Contemporary Geography Research Articles

Introduction: Networks

Networks represent connections between people, things, ideas, and events in physical, digital, or hybrid spaces. The topic has long piqued geographers’ curiosity in regard to enduring fundamental questions in our field: How and why do we perceive and represent geographic phenomena as networks? Do networked spaces challenge established geographic thoughts? What kinds of new knowledge inform or transform how we view geographic phenomena as networks? Might this network thinking collectively foster new policies or approaches to social and spatial problems? The collection of twenty-three articles included in this special issue addresses these questions by showcasing theoretical, epistemological, ontological, and methodological innovation in contemporary geography scholarship on networks. Insights gained from the discussion advance our discipline forward and meet societal needs.

Intricate critical turn: changing geographical knowledge production in an authoritarian context

ABSTRACT This paper examines the critical shift in geographical knowledge production under the increasingly authoritarian political regime in Turkey, particularly in the aftermath of the unsuccessful 2016 coup attempt. In this context, semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen young geographers who experienced the authoritarian shift in the political regime during their graduate studies. The narratives of the interviewees indicate that the young geographers have undergone a critical transformation with two significant aspects: firstly, they reject the traditional style of geographical knowledge production and instead embrace approaches integrated with social theory, drawing from the extensive portfolio of contemporary geography. Secondly, they approach socio-spatial phenomena in a libertarian and critical manner, distinct from the lenses of the authoritarian system. However, due to their legitimate concerns, they often refrain from presenting such research on academic platforms. In this regard, under an authoritarian regime, the critical transformation consists of two dimensions: the arena where geographical products are shared, and the underground, where geographical ‘black boxes’ are held and kept hidden from public view.

Dutch inspiration for an engaged pluralist historiography of geography

This paper introduces to an international audience the ‘encyclopaedic approach’ to geographical historiography. This approach was developed at the Free University of Amsterdam between 1961 and 1987 by Marcus Heslinga and Andries Kouwenhoven. Signalling how contemporary geography is hampered by the silofication of different subdisciplines and how a better understanding of our shared and pluriform histories can help overcome these silos, the encyclopaedic approach demonstrates how an ‘engaged pluralist’ historiography of geography could take shape. Testifying to its bridge-building character, the approach was developed in response to decades of acerbic conflict between rivalling schools of human geography in the Netherlands. Its central premises involve an acknowledgement that geography is a dynamic discipline with shifting formal and material objects and an empirical strategy to map and relate these different conceptual fields.

Drysfeydd y Cymoedd: 1 The Sub-Topographies of South Wales Valleys’ Industrial Crises

In Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Cathy Caruth defines as traumatic our encounters not with life-threatening events but with those that cause a break in our perception of time. She explains that the memory of trauma is always fleeting, leaving connections with the time and place of traumatic occurrence fragile and obscure. Caruth’s definitions shape the work of contemporary geographers who argue that trauma is fundamentally unmappable. Does trauma’s relationship to space change when traumatization becomes repetitive and systematic? To explore systematic traumatization’s relationship to space, I adopt Lauren Berlant’s trauma definition as a crisis of ordinariness and revisit the South Wales Valleys region and its coal mining history as traumatic and contested. Using the exceptional Aberfan 1966 disaster as a starting point, I investigate a more “common” industrial crisis of the same period and explore its relationship to the industrial space by analyzing its discursive and drawing records. In this journey, sketching out the spatial qualities of the colliery’s maze is crucial for understanding the crisis’ occurrence, its belatedness and commemoration.

Evaluating Methods for Mapping Historical Redlining to Census Tracts for Health Equity Research.

Neighborhood characteristics including housing status can profoundly influence health. Recently, increasing attention has been paid to present-day impacts of "redlining," or historic area classifications that indicated less desirable (redlined) areas subject to decreased investment. Scholarship of redlining and health is emerging; limited guidance exists regarding optimal approaches to measuring historic redlining in studies of present-day health outcomes. We evaluated how different redlining approaches (map alignment methods) influence associations between redlining and health outcomes. We first identified 11 existing redlining map alignment methods and their 37 logical extensions, then merged these 48 map alignment methods with census tract life expectancy data to construct 9696 linear models of each method and life expectancy for all 202 redlined cities. We evaluated each model's statistical significance and R2 values and compared changes between historical and contemporary geographies and populations using Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE). RMSE peaked with a normal distribution at 0.175, indicating persistent difference between historical and contemporary geographies and populations. Continuous methods with low thresholds provided higher neighborhood coverage. Weighting methods had more significant associations, while high threshold methods had higher R2 values. In light of these findings, we recommend continuous methods that consider contemporary population distributions and mapping overlap for studies of redlining and health. We developed an R application {holcmapr} to enable map alignment method comparison and easier method selection.

