Current interpretations of North American cultural production stress the spatial concentration of these activities in metropolitan centers. There are, however, multiple geographies of cultural production, with other cultural activities deconcentrated and, in some cases, dispersed to distant locations. This situation poses an enigma, since these activities normally form part of a social economy in which networks of personal communication remain important. This paradox is explored using the case of the comic book industry, which has shifted from an in‐house Fordist‐like mode of organization to widespread distancing employing neoartisanal workers who are sometimes located close to the publishing houses, but in other instances are at considerable distances and hence require electronic communication and overnight courier services. Comic book artists often work in isolation but participate from time to time in social activities that are necessary to their creative work. Their work is seen as one of a number of cultural activities that form a periodic social economy with a distinctive time geography.
Although the technique of trend surface mapping has been developed in the main by geologists and geophysicists, its use has now diffused into a number of other fields including regional science, botany, meteorology, and geography. It would be wrong to be unduly critical of the pioneer applications of any technique, even where errors have been made, for there are few guidelines to help such explorers. On the other hand it is felt that trend surface methods are sufficiently well estab‐lishd in geography for there to be a need for a more critical appraisal of the method, especially in view of some careless or even erroneous applications that have been made recently by geographers. This paper will highlight what are considered to be some of the more important limitations of trend surface models, and will point to one or two specifically geographical problems.
The growing prevalence of shift work and non-standard working hours is challenging many taken-for-granted notions about family and household life. This paper examines how rotating shift-schedules shape household strategies with regard to childcare and unpaid domestic work. In 1993-1994 we conducted in-depth interviews with 90 predominantly male newsprint mill-workers and their spouses living in three communities located in different regions of Canada. Our analysis is based on these interviews as well as data collected in a questionnaire survey administered to a much larger sample in each community. We focus on the effects of fixed versus rotating shifts and the extent to which household strategies differ between households with one or two wage-earners. Our findings reveal that the onus for adjusting to shifts fell mainly on the spouses of mill-workers who felt constrained in their own choices regarding employment and childcare by the demanding regimen of their partner's shift schedules. In the vast majority of households a traditional division of labour predominated with regard to both childcare and domestic work. When women quit paid employment to accommodate the schedules of shift-workers and ensure time for the family to be together, traditional values reassert themselves. Surprisingly, we found a high level of satisfaction with current shift schedules despite the significant adjustments to family life they had engendered. By comparing families employed in the same industry but living in three very different communities our analysis underscores the importance of local circumstances in mediating the strategies households deploy with regards to coping with shift-work; especially with regard to childcare.
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