American Geographers Research Articles

In Memoriam of Lambros Comitas (1927–2020)

In Memoriam of Lambros Comitas (1927–2020) Ellen Schnepel Lambros Comitas’s anthropological career began in the mid-1950s in the British Caribbean and spanned over six decades. His initial study of the sociocultural effects of mechanization of the fishing fleet in the Barbadian coastal community of Bathsheba was followed by an investigation of the impact of government-sponsored fishing cooperatives on five coastal settlements in Jamaica. From this research, he formulated the concept of “occupational multiplicity,” a framework to describe the complex lives of workers who were involved in multiple economic activities for survival. Click for larger view View full resolution Lambros Comitas-in his office/library at Teachers College. With Dr. Vera Rubin, he co-authored Ganja in Jamaica: A Medical Anthropological Study of Chronic Marijuana Use (1975). While the work was heralded, the authors’ conclusion that marijuana was a medically safe substance and should be decriminalized was considered controversial for its time. Comitas’s [End Page 167] research expanded to diachronic and synchronic variations of cannabis use among East Indians in Trinidad and Tobago and hashish users as a stigmatized group in Greece. Most recently, he was engaged in a study of First Nation hashish dealers in New Brunswick, Canada, with filmmaker James Hamilton. Along with the American geographer and historian David Lowenthal, Comitas co-edited four books under the rubric “West Indian Perspectives”—Slaves, Free Men, Citizens; Consequences of Class and Color; Work and Family Life; and The Aftermath of Sovereignty (1973). Biannually from 1973–2006, he wrote the article “Ethnology: West Indies” for the Handbook of Latin American Studies in which he documented the development of social science scholarship in the region. One of his most important contributions to the field of Caribbean Studies was the 1977 compilation, The Complete Caribbeana 1900–1975, a four-volume bibliographic and topical guide to the scholarly literature, which was later edited as The Digitized Caribbeana 1900–1975: A Bibliographic Guide to the Non-Hispanic Territories (2005). One of his last publications, Education and Society in the Creole Caribbean (2011)—a study of the impact of education in three post-colonial societies (Trinidad, Barbados, and Grenada)—was co-edited with his lifetime friend, mentor, and frequent collaborator, the Jamaican anthropologist M.G. Smith. For 41 years he was affiliated with The Research Institute for the Study of Man, a leading center in New York City founded by Dr. Rubin for the study of the Caribbean. After her death, he served as its director from 1985 to 2001. RISM sponsored research projects and training programs and organized multi-disciplinary conferences focusing on problematics across the geolinguistic and political boundaries of the region. After leaving RISM, Lambros founded the Comitas Institute for Anthropological Study in 2003. With a focus on the environment, natural disasters, and indigenous resistance, it hosts an annual field school for ethnographic research. Lambros was also a gifted photographer, and he considered visual anthropology as important as note-taking in ethnography. CIFAS remains an enduring legacy to the breadth of his scientific research in the Caribbean, Bolivia, Greece, the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia, Spain, Andorra, and Canada. Lambros was born in New York City on September 29, 1927, the son of Greek immigrants from the island of Ithaca. He had a 76-year association with Columbia University. Entering Columbia College at age 16 in 1943, he received his B.A. in 1948 following service in the US Army, and his Ph.D. from the Faculty of Political Sciences (Anthropology) in 1962. For 56 years he was a member of the faculty at Teachers College, the educational arm of the university, where he helped create doctoral programs in Applied Anthropology and Anthropology and Education, [End Page 168] shaping these fields to address societal issues of the day. He also served in a variety of administrative positions: Director of the Division of Philosophy, the Social Sciences, and Education; Director of the Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies; and Director of the Institute for International Studies. Lambros had a profound and nurturing influence on his students. A strong proponent of training students for careers of applied research in domains somewhat distant from traditional academic pursuits, he...

Editorial: Mobility, Connectivity, and the Implications of Covid-19 for Latin American Geography

Editorial: Mobility, Connectivity, and the Implications of Covid-19 for Latin American Geography

Hinterland: America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict by Phil A. Neel