The past, present, and future of underwater spaces: From tourist experiences to the possibility of habitation

AbstractThis paper reviews contemporary geography literature pertaining to the development and experience of underwater spaces. Examining the underwater world as a space of practices, experiences, and visions that are both phenomenologically and geopolitically rich, the review covers research studies from human geography and cognate fields concentrating on the tourism and travel literature. After a brief overview of the many activities taking place underwater worldwide—from the evolution of the mythical Atlantis to the development of modern‐day Atlantis such as underwater hotels—the paper focuses studies in three areas: the consumption of cultural and natural heritage, Self‐contained underwater breathing apparatus diving and divers' experiences, and the possibility of human inhabitation of underwater realms in habitats such as underwater hotels and submarine research sites. It is argued that by becoming more familiar with underwater spaces, geographers who concentrate on tourism and marine environments can gain new perspectives that are likely to challenge the terrestrial imagination.

QUESTÕES DE MÉTODO EM GEOGRAFIA, PELO ESTRABISMO SARTREANO

Method's reflection is revisited owing to the problematic horizon of coloniality that traces scientific Geography, which questions the validity of its tradition in view of the need to re-discuss its bases. The paper resorts to the Knowledge-Existence dialectic, as placed in its práxis by the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, as a strategy to problematize the epistemological and ontological issues that are involved in the challenges of contemporary Geography. Keywords: Existentialism; Práxis; Coloniality; Epistemology of Geography.

Abstract A101: Assessing contemporary cancer prevention infrastructure in neighborhoods of historical residential segregation to better understand patterns of breast cancer disparities

Abstract Background: Breast cancer disparities among minoritized women in the United States (U.S.) not only persist but continue to widen. Neighborhood attributes are established drivers of cancer disparities in the U.S. An emerging area of research centers on the associative relationship of historical processes of segregation, particularly redlining practices, on breast cancer disparities. However, these studies have not considered the differences in contemporary neighborhood attributes in historically segregated and non-segregated neighborhoods. This study focuses on 2019 neighborhood attributes that work together to better understand differences in physical environment access to breast cancer prevention lifestyle habits such as access to fresh produce, green spaces, and clinical sites for prevention screenings. Methods: Using ArcGIS Pro we created GIS maps of Tucson, Arizona capturing food environments, green spaces, public transportation, and Medicaid cancer screenings site. The current neighborhood attributes were then layered over historic neighborhoods identified from historical documents to determine differences in access to these resources for breast cancer prevention. We used U.S. Census data to map sociodemographic data to the Census tract neighborhood level. Findings: The GIS maps demonstrate the neighborhoods established by historical segregation have more food deserts, fewer green spaces, limited public transportation, and no Medicaid Well WomanCheck mammography screening sites were located in close proximity to the historically segregated neighborhoods. The historically non-segregated communities did not have similar levels of disinvestment and had a higher presence of resources for non-genetic cancer prevention lifestyle habits. Discussion: To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare contemporary neighborhood attributes based on the historical status of segregated and non-segregated to understand how this impacts access to cancer prevention resources that may contribute to breast cancer disparities experienced among historically marginalized communities. The historical legacy of segregation shapes contemporary geographies, structural social determinants of health, and the gaps in non-genetic cancer prevention resources influencing breast cancer disparities. To build health equity, local policymakers must implement policies to address remnants of historical segregation in these communities that still navigate the reverberations of these historical processes. Zoning laws should be considered as a key target for structural interventions to build equitable access to breast cancer prevention infrastructure in neighborhoods established by historical segregation. Citation Format: Celina I. Valencia, Francisco Mendoza. Assessing contemporary cancer prevention infrastructure in neighborhoods of historical residential segregation to better understand patterns of breast cancer disparities [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 16th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2023 Sep 29-Oct 2;Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2023;32(12 Suppl):Abstract nr A101.

