SciSummary

There was a period when maps of the world were published whereon the part occupied by the continent of Australia was a blank space. On other maps, dating from about the same time, land masses were represented which we now know to have been imaginary. Let us look at four examples.

The first is a map drawn by Robert Thorne in the reign of Henry VIII (1527). He said in an apology for his work that 'it may seem rude,' and so it was; but it serves the purpose of proving that Thorne and the Spanish geographers from whom he derived his information knew nothing about a continent near Australia. Sixty years later a map published at Paris showed a portion of New Guinea, but still the place occupied by Australia was left as open ocean. A Dutch map published at Amsterdam in 1594 did indeed indicate a large stretch of southern land, and called it Terra Australis, but it bore no resemblance to the real continent either in shape or situation. In 1595 a map by Hondius, a Dutchman living in London, was published to illustrate the voyage of Francis Drake round the globe. It represented New Guinea as an island, approximately in its right position, though the shape of it was defective. To the south of it, and divided from it by a strait, appeared a large mass of land named Terra Australis. The outline is not much like that of the continent of Australia, but it was apparently copied from an earlier Dutch map by Ortelius (1587), upon which were printed words in Latin stating that whether New Guinea was an island or part of an austral continent was uncertain. Many other early maps could be instanced, but these four will suffice to exhibit the defective state of knowledge concerning this region at the end of the sixteenth century.

By that time the belief had grown that there probably was a large area of land in the southern hemisphere. Much earlier, in the Middle Ages, some had seriously questioned whether there could possibly be antipodes. Learned and ingenious men argued about it, for and against, at considerable length; for it was much easier to write large folios in Latin about the form of the earth than to go forth in ships and find out. One famous cosmographer, Cosmas Indicopleustes, scoffed at the very idea of there being countries inhabited by people who walked about with their feet opposite to those of Europeans and their bodies (as he imagined) hanging downwards, like flies on a ceiling. How, he asked, could rain 'be said to "fall" or "descend," as in the Psalms and Gospels, in those regions where it could only be said to come up?' Consequently he declared ideas about antipodes to be nothing better than 'old wives' fables.'

Another class of speculators maintained that there necessarily must be antipodes, because the globe had to be equally poised on both sides of its own centre. As there was a large mass of land, consisting of Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and North America, on the one side of the Equator, they argued that there had to be a balance of earth at the opposite extremity.

To understand how speculation was set at rest and Australia came to be discovered, it is necessary to bear in mind a few facts connected with the expansion of European energy in maritime exploration, trade, and colonization.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a great and wonderful series of events opened new sea-routes and fresh lands to the enterprise of mankind. There was keen competition to secure the profits arising from trade with the East--from the silk and cotton fabrics of China and India, the spices, gold, jewels and metal work, the rice and sugar, and many other things which European peoples were glad to purchase and oriental lands could supply. This trade had in earlier years come partly overland, along caravan routes to the Levant, partly by water to the Red Sea, and then through Egypt to Alexandria. The goods were collected by Venetians, Genoese, and other merchants, chiefly Italians, in vessels plying in the Mediterranean, and sold to European buyers. But the Portuguese discovered that by sailing round Africa they could bring commodities from the East cheaper and safer than by the old routes. They had made many voyages down the west coast of Africa during the fifteenth century, until at last, in 1486, Bartholomew Diaz steered his ships round the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1497 Vasco da Gama beat that record by conducting two vessels all the way to India and back to Lisbon.

That was one important step towards the discovery of Australia--the finding of the way to the East from Europe by sea.

It was for the purpose of discovering a still shorter route to the east that Christopher Columbus, a Genoese in the service of Spain, proposed to sail west. He argued that if the world were round, a ship sailing west, straight towards the sunset, must come upon the shores of further Asia. His reasoning was right, but there was one immense factor which it was impossible for him to anticipate. He could not know that the path to the East by the westward passage was blocked by the continent of America. Columbus, indeed, never did realize that fact to the day of his death. He never knew that he had found a new world. He always believed that he had discovered what we may call the back door of Asia.

