New Books for Geographers

New Books: March 2019

Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.

Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).

Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to current public health policies which have prompted the closing of most offices, we are unable to access incoming books at this time. We are working on a solution during this transition and will continue our new books processing as soon as we can. In the meantime, please feel free to peruse previous books from our archived lists.

March 2019

Adventures in Modernism: Thinking with Marshall Berman by Jennifer Corby (ed.) (Urban Research 2019)

The Alps: An Environmental History by Jon Mathieu (Polity 2019)

The Caribbean: A Brief History (3rd Edition) by Gad Heuman (Bloomsbury 2018)

Circulation and Urbanization by Ross Exo Adams (Sage Publishing 2019)

Civilization Critical: Energy, Food, Nature, and the Future by Darrin Qualman (Fernwood Publishing 2019)

The Codex Mexicanus: A Guide to Life in Late Sixteenth-Century New Spain by Lori Boornazian Diel (University of Texas Press 2018)

Detain and Deport: The Chaotic U.S. Immigration Enforcement Regime by Nancy Hiemstra (University of Georgia Press 2019)

Digital Geographies by James Ash, Rob Kitchin, and Agnieszka Leszczynski (eds.) (Sage Publishing 2018)

Dream City: Creation, Destruction, and Reinvention in Downtown Detroit by Conrad Kickert (The MIT Press 2019)

Governing Gifts: Faith, Charity, and the Security State by Erica Caple James (ed.) (University of New Mexico Press 2019)

At Home on the Waves: Human Habitation of the Sea from the Mesolithic to Today by Tanya J. King and Gary Robinson (eds.) (Berghahn Books 2019)

Inventing Exoticism: Geography, Globalism, and Europe’s Early Modern World by Benjamin Schmidt (University of Pennsylvania Press 2019)

Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Changing Social Landscapes in Middle America by Linda Allegro and Andrew Grant Wood (eds.) (University of Illinois Press 2018)

Law as Refuge of Anarchy: Societies without Hegemony or State by Hermann Amborn (The MIT Press 2019)

Lisbon, City of the Sea: A History by Malcolm Jack (I.B. Tauris 2019)

Making Climate Change History: Documents from Global Warming’s Past by Joshua P. Howe (University of Washington Press 2017)

Making History – Creating a Landscape: The Portuguese American Community of Southeastern New England by James W. Fonseca (CreateSpace 2018)

Postwar Emigration to South America from Japan and the Ryukyu Islands by Pedro Iacobelli (Bloomsbury Academic 2019)

São Paulo: A Graphic Biography by Felipe Correa (University of Texas Press 2018)

The Second Coming by Franco Berardi (Polity Books 2019)

Subaltern Geographies by Tariq Jazeel and Stephen Legg (eds.) (University of Georgia Press 2019)

Water Resources Planning: Fundamentals for an Integrated Framework (Fourth Edition) by Andrew A. Dzurik, Tara Shenoy Kulkarni, and Bonnie Kranzer Boland (Rowman and Littlefield 2018)

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Rights of Nature: The New Paradigm

Rights of Nature is a short-hand term for a form of ecological governance that both provides for and prioritizes Nature’s right to flourish. It also provides for various subsidiary rights, such as the right to restoration, the right to its natural processes, and the right to ecosystem functioning without interference. The term “Rights of Nature” gives the impression that the primary focus is defending Nature’s rights in courts of law. However, the Rights of Nature paradigm aims for a more fundamental shift in governance than only defending rights: placing Nature and its needs before human needs, so that human needs are reconfigured within Nature’s limits. Providing Nature with legal personhood and the guardians to defend its rights in court helps change the framework to a form of ecological governance, rather than laws that provide only for human needs. Currently, American law merely regulates human uses of the natural environment and provides for minimal curbs on overuse by such means as fines for pollution or, more rarely, refusal to grant permits for projects deemed too ecologically damaging.

What is Rights of Nature Governance?

The upsurge in interest in ecological governance is driven by the clear signals worldwide of increasing ecological degradation at systemic levels, ranging from climate change to greatly accelerated species loss across ecosystems. It is clear to many thinkers and advocates that the current industrial paradigm is now threatening ecological integrity worldwide and with it the ability of human communities to live sustainably and support critical needs for food, fresh water, decent shelter and ways of making a living.

Rights of Nature is less a specific template than an overarching ideal of ecological governance, the details of which are fashioned in unique ways in each culture that is seeking to enhance or restore sustainable living within Nature’s limits. This requires that Nature be granted the same rights to flourish and maintain itself as humans grant themselves in their legal structures. But underlying the need for legal protections is the concept that humans and Nature are in a relationship, rather than Nature merely providing a hoard of natural resources for indiscriminate human use. The legal structures discussed in Rights of Nature literature codifies the details of this restored relationship, rather than actually creating it.

Fully implementing a Rights of Nature or similar form of ecological governance, is the only way to reach true sustainability, because it places human activities within the framework of Nature’s laws and limitations, as other forms of governance do not. The problem, however, is how to define “sustainability,” as this overused term has lost both its mooring and meaning. Four criteria need to guide an understanding of the sustainability that a Rights of Nature paradigm aims for: (a) true sustainability prohibits mitigation or substitution for monetary or political gain; (b) sustainable projects create sustainable levels of human use, rather than encouraging continued over-consumption; (c) sustainable use shrinks the human footprint on the earth, not expands it; (d) true sustainability is a flexible and continuous process, as populations, technologies, and needs change, but it always maintains Nature’s biophysical integrity throughout, despite the dynamic changes inherent in ecological processes.

The History of the Rights of Nature Paradigm

The idea of granting Nature legal rights originated in a court case decided in 1972 by the United States Supreme Court, Sierra Club versus Morton. The Forest Service had issued permits for Disney Enterprises to build a complex of recreation and lodging facilities in Mineral King Valley in the Sierra Nevada of California. The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund sued to stop the project, but the lower court held that the Fund would not be adversely affected by the project and thus had no legal standing to sue. The United States Supreme Court decided to hear the case. As the case was pending, Christopher Stone, a professor at the University of California School of Law, authored a law review article arguing that natural areas and objects should have legal rights to defend their ecological integrity from harms that would damage them.

Mineral King Valley, now part of Sequoia National Park, California. Photo courtesy of National Park Service.

The country of Ecuador was the first to place Rights of Nature in its governing laws. Section 7 of the new Constitution of Ecuador adopted in 2008 says, “Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.” The Constitution also grants Nature the right to be restored and requires the government to prevent or restrict activities leading to species extinction, ecosystem destruction, and permanent alteration of natural cycles. Significantly, the Ecuadoran Constitution also protects its people’s rights to food sovereignty, and the right, especially of indigenous peoples, to remain on their ancestral lands, protecting their rights to develop ancestral traditions and societies and retain ownership of their community lands.This article, entitled “Should Trees Have Standing?” caught the attention of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. The Court ruled against the Sierra Club, but Justice Douglas wrote a now-famous dissent in which he said, “Contemporary public concern for protecting nature’s ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation.” Ultimately, the Sierra Club was able to prevent the destruction of Mineral King Valley, which is now part of Sequoia National Park. Professor Stone’s provocative article, suggesting that Nature be granted legal personhood to protect its own integrity, slowly began to attract more attention.

This new Constitutional provision on Nature’s Rights is slowly changing the face of Ecuadoran law. The very first lawsuit using the Rights of Nature provision was decided in Ecuador in 2011. It concerned a new road built along the Vilcabamba River in Loja Province and the dumping of construction rubble into the river. The Provincial Justice Court of Loja ruled in favor of the river, noting that damage to nature is generational in extent and that therefore the “precautionary principle” should guide development projects. The court required the government to take immediate corrective actions and appointed a delegation to oversee the cleanup.

Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia and Rights of Nature advocate, holding up a manual of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth during a press conference at UN Headquarters on May 7, 2010. United Nations photograph by Eskinder Debebe.

Other recent efforts include a state court in India granting legal personhood to the heavily polluted Ganges and Yamuna Rivers, and local Rights of Nature legislation in various regions of the United States. Most recently (in February 2019), the people of Toledo, Ohio passed a Bill of Community Rights and Nature’s Rights to protect Lake Erie, subject to nearly annual toxic algal blooms, mainly as a result of industrial agricultural practices in the lake’s watershed. The legislation passed with 61% of the vote, but is already subject to a lawsuit, as nearly all other such local attempts in the United States have been.Bolivia subsequently, in 2010, enacted a comprehensive Rights of Nature statute, and also hosted an international gathering of concerned organizations from around the world, which led to the founding of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. Advocates and governments worldwide are also experimenting with innovative ways to approach ecosystem protection that reach past the current human-centered legal paradigm. One of the most successful is in New Zealand, where a fusion of Western legal concepts and Maori traditions of the Whanganui River’s importance as an ancestor, and Maori responsibilities to protect and conserve it, led to a formal agreement, finalized in 2012, to grant the river a legal identity. The implementing legislation passed in 2017. The definition of the river is adopted from the Whanganui iwi, the Maori group whose entire history is tied to the river. The river is defined as a living and integral whole, whose life is inseparable from the Whanganui iwi. Appointed guardians from the Whanganui iwi and the New Zealand government now protect the river. This successful project is considered a model for other efforts to blend indigenous law and tradition with Western legal structures for the protection of Nature.

The reason is not hard to seek: a Rights of Nature legal structure, if implemented nationwide, would constitute a monumental shift in the way Americans approach Nature, with relationship to Nature as the foremost goal, and the protection and flourishing of Nature given primacy over natural resources extraction and use. It would change the basis and thrust of the economy. Thus far, all attempts at Rights of Nature legislation in the United States have been local. These locally-approved laws clash with the hierarchical structure of American governance, which pre-empts most natural resources regulation to state or federal levels.

Questions and Challenges for a Rights of Nature Paradigm

Clearly, major changes in human use of the environment must take place; the ecological signals are unmistakable that current levels are unsustainable. The question is how best to move forward. There are many unanswered questions about ecological governance. How would Rights of Nature laws be implemented? What level of Nature would be granted the right to flourish: a watershed, an entire ecosystem, a single river, a valley, the climate of the world? Who would determine whether a given use interferes with Nature’s well-being and how would it be measured? If there are damages, how would they be measured, what would the remedy be, and how would it be implemented? How would human communities reconfigure themselves to live sustainably and stably, without instability, poverty and excessive resource use? How would human needs and Nature’s need to flourish without interference be balanced to create wholeness for both parties?

These questions and many more are being explored in a growing trickle of papers, articles, and books. CRC Press published the first book surveying Rights of Nature activity worldwide since an environmental philosophy work by Roderick Nash in 1989. The new book, released in 2017, begins the conversation on changes needed in human land use patterns (in the United States). It is titled Sustainability and the Rights of Nature: An Introduction, by Cameron La Follette and Chris Maser. The authors recognize that implementing ecological governance and deep sustainability models is something that must be done locally, place by place, region by region. Therefore, they are working on a second book, Sustainability and the Rights of Nature in Practice, in which advocates, scholars, and government officials from around the world discuss the path ahead, and the challenges and opportunities they face, from places as diverse as Germany and Kiribati, Bhutan and Scotland, Nigeria and Venezuela.

The problems humans now face around the world, ranging from marine plastics to climate change to severe soil erosion and ecosystem depletion, require communities and nations to apply every creative means to restore the human relationship with Nature. This requires the best scientific information on ecosystems, geography, hydrology and many other fields. But it also requires collaboration between people of differing traditions who share a landscape and region, to forge new partnerships and models that can govern humans’ return to a relationship with Nature, which sustains all.

Some cultures have retained much of their traditional relationship with Nature, and the customs and laws governing it, especially indigenous peoples in many regions. But the industrial paradigm of extraction and use without limits – or very minimal limits – is commonplace worldwide, and wreaking havoc on ecosystems, income inequality, and environmental health and resilience. It is clear that the existing legal framework, which favors human use and restricts use only to maintain, at best, minimal levels of ecosystem function, must change. Rights of Nature, and other potential forms of ecological governance now being explored, provide the path to a new and vital relationship between humans and Nature.

Cameron La Follette has a Masters in Psychology from New York University, and a Law degree from Columbia University. She is the lead author on Sustainability and the Rights of Nature: An Introduction, and lead editor on the forthcoming book Sustainability and the Rights of Nature in Practice.

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Cameron La Follette
Cameron La Follette
President's Column

Harassment-Free AAG: What to expect at the Washington D.C. Meeting

I am excited to write that there are four weeks to go in our countdown to the AAG Annual Meetings in Washington DC (April 3-7, 2019). I welcome guest columnist Dr. Lorraine Dowler, who has been a prior contributor to this space, and this month we highlight Climate Change to which we can all contribute positively for the AAG Meetings.

Harassing behavior by powerful individuals towards those more vulnerable has given rise to recent social movements including #MeToo, #UsToo and, Idle No More to name a few. These social movements are also influencing the academy as countless numbers of academic associations are currently examining how safe and inclusive their academic meetings are for those members who do not represent the majority of meeting attendees. These associations are gathering data about harassment through surveys, updating professional codes of conduct and hiring consultants to develop programs that directly address harassment and the creation of safe and inclusive spaces at academic meetings. Relatedly, the AAG charged a task force in Spring 2018 to gather information and recommend programmatic changes in order to envision a safer and more inclusive national meeting. The Council approved the task’s force proposal for the 2019 meeting, and this column will furnish a preliminary overview of resources that will be available to attendees at the Washington meeting.

The Harassment-Free AAG task force is committed to addressing sexual harassment in the Academy and at the national meeting. However, sexual harassment is only one form of harassment experienced at national meetings, and the task force is wary of addressing sexual harassment only, as that singular focus will allow for other forms of harassment, such as racism, transphobia and religious intolerance, to name just a few, to remain in the shadows. Therefore, the goal of this proposed program is to work towards a Harassment-Free AAG so that all of our members can benefit equally from attending the national meeting. This approach places the AAG as an institutional leader in addressing diverging and intersectional forms of potential harassment at a national meeting.

The task force took its lead from NSF’s ADVANCE Program Guidelines for the development of anti-harassment programs in academic societies and meetings. According to these guidelines, every anti-harassment program should adopt, at least, four fundamental elements. These elements are widely recognized as a “Standard of Care” for harassment prevention and remediation. They are:

  • A worded, widely disseminated, written anti-harassment policy;
  • Accessible and flexible complaint procedures designed to encourage people to come forward;
  • Prompt, thorough, and impartial investigative procedures implemented by appropriately trained investigators; and
  • Prompt and appropriate follow-up actions designed to stop harassment, discipline offenders, and protect complainants from any adverse effects of reporting

Keeping these guidelines in mind, we are implementing the following Harassment-Free AAG program at this year’s meeting. We are at the start of this process, and we encourage ideas and interventions from the membership on how to achieve an Harassment-Free AAG. You can find updated information about the program at http://annualmeeting.aag.org/conduct

At the registration desk at the D.C. meeting, you will receive information and links to our new Harassment-Free AAG policy and our newly expanded Statement of Professional Ethics. These statements reinforce that professional ideas and information are exchanged most effectively at the AAG meeting in an atmosphere free of discrimination or harassment and characterized by courtesy and respect. The AAG prohibits any form of harassment, sexual or in other forms, as outlined in these statements. We ask that you familiarize yourself with these statements as any violation of the Harassment-Free AAG policy will be reviewed by the Standing Committee on AAG Annual Meeting Attendee Disciplinary Matters and if warranted disciplinary action will be taken.