Mass deportation and the intensity of policing in the United States' 100‐mile border zone: Complicating the “border”/“interior” enforcement binary

AbstractThis paper draws on an expansive archive of internal government records obtained using the US Freedom of Information Act to examine federal, state and local police practice within the United States' 100‐mile border zone. Analysis of this archive reveals a large number of “border” enforcement events that involve the arrest of US citizens, lawful permanent residents and others with deep roots in US communities. It further shows how, regardless of where US Border Patrol agents operate, those whom they target overwhelmingly tend to be persons of Latin American origin. Reflecting on these enforcement patterns, the paper argues for the troubling of categorical distinctions between “border” and “interior” enforcement that permeates scholarly, popular and journalistic accounts of the contemporary geography of mass deportation in the United States. As an alternative, the paper calls for greater attention to the “intensity” of immigration policing, as a way to account for multiple overlapping pathways of enforcement and to diagnose how the networked interconnectivity of agencies, personnel, resources and infrastructures involved in these activities amplifies the risks of racial profiling, arrest, and a host of related downstream consequences (family separation, financial hardship, diminished educational performance, and adverse health outcomes) for US citizens and noncitizens alike.

Geography's lens, landscape architecture, and the green recovery

AbstractIn this article, I expound upon the recent claim that Geography is well placed to contribute to the global ‘green recovery’ by suggesting that landscape architects have the potential to be highly effective collaborators in this endeavour. Contemporary Geography represents a diverse array of sub‐fields coalescing around scale, space and place. Altogether, Geography provides a disciplinary lens that is multi‐scalar and can focus on any number of critical environmental and cultural concerns that resonate with green recovery discourse. At various times, landscape architecture has shared Geography's multi‐scalar and multifaceted lens, and through this complementary outlook, the disciplines have collaborated within mutual spaces such as ‘geodesign’, and through a to‐and‐fro of methods of practice and disciplinary reflection. However, ongoing discourse within landscape architecture describes self‐doubt around the consistency of its agency and capacity to engage with the critical challenges of the climate crisis and social inequity. Elsewhere, this has been attributed to landscape architecture's loss of professional territory to other practices of spatial design, and a reverse into scenography. Here I articulate the concern that much landscape architectural practice appears to intermittently misplace the scale and scope that is akin to Geography's lens and that, although this has stymied the discipline, there are recent indications that landscape architecture is hungry for relevance and ready to re‐engage with the necessary space, place, and scale. This article, then, looks to provide are a reminder of the potential to be found in landscape architecture and whet the appetite for green recovery collaboration.

Census Tracts Are Not Neighborhoods: Addressing Spatial Misalignment in Studies Examining the Impact of Historical Redlining on Present-day Health Outcomes.

Research examining the effects of historical redlining on present-day health outcomes is often complicated by the misalignment of contemporary census boundaries with the neighborhood boundaries drawn by the US Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s. Previous studies have used different approaches to assign historical HOLC grades to contemporary geographies, but how well they capture redlining exposure is unknown. Our analysis included 7711 residences identified in the Multiple Listing Service database in Atlanta, Georgia (2017-2022). We evaluated the classification of HOLC grade assignment (A, B, C, D, or ungraded) when assigning exposure under four area-level approaches (centroid, majority land area, weighted score, and highest HOLC) compared with using complete address data (gold standard). We additionally compared approaches across three 2020 census geographies (tract, block group, and block). When comparing the use of census tracts to complete address data, sensitivity was highest for the weighted score approach, which correctly identified 77% of residences in truly A-D graded neighborhoods as compared with the majority land area (44%), centroid (54%), and highest HOLC (59%) approaches. Regarding specificity, the majority land area approach best-classified residences in truly ungraded neighborhoods (93%) as compared with the weighted score (65%), centroid (81%), and highest HOLC (54%) approaches. Classification improved regardless of approach when using census block compared with the census tract. Misclassification of historical redlining exposure is inevitable when using contemporary census geographies rather than complete address data. This study provides a framework for assessing spatial misalignment and selecting an approach for classification.