Reviewed by: Hinterland: America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict by Phil A. Neel Andy Oler Phil A. Neel, Hinterland: America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict. London: Reaktion Books, 2018. 192 pp. $14.00 (paper). Phil A. Neel's Hinterland examines American economic life through a geographic lens, focusing specifically on areas located some distance away from the major cities that are perceived to be the center of the global economy. Neel explores life in multiple U.S. regions, including the Midwest, Northwest, and Southwest. To do so, he anchors his analysis in the growth of white nationalist groups in the Southwest as well as his experience of populist uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, and Seattle, Washington. Hinterland is not primarily a book about the Midwest, but Neel's focus on the economic struggle of the American countryside will feel familiar to scholars of the region. This is not least because he addresses many of the same spaces that preoccupy the field of midwestern studies. But because it covers impoverished zones across the country—and even recounts some of his travels in China—Neel's "hinterland" is more diffuse than even the expansive boundaries of (and endless bar debates about) the Midwest. Despite the term's connotations, Neel argues that the new American hinterland is not entirely rural. Instead, he defines the hinterland based upon its economic function: "as a disavowed, distributed core, distinct from the array of services and FIRE industries of the central city but more integral to the 'immediate process of production,' in which labor meets capital and value is produced" (17). Within this analysis, Neel distinguishes the spaces and economic activities of what he terms the "far" and "near" hinterland. According to Neel, the near hinterland differs depending on the country and is composed of suburban logistics hubs as well as peri-urban apartment complexes and "slum cities" that have been intentionally separated from wealthier parts of the city. The far hinterland covers a broad swath of American geography, including areas of agricultural production, extractive industries, and even the declined inner cities of the Rust Belt. [End Page 213] Neel illustrates how global capitalism extends into the hinterland in a complex, interconnected fashion. For instance, in chapter 1, Neel's time working for the Bureau of Land Management in northern Nevada gives him a window into the Southwest's mining and natural gas industries. after the initial boom that occurs as these industries extract value from the land, property values diminish, causing a lower tax base and fewer services for new and old residents alike. Neel describes people who, like he himself, are oft en driven there by "the twin gravities of wages and debts" and who experience economic exploitation as a series of "rents;" Neel uses that term in the Marxist sense to mean taxes, land rent, and interest on debt (43). Drawing parallels between the residents and the land, Neel argues that this is a system in decline—that exploitation and crisis are not temporary, but enduring. Hinterland's purpose, however, is not doom-saying. Neel turns an encounter with a fox who made its den in a tangle of sagebrush into a metaphor for possible responses to the "Long Crisis" he describes: "In those eyes was a reminder that despite the mundane world-breaking driven by price and profit, worlds could still be born, linked together, made to bloom—that even when the economy seemed to have reached an unprecedented expanse, it was driven by a crisis that forced its very core constantly to decay, interstices opening within the cycles of accumulation and devastation" (51). In the Southwest, the communities blooming in these interstices are right-wing ones, whose members comprise the so-called Patriot Movement. In the Midwest, the long-term deindustrialization of St. Louis and the imposition of dehumanizing fines and fees on its poor residents—focused disproportionately on the area's black population—resulted in the protests following Michael Brown's murder by the Ferguson police. Neel traveled to Ferguson with a group of Occupy veterans to observe the formation of riots in the hinterland space. His observations there contribute to Hinterland's thesis that twenty-first-century...

Feminist Futures in Latin American Geography

Feminist Futures in Latin American Geography

Geography's Quantitative Revolutions: Edward A. Ackerman and the Cold War Origins of Big Data by Elvin Wyly

Reviewed by: Geography's Quantitative Revolutions: Edward A. Ackerman and the Cold War Origins of Big Data by Elvin Wyly Russell S. Kirby Geography's Quantitative Revolutions: Edward A. Ackerman and the Cold War Origins of Big Data. Elvin Wyly. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2019. Pp. xx+171, notes, index. $99.99, hardcover, ISBN 978-1-949199-08-6. $22.99, paperback, ISBN 978-1-949199-09-3. This slender monograph uses the career and writings of Edward Ackerman as a mirror to reflect on the evolution of the discipline of geography from the mid-twentieth century to the present, with some speculations into the future. Using Ackerman's work to center the discourse, Elvin Wyly weaves a narrative that links the origins of geography's quantitative revolution to the cadre of geographers involved in intelligence efforts in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II and its transition aft er the war to the Central Intelligence Agency (better known to Americans as the CIA). While this is to some extent an oversimplification, those geographers involved in the OSS played an important role in amplifying the use of mathematical [End Page 191] modeling and hypothesis testing in a wide array of topics in human geography. Along the way, Wyly's discourse examines elements of the debate concerning the nature of geography from the perspective of Hartshorne to geography as a quantitative spatial science informed by general systems theory. He then extends this to the emerging science of big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, all the while centering Ackerman as a pivotal figure in what was a more gradual transition over decades. The monograph consists of six chapters. The first chapter uses Ackerman's address as honorary president of the Association of American Geographers in 1963, titled "Where Is a Research Frontier," as a point of embarkation for a detailed discussion of geography's scientific revolutions that continue to the present day. The second chapter chronicles and contextualizes Ackerman's career to the early 1960s, touching on his critical roles at OSS, Harvard University in the 1940s, and the Carnegie Institute of Washington. From the 1940s to the early 1960s, Ackerman was an essential figure in the early stages of geography's transition as a quantitative science, through both his research and writing and his leadership roles in the national scientific community. The narrative quickly dives into the history of philosophy of science in the next chapter, as the author examines the underpinnings of some of Ackerman's arguments from the perspective of Kant, viewed through the lens of Hartshorne. Ackerman argued for a "systematic geography" and sought to align geography with general systems theory. Several pages are devoted to discussing a controversy around a comprehensive report Ackerman spearheaded on Japanese Natural Resources in 1949–50, in which some conclusions were deemed in our present parlance as being "politically incorrect," though based on sound scientific reasoning. In the words of the title of the next chapter, Ackerman became in some ways a "militant neo-Kantian" in seeking to impose a systems perspective on the discipline of geography. Wyly develops this line of thought in a lengthy chapter that shows how Ackerman's thinking began with insights from the philosophy of Kant, articulated by Hartshorne. Ackerman transformed these into a worldview that supported the delineation of scientific laws governing the spatial organization of human activity within a logical positivist framework. [End Page 192] While the chapter's focus on Ackerman's career in the context of the mid-twentieth century evolution of academic geography in the US may be of most interest to historical geographers, readers should pay special attention to chapter 5, "The New Evolution of Geographic Thought." In this chapter Wyly makes a strong connection between Ackerman's new frontier of systems theory for geography, and the interconnected web of internet, telecommunications, apps, marketing, social networking, and sharing of information and misinformation. The result is not a fully nuanced view—there is no mention of humanist or phenomenological approaches in geographic thinking or research, nor are its leading proponents referenced. Even so, Wyly gives geographers more than enough to digest and reflect on concerning the current...

