President's Column

Geographers and Redistricting

September 1, 2021

When I taught my Geography of China class in fall 2019, I had a student from the PRC whom I remember as being particularly open-minded and eager to learn. One day, after I lectured about the massive Hong Kong protests for universal suffrage and the principle of one-person one-vote that were occurring, he asked, nonplussed, “Why do they care so much about one-person one-vote? What’s the big deal? Why bother protesting for that?” He was genuinely curious about what could motivate so many people to expend so much effort on something that didn’t seem to him to be much preferable to the alternative. I explained the benefits of representative and liberal democracy, accountability of one’s elected officials, and the importance of citizens having a real voice in governance, but I could see the skepticism from him and other international students about what US democracy was looking like to the rest of the world.

There’s also a slightly different way to interpret his question: why were the people of Hong Kong struggling so hard for an ideal that has proven elusive even for the world’s self-proclaimed champion of democracy? Consider the first meaning of “one-person one-vote” – universal suffrage. Aside from the obvious fact that voting in the US was originally limited to only white men with property, this year has seen an unprecedented wave of over four hundred voter suppression bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. Georgia has notoriously made it illegal for anyone other than a poll worker to give food or water to anyone waiting in line to vote, disproportionately affecting minority communities where wait times are very long and barriers to voting formidable. Other bills make it more difficult to register, establish strict photo ID laws, and limit access to voting by restricting mail-in ballots, absentee ballots, early voting, number of polling sites, and hours polling sites are open. These and other measures disproportionately affect people of color, the elderly, and those with disabilities. In one 2016 inspection, nearly two-thirds of polling places had at least one impediment for those with disabilities, up from less than one-half in 2008. Many Native Americans who live on reservations do not have traditional street addresses, causing their voter registration applications to be rejected; furthermore, because of increasing limits on polling sites and drop boxes, some Native Americans have had to drive up to 150 miles in order to vote.

Beyond these obstacles to voting access that belie the idea of universal suffrage, however, there is also a second meaning to “one-person one-vote”: the principle that any one person’s voting power should be roughly equivalent to another’s. Representation in the US Senate does not adhere to this principle (nor the Electoral College for the selection of the president): a voter in rural Vermont effectively has sixty times the clout of a voter in California. The House of Representatives, though, is supposed to be the people’s house, with representation proportional to the population (though every state must have at least one representative). It is for this reason that there is a decennial census, in order to apportion Congressional representatives based on population change. Since the number of House seats was frozen at 435 by an act of Congress in 1929, reapportionment has meant the movement of Congressional seats from slow-growing to faster-growing states. Recent scholarship in political geography suggests that this process has disadvantaged lower income, less educated, and minority populations. The findings of the 2020 Census, delayed due to the pandemic, have resulted in seven states losing one seat each, five states gaining one seat each, and Texas gaining two seats.

After reapportionment comes redistricting: the drawing of electoral district boundaries for Congressional districts as well as state legislatures. The Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment dictate that in any given state, congressional districts and state legislative districts must have equal populations. Redistricting must also follow the Voting Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race (though it has been substantially gutted by 2013 and 2021 Supreme Court decisions). Beyond this, however, the actual drawing of districts is up to each state. Common criteria for districts, adopted by many states, include geographic compactness, contiguity, preservation of communities of interest, preservation of counties or other political subdivisions, and competitiveness.

Fair redistricting is indispensable to a healthy democratic republic. But what exactly is fair? This turns out to be a rather difficult question; it is much easier to see when things are blatantly not fair – when they don’t adhere to one-person one-vote in the second sense of equal representation. Gerrymandering is the term used to describe a configuration where district boundaries give unfair advantages to an incumbent, a political party (partisan gerrymandering), or another group. The portmanteau was coined in 1812 after a governor named Gerry signed into law a redistricting plan which looked like a salamander and was designed to keep his political party in power. Partisan gerrymandering has a long history in the US, with two of its most common tactics being “cracking” and “packing.” Cracking refers to spreading members of a political or ethnic/racial minority into many districts to ensure they cannot elect a representative of their choice, while packing is the concentration of voters of one type into one district, to reduce their overall influence. Although the strategies seem plain enough, interpretations can be contested in practice. In particular, in the 1990s, a wave of majority-minority districts was created to prevent or reverse racial discrimination caused by earlier gerrymandering. But these attempts to prevent cracking minority representation were seen by others as a form of packing.

Since the 1960s, there has been increasing litigation as well as citizen attention to the often highly partisan results of redistricting. One response has been the creation of Independent Redistricting Commissions (IRCs) to either oversee or delineate congressional and legislative boundaries. In addition, many states, regardless of whether they have IRCs, have opportunities for public comment and testimony, public hearings, public map submissions, and citizen review.

Here is where geographers come in – or, at least, should. After all, there are few things as geographical as the drawing of maps. Yet, though there continues to be research on electoral geography (for example see recent articles by Webster, Forest, and Rossiter et al.), most research on redistricting has been done by political scientists, mathematicians and lawyers. Even more relevant here is the fact that geographers have by and large been absent from the current redistricting process underway across the US. This is no doubt due in part to the fact that each state has a different process, making it harder to identify opportunities to get involved. It is for this reason that AAG is launching a virtual Redistricting Panel Series this month to equip geographers with the tools and knowledge to take action in their home states as district maps are redrawn. There will be panels for up to 15 states this month, organized by geographers and hosted on AAG’s virtual platform. Anyone is welcome to register for a panel, which will focus on the redistricting process of that particular state, how geographers can get involved, and why geospatial thinking is indispensable to the effort to create fair outcomes.

My own participation in a recent public hearing of the Colorado Independent Redistricting Commission confirmed just how relevant geographical considerations are – for example, in defining “communities of interest.” Preliminary maps had put several small mountain towns in western Boulder County into a large district that crossed county lines and was comprised of many mountain areas. In this version of redistricting, mountain towns tied to the ski industry were treated as a community of interest. But many at the hearing argued that in fact the more relevant community of interest is the watershed. “Everything flows downhill” said one participant: residents of the mountain towns come downhill for schools and jobs, much as the water in the reservoir flows east down to larger population centers. Others argued about the donut shape that the city of Boulder had been divided into for a state house district, suggesting that this split a community of interest that has developed around the issue of affordable housing. Others still argued that, given their concern about the health and environmental impacts of fracking, they should not be placed in a district with a majority pro-fracking and anti-regulation population. An exasperated IRC member asked several times how the speakers would draw the lines instead, given the requirements of equal population. A former county commissioner sympathized with the IRC, acknowledging the difficulty of their task: “One person’s ‘gerry’,” he noted, “is another person’s ‘mander.’”

I hope that AAG’s Redistricting Panel Series will inspire geographers to get involved, contributing their geospatial expertise and sensibilities to these extraordinarily important, and difficult, tasks. To see panels and register, visit this link.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0099

Please note: The ideas expressed in the AAG President’s column are not necessarily the views of the AAG as a whole. This column is traditionally a space in which the president may talk about their views or focus during their tenure as president of AAG, or spotlight their areas of professional work. Please feel free to email the president directly at emily [dot] yeh [at] colorado [dot] edu to enable a constructive discussion.

Journals

A Space to Cultivate: An Interview with Debbie Hopkins and Neha Arora of the AAG Review of Books

August 31, 2021

In June 2020, Debbie Hopkins, Associate Professor in the Department for Continuing Education and the School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford, took over as Editor-in-Chief of the AAG Review of Books, replacing Founding Editor Kent Mathewson. Published quarterly, The AAG Review of Books highlights recent texts in geography and related disciplines. The journal features book reviews by geographers and other scholars at various points of their academic careers.

We recently asked Debbie and Neha Arora, PhD Candidate in Human Geography, Stockholm University, and Editorial Assistant at The Review, to talk with us about their work this past year. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: What were you expecting from The AAG Review of Books, and what has surprised you?

