2019 | Article of the year

Finisterra extends warm congratulations to the winners of the 2019 best Article Award.

Winners are determined by vote. Manuscripts published in Finisterra are evaluated and rated on clarity in writing and content, organization, graphics, contribution to knowledge, etc.

​On the 23st of november, after the Finisterra Annual Lecture (Álvaro Domingues) some members of the panel of Judges announce​d​ ​the winners.

The Article of the Year, aims to reward the best article published in 2019, was awarded by:

Ana Laura González-Alejo, Enrique Propin Frejomil e Ana Rosa Rosales-Tapia, Spatial patterns of access to retail food outlets in Mexico City [patrones espaciales del acceso al comercio minorista de alimentos en la Ciudad De México], Finisterra – Revista Portuguesa de Geografia, LIV(111), 133-152.

This paper presents a spatial and quantitative approach to identify patterns of access to food retail and its association with urban marginalization in Mexico City. The spatial distribution of food establishments was identified using the moving windows method, in a scale of analysis of 100 m2, to delimitate areas with differentiated access to healthy and unhealthy outlets. This method revealed the spatial patterns of access to retail food outlets that are manifested with large areas of downtown, north, and east of the city exposed to an unhealthy retail food environment, while the peripheral areas of the south and southeast are under the influence of food deserts. It was revealed that 21.9% of the urban territory of the city is a healthy food environment and is distributed in the south and west of the city. It was also found that the population with the highest levels of marginalization and with medium levels are those who are exposed to unhealthy retail food environments. Chi-square test and a bivariate regression were used to determine associations between marginalization levels of the population, types of retail food environments, schooling and population density. The results indicate an association between high levels of marginalization and limited or limited access to healthy food environments, as well as a negative relationship between low levels of schooling and the density of unhealthy foods in the territory.

 

Jury Honorable Mentions:

In the last decade, there has been a return of young adult men and women in some well-communicated rural areas of Spain. This process of change in rural communities is not exclusive to Spain but is also observed in other rural areas of Europe. This article examines who is behind the new processes of re-ruralization in Spain from the analysis of professional projects carried out by young adult educated men and women, with urban experience. These agents are not gender neutral, so this analytical category is taken to examine the power relations that underlie these processes, taking into account the objectives, opportunities and difficulties that each one has at the origin of their projects. The research has been conducted through in-depth interviews, in order to ascertain how people give expression to their own experiences. The results confirm the existence of re-ruralization processes distinguished by innovative and highly professionalized initiatives developed by women and men whose discourse reveals new forms of inequality and different power mechanisms.

The aim of this study is to understand the modal choice of mothers who commute to a suburban destination. The analysis, takes into account trips related to all daily activities they are engaged in, and not just the commuting. However, the fact of having an intermunicipal trip to work is crucial since it conditions other travels. Using 15 in-depth interviews, we focus on feelings, perceptions and beliefs expressed by the respondents about their regular modal choice and the existing transportation alternatives. All participants commute to a suburban activity node in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (Spain). Understanding the experience of this particular population segment may be useful to policymakers in creating effective programs and policies aimed at replacing car usage with more sustainable modes of transport.

The western necropolis has been structured around a texture of signs and symbols that evoke the memory of the past, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, bring to the present ancient rituals of the search for eternity that have been reproduced since the 18th century. Taking into consideration constant memories, proto-memory, and the philosophy of memory, the fact is that the evocation of what is absent has led to different discourses such as its transfiguration into cultural and tourism assets on a global scale. Since the end of 1990s, the various uses of a cemetery have been emphasized and resulted in differentiated concepts and perspectives regarding tours at the site. As such, it is now common to consider there is a wide set of attitudes vis a vis death and its records. One of the reasons and motivations for this research is also the growth and diversification of the tourist offer. This article compiles the existing scientific information on tourism, specifically cemetery tourism, analyses the above-mentioned approaches; and uses as case study the Loures Municipal Cemetery, in order to draw reliable conclusions and contribute to scientific research in this specific field. One of the main finding aspects of the observation is the hypothesis regarding the possibility of developing cemetery tourism in non-Romantic cemeteries, as it is the case with the Loures Cemetery.

The jury: Jennifer McGarrigle (Presidente) (CEG, IGOT, ULisboa, Portugal), João Cabral (Faculdade de Arquitetura, ULisboa, Portugal), Joseli Maria Silva (Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa, Brasil), José Carlos Teixeira (University of British Columbia, Canadá), Núria Benach (Universitat de Barcelona, Espanha), Maria Helena Esteves (CEG, IGOT, ULisboa, Portugal), Nuno Costa (CEG, IGOT, ULisboa, Portugal), e Sérgio Oliveira (CEG, IGOT, ULisboa, Portugal).

Ana Laura González-Alejo (1st author of the Best Article of 2019)
Authorized image, extracted from the event of the Annual Lecture 2020.