Del Casino, V.J, Jr. Scaling health and health care: re-presenting Thailand's HIV/AIDS epidemic with world regional geography students in a U.S. college classroom. Submitted to the Journal of Geography in Higher Education, December 2002.
Abstract. Authors of world regional geography textbooks have recently become more interested in the broader theoretical changes that have emerged in human geography. Relying on feminist and other critical perspectives, concepts such as space, place, and scale are being re-imagined in this ‘new world regional geography.’ This paper intervenes on behalf of a more critical world regional geography by suggesting how world regional geography teachers can educate students about scale as a social construction through the use of empirical data. Relying on fieldwork conducted in Thailand, this paper lays out a lesson on the HIV/AIDS crisis and how different representations of that crisis, from the national to the individual, offer different ‘ways of knowing’ the epidemic. Furthermore, this paper examines how we can push students to consider the ways in which scales of analysis are constructed and constituted through our own geographic practices. Keywords: Scale; World Regional Geography; HIV/AIDS; Thailand
Hanna, S., Del Casino, V.J, Jr., Selden, C, and Hite, B. Representation as work in 'America's most historic city.' Submitted to the Journal of Social and Cultural Geography, November 2002.
Abstract. This paper examines how the practices of heritage tourism reproduce identities in and of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In particular, we focus on the everyday work practices of tourism workers who are essential in the representation and reproduction of this heritage space. In so doing, we want to move away from work in geography that theorizes representation and embodiment as distinct realms of experience and inquiry. Instead, we argue that representation is work and within this very material process, city workers weave memory with history as they guide visitors through "America’s Most Historic City." Through an examination of three of Fredericksburg’s tourism work environments we show how representations succeed in reproducing heritage tourism spaces precisely because representation is work. Keywords: heritage tourism, representation, work, embodiment, everyday practice
Refereed Publications Forthcoming
Del Casino, V.J., Jr. (Re)placing health and health care: mapping the competing discourses and practices of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ Thai medicine. Health and Place (forthcoming).
Abstract. In the wake of the AIDS crisis, ‘traditional’ Thai medicine has received new attention as a means by which people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) can receive some level of care. The revitalization of Thai medicine, however, is complicated by the competing organizational politics and social dynamics that regulate discourses and practices of health and health care in Thailand. This paper examines how Thai medicine is being (re)placed in the context of competing health care systems and practices. Specifically, this analysis focuses on the complex interrelationships between ‘traditional,’ holistic medicine and ‘modern,’ allopathic medicine in a Thai context; and investigates the role of ‘Thai medicine’ (phaet phaen thai) and ‘village medicine’ (phaet pheun baan) as part of governmental and non-governmental efforts to provide health care to PLWHA in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The provisioning of such health care, however, takes place within the context of a struggle over ‘local knowledge’ and ‘global change’ and the ways in which places are organized in relation to the available treatment regimens for HIV/AIDS care. What this paper suggests is that the meanings of health and health care are inextricably linked to the complex, contested nature of social relations as they flow in, and are reworked through, particular places. Keywords: health care geographies, HIV/AIDS, Thailand
Refereered Publications and Book Chapters
Hanna, S.P. and V.J. Del Casino Jr. Introduction: tourism spaces, mapped representations, and the practices of identity. In Hanna, S.P. and V.J. Del Casino, Jr. Mapping Tourism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 161-185.
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Del Casino, V.J., Jr. and S.P. Hanna. Mapping identities, reading maps: the politics of representation in Bangkok's sex tourism industry. In Hanna, S.P. and V.J. Del Casino, Jr. Mapping Tourism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 161-185.
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Del Casino Jr., V. Enabling Geographies?: NGOs and the Empowerment of People Living with HIV and AIDS (Submitted to Disability Studies Quarterly, 21 (4), 2001: 19-29.
Abstract: There has been a growing interest among geographers into the ways in which HIV and AIDS is lived and experienced as well as how the socio-spatial organization of society mediates these experiences. This essay examines the role of organizational politics and the particular role of non-governmental organization in the socio-spatial construction of HIV and AIDS in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is argued that since organizational boundaries are porous and incomplete, the development of new social networks can expose tears in the socio-spatial fabric of power as well as in cultures of social violence. PLWHA can work these tears by negotiating their lived experience in relation to a variety of organizations. The essay first offers a brief theorization of organizations. Second, the context for HIV, AIDS, and the rise of NGOs as AIDS service organizations is discussed. Finally, an analysis of ethnographic data suggests how PLWHA work the boundaries of organizations in their daily life struggles. Keywords: HIV, Thailand, NGOs
Del Casino Jr., V. Decision-Making in an ethnographic context. Geographical Review 91 (1/2), 2001: 454-462.
