Concept Of Geographies Research Articles

Thoughts on ‘planetary rural geographies’: Commonalties of capitalist development, authoritarian populisms, and energy transition

In contrast to the urban-centric framing of planetary urbanization, the concept of ‘planetary rural geographies’ emphasizes the ongoing importance and distinctiveness of pluriversal rural spaces and identities, including their continued centrality to the global economy. It also argues that rural spaces are especially defined by diverse relationships between the human and non-human that must be understood volumetrically, rather than through largely two-dimensional territorial imaginaries. These themes are developed and illustrated via consideration of contemporary rural geographies as spaces of crisis, spaces of conflict, and spaces of hope. The concept of planetary rural geographies could be enhanced by greater attention to key analytical commonalties among admittedly diverse rural geographies, particularly with respect to broader dynamics of capitalist development and climate change, an effort that could be supported via greater engagement between the literatures on specifically rural geographies, and those on rural populisms, climate adaptation and mitigation, and energy geographies.

Translanguaging through the body: centering geographies of selves in Latinx pre-service teacher education

Traversing metaphorical, literal, and epistemological borders everyday creates and produces new ways of being and knowing. These migrations have afforded many with ways to live in the in-betweenness of multiple languages, identities, and knowledges. In this conceptual essay, we focus on Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of geographies of selves to support ideas of translanguaging as a theory and pedagogy of linguistic embodiment. The body moves through space and time gathering information, knowledge, and wisdom to produce hybrid languages and culture and ultimately new knowledges. We specifically look towards the borderlands embodied experiences as central to new ways of understanding how bodies/identities express different realities and knowledges through language. We offer implications for Latinx pre-service education.

Geographies of dissociation: informality, ethical codes and fragmented labour regimes in the Sri Lankan apparel industry

Abstract In this article, I use the emerging concept of geographies of dissociation to examine fragmented labour regimes in global production networks (GPNs). The article takes informality in the Sri Lankan apparel industry and the application of ethical codes as a case example. Using qualitative research methods, I provide a critical analytical lens through which the concept of dissociation makes visible what has been obscured through much of the debate on ethical codes. In so doing, the article makes three contributions to the debate on ethical codes and dissociation. First, I illuminate uneven geographies of ethical codes manifested through highly fragmented workplaces where some workers are excluded from the protection of ethical codes. In so doing, the article challenges the notion of homogenous workplaces, in which, dialectics of inclusion and exclusion of ethical codes often go unnoticed. Secondly, by illustrating bifurcated and inequal labour regimes, I argue that both association and dissociation practices can co-exist in the same workplace at the same time. This is in contrast to the existing works that mostly frame places of dissociation as distant and hidden from the association places. Third, I advance the concept of dissociation beyond its current framing to argue for a notion of collective dissociation emerging from fluid and complex social relations of multi-scalar actors. I argue that in GPNs, such collective practices of dissociation are possible and even necessary given the complex ways firms and non-firm actors are connected to each other from the global scale to the workplace.

The Fatal Coupling of Race, State and Research on Disparities

Modern technology doesn’t only offer greater opportunities for leisure experiences. It opens the door for surveillance and disempowerment as well. As the justice-oriented endeavor of leisure researchers increased over the years, so too has their access to data sources on racialized people made possible by the advent of digital technology. Geospatial datasets are used to extrapolate leisure service disparities and social patterns in predominantly racialized communities. Yet we rarely question the adverse and potentially life-threatening effects of the use of big data in our research. We draw from the concept of geographies of threat to connect leisure research on disparities and the production of State violence imparted onto racialized spatial configurations. Leisure scholars must interrogate if and how the use of large datasets may contribute to the State surveillance apparatus rendering the lives of racialized peoples more vulnerable to the violence and coercive power of the State.

‘Squat City’: Dublin’s temporary autonomous zone. Considering the temporality of autonomous geographies

‘Squat City’ was an autonomous social centre and squat that was open for nearly three years in Dublin, Ireland, and the space played a key role in the development of autonomous and anarchist politics in the city. In framing my research, I began with the concept of ‘temporary urbanism’, a well-developed area in urban studies, cultural geography, and planning, that focuses on the temporal aspects of short-term places and spaces. I noted that the concept of autonomous geographies was important to understanding the politics and culture of short-term uses of space like squats, direct actions, protests, and social centres, but that temporary urbanism was not discussed in tandem with autonomous geographies. Using Squat City as the case study, I bring these two ideas together, to create a meaningful discussion based on the similarities between them. The reasons why urban actors are motivated to create these short-term projects can vary greatly, including the urban actors involved in squats, autonomous social centres, direct actions, and protests. What can we learn about city residents’ motivations and politics, how urban spaces are used in the city, and how can we consider the timeframes of autonomous geographies? By focusing on the everyday scale and use value of cities, how do alternative urban practices challenge what we may understand as the normal workings of cities? In this article, I discuss Squat City as a temporary autonomous zone to think about the temporality of radical practices.

