Traditional Geography Research Articles

Landscape and Social Disruption from Sand Mining and Mining-Related Activities: A Case from the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

The heavy global demand for sand in various sectors of the economy subjects the Vietnamese Mekong Delta to correspondingly high amounts of sand mining—a process that started in the early 1990s contributing significantly to the Vietnamese economy. The impacts of intensive sand mining and mining-related industries damage the integrity of the river and local communities. Much of the literature focuses on the former, exposing people to the deleterious implications of sand mining on the physical environment. This study aims to fill the gap on the less explored latter through the lenses of place and landscape per human geography tradition, using qualitative methods of thirty-five interviews with locals, video recordings, and sound measurements to highlight the impacts of sand mining and mining-related industries. This study revealed that sand mining and its associated activities are responsible for people’s perceptions of notable air, land, and noise pollution, as well as substantial harm to the urban environment. Over 80 percent of interviewed locals acknowledged the disruptions to their daily lives and a substantial loss of their sense of place. These findings shed light on narratives frequently overlooked by policymakers, emphasizing the urgency of addressing these issues for a sustainable future.

From Dioskurias / Aia (Ochamchire) over Sebastopolis / Dioskurias (Skurcha) to Sukhumi / Sebastopolis. The Letter of the Episcopus Sanastupolitanus Inferioris Georgiae Reconsidered

Traditionally, Dioskurias was equated with Sebastopolis and located at Sukhumi, although the literary and archaeological source base is rather slim and epigraphic and numismatic evidence is nearly absent. Recently, A. Coşkun (in VDI 80.2, 2020, 354-376; 80.3, 2020, 654-674) proposed to seek the location of Aia-Dioskurias near Ochamchire and its refoundation as Sebastopolis by Lake Skurcha. For this, he draws on the mythical and geographical traditions, which describe Aia and Dioskurias as situated in the “recess of the Black Sea.” River names and neighbouring tribes further suggest that the land- and riverscape of legendary Aia was developed from the environs of Dioskurias / Ochamchire. Ancient itineraries and periplus literature further seem to support this reconstruction. T. Schmitt (2022, 14-44) has tried to refute the new approach. After closely comparing the arguments and counter-arguments, Coşkun’s position can be further strengthened. Schmitt, however, adduces for the first time important Medieval evidence, including a letter of the episcopus Sanastupolitanus inferioris Georgiae (1330). But this is not sufficient to prove that Sebastopolis lies buried under Sukhumi. After exploring the context of Genoese colonial activities and king George V’s fight for independence from Ilkhanid and Mongol occupation, it will be suggested instead that the Catholic bishop of Sukhumi became the titular successor of the then defunct Orthodox bishopric of nearby Sebastopolis-Skurcha.

Imagining black feminist geographies of Johannesburg through Senzeni Marasela’s creative (un/re)mapping of Johannesburg’s mine slopes

ABSTRACT Part of the project of philosophy is to problematise how the world is known, including destabilising geography as one of the dominant imperialist discourses. In the Afropolis, legacies of colonialism and Apartheid still work to uphold spatial inequality within urban spaces in ways that are both racialised and gendered. Black feminist scholar, Katherine McKittrick, provides a fruitful theoretical foundation to consider postcolonial cities from a renewed epistemological perspective. In the 2006 book Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, McKittrick works alongside and across traditional geographies through critical black geographies that centre a black feminist sense of place. In considering ‘a black sense of place’, McKittrick demonstrates how transatlantic slavery enforced and naturalised the connection between blackness and placelessness. She writes to document black women geographies and provides a narrative that locates and draws on black histories and black subjects to ‘make visible social lives which are often displaced, rendered ungeographic’. This paper places McKittrick in conversation with the work of South African artist Senzeni Marasela through their selected literary and artistic works to explore alternative feminist geographies of Johannesburg’s decommissioned mine slopes/dumps, and to emphasise the liberatory potential of a black feminist point of departure in relation to the mining–industrial complex. The argument is not merely that Johannesburg needs to become more inclusive to black feminist understandings of place, but rather that the centring of black feminist geographical knowledges has the subversive ability to reshape how the city is known in the first place. In doing so, this paper hopes to ‘raise questions about the ground beneath our feet, and how we are all implicated in the production of space’.

