considerable emphasis in electoral geography
on theneighbourhood effect. In addition,
the mobilization of voters is also at least partly
a spatially specific activity, with political par-
ties focusing their electioneering on those
places where they expect to get the best
returns.
Much analysis in electoral geography uses
ecological data – often combining electoral
returns for places with census data on the char-
acteristics of their inhabitants – and thus faces
problems associated withecological infer-
ence (cf. ecological fallacy; modifiable
areal unit problem). Geographers have also
added spatial information to survey data,
facilitating analyses that at least partially cir-
cumvent those problems, although in the USA
studies of patterns of voting by state and
Congressional District have produced sub-
stantial insights into the political economy of
elections there (Archer and Taylor, 1991).
In many electoral systems – especially those
based on single-member constituencies (the
so-called first-past-the-post system, deployed
in both the UK and the USA) – the translation
of votes into seats in the relevant legislature
is an inherently geographical process, with the
membership of such bodies determined by
who wins most votes in each of a set of territor-
ial constituencies. Constituency-delimitation
(cf.redistricting) can thus be highly politi-
cized in some countries, with district bound-
aries defined to promote the interests of one
party over those of another, although similar
outcomes may result without any such activity
when redistricting is undertaken by independ-
ent, non-partisan, bodies (Gudgin and Taylor,
1979: cf.districting algorithm;gerryman-
dering;malapportionment).
As part of their continued mobilization of
support in places, parties and/or candidates
may influence the allocation ofpublic goods
towards favoured areas, both to reward those
who have supported them at past contests and
to solicit support from others there (cf.pork
barrel). The geography of election results is
thus a potential foundation for ageography
of politicalpower. (See alsodemocracy.) rj
Suggested reading
Johnston (2005a); Johnston and Pattie (2006);
Johnston, Pattie, Dorling and Rossiter (2006).
emigration A particular form ofmigration:
the term is usually reserved for migration that
occurs between countries. To emigrate is to
leave a place, the opposite ofimmigration,
to enter a new place. Emigration was defined
as a basichuman rightin Article 12 of the
1966 UN International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (which came into force in
1976): ‘Everyone shall be free to leave any
country, including his [or her] own’ (United
Nations, n.d.). Note that the right to emigrate
is not matched by the right to immigrate, or to
enter the country of one’s choice. The value of
this right is therefore debatable. Furthermore,
countries vary widely in their observance of
this right. During thecold warperiod,states
within the Warsaw Pact typically prohibited
their citizens from leaving, especially after
walls were built to separate thecapitalist
and statesocialistcountries of Europe. The
number of countries that currently prohibit
emigration is limited, but allnation-states
regulate exit to a degree through the granting,
or withholding, of passports (Torpey, 2000).
Countries also differ in their practices of mon-
itoring emigration: some track their citizens
abroad through registration systems, and
collect detailed statistics on all entries and
departures, while others are only interested in
citizens who are actually resident in the
nation-state (see alsocitizenship). dhSuggested reading
Castles and Miller (2003).emotional geography The study of the
dynamic, recursive relation between emotions
andplace or space. Emotional geography
includes diverse ways of understanding the
differentialtopologiesandtopographiesof
emotion. As a body of work it responds, on the
one hand, to the claim that emotions are an
intractable aspect of life and thus potentially a
constitutive part of all geographies (Anderson
and Smith, 2001) and, on the other, to the
recognition that emotions have long been
manipulated and modulated as a constitutive
part of various forms ofpower(Thrift, 2004a).
As such, work on emotional geographies elicits
the multiple ways in which different emotions
emerge from, and re-produce, specific socio-
spatial orders and engages with how emotions
become part of the different relations that make
up the lived geographies of place (Davidson,
Bondi and Smith, 2005). Consequently, the
term ‘emotional geography’ does not designate
a sub-discipline limited to the study of a set of
emotions (such as fear, boredom or anxiety).
Rather, it is composed of ways of considering
how emotions, along with linked modalities
such as feeling, mood oraffect, are constitu-
tive elements within the ongoing composition
ofspace–time, and exploring how learning toGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_E Final Proof page 188 1.4.2009 3:17pmEMIGRATION