New Books for Geographers

New Books: February 2014

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.

February 2014

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Post

Efforts of AAG and Others Defeat Coburn Amendment

The omnibus appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2014 that was signed into law by President Obama on January 17 was widely hailed as a rare departure from the recent cycle of federal budget battles. The legislation received significant bipartisan support in both houses of Congress and headed off any chance of a government shutdown until at least October.

Significantly for geographers and the wider social science community, the bill does not contain the so-called “Coburn Amendment,” which passed in March 2013 and prevented the National Science Foundation (NSF) from funding political science studies other than research “certified as promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States.” Enactment of the Coburn Amendment prompted the AAG to work with our friends at the American Political Science Association (APSA) and many others in the science and higher education communities to promote the importance of political and social science research, and urge Congress to undo the restrictions.

Over the last several months, we at the AAG have worked closely with the APSA (see letter: https://www.aag.org/galleries/govt-relations/Thank_you_letter_to_AAG.pdf), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), and many other key organizations in an effort to undo the damage caused by the Coburn Amendment and to prevent the possibility of wider-reaching restrictions blocking funding for the social sciences broadly. As part of these efforts, the AAG has:

  • Adopted an AAG Council resolution opposing the Coburn Amendment
  • Educated members and others through an interactive page on the AAG website (https://www.aag.org/cs/social_science_funding) about threats to federal research funding
  • Sent multiple calls to action to all AAG members detailing concerns related to sequestration and issues such as the Coburn Amendment
  • Coordinated closely with the APSA agenda, per their request, in our response to the Coburn Amendment
  • Signed onto numerous letters, including a AAAS-organized letter urging the House Science Committee to protect the integrity of the merit-review process for all disciplines, including the social and behavioral sciences; and a CNSF-organized letter urging the House Science Committee to fully fund programs that support social science research

While we are delighted that the recently-passed omnibus spending bill does not contain the Coburn Amendment or any related restrictions on the social and behavioral sciences, we recognize that we must remain vigilant to protect this funding in the coming months. As part of these efforts, we urge AAG members to contact your Senators and Representative to express your views about federal funding for the social sciences.

The omnibus bill also marked a win for National Science Foundation (NSF) funding overall. The Foundation will receive $7.17 billion for FY 2014, which represents a 4.2 percent increase when accounting for the sequestration cuts that were applied last year.

The links below provide information about contacting members of Congress through the phone or internet. AAG members may also wish to use social media, such as Twitter or Facebook, to share their perspectives with elected officials, friends, colleagues, and the wider community.

Contact information for all U.S. Senators can be found at: https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

You can locate your member of the House of Representatives by going to: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find/.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact John Wertman, the AAG’s Senior Program Manager for Government Relations, at jwertman [at] aag [dot] org, or Doug Richardson, AAG Executive Director, at drichardson [at] aag [dot] org.

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Annual Meeting

Winkler’s Presidential Plenary to Kick Off Climate Change Theme

Winkler_JulieClimate change is a major environmental challenge facing humankind today. Geographies of Climate Change, a featured theme for the upcoming AAG Annual Meeting in Tampa, highlights the complex spatial dimensions of climate change including the observed and anticipated geographical differentiation in potential impacts and vulnerability. The theme will address such topics as the scientific complexity and uncertainty of climate change, its political and policy contextualization, the challenges of formulating adaptation and mitigation strategies, and the importance of effective communication strategies.  The Presidential Plenary that opens the Annual Meeting will focus on this theme, and will feature four leading experts in the area of climate change research.

Hulme
ShepherdMoser

 

 

 

 

Mike Hulme is professor of climate and culture in the Department of Geography at King’s College London.  His work explores the idea of climate change using historical, cultural and scientific analyses, seeking to illuminate the numerous ways in which climate change is deployed in public and political discourse.  His latest book – Can Science Fix Climate Change? A Case Against Climate Engineering (Polity) – is due out in April.  He is also the author of Exploring Climate Change Through Science and In Society (Routledge), Making Climate Change Work For Us (Cambridge) and Why We Disagree About Climate Change (Cambridge).  This latter book was chosen by The Economist magazine as one of its science and technology books of the year.  From 2000 to 2007 he was the Founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, based at the University of East Anglia, and since 2007 has been the founding Editor-in-Chief of the review journal Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs) Climate Change.

