SEDAAG1

60th Annual SEDAAG Meeting
West Palm Beach, FL, Nov., 2005

Index with Links to
Abstracts for Finalists
of Student Honors Paper Competition

All ten of these papers are finalists in the Student Honors Competition and have been accepted into the Student Honors paper sessions. The names of authors listed below are linked to the paper abstracts. Please check to make sure your abstract is listed correctly and inform me ASAP about any discrepancies or broken links. Allan James, SEDAAG 2005 Program CoChair, AJames@sc.edu

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Table of Student Honors Papers by First Author's Name:

Session 1 SEDAAG Student Honors Competition I
Organizer and chair: Timothy Warner, West Virginia University
Matthew S. Cox, University of West Florida - Ecotourism in Walton County, Florida
Sarah Schwartz, University of South Carolina - Discourse as a Means of Understanding Ecotourism: An Example from Wechiau, Ghana
Stephanie Simon, University of Kentucky - Is Public Space the Place? Interrogating the Crowd as a Political Actor
Robert A. Yarbrough, University of Georgia - Becoming Hispanic: The Negotiation of Racialized Identities Among Central American Immigrants in Atlanta, GA, USA
Marcia England, University of Kentucky - When Good Neighbors go Bad: The Effect of Good Neighbor Agreements on Neighborhoods
Session 2 SEDAAG Student Honors Competition II
Organizer: Timothy Warner, West Virginia University
Chair: Katie Algeo, Western Kentucky University
Joshua D. Durkee, University of Georgia - The Spatial and Temporal Variability in Mesoscale Convective Complex Precipitation Efficiency
George Roedl, West Virginia University - An Exploratory Comparison in LULC and LULC Changes Between Six Counties in South Mississippi: 1985-1999
Matt Schmidtlein, University of South Carolina - A SOM-based Sensitivity Analysis of the Social Vulnerability Index
E. Spencer Fleury, University of South Florida - A Geographic Approach to School Choice and Economic Stratification: Results From Hillsborough County and Pinellas County, Florida
Haifeng Zhang, University of South Carolina - The Geographic Analysis of Public-Private School Choice in South Carolina

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Abstracts

Matthew S. Cox, Ecotourism in Walton County, Florida, University of West Florida
This study examines ways Walton County, Florida, can take the fragmented initiatives of various federal, state and local agencies dealing with planning, tourism, environmental protection and economic development and form them into a coherent ecotourism policy. Applicable subcategories are identified for inclusion in a countywide plan for efficient marketing. Historical analysis identifies natural and cultural assets for preservation, while maps, satellite imagery and photographs identify streams, rivers, wetlands and upland habitat for conservation. Government documents are used to find common goals and funding sources to achieve these goals. Ecotourism, as part of an overall sustainable development policy, is a suitable means for Walton County to preserve its natural and cultural assets and accommodate future growth.

Joshua D. Durkee, The Spatial and Temporal Variability in Mesoscale Convective Complex Precipitation Efficiency, Climate Research Laboratory, Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.
Mesoscale convective complexes are a large, long-lived, highly organized type of convective weather systems capable of producing both detrimental and beneficial rainfall in the central and eastern United States. Further study on both the detrimental and beneficial effects of MCC precipitation may be understood by examining the capability of MCC precipitation production and the mechanisms that drive MCC precipitation efficiency. This study examins the spatial and temporal variability in warm-season (April – August) MCC precipitation efficiency (PE) in the United States for the years 1982, 1983, and 1993. MCC PE peaks in April and steadily declines each month thereafter. On average, MCCs initiate near 35°N in April and latitude of initiation increases through July with a slight decrease in August. A Spearman correlation coefficient test shows although there is a significant relationship in both domains (space and time), MCC PE changes most significantly with time. However, the relationship between MCC PE in either domain does not offer a physical explanation for their trends. Therefore we must explore the possible relationship between MCC PE and atmospheric dynamics.

Marcia England, When Good Neighbors Go Bad: The effect of Good Neighbor Agreements on neighborhoods. Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, england@uky.edu
In this paper, I look at how the discourses, practices, and spatialities surrounding neighbors and neighborhoods are mobilized by a particular neighborhood association in Seattle, Washington. By examining how this group enacts and encourages neighborliness, I provide an analysis of how exclusionary social relations work on the ground through an examination of the discourses, practices and spatialities of Seattle’s Alcohol Impact Areas (AIAs). AIAs are zones designed to address the problem of chronic public inebriation by limiting certain types of alcohol sales. This paper uses the implementation of Good Neighbor Agreements in Alcohol Impact Areas as its primary case study. Good Neighbor Agreements are agreements which outline business practices and detail certain restrictions to improve neighborhood livability, including restricting the hours of alcohol sales, removing high alcohol content/low cost beverages, and not selling single cans or bottles of alcoholic beverages. “Good Neighbors” don’t sell beverages that chronic public inebriates prefer. “Good Neighbors” prevent crime that way. The effect of this program is the exclusion of those that are seen as outsiders and the reification of narrowly defined ideas of neighbors and neighborhoods.
Key words: territoriality, public space, neighborhoods.

E. Spencer Fleury, A Geographic Approach to School Choice and Economic Stratification: Results from Hillsborough County and Pinellas County, Florida. University of South Florida, Department of Geography
Hillsborough County and Pinellas County, Florida, implemented school choice plans in 2004 and 2003, respectively. The two counties share many demographic similarities; however, their school choice plans differ in some noteworthy ways. This presents a rare opportunity for a natural experiment. This paper uses an ordinary least squares regression model to examine changes in the residential distribution (at the ZIP code level) of student population at public schools following the implementation of those school choice plans. The results of this analysis suggest that different types of school choice plans are unlikely to lead to different patterns of economic stratification of student populations.

