Geographers may benefit from a narrative approach as it permits insights into both meanings and how stories are permitted and controlled by social conditions. The aim of this article is to discuss methodological aspects of studying fear as a restriction on mobility and use of public space. We have used examples from a study on fear of violence in the city of Umeå , Sweden at the time of threats from a serial rapist, the Haga Man. We employed Labov's model to analyse female and male narratives about fear. Women from all backgrounds reproduced a shared story of experiences of fear. Male stories were fragmented and diverse, especially in terms of ethnicity. The Haga Man was described in the media as a man of 'normal Swedish appearance', which put a focus on Swedish hegemonic masculinity and 'normality' rather than on commonly reproduced fear of the racialized other. Labov's model was useful in clarifying how narratives differed in their structural components and completeness, but limited in terms of how to interpret the evaluative component: the model needs to be combined with theory in order to understand relations to changing political, institutional and media discourses on crime and fear in public space.

Economic and political changes in formerly socialist economies affect migration patterns and gender relations in complex ways. The consequences of transition from planned to market economies for men and women, respectively, are manifested both in gendered migration patterns and gendered urban labour markets, where young migrant women now constitute an important part of the ‘globalised’ industrial working class of Southeast Asian cities. This paper analyses female rural–urban migration to industrial work in Lao PDR, one of Southeast Asia's smallest transition economies. Since the implementation of the New Economic Mechanism in Lao PDR in 1986, a process of feminisation of rural–urban migration has started and female employment in industries in Vientiane Capital increased. The paper highlights some of the consequences of economic transition for female rural–urban migrants, focusing on changing gender roles and women's status as industrial workers, both inside and outside factory gates. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This study analyzes how the migration pattern in Laos is influenced by the regionally differentiated modernization process, socioeconomic change, international migration and resettlement, by using census data from 1995 and 2005. Though Laos has experienced a rather dramatic socio-economic change during this period the inter-district and inter-province migration rate has decreased. But the empirical analyses show an increasing rural-urban migration and indicate a strong impact on migration from socio-economic changes. But internal migration patterns are also influenced by international migration patterns and resettlement of rural populations. Although socio-economic changes are major determinants to migration, also regional policies and opportunities for international migration are key factors influencing migration in developing countries.

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