Wiley: Geographical Review: Table of Contents

Contemporary Refugee‐Border Dynamics and the Legacies of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference

Karen Culcasi, Emily Skop, Cynthia Gorman — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Abstract

While the geopolitical legacies of the World War I peace negotiations are widely recognized, this article examines the often overlooked connection between the WWI Paris Peace Conference's spatial and geopolitical logics and contemporary refugee-border dynamics. We argue that the spatial and geopolitical logics that framed the WWI Paris Peace Conference—the creation of new states, the propagation of the Western ideal of bounded sovereign states, the nationalist goals of self-determination and homogeneous ethnic nations, and the establishment of a system of international governance—continue to impact refugee-border dynamics and “crises” today. The categories, ideals, and practices of the international refugee regime that emerged over the last one-hundred years stem in great part from these logics. In this paper, we urge critical contemplation about how these foundations—including the establishment of the post of High Commissioner for Refugees in 1921, the resultant Nansen Passports, the post-WWI minority treaties, and lastly the 1933 Convention Relating to the International Status of Refugees—connect to contemporary human (im)mobility and border violence. We also introduce the articles in this special issue and highlight key themes and future directions for research in critical migration studies.

Singled Out: Scaling Violence and Social Groups as Legal Borderwork in U.S. Asylum Law

Cynthia S. Gorman — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Abstract

Through legal interpretation of immigration categories, such as the refugee definition, signatories to the UN Refugee Convention restrict access to political asylum. This paper examines how scalar logics are used in legal interpretation to filter out particular people from national space and control the number legally entitled to enter and remain in the U.S. Scalar logics shape access by requiring asylum seekers to prove they have been ‘singled out’ for persecution and by steering the meaning of the ‘particular social group’ provision of the refugee definition. The restrictive effects of these scalar logics are analyzed in relation to case law involving Central American asylum seekers fleeing gang-related violence. These cases are often rejected on the basis that the asylum seekers possess identities and experiences exceeding the limited protection offered by asylum. Through analysis of these scalar logics, the paper highlights how interpretations of the refugee definition are an ongoing site of struggle over the scope of asylum protection.

Refugees in the IT Sector: Young Syrians’ Economic Subjectivities and Familial Lives in Jordan

Elisa Pascucci — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Abstract

This article explores refugee economic subjectivity in the context of restrictive asylum policies and disrupted transnational family lives. Drawing on fieldwork with young Syrian refugees pursuing IT training in Jordan, I focus on the “coding boot camp,” an emerging educational format in the field of refugee professional training. I thus explore how Syrian youths approach humanitarian policies in which, in the absence of full social and economic rights for refugees, the question of livelihoods is addressed through the paradigms of self-reliance, creativity, and innovation. Reframing the refugee from a “protected” to a “productive” subject, and offering individual solutions to a structural economic impasse, these policies produce tensions between individual responsibilities and more-than-individual relations and identifications—with families, religious identities, and national communities—that remain unresolved. The findings contribute to geographical scholarship on economic subjectivity, familial relations, and the migrant and refugee condition, while shedding light on some of the effects of the encounter between technology-centred, neoliberal approaches to humanitarianism and restrictive migration regimes in responses to the Syrian displacement.

The slow violence of life without cash: borders, state restrictions, and exclusion in the U.K. and Australia

Kate Coddington — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Abstract

In the U.K., refused asylum seekers who are considered destitute are provided with subsistence-level financial support through the Azure card, a cashless technology similar to a debit card. In Australia, identical technology is used to quarantine fifty percent of the welfare benefits of mainly Aboriginal residents of the Northern Territory. In this paper, I explore the underlying state logics driving such punitive financial policies directed at these populations, arguing that cashless technologies represent a form of slow violence that employs financial tactics to undermine the provision of care for populations with precarious citizenship status. Financial tactics enact new forms of border securitization, slowly but permanently excluding people with precarious claims to citizenship from participation in the nation

The Asymmetric Border: The United States’ Place in the World and the Refugee Panic of 2018

