Since the late nineteenth century, Switzerland, a self-professed “playground” and “classroom” of the world, has successfully promoted itself as a desirable destination for international study and tourism. The historically entangled private schooling and tourism industries have steadily communicated idealised images of educational tourism in Switzerland via advertising. Concentrating on the period 1890 -1945 – when promotional ties between tourism organisations and private schools solidified – this thesis investigates the social construction of educational tourist place in two different types of promotion aimed at English-speaking markets: private international school prospectuses and education-focused tourism brochures. An analysis of early prospectuses from three long-standing private international schools and of education-focused tourism guides written by municipal organisations, travel agencies, school boards and the Swiss government revealed highly visual, ideologically-charged textual representations of locations and markets simultaneously defined, idealised and commodified international education in Switzerland. Chapters provide close interpretation of documents and aim, through thick description, to understand specific place-making examples within a wider socio-historical context. Chapter One examines the earliest prospectuses of Le Rosey and Brillantmont, two of the world’s must exclusive Swiss schools (1890-1916). An examination of photo-essay style prospectuses reveals highly selective portrayals of “Château” architecture communicated capacity to deliver a “high-class” and gender appropriate Swiss finishing. Visual cues hallmarking literary and sporting preferences indicated texts catered to the gaze of social-climbing, Anglo-centric markets desirous a continental cosmopolitan education that was not overly “foreign.” Chapter Two analyses the social construction of towns in French-speaking Switzerland as attractive educational centres (1890-1914). It explores how guides promoting Geneva, Neuchâtel and Lausanne constructed an idealised study-abroad landscape through thematic testaments to the educative capacities of local human and natural landscapes. The remaining chapters explore interwar texts. Chapter Three examines a high-altitude institute’s use of the idealising skills of high-end tourism poster artists to manufacture a pleasant, school-like image for the mountain sanatoria-like campus of Beau Soleil. Chapter Four investigates two series of education-focused tourism guidebooks which promoted education in Switzerland. An examination of a Swiss National Tourist Office series reveals discourses of nationhood racialised the Swiss as natural-born pedagogues and constructed Switzerland as a safe, moral destination populated by cooperative, multi-lingual and foreign student-friendly folk. An analysis of R. Perrin Travel Agency’s series explores guidebooks which openly classified education as a tourism commodity. The final chapter examines Le Rosey and Brillantmont’s interwar prospectuses within the context of complex, transnational schooling and school advertising practices. An analysis of images of school sports at winter holiday resorts suggests prospectuses expressed the sense of freedom which accompanies upper-class identity more so than any sense of gender-driven restriction. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

The thesis focuses on the cultural and historical potential of the development of peripheral regions of Czechia. The case study covers three model areas - regions of municipalities with an authorised municipal office Horažďovice, Kašperské Hory and Netolice. The aim of the thesis is to accomplish a discursive analysis of the concept of the cultural and historical potential, together with related terms, and to consider feasibility of its embodiment into the context of surrounding regions development in Czechia, to identify cultural and historical potential of selected model areas and to propose possibilities of its usage. The methodology lies in the study of literature and in the research of selected areas. The cultural and historical potential is rated from the identifiable elements and their particular importance. The potential is relative to the area, number of inhabitants and the number of parts of the municipality. The thesis highlights several findings: (i) the coherent definition of the term cultural and historical potential does not exist in scientific literature; (ii) usage of tourism perspectives in the regional development is ahead of focus on local population (regional identity and local cultural life is less frequent); (iii) cultural and historical potential differentiate in the border...

This academic work is devoted to the examination of the relationship between geography and sport. Firstly, it presents the geography of sport as a subdiscipline in the system of geography. Afterwards it discusses the relationship between geography and sport in general in different environments and at different scale levels. After the general introduction, the work deals with sports attendance as a possible characteristics of the position of sport in the area. The analytical part examines the relationship between geography and sport on specific mechanisms in a particular environment. The research studies ice hockey in the Czechia. In the first part of the analysis, ice hockey is generally presented from the beginning to the present in the area, then the attendance of the highest domestic hockey league in the period not marked by significant changes in spatial administration (from 1993, when Czechoslovakia ceased to exist, or from 2000, when the self-governmental regions were established), until 2019, when the league under investigation was not affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The analyzed data come mostly from official internet sources. The position of sport in society is changing in time and space. Sport is creating the identity and social community. The attendance of the league is growing...