Commodity Trailing Contemporary Performance: Sh!t Theatre’s DollyWould and Selina Thompson’s salt

This article puts into dialogue the field of theatre and the European and North American geographic tradition of ‘commodity trailing’, including its Marxist underpinning. In recent years, a number of performances have emerged that engage with the process and provenance of commodities. Such performances often present their makers on the trail of commodity origins, consumer experiences, and historic routes of trade. This article introduces a framework in which performances that dramaturgically engage with commodities and their trails can be identified and analysed. It commences with an overview of the geographic principles of commodity trailing, and how this approach might be deployed in theatre scholarship. It applies the framework of commodity trailing to two case studies: Sh!t Theatre’s DollyWould (2017) and Selina Thompson Production’s salt. (2017). In analysing these performances against the principles of commodity trailing, this article supports an enhanced understanding of how dramaturgies attend to commodities and, in so doing, contribute to emergent discourses on performance and political economy.

Why the history and philosophy of geography matter: Louise Michel's radical, anticolonial, and pluralist geographies

In this short paper, I contend that the history and philosophy of geography should be considered as an indispensable scholarly field to nourish both theoretical speculations about geography and ongoing scholars' political and social engagement towards critical, radical, decolonial, feminist and antiracist geographies. I argue that rediscovering ‘other geographical traditions’ is paramount to these scholarly and political agendas. After briefly summarising my political and theoretical references, I discuss the example of the work of anarchist, feminist and anticolonial activist Louise Michel (1830–1905) to make the case for the inclusion of new figures and ideas in the field of new decolonial, multilingual and pluralist histories of geography.

The use of alternative methodologies as a strategy in teaching Geography

Considering the constant changes in the teaching of Geography, with the objective of directly impacting basic education through methodologies that facilitate the teaching-learning process, the interest in this theme arises. In this context, the exploration of methodological alternatives for teaching-learning has become essential. Resources such as music, information and communication technologies (ICTs), literature and cartoons were addressed, with an emphasis on the latter, through a bibliographical review. These methods were presented as tools that revolutionized the teaching of geography, facilitating the transmission of content combined with geographical themes. The idea is to awaken in educators the interest in methodologies that align with their reality and didactic, overcoming paradigms associated with traditional geography. This aims to lead students to a more critical, subjective and contextualized approach within the school geography.

... sicut mitissima satyris. Una nota testuale a Plin. Nat. 8.216

Abstract In book 8 of his Naturalis historia, Pliny the Elder mentions the particularly savage character of some monkeys. Most editions and translations of Pliny’s text maintain that the reference to the fierce nature of these animals concerns both the cynocephali and the satyri. However, in the manuscript Riccardianus 488 (R in the transmission of Pliny), a second hand, contemporary to the period in which the text was copied, added supra lineam the obscure term *miarsima, which would refer to the nature of the satyri in opposition to that of the cynocephali. By examining part of the ancient zoological and geographic traditions, in particular the De natura animalium by Aelian, this article defends editing the text of Pliny with the adjective mitissima, already present in the first printed editions of the Naturalis historia, as follows: Efferatior cynocephalis natura sicut mitissima satyris.

THE BETWEENNESS OF CONTEXTS: MILITARY COUPS, INTERNATIONALIZATION, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR INNOVATION IN TURKISH GEOGRAPHY

ABSTRACT This paper provides an analysis of the historical trajectory of Turkish geographical practice over the past four decades, situated within the broader socio-political landscape of the country. The transmission of the modern geographical tradition from continental Europe to Turkey during the interwar period established the discipline as a holistic science of the human-environment relationship. Although this understanding started to change after the 1968 events, the 1980 Turkish military coup abruptly disrupted innovative endeavors in the discipline, prompting a resurgence of regionally focused synthesis within geography. This insular approach prevailed for several decades but began to evolve in response to the internationalization trends that emerged in the 2000s, with deliberate steps taken toward fostering innovation. Despite institutional damage resulting from the political developments following the 2016 military coup attempt, the discipline maintained its commitment to innovation. This paper critically examines the divergent responses of Turkish geography and its practitioners to the 1980 military coup and the 2016 coup attempt, highlighting the significant influence of globalization.