Debbie: I find book reviews very interesting. As I expected, I have experienced the submissions as an art form, a particular form of writing that doesn’t have to be formulaic. Geographers tend to write more like humanists, a little poetic. Storytelling is something geographers do quite naturally, but we know we have to write a certain way to be published.

The Review allows you to have fun with yourself. That’s exciting for academics. You’re reviewing this book but how does it fit with the world?

Getting into it, I had very big shoes to fill. I was intimidated to meet Kent. He was very generous and supportive as I got going. Something that surprised me was the generosity with which reviewers engaged with the material. Reviewing is quite a selfless act. Particularly as I started this in the pandemic, dealing with that, taking classes online, homeschooling, dealing with personal tragedies. For people to say, yes I will do that. Across career stages, quite phenomenal. It’s no small feat, but people seem to get a lot out of it.

Neha: Absolutely everything has been a pleasant surprise! When I joined, I was expecting to be limited to an administrative role, especially since I did not have much experience in publishing. But Debbie encouraged me to be a part of the entire process, opening so many avenues to learn and grow. This has allowed me to expand networks, get a deeper look into the academic world as well as the publishing industry, read across disciplines and hone my editing and writing skills. Most exciting, however, has been trying to figure out new ways of broadening the scope of the journal. I never expected to be a part of these conversations. I was even surprised by how smoothly our little team works across continents, with Debbie in the UK, Jennifer in the US, and me first in South Africa and then in Sweden. I am also incredibly lucky to have these amazing women as my mentors.

Q: Talk to us a little about the three different review types that the Review publishes?

Debbie: The book review essay is our space to cultivate and have that additional benefit for the person reviewing, able to communicate more of their own perspective, ideas, and research. Also, it includes a variety of formats – often involving two or more books discussed in relation to one another. We like for reviewers to explore the relationships among texts, and sometimes bring in their teaching experiences or professional experiences. The book review is a standard review. That is the submission we see the most. Even this quite traditional form – one book, 1,500 words – can show a surprising variety. The forum tends to spring from an author-meets-critic type event at conferences. A group of reviewers interrogate the book, ask questions, challenge, and then the author responds, creating a nice dialogue.

Q: What are some changes and new approaches you’ve been trying out this past year?

Neha: Under Debbie’s guidance, we started this year with a very clear vision and focus – driving diversification and inclusion across the board. We looked at not only the kind of books we were sourcing, but also sourcing them from beyond ‘main’ publishers and Anglophone geography, as well as looking beyond just books and reviewing other media such as films, or complementing a book review by including content from a podcast. Equally important has been a focused effort to seek a diverse range of reviewers across multiple axes (ECRs, gender, geography). We are also keen on empowering reviewers to engage in new ways with the books, by encouraging creativity and flexibility with the format of the reviews.

This is of course work in progress and such an immense learning experience. I never wholly appreciated the challenges in achieving these extremely important – and timely – objectives, not only at the journal, but across academia. Something as simple as the accessibility of university websites beyond the Anglophone world makes it very challenging to reach out to new potential reviewers. Even the more popular universities do not have pages for their PhD students or ECRs. Similar issues exist with geography associations elsewhere and smaller publishing houses. It’s understandable that they do not have the resources to expand their online presence. And it just means we need to find other ways, and change will happen more slowly.

Debbie: Right now, we are reliant on what comes to us, but we need to go beyond the languages that Neha and I can engage with. If there is a review you’d like to write because you think an English-speaking audience would be interested, we want to know. We will remain an English-speaking journal, but need to enter into a dialogue.

We also want to reach beyond books and review other media – I think it is important that we engage with those. Books will remain very important for our discipline. Most recently we had a forum for a documentary. I can see how it will be very important teaching material, as well.

We did a review of a book about a British TV show – Landscapes of Detectorists, which offered interesting commentary on citizen science and the public reach. It’s important that our reviews think about the power of the spoken word, as well as written.

Neha: I have to say here that it is so incredibly exciting to work with Debbie on this – she is always in favor of pushing boundaries, is always open to discussing new ideas and constantly encourages curiosity. She is providing me with a roadmap to be the kind of academic I hope to be.

Q: Can you talk a little about the freedoms and possibilities for an author writing for the Review?

Debbie: It would be interesting to have some conversations about certain kinds of books that are both good for interest in geography and perhaps less valuable for the actual discipline. People who work in policy don’t read what we think is policy. Some of the issue is managing that, finding it. I’d love for geographers to all have a conversation that brings people together. An advantage to the Review of Books is that it’s not peer-reviewed. Reviews can get published relatively quickly. We can be quite topical. It’s only a few months to publication, which is really quite unusual for academic publishing! We are never going to be an empirical research journal.

We want The Review of Books to welcome young geographers [as reviewers and as part of the] network, part of dialogue. Some of the great relationships I’ve had are because I’ve written with people, been part of community. We are interested in getting to know people who are interested in ideas and contributing to the community in some way.

I envision the Review as a space to be working through ideas and concepts. A place where a reviewer has the freedom to speak. The articles are all free access after a year, and two articles per issue are open access right away.

Q: What is the “spark” you are looking for, either in a book, or in a writer, or both (in a submission)?

Neha: There is such a diversity in the reviews that we get and publish that it is hard to pinpoint one characteristic. But the reviews that I enjoy reading the most are the ones with a personal story. The reviews that go beyond describing the strengths and flaws of the book but describe how the reviewer connected with the book as a reader. This could be through an overlap with their own work, or how it brought back a memory from the field, or just an emotional response.

Debbie: Representing the diversity of the discipline is so important to me. So something I haven’t seen before, a book, author, a fresh take, someone who wants to review and speaks with passion. It’s finding that match…. Something that comes together and shows the really cool work geographers do. That real-worldness of our work. Geographers are interested in changing the world. When we see these reviews and this academic work being tied to tangible world events, that’s really special.

Q: How can someone submit their work?

Debbie: I’m very open to just an email. We are preparing a new submission page for later this year or early in 2022. Our current page on the AAG website has information and guidance on submitting.

Often the best reviews are the ones where the reviewer approaches us. Review essays are more difficult for us to solicit. It has to be a passion, so we have to rely on people to approach us, often because of a contemporary trigger (e.g., protest). Forums are very much the same.

For more information on submitting to the AAG Review of Books, see our page for the journal.

Bobby M. Wilson

Dr. Bobby M. Wilson, Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Alabama, who was a widely recognized leader in anti-racist scholarship, passed away on August 25^th, 2021.

Dr. Wilson grew up on a farm in Warrenton, North Carolina where his responsibilities on the farm shaped his character and strength. It was also in Warrenton that he participated in the struggle for civil rights in the early 1960s. Later, he would attend North Carolina Central University, which was one of the few historically Black colleges that offered an undergraduate degree in geography. He earned a B.A. in Geography there and then received a fellowship to attend Clark University, where he earned a M.A. (1973) and Ph.D. (1974).

His first teaching position was in the Department of Urban Studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, from 1974-2002. He moved to the University of Alabama (in Tuscaloosa) in 2002, where he stayed for nearly two decades pursuing anti-racist scholarship. He also served as interim chair and retired as professor emeritus in 2015. Fittingly, his office in Farrah Hall was only a few steps away from Malone Hood Plaza on The University of Alabama campus, which celebrates the desegregation of the University of Alabama. His proximity to the plaza is symbolic of Dr. Wilson’s long dedication to anti-racist scholarship.