Night-time bedroom soundscapes: embodied geographies of housing and home

ABSTRACT This article examines night-time bedroom soundscapes to highlight the significance of embodied geographies of home in understanding lived inequalities of housing. The article presents an analysis of responses (n =174) to the Mass Observation Project ‘Your Bedroom’ (2017) directive, in which UK panellists were asked about their bedrooms. The mundane, ordinary and frequent noise disturbance from neighbourhoods and neighbours is documented to contribute to an understanding of the sensory geographies of night-time domesticities. The article demonstrates that embodied experiences of night-time bedroom soundscapes, including sleep practices, are shaped by housing, including residential location, building type, and ownership/tenure. The article concludes by arguing that attention to soundscapes is significant in developing an embodied understanding of the inequalities of contemporary geographies of housing and home.

Necropolitics, peacebuilding and racialized violence: The elimination of indigenous leaders in Colombia

This paper proposes the concept ‘necropolitics of peacebuilding’ to analyse how contemporary geographies of peace and post-war violence are shaped by the articulation of race, space, politics and the coloniality of power. We explore how post-conflict programmes, plans and policies shape the uneven distribution of life and death, focussing in particular on the elimination of indigenous leaders. Drawing on research conducted in northern Cauca, Colombia, where many indigenous leaders have been threatened and murdered despite the signing of the Peace Agreement in 2016, our analysis reveals four key factors: 1) The coloniality of power that treats their bodies as disposable and not fully human; 2) The juxtaposition of illicit economies and neoliberal extractivist enterprises in their territories; 3) Violent opposition to their autonomous political projects that aim to defend their land and forms of being; and 4) The disputed presence of peacebuilding programmes seeking to substitute illicit crops. Analysing the relationship between necropolitics, racism and spatial segregation is shown to be crucial to understanding the violence faced by indigenous leaders and communities in post-conflict situations. This paper thus makes an important contribution to understandings of the continuity of necropolitics within the context of peacebuilding.

Of elephants and discipline: For a recursive history of geography

This commentary suggests that the history of geography can best contribute to the future of geography through an open and recursive approach to the history of ideas about space and nature. I argue that the history of geographical ideas should develop in dialectical relation with how contemporary geography changes. To support this argument, I sketch what a recursive and anti-disciplinary history of geography might look like, as each new geographical innovation opens new paths for the history of geographical ideas to tread, and new histories of thinking to scrutinise.

Tracing Archaeological Places via the Context of Paleo Geomorphic Footprints Using SAR/InSAR Data Fusion: A Case on Southern Mesopotamia

Since the deployment of EO resources into orbit, archaeological surveys have made extensive use of space imaging. In particular, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data have often proved useful in many geomorphic investigations. In this study, we tested the potential of SAR/InSAR datasets for archaeological applications, which were conducted for southern Mesopotamia. While identifying the embedded human settlements, we attempted to reconstruct the paleoclimatic conditions and the paleotopography imprinted onto contemporary geography as key features of the environmental context of ancient human activity. First, Sentinel-1 and PALSAR-2 SAR/InSAR time-series data were compiled and used to identify the paleoshoreline and other ancient hydrologic backgrounds in southern Mesopotamia. We defined regions of interest (ROI) based on this and further used a rotational decomposition of the time-series signature to detect shallow subsurface features in predefined ROI. SAR/InSAR data processing identified ancient channels and shorelines that match the historical/archaeological records of key Sumerian cities. Our findings in Eridu and Larsa-Uruk-Umma, as well as their hydrological contexts, are archaeologically significant and suggest the need for more ground surveys. In terms of global coverage and resolving power, this study shows that the potential of SAR/InSAR for probing the background environment of ancient civilizations is comparable to high-resolution commercial optical imaging. Longer wavelength and higher resolution SAR/InSAR time-series datasets are highly anticipated for such applications.

