Showing papers in "Progress in Human Geography in 2013"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a theoretical and political critique of how the concept of resilience has been applied to places, based on three main points: First, the ecological concept of resilient...
Abstract: This paper provides a theoretical and political critique of how the concept of resilience has been applied to places. It is based upon three main points. First, the ecological concept of resilience...
735 citations
TL;DR: The battlefield of knowledge and action for disaster risk reduction (DRR) is discussed, outlining the need for a more integrative process consisting of bottom-up and top-down actions, local and scientific knowledge, and a vast array of stakeholders.
Abstract: A large amount of studies have been produced on disaster-related issues over the last century of research, yet there continues to be gaps in translating knowledge into action. This paper discusses ...
416 citations
TL;DR: The authors suggest that overlapping strains of materialism are already providing cultural geography with some of its "connective wiring" and core concerns, which highlights the transformative work of meaning-making cultural processes in the world.
Abstract: A series of ‘cultural turns’ across human geography have left cultural geography itself with something of an identity crisis. I suggest that overlapping strains of materialism are already providing cultural geography with some of its ‘connective wiring’ and core concerns. Common materialist sensibilities are evident in recent theoretically and empirically engaged work on value and waste, which highlights the transformative work of meaning-making cultural processes in the world. Close contextual engagements with waste have offered geographers an ‘enhanced’ means of grounding their materialisms by turning to processes occurring at the bottom of the value chain. Waste has also provided a window onto the contested cultural work of coding things for value, and the research has served to accentuate an engagement with materiality as transformation and process.
264 citations
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TL;DR: The authors assess a broad selection of the resulting literature and identify several key themes, such as how ruins may be used to critically examine capitalist and state manifestations of power, the way in which ruins may challenge dominant ways of relating to the past, and how they may complicate strategies for practically and ontologically ordering space.
Abstract: Scholarly interest in ruins and derelict spaces has intensified over the last decade. We assess a broad selection of the resulting literature and identify several key themes. We focus on how ruins may be used to critically examine capitalist and state manifestations of power; we consider the way in which ruins may challenge dominant ways of relating to the past; and we look at how ruins may complicate strategies for practically and ontologically ordering space. We speculate about the motivations for this surge of current academic interest, draw out resonances with current trends in geographical thinking, and suggest directions for future research.
231 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that detention can be conceptualized as a series of geographical processes, operating through these processes are contradictory sets of temporal and spatial logics that structure the seemingly paradoxical geographies underpinning detention.
Abstract: Detention is a pressing empirical, conceptual, and political issue. Detained populations, detention facilities, and industries have expanded globally. Detention is also a fundamentally geographical topic, yet largely overlooked by geographers. We argue that detention be conceptualized as a series of geographical processes. Operating through these processes are contradictory sets of temporal and spatial logics that structure the seemingly paradoxical geographies underpinning detention. These logics include containment and mobility, bordering and exclusion. We trace these logics through an emergent literature, synthesizing and analyzing important geographic themes in the field. We identify contributions by and new avenues of inquiry for geographers.
201 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that critical urban research is characterized by horizontalism and argue that the swathe of recent urban writings have neglected the vertical qualities of contemporary urbanization, and elucidate three areas where vertically oriented research is emerging: the links between Google Earth and urbanism; the connections between social secession and ascension through buildings, walkways and personalized air travel.
Abstract: This article contends that critical urban research is characterized by horizontalism. It argues that the swathe of recent urban writings have neglected the vertical qualities of contemporary urbanization. The article’s introductory section elaborates this argument in detail. The paper then elucidates three areas where vertically oriented research is emerging. These encompass: the links between Google Earth and urbanism; the connections between social secession and ascension through buildings, walkways and personalized air travel; and the links between verticalized surveillance and urban burrowing.
187 citations
TL;DR: Findings in epigenetics suggest that the environment is a biochemically active inducer of phenotypical development and understandings of the delayed temporality and intergenerational effects of epigenetic mechanisms challenge methodologies that privilege space.
Abstract: The emergent field of environmental epigenetics, which studies health effects of ‘xenobiotic’ chemicals, fundamentally challenges standard models of the biochemical pathways that shape bodies and human health. This article explores the implications of these discoveries for geographic knowledge in the nature-society and spatial traditions of human health, both of which have tended to black-box the material, biochemical body and treat the environment as an inert setting. Discoveries in epigenetics suggest that the environment is a biochemically active inducer of phenotypical development. In addition, understandings of the delayed temporality and intergenerational effects of epigenetic mechanisms challenge methodologies that privilege space.
179 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the growing interest in the relationship between maps, narratives and meta-narratives and explore their current state in the Geoweb era.