John Agnew — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Abstract

The year 2018 saw a moral panic in the United States in the media and among many citizens over the treatment of refugees/asylees at the U.S. southern border, particularly the separation and detention of children apart from their parents. This happened in the context of a period in U.S. political history in which “immigration,” without much discernment about different types of immigration, was central to political discourse. In fact, in terms of numbers, there was no immigration crisis at the border. Undocumented migration from Mexico across the southern border of the United States has been in decline for many years, and the irregular movement of people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras is currently small by historical standards. The only crisis, to which the U.S. panic was a response, has been a human rights crisis. Families and children seeking asylum from horrendous civil-rights conditions in their countries of origin were criminalized and denied their right to asylum hearings. The panic points both to the extreme politicization of immigration in the United States, particularly since Donald Trump's entry into national politics in 2015, and to popular confusion over categorizing different types of immigrants. But it also raises questions about the nature of the U.S. southern border in relation to the United States’ place in the world. Rather than thinking about the United States as simply the rich destination country of unfortunate people coming from poor origin countries, the refugee panic of 2018 brings into the focus the fact that the United States itself is complicit in the conditions in those countries that produce so many refugees in the first place.

Conceptualizing Sanctuary as a Process in the United States

Serin Houston — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Abstract

While contentious national debates persist about the promise or peril of so-called “sanctuary cities,” this article draws on an archive of U.S. subfederal policies that focused on local responses to immigration and enforcement from 2001–2014 to argue that sanctuary constitutes a process rather than a binary state of being. Such a conceptualization underscores the broad spectrum of policy endeavors that comprise sanctuary and shifts the focus away from a reductionist question of whether or not a place is a sanctuary to inquiries into how sanctuary functions as a process in both policy creation and application. I focus on sanctuary as a process to demonstrate its socio-spatial heterogeneity and to highlight how the assertion of local values within sanctuary policies advances internal bordering. Textually analyzing sanctuary policies in this way illustrates how the process of sanctuary can simultaneously resist the bordering efforts of federal immigration enforcement and reborder local practices to cultivate belonging for citizens and noncitizens alike.

Considering Refugees Through 100 Years of Geographical Review

Emily Skop, Joel Tonyan, Arielle Cassiday — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Abstract

Given the role of the American Geographical Society and its flagship journal, Geographical Review, in the Paris Peace Conference and its prominence in the discipline of geography ever since, this paper considers how the journal takes account of refugees in its pages from 1916 to 2018 using a bibliometric approach. The term “refugee” was tracked in every Geographical Review article published during this time period, using content to generate data and analysis in QSR NVivo. First, we identify key trends in scholarship over time, then we note the rise and fall of important key terms, and finally, we examine both the countries analyzed and how these geographies change over time. The results of this bibliometric analysis of refugees in Geographical Review reflect both global geopolitical dynamics and refugee governance structures, and broader trends in epistemology in the discipline of geography. Observations made on these trends and variations indicate a need to further explore shifting paradigms and master narratives, both past and emerging, built around the “refugee” concept and its treatment within the discipline of geography.

Local Bordering Practices, Refugees, and Civil Society: The Case of Berlin

Burcu Togral Koca — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Abstract

Using the case of Berlin, this article examines civil society actors in relation to local bordering practices following the large number of refugee arrivals in 2015. Combining critical border, migration, and urban studies and adopting a Foucauldian lens, the article aims to illustrate to what extent civil society actors have challenged and transformed local bordering practices vis-à-vis refugees within a specific urban space. The analysis illustrates that civil society actors have created new spaces of inclusion for refugees and brought new political and normative challenges to the established notions of belonging. On the other hand, they have also reproduced bordering practices either by their integration into formal state structures or by reinforcing hierarchical categorizations and unequal power relations embedded in the notion of humanitarianism. Finally, the article argues that these de/re-bordering practices of civil society actors should be understood in line with the constraints that established bordering processes and the existing political and structural dynamics placed on them.

THE POISONED CITY: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy. By Anna Clark. New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt, 2018. $30.00 (cloth), isbn 9781250125149.

Carolyn G. Loh — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Geographical Review, Volume 109, Issue 4, Page 635-637, October 2019.

HEADING OUT: A History of American Camping. By Terence Young. xi and 367 pp.; ills., notes. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2017. $35.00 (cloth), isbn 9780801454028.

Geoffrey L. Buckley — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Geographical Review, Volume 109, Issue 4, Page 626-627, October 2019.

THE DRIFTLESS READER: Edited by Curt Meine and Keefe Keeley. xxxix and 348 pp.; maps, diagrs., ills., bibliog., index. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2017. $18.95 (cloth), isbn 9780299314804.

Dale Easley — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Geographical Review, Volume 109, Issue 4, Page 630-631, October 2019.

