The University of Michigan Department of Geography was discontinued in 1982, after a grueling review process that saw the discipline’s necessity very publicly called into question. Despite the fact that Michigan’s department was central to most of twentieth-century academic geography’s major intellectual movements, it was also the first in a series of major department closures in the early to mid-1980s

Using gestion différenciée in Geneva, Switzerland, as a case study, this article puts the politics of labor at the center of a political ecological analysis of efforts to “ecologize” the design and maintenance of urban parks. The article first highlights how the neomanagerial scripting of an “ecological” mode of managing urban parks reshapes social configurations of work by increasing the uneven distribution

Economic geographers have largely shown concern about the interaction between extractive industries and local economies by studying how lead firms create economic linkages with national firms. From a global production networks approach, this work looks to deepen the understanding of interfirm dynamics in extractive industries. This work has a critical position over previous research, however, because

Although a number of studies have developed fast geographically weighted regression (GWR) algorithms for large samples, none of them has achieved linear-time estimation, which is considered a requisite for big data analysis in machine learning, geostatistics, and related domains. Against this backdrop, this study proposes a scalable GWR (ScaGWR) for large data sets. The key improvement is the calibration

(2020). Correction. Annals of the American Association of Geographers: Vol. 110, No. 5, pp. z_i-z_ii.

In this article, we examine how urban resilience has emerged as a global urban policy project, offering solutions for cities about how they can adapt to and recover from shocks and stresses, particularly those associated with climate change. We conceptualize this as a multicentric global urban resilience complex, catalyzed until recently by the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative

The academic discipline of geography, faced with increasing competition from cognate fields and declining undergraduate enrollments, continues to suffer an identity crisis. In recent decades, many geography programs have instituted department or degree name changes, or otherwise rebranded, without any evidence guiding these decisions. This study begins to build an evidence base for these decisions

Geographers and environmental scientists use conceptual models to understand ecological processes and support management decisions. Most of these models are based on short-term experiments and field observations, which might not account for longer term forces that shape ecosystems over decades to centuries. How can scholars use historical sources and methods to improve conceptual models of ecological

The North American Great Lakes influence surface weather downwind, distinctly in winter when southward migrating cold air passes over relatively warm lakes. Study of the synoptic atmospheric patterns favorable for lake effects has focused on lake-effect snowfall, the most impactful effect of the lakes. Although the patterns are conducive to lake effects, they might not actually yield discernible modification

The Anthropocene concept stimulates much debate among geographers. This wider conversation often neglects the role that visual imagery plays in shaping geographical imaginations of the Anthropocene. This article examines artist Hannah Rothstein’s revisionist collection National Parks 2050 to better understand the intersections of visual imagery and the Anthropocene. Rothstein’s collection draws on

Although species have always shifted their ranges, the rapid pace of current biophysical changes and the further complications imparted by human land use provide unprecedented challenges for biodiversity conservation. As a result, goals, methods, and strategies are being reconceptualized. For example, the terms conservation and wilderness protection, and their associated practices, seem to be static

Recent years have witnessed an increasing use of big data in mobility research. Such efforts have led to many insights on the travel behavior and activity patterns of people. Despite these achievements, the data veracity issue and its impact on the processes of knowledge discovery have seldom been discussed. In this research, we investigate the veracity issue of mobile signaling data (MSD) when they

This work advances the critical urban studies literature on “planetary urbanization” by emphasizing the everyday struggles experienced by the people who live in and through planetary transformations. Specifically, we empirically investigated people in eastern Montana who experienced the intensive and extensive oil and gas production of the Bakken Boom via interview and survey data. In the process,

As a new wave of infrastructure expansion takes place globally, there has been a parallel turn to infrastructure in geographical research. This article responds to recent calls within this research for less human-centered engagement with the infrastructure turn. More specifically, this article aims to destablize anthropocentric discussions about infrastructural violence and infrastructural justice

Geographers are familiar with Ellsworth Huntington’s influential, yet frequently derided, claims about climatic determinism, eugenics, and the progress of civilization. His work on weather and mortality in New York City, a study conducted under the auspices of the National Research Council and with the extensive collaboration of New York–based life insurance companies, offers a different insight into

The biased population coverage and short temporal lengths of newly emerged data sets (e.g., data sets of social media, mobile phones, and smart cards) obstruct the effective analysis of long-term dynamics of landuse patterns, particularly in small and developing cities. This study proposed a framework to delineate and analyze mixed land-use patterns and their evolution using municipal water consumption