Resources for Attendees 

On-Site Independent and Confidential AAG Advocate

Advocates are professionals trained to provide confidential support victims of crime as they offer individuals information, emotional support, and help in finding resources and filling out paperwork, such as filing a complaint with an ombudsperson.

The AAG Advocate is a licensed social worker, and all interactions with the advocate will remain confidential. The advocate will be available to meet with conference attendees if:

  1. An attendee feels they were harassed or assaulted at the meeting and needs emotional support and/or access to victim services as well as reporting information.
  2. An attendee who has been harassed or assaulted at their home university and needs help in understanding what resources are available to them at their home institution.
  3. An attendee who is interested in creating or strengthening policies at their home institutions. The advocate is well-versed in Title IX accommodations and will have some sample policies on-hand for informational purposes.

<!–Contact information, bio and advocacy philosophy statement for the advocate can be found at http://annualmeeting.aag.org/conduct.–>

Workshop: Coordinated Department Response to Online Harassment

A 90-minute workshop will address how as technology improves our access towards instant communication with colleagues and rapid information sharing increases, we have also seen an increase in the use of technology to perpetuate harassment and harm. The workshop leaders Dana Cuomo and Natalie Dolci are members of the Seattle-based Technology-Enabled Coercive Control Working Group. Their research focuses on the role of technology in domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and harassment situations and how systems can better respond. In this workshop, attendees will learn how your department can better assist faculty, students and staff who are experiencing online harassment. Whether a department member is being targeted by a former intimate partner or someone who is ideologically opposed to their scholarship, workplaces have a responsibility to respond to the best of their ability. This workshop will give scenario-based practical tips for protecting your online privacy and best practice workplace policies to engage your institution in supporting its employees.

Look for further information about the workshop soon.

Off-Site Independent Ombudsperson

An independent ombudsperson will serve as the first point of contact for someone wanting to file a harassment complaint. The ombudsperson will work with AAG staff and the Standing Committee for handling incident reports. The ombudsperson will interact with complainants and alleged harassers and investigate the alleged incident. The ombudsperson will then supply the Standing Committee with incident reports.

Support A Harassment-Free AAG

Linked Sessions

The Harassment-Free AAG task force is sponsoring 27 sessions that make interventions into The Academy around issues of identity. The panel Enough! leads off the linked sessions on 3 April 2019, followed by other sessions and panels, including Sexual Harassment and Bullying Policies in Academia on 4 April. Other sponsored panels may be found on the AAG Session Gallery by searching for “Harassment-Free AAG Initiative” sponsorship. The task force wants to acknowledge the important and critical work that the organizers of these sessions are doing in making interventions into the academy around issues of mental health, all forms of harassment, physical health, and or identity in the discipline. The task force hopes this linking will promote attendance and will also serve as a powerful act of solidarity for a Harassment-Free AAG.

New Photography Policy

In parallel with photography policies at other professional meetings, AAG will provide information cards for presentations, to enable and support presenters who do not wish to have photos taken of themselves or their presentations without their permission. While some may consider photography a professional compliment, others have been harassed by photographers. In addition, some presenters may wish not to have their photos or embargoed research posted on social media or geotagged.

Please note that official AAG photographers and videographers are authorized to take photos and videos of all AAG-sponsored or AAG-organized events. However, the official AAG photographers and videographers are instructed to respect individual presenters’ preferences regarding permission to record them or their presentations.

Harassment-Free AAG survey

Attendees from the Washington D.C. meeting and past meetings will receive an email link to the Harassment-Free AAG survey. The survey will open shortly after the close of the D.C. meeting. The survey addresses multiple forms of harassment, including harassment based on disability, gender identity and/or gender expression, cultural expression, sexuality, racial identity, ethnic identity, and sexual harassment. This survey asks about the harassment you have witnessed or heard about, as well as harassment that you have directly experienced. Even if you do not believe that you have witnessed or experienced harassment, your responses are valuable, and you are encouraged to take this survey. The survey will be conducted by a research consultant who is independent of the AAG, and all responses will be confidential.

Visibly Support Your Colleagues for a Harassment-Free AAG

There will be Harassment-Free AAG lapel buttons available at different locations at the conference, including the registration and information desks. We ask that you wear these buttons as a statement of solidarity and a personal statement that as a meeting attendee will not tolerate any form of harassment at the national meeting. Information fliers will also be distributed with AAG Meeting materials.

We Need Your Patience!

Harassment at academic meetings will not be eradicated overnight. Academic meetings have a long history of complex social interactions where the vulnerability of junior scholars increases when they are put in close contact with influential scholars in an atmosphere that blurs the lines between work and play. It would be uncaring to those who have experienced harassment at the hands of influential actors to assume that this new program will mitigate their sense of precarity at the national meeting. Still, the fastest growing sector of our membership is students, and the task force feels immediate and innovative action is required to protect a new generation of scholars. For this reason, the task force intends to go beyond the simple updating of policies around sexual harassment only. Although this is a critical step for any academic association, as stated earlier the task force is committed to engaging with multiple forms of harassment directly at the meeting. As a result, we may be the first academic organization to host an independent on-site advocate, as well as an independent ombudsperson to engage with care any attendees who feel they are the victim of harassment. It is also important to mention that the Harassment-Free AAG task are your colleagues and are volunteers. They worked on this program in the evenings, over the weekends and traveled to multiple locations for work sessions and the AAG is most grateful for their important work. We also want to acknowledge that this program has increased the already high workload of the AAG staff, and we are appreciative of their labor and insight in implementing the program. For these reasons, we ask for your patience over the next month as we continually update the forthcoming Harassment-Free AAG site, as the program will be a work in progress until the first day of the meeting.

Meet the Harassment-Free AAG Task Force:

  • Dana Cuomo, University of Western Kentucky
  • Debanuj Dasgupta, University of Connecticut
  • Dydia DeLyser, California State University, Fullerton
  • Lorraine Dowler, Penn State University
  • Latoya E. Eaves, Middle Tennessee State University
  • Candida Mannozzi, American Association of Geographers
  • Carrie Mott, University of Louisville,
  • Beverley Mullings, Queens University
  • Marianna Pavlovskaya, Hunter College and Graduate Center – CUNY
  • Erin Royals, Rutgers University
  • Rashad Shabazz, Arizona State University
  • Erica Smithwick, Penn State University
  • Deborah Thomas, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
  • Rebecca M Torres, University of Texas, Austin

Closing Comments

As President I am grateful to the Task Force’s efforts, led by Dr. Lorraine Dowler. I ask that we all recognize Dr. Dowler’s vision and again the efforts of the AAG Staff and AAG Directors, the AAG Council, the Executive Committee, and Past Presidents on whose shoulders we stand, and you, our Members, in supporting and launching this new policy for a more welcoming and safe space for our AAG Annual Meetings. Thank you everyone for your contributions to usher in this new era for the AAG. Together, we are making a difference now and for the future. Please share your thoughts with us and your AAG Councilors and other leaders who work hard on behalf our members. We look forward to seeing you all in Washington DC next month!

— Dr. Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, AAG President
University of Texas at Austin
Email: slbeach [at] austin [dot] utexas [dot] edu

— Dr. Lorraine Dowler, AAG National Councilor
Pennsylvania State University
Email: lxd17 [at] psu [dot] edu

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0052

Please share your ideas with me at: slbeach(at)austin(dot)utexas(dot)edu

To register for the annual meeting, click here.

Harassment-Free AAG, safe spaces
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Sheryl Luzzadder
Sheryl Luzzadder
New Books for Geographers

New Books: February 2019

Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.

Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).

Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to current public health policies which have prompted the closing of most offices, we are unable to access incoming books at this time. We are working on a solution during this transition and will continue our new books processing as soon as we can. In the meantime, please feel free to peruse previous books from our archived lists.

February 2019

Agent-Based Modelling and Geographical Information Systems: A Practical Primer by Andrew Crooks, Nicolas Malleson, Ed Manley, and Alison Heppenstall (Sage Publishing 2019)

All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas (Fourth Edition) by Geoffrey J. Martin (Oxford University Press 2005)

Borders, Mobility and Belonging in the Era of Brexit and Trump by Mary Gilmartin, Patricia Wood and Cian O’Callaghan (Policy Press 2018)

Citizens in Motion: Emigration, Immigration, and Re-migration Across China’s Borders by Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho (Stanford University Press 2018)

Conversations with Gary Snyder by David Stephen Calonne (ed.) (University Press of Mississippi 2019)

The Data Gaze: Capitalism, Power and Perception by David Beer (Sage Publishing 2019)

Digital Economies at Global Margins by Mark Graham (ed.) (The MIT Press 2019)

Downward Spiral: El Helicoide’s Descent from Mall to Prison by Celeste Olalquiaga and Lisa Blackmore (eds.) (UR Books 2019)

The Environment and International History by Scott Kaufman (Bloomsbury Academic 2018)

Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal by Marixa Lasso (Harvard University Press 2019)

Evergreen Ash: Ecology and Catastrophe in Old Norse Myth and Literature by Christopher Abram (University of Virginia Press 2019)

Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies, Volume 37 by Elizabeth Baigent & André Reyes Novaes (eds.) (Bloomsbury 2018)

Golden Years?: Social Inequality in Later Life by Deborah Carr (Russell Sage Foundation 2019)

The Indian Caribbean: Migration and Identity in the Diaspora by Lomarsh Roopnarine (University Press of Mississippi 2019)

Infrastructure, Environment, and Life in the Anthropocene by Kregg Hetherington (ed.) (Duke University Press 2019)

The Invention of Rivers: Alexander’s Eye and Ganga’s Descent by Dilip da Cunha (University of Pennsylvania Press 2019)

Latina/o Studies by Ronald L. Mize (Polity 2018)

Location Covering Models: History, Applications and Advancements by Richard L. Church and Alan Murray (Springer 2018)

Memorials Matter: Emotion, Environment and Public Memory at American Historical Sites by Jennifer K. Ladino (University of Nevada Press 2019)

North Pole: Nature and Culture by Michael Bravo (Reaktion Books 2018)

The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Central Banking by David G. Mayes, Pierre L. Siklos, and Jan-Egbert Sturm (eds.) (Oxford University Press 2019)

Planet of the Grapes: A Geography of Wine by Robert Sechrist (Praeger 2017)

Rebranding China: Contested Status Signaling in the Changing Global Order by Xiaoyu Pu (Stanford University Press 2019)

Rupture: The Crisis of Liberal Democracy by Manuel Castells (Polity Books 2018)

Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century: Resilience and Transformation, 2nd Edition by David L. Brown, Kai A. Schafft (Wiley-Blackwell 2018)

The Spanish Craze: America’s Fascination with the Hispanic World, 1779–1939 by Richard L. Kagan (University of Nebraska Press 2019)

Switching to ArcGIS Pro from ArcMap by Maribeth H. Price (Esri Press 2019)

Tom Petty and Philosophy: We Need to Know by Randall E. Auxier and Megan Volpert (eds.) (Open Court 2018)

Ukraine and the Art of Strategy by Lawrence Freedman (Oxford University Press 2019)

Uncertain Citizenship: Everyday Practices of Bolivian Migrants in Chile by Megan Ryburn (University of California Press 2018)

Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual by Lauren Coodley (University of Nebraska Press 2019)

Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans by Helen Rozwadowski (Reaktion Books 2018)

Water Resources Planning: Fundamentals for an Integrated Framework (Fourth Edition) by Andrew A. Dzurik, Tara Shenoy Kulkarni, and Bonnie Kranzer Boland (Rowman and Littlefield 2018)

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Awardees

AAG Announces 2019 AAG Award Recipients

The American Association of Geographers congratulates the individuals and entities named to receive an AAG Award. The awardees represent outstanding contributions to and accomplishments in the geographic field. Formal recognition of the awardees will occur at the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. during the AAG Awards Luncheon on Sunday, April 7, 2019.

2019 AAG Harm de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

This annual award recognizes outstanding achievement in teaching undergraduate Geography including the use of innovative teaching methods. The recipients are instructors for whom undergraduate teaching is a primary responsibility.  The award consists of $2,500 in prize money and an additional $500 in travel expenses to attend the AAG Annual Meeting, where the award will be conveyed. This award is generously funded by John Wiley & Sons in memory of their long-standing collaboration with the late Harm de Blij on his seminal Geography textbooks.

Alex Papadopoulos, DePaul University

Dr. Alex Papadopoulos is Professor of Geography at DePaul University. He was recognized with DePaul’s Excellence in Teaching award in 1996 and the Cortelyou-Lowery Award for Teaching, Service and Excellence in 2011. Papadopoulos teaches a variety of undergraduate courses including Earth’s Cultural Landscape, Urban Geography, Geopolitics and Topics in Architecture and Urbanism. His teaching accomplishments include initiating DePaul’s first experiential learning geography class, leading multiple study abroad experiences in Europe and North Africa, and mentoring numerous colleagues in their teaching. Students describe him as an instructor who is knowledgeable, inclusive, and caring. Multiple students stated that Dr. Papadopoulos helped spark their academic interests, with alumni noting that his teaching has resulted in life-long learning for them. Dr. Papadopoulos has established himself as an extraordinary, and extraordinarily committed, teacher at this institution that values teaching above all other academic responsibilities.

2019 AAG E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award

This annual award recognizes members of the Association who have made truly outstanding contributions to the geographic field due to their special competence in teaching or research. Funding for the award comes from the estate of Ruby S. Miller. More than one award may be awarded each year. Each award includes $1,000 and a commemorative plaque.

J. Clark Archer, University of Nebraska Lincoln

J. Clark Archer, University of Nebraska Lincoln, has led a career characterized by an outstanding record of sustained high-quality scholarship. Over more than four decades, he has made significant contributions to the fields of political geography (specifically the geography of United States politics), cartography, population geography, and demographics. He is a leading expert on the use of maps in political and electoral geography research, and has published many regarded atlases, monographs and more than 50 journal articles and book chapters. Moreover, Archer’s analyses and interpretations of American elections have been instrumental in consolidating a role for electoral geography in the study of American politics.  Such work underlines the traditional power of geography to inform problems that straddle multiple disciplines.

2019 Glenda Laws Award

The Glenda Laws Award is administered by the American Association of Geographers and endorsed by members of the Institute of Australian Geographers, the Canadian Association of Geographers, and the Institute of British Geographers. The annual award and honorarium recognize outstanding contributions to geographic research on social issues. This award is named in memory of Glenda Laws—a geographer who brought energy and enthusiasm to her work on issues of social justice and social policy.

Farhana Sultana, Syracuse University

Farhana Sultana’s work is theoretical and applied, interdisciplinary, rigorous, critical, layered, intriguing, provocative and even uncomfortable at times. Dr. Sultana began her professional career in social justice and over time she has expanded her focus to colonialism, institutional racism, and related concerns. As a geographer from the global South, Dr. Sultana has worked for years to bring non-Eurocentric thinkers into our institutions and has asked that academics “de-colonize their pedagogy.” One of her most recognized bodies of work has forced us to recognize that academic freedom is not globally guaranteed. More recently, Dr. Sultana has brought her skills, knowledge, and talents to the increasingly vocal and visible problems of mental health that have emerged in academia. She has supervised more than forty Ph.D., Master’s, and Honor’s Student throughout her career and mentored many more. Her service to the discipline and profession, universities, international communities, conferences and workshops is impressive, far-reaching, and impossible to  summarize. She has been described as a scholar/activist and public intellectual, and also as someone with the courage and bravery to speak out, even when it may be uncomfortable to the status quo. The AAG is proud to award Dr. Farhana Sultana the 2019 AAG Glenda Laws Award.