THE POLITICAL LIFE OF URBAN STREETSCAPES: Naming, Politics, and Place. Edited by Reuben Rose‐Redwood, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu. xxii and 334 pp.: maps, ills. bibliog. index. Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, 2018. $140.00 (hardcover), isbn 9781472475091.

Joshua Hagen — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Geographical Review, Volume 109, Issue 4, Page 632-634, October 2019.

THE AMERICAN ENVIRONMENT REVISITED: Environmental Historical Geographies of the United States. Edited by Geoffrey L. Buckley and Yolonda Youngs. xxiv and 358 pp.; maps, ills., notes, index. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. $100.00 (cloth), isbn 9781442269965.

Chris W. Post — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Geographical Review, Volume 109, Issue 4, Page 628-629, October 2019.

CHINA'S ASIAN DREAM: Empire Building along the New Silk Road. By Tom Miller. xi and 256 pp.; maps. London: Zed Books, 2017. $95.00 (cloth), isbn 9781783609246; $18.54 (paper), isbn 9781783609239. THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: The Struggle for Power in Asia. By Bill Hayton. xv and 320 pp.; maps. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2014. $35.00 (cloth), isbn 9780300186833; $25.87 (paper), isbn 9780300216943.

Juha I. Uitto — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Geographical Review, Volume 109, Issue 4, Page 615-625, October 2019.

Issue Information ‐ TOC

Wed, 18 Sep 2019 05:49:46 -0700

Geographical Review, Volume 109, Issue 4, Page 467-468, October 2019.

Belonging to a Place: An Analysis of the Perceptions of Rural‐to‐Urban Migrants in China

Xu Huang, Bo Zhao, Ye Liu, Desheng Xue — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 07:03:48 -0700

Abstract

The predominant trend has been rapid and unprecedented migration from rural to urban China since the mid-1980s. This dramatic demographic change has profoundly reshaped the migrants’ sense of the newly settled place. By examining the perceptual changes that have occurred in this usual context, we attempted to analyze the impact of social connection on the migrants’ sense of belonging to the host cities. In order to accomplish this, we conducted an empirical study featuring 12,807 rural-to-urban migrants across eight Chinese cities. We found that their contact with residents who were not related to them was positively linked to the development of a sense of belonging in the host cities, whereas contact with only nonresidents had the opposite effect. In addition, we also observed that one's sense of belonging is mostly fostered by one's direct interaction with a place, but it could be also be indirectly mediated via social contacts. Furthermore, the context of place will affect one's affinity for it. Also, the availability of public services generates positive feelings regarding the new place, whereas large population size has the opposite effect. This study deepened our understanding about migrants’ subjective sense place and revealed the inherent complexity in this relationship.

Time and Care in the “lab” and the “field”: Slow mentoring and Feminist Research in Geography

Martina Angela Caretta, Caroline V Faria — Sun, 28 Jul 2019 00:00:00 -0700

Abstract

Building on calls for “slow scholarship,” we highlight the importance of time and care in producing rigorous, ethical research through our advising practices. We describe how feminist ethics and epistemologies shape each of our research clusters: the Hydro-Feminist Lab at West Virginia University and the Feminist Geography Collective at the University of Texas at Austin. We show a couple of ways that feminist geographers can adopt the “lab model” and use it to build meaningful mentoring networks, fostered through time and care, and in a way that both meets and transgresses the demands of academic neoliberalism. We then show how this approach extends into our fieldwork, recounting instances where the importance of mentoring over time and through a caring ethic surface. Unfolding over weeks, months, and years we show the value of time and care, both in deepening the quality of advising relationships and in creating mentoring relationships of trust and support. We contend that this better prepares students for the intellectual and emotional challenges of feminist that research and, in turn, strengthens that research. In the face of neoliberalism's quickening drives, we highlight the benefits and the contradictions of this kind of slow and caring “lab-field” feminist mentoring for geographic research.

E‐Commerce, Taobao Villages and Regional Development in China

Yehua Dennis Wei, Juan Lin, Ling Zhang — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 00:00:00 -0700

Abstract

China's phenomenal growth and unprecedented urbanization are accompanied by social and environment problems such as rising inequality and rural stagnation. However, a new form of development based on Alibaba Group's Taobao e-commerce platform, known as Taobao villages, has emerged in rural China to capitalize from e-commerce and sustain rural development. We investigate development trajectories and organizational structure of Taobao villages to better understand e-commerce and regional development in rural China, including the role of entrepreneurs, firms, and local states. We find that Taobao villages are being produced through economic restructuring and institutional change in response to shifting economic contexts. We have identified five development models of Taobao villages: production-oriented Xishan, Qiaoyun and Bainiu models, and market-oriented Beishan and Qingyanliu models. We also find that local states and ICT (information and communication technology) firms have played an important role in facilitating the development of Taobao villages. Taobao villages have to work closely with their local and external networks to upgrade technology, enhance innovation, and increase added value. Local contexts and spatial networking are essential to the development of Taobao villages. As a new form of regional development, Taobao villages may provide a pathway to economic development for rural areas in other developing countries.