The Spaniards, having possessed themselves of America through the discoveries of Columbus and his successors, were still dissatisfied when they realized that this new continent was not the Orient whence their Portuguese rivals drew so rich a trade; and for many years they searched for a strait through it or a way round it. When their explorers crossed the narrow isthmus of Panama they saw before them an ocean hitherto unknown to Europeans. This, then, was the sea which Columbus had striven to reach when his track was barred by the American continent. This was the sea which it was necessary to traverse to get to the spice islands by the western route. Columbus was now dead, but Spain had other gallant navigators in her service. One of them, Ferdinand Magellan, in 1520, led the way down the east coast of South America, through the narrow passage named after him, and into what he for the first time called Mare Pacificum, the quiet sea.

That was the next important step towards the discovery of Australia--the finding of the Pacific.

To realise the importance of these two series of discoveries, look at a map showing the position of Australia in relation to South America and South Africa, and remember that the main purpose of voyagers by either route was to get as quickly and as safely as possible to the parts with which there was rich trade to be done--to Ceylon, India, China, Japan, Java, the Phillipines, and the Spice Islands. It will be seen that neither the Portuguese sailing round the Cape into the Indian Ocean, nor the Spaniards sailing round South America into the Pacific, would be likely to see the coasts of Australia unless they were blown very far out of their true course, or unless curiosity led them to undertake extensive voyages of exploration. Taking the two sides of a triangle to represent the two routes, Australia lay upon the centre of the base line.

That several ships did, accidentally or in pursuit of geographical knowledge, make a passing acquaintance with parts of Australia during the sixteenth century is suggested by a few charts, though we do not know the name of any navigator who did so.

A curious French map of which six copies are known to exist, dated 1542, presents an outline of a country lying south of Java and inscribed 'Jave la Grande,' the great Java. On a copy which was presented to King Henry VIII (by some one who came to England in the suite of Anne of Cleves, it is conjectured), Java itself was marked by way of distinction as 'the lytil Java,' or Java the small. It is certain that the French map-maker worked from Portuguese information, not from original observations of his own. Allowing for some defects, the map makes it probable that at least one Portuguese ship had sailed not only along the north-western coast of Australia, but also along the east coast, from Cape York to the south of Tasmania, two centuries and a half before the celebrated voyage of Captain Cook.

In 1598 Cornelius Wytfliet, in a book published at Louvain, wrote as follows: 'The Australis Terra is the most southern of all lands, and is separated from New Guinea by a narrow strait. Its shores are hitherto but little known, since after one voyage and another that route has been deserted, and seldom is the country visited unless sailors are driven there by storms. The Australis Terra begins at two or three degrees from the Equator, and is maintained by some to be of so great an extent that if it were thoroughly explored it would be regarded as a fifth part of the world.' Those from whom the Louvain geographer drew his information seem to have had a correct knowledge of the division of New Guinea by a strait from the land to the south of it, but they imagined that the southern continent was far vaster than was actually the case. The supposed Terra Australis of these old cosmographers was indeed a continent stretching right round the South Pole.

The evidence concerning Australian discovery before the seventeenth century is so clouded with doubt that it has been asserted to be unworthy of credence. It has been argued that there is 'no foundation beyond mere surmise and conjecture' for believing that any part of this country was known to Europeans until the Dutch appeared upon the scene in 1606. We certainly do not know the name of any sailor who made discoveries prior to that date, nor of any ship in which they were made. We have only a few rough charts, the statement of Cornelius Wytfliet, and the persistence of a vague tradition. Yet this evidence, unsatisfactory as it is, cannot be ignored. It is not unlikely that Portuguese ships sailed along the west, north, and east of Australia, and that persons on board made sketches of the coastline. There are difficulties about accepting the map dated 1542 as a representation of Australia. It brings the land called 'Jave la Grande' too near to the island of Java, and it projects the most northerly tongue of that mass between Java and Timor, whereas in fact there is no northern cape of Australia within hundreds of miles of the gap between those islands. But the man who drew the chart of the world of which this formed part used materials obtained from sources unknown to us. He may have had to piece together information from several rough seamen's charts. He may have made mistakes in fitting the parts. We cannot tell.