Landscape semiotics and visual / textual analysis in Anglo-American cultural geography

The article focuse is on the landscape understanding from the perspective of semiotics and critical social theory in Anglo-American cultural geography and the method of landscape visual/textual analysis. The history of approaches to landscape understanding and research in Anglo-American cultural geography from the beginning of the XX century to this day is analyzed, as well as the consideration of the landscape in the European Landscape Convention. It was found that the use of the concept of landscape in human geography primarily implies the emphasis on the visual aspect of the built environment. It was found that from the perspective of semiotics, landscapes, in addition to the material (physical) dimension, carry a semantic load, convey meaning, are a system of signs and can be read as text. The axioms for reading the landscape of American geographers P. Lewis and D. Mitchell, and ideas of structuralist semiotics are presented. These theoretical and methodological approaches are applied to study the architectural styles of administrative, residential and commercial buildings, monuments and advertisement in public space, place names and other ways of symbolic marking of space as well as landscapes representation in the media (movies, news, advertisements, paintings, literature). The article also examines the understanding of the landscape from the perspective of critical social theory, according to which they are involved in the construction, maintenance, legitimization and resіstence of social structures (systems of relations), such as national, political, economic, class or gender. The approaches to landscape research discussed in the article are central to the analysis of visual changes of built environment in urban and rural settings, including the process of "decommunization" in Ukraine, landscape involvement in capitalist relations and consumption practices, it commodification and commercialization. It was found that landscapes visual/textual analysis also allows to reveal the values and identities of people expressed in the architectural styles of single-family houses. The application of the considered approaches is important for the improvement of urban planning and architectural regulations in order to create a socially just environment, taking into account the historical, social and cultural context, and the needs of different residents.

Emerging Geographies: Academic Communities, Research Agendas, and International Conferences in Ecuador and Bolivia

Emerging Geographies:Academic Communities, Research Agendas, and International Conferences in Ecuador and Bolivia Andrea Carrión and María F. López Sandoval introduction Geographical knowledge relies on area or regional studies and the production of disciplinary knowledge (Jazeel, 2015). Latin Americanist geographers around the world are mainly concerned with the first form of knowledge; however, given the politics of area studies (Powell et al., 2016), we acknowledge that the context and location of Latin Americanists affects the shape of knowledge produced about Latin America. Understanding the foregoing, this paper has two main aims. First, we approach the trajectories of geography (e.g. the evolution of their academic communities and disciplinary contributions) in two countries, Ecuador and Bolivia, over the past two decades. We emphasize these countries because most geographical studies published about and generalized for Latin America have focused on Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and somewhat more recently Colombia. Second, we review the linkages of these emerging geographies with two regional events and networks: the Encuentro de Geógrafos de América Latina (EGAL) and the Conference of Latin American Geography (CLAG). We base our analysis on a literature review, journal bibliometrics, two discussion sessions conducted with EGAL participants in 2019, and expert interviews. In the first section, below, we present how geographical academic communities emerged in the two countries. We then turn our attention to how national research agendas have been molded by the influence of international research agendas and local demands. The following two sections review the connections of these emerging geographical communities with the above-mentioned international conferences and the Journal of Latin American Geography (JLAG). We conclude by discussing the constraints that challenge knowledge production in the context of North-South dialogues between Latin American and Latin Americanist geographers. geographical academic communities in ecuador and bolivia In Ecuador and Bolivia, geography has long [End Page 61] been more of an applied science than an epistemic approach to concerns of space, place, or territories. Hence, eclecticism and diversity characterize most interactions among entities and groups doing geography and producing disciplinary knowledge. In both countries, geographic thought incorporates elements of French, American/English, and Brazilian paradigms. However, in contrast to Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia, where geography has an older and stronger background both as a discipline and a career, in Bolivia and Ecuador it has remained negligible in national academic and political debates and is regarded as a somewhat marginal profession. As in several other countries in Latin America, geography in Ecuador and Bolivia has been commonly associated with the production of national and official cartographic material. For instance, through the mid-1990s, the Military Geographic Institute (IGM) of Ecuador was the official geographic and cartographic agency, and also employed the few professional geographers who were educated as engineers in the University of the Armed Forces (ESPE). However, IGM has hosted international organizations such as the Pan-American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH) and the Pan-American Center for Geographical Studies and Research (CEPEIGE). The interaction of these centers with international research and development agencies, such as the French Research Institute for Development (ORSTOM/IRD), resulted in a series of thematic maps and publications such as Geografía Básica del Ecuador (Gómez, 2018). In the mid-1990s, two events largely influenced the expansion of geographical production. First, an undergraduate degree in human geography was created at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE); and second, technology-based innovation was introduced via geographic information systems (GIS), which reinforced the curricula of the existing geographical engineering programs in Bolivia and Ecuador. Both the professionalization of geographers and the popularization of digital spatial data enabled a more open and critical approach to mapmaking than in the past, achieving a certain independence from state-produced analog cartography. Even so, there is still no graduate degree program in geography in any university in Ecuador or Bolivia. By the turn of the twenty-first century, geography as a discipline and as a profession had become more popular in Ecuadorian higher education. Both ESPE and PUCE strengthened and updated their bachelor's degrees on geodesy, geographical science, spatial planning, and environmental science. At the same time, universities in Cuenca, Guayaquil...