Abstract: This report focuses on the growing interest in the relationship between maps, narratives and meta-narratives. Following a brief historical contextualization of these relationships, this report explores their current state in the Geoweb era. Using the distinction between story maps and grid maps as an analytical framework, I review emerging issues around the extensive use of technologies and online mapping services (i.e. Google maps) to convey stories and to produce new ones. Drawing on literature in film studies, literary studies, visual arts, computer science and communication I also emphasize the emergence of new forms of spatial expressions interested in providing different perspectives about places and about stories associated to places. In sum, I argue that mapping both vernacular knowledge and fiction is central understanding places in depth.
170 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the emergence of urban spaces of partnership between people of faith and those of no religious faith who come together to offer care, welfare and justice to socially excluded people.
Abstract: This paper explores the emergence of urban spaces of partnership between people of faith and those of no religious faith who come together to offer care, welfare and justice to socially excluded people. The activities of such groups are understood in terms of adjustments to the secularization thesis pointing to the possibilities of a series of emerging geographies relating to postsecular rapprochement and different forms of reterritorialization in the city. In particular, the accounts of postsecularism by Klaus Eder and Jurgen Habermas are used to explain both how the hushed-up voice of religion is being released back into the public sphere in some settings, and how the assimilation and mutually reflexive transformation of secular and theological ideas may represent crossover narratives around which postsecular partnerships can converge around particular ethical precepts and practical needs. Taking the particular example of Christian religion in western Europe, the paper traces both how a critique of secu...
160 citations
TL;DR: The first of three progress reports on the subdiscipline of political geography reviews recent scholarship on the transformation of geographies of sovereignty as mentioned in this paper, including the design of spatial metaphors through which to conceptualize sovereignty, US exceptionalism and the influence of Agamben's work.
Abstract: This first of three progress reports on the subdiscipline of political geography reviews recent scholarship on the transformation of geographies of sovereignty. The piece offers a review of major analytical themes that have emerged in recent geographical analyses of sovereignty. These themes include the design of spatial metaphors through which to conceptualize sovereignty, US exceptionalism and the influence of Agamben’s work, productive blurring of onshore and offshore operations and productions of sovereign power, and debate about the kinds of power operating through these newly constituted global topographies of power. The text also visits five kinds of sites where contemporary struggles over sovereignty manifest: prison, island, sea, body, and border. After reviewing recent trends, themes, and locations in studies of sovereign power, recommendations for future research topics are made.
158 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a practice-oriented re-reading of phenomenology can contribute to a new humanism after anti-/posthumanism, which has a troubled relationship to the comprehension of lived experience, notions of agency and politics.
Abstract: During the last 20 years anti-humanist and posthumanist thinking have gained a strong foothold in human geography. This development has indisputable benefits regarding our understanding of the power-knowledge complex, representation and ‘new materialisms’, respectively, but it has also had a troubled relationship to the comprehension of lived experience, notions of agency and politics. This paper aims to explore how a practice-oriented re-reading of phenomenology can contribute to a ‘new humanism’ after anti-/posthumanism. The paper starts from a research study on ‘The Stranger, the city and the nation’, which I have recently completed with my colleague Lasse Koefoed. The purpose is to embed the subsequent philosophical discussions in their consequences for the empirical analysis of social life. The re-reading of phenomenology revolves around three issues: thinking the body as a phenomenal, lived body; orientation and disorientation in the directions and possibilities of social life; and the phenomenologi...
TL;DR: In the past two decades, geographers' attentions to the visual arts have broadened considerably from a tightly focused study of 18th- and 19th-century landscape paintings as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Over the past two decades, geographers’ attentions to the ‘visual’ arts have broadened considerably. From a tightly focused study of 18th- and 19th-century landscape paintings this engagement now e...
TL;DR: There are increasing calls from the global environmental change research community for new strategies for translating knowledge into action as discussed by the authors, yet these calls are often based on the assumption that knowledge is not new.
Abstract: There are increasing calls from the global environmental change research community for new strategies for translating knowledge into action. Such calls are not new, yet they are often based on the ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight novel methods with particular purchase on the problems of our time and encourage consilience, synergy, and a positive embrace of diversity in geographical scholarship.
Abstract: In this second of three reports on qualitative and quantitative methods we highlight novel methods with particular purchase on the problems of our time. We again focus on scholarship crossing multiple geographical divides, those of neo/paleo geography, qualitative/quantitative methods, and physical/human geography. We do so now by concentrating on three areas: the emerging digital humanities and the rise of big data, mobile methods, and rhythmanalysis. With this broad approach we seek also to encourage consilience, synergy, and a positive embrace of diversity in geographical scholarship.
TL;DR: A review of recent work in labour geography can be found in this paper, where a blossoming and increasingly mature sub-field of economic geography is discussed, covering three areas: theoretical work on the nature and constitution of labour agency; research into issues of precarity, migration and intermediation in contemporary labour markets; and studies on the geographical strategies employed by the union movement.