Wilson was active in several research areas including Urban and Social Geography; Urban Studies; Black Geographies; and the civil rights movement. His publications cover topics including Black perspectives on labor geographies, racial capitalism, urban planning, and residential segregation. His most notable publications were America’s Johannesburg: Industrialization and Racial Transformation in Birmingham, and Race and Place in Birmingham: The Civil Rights and Neighborhood Movements, both published in 2000. These books explore crucial links between the civil rights movement, the unique rise of industrial development in Birmingham, and Alabama’s former slaveholding plantation economy. These books are highly regarded in a variety of disciplines from Urban Studies to Economic Geography for their clear analysis of the spatial dimensions of race and exploitation of Black labor during industrialization. As a testament to the lasting importance of his work, The University of Georgia Press republished America’s Johannesburg in 2019.

In addition to being a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and the Editorial Board, of Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, Dr. Wilson was also a long-time member of the American Association of Geographers and was active in the Southeast Division (SEDAAG). He served on the Editorial Committee, of Southeastern Geographer, Journal of the Southeastern Division, Association of American Geographers, the Editorial Board, of Annals of the Association of American Geographers, and AAG’s Commission on Afro-American Geography.

He was recognized by the AAG with a Presidential Achievement Award in 2012, and both a Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice and the AAG Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. The latter in “recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the scholarship of urban and social geography, urban studies, and anti-racist theory and practice; his teaching and mentoring; as well as his exemplary leadership in support of geography.”

Dr. Wilson is remembered fondly by many former colleagues and students at the University of Alabama and elsewhere.

See All Memorials

Newsletters

Newsletter – August 2021

August 5, 2021

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Physical Geography and the AAG

By Emily Yeh

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[G]eography imagines itself as the hub, with porous boundaries but shared concerns, whether about the relationship between humans and the earth’s surface, about space-time, about scale, or about the manifold human and physical landscapes of the earth…. And yet, I believe that there are some questions we need to ask about the positionality of physical geographers within the discipline, and the role of AAG in serving the needs of all geographers.

Continue Reading.

PERSPECTIVES

Invisible and Silent No More: The Necessity of Centering Anti-Racism as We Address Inclusion & Access for Disabled Community Members

By Gretchen Sneegas & Arrianna Marie Planey

We call on AAG to center its work against ableism around disabled geographers of color, especially those racialized as Black, because of how ableism is experienced by, and employed as a weapon against Black people particularly.

Continue Reading.

ANNUAL MEETING

New York City to host 2022 AAG Annual Meeting

Mark your calendar for the AAG Annual Meeting in the Big Apple, February 25 – March 1, 2022. The hybrid meeting will take place both online and at the NY Hilton Midtown and the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel. Registration and the call for papers for #AAG2022 will be announced this summer, and we invite you to organize and participate in sessions, workshops, field trips, special events, and activities. We look forward to seeing you in New York City!

Stay up to date on the annual meeting

PUBLICATIONS

**NEW The Professional Geographer Issue Alert: Articles with topics ranging from relationships between winter weather and traffic to preserving the rural soundscape**

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The most recent issue of The Professional Geographer has been published online (Volume 73, Issue 3) with 16 new research articles on current geographic research. Topics in this issue include COVID-19 in New York City; Eastern tree species range; local spatial autocorrelation; public art research; research ethics procedures; geodesign; Airbnb; tourism community sustainability; and preservation of nature among tourist areas. Locational areas of interest include Nigeria; Indiana; the Mississippi River Delta; and the Chinese countryside. Authors are from a variety of research institutions including Tel Aviv University; University of Texas at Dallas; and Istanbul Technical University.

All AAG members have full online access to all issues of The Professional Geographer through the Members Only page. Each issue, the Editors choose one article to make freely available. In this issue you can read COVID-19 Cases and the Built Environment: Initial Evidence from New York City by Calvin P. Tribby & Chris Hartmann for free for the next 3 months.

Questions about The Professional Geographer? Contact PG [at] aag [dot] org

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**NEW Summer Issue of The AAG Review of Books Published**

The latest issue of The AAG Review of Books is now available (Volume 9, Issue 3) with twelve book reviews, and one book review essay on recent books related to geography, urbanization, tourism, animal trafficking and more. The Summer 2021 issue also holds one book review forum: Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others by Louise Amoore, reviewed by Andrew C. Dwyer, Nathaniel O’Grady, Pip Thornton, Till Straube, Emily Gilbert, and Louise Amoore.

Questions about The AAG Review of Books? Contact aagreview [at] aag [dot] org.

Journals-newsletter-100 In addition to the most recently published journal, read the latest issue of the other AAG journals online:

• Annals of the American Association of Geographers
• The Professional Geographer
• GeoHumanities
• The AAG Review of Books

ASSOCIATION NEWS

Location-Based Tech and Social Justice – AAG Geoethics Symposium

The American Association of Geographers, in partnership with the Center for Spatial Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara and with support from Esri, has launched a series of webinars on key considerations for GeoEthics. The next webinar is a half-day symposium, Emerging Location-based Services and Technologies, August 11 from 9:30 am – 12:45 pm Australian Eastern Time (Aug 10 in the Western Hemisphere). Bringing together more than a dozen presenters with expertise in many disciplines, the symposium examines the socioethical implications and impacts of location-based technologies, including body-based and wearable technologies. The morning will culminate in a discussion of how to create an ethical framework to address these technologies’ implications.

The webinar follows 30 minutes after the Public Interest Technology (PIT) Colloquium Series from the Society Policy Engineering Collective (SPEC) at Arizona State University (ASU) and IEEE SSIT Students at 2:30 pm Arizona Time. Detailed bios and information for participants is at this link. Register for this special separate event at this link.

Geographers do their research at a distance, build their toolkits… and find community

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By definition, geographers study such a variety of places and spaces. Some choose to do their research about geographies near their university, and others are drawn to distant geographies. These choices were seriously challenged or derailed during the 2020-2021 academic year, which coincided with the rise of COVID-19. The COVID-19 Task Force’s Methods Training program, which helped alleviate graduate student challenges, has been renewed for another year, with new ways for AAG members to get involved.

Learn more about getting involved.

AAG Early Career and Department Leadership Webinar Series Continues in Fall 2021

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The Early Career and Department Leadership webinar series, launched in fall 2020 as part of the AAG’s COVID-19 Rapid Response initiatives, also represents a broader effort at the AAG to expand year-round programming for members and the wider geography community. The AAG is pleased to announce that the webinar series will continue in the 2021-2022 academic year.

Find out more about the webinar series.

Save the Date for AAG Regions Connect

This fall will be a great time to reconnect with colleagues, both in your regions and beyond. For the first time, AAG and the Applied Geography Conference are collaborating with six of our Regional Divisions to create a carbon-sensitive meeting model with AAG Regions Connect: A Joint Climate-Forward Initiative. Happening Oct 14-16, Regions Connect advances the vision of the AAG Climate Action Task Force, combing in-person local gathering with nationally available online events, including new offerings for career and professional development and regional perspectives on international and national issues. Registration will open in mid-August.

Check out our Events page for information on Regions Connect and other Regional Division events this fall.

Nominate Colleagues for AAG Honors and AAG Fellows

Please consider nominating outstanding colleagues for the AAG Honors, the highest awards offered by the American Association of Geographers, and the AAG Fellows, a program recognizing both later-career and early/mid-career geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography. Individual AAG members, specialty groups, affinity groups, departments, and other interested parties are encouraged to nominate outstanding colleagues following the newly revised submission guidelines. Deadlines for nominations will be September 15th.

More information about AAG Honors and AAG Fellows.