Despite advances in mapping technologies and spatial data capabilities, global mapping inequalities are not declining. Inequalities in the coverage, quality, and currency of mapping persist, with significant gaps in remote and rural parts of the Global South. These regions, representing some of the most economically and resource-disadvantaged societies in the world, need high-quality mapping to aid

We analyzed the migration consideration factors of residents from the Mississippi River Delta in southern Louisiana, which is under the influence of rising sea levels, subsiding land, and increasing flood risks. Through the use of a telephone survey of 1,125 adult individuals in twenty-four parishes, we gathered the demographic data and flood risk experiences and perceptions of each respondent. The

Deserts, like any geographic setting, are not sites where geopolitical dramas simply unfold or “touch down”; rather, they actively constitute geopolitical orders. This article shows how taking deserts rather than states as an entry point can provide a unique lens on geopolitics, state making, and empire. Investigating the political lives of deserts requires asking how they are imagined, narrated, and

The creation and modification of landscape patterns through interactions among people and the environment is a defining focus in the discipline of geography. Here, we contribute to that tradition by placing 500 years of red pine (Pinus resinosa) tree-ring data in the context of archaeological, ethnographic, and paleoecological records to describe patterns of Anishinaabeg land use and fire occurrence

Building on a small, yet growing body of scholarship focused on the political ecology of race and critical race studies of science and technology, this article follows the ways sediment, science, and race intersect on the grounds of environmental restoration in coastal Louisiana. Mobilizing ethnographic field work and historical research conducted with African-American communities and coastal scientists

This article combines elements of a personal essay with travel writing, in which geographers have expressed renewed interest. Constructed not through contemplations of the mind but from lived corporeal experience, it reflects both fieldwork discomforts and moments of somatic exhilaration when the mind reacts, producing the epiphany of a new idea or insight. The article follows two researchers who travel

U.S. geomorphologists and biogeographers often cite early theoretical roots dating back to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century exemplars such as Powell, Gilbert, Cowles, and Clements, or earlier European contributors like Hutton, Lyell, von Humboldt, and, of course, Darwin. Yet reviews of our intellectual roots often overlook an early and important U.S. contributor: George Perkins Marsh. Marsh’s

Agrichemicals and other toxicants are now ubiquitous in both human bodies and the environment, yet public debate and scientific practice on their effects are still mired in uncertainty. Recent research in the history of science, feminist science, and technology studies has advanced ways of thinking about ignorance and uncertainty. Combined with key insights from political ecology, specifically the

Measuring the form and structure of geographic landscapes is fundamental to understanding geospatial phenomena and their dynamics. Shape compactness metrics have been extensively employed in gerrymandering assessment, urban planning, landscape ecology, and other applications. Existing compactness measurements for gerrymandering, however, target particular aspects of gerrymandered shapes such as elongation

The neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP) can be a serious methodological problem that leads to erroneous assessments when studying mobility-dependent exposures (e.g., air or noise pollution) because people’s daily mobility could amplify or attenuate the exposures they experienced in their residential neighborhoods. Specifically, the NEAP suggests that individuals’ mobility-based exposures tend

Given the many discourses about markers for the Anthropocene, those peripheral to one’s academic niche might elicit indifference or even dismissal. Conversely, a shallow pluralism can take root in which any Anthropocene demarcation matters equally as others. I propose a more diplomatic coexistence of ideas regarding the Anthropocene boundary issue. In this perspective, the choice of when to delineate

Human geographers have long noted the colonial tropes and frontier imaginaries used to stimulate investment and normalize predatory property speculation within North American cities. Drawing on the insights of indigenous scholars and theorists of settler colonialism, in this article we argue a need to move beyond an analogical deployment of the “frontier” as a mere trope or imaginary and suggest that

Large-scale European electricity providers are increasingly replacing coal with renewable biomass wood pellets produced from working forests of the U.S. South. Adopting a posthumanist interpretation of the labor theory of value, this article argues that wood pellet manufacturing constitutes an attempt by energy capital to substitute the “dead labor” of prehistoric plants, embodied in fossil fuels,

According to an increasingly prevalent set of discourses and practices within environmental and development finance, cities across the Global South are facing a costly infrastructural crisis stemming from rapid urbanization and climate change that threatens to further entrench poverty and precarity for millions of people. The cost of achieving urban resilience across the world dwarfs available public