Abstract: In this final report I offer a review of recent work in labour geography (broadly defined), a blossoming and increasingly mature subfield of economic geography. The review covers three areas: theoretical work on the nature and constitution of labour agency; research into issues of precarity, migration and intermediation in contemporary labour markets; and studies on the geographical strategies employed by the union movement. The report concludes that theorizing worker agency effectively is central to the further development of labour geography.
TL;DR: In this paper, rural geographers' critique of agriculture and small-scale farming in sustainable rural futures and the changing expectations and contradictions that currently abound are explored, with the focus on rural livelihoods and rural sustainability.
Abstract: Rural areas are increasingly thought of in terms of opportunity, as engines of growth in a world of economic uncertainty, they are being challenged in terms of their role in providing safe and secure food supplies, and they are being lauded and criticized in terms of climate change and mitigation. The multiple scales of these discussions, and the intensity and increased volume of rural debate that has emerged, see rural geographers occupy an interesting space in terms of conceptualizations, engagement and understanding of rural livelihoods and rural sustainability. Through the lens of agriculture and related spheres, the principal issues pertaining to agriculture as a sectoral activity and an instrument of rural and regional development, this report explores rural geographers’ critique of agriculture and small-scale farming in sustainable rural futures and the changing expectations and contradictions that currently abound.
TL;DR: The authors take stock of Henri Lefebvre's relevance in contemporary English-speaking urban research on social movements, postcolonial situations, and the status of the United States of America.
Abstract: Aided with French and German scholarship, this paper takes stock of Henri Lefebvre’s relevance in contemporary English-speaking urban research on social movements, postcolonial situations, the stat...
TL;DR: The authors argue that there is a risk of doing surface geographies where research reflects matters at play rather than evaluate the interconnectivity and co-constitution of materialities and their geographies.
Abstract: The doing of material geographies within the subdiscipline of cultural geography has been inspired by Jane Bennett’s (2010) account of Vibrant Matter. This review follows the various trajectories in recently published research in the field of material geographies and argues that scholars should aim to embrace the call of matter to think politically and beyond the surface. The review argues that there is a risk of doing ‘surface geographies’ where research reflects matters at play rather than evaluate the interconnectivity and co-constitution of materialities and their geographies.
TL;DR: The work of Ahmed, Sedgwick and Berlant as mentioned in this paper is useful for furthering geographers' insights on love, and they argue for a consideration of love as spatial, relational and political.
Abstract: Geographers to date have resisted writing about feelings, affects, places and spaces of love. It is timely to put love on the geographical agenda. We begin by addressing the question ‘what does love do?’, and we review the work of geographers who have been thinking about love via a number of different theoretical lenses. We then argue for a consideration of love as spatial, relational and political. We prompt geographers to think critically about love in its entire multisensory, lived, embodied, felt and contradictory guises. Finally, the work of Ahmed, Sedgwick and Berlant is useful for furthering geographers’ insights on love.
TL;DR: In this article, critical geopolitics through conceptual clarification of the debates around chronopolitics (the politics of time) has been discussed, arguing that the current literature has eit...
Abstract: This article engages the platform of critical geopolitics through conceptual clarification of the debates around chronopolitics (the politics of time). It argues that the current literature has eit...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the potential of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and also identify several conflicting aspects that arise when analysing senses of places and international migration, such as "scale", "representation", "sensibilities" and "consciousness".
Abstract: The debate on ‘sense of place’ has been widespread in geography since the mid-1970s, yet with few exceptions the analytical potential of this concept has not been fully realized as far as the study of migration movements is concerned. A major reason for this has been methodology, or specifically the difficulties in capturing and evaluating the relevance of ‘place’ for migration processes. From a multidisciplinary standpoint, the article assesses the potential of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and also identifies several conflicting aspects that arise when analysing senses of places and international migration, such as ‘scale’, ‘representation’, ‘sensibilities’ and ‘consciousness’.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors revisited the literatures on financial geographies, advanced business services, world cities and offshore financial centres and argued that the advanced business service hold considerable power, which they exercise by operating legal and financial vehicles designed to escape the control of governmental or intergovernmental organizations through the use of offshore jurisdictions.
Abstract: The paper revisits the literatures on financial geographies, advanced business services, world cities and offshore financial centres. Linking these bodies of research, the paper argues that the advanced business services hold considerable power, which they exercise by operating legal and financial vehicles designed to escape the control of governmental or intergovernmental organizations through the use of offshore jurisdictions. This nexus of advanced business services and the offshore world has negative consequences for stability and equity, and represents an important area of governance failure.
TL;DR: This article argued that economic-geographical analyses of the recent financial crisis might learn from more than three decades of feminist scholarship on economic development, and they used this knowledge to predict the current financial crisis.
Abstract: This paper argues that economic-geographical analyses of the recent financial crisis might learn from more than three decades of feminist scholarship on economic development. Feminist scholarship: ...