Reclaiming other geographical traditions: The hidden roots of Italian radical geography

AbstractThe article recalls the history of Geografia Democratica, a collective of scholars that during the second half of the 1970s sought to dismantle the old deterministic approach and promote a critical and radical turn in Italian academic geography. The aim is to contribute to the ongoing debate about ‘other geographical traditions’ beyond the Anglo‐American hegemony, to highlight the pluriversal roots of contemporary critical geographies and the influence that the transnational circulation of knowledge had in their unfolding, in light of recent quests for a more global geographical imagination. To do so, the article first engages with Geografia Democratica as a ‘rupture experience’ in the mainstream of Italian geography, and then discusses how it intersected or not similar turns that occurred elsewhere, focusing on the mostly implicit dialogue between Italian and Anglo‐American critical/radical geographies of the time. By following the controversial story of the collective during and after its short existence, we question its legacy for today's geographical scholarship, and reflect more generally upon the significance of reviving other critical and radical traditions. To highlight the plurality of our disciplinary past, we suggest, is crucial not only to fill the ‘asymmetric ignorance’ between various traditions, but also to nurture and reposition the present ‘worlding’ practices of non‐Anglophone critical geographers.

Decentring whiteness in engaging Muslim geographies

In this commentary, I read Sidaway's ‘Beyond the Decolonial: Critical Muslim Geographies’ as an invitation to engage in alternative cartographies and lateral engagements with what Islam (broadly and complexly conceived) might say to the discipline. In doing so, I build upon Sidaway's invitation to suggest a deeper engagement with the complexity of already existing Islamic geographical traditions and scholarship on Muslim spatialities by pulling out two themes that echo some of those raised in the main article: (1) Islamic traditions of mapping and cartography, and (2) scholarship on Islam and the city. The central aim of my response, however, is to push for different entry points when considering the decolonial possibilities of Muslim geographies rather than an entry point of dismissal from disciplinary geography. Only by decentring the whiteness of the discipline as the starting point, can Islamic traditions of geography be engaged on their own terms, as complex, evolving, contextual, and at times perhaps problematic.

Red or Expert: Reforming Geographers in Communist China, 1949–1953

This article investigates the Sovietization of Chinese geographers during the early People’s Republic of China (PRC) using primary sources and published biographies to examine three career paths: red, expert, and red and expert. The red geographers, led by the veteran Communist Sun Jingzhi, who monopolized the field of economic geography, shifted the orientation of geography from the Western model to the model followed in the Soviet Union. The pre-Communist geographers, under the leadership of Harvard-trained Zhu Kezhen, controlled the field of physical geography, relying on their professional training and technical expertise. These two cliques competed for control of the Chinese Geographical Society, its journal, and the Institute of Geography, whereas the Liverpool-trained Hou Renzhi used both redness and expertise to gain prominence in the field of historical geography. This article contends that the reformation of geographers in Communist China continued beyond the political purge of 1949. The twists and turns in career paths derive from the contested nature of the discipline, the changing contours of the science, and connections with institutional structures, all of which illuminate the imbrication of political allegiance, professional expertise, and personal relationships as the geographical tradition persisted in new forms after reformation. In this sense, this article diversifies a history of geography that is too often centered on Anglo-American experiences, and it furthers our understanding of the professionalization of geography as one that has taken a nonlinear course. Key Words: Cold War, Communist China, geographer, history of geography, Sovietization.

Cosmohistories and pluriversal dialogues: The future of the history of geography

When it comes to the ‘History of Geography’, many still think of something descriptive and conservative, which has virtually no links with the ‘future’, a metaphorical place where ‘progress’ and ‘advancements’ are usually located. The existence of such feelings exposes how some lingering positivistic views still remain in parts of the discipline that claimed to have got rid of positivism. In this commentary, we contend that the history of geography can play an important role in re-imagining the future of the discipline. First, drawing upon our own research experience and extending recent literature on ‘geographical futures’, we expose why the history of geography is making increasingly important contributions to key discussions in a plural and evolving discipline. We especially focus on the ongoing pluralistic and multilingual rediscovery of ‘other geographical traditions’ that is enriching critical, radical, and feminist approaches to geography. Next, we propose to enrich the field of geography and its prevailing ‘Western’ origin stories by engaging in pluriversal dialogues with Indigenous knowledge and practices, focusing on Latin America and on decolonial notions such as cosmohistory, which show that there are many histories of geography, and they all matter for the futures of the discipline.

