Guest Editors' Introduction: On the Future Geographies of the South

Abstract

Guest Editors' Introduction:On the Future Geographies of the South William Graves and Derek H. Alderman "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed" —William Gibson (2001) Future-oriented discussions are not absent in geographical scholarship about the South, especially those addressing climate change and sustainability. However, too many of those discussions are buried in brief final paragraphs of papers or reduced to simple statements of further research directions on a topic. With some noted exceptions, such as the University of North Carolina's new Southern Futures initiative, we have noticed that the wider field of southern studies has largely focused on reappraising the contested nature of the South's past. While this retrospective focus is necessary to contextualize contemporary struggles over identities, spaces, and rights, it can lead us to neglect the region's prospects. Indeed, only seven articles appearing in Southeastern Geographer since 1977 have used the word "future" in their title. The relative lack of future studies comes at a problematic time as we face major environmental, economic, and social upheavals that will no doubt require substantial policy and planning responses to manage effectively. For this collection of essays, thinking about what lies ahead for the South is not an excuse to forget history (several of our contributors come from cultural memory studies). Rather, it is an analytical opportunity to put the past, present, and future in conversation with each other in thinking how the region is likely to be shaped and to evolve over the near term (e.g., 20-year horizon). Our special issue brings together contributors who explore the future trajectories of the Southeastern United States, what these futures hold for certain people and places, and to suggest possible pathways for the region to build a more sustainable and socially just future. The primary aim of the papers in this issue is to offer theoretical tools and empirical insights to identify specific changes, challenges, and possible areas of reform within the South's institutions, cultures, and behaviors that shape its future geographies. It is also our hope to cast light on how we conceptualize and carry out the study of the future – particularly in regions such as the South with strong cultural ties to the past and where uneven power relations will inevitably create alternate and conflicting regional destinies. Finally, we wish to provoke readers to consider future analysis as a professional responsibility since future studies is vital to making interventions in public decision making and elevating the responsiveness of our discipline to problems, inequalities, and issues facing the world. [End Page 291] on making southern futures We embark on this journey to reflect critically about the future geographic realities of the Southeast with a humility that such a project is inherently fraught with uncertainty and tension. We emphasize uncertainty since none of us can conjecture or reason with perfect confidence what will happen in a region marked over the past several decades by transformations and revolutions but also a stubborn persistence of certain traditions, attitudes, and inequalities. Indeed, as the nation struggles to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, eight of the ten US states with the lowest levels of vaccination are found in the Southeast, especially rural areas, and the region may be poised for a resurgence of the virus that we hope does not materialize (NPR 2021). As illustrated during this public health crisis, it is important to recognize that futures are, to a degree, a product of our making. As such, inattention to the region's future needs is likely to lead to vulnerability, injustice, and decline. While futures are produced, in part, from contemporary actions, they are also dependent upon capacities, expertise, culture and resources, and social struggles which are a product of past events. Indeed, noted southern historian James Cobb (1999) contends that the South and its cultures and landscapes are a complex mix of change and continuity. How tradition and transition mix to form the future takes on a different look and feel depending on where one is geographically and socially within the South. The idea of a future South is not universally shared but socially and geographically contingent; it may have a different...