Nominate Inspiring Geographers: September Awards Deadlines

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AAG Grants and Awards make a huge impact on our community of Geographers and help maintain the legacy of geographers of the past while paying tribute to geographers thriving right now. Deadlines are already approaching starting in September. Don’t miss your opportunity to apply or nominate someone deserving! Learn more about the following grants and awards before their due dates:
Sept. 15: AAG Enhancing Diversity Award and AAG Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award

Sept. 22: AAG Nystrom Award for Recent Dissertations

Sept. 30: AAG Program Excellence Award – masters-granting programs

Nominations Sought for AAG Council Positions

The AAG Nominating Committee seeks nominations for Vice President (one to be elected) for National Councilor (two vacancies), and for Student Councilor (one vacancy) for the 2022 election. The AAG encourages nominations of a broad range of colleagues who reflect different disciplinary specialties, regional locations, gender, race, ethnicity, diverse ability, stage in career, etc. Those elected will take office on July 1, 2022. AAG members should submit the names and addresses of each nominee and their reasons for supporting nomination to any member of the AAG Nominating Committee no later than September 24, 2021. As part of your nomination statement, please confirm that the person is willing to be considered for the position for which you are recommending them. Nominations by email are strongly preferred.

Please send nominations or questions regarding these positions to the AAG Nominating Committee: Kathleen Sherman-Morris (Chair), John Harrington, Jr., and Helga Leitner.

POLICY CORNER

AAG to Host 2021 Redistricting Panel Series in September

After 10 years with our country’s current congressional and state district maps, the time has come to redraw the lines through the process of redistricting. States alone have the power to redraw legislative districts using decennial census data. This undertaking is inherently geographic, and yet geographers are sorely lacking from the process at every level. Because each state has a different process for redrawing their maps, identifying a chance to get involved can be tough for anyone to navigate, let alone professional and academic geographers pressed for time.

That’s why the AAG is launching our virtual Redistricting Panel Series this September, to equip geographers with the tools and knowledge to take action in their states as the maps are drawn. By activating our collective power as a community and pressing to have a geographer in the room in every state, we can set new expectations this year and show why geospatial thinkers are indispensable.

The AAG’s virtual Redistricting Panel Series is centered around one key word — “action.” Geographers will walk away from these panels with the state specific background, process knowledge, and the grassroots organization connections needed to step up and get involved. Click here to learn more and check back in later for state-specific panel dates and registration information.

In the News:

In June 2021, the House and Senate advanced separate versions of legislation to enhance U.S. innovation and global competitiveness. The approaches taken by the two bills, however, differ dramatically. The Senate bill focuses squarely on ways to harness and in some cases alter the nation’s scientific assets to better compete with China. The House bill, on the other hand, doubles down on the nation’s existing, proven scientific leadership and proposes additional investments to push the U.S. research enterprise—particularly the National Science Foundation—into new directions. Click here to read an in-depth analysis from our colleagues at COSSA.

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

New Podcast Focusing on Black Geographies

1919 is a Black organizing and media collective based in Canada, which publishes a print magazine and operates a multimedia platform for interdisciplinary cultural production, political education, and internationalist solidarity and imagination. 1919 launched its 4-part Black Geographies Podcast Series, which brings together four authors in the emerging field of Black Geographies to discuss the multiple spatial dimensions of Blackness, and bring radical ideas of race, space, and the politics of place out of academia and into the community and streets through an engaging and accessible medium. All four episodes are now available online at the 1919 SoundCloud, on Spotify, and Apple Music.

National Humanities Center Fellowships – Call for Applications

The National Humanities Center invites applications for academic-year or one-semester residential fellowships. Mid-career, senior, and emerging scholars from all parts of the globe and who have a strong record of peer-reviewed work from any area of the humanities are encouraged to apply. Fellowship applicants must have a PhD or equivalent scholarly credentials. Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. EDT, October 7, 2021. More information can be found here: https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/become-a-fellow/.

2021 American Institute of Indian Studies Fellowships

The American Institute of Indian Studies announces its 2021 fellowship competition and invites applications from scholars who wish to conduct their research in India. Junior fellowships are awarded to Ph.D. candidates to conduct research for their dissertations in India for up to eleven months. Senior fellowships are awarded to scholars who hold the Ph.D. degree for up to nine months of research in India. The application deadline is November 15, 2021. The application can be accessed from the web site www.indiastudies.org. For more information please contact the American Institute of Indian Studies by telephone at (773) 702-8638 or by email at aiis [at] uchicago [dot] edu.

GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS

This 2050 Earth map is an ominous glimpse of our future SlashGear, July 14, 2021. Clark University and Esri compiled satellite data and vulnerability models to develop interactive maps showing the effects of climate change from 2018 to 2050.
Using Maps to Empower Indigenous Communities Outside, July 12, 2021. Indigenous activists, geographers, and outdoor enthusiasts are working on a variety of projects to undo colonial cartographies while educating people on colonization’s violent history. These projects work to make stolen indigenous land and outdoor spaces more welcoming to indigenous communities themselves through utilizing GIS tools, ultimately changing the relationship between people and the land they stand upon.
Extreme heat is killing people in Arizona’s mobile homes The Washington Post, July 4, 2021. Geographers Patricia Solis of Arizona State University and Margaret Wilder and Mark Kear of the University of Arizona are collaborating on research in the heat vulnerability of mobile homes.

EVENTS CALENDAR

President's Column

Physical Geography and the AAG

August 1, 2021

Geography is the quintessential interdisciplinary discipline — or, as AAG past president Mona Domosh has described it, a ‘promiscuous discipline,’ an undisciplined discipline — a radically intradisciplinary discipline. For someone like myself whose research is in human and nature-society geography, this means that my work is in conversation not only with that of other geographers, but also in some cases with the work of anthropologists and sociologists, and with those in other interdisciplinary fields like environmental studies, development studies, and even religious studies. My colleagues in Geographic Information Science collaborate with computer scientists and applied mathematicians, among others. And physical geographers — including geomorphologists, climatologists, biogeographers, hydrologists, and soil scientists — read and want their work read not only by geographers but also by geologists, ecologists, atmospheric scientists, civil engineers, and aerospace engineers. If all these other disciplines are the spokes, geography imagines itself as the hub, with porous boundaries but shared concerns, whether about the relationship between humans and the earth’s surface, about space-time, about scale, or about the manifold human and physical landscapes of the earth.

In this arrangement, many Geography departments thrive in producing research and teaching students. And yet, I believe there are some questions we need to ask about the positionality of physical geographers within the discipline, and the role of AAG in serving the needs of all geographers.

Consider this. A 2015 survey of the AAG membership, current and lapsed, found that of those who responded, only 13.7% identified physical geography as their primary focus (compared to 51.6% human geography). Similarly, a 2020 survey by AAG found that of academics, 20% identified physical geography as their primary field (vs. 57% human geography) and only 17% of students identified physical geography as their primary field. This is down considerably from 1979, when Melvin Marcus noted that 36% of members were physical geographers.

In my own department, almost all physical geographers attend the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting every year – and the AAG only every few years, if at all. With over 25,000 attendees every year now, AGU’s meeting has rapidly become the preeminent conference for earth and environmental scientists of all stripes. Given limitations of time and dollars (not to mention the carbon costs of conference travel), most of us cannot afford to travel to more than one major conference a year, and for physical geographers, the choice is increasingly AGU over AAG (or for that matter, in some cases, also over the Ecological Society of America (ESA) or the Geological Society of America (GSA) meetings). As AGU, which boasts 60,000 members, gets larger and larger, it is no wonder that it has become a center of gravity for many current research specializations of physical geographers, who by and large identify with the rise of Earth System Science as an integrative approach to the geosciences. As circles of scientists move towards a conference, special sessions, invited talks, side meetings, and other events draw a critical mass of researchers, who often attend as much to see those colleagues as to give talks.

Similarly, for the discipline’s flagship journal in the United States, the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, the percentage of submissions to the “Physical Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences” section has decreased over time. Data from 2014 to 2020 show that on average, physical geography articles constituted about 9% of total new manuscripts and 11% of total accepted manuscripts. Things were not always thus. When the AAG was founded in 1904, physical geography dominated the organization and the field; indeed, at that time geography itself was often equated with physical geography, and specifically, geomorphology (Marcus 1979, Rhoads 2004; Aspinall 2010). From 1911-1923 articles in physical geography accounted for between 50-100% of those published in the Annals. There was a significant dip in the prominence of physical geography from the mid-1920s to the early 1950s, followed by a revival from the 1960s to 1980s that coincided with the increasing specialization of and creation of journals for subfields within physical geography. Writing in 2004, Bruce Rhoads stated that from about 1923 to 2004, the long-term average was 21% physical geography articles in the Annals.

