UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — From pinpointing voting patterns in elections to determining the spread of diseases in tropical areas, a new book co-edited by a Penn State sociologist demonstrates how spatial demography has grown in the last two decades and can be applied to better understand people, places, communities and relationships throughout the world.
“Recapturing Space: New Middle-Range Theory in Spatial Demography,” is a multi-disciplinary collection of papers by early career and established scholars in the fields of demography, health economics, political science, geography, sociology, anthropology, and social epidemiology. According to one of the editors, Stephen Matthews, professor of sociology, anthropology and demography at Penn State, it is the first in a series of publications that will apply spatial science to demographic information to capture how human behavior and social process are shaped by place and time.
“We’re delighted by the wide-ranging fields of study the publication contains. I think everyone from undergraduate students to those in the public sector will find something to relate to in the diversity of subject material,” said Matthews.
Papers in the first part of the publication introduce readers to concepts of spatial demography and best practices using new spatial tools. “Varying attributes of communities can have affects on outcomes, ranging from health to economics. So we need to be able to determine what data measurements and geographic scales of analysis are most appropriate for what we are theorizing,” Matthews explained.
The second part of the publication contains papers that demonstrate how spatial analysis can be utilized in fields outside of demography, such as health economics and political science. “Spatial demography has the potential to have great impact in interdisciplinary contexts and understanding important issues that are inherently spatial but historically haven’t been treated as such,” said Matthews.
These chapters serve as a bridge to the third part of the book, which focuses on the application of theory through empirical testing. “The papers in this section demonstrate how to take a data set and tease out different levels of analysis through the innovative use of geospatial tools, using examples as diverse as voter turnout and spatial considerations in Italy to hydro-fracturing activity in Pennsylvania,” Matthews said.
The last part of the publication summarizes the major thrust of each chapter, emphasizing key themes with a critical view of what is still needed to strengthen spatial demography’s position as a scientific enterprise in the future and training prospective scholars in the field. Matthews has held summer workshops at Penn State as part of two training grants he received from the National Institutes of Health. “In fact, several of the chapters in the publication were written by former workshop attendees,” said Matthews.
Co-editors of the publication are Frank Howell, emeritus professor of sociology at Mississippi State University, and Jeremy Porter, associate professor of sociology and children and youth studies program director at Brooklyn College and Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Matthew’s research is supported in part by pilot funding provided by Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute.