Technological Risks: Society, Policy and GeographyAuthor(s): Gordon WalkerSource: Area, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Jun., 1996), pp. 266-267Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20003685 .

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266 RGS-IBG Annual Conference

of such objectives in the minds of farmers who only remain committed to them while they create the basis for sustainable incomes. A shift in state funding could lead readily to the collapse of these initiatives. Finally, Gordon Dickinson (Glasgow) examined the strategies for

managing tourism in the environs of Loch Lomond. Long-term research revealed that environmental damage on the loch shore was as much the result of environmental processes as the impact of human activity. A more considered and holistic approach was needed to local management if simplistic responses based upon criticising the visitor were to be avoided.

The presentations managed to combined debates over general issues of sustainable development policy in Scotland with the problems of local implementation. They not only highlighted the need for understanding of local context but also the gap between stated intentions in government policy and the lack of public confidence in those state

ments. The ERG would like to thank the Strathclyde Regional Council for its support of this session.

Richard Munton University College London

Technological Risks: Society, Policy and Geography With ' risk' featuring increasingly explicitly on both policy and academic agendas, this half day session sought to bring together research by geographers and others concerned with contemporary and future landscapes of technological risk. Originally transatlantic in flavour, a couple of late withdrawals of papers meant that the session focused more on work in the UK (with some mightily welcome and able late replacements). Gordon Walker (Staffordshire) began by laying out the importance of geography in the study of technological risks, identifying the uneven distribution of risks in both spatial and social terms as providing a clear role and reason for a focus on both the physical and social space of technological risk burdens.

These introductory points were then illustrated by ongoing work mapping patterns of major accident hazards, stressing the multiple geographies that can be constructed. Peter Simmons (Lancaster) introduced a complementary sociological focus critically analysing the conceptual limitations of much work on risk perceptions. Reviewing the development of perception research from early ' engineering' and psychological traditions he argued that the need to de-reify the concepts of 'risk', 'community' and 'trust' within a more contextualised approach by the analysis of public responses. The theme of risk perception was further developed by Jacquie Burgess (UCL) who drew on recent comparative work in the UK and Netherlands to analyse aspects of public responses to biotechnology risks. Focus group discussion and extracts were used to explore the gendered construction of risks and to display the extent to which lay publics are able to engage with the range of ethical and moral issues

which biotechnology has raised. With a nice collection of NIMBY-type acronyms, Simon Gerrard (UEA) approached the

risk issues within waste management via ' risk communication', providing an analysis of how approaches to both communication and public participation have developed over time and debating some of the difficult judgements to be made in evaluating the effectiveness of more consensual decision making processes. Peter Hughes (Sunderland), shifted attention to nuclear risks, with the work of Ulrich Beck featuring (not for the first time during the session) in his approach to emergency planning issues. He argued that with emergency plans more geared towards protecting society than community, the management of risk is essentially in conflict

with democracy. Only through radical reform and direct forms of participatory democracy could communities be empowered to potentially reject risk producing technologies. Andrew Blower's (OU) final paper provided a complementary perspective on both nuclear risks and the ' risk society ', in a broad and thought provoking analysis of the current and future political

context for risk management. All in all a session which covered a range of forms of technological risk, and which provided more than the sum of its parts in displaying clear

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RGS-IBG Annual Conference 267

interconnections between the spatial, social, and political dimensions of risk perception, communication and management.

Gordon Walker Staffordshire University

Rethinking geopolitics In spite of problems caused by the inclement weather in Glasgow, the PGSG hosted two

major sessions entitled 'Rethinking geopolitics' and a joint session with the UDSG and EGSG entitled 'Methodological issues in studying elites'.

The first session 'Rethinking geopolitics' was convened by David Atkinson, Klaus Dodds and James Sidaway. It was intended to promote further reflection on some of the methodo logical and epistemological issues raised by the literatures of critical geopolitics and critical histories of the geopolitical knowledges. The sessions were split into four parts-the first was entitled ' problematising geopolitics ' and featured four papers, by John Agnew (Syracuse) who spoke on the pursuit of primacy, David Slater (Loughborough) on rethinking the political and the state, Eleanore Kofman (Nottingham Trent) on contemporary geopolitics and Joanne Sharp (Glasgow) on the new world order. Each paper sought to problematise geopolitical discourse and pose questions to recent attempts to reformulate geopolitics. Joanne Sharp's presentation was particularly entertaining as she covered the writings of the Reader's Digest, Tom Clancy and other forms of popular literature seeking to chart the geopolitical contours of the new world order.

The second part was reduced in scope as two presenters (Bertil Haggman, Helsingborg and Jurgen Ossenbrugge, Hamburg) were prevented from attending due to illness. Unfortunately, the organisers were not aware of their absences until the last moment! However, the two remaining papers by Geoffrey Parker (Birmingham) and Mark Bassin (UCL) provided the basis for a lively discussion on French and Russian geopolitics respectively. The two presenters effectively located French and Russian geopolitical writings in a wider social and political milieu. One area of discussion which followed was whether Yves Lacoste and the

Herodote Group were now producing rather reactionary writings in contrast to a more radical past especially in the 1970s.

The third part of this session was concerned with contemporary geopolitics and four papers were offered: Paul Routledge (Glasgow) and Gerard Toal (Virginia Tech) spoke on the Zapista rebellion in Mexico, Giles Mohan (Portsmouth) talked on the theme of adjustment in sub-saharan Africa, Mike Samers (Liverpool) focused on immigration and the French state and John O'Loughlin concluded with US geopolitical uncertainties in the post Cold War world. He managed to propose eight possible scenarios for the US!

The final session underwent some change as Sanjay Chaturvedi (Panjab) replaced Ghazi Falah (Lampeter) who could not attend the conference. Sanjay presented a paper entitled ' The Mini-Cold War in South Asia: the geopolitics of Indo-Pak relations '. The papers

continued the contemporary focus and investigated a range of themes-John Connell (Sydney) considered the last remaining colonies in a breathtaking tour of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Anthony Christopher (Port Elizabeth) contemplated the uncertainties facing South Africa as it re-enters the mainstream international political community and Andrew Kirby (Arizona) concluded with an entertaining discussion of the implications for US society of recent bombings such as Oklahoma. Attendance at these sessions was good and we hoped that speakers and audience alike found them useful.

David Atkinson University of Wales, Lampeter

Postgraduate Research in Population Geography This was the second bi-annual session which aims to give postgraduate researchers an opportunity to present their research findings to the wider community of population

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