Subsidy from Nature: Green Sea Turtles in the Colonial Caribbean

Subsidy from Nature:Green Sea Turtles in the Colonial Caribbean Karl Offen throughout their careers, archie Carr, James Parsons, and Bernard Nietschmann—the latter two were early and influential members of the Conference of Latin American Geographers (CLAG)—asked challenging questions about human-environmental relations and, in so doing, highlighted the essential relationship between the green sea turtle and human activities in the colonial Caribbean. They interrogated the fundamental linkages between specific ecosystems and the sociopolitical and economic developments to which these links contributed. Today we may call this sort of research coupled human-environment systems, but exemplary cultural-historical geography has always strived to analyze the mutual entanglements uniting society with environment. The purpose of this commentary is to encourage Latin American geographers to continue this vein of research, and specifically to do so in a way that elucidates the broader significance of society-environment relations. I do this here by following up on the powerful historical implications suggested throughout the works of Carr, Parsons, and Nietschmann. Geographers have long analyzed how subsidies from nature allowed particular patterns of human settlement and resource use, and the intrepid scholarship of Carr, Parsons, and Nietschmann was no exception.1 Although their work with Chelonia mydas, or the green sea turtle, is well-known among marine ecologists and conservation biologists today (Rieser, 2012), the far-reaching significance of their historical deductions have been largely overlooked. This is unfortunate because their assertions suggest that Chelonia's abundance and lifecycle ecology undergirded settler colonialism, plantation agriculture, piracy, portions of the slave trade, and intra-imperial conflicts throughout the Caribbean basin and from the earliest days of the European presence. Despite this claim, much of the work by Carr, Parsons, and Nietschmann remains unknown or underutilized by historians of the colonial Caribbean. The abundant, predictable, and easily taken Chelonia provided an essential and nutritious food source for early Europeans in the Caribbean basin, allowing piracy and commercial enterprises built upon the exploitation of human labor to take root. Notice of the indispensable subsidy from nature was made as early as 1954 by Archie Carr, who opined that "all early activity in the new world tropics–exploration, colonization, buccaneering and the maneuverings of naval squadrons–was in some way dependent on the [sea] turtle.… More than any other dietary factor the green turtle supported the opening up of the Caribbean" [End Page 182] (Carr, 1954, p.17). Shortly thereafter, James Parsons (1962) sustained and reinforced this observation in his classic The Green Turtle and Man by highlighting the strong connection between piratical activity and the wide abundance of Chelonia throughout the western Caribbean. Taking mostly a cultural ecology approach, Bernard Nietschmann (1973, 1979a, 1979b) illustrated the pivotal role of Chelonia in bringing the Miskitu people into allied relations with buccaneers and early English settlers in the far western Caribbean, groups that decisively altered the human geography of that region for 200 years and helped explain the rise of non-Spanish colonies in the region during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In spite of these compelling and prescient conjectures, only a few historians of the colonial Caribbean have engaged with this aspect of their work. A recent article by the historian Mary Draper (2017) illustrates how these earlier studies remain poorly known but also why they should be more widely appreciated. Draper examines the role of timber and green sea turtle acquired in the "maritime hinterlands" of early English Barbados and Jamaica, respectively. She found that available surpluses of these off-island resources were essential for urban and capitalist development in the English West Indies. In the case of Jamaica, she illustrates how the harvesting of Chelonia from surrounding ecosystems allowed for the rise of Port Royal as a critical entrepot for piracy and smuggling. Her work suggests, but does not fully develop the implications of, the centrality of Chelonia for provisioning the enterprises which provided the start-up capital necessary for commercial agriculture, sugar mills, and the purchase of enslaved labor in Jamaica (Draper, 2017; see also Zahedieh, 1986, 1990; Crawford & Márquez-Pérez, 2016). Though her study is fundamentally ecological and geographic, Draper does not reference the decades-long and wide-ranging work of...