The Central Asian Elements in the Accounts of Sallam’s Journey (9th – 16th Centuries)

This article examines the story of the itinerary of Abbasid Caliph al-Wathiq’s envoy accomplishing the mission to visit the defensive fortifications established by Alexander Macedonian on the border with peoples “Yajuj and Majuj”. Its topicality consists in the necessity to understand adequately the history of intercultural interactions among the residents of the Eurasia Steppe. This article aims to confirm that the accounts on the traveler’s experience reflex geographical objects of Central Asia and certain custom of the local ethnic groups. Variations of the descriptions on Sallam’s journey in Arabic geographical literature from 9th to 16th centuries, from one hand, and fragments from both Arabic geographic tradition and Chinese historical and geographical works which facilitate the interpretation of the narration of the landscape, settlements and the antique custom within the peoples of Central Asia, from the other hand, are studied. Comparative and chronological approaches are applied to date the episodes of the travel, while historical-ethnological method is employed to identify realistic components in the mythological extract from Sallam’s journey. It is concluded that the story of the travel had reflected the effect of wind erosion on the Central Asian desert as well as history of conquest of the transport artery between Pamir and the Heartland of China by the Tibetans, and moreover, the typical ritual gestures which sometimes permitted the Sogidans to get rid of a complicated political dilemma.

Regional assemblage in the postwar Czechoslovakia: Another piece to the puzzle of other geographical traditions?

The paper adds to the concept of other geographical traditions through linking the study of the history of geographical knowledge to the regional assemblage concept, and post-war Czechoslovakia is taken as the example. The paper expands discussion on the inclusiveness of the history of geography with the geographical traditions practised in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the second half of the 20th century during the period of state socialism. The analysis of regional assemblage allows me to reconstruct the process of conceptualisation and role of a ‘good’ region. I claim that a ‘good’ region was closely connected to the post-war project of transformation of the society on the discursive level, and that a region was considered a solely practical tool to serve this purpose. The most important part of the whole process of conceptualisation of the region was the map representation depicting the borders of the defined regions. The concept of assemblage enabled me to analyse the limits of the possible, that is, to analyse the way limits of geographical knowledge were set in concrete time and space. Thus, the concept of assemblage has a potential to add to, so far very fragmented, state of knowledge of the history of global geography.

Urbana morfologija u Britaniji - vreme za preispitivanje i regrupisanje?

This article reviews the contribution of the work of the Urban Morphology Research Group (UMRG) to British urban morphological research. The group, led by Jeremy Whitehand, provided a focus for British research in urban morphology grounded in the work of M.R.G Conzen and the historico-geographical approach. The article reviews four core strands to this work: definition of the historico-geographical approach, morphological regions, the processes and people shaping urban landscapes and linking research and practice. The article also provides an overview of other areas of research into urban form within Britain beyond the UMRG, from scholars working in disciplines such as geography, architecture, and urban design. Two broad areas of work are focused on, namely spatial analytical and configurational approaches and British urban geographical traditions. In conclusion, the article reflects on the future for British urban morphology following the loss of Whitehand as its long-standing figurehead and champion, suggesting that is it time to form a new network to replace the now-dormant UMRG to ensure the continued vibrancy and visibility of urban morphological research in Britain.

Al-Idrisi at the Court of the Christian Sovereign

The paper examines the history of cooperation between two outstanding personalities of the 12th century — the Arab geographer al-Idrisi and the king of Norman Sicily Roger II, by whose order and with whose assistance al-Idrisi created the geographical work “The Book of Pleasant Journeys into Faraway Lands”, which included, in addition to describing the ecumene, detailed maps. An analysis of the history of the creation of this work from the point of view of such a discipline as the geography of knowledge leads to an understanding of the features of both the form and the content of al-Idrisi’s work. Despite the fact that al-Idrisi borrowed the general principle of land description according to latitudinal zones-climates from the Islamic geographical tradition, his approach to the depiction of the countries and peoples of the world reveals significant differences from the practice of Islamic scientists. In his work, al-Idrisi creates a space devoid of hierarchy, homogeneous in terms of value, permeated with paths that connected cities and countries.