The concept of the Anthropocene provides the reflexive rubric for examining human alteration of the Earth’s basic natural systems and, in turn, how society responds to and adapts to such changes in its life support systems. Nowhere is this more evident than in natural hazards and disaster risk. This article examines the changing nature of hazard and disaster risk from local to global scales highlighting

For many, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and related libraries for programming languages define the terrain of geographical computing today. But what if GIS were locales within wider realms of geographical imagination systems (gis), realms more adequate to diverse theoretical commitments of geographical thought? Examining how various thinkers in spatial theory have conceived of phenomena, space

A long tradition of feminist and postcolonial scholarship has insisted on the centrality of social difference to regimes of capital accumulation. This article examines abnormality—one half of a binary categorization that evaluates bodies in relation to their success or failure in terms of health, productivity, and mental or physical capacity—as one such form of social difference. I examine the relationship

Rebuilding and repairing damaged physical infrastructure is a primary source of disaster aid spending following major earthquakes. Although aid distribution is monitored, it is not well understood how economic support and technical assistance affect reconstruction behavior. This study develops and evaluates a Bayesian item response theory modeling framework for estimating the probability of reconstructive

Light pollution refers to the degradation of darkness through the use of artificial light at night in and around human infrastructures. This pollution is intrinsically related to urbanization and spills out from urban areas to affect both rural and protected areas. Several countries are organizing the fight against light pollution. There, local communities are experimenting with environmental policies

In Jordan, many women’s small food businesses and nonprofit projects have been supported as a sustainable rural development strategy. The prevalence of these projects in bazaars and festivals in Jordan indicates their prominence. Most studies of these projects have framed them in terms of microfinance or development goals such as women’s empowerment. The framework of empowerment has been widely critiqued

Understanding how inequalities are transmitted through generations and restrict upward spatial mobility has long been a concern of geographic research. Previous research has identified that the neighborhood in which someone grows up is highly predictive of the type of neighborhood he or she will live in as an independent adult. What remains largely unknown is the relative contribution of geography

Within climate–energy–transport scholarship and professions there is a growing consensus that electric vehicles (EVs), which include personal cars, sport utility vehicles (SUVs), vans, and pickup trucks, are essential for decarbonizing mobility. This article urges caution and pause before an EV lock-in and calls on geographers and other scholars, professionals, and sustainability advocates to consider

For industry proponents, the Xinavane Sugar Mill, Mozambique’s largest sugar estate, has been rehabilitated from postconflict subsistence farming to agroindustrial productivity. Such investment-oriented narratives seek to erase earlier land dispossessions and uneven accumulation. Drawing ethnographic research together with Mozambican Land Cadaster and archival documents, this article rethinks land

Supported by a large body of scholarship, it is increasingly orthodox practice for cities to deploy urban greening interventions to address diverse socioenvironmental challenges, from protecting urban ecosystems to enhancing built environments and climate resilience or improving health outcomes. In this article, we expand the theoretical boundaries used to challenge this growing orthodoxy by laying

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) arrangements aim to influence human activities in critical ecosystems that produce, among other services, water, biodiversity, and carbon sinks. In practice, PES arrangements ultimately seek to redefine and territorialize space for conservation. Establishing control over activities within a targeted area is challenging, however, particularly when these areas are

Responding to calls for increased attention to actions and reactions “from above” within the extractive industry, we offer a decolonial critique of the ways in which corporate entities and multinational institutions draw on racialized rhetoric of “local” suffering, “local” consultation, and “local” culpability in oil as development. Such rhetoric functions to legitimize extractive intervention within

This article asks this question: What if, rather than starting from the United States or the United Kingdom in histories of geography, we start from Nigeria? Focusing on Nigerian geographers working in Nigeria’s first university from 1948 to 1990 and drawing on archival evidence and new oral history interviews, this article argues that the view from Nigeria offers significant new perspectives on the

This article aims to advance understandings of contemporary state-making in rural Mongolia, contingent on historical processes rather than a taken-for-granted natural category. Writing on postsocialist Mongolia often emphasizes the “retreat of the state” in rural areas; this article offers a counterpoint to this discourse by illustrating the ways in which herder livelihoods and the idealization of

In an effort to contribute to the contemporary debates on accumulation by dispossession (ABD), we argue for a closer attention to the link between the state and ABD. We propose contextualizing ABD within the institutionalization of the process of replacing communal property rights with private property rights. In such institutionalization, the state plays a critical role as the final guarantor of property