Abstract: Every day researchers have to make decisions about what questions they will ask, how they will ask them, and from where they will ask those questions. In all research contexts where ethnographic inquiry is involved, the day-to-day decisions of a researcher can have long-term impacts on the overall research experience and research results. This essay examines just a few of the decisions that I made while conducting ethnographic research on the care of people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The purpose of the paper is to examine how decisions both "close off" and "open up" opportunities for geographic inquiry. More specifically, this paper provides some insights into how decisions of location and positionality and social and physical distance impact our ability as researchers to answer the questions that drive the research process. Keywords: ethnography, organizations, decision-making
Del Casino Jr., V. Healthier geographies: Mediating the 'gaps' between the needs of people living with HIV and AIDS and health care in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The Professional Geographer 53 (1), 2001: 407-421.
Abstract: In this paper, I contribute to our understanding of the plurality of approaches that construct the geographies of health care through an examination of the distribution of health care services for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. In particular, I focus on the development of a network of support groups for PLWHA in order to examine the differences in the socio-spatial organization of these groups, the practices of social actors participating in the activities of the groups, and how these activities are mediated through place-based social relations. The first section analyzes the spatial distribution of PLWHA support groups in relation to the distribution of AIDS cases over two time periods, 1994 and 1997. The second section goes below the surface of the spatial distribution, examining similarities and differences in PLWHA support group through an analysis of survey data collected on thirty-five groups in 1997. The final section deepens this examination through an analysis of ethnographic data collected on the outreach efforts of one non-governmental organization (NGO) and one PLWHA support group with whom they worked. Each section offers opportunities for the extension of our understanding of the development of PLWHA support groups, their distribution in relation to the spread of AIDS cases, and their place-based meanings. Keywords: HIV/AIDS, health care geographies, Thailand
Del Casino Jr., V., A. Grimes, S. Hanna, and J.P. Jones III. Methodological frameworks for the geographic study of organizations. Geoforum 31 (4), 2000: 523-539.
Abstract: In this paper, we present three methodological frameworks for the geographic study of organizations. These are situated within three meta-theoretical perspectives in human geography: spatial science, critical realism, and post-structuralism. Each framework offers a different theorization of organizations, and each prompts different research questions that can be used to guide their geographic study. The research questions we offer are general, and are pertinent to all types of organizations. To supplement the methodological contributions of this paper, we suggest how each of these frameworks might inform empirical investigations of Appalshop, a media arts organization located in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Keywords: organizations, spatial science, critical realism, post-structuralism, media-arts, Kentucky
Del Casino Jr., V. and S. Hanna. Representations and identities in tourism map spaces. Progress in Human Geography 24 (1), 2000: 23-46.
Abstract: Tourism maps remain underexamined in geography. Despite recent trends in critical cartography and tourism studies that redefine the relationship between space and representation, these geographic texts are rarely explored for their intertextual relationships with the spaces they claim to represent. In this article, we argue that tourism maps and other representations play an important role in the production of tourism spaces. We begin with an examination of the parallel trends in critical cartography and tourism studies and then push these initial theoretics further by integrating theories of identity, space and representation. We define tourism maps, spaces, and identities as interrelated processes rather than final products. The creation of maps as processes inevitably includes the ambiguities introduced in the production of spaces and the formation of identities by changing social contexts. These ambiguities are readable in maps and they permit us, and potentially other map readers, to understand the production context and purpose. To explore this theoretical argument further we read one tourism map for the interrelated, ambiguous and therefore contested processes reproducing, but never fully fixing, tourism spaces and identities. Keywords: critical cartography, critical tourist studies, map space.
Ulack, R. and V. Del Casino Jr. Tourism. In Southeast Asia: Diversity and Development ed. Leinbach, T. and R. Ulack. New York: Prentice Hall, 2000.