A Place for Serendipitous Mistakes? Selling Mixed Methods Fieldwork to Students in a Digital Age

Jacqueline M. Vadjunec — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 22:59:19 -0700

Abstract

I draw on over a decade of experience teaching two required mixed methods geography field courses at my university. I reflect on teaching field-based courses in a digital age when a large proportion of our students have no intention of either using mixed methods or even doing fieldwork. Yet, my department passionately defends the fieldwork tradition in geography, and continues to require these classes much to the dismay of our students. This paper explores why we continue to require such field classes, especially when students increasingly do not want them. Furthermore, I discuss why we should promote mixed methods when deeply entrenched qualitative vs. quantitative research camps persist and remain in our field. I also explore “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of teaching mixed methods and taking students to the field, all while arguing that doing fieldwork is a place to find one's “Zen.”

Digital Data And Knowledge Making In The Field

Bilal Butt — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 00:00:00 -0700

Abstract

Using digital data collection devices in the field is now commonplace among many faculty and students. However, there is less attention to how the use of GPS units, tablets and devices transforms or alters our understanding of the field itself. Does the embrace of the digital simply replace paper, or does it fundamentally transform our ways of knowing? What do we gain and what do we lose as we move from paper to digital in the acts of doing fieldwork? What are the limits of technology in the field and after the field? In this paper, I wrestle with these questions through my own fieldwork experiences through two story-telling narratives. In the first, I discuss the process of documenting pastoralists’ cattle movement through GPS units, while in the second I relay the process of using tourists as volunteer citizen scientists for wildlife monitoring efforts. Through these examples, I demonstrate a number of key lessons for fieldwork with digital devices and call for a more thorough understanding of the dialectics between devices and users.

SHRINKING THE EARTH: The Rise and Decline of Natural Abundance, by Donald Worster. xii and 265 pp.; ills., bibliog., index. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. $27.95 (cloth), isbn 9780199844951

Juha I. Uitto — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 01:22:34 -0700

Abstract

Are there limits to growth—of economy, population, natural resource use, wealth—or will human ingenuity always concur the obstacles through capital and technology? Donald Worster, an environmental historian, tracks the ebb and flow of these contrasting ideas in North America and Europe since the discovery of the Americas half a millennium ago – the Second Earth, as he calls it.

BOMBS AWAY: Militarization, Conservation and Ecological Restoration. By David G. Havlick. 208 pp.; maps, ills., bibliog., index. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2018. $33.25 (cloth), isbn 9780226547541

Lisa Benton‐Short — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 01:48:21 -0700

Abstract

David Havlick's book Bombs Away documents the conversion of military lands to wildlife conservation areas. Sites once known for violence or militarization are being transformed into sanctuaries for wildlife and Havlick deftly explores the challenges in these transformations and how they inform a new understanding of nature and society.

BUILDING AND DWELLING: Ethics for the City. By Richard Sennett. xiv and 343 pp.; ills., index. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2018. $30.00 (cloth), ISBN 9780374200336

Dana Cuff — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 01:46:40 -0700

Abstract

In 1961, the New York Times published a review of Jane Jacobs' recently released The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In it, the prescient reviewer (an MIT urban studies professor) mused that the book, with its “virtues and defects,” “…might well become the most influential work on cities since Lewis Mumford's classic, ‘The Culture of Cities.'” Little did he know how right that prediction would be. The indomitable Jacobs was a friend of the urban sociologist Richard Sennett, author of Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City, a book that, with its own virtues and defects, could become the most important since Jacobs'. The scope of Sennett's volume and reach of his conclusions aim at just this. In fact, he wrote the book after a debate with the aging Jacobs in which she challenged him to formulate his own stance if hers and Mumford's were so unsatisfactory.

