History and Philosophy of Geography Study GroupAuthor(s): Hugh MasonSource: Area, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Jun., 1990), p. 210Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20002856 .

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210 IBG Annual Conference

albeit without a democratic face. For some this has raised the prospect of applying to China Warren's thesis regarding the progressive role of capitalism in the third world.

Terry Cannon challenged this interpretation. He first offered a critique of the Warren thesis particularly with regard to its ambiguities and confusions regarding both its claims to Marxist credentials and its conflation of capitalism with imperialism. Secondly, Terry questioned its applicability to the China case by contrasting its claims for a progressive capitalism with the

Maoist argument that it was the absence of capitalist relations in China that provided the opportunity for non-capitalist programmes of development; programmes of collectivisation to which some notable achievements are attributable. Thirdly, Terry questioned the applicability of the Warren concepts in a situation where a consciousness of the exploitive and oppressive role of capitalism, it could be argued, had been imbibed by the people of China. The ensuing discussion covered a variety of issues from the nature and variable impact of post-Mao policies, the spatial differentiation of China's economy and the characterisation of China as state socialist or state capitalist.

Joe Doherty University of St Andrews

History and philosophy of geography study group The second session run by the History and Philosophy of Geography Study Group was unusual in two respects. It was intended to run as a workshop session rather than as a formal paper session but two of the three participants were, at the last minute, unable to attend the conference. Nick Cox however expanded his introductory talk with considerable aplomb to cover a much wider consideration of non-linear behaviour than he had originally intended. In addition to speaking about simplicity and complexity he placed non-linear thinking in physical geography into the wider context of developments in the natural sciences. There followed a lengthy and profitable exchange of understandings and ideas on a variety of aspects of the theme including the relation of non-linear behaviour in the physical sciences to behaviour in the human sciences, the reality of non-linear models, the relation of equifinality to nonlinearity, and the problems of uncertainty in

matters of prediction. At the end of the session the Chairman was left wondering whether all conference sessions would not be better were more scheduled speakers unable to attend!

Hugh Mason Portsmouth Polytechnic

Nationalism and regional development This session sought to re-examine the issues raised by peripheral nationalism and the persistence of ethnic identification as an agent of political mobilisation. Commonly these demands are allied to a territorial base and are reactive to the cultural and economic hegemony established by the dominant core group. The forms which such domination and controls assume are place-specific, though their effect is to ensure that such regional-based conflicts are of continuing significance.

John Agnew (Syracuse) opened the session with a theoretical statement arguing why ethnically-based conflicts are persistent. Identifying these as exemplars of intractible social conflicts, the basis of the ethnic intractibility arises from the practices, interests, goals and symbols which are generated by ethnic conflict, many of which are of a zero-sum nature. In short, they cannot either be negotiated away or readily be mediated. Further, the intractibility of ethnically-based conflict arises not from the stance taken by the adversaries towards, but results from, the dynamics of the conflict itself.

Pyrs Gruffud (Nottingham) presented the first of the case-studies, focussing his argument on the territorial basis of Welsh nationalism. The thrust of his paper was historical showing how

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