Enforcement of border control has become a global trend as nation-states endeavor to regulate cross-border flows and handle security risks posed by migrants. This article analyzes the China–Myanmar border, which is hitherto neglected in the literature but undergoes innovative experimentation in border control, to complement the well-established literature on border enforcement. We draw on a theoretical

Emerging new materialism scholarship provides an exciting theoretical space not only for challenging traditional conceptions of human agency but also for rethinking the role of the material world in shaping political outcomes. Although a wildly diverse intellectual movement, this scholarship shares the common goal of widening traditional understandings of agency to include nonhuman objects. This article

Evacuation is a fairly empty and technical concept often used to describe moments of emergency governance when peoples are moved away from harm. It was also a key code word, though, within the Nazi deportation and killing of Europe’s Jews. How could evacuation be deployed in these contexts and for these purposes? What is so crucial here is not simply that the practices of the Holocaust were termed

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, a green economy has been promoted as a way to foster sustainable development and eradicate poverty at the same time. Many states have become more active in investing in renewable technologies and allocating capital to renewable energy development. With the rapid growth of the green economy in East Asian countries (e.g., China, South Korea, and Taiwan), however

Between 1930 and 1932 the three sessions of the Round Table Conference in London drew more than seventy Indian delegates to the city, for up to three months, to debate India’s constitutional future within the British Empire. This article argues that the atmosphere of the conference was central to its successes and failures and that studying atmospheres can help us think about the co-constitution of

This article examines how recent increases in commercial poaching of wildlife intensify the dictates that underpin conservation law and its enforcement; namely, the securing of space, punishing of transgressors, and protecting of nonhuman life. Drawing on ethnographic research with antipoaching personnel in Mozambique, I examine how rangers translate these legal and normative manifestations of conservation

Geographical variable distributions often exhibit both macroscale geographic smoothness and microscale discontinuities or local step changes. Nonetheless, accounting for both effects in a unified statistical model is challenging, especially when the data under study involve a multiscale structure and non-Gaussian response variables. This study develops a locally adaptive spatial multilevel logistic

Previous research has identified a number of physical, socioeconomic, and demographic factors related to tornado casualty rates. There remain gaps in our understanding of community-level vulnerabilities to tornadoes. Here a framework is provided for systematically identifying the most unusually devastating tornadoes, defined as those where the observed number of casualties far exceeds the predicted

This article advances three interrelated arguments. First, by focusing on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) Research Department, an undertheorized chapter in the civil rights movement, we advance an expressly spatialized understanding of the African American freedom struggle. Second, by focusing on an SNCC-produced pamphlet titled The Care and Feeding of Power Structures, we advance

Systems of food production and provision face a set of complex and interdependent challenges to sustainably meet current and future nutrition needs and minimize the negative social and ecological consequences of modern agriculture. Food system localization, often in the context of specific initiatives like farmers’ markets, are frequently put forth as a promising strategy for establishing more just

We report on a multicriteria decision-making study where participants were asked to purchase a house shown on maps that include hazard prediction information. We find that participants decided to buy different houses, depending on whether uncertainty is shown on the map display and on the type of uncertainty visualization (i.e., varying color value, focus, or texture). We also find that participants’

We compared two biogeomorphic models that postulate how vegetation is intertwined in the response and recovery of barrier island dunes. Each model was developed in a separate coastal region using different methods. Both relied on simple elevational representations of topography. By comparing topographies among more islands of these two regions and by linking multiple representations of topographic

This article deploys a discursive–material analytical framework to trace how perceptions of data power are constructed in urban activist circles against data’s capacity to advance grassroots political goals. By framing South African data activism practices as a form of technopolitics—a concept that foregrounds the coconstitution of politics and technology through their anchoring to normative discourses—this

Although the notion of the Anthropocene has generated a great deal of literature across disciplines, the geographic critique of this concept is still developing. This article contributes to justice-oriented engagements with the Anthropocene by highlighting the relationships through which planetary knowledge is constructed as sites of critique. I develop an analytic of synoptic geographies, which addresses

Location masking, or geomasking, is a practice typically undertaken by data stewards who wish to release a georeferenced data set without infringing on the privacy of those whose data are involved. With numerous opportunities to transmit our personal locations through electronic devices, individuals have the agency through masking to stem the flow of their location data or otherwise engage in obscuring