LISTENING IN: Echoes and Artifacts from Maryland's Mother Country. By Meredith M. Taylor.. xiii and 149 pp.; ills., index. Staunton, Va.: George F. Thompson Publishing, 2018. $39.95 (cloth) isbn: 9781938086557

Martha E. Geores — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 01:44:49 -0700

Abstract

Taylor imaginatively conveys her love of St. Mary's County in southern Maryland in this photo essay. The county's complex history is captured here through photographs accompanied by vignettes told in the voices of people who would have inhabited the landscapes. Informed by a deep knowledge of the history and culture of the area, the text is not so much a history, as it is an informed historical interpretation. As such, the author has wide latitude to share what she refers to as “ghost voices” (p. 13), those voices that speak from within the landscape.

GENEALOGIES OF ENVIRONMENTALISM: The Lost Works of Clarence Glacken. By Clarence Glacken. Edited by S. Ravi Rajan with Adam Romero and Michael Watts. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017. xxx and 210 pp.; bibliog., index. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 9780813939070; $35.00 (paper), ISBN 9780813939087

Joseph S. Wood — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 01:34:03 -0700

Abstract

One might approach a review of this slim but exceedingly thoughtful and informative book a couple of different ways. One might scaffold the singular, if not previously coherently and fully collected, intellectual contribution of Clarence Glacken, author of Traces on the Rhodian Shore (1967), an intellectual history of exploration and human-environment relations into the eighteenth century.

The Local Role of Southern Tourism Plantations in Defining a Larger Southern Regional Identity as Reflected in Tourists’ Surveys

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 00:00:00 -0700

Abstract

To what extent does local variation exist in the expressed interests of plantation museum tourists? While the study of plantation museums is of growing importance in the tourism literature, these existing studies have tended to focus on a single site or a single region. This study examines data collected at several southern plantations across multiple smaller areas in the U.S. Southeast. Specifically, we are curious about tourists’ interests in select topics, such as slavery and the role of women on the plantation, among others in three regions: River Road, Louisiana; Charleston, South Carolina; and James River, Virginia. We hypothesize that each region has absorbed different local identities and histories that constitute multiple Souths. Employing conditional inference trees on plantation museum tourist interest ratings and rankings, we find varying social representations by in these local communities, with interest in Enslaved playing an important role in the variation of these imaginings.

Spatial Networks in Trade Credit between Geographically Close Industrial Small and Medium Enterprises in an Urban Environment

Mariluz Maté‐Sánchez‐Val — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 04:19:29 -0700

Abstract

This paper provides evidence about the relevant role of geography on spatial local networks in trade credit between industrial reduced size companies and distinguishing the spatial behavior according to the firms’ size and technological intensity. Using data from a survey of small and medium companies in the municipality of Madrid (Spain), we find significant spatial effects in trade credit between spatially close industrial companies. Whereas prior work has examined the temporal dynamics in trade credit with aggregated information, the spatial dimension with firm level data has not been considered before in trade credit studies and is the aim of this study. We find significant results for the spatio-temporal networks between geographically close companies which cause interaction effects in the proposed models by concluding that firms’ surrounding local characteristics impact the issue of trade credit for each company.

An On‐the‐Ground Challenge to Uses of Spatial Big Data in Assessing Neighborhood Character

Stefano Bloch — Sun, 09 Jun 2019 23:24:59 -0700

Abstract

While big spatial data is certainly useful as a means of getting to know a place, to get closer to actually understanding a place, the rigorous and sometimes slow process of conducting on-the-ground ethnographic fieldwork cannot be replaced, no matter the admittedly seductive size, speed, and simplicity offered by big data. In this article, I caution against the overreliance on Google Street View (GSV) and municipal call-for-service, or 311, data when assessing neighborhood character and conducting research on visual disorder. Visual and municipal spatial big data such as GSV and 311 calls are increasingly relied upon given twenty-first century computational technologies and mixed methods research proclivities. However, as I argue with examples of personally producing and researching the placement of illegal graffiti in Los Angeles and Providence's terrains vague, there is simply no proxy for qualitative data that is collected on the ground.

Fieldwork Under Surveillance: Rethinking Relations of Trust, Vulnerability, and State POWER

Caitlin M. Ryan, Sarah Tynen — Fri, 31 May 2019 02:44:14 -0700

Abstract

Encounters with the surveillance state during fieldwork are common, raising practical and intellectual challenges for qualitative research methods. Despite a number of studies on this topic, surveillance in illiberal and liberal contexts tend to be treated as separate problems. We provide a comparative case study that addresses the impacts of surveillance on sensitive research topics in the relatively weak state of Kyrgyzstan and the stronger state of China. Drawing on stories about negotiating the surveillance state with our research participants, we argue that (1) surveillance changes the relations of trust and rapport that are essential for knowledge production, (2) that it operates across unevenly positioned subjects, and (3) that the effects of surveillance on research outcomes do not substantially diverge across different state formations, such as China and Kyrgyzstan. The stories illustrate the intimate geopolitics of surveillance.