Linda Mearns is a Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and serves as NCAR’s Director of the Weather and Climate Impacts Assessment Science Program and Head of the Regional Integrated Sciences Collective within the Institute for Mathematics Applied to Geosciences.   She has performed research and published mainly in the areas of climate change scenario formation, quantifying uncertainties, and climate change impacts on agro-ecosystems, and has worked extensively with regional climate models. She was an author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1995, 2001, 2007, and 2013 assessments.   She leads the multi-agency supported North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP), which is providing multiple high-resolution climate change scenarios for the North American impacts community.

Susanne (Susi) Moser is Director and Principal Researcher of Susanne Moser Research & Consulting, a Social Science Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, and a Research Associate of the Institute for Marine Sciences at the University of California-Santa Cruz. As a nationally and internationally recognized expert in climate change adaptation, communication for social change, and science-policy interactions, she works with researchers, governmental and non-governmental organizations in the US, Europe and Australia. She contributed to the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and was a Review Editor for the IPCC Special Report on extreme events, disaster risk management and adaptation. She also is a member of the federal advisory committee on the Third US National Climate Assessment and serves as one of the Convening Lead Authors on its coastal chapter. She is a fellow of the Aldo Leopold Leadership, Kavli Frontiers of Science, Donella Meadows Leadership, Google Science Communication, and Walton Sustainability Solutions Programs.

Marshall Shepherd is the 2013 President of the American Meteorological Society.  He is the UGA Athletic Association Professor of Geography at the University of Georgia and director of the University’s Atmospheric Sciences Program. Prior to joining the University of Georgia faculty, Shepherd was a research meteorologist in the Earth-Sun Division at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center and deputy project scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement mission.  In 2004, he received the PECASE Award, one the nation’s highest scientific awards, for pioneering research on urban-hydroclimate relationships.  Dr. Shepherd currently serves on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Science Advisory Board, the Earth Science Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council,  the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Visiting Expert Committee and numerous other high level committees. He co-authored a recent National Academy of Sciences report on urban meteorology and is working on the Wiley textbook, The Urban Climate System. He is also the Climatology Editor for the AAG Encyclopedia of Geography.

Annual Meeting, climate change, J. Marshall Shepherd, Julie Winkler, Linda Mearns, Mike Hulme, presidential plenary, Susanne Moser
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Awardees

Ruth Wilson Gilmore to Receive Award for Anti-Racism Research, Practice

The Association of American Geographers has selected Ruth Wilson Gilmore for the 2014 AAG Harold M. Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice. Wilson Gilmore is a Professor of Geography in the Earth and Environmental Sciences, and American Studies program and Director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). She is also the winner of the prestigious 2012 Angela Davis Award for Public Scholarship of the American Studies Association (ASA). Previous to her appointment at CUNY, Wilson Gilmore was a Professor at the University of Southern California, and at UC Berkeley. Dr. Gilmore received her PhD in economic geography and social theory from Rutgers University, under the guidance of the late Neil Smith.

This award honors the work of Harold M. Rose, who was committed to research which would lead to social change for African-Americans. In his influential 1978 Presidential Address at the AAG Annual Meeting, Rose focused on what he called the growing despair that had emerged for African-Americans in segments of American urban space. Arguing that despair is in fact commonplace, Rose lamented that the extent of despair is seldom measured by geographers, and hoped that others in the profession would take up this call to continue tabulating other geographies of despair for African-Americans. Wilson Gilmore’s work follows in his vision.

Wilson Gilmore has said that her work explores both “the dire and the hopeful.” Asking crucial questions about the ways movement and labor reconfigure and reshape landscapes of both production and consumption, Wilson Gilmore’s career demonstrates a lifelong commitment towards asking how individuals employ power in ways that enhance life opportunities rather than guaranteeing premature death.

Wilson Gilmore’s book, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing California (University of California Press, 2007) paid particular attention to examining the political and economic forces in California’s prisons, and Wilson Gilmore worked tirelessly as a scholar-activist to improve the conditions of prisoners and improve the criminal justice system in California. Wilson Gilmore has said that she opposes the “all-purpose use of cages to solve social, political and economic problems.”