2019 The AAG Harold M. Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice

The Rose Award was created to honor Harold M. Rose, who was a pioneer in conducting research on the condition faced by African Americans. The award honors geographers who have a demonstrated record of this type of research and active contributions to society, and is awarded to individuals who have served to advance the discipline through their research, and who have also had an impact on anti-racist practice.

Katherine McKittrick, Queen’s University

Dr. Katherine McKittrick of Queen’s University has not only contributed to the study of race and gender through her prodigious scholarly output, but she has been a consummate mentor to various students and faculty of color. She has also been one of the most high-profile advocates for the burgeoning field of Black Geographies. Through her work on numerous editorial boards, and as an associate editor of Antipode, she has worked to promote faculty and students of color and mentored junior scholars in writing and publishing in the discipline.

Her efforts were recognized when she was awarded the inaugural Ban Righ Mentorship Award at Queen’s University. Dr. McKittrick has also been instrumental in seeing scholarship that engages with the perspectives of underrepresented persons made more visible in the discipline and in bridging the views of Black Studies, Women’s Studies, and Geography.

The 2019 AAG Marcus Fund for Physical Geography Award

The objective of The Mel Marcus Fund for Physical Geography is to carry on the tradition of excellence and humanity in field work espoused by Dr. Melvin G. Marcus. Grants from the Mel Marcus Fund for Physical Geography will foster personally formative participation by students collaborating with faculty in field-based physical geography research in challenging outdoor environments.

Elizabeth Watson, Drexel University

Dr. Elizabeth Watson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biodiversity, Earth & Environmental Sciences at Drexel University.  She will take a PhD student and an undergraduate student to Bahía San Quintín, Baja California, México.  There they will be conducting seagrass mapping in an estuary using a combination of remote sensing and field-based methods. This pristine and highly productive estuary is a model system for study, due to its long-time stewardship by local NGOs.  Through a peer-mentoring approach, the undergraduate will be exposed to field methods for the first time, while the PhD student will gain leadership skills. The selected undergraduate, a first-generation college student, has been working in Dr. Watson’s laboratory and will be able to experience a different type of research environment while interacting with local scientists and students in Mexico.  The PhD student will be making important connections with local scientists and NGOs while making progress on his dissertation research.  The Marcus award funds will be used to cover the travel expenses for the two students and will support the award’s goal of fostering personally formative participation by students collaborating with faculty in field-based physical geography research.

2019 Meredith F. Burrill Award

The AAG Meredith F. Burrill Award honors work of exceptional merit and quality that lies at or near the intersection of basic research in geography on the one hand, and practical applications or policy implications on the other.The purpose of the award is to stimulate and reward talented individuals and groups whose accomplishments parallel the intellectual traditions Meredith F. Burrill pursued as a geographer, especially those concerned with fundamental geographical concepts and their practical applications, especially as relevant to local, national, and international policy arenas. The funds that underwrite the award come from a bequest by Burrill, a gift from his wife Betty, and donations in his memory from colleagues and friends. The award, consists of a certificate and cash honorarium, at the Association’s Annual Meeting.

Stephanie Pincetl, University of California Los Angeles

Stephanie Pincetl, University of California Los Angeles, has been an intellectual leader in the field of urban sustainability, known particularly for her extensive research on urban metabolism and effective resource management governance structures. Her academic success is unquestionable, with one monograph and some 90 peer-reviewed scholarly works in the leading journals of her field. More pertinent to the Burrill Award, however, are the myriad ways that she has coupled that academic success with real world problem-solving, using her large-scale datasets to analyze and answer critical policy questions regarding sustainability. This work has implications not only for the case of Los Angeles, where her California Center for Sustainable Communities is based, but is applicable more broadly in megacities around the globe.

2019 Wilbanks Award for Transformational Research in Geography

The AAG Wilbanks Award for Transformational Research in Geography will honor researchers from the public, private, or academic sectors who have made transformative contributions to the fields of Geography or GIScience. Provided there is sufficient availability of funds, the Wilbanks Award will consist of a cash prize of $2,000 and include a memento with the name of the Award and the recipient.

Susan Cutter, University of South Carolina.

Dr. Cutter, Carolina Distinguished Professor of Geography and Director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute, has made transformative, far-reaching research contributions to geography and the broader interdisciplinary research communities that focus on hazards and disasters. Her work led to development of the Social Vulnerability Index, the first nationwide empirical representation of social vulnerability. The Index is used in FEMA’s National Risk Assessment toolkit and by many other nations.  She also pioneered the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities, a county-level assessment of disaster resilience; the Hazards of Place model of vulnerability, which analyzes the contributions of physical and social vulnerability to overall place vulnerability; and the Disaster Resilience of Place model, which identify place-based differences and measures progress towards resilient goals and outcomes.

Alan MacEachren, the Pennsylvania State University

Dr. MacEachren, Professor of Geography and Director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute and Director of the GeoVISTA Center, has made transformative, far-reaching research contributions to geography, GIScience, and the broader interdisciplinary research communities that focus on information visualization and visual analytics.  In his seminal 1995 book, How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization and Design, he developed a cognitive-semiotic theoretical perspective for dynamic representation that fostered the next generation of cartography, conceptualizing map making and reading as a process of knowledge construction itself.  Dr. MacEachren’s recent work on geovisual analytics champions thinking about how humans can collaborate with computers to make sense of information needed to solve highly complex problems.  His research advances our fundamental understandings in geography, computer science and related fields and has been employed in a broad range of domains, such as public health, crisis management, and environmental science.

2019 AAG Award for MA/MS Program Excellence  

This annual award and cash prize honors Geography departments and Geography programs within blended departments that have significantly enhanced the prominence and reputation of Geography as a discipline and demonstrated the characteristics of a strong and engaged academic unit. The award honors non-PhD granting Geography programs at both the baccalaureate and master levels.

Western Michigan University has a clearly outlined commitment to shared governance and cultivates robust engagement with the East Lakes Division of the AAG. An annual curricular retreat regularly sets Departmental goals, and graduate students have a voice through formal regular meetings with the Chair and Graduate Director, and informal monthly lunches with Departmental faculty.

Western Michigan’s use of internal Departmental funding to prioritize graduate student participation in conferences, results in annually funding around 16 masters students, approximately half of its incoming masters cohort, to attend the AAG meeting. Not only are these graduate students well-resourced, they become successful. The Department of Geography offers a teaching assistantship training program for its graduate students and has seen recognition of this with on-campus awards for Graduate Teaching Excellence. Its graduate students move on to Ph.D. programs, successfully pursue internships, or move into careers with employers in the public sector such as the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) and various state and federal agencies, and the private sector.

One of the most impressive initiatives undertaken by Western Michigan University’s Department of Geography has been systematic outreach to K-12 and area community colleges. In a letter, Diana Casey of Muskegon Community College, an institution around 100 miles away from WMU, stated “The faculty at WMU have always maintained an open door for my undergraduate students to learn about opportunities so they can further their collegiate studies,” and notes that not only will the geographers at Western Michigan host her and her students, but these faculty also regularly travel to Muskegon Community College to meet faculty and students.