George Roedl. An Exploratory Comparison in LULC Changes between Six Counties in South Mississippi: 1985-1999. West Virginia University.
Satellite images were used to construct LULC classifications from two time periods. Comparison of similarities and differences between the overall study area and separate counties within the study area was conducted. An ESDA approach was undertaken to find trends and deviations from the trends. By exploring the data, peculiarities within the study area were observed. These peculiarities have the potential to incite questions and provide a framework for further research directions. With new questions formulated, new hypotheses can be constructed and investigated more intensely.

Matt Schmidtlein. A SOM-based sensitivity analysis of the social vulnerability index. Department of Geography, University of South Carolina.
While interest in creating indices for environmental vulnerabilities has increased, the lack of agreement upon a variable against which they can be measured limits our ability to determine their accuracy. This problem is particularly the case for those indices involving social contributions to vulnerability. To address this problem, a self-organizing map (SOM) based clustering approach is proposed to assess one particular index of U.S. counties, the social vulnerability index (SOVI) (Boruff, Cutter, and Shirley 2003). A SOM is used to cluster counties according to the 42 variables used to construct the SOVI. The range of SOVI values for each cluster is analyzed. Those with small ranges of SOVI values are seen as groups in which the SOVI performs well in assessing vulnerability. Linked, multivariate visualization tools provided by the SomVIS application are used to explore those groups with larger ranges, where the index may be performing poorly. These include heavily urban areas, and those with greater levels of ethnic and non-white populations. The analysis concludes with suggestions for future index construction that account for identified limitations.

Sarah Schwartz. Discourse as a means of understanding ecotourism: An example from Wechiau, Ghana. Geography Dept., University of South Carolina.
Many of the ecotourism projects currently operating in developing countries are material representations of the goals and efforts of multiple parties which often include local and national governmental bodies, non-governmental organizations and the communities themselves. The goals and expectations of these parties do not always align perfectly, yet once a project physically exists, those founding discourses are often overshadowed by the effects and potential effects a project may have on a community. Through a description of a project operating in Wechiau, Ghana, this paper demonstrates how a project’s founding ideas continue to influence and shape the project after it becomes operational and, perhaps more importantly, how unaddressed differences between discourses can potentially undermine the project.

Stephanie Simon. Is public space the place? Interrogating the crowd as a political actor. University of Kentucky.
The discourse surrounding public space remains a powerful mythos in our conceptions of both urban life and the workings of democracy. This paper seeks to place the crowd into debates about the political place of public space by considering how the crowd, as a site of flux, instability, proximity and visibility, both does and does not foster aspects of the ideal of spatialized democracy and inclusion. I look to one radical protest group, Reclaim the Streets, to consider how people congregated in public spaces work through this mythos of public space both in the temporary moment of appropriation and later as it is dispersed through mediated forms. This is accomplished through a discourse analysis of the websites through which Reclaim the Streets largely operates and also of the media portrayals of their events. This analysis interrogates how the participants wish to deploy crowds to certain effects and how these crowd events become perceived within the spaces they appropriate and later in mediated forms.

Robert A. Yarbrough. Becoming Hispanic: The Negotiation of Racialized Identities Among Central American Immigrants in Atlanta, GA, USA. Department of Geography, University of Georgia. ryarbrou@uga.edu
For many migrants from Latin America, “Hispanic/Latino” is an identity that they encounter in the United States with which they were unfamiliar in their home countries and must negotiate in their everyday lives in a new context. Numerous empirical studies demonstrate that transnational migrants from Latin America retain a national identity, while simultaneously adopting the pan-ethnic moniker “Hispanic/Latino”. Through a case study of Central American immigrants in Atlanta, GA this paper draws on in-depth interviews and qualitative analysis to examine this process of identity negotiation. Results indicate that Central American immigrants in Atlanta generally assume this “Hispanic/Latino” label and that they understand this identity in racial terms. Interview participants adopt this pan-ethno racial identity through a complex process involving the interplay between how they think of themselves and their perceptions of how native-born (primarily white and black) Americans view them. The engagement with a process of racialized “othering”, wherein interview participants are socially positioned as similar to (or exactly the same as) Mexican-identified residents, contributes to the assumption of such a pan-ethno racial “Hispanic/Latino” identity.

Haifeng Zhang. The Geographic Analysis of Public-Private School Choice in South Carolina. University of South Carolina
Despite considerable debate over the public-private school choice issue, limited research has investigated the spatial pattern and the correlates of parental choice. Based on the 2000 US census data, this paper explores the spatial disparities and the determinants of elementary school choice across school districts in South Carolina. In comparison to the previous research, this paper has three distinctive characteristics: The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) school locales were used to analyze the spatial disparities of public school enrollment rates; Data for the entire population, whites and blacks were analyzed separately to better understand the racial differences in choice; Spatial regression models were used for the empirical analysis. The findings of this research include: (1) Significant differences of public school enrollment rates between urban, suburban, and rural areas were identified; (2) public school enrollment rate is sensitive to education quality, proportion of minority students, and social status (e.g., education attainment, poverty, and residence status); (3) spatial autocorrelation was identified for the spatial datasets. This study provides evidence for the existing choice theories and could provide insights into the education reform policies.

This address: http://people.cas.sc.edu/ajames/SEDAAG/05/_HonorsAbstract_Index.html

Last updated Oct. 21, 2005, by A. James