On the Mythical Origin of Yajñopavīta

Purānas which get written in accordance with the Vedas recreate the āstika ethos in a completely different social, temporal, and geographical context. Devānga Purāna dated to around 1532 CE and written after the social revolution in Kalyana in the twelfth century reaffirms the strength of the Vedic tradition by embracing the liberal and esoteric elements in Upanishadic thought. In this essay I look at the formation of Vedic ethos by focusing on a mythological narrative concerning the origin of yajñopavīta. I claim that the yajñopavīta was invented to intensify the will to non-knowledge.

Assessing Relations between Cultural Ecosystem Services, Physical Landscape Features and Accessibility in Central-Eastern Europe: A PPGIS Empirical Study from Hungary

Despite the growing quantity of ecosystem-services-related research, there is still a lack of deeper understanding on cultural ecosystem services (CES). This is mainly due to the perception of CES, which can vary by geographic location and population. In this study, we present a Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) method in a Hungarian microregion. Our goal is to increase understanding on how cultural services are perceived in this geographical context and level, and how this relative importance is related to biophysical landscape features. We also consider the influence of accessibility on the perceived landscape and compare our findings with the results of other studies with different sociocultural backgrounds. The research consists of participatory mapping with 184 persons that were digitized and analyzed with GIS and statistical software. During the analysis, we identified CES hotspots and compared CES with landscape features, as well as CES perception with accessibility. Our results showed positive correlation of CES with land covers related to built-up areas, as well as aesthetic and recreational services with water bodies. Compared to other studies, we found different spatial relationships in the case of spiritual services, and higher importance of agricultural land covers during the CES perception, thanks to the Central-Eastern European (CEE) sociocultural background. Our study highlights the effect of accessibility on CES perception; nevertheless, these relationships varied by different infrastructural elements. We conclude by discussing the implications and limitations of our study and encouraging future landscape research to apply the PPGIS method in this geographical context.

Multi-Scale Presentation of Spatial Context for Cultural Heritage Applications

An approach to the representation and presentation of spatial and geographical context of cultural heritage sites is proposed. The goal is to combine semantic representations of social and historical context with 3D representations of cultural heritage sites acquired through 3D reconstruction and 3D modeling technologies, to support their interpretation and presentation in education and tourism. Several use cases support and demonstrate the application of the proposed approach including immersive craft and context demonstration environment and interactive games.

RiMaflow autogestita: un esercizio di geografia sociale. Descrizione di un percorso mentale e fisico e della realizzazione di un ripensamento spaziale

The article aims to introduce the practices of social geography through the description of the conceptual and practical path on the territory that led to picking up the study case and the implementation of the research. After a conceptual introduction on the ethical motivations of those who want to do social geography and having indicated which tools the geographer can use and which practices are more useful, the article outlines the theoretical and geographical context of the identified case study, and then move on to the description of the concrete aspects of the observed experience. The conclusion is actually only an update of how the experience resisted the impact of the pandemic and how the expressed ideal references and the concrete experience maintain their continuity and coherence over time

O PAPEL DOS TERMINAIS RODOVIÁRIOS NA MOBILIDADE URBANA NOS MUNICÍPIOS EM DESENVOLVIMENTO: O CASO DE ANCHIETA NO ESPÍRITO SANTO

The use of passenger bus terminals has developed over the years and they are no longer just places for boarding, connecting between points and disembarking users. The passenger bus terminals represent an aid to the transport infrastructure and, in addition to contributing to mobility, they constitute an integration factor, generators of jobs and taxes (SOARES, 2006). The growth of cities and territorial occupation intensifies the dependence on the use of road equipment, which has become indispensable in daily commuting. Thus, bus terminals have a fundamental role in the development of small cities, as they expand the possibilities of municipal and intercity commuting. Anchieta, a small municipality, is located in a tourist, agricultural and port area on the southern coast of Espírito Santo. The city has approximately 29,263 inhabitants (IBGE, 2020) and does not have a location with adequate infrastructure for passengers to embark and disembark. Thus, the objective is to discuss the importance of implementing road terminals in small cities for the construction of urban mobility. Thus, we seek to analyze the case of Anchieta in terms of its historical and geographical context and the infrastructure associated with the public transport offered.