Wilson Gilmore is a mentor and inspiration for many people of color in geography. Wilson Gilmore spoke at an AAG Annual Meeting on racism in the academy, captivating her audience. She claimed being a third-generation Yalie, explaining that both her father and grandfather had worked there as custodial staff, whereas she had earned her Bachelor’s degree at the institution. Wilson Gilmore’s tireless commitment to political activism, exploring complex racial and class formations, uneven development, and the African diaspora has changed the epistemological terrain of human geography as well as other cognate disciplines. Given her important anti-racist and anti-sexist research agenda, she is a fitting awardee for the Harold M. Rose Award.

AAG Harold M. Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice, Anti-Racism, awards, Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Harold M. Rose
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Dave Hill

Dave Hill, longtime member of the geography faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder, passed away in Louisville, Colorado on Sunday, January 19, 2014.

They say at 50 you end up with the face you deserve. From the moment I first saw Dave Hill’s sparkling eyes and Cheshire Cat smile, I knew that I made the right decision to study with him in the PhD program at CU Boulder.

The venue was a session on geography education at the 1996 AAG Annual Meeting in Charlotte. Dave and a few of his students were on hand to discuss a new project, Geographic Inquiry into Global Issues. GIGI, as it was known, was a collection of modules for secondary schools that supported the recently published national geography standards. To my young eyes GIGI captured everything I thought geography education should be: fresh, exciting, relevant, and unafraid of controversial issues.

Dave was a giant and always encouraging, even when being critical of my work. He was the most generous, kind, and compassionate advisor and mentor one could ever hope for.

On occasion Dave would make a star turn at playing the role of absent-minded professor. Once we spent an entire hot Saturday walking the Boulder Creek trail to take photos and gather data for making a virtual field study of flood hazards. At the conclusion of our journey Dave opened his camera and realized he had forgot to load it with film. No big deal. We just went back the next day and I got to hear more stories about Dave playing football during the “leather-helmet” era at CU.

Dave was close to retirement when I started my PhD. I promised him that I would study hard and finish on schedule. At least once a week I would provide him with progress reports over lunch at some restaurant on “The Hill” in Boulder. Those lunches usually ended with Dave footing the bill and me meekly offering him a stick of Juicy Fruit as a token of gratitude. The last time Dave took me to lunch – I think about a week or so before my graduation – he presented me with a gift-wrapped box of Juicy Fruit. I smiled and told him I wish I could’ve afforded to buy him a gold watch. He got a big chuckle out of that.

I’ll never forget that frigid graduation day at CU Boulder in December 1999. A few minutes before the start of the ceremony, an usher instructed me and my fellow graduates to line up by the entrance to the auditorium. Dave stood by my side and never budged. When the usher asked him to join the faculty assembled in a different seating area, Dave put his hand on my shoulder, shook his head, and with a big grin said, “I’m sitting with him.”

(Incidentally, if I look alarmed in that photo, it’s because I had to receive emergency root canal treatment on my front tooth a few hours after the ceremony. I guess dentist appointments were one of the sacrifices I made to graduate on time).

It’s no exaggeration to say that I owe everything I have professionally to Dave. He introduced me to a world of thought that affirmed the power of geography in education. One of my most cherished experiences as a CU graduate student was being introduced to Gilbert White in one of Dave’s seminars. Dave recalled being in a similar setting back when he was attending CU. Professor White engaged Dave and his fellow graduate students in a discussion of the role of geography in liberal education and what they thought it should be. Dave remarked, “Gilbert White was not only interested in our views. He also wanted to convey the idea that, as future stewards of our discipline, we should be fully vested in these fundamental questions.” The torch is passed.

Sometimes I open my old CU files and pull out a reading list that Dave prepared for my doctoral orals. At the top is a hand-scribbled note from Dave that says, “Of enduring interest to geography education.” The list is replete with entries by John Dewey, Francis Slater, Jerome Bruner and so many other wonderful educational philosophers inside and outside of geography. I’d like to think that something I’ve written someday could make the cut.

Ask any of the hundreds of geography teachers who benefited from Dave’s professional development institutes through the Colorado Geographic Alliance, and to a person they will remark on the qualities that endeared him to so many: his loyalty to students, friends and family, his refusal to compromise quality, and his indefatigable devotion to geography education. The man could also make one hell of a martini.

The last time I saw Dave Hill was in June of 2009. He invited me to his condo in Boulder for a lamb chop dinner with Myhra, his wife of 50+ years. Afterwards he walked me down to the Pearl Street mall and we found a bench to sit on and enjoy the buskers.