TL;DR: Enchantment is a term frequently used by human geographers to express delight, wonder or that which cannot be simply explained as mentioned in this paper. But it is a concept that has yet to be subject to sustained critique, specifically how it can be used to progress geographic thought and praxis.
Abstract: Enchantment is a term frequently used by human geographers to express delight, wonder or that which cannot be simply explained. However, it is a concept that has yet to be subject to sustained critique, specifically how it can be used to progress geographic thought and praxis. This paper makes sense of, and space for, the unintelligibility of enchantment in order to encourage a less repressed, more cheerful way of engaging with the geographies of the world. We track back through our disciplinary heritage to explore how geographers have employed enchantment as a force through which the world inspires affective attachment. We review the terrain of the debate surrounding recent geographical engagements with enchantment, focusing on the nature of being critical and the character of critique in human geography, offering a new ‘enchanted’ stance to our geographical endeavours. We argue that the moment of enchantment has not passed with the current challenging climate; if anything, it is more pressing.
TL;DR: For example, in this paper, the authors argue that Indigenous peoples are required to negotiate a transcultural present in which their rights and opportunities are circumscribed by the pleadings of multicultural others.
Abstract: Required to negotiate a transcultural present in which their rights and opportunities are circumscribed by the pleadings of multicultural others, Indigenous peoples have attracted attention for the...
TL;DR: This article argued that the local, its cultures and its solidarities are a moral starting point and a locus of ecological concern in all human societies and at all moments of history.
Abstract: I present a defence of parochialism against the claims of cosmopolitanism and in the context of debates about the relational accounts of place. Against normative claims that local attachments and territorial sense of belonging lead to exclusion and cultural atrophy, the paper suggests that the local, its cultures and its solidarities are a moral starting point and a locus of ecological concern in all human societies and at all moments of history. I explore this idea by reference to art and literature, especially poetry. This analysis suggests that local identities should be understood contextually; there is no necessary relation between local forms of identity and practices of exclusion. The paper shows how the virtue of parochialism is expressed in art with a universal appeal. I conclude, therefore, that we need more detailed studies of real local identities, which avoid a presumption of disdain.
TL;DR: In this article, population geographers should consider the politics of fertility, mortality, and mobility from the standpoint of a layered demographic question: within any given place, who lives, who dies, and who decides?
Abstract: The subject of ‘population’ is undergoing a renaissance in geography; this is seen, for example, in the voluminous studies addressing ‘marginalized’ populations, including but not limited to refugees, internally displaced persons, and children. In short, scholarship has focused on those lives rendered ‘wasted’, ‘precarious’, or ‘superfluous’. Population geographers have made substantial contributions; however, more can be done. In this and the next two progress reports, I suggest that population geographers reflect more deeply on the spatiality and survivability of vulnerable populations. More specifically, population geographers should consider the politics of fertility, mortality, and mobility from the standpoint of a layered demographic question: within any given place, who lives, who dies, and who decides? In this first report, I resituate the concept ‘surplus population’ within the broader domain of population geography. In subsequent reports, I consider more closely population geography’s associatio...
TL;DR: In this paper, political geographers have significantly contributed to understandings of the spatialities of Europeanization, while also highlighting research themes where further political-geographic research would be insightful.
Abstract: Political geographers have significantly contributed to understandings of the spatialities of Europeanization. We review some of this work, while also highlighting research themes where further political-geographic research would be insightful. We note the importance of work that captures both the diverse expressions and meanings attributed to Europe, European integration and ‘European power’ in different places within and beyond the EU, and the variegated manifestations of ‘Europeanizing’ processes across these different spaces. We also suggest that political-geographic research can add crucial input to reconceptualizing European integration as well as Europeanization as it now unfolds in a time of ‘crisis’.
TL;DR: In this article, a multiscalar and interdisciplinary construct is required to analyse climate justice as an appraisal of the distribution of climate finance for adaptation, and a multidisciplinary approach is proposed.
Abstract: This article suggests that a multiscalar and interdisciplinary construct is required to analyse climate justice as an appraisal of the distribution of climate finance for adaptation. The analysis o...
TL;DR: This paper revisited the central ontological claim in the production of nature thesis, Neil Smith's proposition that labour is at the heart of the mutual co-production of nature and society, and argued that there is a danger of losing the embodied, historically and geographically specific practices that are so central to the making of natures.
Abstract: This paper revisits the central ontological claim in the production of nature thesis, Neil Smith’s proposition that labour is at the heart of the mutual co-production of nature and society. Surveying Smith’s work and others, we argue that there is a danger of losing the embodied, historically and geographically specific practices that are so central to the making of natures. Turning to the work of Antonio Gramsci, we find crucial resources that enable a historicized and geographically contextualized understanding of the making of natures.