The relatively low percentage of physical geography articles in journals of the AAG relative to the number of physical geographers teaching and researching in Geography departments is thus by no means new. However, it has been exacerbated over the past two decades by the proliferation of scholarly journals, the increasing specialization of research areas, and increasing interdisciplinary collaborations between physical geographers and other earth and environmental scientists who have other target journals. Moreover, consider that AAG has two journals, the Annals and Professional Geographer, whereas the ESA now publishes six, and the AGU an astounding twenty-two journals.

Physical geographers naturally want their work read, and cited, by others in their specific research areas – and geologists, hydrologists, ecologists, climatologists, etc. don’t tend to read the Annals or Professional Geographer. The key issue is audience. Geography journals are broad, encompassing multiple subdisciplines, unlike AGU’s specifically targeted journals. AGU has managed to find a way to provide both depth and specialization (in specific journals and membership sections) as well as interdisciplinarity (in the very large annual conference). Another important issue is turnaround time. For many journals in the earth sciences, articles can appear online within three or four months of submission; the Annals takes much longer.

Beyond these, impact factors (IF) may also make a difference, given how much metrics have been made to matter in academia these days. Though the impact factor of the Annals is quite high for Geography (3.3 in 2019, 4.68 in 2020), as is that of Progress in Physical Geography (3.488), the impact factors of journals in other disciplines are comparable, or in some cases higher due in part to the size of the fields. For example, the 2020 IF for the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters was 4.72 and Water Resources Research’s was 5.24. The ESA’s Ecology has an IF of 5.5; American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate has an IF of 5.7 and its Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society an IF of 9.834.

…in many departments, retiring climatologists, geomorphologists, and biogeographers have been replaced by new faculty whose training is from other disciplines with their own strong identities. Without these more senior physical geographers as mentors or models, an identification with Geography as a discipline is likely to become ever more dissipated.

In addition to these issues, though, there is also a tension within physical geography between those — more often geographers trained in Geography departments — who embrace the more holistic dimensions of the discipline, and those who are frustrated that this holistic perspective may disadvantage them in the eyes of geoscientists who see such an approach as less “rigorous.” Related is also a tension between geography’s field-based tradition and broader trends towards a greater emphasis on numerical modeling. Of note too is that in many departments, retiring climatologists, geomorphologists, and biogeographers have been replaced by new faculty whose training is from other disciplines with their own strong identities. Without these more senior physical geographers as mentors or models, an identification with Geography as a discipline is likely to become ever more dissipated.

I don’t think any of this is a problem for individual geographers or even for departments. My concern is with what else AAG as an organization could be doing for physical geographers. What would make it worth it to physical geographers to join the AAG, itself a way to continually sustain our broader academic community around our holistic, undisciplined discipline? How do we achieve a healthy balance of the centrifugal forces that pull physical geographers into the orbit of other disciplines with the centripetal force that keeps us together as geographers? After all, many of my physical geography colleagues, even if their degrees were not in Geography (as mine too, were not), do really appreciate the holistic nature of the discipline. And, are graduates in physical geography from Geography departments going on to be hired as faculty members in other Geography departments? If not, what might facilitate that?

There are clearly no easy answers, but here are a few ideas, which I’ve formulated with the help of several physical geography colleagues.

First, the advent of the Special Issues of the Annals since 2009, seems to me to be a very positive development given that the themes have been capacious enough for contributions from the whole range of subspecialities within geography. Such holistic and integrative perspectives are very much geography’s strengths. Perhaps highlighting these special issues to colleagues in other Earth System Science fields would be one productive measure, especially as Earth System Sciences also slowly opens up to more consideration of human dimensions.

Second, there are many ways that AAG as an organization could strengthen its appeal to physical geographers. More recognition for early career faculty as well as students in physical geography could be helpful, for example through early career awards and paper awards. These would have to be not just granted, but also advertised widely to physical geographers in a variety of institutional locations. Addressing the relative absence of postdoctoral fellowships in Geography compared to other departments associated with Earth Systems Scientists is also important. Keynote addresses and high-profile events at AAG meetings, whether in person or virtual, regional or national, could also help increase interest. Finding ways to reinvigorate key AAG specialty groups in physical geography is also important. AAG could sponsor workshops for graduate students and early career faculty on grant proposal writing. Moreover, AAG could be well-situated to help geoscientists tackle issues of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, given Geography’s integration of human geographic expertise on such issues together with the geosciences. Finally, training sessions or other initiatives focused on topics such as highlighting women physical geographers or tools for addressing racial inequities in geoscience could help raise AAG’s profile.

I offer these suggestions cognizant that I’m not a physical geographer, so I stand to be corrected if any of what I’ve written here seems off. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0095

Sources

Aspinall, Richard. 2010. “A century of physical geography research in the Annals.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 100(5): 1049-1059.

Harrison, Stephan, Doreen Massey, Keith Richards, Francis Magilligan, Nigel Thrift, and

Barbara Bender. 2004. “Thinking across the divide: perspectives on the conversations

between physical and human geography.” Area 36(4): 435-442.

Marcus, Melvin. 1979. “Coming full circle: Physical geography in the twentieth century.”

Annals of the Association of American Geographers 69(4): 521-532.

Rhoads, Bruce L. 2004. “Whither physical geography?” Annals of the Association of American

Geographers 94(4): 748-755.

Perspectives

Invisible and Silent No More: The Necessity of Centering Anti-Racism as We Address Inclusion and Access for Disabled Community Members

July 29, 2021

By Gretchen Sneegas, PhD, Texas A&M University and Arrianna Planey, PhD, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Editor’s Note: This month, we present a Perspective from AAG members Dr. Gretchen Sneegas and Dr. Arrianna Planey. Their commentary on the intersectional nature of marginalization and discrimination in terms of disability and anti-Blackness is a response to the August 2020 President’s Column by AAG Past President Amy Lobben. In the first version of the column shared on social media, Dr. Lobben critiqued the lack of universal physical access at AAG headquarters by saying, “People who use manual or motorized wheelchairs cannot enter the front door – something that is reminiscent of the days of segregation.” In response to member concerns, AAG made the decision to remove the reference to segregation.

We thank Drs. Sneegas and Planey for their perspective on the intersectional dynamics of ableism and anti-Black racism. Our thanks also to Dr. Lobben for being in dialogue with the authors and with us, as well as to our Strategic Communications Editorial Board for their independent review and input as we finalized this column.

Picture this: A disabled Black woman uses her cane to navigate dark, non-descript hallways as she attends the American Association of Geographers meeting. She nervously fiddles with her badge to make sure that it is visible so that no one polices her or questions her right to be present in the space. Unfortunately, her vigilance is for naught: an older white gentleman corners her and questions whether she’s really disabled. This is the third such incident at this conference – one experienced personally by one of this op-ed’s co-authors.

This woman is not disabled first. She is Black and disabled, experiencing racism and ableism simultaneously and cumulatively, not sequentially. Understanding this reality is the essential contribution of intersectionality, or how overlapping axes of privilege and oppression compound experiences of advantage or discrimination (Combahee River Collective, 1986; Crenshaw 1989, 1991).

In her July 31, 2020 newsletter column, “The Invisible and the Silent,” AAG President Amy Lobben raised important questions on the culture of ableism in the AAG and academia, making numerous recommendations for improving inclusion for disabled AAG members and their families: applying universal design principles to the AAG’s website, improving conference accessibility, and promoting an Accessibility Task Force. However, these efforts must place racism – particularly anti-Black racism and white supremacy – at their forefront (Lewis, 2020).