The Sauer Tree in Time and Place

The Sauer Tree in Time and Place1 Kent Mathewson, Ashley L. Allen, Audrey Grismore, Mariano Lagos, Jessica Rose Simms, and Brett Spencer carl O. Sauer's Latin Americanist genealogical tree provides a prime example of what can be learned and discerned from assembling an academic family tree. The tree comprises Sauer's Latin Americanist PhD descendants. The record is, for the most part, recoverable. Once the basic tree has been assembled, a variety of other questions can be asked, attributes can be distinguished, and connections can be established. These include favored regional locations where research has been done, and areas where research is sparse or absent. Similarly, there are clear shifts in research foci, methodology, and epistemological orientations over time that can be charted and commented on. Overall, this assemblage of Sauer-associated researchers and their doctoral research provides one of the larger tableaux of Latin Americanist geography's history since the 1920s, including its personalities and development, and offers some indications of where the geography is headed. The construction of academic genealogical trees is largely an exercise or enterprise that awaits historians of geography. While biographical literature on individual geographers, both monographic and article-length, is considerable, and some figures have been singled out for particular attention, work on collectivities associated with individuals is almost non-existent. There is a modest literature on departmental histories, usually in-house documents or book chapters or journal articles in special issues. It would seem that prosopographical work (collective biographical studies) in the history of geography is a promising new arena. Constructing academic "family trees" or genealogies is the logical place to start. It is widely accepted that Sauer inspired and directed a school (the "Berkeley school") with common epistemological and methodological groundings in cultural-historical approaches and perspectives, and with a preponderant regional focus [End Page 84] on Latin America. The extent to which this is empirically validated can be determined from the data on the tree. Similarly, the extent to which subsequent generations have either adhered to or diverged from the ideal types (topics, regions, periods) that Sauer's own work represents can be charted. The "total" Carl O. Sauer academic genealogical tree comprises all of the PhD graduates in geography (first generation) that Sauer supervised over four decades (1923-1967), and their students, and so on, now unfolding into the sixth generation. At present, over 1,000 dissertators have places on the "total tree." However, this figure may be an undercount by as much as 10 to 15 percent. We have relied primarily on ProQuest's data bank, which mainly provides U.S. dissertation information. For the most part, dissertations directed by Sauer legatees at universities outside the U.S., especially in Latin America, have yet to be identified and placed on the tree. Sauer had thirty-seven PhD graduates in geography at Berkeley, and one, Darrell Haug Davis, at the University of Michigan. Of Sauer's thirty-eight PhD students, half, or nineteen, pursued dissertation topics involving Latin America (15) or the Caribbean (4). The common perception is that Sauer's students, and their subsequent descendants, primarily focused on Latin America. However, this turns out to be something of a misconception. Preliminary compilation and tabulation of dissertation data on the "total" Sauer tree suggests that, at most, one third (about 320) of the dissertations fall into the Latin America and the Caribbean category. North America based dissertations are actually the largest group, with about 380 dissertations. About seventy dissertations lack a regional focus, about sixty treat sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia and Europe about fifty each. North Africa and the Middle East are the scenes of about twenty-five dissertations, East Asia of about twenty, and Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand/Oceania of about fifteen each. Russia, Central Asia, and the global scope have about five dissertations each. Once the total tree is completely filled-out, it is likely to constitute the largest number of academic advisee "descendants" of any North American geographer. Quite possibly, it is also the largest in the history of geography. Although Latin Americanist dissertations represent less than half of those on the total tree, they almost certainly constitute the largest...

Fifty Years of Latin American(ist) Geography

Fifty Years of Latin American(ist) Geography

Real Estate and the Production of Urban Space: A Pervasive Debt of Latin American(ist) Geography

Real Estate and the Production of Urban Space: A Pervasive Debt of Latin American(ist) Geography