Doing Strong Collaborative Fieldwork in Human Geography

Sat, 11 May 2019 06:44:53 -0700

Abstract

Although increasingly common in the academy, collaboration is not yet the norm in human geography. Drawing on insights from ten years of experience with collaborative event ethnography (CEE), we argue that strong approaches to collaborative fieldwork offer rich opportunities for human geography. CEE involves teams of researchers conducting fieldwork together at large international events, collaborating on all aspects of the research process from research design to analysis and writing. This paper considers the benefits and challenges of CEE. Some of the benefits associated with strong collaborative fieldwork include: robust, collective interpretation of embodied data that makes room for difference; intellectual and social support for individual researchers; professional development and mentoring; and adaptability. Challenges encompass: Collectively interpreting data produced through individual, embodied experiences; managing team dynamics related to seniority, gender, and disciplinary training; meeting professional and institutional expectations and norms; valuing and recognizing individual contributions; and ensuring sufficient funding to support team preparation, data collection, and analysis. Strong collaborative approaches to fieldwork, like CEE, can cultivate slow scholarship and innovative knowledge production.

Making Heritage Through Montana's Official State Highway Maps, 1914–2000

Robert Briwa, William Wyckoff — Tue, 07 May 2019 23:40:37 -0700

Abstract

We assess Montana highway maps produced between 1914 and 2000 to identify how the Montana Department of Transportation and its predecessors used maps to frame Montana's place identity and heritage for promotional purposes in the twentieth century. After 1934, we document how Montana's official state maps became a key source and shaper of tourist knowledge about the state, its history, and its attractions. Five persistent map themes—territorial identity, mythic West, natural wealth, outdoor recreation, and hospitality—are used to define Montana landscapes and heritage and to shape perceptions of the state. The normative and persuasive powers of Montana highway maps reveal them as premiere examples of a portable and place-defining affective technology used to promote tourism within the twentieth-century American West.

The podcast‐as‐method?: Critical reflections on using podcasts to produce geographic knowledge

Eden Kinkaid, Kelsey Brain, Nari Senanayake — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 02:21:15 -0700

Abstract

In this article, we consider the potentials and limitations of podcasts as a geographic research method by reflecting upon our own podcast project that focused on a graduate student unionization movement. We found that the podcast medium allowed us to approach this study in innovative ways. First, podcasts can communicate visceral elements of data through speakers' voices, potentially changing how an audience responds to the research. Second, an emphasis on dialogue changes the way we collect, analyze, and present data, creating a more polyvocal product. Third, podcasts present opportunities to reach broader audiences. Podcasts also raise methodological challenges; limited time and technical expertise, diverging participant goals, and distribution challenges limited the potential of our intervention into the unionization debate. Despite these obstacles, the podcast-as-method could enable geographers to engage in academic and public debates in new ways, providing more accessible forms of geographic knowledge on pressing social and environmental issues.

The field and the work: Hybridity as mantra and method

Case Watkins — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 21:54:29 -0700

Abstract

This paper outlines an adaptable concept of hybridity to frame and facilitate fieldwork, research, and writing. It combines geographical theories of place and methodology to propose a hybrid approach to mixed-method research. Hybrid field-work iterates and mixes multiple methods for imagining and co-conducting research in and with places. Reflections on the author's fieldwork in Northeast Brazil illustrate the approach.

Grounding Big Data on Climate‐Induced Human Mobility

Ingrid Boas, Ruben Dahm, David Wrathall — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 00:00:00 -0700

Abstract

How can site-based fieldwork support big-data research? We reflect on this question by sharing our experiences in combining on-site fieldwork with an existing big-data analysis using call-detail records (CDR), which detected anomalous population flows in Bangladesh during cyclone Mahasen. In the original study of the CDR, this mobility was hypothesized to reflect late evacuations from homes. We discuss how site-based fieldwork enabled us to discover that the detected patterns in our area of study reflected something different: the movement of fishers seeking to protect their trawlers located at harbor areas. Moreover, the fieldwork, in conjunction with remote sensing shoreline evolution data, allowed us to identify and study high-risk behaviors of immobility that the CDR analysis was not able to detect. In sharing our findings, we are reflective of our own endeavor to optimally combine qualitative and big-data methods. While mistakes were made and challenges had to be overcome, insights were gained on how a combined methodology makes research well-grounded, reflective, and more interactive.