Moral Geographies of Care across Borders: The Experience of Migrant Grandparents in Australia

AbstractLiterature on transnational grandparenting rarely focuses on how migrant grandparents contribute to the work/care reconciliation of their adult children, how they provide and receive care in contexts of mobility and precariousness, and the ways in which this is shaped by migration and social policy regimes. Drawing on the concept of moral geographies of care, this study reveals how idealized norms of care interact with Australian migration and work/care regimes in complex and contradictory ways to produce configurations of care in migrant families. We conclude that migration and work/care regimes are poorly aligned, compromising migrant families’ well-being and economic security.

Conservation labour geographies: Subsuming regional labour into private conservation spaces in South Africa

Critical scholars have started analysing conservation as a ‘mode of production’, which entails conservation’s inclination to transform the value of nature into capital. This mode of production is underpinned by labour relations that have thus far escaped systematic analysis. To fill this gap, I use Smiths’ reading of the capitalist production of space to develop the concept of conservation labour geographies which untangles the spatial outcomes of the dialectical relation between the production of conservation space and labour. The concept is concretized through an analysis of the historical development of the private wildlife economy in the Lowveld area of South Africa. Through this case study I argue that private nature reserves subsume communal and state properties -beyond its fence- into exploitative symbiotic conservation labour geographies. I do this by firstly demonstrating that conservation labour geographies are an outcome of the historical production of conservation space because the development of the private wildlife economy in the Lowveld reinforced geographical differentiation by reproducing a spatialized and racialised division of labour. Secondly, I show that these labour geographies are characterised by the unpaid reproductive work of spouses and in-laws, traumatised rangers, and a racially segregated landscapes within the reserve and between the reserves and the former Bantustans. Finally, I conclude by proposing ‘conservation labour geographies’ as an analytical tool to unpack the interrelations between labour and the production of conservation spaces.

Construction of Imagined Geographies Through Law: The Case of Judaization of the Negev Desert

This article draws on the postcolonial legal theories and the concept of imaginative geographies, aiming to shed light on the process of producing and realizing Israeli representations of the Negev Desert through the implementation of legal regulations. The focus is on chosen imaginations of the Negev Desert, researched here as a case study of material realisation of imaginative geographies. In the analysis, symbolic narratives, visions of spaces, and new categories, intertwined in legal acts as their foundations, justifications and goals are underlined. The conclusions of presented study show that imaginations and visions can be in fact reproduced in space through legal regulations, and in the analysed case law has three aspects: it is an expression of imagined geographies; it translates those visions into technical terms; and lastly, the implementation of its provisions becomes the main instrument of producing those representations in reality.

Excavating Embodied Literacies Through a Chicana/Latina Feminist Framework

In this article, the authors take a reflective, self-study journey that digs into their own embodied literacies as Chicana feminist literacy researchers. Chicana/Latina feminisms offer an/other angle for exploring embodied literacies and are one way to center bodies and knowledge from the margins. The authors emphasize Anzaldúa’s concept of geographies of selves as an entry point for theorizing the embodied literacies of Chicanas/Latinas. To support this excavation process, the authors demonstrate how autohistoria-teoría, as a methodological approach to literacies, can be used to locate, narrate, and document the embodied literacies of Chicanas/Latinas. The findings demonstrate how places and people shape knowledge and ways of reading the world and thus impact the literacies imprinted on bodies.

Constructing the moral geographies of educational dark tourism

ABSTRACT Many dark tourism sites are positioned as a domain for exploring moral judgements and behaviours. This study draws on German students’ narratives of Auschwitz to examine the dark tourism site as an alternate teaching space. Employing thematic analysis of students’ comments to identify the meanings that the students attached to the Auschwitz site, the findings reveal that Auschwitz provided the students with learning opportunities, affirming collective identity, emotional engagement, and moral reflection. Auschwitz was experienced as a moral space imbued with moral judgements. The theoretical concept of moral geographies is valuable for explaining the moral complexities associated with educational dark tourism and informing effective management of dark tourism sites to guide the objectives in educating young people.