Neighbourhood poverty in European context

Poorer neighbourhoods are not only deprived of resources, but also must deal with a wide range of consequences of poverty, including higher crime rates or the social isolation of migrant groups. Many studies of neighbourhood context influencing educational attainment from the US have focused on such spatial disorder, with participants expressing the stress caused by presence of organised crime or drug trade [35, 36]. However, these issues are less prevalent in the more egalitarian European societies [37], with higher government spending on welfare [38]. There are also differences between Northern American and European urban planning, with European cities being more “urban”–denser, with well-developed public transit networks–while many American cities are characterised by extensive, car-oriented, suburbs [38]. Even if Western European cities have also experienced suburbanisation during the last decades [39], their more compact nature should result in lower spatial isolation experienced by their inhabitants. Furthermore, cities in the US have been expanding due to international migration, a phenomenon which remains much slower in Western Europe [38]. The large influx of new inhabitants from abroad may make social cohesion in American cities more difficult to achieve.

These differences between European and American cities might be a reason for caution in using US studies as inspiration for research on European data. The strong focus on poverty could be one of such trends. Even if American authors have long been calling for a greater focus on affluence [5, 6], most of the US research and public attention goes to deprived neighbourhoods [2]. Based on the practical reality of relatively egalitarian Western European cities, we assume that in the Netherlands, the lack of higher educated, affluent neighbours could be more important than the overall impact of poverty. This assumption is further supported by the few studies from European countries which show that the influence of neighbourhood affluence on various outcomes can be stronger than that of neighbourhood poverty [13, 14].

While comparing the effects of affluence and poverty, it is important to highlight that one is not simply the inverse of the other. As already discussed, poverty is often associated with crime and isolation of minority groups [35, 36]. Furthermore, the accumulation of different types of capital characteristic for affluence could progress at very different rates than the negative effects of poverty, which can also accumulate (for example, having debts can lead to difficulties in finding an affordable mortgage). There are studies which not only show that the effect of one could be stronger than the other, but also that there can be a significant effect of concentrated affluence on health while concentrated poverty has no effect at all [19]. Affluence and poverty can also interact differently with individual characteristics. This lack of symmetry is an argument for including them both in empirical models, as well as measuring them as distinct and separate factors to capture all of their influence. There are also theoretical reasons for studying poverty together with affluence, while using the Weberian-inspired conceptualisations of social and cultural capital, on which we elaborate in the next section.

Conceptualising social inequality

This paper addresses the issue of the poverty paradigm in the literature by specifically paying attention to spatially concentrated affluence. Understanding social inequality is central in research on neighbourhood effects, as social inequality is both their cause and consequence. It is, therefore, surprising that there has been relatively little attention paid to the theorising and conceptualising social inequality itself within the field, even in the studies which do include measures of affluence. In the following sections we argue for the need of studying not only the effects of poverty, but also affluence, arising from the theories of inequality used (sometimes only implicitly) in the field.

Most of the quantitative neighbourhood effects research, including the papers discussed in the sections above, fits well into the so-called middle-range sociology, a scientific scope advocated by scientists such as Merton [40] and Boudon [41]. Middle-range sociology is situated between the grand theories and pure empiricism, with theories focused on specific aspects of social life, instead of the whole society; it aims to identify the same social mechanisms in different situations [42]. Middle-range social research papers focus on answering specific research questions based on, most often, quantitative methods such as statistical models or experiments [43]. Studies of neighbourhood effects often investigate specific mechanisms [26], related to the effect of some form of segregation and therefore social inequality in urban space. The strict paper structure characteristic for the middle-range social studies usually does not allow for extensive theoretical commentary about inequality. Nevertheless, the concepts used in these papers are based on a variety of competing approaches to class, status and inequality (for an early overview see [44]), even if these inspirations are not immediately visible.