Geosoziologie, Geoanthropologie, Erdsystemwissenschaft und die Bedeutung des Faches Geographie im „Anthropozän“

In view of the rapidly increasing environmental problems in the Anthropocene, there are actually many new approaches in the field of sciences and humanities to strengthen the analysis of interactions between natural dynamics and human activities in the form of inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation. Because this cooperation has a strong tradition in the discipline of geography (a part belongs to sciences, another part to humanities) this article asks, if and in which manner the experiences in geography are nowadays present in the new interdisciplinary approaches. The result is negative, and this creates problems for the new approaches, because there is the danger to repeat the errors and wrong ways which have been made in the past. Therefore, it would be desirable to strengthen this geographical tradition.

Assembling humanitarianism in the Cold War: The role of the Red Cross in the Bay of Pigs prisoner exchange

This paper examines humanitarian relations between Cuba and the US at the height of Cold War conflict. After the attempted invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 to overthrow the Cuban government had resulted in a memorable defeat for the United States of America, an unusual humanitarian operation in 1962-63 secured the release of the prisoners of war in exchange for food and medical supplies. Framing the Prisoner Exchange Project (PEP) as an assemblage helps to understand how humanitarian interventions can succeed in situations where diplomatic relations are severed, and without involving international organisations as mediators. I analyse how the project brought diverse non-state actors together under the banner of humanitarianism, as well as non-human elements including supplies, ships, aircrafts, documents, and affective elements such as desire and hospitality. The national Red Cross Societies of America and Cuba managed to successfully carry out the exchange through constant relational work and mechanisms to render the project technical. This case study offers important lessons about the entanglement of humanitarian and development work, and how the involvement of Red Cross Societies unsettled hierarchies between donors and recipients and traditional geographies of humanitarianism.

조선시대 국도 한성의 풍수적 경관 경영과 풍수 담론의 노정

The Feng Shui of the Joseon Dynasty Period formed the basis of traditional geography used for spatial arrangement and landscape management of various landscapes and places including the location of Hanseong, the capital. From the early days of the Joseon Dynasty, Feng Shui was recognized as a major national academic field by government officials, and was one of the exam subjects of Gwageo (bureaucratic recruitment) system, and professional bureaucrats were appointed to government posts. Immediately after the Imjin War[壬 辰倭亂], King Seonjo mobilized the idea of Feng Shui as a theoretical basis to restore the main landscape elements of Hanseong destroyed by the war. However, after the late Joseon Dynasty, the idea of Feng Shui was criticized by many bureaucrats and Confucian scholars, and even the king added it. Even harsh criticism from some official historians followed the king for his excessive favoritism of Feng Shui. In particular, during the reigns of king Yeongjo and Jeongjo, critical opinions on Feng Shui arose greatly. After the late Joseon Dynasty, Feng Shui was greatly reduced to the level of Eumtaek[陰宅風水] in charge of the location or relocation of royal tombs. At the same time, unlike the early Joseon Dynasty Period, when the meaning of ‘geography=Feng Shui’ was strong, in the late Joseon period, ‘geography concept with a meaning different from that of Feng Shui’, like the usage examples in King Jeongjo’s ‘Geography Policy Questions[地理策問]’, certainly existed.

The Stories We Tell: Challenging Exclusionary Histories of Geography in U.S. Graduate Curriculum

In this article, we examine how the exclusionary and problematic aspects of geography’s history are narrated, reproduced, and challenged in graduate education in the United States. Approaching introductory graduate courses as sites in the reproduction of geography as a discipline, we consider how these courses can either bolster or challenge problematic legacies of geography’s disciplinary history. To do so, we analyze thirty-two syllabi from graduate-level “introduction to geography” courses in the United States with a focus on how issues of colonialism, race and racism, and gender figure into narratives about the history of geography. In drawing attention to seemingly minor decisions about framing, content, and organization within syllabi, and connecting these decisions to broader concerns about the history of geography and its exclusions, we demonstrate that syllabi indeed play a role in disciplinary reproduction. We argue that, with some conscious effort and design, we can rework the stories that we tell in our syllabi toward more inclusive and diverse imaginaries of the geographic tradition.