Media’s Domestication as Intimate Geography

ABSTRACT In December 1922 the US magazine Radio Broadcast published a beautifully written article by Alice R. Bourke. Bourke’s short account of the installation of radio in her family home heralded a set of complex and transformative potentials that were about to be realised within her own work and home life. The story of her career as a journalist, newspaper proprietor and army signals expert and ham radio operator demonstrates how everyday knowledge of radio as a medium of communication provided women with new sets of skills that contested dominant gender and national ideologies. This arrival of radio within the modern home, and the ripples it created in dominant formations of gender, class and nation bring attention to the ways that individual experiences intersect with broader social changes. This article is organised in three sections: the first briefly explains how I have reconstructed Bourke’s work in radio from available sources; the second explains how configurations of biography and history can be read through the concept of intimate geographies; and the third reflects on what Bourke’s encounter with radio tells us about intimate geographies that are still with us today.

Sobre literatura lésbica e ocupação de espaços

Resumo Este ensaio busca delinear uma reflexão acerca da ideia de literatura lésbica, atrelada ao conceito de geografias lésbicas (Browne e Ferreira, 2015). Para tanto serão discutidas as ideias de lesbianidades plurais em perspectivas que consideram performances de gênero, interseccionalidade e decolonialidade. O espaço é fundamental para a perspectiva que essa discussão pretende tomar, pois é no espaço que as relações identitárias, sociais e de gênero acontecem, entram em conflito e expõem suas vontades de dominação e suas incompletudes. Com a ocupação dos espaços, sejam geográficos, epistêmicos, teóricos ou literários, por essas lesbianidades, é possível que novas propostas éticas e estéticas entrem em jogo. Considerando lésbica - e mais tarde lésbica - como um adjetivo, desejamos desvelar quais novas leituras críticas podem ser empreendidas no campo literário.

Carceral Practices and Geographies in Roman North Africa

I explore the landscape of carceral practices and geographies in late antique Roman North Africa by applying a comparative lens to carceral punishments of exile and condemnation to the mines. I situate the research within the field of carceral studies, using the concept of carceral practices and geographies (as opposed to the narrower concepts of prison and imprisonment). I first offer a contextualization of the punishments of exile and condemnation to the mines as carceral punishments, remaining especially sensitive to the legal, material, and spatial aspects of each punishment. I then consider how different North African Christians used their carceral punishments and geographies to negotiate issues of political and social power in the broader Roman Mediterranean, specifically the letter exchange between Cyprian and three other groups of Christians condemned to the mines (Ep. 76–79). I use the letter correspondence as a case study to explore the “real-and-imagined” aspects of carceral practices and geographies in Roman North Africa. The carceral punishments of exile and condemnation to the mines have legal, material, social, gendered, rhetorical, and lived-experience components, all of which are treated as distinct, yet also fluid and intersectional with each other. I conclude by gesturing to how the case study adds texture to our understanding of how carceral punishment worked in Late Antiquity.

Events, lines and interruptions: the production of university space

During 2015 and 2016 there were wide-spread student protests across campuses in South Africa. This contribution focuses on the protests at the University of Pretoria and in particular the way in which the spatiality of the campus and the city of Tshwane influenced the nature of the protests. In terms of the spatiality of the campus, I consider in particular the neo-brutalist architecture of the campus, the fact that it is fencedoff entirely and also its restrictive events policy. Within the city of Tshwane, the focus falls on a long history of marching to the Union Buildings as well as the Regulation of Gatherings Act, and how that related to the student protests. This contribution contrasts Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia with Henri Lefebvre’s concrete utopia, to call for universities to be concrete utopias. The student protests are framed as lines and as interruptions with reference to the work of Antonia Layard. Even though the student protests at the University of Pretoria can be distinguished from those on other campuses, it is connected and contextualised within the broader student movement through Doreen Massey’s concept of geographies of responsibility.

Imaginative geographies of international student mobility

This paper extends interdisciplinary research into young people’s experiences of studying abroad. Whilst there is ample evidence for the growing significance of international student mobility in shaping young people’s identities and future life chances, few efforts have been made to account for the perspectives of young people who have no first-hand experiences of travelling abroad. Building on the concept of imaginative geographies, this paper flips around the analytical lens used to explore representations of international student mobility and develops a nuanced understanding of the ways in which mass-mediated images and discourses shape understandings of self and others. Drawing on field research conducted with Nepali university students in Kathmandu, the first part of the analysis makes evident that a greater degree of global connectivity between young people studying at home and abroad does not necessarily translate into a fuller understanding of distant places and people, as these connections are always underpinned by local status hierarchies. The second part of the analysis calls attention to the various ways in which dominant imaginaries of mobility and place are being internalised and reworked differently depending on people’s social identities and their lived experiences. The findings presented in this paper therefore contribute to broader debates in geographical research on the uneven power relations that underpin mobility practices and shape people’s identities in an interconnected world.