Finally, the Department offers a robust research profile, generating around $1.8m in external grants over the last five years, its faculty publishing “133 peer-reviewed articles, 7 books, and 20 book chapters” over the same period, in addition to presenting 165 papers at academic conferences and a further 97 invited lectures.

Honorable Mention:
California State University – Long Beach, has exhibited a very strong and successful commitment to enhancing faculty research in a teaching-intensive institution, strategic outreach to Latinx students to further diversify its already multicultural student body, and curricular development both in terms of specialized UAV courses and robust general education offerings. The integration of federally-supported Coverdell graduate student fellowships for returning Peace Corps volunteers was noted by the committee as an innovative recruitment strategy.

2019 Dissertation Research Grant recipients ($1,000/each)

Sophia Borgias, University of Arizona

Michael Desjardins, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Eric Goldfishcher, University of Minnesota

Robert Hobbins, Arizona State University

Megan Mills-Novoa, University of Arizona

2019 Research Grant recipients ($500/each):

Lynn Resler, Virginia Tech University

Sean Kennedy, UCLA

Jessie Speer, Queen Mary University of London

Marylynn Steckley, Carleton University

Kathryn Hannum, Kent State University

Lisa Tranel, Illinois State University

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Newsletter – February 2019

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

AAG Election Underway and Looking Forward to Annual Meeting in Washington DC in April!

 

By Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach

AAG president Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach provides the inside scoop on upcoming activities at the AAG Annual Meeting as well as a reminder to vote in the ongoing AAG election in her monthly column. As she remarked in her first presidential column, as AAG members prepare to visit Washington, D.C., “imagine what 12,000-plus geographers can do together to make a better world.”

Continue Reading.

ANNUAL MEETING

2019 AAG Annual Meeting Presidential Plenary and Opening Session Announced

The AAG Opening Session will take place on Wednesday, April 3 at 6:20 p.m. Following welcoming remarks from Executive Director Doug Richardson, the Presidential Plenary will address “The Intersection of Geography, Environmental Science, Human Health, and Human Rights” and feature distinguished panelists joining AAG President Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach to discuss how their research fields intersect with geography and the three AAG 2019 DC themes.

Learn more. 

Eric Holder to Deliver Keynote on Gerrymandering

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In anticipation of the 2020 Census, the AAG announces the participation of Eric H. Holder, Jr. as a keynote speaker at this year’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Currently serving as chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, he will present his expertise on gerrymandering in a special address. Holder will deliver his remarks on Thursday, April 4th 2019 at 12:00 pm.

Learn more about the keynote.

“Focus on Washington, DC and the Mid Atlantic” is an ongoing series curated by the Local Arrangements Committee to provide insight on and understanding of the geographies of Washington, DC and the greater Mid Atlantic region in preparation for the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting.

 

A Local’s Guide to D.C. Neighborhoods

Curious to know more about the area immediately surrounding the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting hotels? While the hotels themselves are situated in the Woodley Park Neighborhood (home to the Smithsonian National Zoo), several bordering neighborhoods are easily accessible by foot, bike, or transit. Learn more about the hyperlocal sites found in each of these communities while you prepare to visit Northwest D.C. in April.

Read more about DC Neighborhoods.

Don’t delay – book your room for #aagDC today!

AAG has negotiated a discounted block of hotel rooms at the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting headquarters, the Marriott Wardman Park. This rate is available on a first come, first served basis. Spring is a busy season in DC, be sure to reserve your room before they are filled and rates increase.

PUBLICATIONS

NEW Issue of The AAG Review of Books:
Discussions on Ethnicity, Economic Geography, Global Health, and Arid Lands

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The latest issue of The AAG Review of Books is now available (Volume 7, Issue 1, Winter 2019) with 11 book reviews on recent books related to geography, public policy and international affairs. The Winter 2019 issue also includes one book review essay and four book review discussions.

All AAG members have full online access to all issues of The AAG Review of Books through the Members Only page. Each issue, the Editor chooses two items to feature, made available free of charge. In this issue you can read the following for free: Book Review Forum of The Arid Lands: History, Power, Knowledge, by Diana K. Davis and The Politics of Scale: A History of Rangeland Science, by Nathan F. Sayre; Review by Rebecca Lave, Thomas Bassett, Geoff Mann, Paul Robbins, Simon Batterbury, Nathan F. Sayre, and Diana K. Davis; as well as Sabina Lawreniuk’s Book Review Essay of From Rice Fields to Killing Fields: Nature, Life, and Labor under the Khmer Rouge, by James A. Tyner and Landscape, Memory and Post-Violence in Cambodia, by James A. Tyner. As a reminder, anyone can search the full list of books reviewed in all issues of The AAG Review of Books by title, author, reviewer, theme and other categories using our new database.

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

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

New Books in Geography – January Available! 

AAGRoB-winter-7-1-cvr-babyFrom art in China to water security, almost the whole alphabet is covered with the latest titles in geography that were received by the AAG during the month of January. The New Books list contains recently published titles in geography and related fields.

Browse the whole list of new books.

ASSOCIATION NEWS

 

AAG Seeks Feedback In Search Process for New Executive Director

The AAG Council has assembled a search committee composed of current council members and other experienced geographers to work on the important task of recruiting a new executive director. In addition to specialty, affinity and other groups within AAG, the general membership is encouraged to provide their views, and suggested candidates, through an online survey available until Feb. 13 or via email to AAGExecDir [at] StorbeckSearch [dot] com.

More information on the survey

Vote today in the 2019 AAG Election

Election-buttonThe AAG election will be conducted online again, and will take place January 30 – February 21. Each member who has an email address on record with the AAG will receive a special email with a code that will allow them to sign in to our AAG SimplyVoting website and vote. The 2019 election slate is available on our website to prepare you for casting your vote.

Learn more about the candidates.

 

Meet the 2019 Class of AAG Fellows!

The AAG Fellows program recognizes geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography. AAG Fellows, conferred for life, serve the AAG as an august body to address key AAG initiatives including creating and contributing to AAG initiatives; advising on AAG strategic directions and grand challenges; and mentoring early and mid-career faculty.

See the Fellows.

AAG Welcomes Spring 2019 Interns

The AAG is excited to welcome three new interns coming aboard our staff for the Spring 2019 semester! Joining us this semester are Matilda Kreider, a junior at George Washington University majoring in Political Communication with a minor in Geography, Crystal King, a senior at Michigan State University majoring in Economic Geography with a cognate in Business, and Jessica Gillette, a sophomore at George Washington University double majoring in Geography and International Affairs.

MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

Many geographers are employed in all levels of government – local, state, and federal. This month, meet Hope Morgan, a GIS Manager at North Carolina Geospatial & Technology Management Office, an office within NC Emergency Management. Hope explains the connections between technology, emergency management, and government employment and how this helps her to make a difference in her home state of North Carolina!

Learn more about Geography Careers.

February Member Updates

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The latest news about AAG Members.

The Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) – Research Coordination Network (RCN), led in part by AAG National Councilor Wendy Jepson, is hosting special sessions at the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting. HWISE is excited to announce five panels on April 4 with the following themes: HWISE Data, Methodological Advances, Thematic Engagements, Research in Economically Advanced Countries, and Quantitative Approaches. They will conclude with an open reception for networking. Watch a video of their recent work or follow them on Twitter @HWISE_RCN.

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Call For Papers – Special Annals Issue on the Anthropocene

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. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by email to Jennifer Cassidento (jcassidento [at] aag [dot] org) by March 31, 2019. The Editor will consider all abstracts and then invite a selection to submit full papers for peer review by May 15, 2019.

Learn how to contribute to the special issue.

FEATURED ARTICLES

Mapping chimps: Drones and the future of conservation

Professor Serge Wich, Dr. Alex Piel, Dr. Fiona Stewart and a team of PhD researchers from Liverpool John Moores University are working to save Tanzania’s chimpanzees. Their tools: homemade drones and Pix4Dmapper.