Territories of Latin American Geography

Territories of Latin American Geography

Benchmarking and Beyond: CLAG's Role in Evaluating Research Agendas, 1970–2020

Benchmarking and Beyond:CLAG's Role in Evaluating Research Agendas, 1970–2020 Gregory Knapp introduction The Conference of Latin American Geography (CLAG; originally, Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers) began as an actual conference in 1970, convened to assess the current state of research themes on the region. The resulting proceedings were published as a Benchmark volume in 1971 (see Carmin, Martinson, & Lentnek, 1971). Many organizations have produced benchmark or inventory and prospect volumes to stimulate future research (James & Jones, 1954), but CLAG went further than most by starting with one and producing them on a regular basis. After the end of that conference it was decided to create an organization by the same name, which went on to organize many additional meetings and publications that have continued through the present. The idea of benchmarking continued in decadal meetings in 1980 and 1990, resulting in special publications. A final effort took place in a publication in 2002 (Knapp, 2002), but after that interest in systematic evaluations waned, as the new Journal of Latin American Geography (JLAG) was published more frequently, covering diverse topics, sometimes in themed issues such as this one. What was accomplished by the Benchmark meetings and volumes? What were their strengths and weaknesses? Critical research of academic and scientific organizations is important for evaluating organizational effectiveness and best practices, and also issues of inclusion and diversity. Organizations often do a good job of celebrating their successes but may not do so well at diagnosing problems (Lutz & Collins, 1993). CLAG has recently changed its name from Latin Americanist Geographers to Latin American Geography as one gesture to enhance inclusion. How does the trajectory of benchmarking relate to issues of diversity? the first benchmark: challenges of diversity As is well known, the idea for a conference on Latin America was discussed at a private meeting of fifteen geographers during the 1969 meeting of the Pan American Institute of Geography and History in Washington, D.C. The meeting was held at the Cosmos Club at the invitation of Preston James; participants were all from the United States, and included mostly U.S. faculty (including John Augelli, president of the Latin American Studies Association), but also geographers from the Organization of American States (Wolfram Drewes) and the State Department (Arthur Burt) (Martinson, 1996). Founded by John Wesley Powell [End Page 38] in 1878, the Cosmos Club was also where the National Geographic Society was founded. This members-only club became racially integrated in 1962 and open to women in 1988, due to public pressure. While CLAG itself never formally refused participation to women and minorities, or Latin Americans, their participation was similarly limited in its early years. This is something the organization needs to continue to recognize as it broadens its commitment to diversity. The preface to the 1970 Benchmark volume (Carmin et al., 1971) provides a discussion of the context of the first conference. Originally the conference was to be small and restricted to a few North American participants, due to funding and timing concerns, as well as to the vision that the conference would be national and primarily for North American geographers. However, as funding was obtained (from the National Science Foundation [NSF] and the Social Science Research Council [SSRC]), interest expanded until it grew to 150 total participants, including fiftyone invited presenters and eight discussants. Planning meetings were held at Michigan State University (chaired by Barry Lentnek) in October 1969, and at Ohio State University in January 1970, and the first conference was held in Muncie, Indiana, funded by the NSF and SSRC with cochairmen Tom Martinson and Robert Carmin of Ball State University, from April 30 to May 3, 1970 (Martinson, 1996). At this point Martinson was not a board member, but would later join the board and become executive secretary from 1978 to 1992. Invited, funded observers from Latin America at the 1970 meeting included Pedro Pinchas Geiger (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica, Brazil), Silvana Levi de López (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico), and Carlos Merida (Guatemala) (Carmin et al., 1971). The final published volume—Volume 1 of the CLAG Publication Series—included forty articles, among them twelve on urban, spatial, and...

Racialized and Identity-Based Inequalities as (New?) Frontiers for Academic Discussion: Future Agendas around Land Issues

Racialized and Identity-Based Inequalities as (New?) Frontiers for Academic Discussion:Future Agendas around Land Issues Diego Andrés Lugo-Vivas latin America and the Caribbean have long carried a heavy colonial weight. The region's history of inequality and development reflects years of conflicts, struggles, exclusion, and visions of progress that have had a particular imprint on our social landscapes. On the one hand, the construction of a highly unequal rurality centered on the hacienda, mining enclaves, and expulsion of peasant, indigenous, Afro-descendant, LGBTIQ+, and other racial, ethnic, and gender minorities due to spatially extensive activities based on cattle, monocrop, conservation, and, later, energy and hydrocarbon projects, is present in almost every Latin American and Caribbean country. On the other hand, the ongoing construction of the city and the urban frontier, with segmented settlement in which wealthier groups populate less risky areas while enormous misery belts are erected as a form of exclusion against migrant and displaced groups, summarizes the history of the urban frontier. In the academy, both of these processes have prioritized a particular stream of voices, topics, and research mechanisms that might be taken as a consequence of the very colonial history. The Conference of Latin American Geographers (henceforth CLAG) and the Journal of Latin American Geography (henceforth JLAG) are simultaneously a reflection of that, a source of inspiration and critique, and a vehicle to propose new debates. This essay will emphasize the history of CLAG and JLAG discussions of land issues, and it will propose a set of theoretical and methodological approaches to uncover new realities and old processes related to the dispossession and displacement of a set of minorities, namely, LGBTIQ+ groups. White, male, and north-based scholars have dominated CLAG publications and presentations for decades. A brief overview of "who has published what" illustrates the perhaps unconscious emphasis that CLAG publications have developed over time. Since the creation of CLAG's Publication Series (1972-1980), Proceedings (1981-1983), and Yearbook (1984-2002), authors devoted to the study of land issues had a particular profile. Between 1972 and 2002, just over 100 articles on land issues were published.1 Of those, eighty-six were authored or co-authored by 100 white, male, north-based scholars under single or shared authorship, compared to only sixteen articles authored by women (with no co-authored contributions, much less publications in which men [End Page 233] were led by a woman). Since 2002, with the advent of JLAG, new frontiers have been established, though male predominance is still distinctive.2 Of the 245 land-related articles published during this time, 293 men and 117 women appear as authors and just eleven manuscripts have been coauthored by teams in which two or more men have followed the lead of a female voice. These and other trends, such as the lack of a Caribbean emphasis and the historical prevalence of bilingual authors with few involvements of indigenous, peasant, and Afro-descendant Latin American and Caribbean-born scholars, might be seen as a consequence of the very colonial history and the exclusionary past and present of the region. These, on countless occasions, have been the subject of study in articles in CLAG publications. In that context, one of the most salient historical emphases in Latin American geography has been the analysis of land use and land cover change (LULC change), and the distribution of property regimes based on homogeneous notions around land and soil as scientifically observable research objects. In my experience as a researcher in Colombia, the academic tradition has revolved around highly unequal property regimes, processes of colonization, and settlement in the agricultural frontier that have reinforced patterns of exclusion and violence associated with the accumulation of land, which in the Colombian case have been exacerbated by the longest and bloodiest armed conflict in the hemisphere. In recent decades, and coincident with the arrival of JLAG, political ecology has played an important role in the diffusion of new voices regarding cyclical and renewed paths of land grabbing (Reyes, 2009; CNMH, 2010; Ballvé, 2012; Grajales, 2011, 2013; Oliveira, 2013; Oxfam, 2013; Ybarra, 2013; CICIG, 2016). This eclectic stream of voices has brought attention to different colonial and exclusionary dynamics...

CLAGistas: The Rise of Women in Latin American Geography

CLAGistas:The Rise of Women in Latin American Geography T. Shawn Mitchell the conference of latin american Geographers (CLAG) and I are both fifty this year, making it an apt time for celebration and introspection. When I finished my doctorate in 1997, pregnant with my second child, I didn't know how to balance fieldwork in Central America with motherhood, so I continued to teach as an adjunct but put my career on hold. Now that I am re-entering the academic world, I feel like Rip Van Winkle waking up after a twenty-year maternity leave to find an explosion in the number of women engaged in Latin American geography. In honor of our semi-centennial, I'd like to use this essay to outline the growth of women in CLAG ("CLAGistas") over the past five decades and then provide my perspective as an academic late bloomer. Statistically, men still dominate geography, making up 65 percent of faculty in colleges and universities and 70 percent of employees in non-academic geographical professions (AAG, 2018). Those numbers belie the gains made by women on many fronts, from leadership to publications and employment. Publications serve as a valuable metric for assessing women's progress because they reflect not only the ability to conduct research, but also access to resources and institutional support. In most universities, peer-reviewed articles remain the "corner-stone of professional advancement" (Fredrich & Salazar, 1990, p. 361). To put CLAG's numbers in perspective, female contributors to the Annals of the American Association of Geography rose from zero in 1956 to 35 percent in 2016, with a similar trend in The Professional Geographer (AAG, 2015). According to Fredrich and Salazar (1990), women authored only 10 percent of articles in the first decade of CLAG's Publication Series. To provide a more complete picture of female authorship over time, I used the online archives of CLAG publications (Publication Series, Proceedings, Yearbook, and Journal of Latin American Geography) to tally articles with female authors and co-authors in fiveyear intervals between 1980 and 2019. There was little growth over the first three decades, but female contributions rose significantly after 2000, and in 2019 women (as authors and co-authors) contributed an impressive 65 percent of articles and 43 percent of reviews (Figure 1). CLAGista research is diverse and leans more toward applied than theoretical topics. Agricultural and historical themes dominated the early decades, but migration, globalization, and environmental issues are now ascendant. Feminist geography "[a]lthough not solely a subject of interest to women … is perhaps the only subfield in geography [End Page 20] that is clearly dominated by women" (Schroeder, 2002, p. 149). Of the thirty-two articles and reviews with gender-related titles published between 1990 and 2019, 82 percent were authored or co-authored by women. The word "women" appeared in eighteen titles, "gender(ed)" in eight, and "mujer(es)," "feminist/feminism," "feminista," and "latina" each showed up twice. Since this count is based solely on titles, it overlooks articles in which the content might be gender related. It also neglects work CLAGistas do outside of academic publication to promote women in geography, like the "Let Girls Map" program started by Patricia Solis. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Female authorship as a percent of total journal content for select years, 1980–2019. (Articles include introductory essays, research articles, JLAG Perspectives, and "From the Field" notes. Those written by female co-authors may also have male authors. Reviews include reviews of films, websites and books). Conferences provide another gauge of women's participation in Latin American geography. There were no female presenters at the first CLAG meeting in Muncie, IN, in 1970 (Davidson, personal communication, 18 May 2018). In the subsequent decade, women presented only 9 percent of papers, inching up to 17 percent in the 1980s (Fredrich & Salazar, 1990). At the 2018 conference in San Jose, Costa Rica, women presented nearly half of the papers, and received all eight of that year's student travel awards. While host universities are disproportionately represented at any given conference, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, and the University...