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Leinbach, T. and V. Del Casino Jr. The family mode of production and its fungibility in Indonesian transmigration: The example of Makarti Jaya, South Sumatra. Sojourn: A Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 13(2), 1998: 193-219.
Abstract: The analysis of peasant household enterprises and especially the family mode of production form one critical aspect of the study of rural development. the detailed study of households is important for a deeper understanding of the processes of economic survival and of socio-economic differentiation. The current paper focuses on the merits of Lipton's concept of fungibility within the family mode of production. It explains and critiques this concept within the context of the Indonesian resettlement effort as expressed by the experience of settlers in Makarti Jaya, South Sumatra. Case-studies of two families show how family fungibility may be interpreted and moreover how aspects of state control, gender, and spatiality extend the concept in an empirical situation. It is argued that future research employing the idea in Southeast Asian societies, especially perhaps in a comparative framework, will derive new understanding of the survival strategies and differentiation processes in families and communities in the Third World.
Book Chapters, Theses, and Non-Refereed Publications
Del Casino, V.J., Jr. (2002) Study Guide: World Regions in Global Context. New York: Prentice Hall.
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Del Casino, V.J., Jr. (2002) Comments on "Enabling self-help activities through loan services in Thailand: the urban community development office’s strategies for low-income community improvement," by Misato Sakai. Regional Development Dialogue 23, 4, pp. 152-156.
Del Casino, V.J., Jr. (2002) Comments on "Urban poor housing development as a basis for healthy and sustainable city development in Ayutthaya, Thailand," by Panthip Petchmark. Regional Development Dialogue 23, 4, pp. 171-175.
Del Casino Jr. V. HIV/AIDS and the Spaces of Health Care in Thailand. Unpublished Dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, December 2000.
Abstract: The central concern of this dissertation is the health of and health care for PLWHA within the context of the ever-changing landscapes of AIDS-related outreach in Thailand. Empirically, I evaluate PLWHA health and health care through an examination of one set of organizations, NGOs, which have worked closely with PLWHA to reorganize the structures of health care (and social welfare) in Thailand. In particular, I am interested in the complex relationship between PLWHA needs and access to services, and the ways in which organizations structure this relationship. It is argued that health care is constructed in and through the practices of social actors and organizations, which are themselves productive of and produced through discourses of power and knowledge. As such, organizations and their corresponding social actors (e.g., NGOs, public health employees, PLWHA) play key roles in the production of and challenges to systems of authority and power. Taking a broad approach to examining need and access means that this dissertation is also concerned with the overlapping organizational spaces that mediate health and health care for PLWHA. These include government agencies and departments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), PLWHA support groups and networks, village healers (more muang) groups and networks, and other community based organizations (CBOs). The predominant research methodology is ethnographic and focuses in great detail on the role of one key NGO working on AIDS-related issues in Chiang Mai province, AIDS Organization. The research approach utilized allows for an examination of AIDS Organization’s relationship with other key organizations and its self-defined target populations. In conclusion, this dissertation offers several key theoretical observations about organizations and their roles in mediating the relationship between access and need. Further, it is suggested that future studies of HIV and AIDS, and more particularly the care of PLWHA, in geography must be concerned with the ways in which organizations construct the spaces of outreach in relation to the complex organizational landscapes of care.
Del Casino Jr., V., M. Dorn, and C. Gallaher. From discourse to the materiality of the margins: An interview with Cindi Katz. disClosure 6, 1997: 37-56.
Abstract: This paper traces the work of Cindi Katz, associate professor of geography at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, and the ways in which her work has influenced the field of geography. In particular, this interview focuses on Katz's research in the areas of children's geographies, spatial politics, geographic methodology, feminist geography, and disciplinary practices within the field of geography. The interview was conducted when Katz visited the University of Kentucky as the keynote speaker for the 5 1/2 Annual Geography Graduate Student Conference.
Del Casino Jr., V. Creating 'Tourism Space': The Social Construction of Sex Tourism in Thailand. Unpublished Master's Thesis, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, May 1995.
Abstract: In this study I move away from the political-economic forces that have fostered the growth of sex-tourism in order to concentrate on the symbol system employed for sex-tourism and the construction of the physical spaces housing the industry. Simultaneously, it is my intention to expose the mechanisms by which Thai feminine sexuality has been commodified for the international tourism market. Through this analysis the internal mechanisms of sexual exploitation will also become more clear.