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<p dir="ltr">How do we navigate complex social situations? What tools, strategies, and experiences do we use in our attempts to connect with each other? This project delves into the pervasive nature of performativity in everyday life, particularly within the context of Vietnamese Americans navigating predominantly white geographies in the Midwest. Drawing from theories of performance, spatial dynamics, labor geography, and racial capitalism, this project explores how Vietnamese Americans strategically leverage their identities and cultural heritage in spaces such as Vietnamese restaurants. These performances serve as strategies for survival and legibility, shaping both economic prosperity and social recognition within marginalized communities. The research questions posed aim to uncover how marginalized bodies utilize performance to navigate white spaces, leverage specific performances in socially constructed spaces, and negotiate the complexities of the American dream across generations. Situated in the Midwest, this project particularly focuses on Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, where Asian American communities often contend with hypervisibility as racialized Others and spatially isolated exclusion. By examining performance and performativity as lived practices, I shed light on the cultural reproduction and negotiation of spaces within Asian American communities in the Midwest.</p>

In 1963, M.H. Abrams suggested that the ultimate source of Wordsworth's poetry is the Bible, and, in particular, the New Testament. This thesis, however, demonstrates the importance of the Old Testament and offers the first extended analysis of Wordsworth's use of Old Testament rhetoric. It examines both his affectionate perceptions of the natural world, and the Biblical recollections that saturate his writing. The purpose is to align two critical discourses - on Scripture and topography - and in doing so, situate Wordsworth's sense of himself as a poet-prophet in both Britain and America. The four chapters are structured topographically (Dwelling, Vales, Mountains, Rivers), and organised around a phenomenological experience of lived space, as expressed in key poems. Close analysis of Wordsworth's poetic language from Descriptive Sketches to Yarrow Revisited reveals the influence of the Bible (and the recent analysis of sacred Hebrew poetry undertaken by Lowth), while the theories of Heidegger and Bachelard provide a conceptual approach to Wordsworth's investment in nature. The epilogue opens questions of Wordsworth's reception in America by exploring the awareness of cultural and physical geography and sense of Wordsworth's prophetic ministry amongst his heirs. The thesis concludes that Wordsworth's extensive recourse to scriptural language and the physical landscape strengthened his claim to be a Prophet of Nature. His poetry self-consciously adopted the universal 'language of men' - that of the King James Bible.

Dans le cadre de la mondialisation et dans celui, concomitant, d’une certaine uniformisation culturelle, nous sommes confrontés au paradoxe de l’émergence d’identités et de territoires très localisés (en Aquitaine comme ailleurs), s’appuyant sur des représentations comme sur des pratiques culturelles originales ou, tout au moins, qui s’affichent comme telles. En quoi consistent exactement ces cultures locales qui souvent se déclinent dans un contexte de recomposition socio-spatiale plus ou moins profonde (périurbanisation, littoralisation des populations …) ? Dans quelle mesure la confirmation ou l’émergence de ces cultures locales identitaires et territorialisées exerce des incidences sur la citoyenneté, l’aménagement du territoire et le développement territorial ? Comment des univers sociaux arrivent-ils à s’affirmer ? Sur notre terrain d’investigation, l’angle du département des Landes et plus particulièrement sa partie sud-ouest au contact du Pays-Basque et du Béarn, nous sommes en présence d’une société qui est en renouvellement. Il est par conséquent opportun de s’interroger sur la manière dont se constitue la localité que nous avons choisie comme espace d’étude. Etant confrontés à des objets changeants, chargés d’idéologies, de représentations, nous avons adopté une démarche combinatoire qui s’inscrit au cœur d’une géographie sociale et humaniste. Le travail d’enquête et de recherche réalisé nous permet de montrer que sur cet espace la culture locale est une culture marquée par des apports extérieurs et des singularités propres. L’étude de la vie quotidienne dans notre aire d’investigation sud-landaise a mis en évidence des éléments endogènes constitutifs d’une culture de l’habiter, de l’Ici, de la fête, vivante et populaire. Pour autant, ces spécificités apparentes ne sont le produit que de "branchements" réalisés par des individus de plus en plus mobiles, indépendamment du contexte urbain ou rural. Le local apparait ainsi comme une construction permanente, innovante à travers une logique de "bricolages" identitaires. / Within the framework of globalization and the implicit process of cultural standardization, we are confronted with the paradoxical emergence of local identities and territories - in Aquitaine and beyond - which are supported by original cultural practices or claiming, at least, to be as such. What are the particulars of these local cultures, which often come in a variety of forms in the context of a more or less deep sociospatial recomposition (development of peri-urban et coastal areas) ? To what extent do the confirmation or emergence of these cultures, firmly rooted in local identities and territories, impact on citizenship, country planning and regional development ? How can social realities assert themselves ?On our ground of investigation, the south-west corner of the Landes département bordering the Pays basque and the Béarn, we are in front of society in a state of renewal. Therefore it is convenient to figure out the lines along which the local territory we chose takes shape. Confronted with changing objects full of ideologies and representations, we adopted a combining approach which lies at the heart of a social and humanist geography. Our work of investigation and research has enabled us to show that the local culture of this area is marked both by external influences and its own features. The study of daily life in our area of investigation in the south of the Landes has shed light on the inner components of a whole culture based on living, the sense of the “here” and popular and lively celebrations. Nevertheless these apparent specificities are the outcome of “connections” worked out by increasingly mobile individuals, regardless of the urban or rural context. Local features thus turn out to be permanently under an innovatory process of construction fed by makeshift identity creations.