To understand why researchers tend to overlook the spatial effects of affluence, it is important to highlight some of the traditions in studies of social inequalities and how they relate to the neighbourhood effects field. Wright [11] outlines three main theoretical approaches within the sociology of class, social mobility and inequality: the individual-attributes approach (used in stratification research), opportunity hoarding (the Weberian approach), and mechanisms of domination and exploitation (the Marxist approach).

The individual-attributes approach focuses on how people obtain resources that allow them to attain a certain occupation, and therefore a position within the social strata. These meritocratic resources (for example, education or motivation), combined with attributes people are born with, shape their chances in life. The opportunity hoarding approach begins with the assumption that access to the most prestigious positions tends to be strongly protected–or hoarded–by those already having access. This Weberian approach studies how individuals in the higher social strata distance themselves by setting up requirements based on economic, cultural and social capital, as well as legal mechanisms of exclusion. One example, from urban geography, is when a good school is only accessible to those living in a certain district, and house prices in that area are sufficiently high that only affluent households can afford to live there. The third approach evolves around mechanisms of domination and exploitation. This Marxist approach takes the analysis further, by asserting that those who restrict access to certain resources and positions can also “control the labour of another group to its own advantage” [11]. This approach is present in urban studies research on the exploitations of tenants and ordinary homeowners by landlords and developers, and the pressure the latter can exert on government policies.

Social inequality and neighbourhood effects

Quantitative studies on neighbourhood effects usually mix elements of the individual-attributes and opportunity hoarding approaches. The individual-attributes approach manifests itself as focus on social mobility and the idea that the position an individual ultimately attains is shaped by a bundle of attributes, many of them related to physical space. This approach has the advantage that it is relatively easy to translate into statistical models. However, because of the high level of methodological sophistication in time and space-variant predictors, researchers often reduce their most important status-related neighbourhood characteristic(s) to a single proxy variable which captures the spatial context of an individual.

One approach for measuring the affluence of a spatial context is using income [45]. Using categorical measures, or grouping neighbourhood inhabitants by their income level, often fits the research design better than using average income. Authors tend to follow the tradition of the field by focusing on poverty (choosing to create categories based on the percentage of poor households, etc.), which leads to the relatively lower number of studies on affluence [4]. From the perspective of the individual-attributes approach, this focus on poverty can be justified because there is no assumed relationship between poverty and affluence. As such, “eliminating poverty by improving the relevant attributes of the poor—their education, cultural level, human capital—would in no way harm the affluent” [11]. By contrast, “in the case of opportunity hoarding, the rich are rich in part because the poor are poor, and the things the rich do to maintain their wealth contribute to the disadvantages faced by poor people.” It therefore follows that “moves to eliminate poverty by removing the mechanisms of exclusion would potentially undermine the advantages of the affluent”.

One could argue that a discussion on whether societal well-being can be improved without substantially limiting the choices or wealth of upper strata is not immediately relevant to more exploratory neighbourhood effects research. However, many neighbourhood studies still implicitly use opportunity hoarding theories to explain the mechanisms under investigation. Perhaps Maybe the most important examples are the already discussed concepts of cultural and social capital as developed by Bourdieu [29]. Bourdieu argues that social phenomena such as cultural norms are employed by upper classes to limit the access to their resources. Therefore, researching poverty in isolation disregards, potentially, the most influential part of the picture: the affluent social actors who possess the cultural, social, and economic capital. There are also theories focusing on the spread of disorder associated with capital deficiency, such as the broken windows theory [46]. It could still be illuminating to frame the commonly studied neighbourhood effects mechanisms in terms of the presence of various forms of capital, rather than a lack of it. Those studies investigating the effect of affluence often omit discussion of the wider implications of focussing on the effect of poverty in research. In addition to developing more methodologically sophisticated operationalisations of the current variables, quantitative neighbourhood effects researchers could deepen their assumptions and conclusions by grounding them in sociological theory. This is one of the goals of the current paper, although there are still interesting steps to be taken, such as questioning not only the poverty paradigm, but also the meritocracy paradigm [47] as well as expanding the conceptualisations of social class [48].