We argue the AAG must explicitly address the intersections of racism and ableism, not to mention oppressions based on gender, sexuality, and socio-economic status. Any effort to address ableism is necessarily incomplete without simultaneously addressing white supremacy. We call on AAG to center its work against ableism around disabled geographers of color, especially those racialized as Black, because of how ableism is experienced by, and employed as a weapon against Black people particularly.

Confronting Ableism Means Confronting Racism

Nowhere is the racism-ableism intersection more starkly rendered than the violence perpetrated against Black communities at the hands of police and legal systems. A 2016 analysis of the Washington Post database on fatal police shootings found Black Americans to be 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans. Another study estimates that between one third to one half of all people killed by police are disabled (Perry and Carter-Long, 2016). Deafness, blindness, autism, mental illness, and physical or cognitive disabilities often register to police as ‘abnormal’ behavior or not following directions, resulting in far higher risk for violence, brutality, and death. Policing also produces disability, with survivors of violent police acts left with long-term physical and mental damage, creating an ongoing cycle of trauma. Disabled Black Americans are thus at some of the highest risk for police violence and discrimination in ways that are compounded by intersections between how they are racialized and their disability status, and not reducible to their Blackness or disability. The tragic and incomplete list of Black people with disabilities killed by police includes Marcus-David Peters , Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Tanisha Anderson, Deborah Danner, Ezell Ford, Keith Lamont Scott, Alfred Olango, and Walter Wallace, Jr.

Dr. Lobben writes that “People with disabilities become invisible….Through able-ism, they are silenced.” Her claim can be deepened by a broadened focus on other axes of privilege, oppression, and power. The disproportionate police violence against Black people with disabilities transects the literal and metaphorical invisibility of disabled people with the hypervisibility of Blackness as a perceived threat to white supremacist “law and order,” while simultaneously erasing Black disabled peoples’ individuality and vulnerability. Not coincidentally, many such incidents turn on the misperception of disability, wherein “invisible” disabilities affecting mental and physical health (e.g., deafness, mental illness) are ignored in the white mainstream disability conversation, even as they figure prominently in police violence against Black communities.

The intersections of (in)visibility, racialization, and ableism are highlighted by a particular section of Dr. Lobben’s column. On our first reading, we were struck by a parallel comparison she drew between the lack of American with Disabilities Act compliance at AAG’s headquarters and the shameful history of racial segregation in the United States: “People who use manual or motorized wheelchairs cannot enter the front door – something that is reminiscent of the days of segregation.” The sentence was subsequently edited out of the column.

Defining ‘segregation’ as merely a form of spatial separation is widely seen in mainstream disability conversations. However, the term ‘segregation’ cannot be uncoupled from its history of state-sponsored domestic terrorism in the U.S. The weight of these cultural meanings makes comparing the seemingly “universal” challenges of a majority-white mainstream disabled community to racialized segregation insensitive at best. Separate accommodations for people with disabilities cannot be compared with racial segregation, defined as the racialization of space and the spatialization of race by means of policy, policing, and other informal and state-sanctioned practices (Lipsitz, 2007). The harmful effects of racial and ethnic segregation reverberate throughout Black American communities to the present day, including the disproportionate public health, economic, and regulatory impacts of COVID-19 on Black people (Summers, 2020).

While the segregation comparison may seem innocuous, not addressing the harm it causes to Black AAG members perpetuates the foundations of anti-Black racism that have long gone unaddressed in academic spaces and institutions, including the AAG. Countless Black scholars have written about such micro-aggressions – on Twitter with the #BlackInTheIvory hashtag, in essays and op-eds (Hamilton 2020a, Roberts 2020), and via peer-reviewed scholarship (Eaves 2020b, Hamilton 2020b, 2020c) – which unambiguously inform Black academics on a daily basis that their safety and well-being are not respected, centered, or guaranteed.

How AAG Can Engage Fully in the Work to Address Ableism

Geography is an overwhelmingly white discipline – not only in terms of membership numbers, but also in its cultural norms and institutional structures, which function as gatekeeping tools to determine who is included (Kobayashi and Peake, 2000; Gilmore, 2002; Peake and Kobayashi, 2002; Pulido, 2002; Woods, 2002; Kobayashi, 2014; Eaves 2020a; Faria and Mollett 2020; Hamilton 2020c; Oswin 2020; Roy 2020). Geography lags behind other disciplines in African American and Hispanic representation for student enrollment and degree conferral, and comprises less than 5% of all geography faculty compared to 10% of all higher education faculty (Faria et al., 2019). It is vital that the AAG act on the arguments which these and other BIPOC (Black and Indigenous People of Color) scholars have been making for decades if justice and inclusivity are truly its goals.

AAG must exert stronger leadership to have uncomfortable yet essential discussions about racism and colorism across all of its activities. We are glad to see President Lobben leveraging her access to AAG’s large platform to highlight the long-overlooked issue of suppression faced by disabled scholars. AAG’s efforts to do so must also explicitly center, not just include, disabled geographers of color who face unique and compounded challenges at the racism-ableism juncture.

One of the most critical actions AAG can take is for the new Accessibility Task Force to explicitly highlight the intersections of race/ethnicity and ableism, to address and avoid reproducing white supremacist power dynamics in the AAG. Some recommendations include (but are not limited to):

Actively center disabled scholars of color across all stages of the Task Force’s activities and act on their suggestions. It is not enough to include BIPOC scholars with disabilities at the table – their needs must be prioritized.
Create multiple avenues for formative feedback from the AAG membership, making sure to prioritize comments from disabled BIPOC AAG members.
Develop relationships with AAG specialty/affinity groups that work with AAG members with increased risk of discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability status, including the Disability specialty group, Mental Health affinity group, and Senior Geographers association.
Work with the AAG Harassment-Free Task Force and COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force to address intersections of race/ethnicity, ableism, discrimination, and health.
Highlight the racism-ableism relationship within this year’s Geographies of Access theme for the Annual Meeting, as well as future AAG conference themes, special AAG conference sessions, and/or proposed special issues in AAG journals.

We also encourage all AAG members to center the needs of BIPOC geographers with disabilities as they actively engage the Black Geographies Specialty Group’s call to “go beyond their statements [of solidarity] and work to transform the discipline by addressing its legacies of racism, imperialism, colonialism, homophobia, and sexism”.

Incorporating the intersections between ableism and racism in the AAG’s continued work on disability-based discrimination will benefit all AAG members. This is the only way to avoid deepening the unequal vulnerabilities faced by disabled geographers of color, while working towards restorative justice that centers those who have been most harmed. We ask the AAG leadership and all geographers to bring their energy and dedication to the concerns we articulate here, implementing them at the AAG; your institutions and departments; and in your teaching, research, and mentorship.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0096

Perspectives is a column intended to give AAG members an opportunity to share ideas relevant to the practice of geography. If you have an idea for a Perspective, see our guidelines for more information.

News

AAG Early Career and Department Leadership Webinar Series Continues in Fall 2021

July 29, 2021

By Julaiti Nilupaer, Mark Revell, Ken Foote and Shannon O’Lear

This May marked the culmination of a year-long series of webinars developed by the AAG in partnership with past president Ken Foote (University of Connecticut) and current council member Shannon O’Lear (University of Kansas). The Early Career and Department Leadership webinar series launched in fall 2020 as part of the AAG’s COVID-19 Rapid Response initiatives also represents a broader effort at the AAG to expand year-round programming for members and the wider geography community. Read on for results from this year’s series and news about the series that will kick off this fall. To access the series, click here for Early Career webinars and here for Department Leadership webinars.