At this point in his life Dave’s once sturdy voice was beginning to sound a bit frail and frayed. “Michael,” he said, “I’ll always appreciate the fact that you kept in touch.” And with that he hugged me goodbye and wandered back up the hill, a golden sun setting over the Flatirons.

Rest in Peace, Dave, and thanks for everything.

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New Books for Geographers

New Books: January 2014

New geography books

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.

January, 2014

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President's Column

Climate Variability and Change: Embracing Complexity and Uncertainty

Julie WinklerLast spring, at a listening session I attended on climate variability and change in northwestern Michigan, a local fruit grower summarized his concerns with the analogy that his industry is the “canary in the coal mine” for the potential impacts of climate variability and change on agriculture. This statement was motivated by the sensitivity of fruit production to climate extremes, particularly changes in the frequency of devastating spring freezes, and the limited short-term adaptation options given the relatively long-term investment of orchard blocks.

Geographers have increasingly become involved in assessments of the vulnerability to, and potential impacts of, climate variability and change. These challenging interdisciplinary endeavors are providing many geographers with exciting opportunities to work collectively with scientists from a range of disciplines, interact directly with stakeholder groups, and engage in research that is not only stimulating but also has considerable applied significance. I am concerned, however, with what I see as a continuing tendency in assessment studies to downplay the complexity and uncertainty of the potential impacts of climate variability and change.

Several years ago, in an editorial in Environmental Science & Technology, Baruch Fischhoff, a well-known decision scientist, argued that scientists, although traditionally trained to consider uncertainty, multiple approaches and a range of data sources, often turn to an advocacy-based communication when they are highly concerned about the potential consequences of either action or inaction and/or when they believe that the “science will not receive a fair hearing.” In advocacy-based communication, a case is made for a specific viewpoint and uncertainty is introduced only through arguments with contrasting viewpoints. Although advocacy-based communication has its place, a potential consequence is the loss of confidence in, and appreciation for, science by the general public. As an alternative, Fischhoff argued for what he refers to as nonpersuasive communication, an approach that explicitly considers uncertainty and “allows science to speak for itself.” From Fischhoff’s perspective, communication of climate variability and change involves climate scientists, or more generally domain scientists, who develop the information to eventually be communicated and confirm that it is scientifically sound, decision scientists who help identify the information relevant to a particular decision, and social scientists who work to overcome communication barriers.

Personally, I have long been uncomfortable with communication regarding climate variability change that fails to convey the associated complexity and uncertainty, particularly the many limitations of climate observations and projections, with which I am all too familiar as a geographer/climate scientist. Thus, Fischhoff’s argument for nonpersuasive communication of climate variability and change resonates strongly with me, although I would expand Fischhoff’s model to include a broader range of experts as domain scientists and would blur the distinctions between the domain, decision, and social science experts, emphasizing instead the communication among experts and between experts and stakeholders.

Climate scientists are not the exclusive domain experts in the communication of the potential impacts of climate variability and change. In fact, few stakeholders can directly incorporate future projections of climate variables in their decision-making. Rather, stakeholders require information on changes in climate-influenced parameters of relevance to their activity or industry. Expertise from a range of disciplines is needed, including social science (e.g., human geography, economics, demography) whose involvement extends well beyond overcoming communication barriers to the development and evaluation of information required for decision-making. For example, while growers of commodity crops (e.g., maize, soybeans, and wheat) are cognizant that changes in temperature and precipitation during the growing season will affect their operations, projected changes in yield and farm income are much more relevant parameters for their decision-making.

Furthermore, inferring potential yield or income from simplified climate scenarios (e.g., change in growing-season mean temperature and precipitation) is suspect given the complex relationships between weather/climate and yield, and between yield and income. Consequently, climate scientists, agronomists, economists and others need to collaboratively explore, in a scientifically sound manner, the ways that a perturbed climate may influence yield and, subsequently, profitability and livelihood.

The concept of the “usability” of assessment outcomes also needs to be broadened. Although a number of previous authors have implored climate scientists to consider the “usability” of their observations and projections, even chiding them for the too often opaqueness of the metadata (when provided) of climate information, the usability of the outcomes of the different impact models employed in an assessment, such as yield models, is less often considered. In addition, one can argue that stakeholders should be part of, rather than separate from, the assessment team, working with decision scientists to identify the information relevant to the decisions that they will be making, and with domain scientists to facilitate the co-creation of that information.