Southeast Europe

This chapter charts the religious landscape of Southeast Europe and considers its religious specificities in their historical and geographical context. To this purpose, it discusses the significance of the Orthodox Christian heritage of Byzantium; the cleavage between Eastern and Western Christianity (both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism) and inter-confessional dynamics; the presence of Islam and the long period of Ottoman rule; the existence of other religions in the region; the role of Russia in Southeast European affairs; ethno-religious identities and the rise of nationalism; the communist and the post-communist periods; and finally, the negative discourse about the Balkans in the context of Southeast European distinctiveness, the modernization process, and the potential for religion in this.

Pirmais teikums: zinātniskā raksta pieteikums

Tips for writers found in books, articles, blogs, and website forums often focus on the first sentence, engaging the reader to read the entire text. Tips for writing the first sentence are mostly applied to essays, including academic essays. On the other hand, good examples of the first sentence are usually chosen from classical literary works, making it possible to assume that the first sentence has meaning in every text, including a scientific article. The aim is to study and describe the first sentence in articles in various disciplines in the Latvian language to establish the connections between the recommendations on how to start the text and the actual language material. For the aim’s implementation, sentences from 848 scientific articles in Latvian (a total of 9700-word usage) are analyzed. The articles chosen for the study have been published between 2008 and 2018 in three branches and sub-branches of science: medical and health sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts. The main conclusions are as follows: the authors of Latvian scientific articles most often choose in the first sentence 1) to make a statement, 2) indicate the historical or geographical context, 3) define the main term used in the article. This is partly consistent with the suggestions given by writing instructors on the possible attractive content of the first sentence.

New Spain’s Cartography within Global Geography: José Antonio de Alzate’s Maps of North America

Several printed versions of José Antonio de Alzate’s Nuevo Mapa Geográphico de la América Septentrional (1768) are known to exist. Despite his progressive changes to the map, the Mexican polymath saw it as a single “cartographic model” that he perfected over time. This article analyses his sources and working methods, as well as his contacts with other authors in New Spain and Europe. By distinguishing between mechanisms of passive and active circulation of both resources and cartographic methods, we can note an apparent change in Alzate’s practice, one which was stimulated by his interaction with, adaptation to and integration into a global geographical context.

The Five Ws of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A Reflexive Approach to Enable the Production of Actionable Knowledge

The water-energy-food nexus is now a popular approach in the sustainability field. However, whereas the nexus calls for more holistic, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, the research produced over the past decade has been fragmented and specialized. Furthermore, there is still a gap between the nexus as a descriptive and analytical concept and its operationalization. Nexus research needs a shift from “thinking” to “action,” which we understand as the production of actionable knowledge. This paper delves into the literature and presents five “W” questions as an iterative heuristic for the nexus concept to encourage reflexivity and inter-and transdisciplinary dialogue, while aiming at the production of actionable knowledge. We draw on the literature to discuss the five “W” questions of the nexus, namely: (i) Why, in which we explore the purpose of nexus research for actionable knowledge; (ii) What, in which we explore the material aspect of the nexus and the interactions between water, energy and food systems; (iii) Where, in which we discuss issues of scale, interactions between scales, and the geographical context of the nexus; (iv) When, in which we consider temporal dimensions of nexus research with a particular emphasis on intergenerational trade-offs, and (v) Who, which focuses on nexus stakeholders and the importance of understanding issues of justice and equity. Finally, we discuss the connections and dependencies between the five Ws, reinforcing the importance for researchers to reflect on their decision-making and engage in inter- and transdisciplinary debate to enable nexus action.

Rebuilding a Profession: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Linguistic Culture of Comparative Literature in the United States and Spain

This article discusses why it is necessary to rebuild comparative literature in terms of a geopolitics of comparison. “Geopolitics” is understood here, following Gearóid Ó Tuathail, to mean a distinctive genre of geo-power which brought about the systemic closure of the surface of the globe. Comparative literature has been part and parcel of this process by extending a Eurocentric concept of “(national) literature” worldwide. A rebuilt comparative literature has, on the one hand, to bring to light significant evidence of the discipline’s history within the historical and geographical context of power relations and, on the other hand, confront the coloniality of knowledge on three levels—locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary. Here only the locutionary level is addressed by examining two journals—Comparative Literature and 1616: Anuario de la Sociedad Española de Literatura General y Comparada / Anuario de Literatura Comparada—from a bibliometric-analysis perspective.