world regional geography. There is obviously a growing interest in examining how this course is taught and what methodologies are employed in its teaching.
The ‘upper north’ is also a slippery concept. It sometimes does not include the two easternmost provinces. For the purposes of the course, however, I often do not have time to get into the complicated linguistic and cultural politics that distinguishes these two provinces from the other six. There is, to say the least, a lot of overlap and contingency in the eight provinces as there is with bordering provinces to the south. Today, the ‘upper north’ is as much a bureaucratic region as it is a cultural one and the six westernmost provinces are constituted as phaak neua ton bon by the Centers for Disease Control as its 10th outreach region.
This would be a valuable place to introduce students to time–space maps of daily activity spaces. For purposes of length, however, I have not included an example here. See Johnston et al. (Citation2000, pp. 831–833) under ‘time geography’ for examples of these sorts of maps of daily activity.
While there is not time to discuss research ethics in depth here, I do take time in my courses to discuss the research process. First, I explain to students that all names used, including the district names in Chiang Mai province, have been changed to maintain the confidentiality of all those who participated in the study. Second, I explain that everyone was informed of his/her ‘rights’ as a participant. No one was coerced or asked to answer questions that he/she did not feel comfortable answering. The name Ton, like all other names appearing in my published research, is a pseudonym. An effective way to address this issue pedagogically is to ask students about their own life experiences and what they would feel comfortable sharing. How would they feel if someone took their words and used them without their permission? Or, how would they feel if someone described intimate details about their life even though they never knew that such information was to become public knowledge?