Human geography in Hong Kong: A preliminary analysis

Japanese Journal of Human Geography

Volumn 60, Issue 6, 2008, Pages 36-52

  Tang, Wing Shing ^a   Chan, Kim Ching ^a  

^a HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY   (Hong Kong)

Author keywords

Hong Kong; Human geography; Knowledge production nexus; Multiple spatialities; Regimes of practices; Social relevance

Indexed keywords

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK; GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION; HUMAN GEOGRAPHY; METHODOLOGY; QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS; RESEARCH;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; HONG KONG;

EID: 62549129857     PISSN: 00187216     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.4200/jjhg.60.6_516     Document Type: Article

References (44)

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8. Chun, A. and A. B. Shamsul. ibid., 2)
9. In the case of China, see Tang, W-S. General: Chinese-Language Geography. In R. Kitchin and N. Thrift (eds), International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Elsevier, London, 2009 (in press).
10. There are other geographers alike employed in other academic departments in Hong Kong. For example, the lion's share of the staff members from the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the University of Hong Kong were geographers by training. Similarly, there are one or two members of a similar background teaching in the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology as well as in departments of education studies across a few universities. Nevertheless, because most of them do not claim themselves to be geographers working in a department of geography, they have been excluded from our survey.
11. The Association also publishes a more local newsletter called The Hong Kong Geographer, with the objective of enrolling and enlisting high school teachers.
12. We are aware of the subjectivity involved in categorisation, especially in some grey areas. Nevertheless, the schema tabulated still conveys a desperately needed overall picture of academic geography in Hong Kong.
13. Our conception of positivism resembles the discussion in, for example, Sayer, A. Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach. Routledge, London, 1992.
14. The problems with questionnaire surveys and interviews are certainly there. But the magnitude of the problems depends on the general political atmosphere, which varies over time and sometimes across space. In other words, they are less definite than, say, soil samples.
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17. This was confirmed in an e-mail reply by one of the initiators on 30th October, 2008.
18. Tang, W-S. ibid., 8)
19. They were mostly hired on the objective criteria of better research output, which matched the needs for RAE.
20. There was one at Hong Kong Baptist University, who took early retirement a few years ago.
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35. (1) Tang, W-S. Cities in China: A Review of Urban Studies. Paper presented at the European Science Foundation "Forward Look on Urban Science: Final Conference"; Helsinki, Finland, 26-28 May, 2005. (It has been summarised in Haila, A. Urban Science. European Science Foundation, Strasbourgh, 30-1, 2008 (downloadable at http://ww.esf.org/ publications.html).)
36. (2) Tang, W-S and W. Y. Lee. Some reflections of modern geographic thoughts on China urban and regional studies. Occasional Paper 33, The Centre for China Urban and Regional Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, 2003.
37. For an example of alternative treatment, see Tang, W-S. 2007, 135-54T. (Chinese urbanism today: la r6volution urbaine? in Cultural Theories edited by Osaka City University Urban-Culture Center, Seibundo, Osaka, 2007, pp. 135-54.)
38. Tang, W-S. ibid., 8)
39. Exceptions to this rule include Tang (1997), who addresses the ways in which space matters in China Tang, W-S. Urbanisation in China: a review of its causal mechanisms and spatial relations. Progress in Planning 48, 1997, 1-65.
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41. This argument of exaggerating outside influence at the absolute expense of the internal forces is aligned with the critique that we have with the Dependency School of Underdevelopment.
42. This reluctance to debate is most conspicuous in the Chief Executive Mr. Donald Tsang's 2007-07 Policy Address, which writes "...the success of Hong Kong can be found in our pragmatism - we did not engage in ideological debates or utopian social projects" (http: //www/ policyaddress. gov. hk/06-07/eng/p67. html, accessed 09/2007.)
43. Peet, R. p. 14, ibid., 6)
44. Allen, J. with the collective. Afterword: open geographies. In D. Massey, J. Allen and P. Sarre (eds) Human Geography Today. Polity Press, Oxford, 1999, pp 323-28.