The series has featured two distinct but interconnected themes: (1) building and sustaining strong academic programs and (2) helping students and young geographers navigate their early careers. The department leadership thread has covered a wide range of topics, from the impacts of COVID-19 on the future directions of graduate programs, to questions about rebranding, renaming, merging or blending geography with other programs, to creating inclusive courses and curricula, facilitating respectful workplaces and being a good colleague. Early career-themed webinars have focused on articulating career pathways and helping young geographers build strong professional networks, as well as the value they bring to a diverse range of business, government, and nonprofit sector careers.

Locations of 536 attendees from Spring 2021 webinars. Approximately 84% of them were in the United States.

Over the whole year, the series has so far attracted 2,454 registrations. This spring, 536 live attendees across 23 countries (see Map 1) participated in at least one webinar. AAG survey data found that most audience members were either employed in higher education or were graduate students pursuing a master’s degree or PhD; 77 percent of them identified themselves as human geographers. Regarding their overall experience (on a scale of 1-5), 72 percent of audience members rated a 4 or 5 (see Graph 1) and were looking forward to more opportunities to engage with panelists and other audience members. Graph 2 below highlights some of the attendees’ experiences.

Graph 1. Feedback on attendees’ overall experience for Spring webinars

The AAG thanks those from across the discipline who volunteered to help lead the webinars. Altogether 42 panelists and presenters were involved during the year, including faculty, students, and professionals from a wide range of universities, organizations, and businesses. The organizers benefited greatly from suggestions made by panelists and the audience about topics to address in future webinars. We are sincerely grateful for every attendee who participated regardless of time zones, offered insightful comments, asked thoughtful questions, and provided honest feedback that will make the upcoming events even better.

Graph 2: Feedback from attendees for Spring webinars.

This Fall, More of a Good Thing

AAG is pleased to announce the continuation (and expansion) of the Early Career and Department Leadership webinar series through 2022 and beyond. We are excited to find new ways to serve our members. Based largely on audience feedback, here are some ideas we are using to create webinar events that we hope will address the needs and interests of AAG members, from students to department chairs and everyone in between:

More sessions on early career topics: The AAG will continue to provide webinars on careers in geography, including on academic career paths for geography PhDs; strategies for funding, grant writing and publishing; and active pedagogy.
More sessions on department leadership: The AAG will continue next year on topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion; leadership styles and strengths; and supporting non-tenure track faculty.
More career mentoring opportunities: The AAG recognizes the strong need for attendees to receive timely and high-quality mentoring from panelists. Our early career webinars this fall will feature extended time for open discussion and career-oriented mentoring.
More networking space for each session: The AAG will update the webinar format to make it easier for attendees to network with one another virtually.

An exciting collaboration opportunity this fall will be the AAG Regions Connect meeting in October, a first-ever convening of several AAG Regional Divisions’ fall meetings over a span of a few days, with a climate-forward model for sharing virtual content along with in-person gatherings. The AAG is working with the regional meeting organizers to provide career and professional development sessions during AAG Regions Connect. Registration and details for AAG Regions Connect will follow soon.

To attend a free session, visit the AAG Early Career Webinar series here, and the AAG Department Leadership webinar series here.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0097

Have a great idea for an Early Career or Department Leadership webinar? We’d like to hear from you. Send your suggestions to Mark Revell, Manager of Career Programs and Disciplinary Research.

Newsletters

Newsletter – July 2021

July 8, 2021

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Physical Geography and the AAG

By Emily Yeh

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Continue Reading.

PERSPECTIVES

Invisible and Silent No More: The Necessity of Centering Anti-Racism as We Address Inclusion & Access for Disabled Community Members

By Gretchen Sneegas & Arrianna Marie Planey

Continue Reading.

ANNUAL MEETING

New York City to host 2022 AAG Annual Meeting

Stay up to date on the annual meeting

PUBLICATIONS

**NEW The Professional Geographer Issue Alert: Articles with topics ranging from relationships between winter weather and traffic to preserving the rural soundscape**

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Questions about The Professional Geographer? Contact PG [at] aag [dot] org

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**NEW Summer Issue of The AAG Review of Books Published**

Questions about The AAG Review of Books? Contact aagreview [at] aag [dot] org.

Journals-newsletter-100 In addition to the most recently published journal, read the latest issue of the other AAG journals online:

• Annals of the American Association of Geographers
• The Professional Geographer
• GeoHumanities
• The AAG Review of Books

ASSOCIATION NEWS

Location-Based Tech and Social Justice – AAG Geoethics Symposium

Geographers do their research at a distance, build their toolkits… and find community

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Learn more about getting involved.

AAG Early Career and Department Leadership Webinar Series Continues in Fall 2021

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Find out more about the webinar series.

Save the Date for AAG Regions Connect

Check out our Events page for information on Regions Connect and other Regional Division events this fall.

Nominate Colleagues for AAG Honors and AAG Fellows

More information about AAG Honors and AAG Fellows.

Nominate Inspiring Geographers: September Awards Deadlines

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Sept. 22: AAG Nystrom Award for Recent Dissertations

Sept. 30: AAG Program Excellence Award – masters-granting programs

Nominations Sought for AAG Council Positions

Please send nominations or questions regarding these positions to the AAG Nominating Committee: Kathleen Sherman-Morris (Chair), John Harrington, Jr., and Helga Leitner.

POLICY CORNER

AAG to Host 2021 Redistricting Panel Series in September

In the News:

In June 2021, the House and Senate advanced separate versions of legislation to enhance U.S. innovation and global competitiveness. The approaches taken by the two bills, however, differ dramatically. The Senate bill focuses squarely on ways to harness and in some cases alter the nation’s scientific assets to better compete with China. The House bill, on the other hand, doubles down on the nation’s existing, proven scientific leadership and proposes additional investments to push the U.S. research enterprise—particularly the National Science Foundation—into new directions. Click here to read an in-depth analysis from our colleagues at COSSA.

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

New Podcast Focusing on Black Geographies

National Humanities Center Fellowships – Call for Applications

2021 American Institute of Indian Studies Fellowships

GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS

This 2050 Earth map is an ominous glimpse of our future SlashGear, July 14, 2021. Clark University and Esri compiled satellite data and vulnerability models to develop interactive maps showing the effects of climate change from 2018 to 2050.
Using Maps to Empower Indigenous Communities Outside, July 12, 2021. Indigenous activists, geographers, and outdoor enthusiasts are working on a variety of projects to undo colonial cartographies while educating people on colonization’s violent history. These projects work to make stolen indigenous land and outdoor spaces more welcoming to indigenous communities themselves through utilizing GIS tools, ultimately changing the relationship between people and the land they stand upon.
Extreme heat is killing people in Arizona’s mobile homes The Washington Post, July 4, 2021. Geographers Patricia Solis of Arizona State University and Margaret Wilder and Mark Kear of the University of Arizona are collaborating on research in the heat vulnerability of mobile homes.

EVENTS CALENDAR

Journals

AAG Welcomes New Annals Editor

June 29, 2021

Brian King has been named a co-editor of Human Geography and Nature & Society for The Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

King is a professor and Head of the Department of Geography at the Pennsylvania State. His research, teaching, and outreach focus on livelihoods, conservation and development, environmental change, and human health, centering on Southern Africa. More recently, his laboratory group (HELIX: Health and Environment Landscapes for Interdisciplinary eXchange) is examining how COVID-19 is transforming the US opioid epidemic. Beyond the university, his affiliations span numerous departments at Penn State and other institutions. At Penn State, he is a Faculty Research Associate with the Population Research Institute, Research Affiliate with the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and Faculty Affiliate with the School of International Affairs and Consortium to Combat Substance Abuse. King is also an Honorary Research Associate with the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town and was selected as a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow in 2017.