As someone involved in the development and use of climate projections for local/regional assessments, I am often asked by scientists from other fields for advice on the availability and suitability of climate information for a particular assessment. Lately, I have been somewhat disheartened by the number of requests I receive for “simple” climate scenarios (often little more than a projected change in mean temperature and precipitation). To be sure, simple scenarios, even “what if” scenarios, are extremely useful, particularly for vulnerability assessments, and they complement more detailed projections which, in conjunction with suitable impact models, can illuminate potential “surprises” that fall outside stakeholder experience. I am more concerned that a reliance on simplistic projections, especially when paired with relatively unsophisticated impact models, will fail to fully illuminate the complexity and uncertainty associated with climate variability and change, and fail to provide the information needed for robust decision-making, in contrast to when a plurality of approaches — both simple and complex — are employed. I have also been rather dismayed by the disconnect between the very fine spatial resolution at which climate information frequently is requested versus the information content of the scenarios which often varies much more broadly in space.

Another concern is the lack of consideration of the assumptions of the impact models that will be employed in an assessment in the context of the nature and limitations of climate information, or of the contribution of the impact models themselves to the uncertainty of the assessment outcomes. That said, several recent publications represent initial steps in addressing these concerns. In particular, a recent analysis conducted at the University of California-Berkeley illustrated that the high degree of spatial autocorrelation in gridded climate observations can violate the independent assumption of empirical economic models that are often used in assessment studies and recommended that station observations may be the more appropriate choice of climate information for the development and application of these models. Also, members of the AgMIP (Agricultural Modeling Intercomparison and Improvement Project) team recently demonstrated that uncertainty introduced in future projections of wheat yield by the choice of yield model was as large or larger than the uncertainty introduced by an ensemble of climate projections. Both these studies point to the need for careful attention to the assumptions of impact models and to the necessity of evaluating the uncertainty surrounding all components of an assessment, rather than just the uncertainty of the climate information.

Geographers are in a unique position to develop enhanced approaches for climate assessments that improve the usability of assessment outcomes and to advocate for nonpersuasive communication in decision-making that embraces complexity and uncertainty. Geography is an “interdisciplinary discipline.” We regularly and effectively work across the many subfields of Geography and across disciplinary boundaries. We are also sensitive to disciplinary differences in research culture, methods and approaches, and, therefore, can help facilitate a more seamless integration across assessment components. Geographers are already actively involved in assessment efforts, but there is much more that we can do to advance new assessment approaches. The fruit grower in northwest Michigan, and the many others facing complex choices in an uncertain future, could use our help. Let’s step up to the task.

—Julie Winkler

DOI: 10.14433/2013.0023

For more information on articles referred to above see:

“Nonpersuasive Communication about Matters of Greatest Urgency: Climate Change” by Baruch Fischhoff in Environmental Science and Technology, pages 7204-7208, November 1, 2007

“Uncertainty in Simulating Wheat Yields under Climate Change” by Asseng et al. in Nature Climate Change, Volume 3, pages 827–832, 2013, DOI:10.1038/nclimate1916

“Using Weather Data and Climate Model Output in Economic Analyses of Climate Change” by Auffhammer et al., NBER Working Paper No. w19087, 2013, DOI:10.3386/w19087

Photo credit: Dwight Burdette; Apple orchard on Wassem Fruit Farm, Augusta Township, Michigan

 

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New Books for Geographers

New Books: December 2013

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.

December, 2013

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AAG Honors Five Geographers with 2014 AAG Enhancing Diversity Award

AAG Honors Five Geographers with 2014 AAG Enhancing Diversity Award

The AAG Enhancing Diversity Award honors those geographers who have pioneered efforts toward or actively participated in efforts toward encouraging a more diverse discipline over the course of several years. To learn more, visit www.aag.org/diversityaward.

This year the AAG Council and the AAG Enhancing Diversity Committee are pleased to recognized a team of five individuals to be honored with the 2014 Enhancing Diversity Award:

  • Jay T. Johnson, University of Kansas
  • Renee Pualani Louis, University of Kansas
  • Laura Smith, Macalaster College
  • Zoltan Grossman, The Evergreen State College
  • Douglas (RDK) Herman, Smithsonian Institution

In recognizing these geographers together, the committee is also acknowledging teamwork and long-term partnerships by giving the award to all five individuals and the work they have achieved together as well as individually.