RECOGNITION OF A LANDSCAPE TECHNO-SPHERE AS A NEW GEOSPHERE

The second half of XX century – the beginning of XXI century are characterized by the active development of a global ecological crisis, which is described by a critical state of the environment and excessive anthropogenization of a geographical sphere. The changes which lead to the formation of absolutely new techno-genic landscapes occur at very fast rates in current geo-spheres. The purpose of the work is to substantiate the recognition of a new geo-sphere – a landscape techno- sphere – based on the previous experience and our field research. The main tasks of the research are to analyze specific features and properties of a landscape techno-sphere; to identify its upper and lower borders; to study a structural organization of all options of a landscape sphere with available techno-substances; to characterize briefly the main stages of the development of a techno- sphere.
 The research of a landscape techno-sphere is a complicated process and it is based on the use of classical and innovative methodological principles of contemporary geography. A parallel application of three scientific paradigms is the foundation: system, model and ecological. They do not contradict each other; they rather compliment the studying of the interaction between nature and engineering. A system approach allows considering a techno-sphere as a complicated system of a lower taxonomic range of a landscape sphere and a geographical sphere. The following generally accepted scientific methods are used in the paper: analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, systematization, induction and deductions.
 The article substantiates the existence of a new geosphere – the landscape techno-sphere, which is formed by the planetary set of landscape-technical systems. it is noted that it does not have a continuous distribution, but is constantly increasing in size and gradually goes beyond the landscape. The specific features and properties of the landscape techno-sphere are analyzed in detail. Taking into account the criterion of the presence of a zone of direct contract of three blocks of landscape-technical systems (managerial, technical and natural), the upper and lower limits of the landscape techno-sphere are identified. The structure of all variants of the landscape sphere in the presence of technological substances is considered. The main periods of development of the landscape techno-sphere are briefly described. It is concluded that man will never be able to control landscape-technical systems on a planetary scale. However, applying the methods and principles of engineering landscape research, it is possible to achieve optimal interaction of the three blocks of landscape-technical systems and to extend their functional suitability.

Postcapitalist practices and human, economic, and cultural geographies

This commentary engages with Callum Sutherland's article, ‘Mark Fisher and Reimagining Postcapitalist Geographies’ by outlining key characteristics of some contemporary prefigurative hybrids pointing towards postcapitalism. It offers certain exemplar developments of postcapitalist degrowth and ‘real valuist’ futures that indicate the potential, and challenges, for contemporary geographers to approach, engage with and expand into postcapitalist studies more formally. By way of an example – and well illustrating the significance Sutherland gives to grotesque stratigraphy – relations and activities of the degrowth formation Cargonomia are characterised by the principle of ‘frugal abundance’, a culturally transferable desire for meaning well beyond, and in antithesis to, precorporation. Real valuist imaginaries also epitomise Sutherland's explication of Fisher's acid communist politics and acid topological spatial imaginary of autonomy and commoning.

On an ethic of not going there

AbstractFieldwork – “going there” – is the presumed norm and baseline of geographical research. In this commentary, I propose a framework for challenging the normative framing of fieldwork in geography and other fields (including those beyond academia): an ethic of not going there. I argue that fieldwork, rather than a neutral rite of passage, is deeply entwined with some of the most entrenched issues in contemporary geography and research more broadly. Building on a range of prior critiques and using the lens of “access”, I propose some ways for critiquing the presumptions inherent in geographical imaginaries of “fieldwork”. This ethical framework argues that doing geographical fieldwork should have to be justified to the same extent as not doing fieldwork is expected to be justified. I envision an ethic of not (always) going there as an alternative way of thinking about research (and researchers) within and beyond geography.

Digital work: where is the urban workplace and why does it matter?

ABSTRACT Digital technologies are involved in altered, and sometimes new, geographies of work in cities. This article uses the example of the office and platform food or grocery delivery in the UK to demonstrate how digital technologies enable flexible workspace arrangements. This flexibility is distinct from some previous geographies in which a fixed workplace was necessary for production. The article shows how such contemporary geography manifests through the seemingly-contradictory spatial tendencies that constitute the practices of digital work in which the location of the workplace is ambiguous: both anywhere and nowhere. While office work extends beyond a physical office building and, thus, can take place anywhere, platform delivery often involves no fixed workplace for workers in urban areas. Considering where the workplace is with digital technologies not only broadens the conventional sphere of labour politics, but also provides a different perspective on the role of work in contemporary capitalist economies.

Intellectuals at the Hill: Scattered pieces of defiant African scholarship. A commentary on Patricia Daley and Amber Murrey's ‘Defiant scholarship: Dismantling coloniality in contemporary African geographies’.

Intellectuals at the Hill: Scattered pieces of defiant African scholarship. A commentary on Patricia Daley and Amber Murrey's ‘Defiant scholarship: Dismantling coloniality in contemporary African geographies’.