The Dictionary of Human Geography

Comp. by: LElumalai Stage : Revises1 ChapterID: 9781405132879_4_C Date:31/3/09
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9781405132879/appln/3B2/revises/9781405132879_4_C.3d

Suggested reading

Gereffi and Korzeniewicz (1994); Hughes and

Reimer (2004).

common pool resources resources, usually

natural, from which it is difficult to exclude

users, and whose use reduces resource avail-

ability for others (Ostrom, Dietz, Dolsak,

Stern, Stonich and Weber, 1999).Contrathe

tragedy of the commonsthesis and its calls

for privatization or centralized state control,

common pool resources have often been gov-

erned sustainably by common property

regimes, whose rules are structured around

the resource’s size, mobility, renewability and

other characteristics. Common pool resources

thus differ from true open access resources.

It is unclear, though, whether and how these

lessons can be ‘scaled up’ to address contem-

porary problems at larger scales, with more

users and greater rates of change. jm

Suggested reading

Dietz, Ostrom and Stern (2003); Ostrom, Dietz,

Dolsak, Stern, Stonich and Weber (2002).

common property regimes Forms of own-

ership and access whereby all or parts of a local

environment are owned and managed by acom-

munity. This differs from private ownership,

state ownership and open access regimes, where

nobody owns the environment.

Commonpropertyregimes have existed

for thousands of years. They have become

more popular as indigenous practices are rec-

ognized and validated, and the limitations of

state ownership, top-down management and

private property become increasingly appar-

ent. Common property regimes may be par-

ticularly suited to ‘resources’ where it is

possible to restrict access, but private owner-

ship, while possible, is a very costly way to

manage the resource. pm

communication(s) The geography of com-

munication treats the sending, receiving and

exchange of information and messages face-

to-face or via other means (letters, media,

telephone, Internet). Because communication

is essential to social relations, it is central to

many of the processes of interest to human

geographers, such as the construction ofdif-

ference, the definition of community, the

causes and consequences ofsegregationand

the conduct ofsocial movements. At issue

is who has access to what information, and

howspace,placeandnetworksshape this

access.

Despite the power of information technology

to enable communication at a distance (see

time–space compression;time–space con-

vergence;time–space distanciation), face-

to-face communication is still prized in many

theories inhuman geography.Ineconomic

geography, for instance, the spatialagglom-

erationof certain types of industry (such as

software development, the film industry or

watchmaking) inindustrial districtsis seen

as a prime facilitator ofinnovation: the key

motivation for such agglomerations is believed

to be the ease of face-to-face communication,

which many see as necessary to the develop-

ment oftrustin social interactions (Murphy,

2006).Inurban geography,thedesireforrela-

tively easy face-to-face communication is seen

as the main rationale for the clustering (see

clusters)ofproducer servicesindenseurban

areas. Information exchanged face-to-face in

social networksis also important to the func-

tioningoflabourandhousingmarkets,because

large numbers of people learn about and evalu-

ate employment and housing options via such

channels.Becausethenatureoftheinformation

exchanged,includingitslocationaldimensions,

depends in part on the characteristics of the

people in a social network, the socialidentity

of network constituents is important. In sum,

the process offace-to-face communication plays

an important role in concentrating certain types

of human activity in certain places and incertain

groups of people.

Because telecommunications permit com-

municating over great distances, questions

arise as to the power of such technologies to

support the dispersal of human activity. Will

information technologies such as theinternet

and video conferencing undermine theraison

d’eˆtrefor urban agglomerations and industrial

districts (i.e. the need for face-to-face con-

tact)? In addressing this question, geographers

have examined the extent to which communi-

cation via technology is asubstitutefor face-to-

face interaction (in which case one might

expect greater dispersal of human activity),

a stimulus to face-to-face interaction (in

which case one would expect information

technologies to lead to a greater demand for

face-to-face contact and therefore increased

agglomeration effects) or acomplementto per-

sonalcontact(inwhich case one might expect

information technologies to have little impact

on the concentration or dispersal of human

activity) (Janelle, 2004). sha

Suggested reading

Wheeler, Aoyama and Warf (2000).

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 102 31.3.2009 9:45pm

COMMON POOL RESOURCES