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Geographical Dimension of Colonial Justice: Using GIS in Research on Law and History
- Michael Ng, T. Edwin Chow, David W.S. Wong
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- Journal:
- Law and History Review / Volume 34 / Issue 4 / November 2016
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 08 September 2016, pp. 1027-1045
- Print publication:
- November 2016
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- Article
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This article reviews and reflects on the use of the geographic information system (GIS) as a tool, or geographic information science (GIScience) as a research methodology, and associated techniques of analysis in an empirical study-in-progress on the law and history of early twentieth century British Hong Kong. The article begins by introducing the study and its objectives, as well as the rationale for adopting GIS/GIScience as one of its research methodologies. It then highlights the preliminary findings of the current project and compares them with those of earlier research on the legal history of early twentieth century Beijing using GIS. The article also discusses the difficulties involved in adopting such a digital tool and methodology in historical research. It concludes by reflecting on what GIS can help scholars understand about the social history of law in Hong Kong, beyond what is already known, and how specialists in law, history, and geography can collaborate in a digital law and history project involving the use of GIS. This article also gives an overview of the use of GIS in conducting empirical research in the humanities (including but not limited to history and legal history research) and points to digital sources and web sites useful to researchers who may need tools and data to launch a GIS study in law and history.
one - Introduction
- Edited by Christopher D. Lloyd, University of Liverpool, Ian G. Shuttleworth, Queen's University Belfast, David W. Wong, George Mason University, Virginia
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- Book:
- Social-Spatial Segregation
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 04 March 2022
- Print publication:
- 28 August 2014, pp 1-10
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- Chapter
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Summary
Segregation is a key theme for academic research and is also of major policy and political interest (see, for example, Ouseley, 2005; Finney and Simpson, 2009). Questions often asked include what the segregation level is, whether segregation has increased or decreased and how, whether it is greater or less in one country or city than in another, and whether it is socially harmful. These questions are eminently sensible and are easy to ask, but their answers are not simple to provide despite the weight of academic research on segregation dating back to the 1950s, and earlier. These questions remain hard to answer (and may indeed always be problematic), because they involve method and interpretation, themes about which there is considerable discussion. In the UK context, for instance, there was much debate as to how far residential segregation had grown by the time of the 2001 Census, and about the mechanisms that underpinned changes in the distribution of populations (Simpson, 2004, 2005; Johnston et al, 2005; Carling, 2008). However, the academic community is probably nearer now to dealing with these and similar questions than it has ever been before. This book aims to show how and why this is the case by showcasing some recent international research on segregation that highlights how new methods and new data can offer fresh insights into the measurement of segregation and understandings of some of the mechanisms that lead to (or away from) segregation.
This volume's initial beginnings lay in conversations between the editors about global and local measures of residential segregation. These interchanges rapidly expanded to debates about how population is structured across space and how to deal most effectively with the complex and difficult phenomenon of spatial scale. As the discussions broadened out, and individual research agendas developed, attention also started to be given to the population processes that shape residential segregation and, following the growing academic and policy interest in neighbourhood research (van Ham et al, 2012), on some of the social outcomes of segregation across a variety of domains. It also seemed that segregation research was at an interesting juncture for several reasons that lay on the intersection between data and methods.
seventeen - Conclusion: possible future agendas and summary thoughts
- Edited by Christopher D. Lloyd, University of Liverpool, Ian G. Shuttleworth, Queen's University Belfast, David W. Wong, George Mason University, Virginia
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- Book:
- Social-Spatial Segregation
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 04 March 2022
- Print publication:
- 28 August 2014, pp 413-426
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Summary
Introduction
The lesson that segregation matters is continually reinforced by events in the real world, including the recent Swedish riots in May 2013 and the English riots in August 2011. In each case, the root causes of the trouble were initially attributed to segregation and its close relative, social inequality. To a large extent, therefore, this book and the importance of its subject matter speak for themselves. The purpose of this concluding chapter is thus not to look backward and to elaborate on each chapter, but instead to look forward by drawing together the various contributions and by distilling their key points to suggest a broad research agenda on the theme of segregation. Although taking this type of overview is problematic (for instance, others may have very different visions), our aim is to stimulate debate about some future directions for further work. There are four broad avenues that occur from our reading of the book; these are measuring and capturing segregation, understanding processes, making comparisons and understanding outcomes. Although the emphasis is on measurement or methodological issues, the four broad avenues together pose challenges and opportunities for segregation researchers, and we argue that this book is well placed to begin such a stock-taking exercise as it brings together international contributions dealing with segregation in countries including Sweden, the UK and the US, draws on a range of different types of data, as well as different methodologies. These agendas for the future build on the themes that have been the focus for the book, and the interrelated trinity of concepts, data and methods are of key importance in understanding research to date, and how it may develop in the future.
Measuring and capturing segregation
There have been considerable advances in the past decade in how segregation is measured that have taken the field beyond the status quo of traditional census-based analyses of segregation. Historically, these have used population counts aggregated for fixed spatial output units that have been provided by national statistical bodies. In the UK context, for example, typical units that have often been used have been wards and in the US, tracts or block groups.
three - Using a general spatial pattern statistic to evaluate spatial segregation
- Edited by Christopher D. Lloyd, University of Liverpool, Ian G. Shuttleworth, Queen's University Belfast, David W. Wong, George Mason University, Virginia
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- Book:
- Social-Spatial Segregation
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 04 March 2022
- Print publication:
- 28 August 2014, pp 45-64
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
Many indices proposed by social scientists to measure segregation have been criticised for their aspatial nature, failing to distinguish different spatial patterns of population effectively. During the past two decades, a series of spatial measures have been proposed to address this deficiency. However, most of these measures adopt the ‘smoothing’ approach by including populations in the neighbouring units when comparing racial-ethnic mix across areal units. The actual separations among populations over space are not considered. In this chapter, a newly proposed general measure of spatial patterns based on proximity was modified to measure racial-ethnic segregation. To demonstrate the utility of this measure, it was used to evaluate the spatial separations between population groups in hypothetical landscapes and Washington, DC, based on the 2000 and 2010 Census data. While the proposed measure shares some conceptual similarities with the proximity index proposed several decades ago, it has a statistical foundation that its value can be tested for significance. However, the current testing procedure is not highly robust. This chapter also discusses several conceptual issues in measuring segregation, including the nature of segregation and its relations to clustering.
As pointed out by Johnston et al in Chapter Two of this volume, to be able to measure segregation level accurately is critical in determining if segregation matters. However, how segregation can be and should be measured is very much dependent on our conceptualisations of segregation. Numerous segregation indices or methods for assessing the level of segregation have been introduced. Each of them, either implicitly or explicitly, adopts specific or multiple conceptualisations of segregation. In other words, segregation is multidimensional (Massey and Denton, 1988) and multifaceted (Peach, 1996). Thus, results from different measures may complement each other, but they may not be comparable, as they likely reflect different aspects of segregation. Several scholars have assessed the number of ‘effective’ dimensions of segregation (see, for example, Reardon and O’Sullivan, 2004; Brown and Chung, 2006). While thoroughly assessing this topic is beyond the scope of this chapter, and the focus here is on improving segregation measurement along the spatial dimension, only the clustering dimension of segregation will be dealt with as it is more spatial than other dimensions of segregation. Specifically, the objective of this chapter is to evaluate how different population groups are spatially separated.