Pruning the community orchard: Methods for navigating human‐ fruit tree relations

Megan Betz — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 11:59:10 -0700

Abstract

The Bloomington Community Orchard's volunteers articulate their experience in the orchard as working in tandem with human and nonhuman others. Orchardists and fruit trees co-construct the space, and in turn the community it fosters. This co-construction is most prominent in pruning, the most affect-laden task in the orchard's management, requiring violence and care as orchardists carve trees into shape. To understand these human-fruit tree relations and allow my methods to mirror the orchardists’ articulation of their experience, I turn to multispecies research, examining how humans speak for or with trees, as well as how trees exert themselves and define a community orchard's needs. I combine participant observation, semistructured interviews, and discourse analysis with a national survey of community orchards and an analysis of trees’ responses to orcharding methods to understand how fruit tree-human relations inform the community that emerges from such orchards.

Becoming Linked In: Leveraging Professional Networks for Elite Surveys and Interviews

Ryan P. Dicce, Michael C. Ewers — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 15:00:45 -0700

Abstract

Finding and recruiting survey and interview participants remains an important and time-consuming process for mixed methods researchers. For those operating in cross-cultural contexts, these barriers are particularly salient as researchers must overcome both geographic and cultural distances. Traditional recruitment methods often leave researchers reliant on available corporate directories and ‘gatekeepers’ for access to and recruitment of corporate elites. Drawing on our research conducting elite surveys and interviews in the Middle East, we share our experiences – both good and bad – utilizing professional networking platforms, such as LinkedIn, to overcome the obstacles associated with contacting individuals, building trust, and recruiting participants. However, these new approaches are not without drawbacks, and public concerns over government and researcher use of such platforms has challenged the ability to make connections. Our intent is to contribute to on-going discussions of what it means to be “in the field” as we reflect on how to navigate an ever-changing cyber-space.

Investigative Ethnography: A Spatial Approach to Economies of Violence

Teo Ballvé — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 09:35:33 -0700

Abstract

Based on research in Colombia, this article argues that violent economic situations in specific spaces can be productively studied through a hybrid style of research that combines techniques of investigative journalism with the conceptual and methodological commitments of ethnographic inquiry. “Investigative ethnography,” as this marriage of epistemologies and methods could be called, can help researchers manage the practical problems of access—meaning access to people, sites, and information—within the spaces produced by violent forms of capital accumulation. Questions of space and spatiality are central to investigative ethnography's approach to these violent economic ensembles. Although oriented toward research on the systematic use of force for profit, this article's methodological considerations and practical recommendations are also relevant for scholars conducting fieldwork in other kinds of violent spaces and difficult settings.

When fieldwork “fails”: Participatory visual methods and fieldwork encounters with resettled refugees

Emily Frazier — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 04:54:43 -0800

Abstract

While feminist scholarship has long recognized the inherent “messiness” of fieldwork, research encounters can easily mutate from messiness to “failure.” As little work has been conducted on fieldwork failure, reflexive analysis of the complications and disappointments of fieldwork is crucial. Increasingly, human geographers are engaging in participatory and visual methods with populations characterized as “marginalized” or “vulnerable.” Though touted as reflexive, possibly empowering, and culturally sensitive, these methods do not automatically overcome neocolonial tendencies of fieldwork. Realization of these methods varies between participants, sites, and the fieldworkers themselves. Drawing on field notes and reflections, this paper analyzes fieldwork failure in dissertation research involving participatory visual methods with resettled refugees. These encounters reveal complex and challenging circumstances that can arise in implementing participatory visual methods with marginalized or vulnerable populations. This analysis advances understandings of participatory visual methods, and answers calls for transparency in fieldwork reflections.

Trajectories of Personal Archiving: Practical and Ethical Considerations

Gregory Knapp — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 06:01:40 -0800

Abstract

Current and future geographic field research will continue to face multiple challenges of finding, preserving, curating, publicizing, and ultimate deposition of field research materials. Every step of this trajectory of archiving involves logistical and ethical problems at both the personal and collective levels. This paper provides thoughts on my personal experiences with these issues and is meant to be provocative rather than prescriptive. Professional organizations should be more involved with brainstorming a range of solutions to these challenges.