King served on the Editorial Board of the Annals from 2016-2019, as well as on the Editorial Boards of African Geographical Review since 2019 and of Geoforum since 2014. His book States of Disease: Political Environments and Human Health (University of California Press, 2017) received the Julian Minghi Distinguished Book Award, and was reviewed in April 2019 in The AAG Review of Books. An active member of several AAG Specialty Groups, including the Cultural and Political Ecology and Development Geographies specialty groups, he has also served in leadership roles, including successive terms as Director, Vice Chair, and Chair of the Developing Areas Specialty Group (which changed its name to Development Geographies in 2008).

King joins Human Geography editor Kendra Strauss of Simon Fraser University and Nature & Society Editor Katie Meehan of King’s College London to respond to the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, including an increase in manuscript submissions and a decrease in reviewer availability. He will also support the editors’ ability to devote additional attention to upcoming special issues of the Annals. He will serve in the capacity of co-editor through December 31, 2023.

President's Column

Moving Forward on Climate Change and Professional Ethics

June 29, 2021

A few weeks ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that atmospheric CO2 concentrations, at 419 ppm, have now reached 150% of their pre-industrial levels – the highest in more than four million years, when sea levels were about 24 meters higher, the global average surface temperature almost 4ºC warmer than today, and the first modern humans had more than three million years yet to appear on earth. The world-historical COVID-19 pandemic, still wreaking havoc across the mostly unvaccinated globe, temporarily decreased emissions, but not enough to be detectable in rising atmospheric CO2 levels. NOAA has recently defined new “normal” temperatures that are significantly higher than those in the past.

As I write, a hazardous and extreme heat wave has gripped the Southwestern US, stretching power grids to their limits and threatening heat deaths. The entire Western United States is also in the throes of a severe drought that is expected to last all summer. Indeed, global warming has contributed significantly to changing what would have otherwise been a moderate drought in the Southwestern US into a megadrought worse than has been seen for almost a millennium. This year, drought is predicted to lead to another ruinous, record-breaking fire season, on the heels of nightmarish 2020 fire season in the Western US – and around the world. It is also affecting access to safe drinking water and forcing farmers to make difficult decisions about what crops to keep, which will likely lead to higher food prices.

None of this is news to geographers, so why start my first column as AAG president with a reminder of the ongoing climate devastation? There are several reasons, beyond my embodied experience of consecutive days of record-shattering heat in my home state of Colorado. (These days, my kids and I have taken to sleeping in a tent on our back porch – itself a privilege.) First, geographers have been at the forefront of research on climate change, adaptation, resilience, and climate justice, but our research as geographers is often not acknowledged in the press or known to the public; this is relevant to the visibility, and ultimately health, of the discipline. Second, climate change is one of four primary policy campaigns that AAG will be undertaking over the next 1-2 years. Through the release of the new AAG website, expected later in 2021, geographers will be able to more easily engage with legislation and policy related to climate change.

Third, I want to use this opportunity to highlight the work of the Climate Action Task Force, which has been led by Professor Wendy Jepson and which I joined in 2020. As a reminder, this task force was formed by Council to undertake the task of realizing the goals of a 2019 member petition: to reduce CO2 emissions related to the Annual Meeting commensurate with what the IPCC states is needed to limit warming to 1.5 C — that is, a 45% reduction (from 2010 levels) by 2030. In doing so, the Task Force is seeking ways to position AAG as a leader and model of how large organizations can respond to climate change in a manner that both meets the needs of their members and is environmentally and socially just.

A 45% reduction is not a trivial change; it’s not a tweak around the margins of business as usual. Achieving this goal would mean a radical transformation in how the AAG stays financially solvent, and perhaps how we form our identities as geographers. As such, AAG can only move forward through extensive member participation and dialogue about what this means and how we might get from here to there. These conversations have already begun. At the virtual meeting this spring, the Task Force hosted a collaborative keynote panel of anthropologists who shared their creative and inspiring reflections and experiences on climate-friendly and accessible conferencing, as well as two roundtables of dialogue amongst geographers representing different types of institutions, career stages, and social identities to consider the meaning of annual in-person meetings to their careers, and share ideas for future formats that would be less carbon intensive and yet meet geographers’ needs.

Going forward, The Professional Geographer will soon publish a Focus Section that presents a variety of perspectives on low-carbon annual meetings. The Climate Action Task Force is looking forward to community commentary on these contributions and further brainstorming through the new AAG website. Looking down the road, AAG will also be performing a financial analysis of different future meeting models, working collaboratively with the AAG Regions on a climate-forward initiative, encouraging the formation of meeting nodes, and further soliciting all members’ input through a survey. I will revisit these important issues in future columns.

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If AAG action on climate change has seemed a long time coming to some members, so too has an update of the AAG Statement on Professional Ethics, last revised more than a decade ago, in 2009, long before the implementation of the Professional Conduct Policy. Indeed, graduate students have recently argued that it is outdated, too long, confusing, and falls short of providing clear guidance, especially compared to those of other scholarly organizations. I am happy to share, therefore, that at its Spring 2021 meeting, AAG Council unanimously approved a revised Statement on Professional Ethics, which can be accessed here. AAG will soon make it readily available for review whenever a member joins or renews, and during the Annual Meeting registration process.

The impetus for this came from the report of the AAG Geography and Military Study Committee, which was formed in 2017 by AAG Council in response to a member petition calling on the AAG to study the engagement of Geography with US military and intelligence communities vis-à-vis safety, labor demand, curriculum, academic freedom, and ethics, and to offer concrete recommendations based on its report. Both the Report and the timing of the resulting process have subsequently been subject to critique. What I want to focus on here, though, are several of the Report’s recommendations that Council voted in Fall 2020 to accept, including:

Revise the AAG code of ethics statement and policy as it relates to the ethical issues that may arise from military-funded research. This should include comparing the AAG statement (current and proposed) with the codes of ethics related to research developed by other disciplines such as the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the American Psychological Association (APA) as well as the Department of Defense (DoD) statement of ethics as it relates to research.

and

Update and revise the AAG Statement on Professional Ethics (every few years). With new and revised updates, encourage members of the association to read them as part of the membership renewal and meeting registration processes.

In response to this Report, Council also approved the formation of an implementation committee, which I chaired, to update the ethics statement.

The committee began its work by consulting other professional organizations’ statements of ethics and, based on those models, revised the 2009 Statement to focus on practical and easily memorable principles and actions. The committee also integrated references to the 2020 Professional Conduct Policy, removed discussion of issues regulated elsewhere (such as regarding the confidentiality of student grades), updated the language regarding new technologies, and explicitly mentioned the ethics of geographers’ engagements with the military, intelligence, security, policing and warfare where specifically relevant, but with an eye toward a Statement broad enough to cover all ethical obligations. It was a significant undertaking conducted over a short period of time, and I want to sincerely thank the committee members for putting in so much, and such thoughtful, time and effort to this task: Council member Richard Kujawa (Saint Michael’s College), Sue Roberts (UKY), Reuben Rose-Redwood (UVic), and former AAG president Eric Sheppard (UCLA).

Of course, no Statement of Ethics is ever final or perfect, especially as ethics themselves are not a matter that can be settled once and for all. Thus, the AAG should become proactively engaged with the question of ethics, on an ongoing basis. This is already starting to happen, not only with plans for Council to revisit and update the Statement every three years, but also with the ongoing GeoEthics Webinar Series, a partnership between AAG, Esri, and the Center for Spatial Studies at UC-Santa Barbara. Once the AAG’s new website is up and running, we hope to offer a list of links and publications on ethics and geography, and provide a space for feedback for all AAG members, including reactions to the Ethics statement, additional resources, and other discussion.

If ethics are, in part, about doing no harm, then a commitment to act to reduce the future harms of climate change is one in accordance with our stated ethical principles. I also want to point out that both the new Statement on Professional Ethics and the work of the Climate Change Task Force are ultimately the results of member petitions to Council. Both petitions have sparked concrete actions that are moving the AAG forward in a positive direction toward addressing the pressing challenges facing the earth and its peoples in the 21st century.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0094