Special Issues of the Annals
Every year there is one Special Issue of the Annals that highlights the work of geographers around a significant global theme.
2021: The Anthropocene
Editor: David R. Butler
Publication: March 2021
The term Anthropocene was introduced in the year 2000 as a concept indicating that human modification of the environment had reached such a widespread and significant level that a geological epoch distinct from the Holocene had been initiated. Increasingly embraced by physical and social scientists, as reflected in the recent establishment of specialty professional journals (Anthropocene: founded 2013; The Anthropocene Review: founded 2014), no universally accepted starting point for the onset of the Anthropocene exists. In 2017 the Working Group on the Anthropocene recommended formalization of the Anthropocene with an Epoch rank based on a mid-twentieth century boundary associated with radionuclide fallout as a stratigraphic Golden Spike, but this recommendation has yet to be acted upon and is far from universally accepted. This Special Issue of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers calls for papers examining all geographic aspects of the concept of the Anthropocene.
2020: Smart Spaces and Places
Editor: Ling Bian
Publication: March 2020
The 2020 Special Issue of the Annals will explore the theme of Smart Spaces and Places. The ‘smart’ technologies have advanced rapidly throughout society (e.g. autonomous vehicles, smart energy, smart health, smart living, smart cities, smart environment, and smart society) and across geographic spaces and places. We welcome theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to address questions such as how to make spaces and places ‘smart’, how the ‘smartness’ affects the way we perceive, analyze, and visualize spaces and places, and what role geographies play in knowledge production and decision making in such a ‘smart’ era. Spaces and places can be understood broadly from a range of views, including but not limited to social, cultural, political, ethical, legal, economic, behavioral, ontological, and cognitive perspectives.
2019: Environmental Governance in a Populist/Authoritarian Era
Editor: James McCarthy
Publication: March 2019
Table of Contents
The 2019 Special Issue of the Annals will address theoretical, methodological, and empirical questions regarding how environments are known and governed in an era substantially characterized by populist and/or authoritarian politics around much of the world. The issue will explore what differences it makes when environmental research, knowledge construction, and decision making occur in the context of such political formations. We understand each of those key terms broadly, and welcome contributions from across the full range of the discipline. We strongly encourage contributions that consider these questions and problematics in and from many locations and perspectives around the world, and with some historical depth.
2018: Social Justice and the City
Editor: Nik Heynen
Publication: March 2018
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The 2018 Special Issue of the Annals will publish conceptual research drawing on now 40 years of cutting edge research in geography on ‘social justice and the city’. Topics will include: Racial/Gendered/Queer Justice and the City; Environmental Justice, Social Justice, and the City; Social Justice and Planetary Urbanization; Social Justice and the Post/anti-colonial City; Law, Social Justice and the City; Segregation and inequality; Mobility and immobility; Urban Austerity and Social Justice; Labor, Economic Justice and the City; Social Justice and the Youth/Children’s City; Marxism(s) and the City; Social Justice and the Secular/non-Secular City; Measuring Social Justice and the City; Neoliberal Urbanism and Social Justice; The Right to (Social Justice in) the City; Urban Movements for Social Justice.
2017: Mountains
Editor: Mark A. Fonstad
Publication: March 2017
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The 2017 Special Issue of the Annals will address a broad spectrum of social, cultural, political, environmental, physical, economic, theoretical, and methodological issues focused on the mountains. These might include original research in such areas as mountains as sites and corridors of cultural and environmental diversity and gradients, mountains as the “water towers of the world”, mountain as regions highly sensitive to climate change, the critical nature of mountain regions as borders and as regions of conflict, mountain regions as barriers to migration yet also home to large numbers of refugees, mountains as sources of hazards and risk, mountains as sites of sacred importance, and as destinations for tourism and as cultural icons.
2016: Geographies of Mobilities
Editor: Mei-Po Kwan
Publication: March 2016
Table of Contents
The 2016 Special Issue of the Annals covers areas such as: (im)mobility and social differentiation and inequality; (im)mobility of the oppressed, subjugated and persecuted; (im)mobility and social exclusion; experience of (im)mobility; politics of (im)mobility; commuting; leisure travel; tourism; mobility by different transport modes; sustainable mobility; mobility and resilience; disasters, natural hazards, and mobility; mobility, wellbeing and health; mobility, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions; space-time modeling and GIS-based analysis of mobility; and mobility research methods.
2015: Futures: Imagining Socio-Ecological Transformation
Editor: Bruce Braun
Publication: March 2015
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The 2015 Special Issue of the Annals addresses social, cultural, political, environmental, economic, theoretical, and methodological issues related to imagining and enacting socio-ecological futures. These include geographical research in areas such as: knowledge production and possible socio-ecological futures; critical perspectives on climate futures; transformation, transition, revolution and resilience; spatial futures and climate justice; governing socio-ecological futures; eco-climatic, eco-hydrological and ecosystem dimensions of socio-ecological futures; the role of science-fiction, art and imaginative socio-ecological futures; utopias, dystopias and apocalypses.
2014: Migration
Editor: Richard Wright
Publication: March 2014
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The 2014 Special Issue of the Annals addresses the following related themes: immigration, migration, transnationalism, forced migration, diaspora studies, and other relevant areas.
2013: Water
Editor: Mark A. Fonstad
Publication: March 2013
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The 2013 Special Issue of the Annals addresses the following related themes: water and conflict, spatial disparaties in access to water-related services, water and global environmental change, water and habitats, analysis and simulation of water systems, water and risk, policy and law applied to water environments, and other relevant areas.
2012: Health
Editor: Mei-Po Kwan
Publication: September 2012
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The 2012 Special Issue of the Annals addresses the following related themes: access to healthcare, spatial disparities in health outcomes, the effect of geographic context on health outcomes, mobility and health, environment and health, development and health, space-time modeling and GIS-based analysis of health outcomes, and other relevant areas in the geographies of health.
2011: Energy
Editor: Karl Zimmerer
Publication: July 2011
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"Geographies of Energy" is a new and diverse array of pioneering geographic scholarship. It examines such vitally important research topics as energy dilemmas of the United States, large trends and patterns of energy consumption includa China's role, "peak oil," energy poverty, and ethanol and other renewable energy sourcing. The stuff of recurring news headlines, these pressing energy topics are now the subject of growing geographic inquiry. The articles offer advances in key emerging areas of energy research, each distinguished in the following sections within the special issue: (i) geographic approaches to energy modeling an assessment; (ii) fossil fuel landscapes; (iii) the landscapes of renewable energy; (iv) landscapes of energy consumption; and (v) an overview of the new geographies of energy and an invited essay on America's oil dependency. In addition there is a commission book review essay examining several major monographs on geography and energy.
2010: Climate Change
Editor: Richard Aspinall
Publication: October 2010
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The 2010 Special Issue of the Annals addresses environmental, human, social, political, and methodological issues focused on the geographical dimensions of climate change, including original research in areas such as the climate record, the human and environmental impacts of climate change, the role of GISciences and modeling in understanding climate change and sustainability, and other relevant areas.
2009: Geographies of Peace and Armed Conflict
Editor: Audrey Kobayashi
Publication: December 2009
Table of Contents
How can geographers contribute to world peace? This collection gathers the insights of geographers in every branch of the discipline to discuss territory and geopolitics, the social effects of violence, resource issues, and postconflict initiatives. The issue provides an ideal reader for courses devoted to understanding the impact of violence and prospects of peace in virtually every part of the globe.