Les technologies du numérique modifient profondément la manière dont les sociétés appréhendent et se représentent leur espace. La cartographie n’est pas à l’écart de ces changements et les cartes sont de plus en plus nombreuses et sont utilisées sous de nouvelles formes. C’est en particulier le cas de la consultation d’itinéraires uniques, rendue plus aisée par les évolutions techniques et technologiques. L’usage de ces itinéraires est aujourd’hui l’une des principales fonctionnalités des cartes numériques, dont un grand nombre sont issues de sociétés implantées aux États-Unis.Comment appréhender, dans le cadre d’une analyse diachronique et comparatiste, le rôle des cartes d’itinéraire dans la cartographie numérique? S’agit-il d’une nouveauté ou de la réactualisation d’une forme cartographique plus ancienne ? Quelle place tient ce type de représentations dans une perspective croisée?La thèse propose de répondre à ces questions par une analyse large à trois entrées : cartobibliographique, sémiologique et processuelle, en se basant sur des corpus de cartes issus de la Bibliothèque nationale de France et de laNewberry Library. Les principaux résultats de ce travail apportent un éclairage sur les changements en cours avec le passage d’une cartographie majoritairement papier à une cartographie majoritairement écran. Ils invitent finalement à penser ces changements à travers une redéfinition du statut de la carte à l’ère numérique. / Digital technologies deeply change the way in which societies grasp their environment and represent space Cartography is not exempt from these changes, maps are more widespread than ever and are being used for new purposes. Among them, the use of route specific maps, made easier by technical and technological developments. Many online maps are used for itineraries, and most of them come from United States-based corporations.These observations raise the questions of how to understand this specific use of maps when put in a chronological and comparative perspective ? Is this an innovation or rather an actualization of a previous type of mapping practice ? What is the status of these itineraries when studied in a multifaceted perspective ?This research addresses these questions using three main approches : cartobibliographical, semiological and processual, and relying on extensive map collections from the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Newberry Library. The main results bring new insights on the changes taking place with the transition from a primarily paper cartography to a primarily on-screen cartography and call for a redefinition of the status of maps in the digital era.

<p>This study develops a model for understanding spatial change and the construction of space as a meeting-place, and then employs it in order to show an otherwise little-known picture of (sub-)urban Russia and its transformation from Soviet times to today. The model is based on time-geographic ideas of time-space as a limited resource in which forces of various kinds struggle for access and form space in interaction with each other. Drawing on cultural semiotics and the concepts of lifeworld and system, the study highlights the social side of these space-forming forces. Based on a long-term fieldwork (participant observation) in Ligovo/Uritsk, a high-rise residential district developed around 1970 and situated on the outskirts of Sankt-Peterburg (St Petersburg), the empirical material concerns processes of urban identity, spatial representations and local politics. The study explicates three codes used to form the image of the city that all relate to its pre-Revolutionary history, two textual strategies of juxtaposition in creating the genius loci of a place, and a discussion of what I call Soviet "stiff landscape" in relation to Soviet mental and ordinary maps of the urban landscape. Moreover, the study shows that the newly implemented self-governing municipalities have not realised their potential as political actors in forming local space, which raises questions on the democratisation of urban space. Finally, the study argues that the model that guides the research is a tool that facilitates the application of the world-view of time-geography and the epistemology of the landscape of courses in concrete research. The study ends with an attempt to generalise spatial change in four types.</p>

This study develops a model for understanding spatial change and the construction of space as a meeting-place, and then employs it in order to show an otherwise little-known picture of (sub-)urban Russia and its transformation from Soviet times to today. The model is based on time-geographic ideas of time-space as a limited resource in which forces of various kinds struggle for access and form space in interaction with each other. Drawing on cultural semiotics and the concepts of lifeworld and system, the study highlights the social side of these space-forming forces. Based on a long-term fieldwork (participant observation) in Ligovo/Uritsk, a high-rise residential district developed around 1970 and situated on the outskirts of Sankt-Peterburg (St Petersburg), the empirical material concerns processes of urban identity, spatial representations and local politics. The study explicates three codes used to form the image of the city that all relate to its pre-Revolutionary history, two textual strategies of juxtaposition in creating the genius loci of a place, and a discussion of what I call Soviet "stiff landscape" in relation to Soviet mental and ordinary maps of the urban landscape. Moreover, the study shows that the newly implemented self-governing municipalities have not realised their potential as political actors in forming local space, which raises questions on the democratisation of urban space. Finally, the study argues that the model that guides the research is a tool that facilitates the application of the world-view of time-geography and the epistemology of the landscape of courses in concrete research. The study ends with an attempt to generalise spatial change in four types.