The Prime Minister of Antarctica: entrenching territory through journalistic travelogues

ABSTRACTThis article discusses how sovereignty can be entrenched through the interplay between texts and actions. The case is the coverage of the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s travels to Antarctica by one Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten. Through a close reading, the article shows how two newspaper articles by the journalist Ole Mathismoen strengthen the connections between Norway and one of its territorial claims in Antarctica while simultaneously obscuring other nations’ presence. Thus, the travelogues provide a setting for sovereignty performances by the Prime Minister, which naturalises and depoliticises his actions. The article applies the concept of imaginative geographies to illuminate relations between journalism and geopolitics. By looking at the example of Norway’s presence in Antarctica, it explores how the performance of imaginative geographies functions as the entrenchment of territorial claims.

Expecting “the Arab world”: imaginative geographies as dominant diversity frames

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight the dangers of Orientalist framing. Orientalism (Said, 1979/2003) shows how “the West” actually creates “the Orient” as an inferior opposite to affirm itself, for instance by using imaginative geographical frames such as “East” and “West” (Said, 1993).Design/methodology/approachQualitative interviews were conducted with the members of a German-Tunisian project team in research engineering. The interview purpose was to let individuals reflect upon their experiences of difference and to find out whether these experiences are preframed by imaginative geographical categories.FindingsTunisian researchers were subjected to the dominant imaginative geographical frame “the Arab world.” This frame involves ascribed religiousness, gender stereotyping and ascriptions of backwardness.Research limitations/implicationsResearch needs to investigate Orientalist thought and imaginative geographies in specific organizational and interpersonal interactions lest they overshadow managerial theory and practice.Practical implicationsPractitioners need to challenge dominant frames and Orientalist thought in their own practice and organizational surroundings to devise a truly inclusive managerial practice, for instance, regarding Muslim minorities.Social implicationsIn times of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment in “the West,” this paper highlights the frames from which such sentiments might originate, and the need to reflect upon them.Originality/valueThe theoretical value lies in introducing a critical framing approach and the concept of imaginative geographies to perceived differences at work. For practice, it highlights how certain individuals are constructed as “Muslim others” and subjected to ascriptions of negative difference. By this mechanism, their inclusion is obstructed.

Storied emotional distances in the relationships between beginning teachers and school principals

Recent research has acknowledged the importance of the relationships of school principals with beginning teachers. However, little is known about how emotions inform these relationships from the beginning teacher's side. Applying the concept of emotional geographies, this paper explores the kinds of storied emotional distances that appear in the relationships between beginning teachers and their principals. Based on interviews with beginning Japanese teachers, the results indicate that such relationships may be: (1) very direct and personal; (2) acted out indirectly by the principal as personal facilitator ‘behind the scenes’ or as public gatekeeper; or (3) mediated by the teacher community. The analysis reveals beginning teachers’ personal experiences of these relationships, as well as how such relationships are influenced by organisational and cultural context. Although principals are described as distant figures within the school organisation, they are seen to play an important role in facilitating beginning teachers’ work by connecting with them at a personal level and providing good working conditions by influencing the emotional atmosphere of the teacher community or by sheltering them from parental pressure.

From dichotomy to duality: Addressing interdisciplinary epistemological barriers to inclusive knowledge governance in global environmental assessments

This paper provides an account of how epistemological differences between the natural and physical sciences and social sciences may be a barrier to multiscalar and inclusive forms of knowledge governance in global environmental assessments (GEAs). It proposes the concept of geographies of knowledge, to designate both the universalising drive of a positivist epistemology and the localism of relativist and constructivist epistemologies. The paper attempts to determine whether these conflicting geographies of knowledge have been barriers to greater integration of non-scientific knowledge systems − such as Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) − by looking at the cases of three GEAs: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The paper concludes that innovations in knowledge governance which seek to give more weight to non-scientific knowledge systems should more explicitly acknowledge and address interdisciplinary epistemological differences.

Imaginative Geographies of Green: Difference, Postcoloniality, and Affect in Environmental Narratives in Contemporary Turkey

Analyzing everyday environmental imaginaries from contemporary Turkey through the lenses of postcolonial, emotional-affective, and nature–society geographies, this article offers insights into shifting nature–society relations and possibilities. Based on a series of interviews and focus groups conducted in four sites (Istanbul, Ankara, Diyarbakır, and Şanlıurfa), the concept of imaginative geographies of green is offered to highlight social and spatial differences as central to the articulation of green visions and movements. The research foregrounds several social and spatial gradients specific to the Turkish context, including east–west divides both within and beyond Turkey (i.e., Kurdish–Turkish and eastern–western Turkey, as well as notions of Turkishness and Europeanness). The work also suggests that environmental imaginaries have deeply emotional, ambivalent, and power-laden associations. Apart from the implications of the work for enriched understandings of emergent environmental possibilities in this context, the conclusion touches on ramifications for European Union accession debates as well as new directions for work on environmental citizenship and movements in the global south.