Expanding the diversity of any organization, especially when the goal is to have an effect on an entire academic discipline, requires effort at every level. Johnson, Pualani Louis, Smith, Grossman, and Herman have over the past decade worked toward expanding the diversity of the AAG, and geography more broadly, through their leadership of the Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group of the AAG and beyond.

Their goal with IPSG has been primarily focused in two areas: Firstly, to increase the number of Native American, Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiians participating in the AAG, as well as pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in geography; Secondly, they have worked to increase the visibility of Indigenous peoples issues before the AAG and by doing so, the discipline in general.

Under their leadership, the number of Indigenous participants at AAG meetings has increased dramatically, including not only undergraduate and graduate students but also community members from various reservation and urban Indigenous communities across North and Central America, Australia and New Zealand. They have brought Indigenous leaders and academics to the AAG annual meetings as plenary speakers, including the late Vine Deloria, Jr., and Winona LaDuke.

In 2006, Professor Johnson proposed an Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledges and Rights Commission to the International Geographical Union, which was approved by the IGU at its regional meeting in Brisbane, Australia. Through the combined efforts of the newly formed IGU commission, the AAG specialty group and the Canadian Association of Geographers Native Canadians Study Group, an Indigenous geographies pre-conference was held in 2008 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with over 35 geographers from around in the world in attendance. During the first two days of the AAG meeting in Boston, these three groups organized an Indigenous geographies symposium that included paper sessions and panels on various topics representing the broad spectrum of research covered by geographers working with and for Indigenous communities. The keynote speaker for this symposium was Dr. Daniel Wildcat, Director of Environmental Studies at Haskell Indian Nations University. Jay and Laura served two terms as co-chairs of the Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group, while Renee was serving as Treasurer and subsequently took over as Co-Chair with Grossman to continue this work.   From the time that this team began working together around 2002, the IPSG has almost doubled in size, from 120 to more than 210 members at present.

These scholars have advanced the status of indigenous geography through the synergies of their individual efforts as well, including ways that have contributed to the IPSG’s success.

Pualani Louis serves as Secretary of the International Geographical Union (IGU)’s Indigenous People’s Knowledges and Rights Commission as well as numerous other professional service roles.  She is a Hawaiian woman and an Indigenous cartographer, and has researched place naming, GIS and integration of Indigenous spatial knowledge systems, as well as playing an important role in advancing cross cultural ethical research standards.  From 2009 to 2012, she also served as an Advisory Board Member to the AAG’s ALIGNED project, advancing diversity with nearly a dozen pilot undergraduate programs and developing many resources for departments and members.

Johnson has also served with the AAG ALIGNED project as a Representative Pilot Department at the University of Kansas, as well as Chair of their newly founded Diversity Committee inspired by his initiative and involvement.  His research interests in indigenous people’s cultural survival and the politics of place has continued to thrive with new roles as Director of the Indigenous Geographies Research Center at KU and as CoPI of the $3 million NSF funded IGERT for an interdisciplinary climate change studies program in collaboration with KU and Haskell Indian Nations University.

Smith has also continued her leadership, scholarship, and service contributions through IPSG and AAG broadly.  She has a PhD in Geography with a minor in Law and has been a GIS and land management consultant with the Bois Forte Reservation Tribal Council and the State of Minnesota’s Planning Department.

Grossman is Professor of Geography and Native American and World Indigenous Peoples Studies at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington. From 2008-2010, he served as Co-Chair for the Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. Previously, Grossman has worked as Assistant Professor of Geography and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire from 2002 to 2005. Co-founder of Midwest Treaty Network to support WI Ojibwe spear fishers attacked for exercising their treaty rights, and then to bring together the tribes and white sport fishing groups to protect the fish from mining projects.  In 2008, he attended the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 7th Session (focusing on climate change), as an Observer from the International Geographical Union (IGU) Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledges and Rights Commission, at UN Headquarters, New York.   

Herman is senior geographer for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and adjunct associate professor at Towson University, Maryland. An early architect of NMAI’s Indigenous geography project, he went on to create Pacific Worlds, a web-based indigenous-geography education project for Hawai’i and the American Pacific. Both projects focus on indigenous cultural knowledge and environmental understandings. He has published several articles and given numerous scholarly presentations regarding the representation of Indigenous cultures and the importance of Indigenous knowledge.

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Resources

NIH GeoFrontiers Final Report November 2013

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