The “Perfect Map” of Widow Hiamtse: A Micro-Spatial History of Sugar Plantations in Early Modern Southeast Asia, 1685–1710

Not all early modern sugar plantations were in the Atlantic World. Indeed, far away from it, in the rural space surrounding the Dutch headquarters in Asia (the Ommelanden of Batavia (Jakarta)), over a hundred of them were thriving by the end of the seventeenth century. Together, they constituted a unique plantation society that followed Dutch land law, was operated by Javanese rural labour, and was managed by Chinese sugar entrepreneurs. Through archival work on a certain “perfect map” that belonged to a Chinese widow, this article explores how that plantation society took shape on the ground.

The Contribution of Spatial Interaction Modelling to Spatial History: The Case of Central Places and their Hinterlands in the Territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Research on spatial history can be enriched by using approaches from quantitative geography. We analyse an historical regional system and highlight three basic assumptions, building upon Christaller’s central place theory: cities do not stand alone in space, they interact with their hinterlands, and they are hierarchically organised. We investigate the relative position of central places in space and define their hinterlands using a spatial interaction modelling approach. We present the example of functional regional taxonomy in past environments, which therefore has a higher degree of uncertainty in the results and in their interpretation. We use a variant of Reilly’s model to define the functional regions in Austria-Hungary at the beginning and at the end of the 20th century. We present a possible interpretation of the model results based on the identification of the major factors responsible for developments in the urban and regional systems of Austria-Hungary over 100 years. We conclude that the development of urban and regional systems in the territory of the former Austria-Hungary was not considerably affected by the role of political-economic systems, the administrative organisation of states, nor by the different stages in economic development of its formerly constituent territories.

The Spatial History of Revelation in Carl Ritter’s Erdkunde (1817–59)

Traditional theological concepts, including revelation, shaped academic disciplines as they emerged in nineteenth-century Germany. The first university professor of geography, Carl Ritter, crafted an intriguing spatial history of revelation in his masterful Earth Science in Relation to Nature and the History of Man (1817–1859). The teleological bent of Ritter’s geography and his commitment to intelligent design have encouraged most commentators to regard Ritter as a late manifestation of physicotheology. However, this long-standing explanation of a crucial geographer’s religious platform misconstrues the field’s theological commitments. Physicotheology suffered irreversible losses in the German states in the late eighteenth century. Ritter’s adherence to primordial revelation and biblical literalism typify the religious awakening of the Napoleonic period more than enlightened rationalism. He is best understood as a geographer of religion, dedicated to evangelical missions and intrigued by how the Earth’s features shaped the spread and transformation of religious ideas and practices, including Buddhism.

The Repurposed City of Johannesburg

This chapter explores the landscape of Johannesburg, taken as a city that shapes the agency of its inhabitants, and it show hows, conversely, the residents of Johannesburg have remade spaces in their city to suit their needs. Johannesburg is a repurposed city: it was built to support a series of spatial and political orders that are now defunct, and its material structure must now be reused by different residents inhabiting a different order. The materiality of the city was shaped by apartheid, which sharply controlled how its residents used and occupied space. The residents of postapartheid Johannesburg find ways of creatively tinkering with the city, whose landscape still reflects that past era. This chapter looks at how apartheid continues to mark the landscape of the city, and how current residents are creatively repurposing this landscape. It begins with a spatial history of Johannesburg and an analysis of its current spatial logic. It then provides detailed explorations and readings of several repurposed spaces within the city, comparing their present and past uses and meanings, and situating them within the history and spatial logic of each city.

The Repurposed City of Berlin

This chapter explores the landscape of Berlin, taken as a city that shapes the agency of its inhabitants, and shows how, conversely, the residents of Berlin have remade spaces in their city to suit their needs. Berlin is a repurposed city: it was built to support a series of spatial and political orders that are now defunct, and its material structure must now be reused by different residents inhabiting a different order. In particular, the Cold War division of Berlin into east and west, divided by the Berlin Wall, fundamentally shaped the space of the city, and postunification residents must find ways to creatively repurpose this space. The chapter begins with the spatial history of Berlin and an analysis of its current spatial logic. It then provides detailed explorations and readings of a series of repurposed spaces within the city, comparing their present and past uses and meanings, and situating them within the history and spatial logic of each city.

A Spatial History of Independent Art Spaces in Krakow from the 1970s to 2019

Independent art spaces not only play an important role in exploring frontiers in the visual arts but are often also pioneers discovering new artistic territories within cities. Due to their subordinate position in the field of art, they often occupy marginal spaces in terms of their location within the urban structure and/or in terms of their physical visibility within the built environment. Their location outside the established artistic cores reflects, at the same time, their weaker economic standing and wish to distinguish themselves from previous generations of cultural producers. Post-socialist cities offer the opportunity to study the spatial history of independent art spaces under different political and economic systems. In this paper, I have used a detailed database of private art galleries in the period from the 1970s to 2019 and content analysis of press and internet texts about them to uncover the stages of development of independent art venues in Krakow, Poland, an example of a post-socialist city with a rich cultural heritage. They included periods of dispersion within the wider inner-city followed by cycles of concentration in rather neglected quarters that were emerging as epicentres of alternative artistic life only to dissipate due to unfavourable economic conditions and the appearance of the next generations of artists who wanted to mark their distinctive presence both in the art world and in the urban space. I also discuss how independent art spaces were using their usually marginal, temporary and fluid sites in their artistic practices and the accumulation of symbolic capital in the field of art.

Age and tectonic setting of the Quinebaug- Marlboro belt and implications for the history of Ganderian crustal fragments in southeastern New England, USA

Crustal fragments underlain by high-grade rocks represent a challenge to plate reconstructions, and integrated mapping, geochronology, and geochemistry enable the unravelling of the temporal and spatial history of exotic crustal blocks. The Quinebaug-Marlboro belt (QMB) is an enigmatic fragment on the trailing edge of the peri-Gondwanan Ganderian margin of southeastern New England. SHRIMP U-Pb geochronology and geochemistry indicate the presence of Ediacaran to Cambrian metamorphosed volcanic and intrusive rocks dated for the first time between ca. 540–500 Ma. The entire belt may preserve a cryptic, internal stratigraphy that is truncated by subsequent faulting. Detrital zircons from metapelite in the overlying Nashoba and Tatnic Hill Formations indicate deposition between ca. 485–435 Ma, with provenance from the underlying QMB or Ganderian crust. The Preston Gabbro (418 ± 3 Ma) provides a minimum age for the QMB. Mafic rocks are tholeiitic with trace elements that resemble arc and E-MORB sources, and samples with negative Nb-Ta anomalies are similar to arc-like rocks, but others show no negative Nb-Ta anomaly and are similar to rocks from E-MORB to OIB or backarc settings. Geochemistry points to a mixture of sources that include both mantle and continental crust. Metamorphic zircon, monazite, and titanite ages range from 400 to 305 Ma and intrusion of granitoids and migmatization occurred between 410 and 325 Ma. Age and chemistry support correlations with the Ellsworth terrane in Maine and the Penobscot arc and backarc system in Maritime Canada. The arc-rifting zone where the Mariana arc and the Mariana backarc basin converge is a possible modern analog.