Turning Productive Failures into Creative Possibilities: Women Workers Shaping Fieldwork Methods in Tamil Nadu, India

Madhumita Dutta — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 05:59:56 -0800

Abstract

In this article, I reflect on the ‘creative turn’ to my research as I encountered methodological failures in doing field research in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. My research was focused around the lives and labor of young migrant women who had come to work in an electronics factory inside a Special Economic Zone located outside the city of Chennai. While I was committed to a collaborative approach to enable women to tell their stories with ‘an intimacy, complexity and force’, I inadvertently produced ‘space(s) of failure’ during fieldwork that did not necessarily create meaningful collaborations. However, things changed significantly as a possibility emerged to create something together in the form of public radio podcasts. It opened up the space for conversations and motivated the women to come up with their own ideas and themes for discussions. The possibility of being heard in their own voice played an important role in producing such collaboration. The podcasts were acts of speech through which they put into circulation their viewpoints about the society and their place within it. I reflect here on the ‘productive failures’ during fieldwork that led to the possibility of new forms of creative collaboration that was generative of wonderful insights.

Researching Music‐ and Place‐Making through Engaged Practice: Becoming a Musicking‐Geographer

Aoife Kavanagh — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 05:58:37 -0800

Abstract

How might geographers better understand the active, lived, on-the-ground experiences of musicians in places, and their role in place-making? As a professional musical practitioner, I bring to geography the perspective of a musicking-geographer, drawing on Christopher Small's () concept of “musicking,” and Harriet Hawkins’ () work on geographic-artistic “doing.” To examine the co-constitutive processes of music-making and place-making, this paper describes how I have developed a new research framework that brings together two methodological approaches: musicking ethnography, and music mapping. I consider how my approach has developed in response to my aspiration to working with musicians of all age groups, musical backgrounds and interests from across the amateur-professional continuum, and to create egalitarian, engaging, respectful and useful research experiences for the musicians with whom I work. I also discuss how my dual-positionality framed my work, and how these methods might be further developed and adapted by practitioner-geographers.

Deep Listening: Practicing Intellectual Humility in Geographic Fieldwork

Natalie Koch — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 05:56:27 -0800

Abstract

The political and ethical quandaries of the “crisis of representation” that beset the social sciences from the 1980s on continue to reverberate in how geographers conduct their research today. Illustrated with two vignettes from my research in the UAE and Kazakhstan, this article explores the idea of “deep listening” as a methodological tack and mindset to guide geographic fieldwork, rooted in intellectual humility. Deep listening involves a critical reflexivity about our subject positions as researchers, as well as a suspicion of metanarratives that prevail in the media and academic debates, and a willingness to question our complicity in reproducing those narratives through our choice of research topics and methods. Deep listening is ultimately a way of practicing intellectual humility – which involves accepting that we could be incorrect at many levels, whether theoretical, factual, emotional, social, cultural, or political, and seeking out opportunities to change our mind.

Why Hell Stinks of Sulfur: Mythology and Geology of the Underworld

David R. Butler — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 00:00:00 -0700

Abstract

As a youngster, science fiction and fantasy books describing “lost” civilizations inside the Earth fascinated me. Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan at the Earth's Core were both in my youthful library. Little did I know, when reading those books decades ago, that I would find my way back into the interior of the Earth via a fascinating book by a Dutch geologist, Salomon Kroonenberg, which examines the geography and geology of the Earth's interior via the literary device of comparing actual surface and subsurface features to mythological descriptions of layers of Hell associated with Dante's Inferno. In Why Hell Stinks of Sulfur, Kroonenberg progresses from the Earth's surface towards the Earth's core layer by interior layer, examining how Earth's interior, and openings into it, have come to be understood by Earth scientists, but also how it has been described in myth, art, and religion in Western, Muslim, ancient Egyptian, and other cultures.

Cargomobilities: Moving Materials in a Global Age

Jean‐Paul Rodrigue — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 00:00:00 -0700

Abstract

Cargomobilities; cargo cult. To what extent can a book be judged by its cover and title? The reason why this question is asked is that cargo and mobilities are combined in a single word. Does such a neologism add anything of relevance outside a faster way to spell the mobility(ies) of cargo? Concerning the subtitle, moving freight would have been a better choice than moving materials, particularly since materials is rarely used in such a context. Although the introductory chapter provides an explanation for the use of “materials,” this term remains a peculiar choice.