Despite stereotypes that cyberspace spells the ‘end of geography’ and promises universal, democratic entree to the electronic highways of the world economy, access to the Internet is highly unevenly distributed both socially and spatially. In this paper I examine the geopolitics of Internet access and its implications. I open by situating electronic communications within contemporary social theory, emphasizing cyberspace as a contested terrain of competing discourses. Second, international discrepancies in access are illustrated, dramatizing the ways in which the Internet enhances the advantages enjoyed by a global elite consisting largely of white, male professionals. Third, I turn to discrepancies in Internet access within the United States, including class, racial, gender, and spatial disparities. I seek to demonstrate that geography still matters; the Internet creates and reflects a distinct spatial structure interlaced with, and often reinforcing, existing relations of wealth and power.

Sum m ary. R ecen t innovation s in telecom m unication s and com puting, enhanced by a glob al w aveof deregu lation and the em ergen ce of post-F ord ist prod uction regim es, have unleash ed profou nd transfo rm ations of variou s service sectors in the glob al econ om y. This paper ® rst review s the geograp hical repercu ssion s of the exp losion of inform ation services , including the birth of electron ic funds tran sfer system s, the grow th of global cities and the dispersal of back of® ces to low -w age sites across the glob e. Secon dly, it exp lores the political econ omy and spatiality of the largest of these system s, the Internet. Thirdly, it summ arises how the glob al division of labour has recen tly engen dered the birth of`new inform ation spaces' , places whose recent grow th is con tingent upon the introd uction of telecom munication s, citin g as exam ples Singap ore, H ungary and the D om inican R epublic.

ABSTRACT. Cannabis, including hemp and its psychoactive counterpart, has a long but largely overlooked historical geography. Situating the topic within varied perspectives such as world-systems theory, Foucauldian biopolitics, and the moral economy of drugs, this paper charts its diffusion over several millennia, noting the contingent and uneven ways in which it was enveloped within varying social and political circumstances. Following a brief theorization, it explores the plant's early uses in East and South Asia, its shift to the Middle East, and resultant popularity in the Arab world and Africa. Next, it turns to its expansion under colonialism, including deliberate cultivation by Portuguese and British authorities in the New World as part of the construction of a pacified labor force. The fifth section offers an overview of cannabis's contested history in the United States, in which a series of early 20 th -century moral panics led to its demonization; later, the drug enjoyed gradual liberalization.

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. Contrary to much of the hype that posits cyberspace as the uncontested domain of rugged individualists, computer networks and traffic exhibit deeply social and political roots. The Internet is neither inherently oppressive nor automatically emancipatory; it is a terrain of contested philosophies and politics. After a brief review of the politics of electronic knowledge, we discuss the ways in which the Internet can be harnessed for counterhegemonic (antiestablishment) political ends. We focus on progressive uses, including the confrontation of nomadic power and rhizomic power structures, in which the local becomes the global. We also offer an encapsulation of right‐wing uses. Throughout, we see cyberactivism as a necessary, but not sufficient, complement to real‐world struggles on behalf of the disempowered.

More than one-quarter of the planet'

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Financial services are undergoing a major period of internationalization. National markets are interlinked by telecommunications, a process induced through deregulation and new communications technologies. This paper reviews the recent, intertwined trends in the finance and telecommunications industries in light of urban and regional restructuring theory, cites several company-specific examples, explores the impacts on the international urban hierarchy and the labor process (e.g., back offices), and assesses the role of teleports. Finally, it offers an agenda for further research.