Early Days with the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers: Some Very Selective, Irreverent, and Personal Reminiscences

Early Days with the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers:Some Very Selective, Irreverent, and Personal Reminiscences1 Tom Martinson the day broke clear and cool in Ottawa, Canada, on September 24, 1984. Already, members were discussing and debating points of their research, and soon the annual meeting of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers (CLAG) would be declared open and another day of camaraderie and confrontation would begin. It was another meeting of old and new friends whose goal was to know and tell more about their twin passions, Geography and Latin America. Little did I know that later that day I would receive the CLAG Award for Exceptional Leadership and Service, and as I sat across the table from presenter Richard Wilkie, Chair of the Honors Committee, I reflected on all the priceless experiences and great friendships that had come my way because of the very people who chose to honor me. It is they, of course, who deserve the honor, for all the years of dedicated service they gave this organization, from the small band of 10 or 15 people gathering in a few planning meetings across the United States to the large and consequential international body it is today. Years ago, Karl Butzer once asked me why I chose to take a service-oriented career path rather than a more traditional one involving research and publication. I didn't have a good answer then; perhaps I can do better now. Relating these reminiscences will help, for my story and CLAG's story are intertwined. I am one of the fortunate few who served from the beginnings of our organization until its maturity. My strongest memories are of the many people, friends, who I came to know through my time in our organization. Long before CLAG and as a high school student in Oregon, I saw and heard of the rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba and the dramatic [End Page 14] changes that followed. I was fortunate enough to have taken two courses in Geography at my high school in Gresham, Oregon, so I saw the implications of this movement and the changes in the wind for Latin America, and I wanted to know more. So, on my first day as a freshman at the University of Oregon, I knocked on the door of the Department of Geography and, as the door opened, I said, "I'm Tom Martinson. I want to major in Geography and study Latin America." After a moment of stunned silence, Gene Martin welcomed me into his office. Lucky me. That first Oregon geographer I metwas to be my friend and mentor for many decades, as he was a Latin Americanist. Gene Martin, master teacher, and Carl Johannessen, master investigator, guided my path through the program at Oregon, where I think I took all the courses for the major as well as some they created for me. After I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography at Oregon, I was lucky again, for I received a National Defense Education Act fellowship to attend the University of Kansas, where Robert Nunley and John Augelli were developing a core group with Latin American interests. With their assistance I completed my coursework toward the PhD degree and, through the perseverance of Bob Nunley in persuading his dean to part with the money, was able to travel to Latin America for the first time. It was an amazing experience. I was overwhelmed by a firestorm of scenes, smells, and spectacles, stirring all my emotions. I knew I had made the right decision those years ago to study Latin America. As I drove through Mexico and Central America in my Volkswagen Beetle, I began to absorb some of the issues and problems that would pervade my professional life for years to come. But first there were more opportunities back home. I accepted a one-year teaching appointment at the University of Colorado, substituting for Don McPhail, their Latin American geographer, then on leave in Chile. There at the same time was Gary Elbow, finishing his dissertation on Latin America at the University of Pittsburgh. He and I were students together earlier at Oregon, he a graduate...

Historical markers in the western United States: regional and cultural contrasts

ABSTRACT The American West evokes many images in the minds of both its citizens and visitors. Historical markers are one way that regional historical identity has been preserved and displayed over time. Tourists interested in exploring the heritage of local areas can thus find a wealth of valuable site-specific information in these markers. Western states have 1000s of these official landmarks, which commemorate an event, a town, an old building, important individuals, or other past geographies. We compare the topical themes found in these markers among eleven states and the culture regions identified by Donald W. Meinig (1972). American wests: Preface to a geographical interpretation. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 62(2), 159–184. We find that the regional historical classifications of these extracts of public memory have some correlations to Meinig’s identified cultural elements. Locals and tourists in the American West, who make the effort to stop and appreciate the historical markers they encounter, will have a more informed view of the cultural heritage of this region. This regional view can be valuable not only to tourists, but also to heritage promotion organizations, who can use large-scale classifications, such as those produced in this research, to identify how their state or region has been characterized by those who have erected markers in order to solidify collective memory.

Reflections on Gilbert F. White: Scholar, Advocate, Friend

Photo courtesy of Barb RichmanGilbert F. White (1911–2006) is among the most distinguished and honored American geographers of the 20th century. Among his many contributions, he stimulated efforts ...

Annual Meeting. Association of American Geographers. Wardman Park and Shoreham hotels. Washington, D. C., 3-7 de abril de 2019

Annual Meeting. Association of American Geographers. Wardman Park and Shoreham hotels. Washington, D. C., 3-7 de abril de 2019

“All of This Happens Here?”: Diminishing Perceptions of Canada through Immigrants’ Precarious Work in Ontario

Prior to entering Canadian workplaces, immigrants generally expect strong legislative protections based on Canada’s global reputation for equity and equality as reported by Hardwick and Mansfield (Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(2), 383-405, 2009). However, after exposure to poor working conditions, employment standards (ES) violations, and challenges with filing claims for recompense, immigrant workers’ perceptions of work in Canada often diminish significantly. Although scholars have explored Canadian immigrants’ experiences with unemployment and poor working conditions, little research has uncovered the effects of these experiences on their shifting perceptions of Canada and their overall experience of adjusting to a new life in Canada. Our narrative data, collected in Ontario, Canada, reveals (1) the exploitation of immigrant workers’ perceived limited access to and knowledge of workplace rights and (2) limited access to employment opportunities and protections for immigrant workers. These two factors lead to workers’ diminishing perceptions of Canada as they navigate poor working conditions on the precarity track according to Goldring and Landolt (Goldring and Landolt 2013). This analysis offers insight into the everyday experiences of immigrant workers and the impacts of precarious employment on perceptions of Canada.