Since the project launched in 2012, Serge and the team have been working on a number of initiatives to support and protect the chimpanzees.

Learn how Pix4D is giving chimps a chance.

GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS
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Mapping chimps: Drones and the future of conservation

Chimpanzees are one of our closest cousins – and are at risk of extinction. Drone mapping is giving them another chance.

 

Image courtesy of Allison Rogers.

Professor Serge Wich, Dr. Alex Piel, Dr. Fiona Stewart and a team of PhD researchers from Liverpool John Moores University are working to save Tanzania’s chimpanzees. Their tools: homemade drones and Pix4Dmapper.

Since the project launched in 2012, Serge and the team have been working on a number of initiatives to support and protect the chimpanzees.

“Chimpanzees are so closely related to us,” explained Serge. “So if we are to unravel our own human ancestry we need to be able to study the species – if they go extinct then we definitely don’t have that opportunity anymore.”

As most conservation interventions come from government, the team is focusing on gathering high quality data on the number of animals, and feeding the information back to the government.

Up until the project launched, data was collected on foot, a time-consuming process – despite the fact that the forests and savannas of Tanzania are well known for having low densities of chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are always on the move to find food and “Over a year, they might cover fifty, sixty or even seventy square kilometers. That’s quite large particularly in this very undulating terrain. It’s a real challenge to study them in those areas,” says Serge.

“The main aim of the project is to create more efficient methods of obtaining the distribution and density of chimpanzees in these kind of habitats. These areas are very hilly and are very difficult to negotiate,” says Serge. “Plus some areas are not reachable by car, especially given that we do survey work over large areas. So if we can make a more efficient by using drones that would be really helpful.”

Continue reading about the project.

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President's Column

AAG Election Underway and Looking Forward to the Annual Meeting in Washington DC in April!

The AAG election season is underway! This week, AAG members around the globe received email links to log on and vote for 2019-2020 AAG officers and committee members. Balloting is open from 30 January to 21 February, so please remember to take a few minutes to dig out that email, vote, and be heard! I thank the AAG nominating committee for providing us with a highly distinguished slate of candidates, and I especially thank the candidates for their willingness to stand for office and their commitment to serve the AAG should they be elected. So now it is up to you, fellow AAG members, to get out and vote to select the future leaders of our association!

Borderline Insanity: The Threat from the North

The record-breaking 35-day U.S. Government partial shutdown was finally suspended on 25 January, until 15 February 2018 for negations on border security. I hope that the White House can come to an agreement with our Congress on how best to ensure our security, avoid another partial government shutdown, and treat those seeking refuge humanely and with dignity. I truly hope that government workers, including thousands of professional geographers, are never used as political hostages again. On a related front, four women who are members of a humanitarian group whose intent is to save lives of asylum seekers lost in the desert with no water, where hundreds have already died, have been convicted on 18 January 2018 of entering a protected federal refuge in Arizona and leaving behind food and water jugs. AAG and APCG have been closely following the situation for a humanitarian geographer also caught up in this sweep, and for our colleague’s sake we have been careful to not interfere with the case until action is requested. Individuals have been staying in contact, and have contributed to a defense fund. More volunteers go on trial this spring.

Chicago (polar vortex), Australia (fires)

Our nation’s attention was diverted from immigration issues and the potential for a border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border this past week, to a more serious and dangerous threat streaming across the northern border of the U.S. This threat took the lives of at least 21 people, and made no distinction between college students, package delivery workers, jail inmates, and homeless people. The threat was the Polar Vortex, and it unleashed record-breaking cold on about 70 percent of the U.S. population this past week. The White House response was to tweet about the record cold and ask essentially, “what the (heck) is going on with global waming (sic)? Please come back fast, we need you.” We need not look too far to find it … for at the very same time, the White House forgets that it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, where in parallel, extreme heat fanned wildfires in Australia. Of course, with a flat earth, one never worries about the other side. What the White House does not care to understand is that Polar Vortex disruption can be connected to atmospheric carbon imbalances, and global warming splitting the polar jets (read more at PBS.org). NOAA also explained it elegantly. The White House’s purposeful mischaracterization of how the atmosphere works feeds the flames of climate denial, and puts our citizens, economy, and environment in physical danger. We geographers need to continue to communicate climate change science to the general public and to policy makers because it is every global citizen’s right to benefit from scientific knowledge. We must also continue our research to understand and communicate the teleconnections of global warming, atmospheric circulation, and extreme weather events, and to protect that right to conduct our scientific inquiry.

Closing Thoughts: Looking Forward to Annual Meeting in Washington DC in April!

As I noted in my first presidential column, imagine what 12,000-plus geographers can do together to make a better world. We will be meeting in just two months in Washington, D.C. to share our ideas and to make a difference with Geography! Although the call for AAG annual meeting paper sessions and individual paper and poster abstracts is now closed, participants may still edit their entries until 23 February 2019. Poster session organizing is open until 14 February 2019. The annual meeting schedule is now posted so you can make your travel plans accordingly. In addition to the opportunity to share your exciting geography research at paper and poster sessions, AAG is planning many special events for the 2019 Annual Meeting.

I am very happy to announce the full slate of our presidential plenary panel who will join me to kick off the AAG meetings on 3 April 2019: Dr. Douglas Richardson (AAG Executive Director); Dr. Mei-Po Kwan (U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Geography Professor), Dr. John McNeill (University Professor of History, Georgetown U.; American Historical Association President), Dr. Heather Viles (Oxford University Geography Head and Professor), and Dr. Rita Colwell (University of Maryland College Park Distinguished University Professor, Cell Biology and Public Health).

Please do plan to join us at 6:20 pm on 3 April 2019 to hear opening remarks from AAG Executive Director Dr. Douglas Richardson. This will be an historic moment you will not want to miss, as it will be Doug’s last opening session welcome before he retires from the directorship in early 2020. We thank and congratulate him for his dedication and leadership!

Next, you will hear from our distinguished panelists. These eminent scholars in Human Geography and Physical Geography, Environmental History, and Biological Sciences will address the intersection of their research and the themes of our meeting: “Geography, Environmental Science, Human Health, and Human Rights.”

We will conclude our opening session by recognizing our 2019 Honorary Geographer Dr. Rita Colwell, who will also address the audience as a distinguished panelist.

Other special events during the annual meeting will include a keynote address by former U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. (April 4), and on 5 April we will honor The Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden with the AAG Atlas Award, followed by her keynote address.

It will be my deepest honor to welcome all of you in Washington, D.C. in April, just in time for the cherry blossoms.

Until then I wish you a warm and cozy Groundhog Day weekend!

— Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach
President, American Association of Geographers
Professor of Geography and Fellow of the C.B. Smith Sr. Centennial Chair in U.S. Mexico Relations, University of Texas at Austin

Please share your ideas with me at: slbeach(at)austin(dot)utexas(dot)edu

To register for the annual meeting, click here.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0051

 

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Regional Divisions Announce Outstanding Graduate Student Papers During their Fall Meetings

The AAG is proud to announce the Fall 2018 student winners of the AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting. The AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting is designed to encourage graduate student participation at AAG Regional Division conferences and support their attendance at AAG Annual Meetings. One graduate student in each AAG Regional Division receives this yearly award based on a paper submitted to their respective regional conference. The awardees receive $1,000 in funding for use towards their registration and travel costs to attend the AAG Annual Meeting. The board members from each region determine student award winners.

The winners from each region will be presenting their papers in two dedicated paper sessions at the upcoming 2019 AAG Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The paper sessions are tentatively scheduled for the afternoon of Friday, April 5, 2019.

Betsy Breyer

WLDAAG: Betsy Breyer, Ph.D. candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Paper title – Sociohydrological Impacts of Water Conservation Under Anthropogenic Drought in Austin, TX

Hayley Pedrick

SWAAG: Hayley Pedrick, Masters candidate, University of New Mexico; Paper title – Textures of Transition: Understanding Memorial Spaces in Medellin, Colombia

NESTVAL: Christina Woehrle, Masters candidate, Oklahoma State University;

MAD: Molly Pickel, Masters candidate, Graduate Program in Geography and Environmental Planning at Towson University; Paper title – Navigating Māori Fishing Rights Under the Quota Management System

Katharine Georges and Katie Wade


APCG: Katherine Georges, Masters candidate, California State University – Long Beach, Paper title – Just a Little Rain: the Effects of Lifting Water Restrictions on Local Water Purveyors Conservation Policies
Katie Wade, Masters candidate, California State University – Long Beach, Paper title – Indigenous Women’s Ways of Knowing and Ecological Sustainability in Yosemite Valley

Doug Allen

SEDAAG: Doug Allen, Ph.D. candidate, Florida State University; Paper title – Asserting a Black Sense of Place: Florida A&M University’s Homecoming as a Temporary Claim of Place

MSDAAG: Emily Holloway, Masters candidate, Liberal Studies program at the CUNY Graduate Center; Paper title – “Business as usual” or “just business”? A critical comparison of industrial rezoning

GPRM: Sylvia Arriaga Brady, Ph.D. candidate, University of Denver; Paper title – Public-private partnerships with public transit, local government agencies, and ridesourcing in Denver, CO

Kathryn Hannum

ELDAAG: Kathryn Hannum, Ph.D. student, Kent State University; Paper title – Socio-linguistic consequences of regional convergence in Galicia, Spain

 

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Lawrence Estaville

It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform each of you that Dr. Lawrence Estaville, founding member of the Ethnic Geography Specialty Group, had died.

Lawrence served in the academy as a professor, scholar, and administrator for more than 40 years with positions in Wisconsin, California, South Carolina, and Texas. During his career, Lawrence was a prolific scholar, steadfast mentor and educator, and an effective administrator. While in no way inclusive, I would like to highlight some of Lawrence’s many accomplishments during his unparalleled career and life. Lawrence led the establishment of three PhD programs at Texas State University and aided in the founding of the James and Marilyn Lovell Center for Environmental Geography and Hazards Research and the Gilbert M. Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education. He published 10 books (with an additional co-authored monograph forthcoming), 36 peer-reviewed articles, 19 peer-reviewed book chapters, and presented 92 conference papers. An effective fundraiser, Lawrence raised over $6-million in grants and raised funds to support graduate students and conferences. He worked closely with the Race, Ethnicity, and Place Conferences and with the conference creator and his dear friend Dr. John Frazier.

Above all, Lawrence would tell you that his passion was teaching. He taught nearly 40 courses during his career and was a steadfast advocate for students. Diversity of students and ideas was a cornerstone of his teaching. Lawrence’s love of cinema led him to include assignments involving important films in several of his undergraduate courses. He was often recognized as a favorite professor by both undergraduate and graduate students. He advised three doctoral students and several masters students to the successful completion of their degrees. As one of those doctoral students, I will share that Lawrence’s mentorship did not end at the culmination of my graduate degree but rather turned into a life-long duty for him.

Lawrence was an award-winning professor with recognition at the highest level. I highlight a few here. Lawrence was a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1985 and the Distinguished Mentor Award in 2012 from the National Council for Geographic Education. He was honored in 2011 with the Outstanding Scholarship and Service Award from the Business Geography Specialty Group – a group that he led in establishing. From our Ethnic Geography Specialty Group, Lawrence was the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2015 and the Distinguished Ethnic Geographer Career Award in 2010. He received the Enhancing Diversity Award from the American Association of Geographers in 2016. Most recently, on November 16, 2018, Lawrence was the recipient of the highest faculty honor and title bestowed by the Texas State University System – Regents’ Professor.

I will add that one of the things that Lawrence was most proud of, especially toward the end of his career, was his service to the National Marrow Donor Program and his establishment (with Yvonne Ybarra and Angelika Wahl) of the Texas State Cancer Advocacy Movement for Colleges and Outreach (CAMCO). The efforts of this state-wide alliance resulted in tens of thousands of student marrow donors and, most importantly, the saving of over 50 lives through marrow matches – including several children. He shared privately with me years ago, after his successful fight with leukemia, that he felt that he just had to do something if he “beat this thing,” especially after seeing what he saw at M.D. Anderson. He did.

These few paragraphs only scratch the surface of Lawrence Estaville’s vast career accomplishments. Lawrence was very private about his valiant fights with cancer.

On Wednesday, December 5, 2018, Lawrence was honored with a Texas State University presidential reception for his Regents’ Professor distinction in San Marcos, Texas. Although he was a little thinner and in a wheel chair, Lawrence was vibrant and excited to speak to all who came to congratulate him. His contagious, deep laughter could be heard throughout the room as he reminisced and joked with friends and colleagues. I remember that he displayed his Regents’ Professor medallion proudly over his suit jacket adjusting it for pictures. He would later tell me that he was so very thankful for the experience and for all his friends near and far. He said that the award was “the cherry on top” of what he said was a great life and career.

I visited him again a few days later in his home. Lawrence, in characteristic fashion, wanted to talk more about me, my family, and our friends than himself. Always the hosts, the Estaville’s had refreshments out for me. When I commented on not needing to have refreshments out he said, “Oh Edris, that is my beautiful wife Sandra who put those out.” I said, “You are one lucky man.” He replied, “You’re telling me.”  Lawrence’s deepest love and admiration for his wife, Sandra, remains an example to us all.

A professor and educator until the end, Lawrence was afraid that he would not be able to complete his Ethnic Geography course this semester and see his students’ presentations. Angelika Wahl, his dear friend and colleague from the department at Texas State suggested that he could Skype-in to see and grade the final presentations which excited Lawrence greatly. With the assistance of Yongmei Lu, TX State Geography Department Chair and cherished friend, Lawrence was able to finish his course this semester – a duty he would tell me that he felt he owed his students… to finish what he started. He was very thankful for that.

In one of our conversations, Lawrence did lament that there would be many that he would not be able to say goodbye to personally and he hoped that everyone understood. I, of course, reassured him that all would. He shared with me that he felt that he had lived a wonderful life and was thankful for every moment of it.

Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), professor, scholar, mentor, colleague, and friend Dr. Lawrence Estaville passed away on the morning of December 20, 2018 with his loving wife Sandra by his side. He was 74 years old. Lawrence is survived by his wife Sandra and his daughter Deborah. He is survived by dozens of colleagues and friends who he collaborated with over his long career. Finally, Dr. Lawrence Estaville is survived by thousands of students who are better for their time spent with him – in the classroom and beyond.

Per Lawrence’s wishes, there will not be a funeral. The family has asked in lieu of flowers, to consider contributing to the many scholarships he supported/funded at Texas State (geography specific scholarship information: https://donate.txstate.edu/givingsearch) or to the Be the Match Foundation (https://bethematch.org/support-the-cause/donate-financially/). Those who wish may also consider donating to the EGSG’s newly established student travel fund in Lawrence’s memory (If you wish to donate to the EGSG student travel fund please contact me at [email protected]).

As we take the time to remember Lawrence in the next few months and at the AAG meeting in Washington D.C., I know that our friend and colleague wouldn’t want us to spend too long mourning him. Instead, I believe that Lawrence would want us to continue to educate and serve students and each other to the best of our ability. He did.

— Edris J. Montalvo Jr., Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Geography

Department of Social Sciences

Cameron University

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