Anne Buttimer

Anne Buttimer, emeritus professor of geography at University College Dublin, died July 15, 2017.

Buttimer was Fellow of Royal Irish Academy, Royal Geographical Society (UK) and Academia Europaea. She served as Council Member of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) from 1974 to 1977; of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) from 1996 to 1999; and as President of the International Geographical Union (IGU) from 2000 to 2004, the first female and first Irish person to be elected to that role.

During her distinguished career, she held research and teaching positions in Belgium, Canada, France, Scotland, Sweden, and the USA. She was appointed Professor of Geography at University College Dublin (UCD) in 1991, where she remained until she retired in 2003. However, she continued to work relentlessly, attending overseas meetings, giving invited lectures and engaging in debates on the promotion of social science, European cooperation and the world of geographical knowledge production and its circulation.

She has received many awards and honours, including a post-doctoral fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation 1965 1966; Fulbright Hays Visiting Professor in Social Ecology to Sweden 1976; Association of American Geographers Honors Award 1986; Ellen Churchill Semple Award, University of Kentucky 1991; Royal Geographical Society (UK) Murchison Award 1997; Royal Scottish Geographical Society Millenium Award 2000; Member of the Jury for the Prix Vautrin-Lud 1998-2012; Appointed to Board of Science for the Austrian Academy of Sciences 2010; Doctor, honoris causa, University of Joensuu, 1999; Doctor honoris causa, Tartu University 2004; August Wahlberg Medal in Gold from King of Sweden 2009; appointed Chair of the Social Sciences Section of Academia Europaea 2010; elected as Vice-President of Academia Europaea 2012; Doctor honoris causa, University of Grenoble 2012.

Anne’s colleagues Alun Jones and Stephen Mennell write:

She was a powerful advocate of the discipline. She was truly international in her work, vision and activities; a gifted multilingual scholar with a sharp intellect. Her scholarship on place, space and the spirituality of everyday human existence was truly groundbreaking. One paper that had exceptional impact was “Grasping the dynamism of lifeworld”, which appeared in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers in 1976, and has been cited well over 700 times. It drew upon the social phenomenology that was then widely influential in the other social sciences, and applied it to the culturally defined spatiotemporal setting or horizon of everyday life. In her work she promoted the emancipatory role of humanism, and championed calls for Western scholars to seek better communication with colleagues from other cultures to address global environmental challenges. Anne’s work received deservedly numerous international awards and honours. Most recently these included: the Wahlberg Medal of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography in 2009; the Lifetime Achievement honour from the Association of American Geographers, presented to her at the Annual Conference of the AAG in Tampa in 2014; and the Vautrin Lud prize (often referred to as the ‘Nobel Prize’ in Geography) in 2014.

Buttimer conducted her undergraduate studies at University College Cork in geography, Latin, and mathematics. She earned a master’s degree in geography from the National University of Ireland. After earning her master’s degree in 1959, she became a Dominican nun in Seattle, serving in the order for 17 years. In 1965, she earned a doctorate from the University of Washington.

Anne was deeply committed to her family, friends, and colleagues and she will be greatly missed.

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President's Column

Upon Reflection

June 6, 2017

How fast time flies. It is hard to believe that the end of the academic year is upon us, June has come and I am writing my last president’s column. I want to use the opportunity provided by this final column to reflect upon the past year. I also want to look ahead and consider the role of our discipline and the American Association of Geographers as we face the changing and challenging world ahead of us. Finally, I hope with one last act as president to give back a little for all I have received.

I will start by saying what an honor and pleasure it has been to serve as your president. I have met so many wonderful geographers and learned so much. I am in awe of how smart and dedicated our members are. The heartfelt concerns about geography, society at large and the environment that so many of you have communicated to me have helped me focus on what is really important. Personally, the friendship and kindness shown to me at our regional meetings, annual meeting and council meetings leaves me with warm and indelible memories. I am not too proud to admit I have had my share of uncertainties, and a few faltering steps, over the past year. The patience and good humor shown by the membership, council and staff have been much appreciated and kept things on a good course. Thank you all.

Now, here are some candid reflections and ruminations that I want to share.

On Governance, Policy and Communication Between the AAG and the Membership

I was happy to see that in many cases when geographers had concerns about the AAG they felt free to email me, our Executive Director Doug Richardson, or other members of the council and expressed those concerns with clarity and friendliness. That is how it should be. The AAG is not governed by some aloof cabal of “others” or a disassociated elite. The members of council are you — geographers from both large and small educational institutions. Geographers from the private sector and government agencies. Geographers from every part of the country and other nations. Geographers who really care and are willing to spend their time — unpaid and often unheralded — working for our discipline and our association. The members of council with whom I have worked as president are some of the finest and most genuinely caring people I know.

I have seen how the council takes the concerns of our members very seriously and is willing to act upon those concerns when possible. This is not the Titanic — the association can change course when needed. Over the past year we received letters and petitions concerning things such as refund policies in light of U.S. immigration rules or the engagement of the military with geographical education and research. In these cases, the council revised our refund policy and is now developing a committee to examine engagement between the military and geography.

Because public policy issues have increasingly come to the fore for the AAG and require fair consideration and action when appropriate, I asked Past President Sarah Bednarz to strike a small committee and look into how the AAG should handle issues of public policy, particularly when petitioned by our members. Please remember that the AAG has a constitution and articles of constitution that prescribe the policy areas and actions we as an association can embrace. Based upon Sarah’s excellent report, the AAG has put into place a formal mechanism to make sure that such policy-related requests are handled fairly and thoughtfully. The formation of a special committee to examine issues pertaining to the discipline of geography and the military is an example of that process at work.

Alas, I have also encountered a few cases where public statements and invectives were made without actually contacting council members, staff or even reading the information posted on our website and provided in our electronic communications to members. Although I regret such instances, I mean no disrespect here. I realize that there are issues that move people passionately. Some members may not know any of the elected officials or feel comfortable sending a “stranger” an email about a question or concern, and the time to exhaustively search for information online may be in short supply for many of us. In the end, my feeling is it is better to be heard than be silent.

I will make two humble suggestions to you. The first is — please do communicate with the association. Take a look at the AAG website for information, and if you don’t find it, feel free to send an email to your regional representative or other members on council for help or to express concerns. This association is governed by members just like you for the benefit of all members. By communicating with us you can affect change. The second suggestion — join in our governance yourself. Serve on regional and national committees. Run for elected office. Yes, you! Not only can you help steer this great association and influence our discipline, but you will meet some of the most wonderful people in the world. I cannot over-emphasize how rewarding this can be, or how much we need our members to pitch-in.

On Communication with the Wider World

Geographers have so much to share with the wider world. I have been pleased to see how the AAG develops statements and communication initiatives on issues that concern the discipline and membership. I have also been pleased by the times I have seen geographers in the media commenting on exciting new research or current events. However, I think we can do more. I look at the great success that the American Geophysical Union has in getting press coverage for research presented at their annual meeting. I commissioned Vice President Derek Alderman to strike a committee and look into how the association can up its game in terms of public communication. Derek came up with some very exciting proposals and I look forward to him as president working with AAG staff and membership to take the association to the next level. I urge our membership and specialty group leadership to work with Derek in identifying and helping broadcast our most compelling research and insights.

As I have written before, better communication about geography and geographers also requires each of us to do our part. Please do get to know your campus communication officers. Don’t be afraid to share your work with the public. When an issue moves you, take to the keyboard and write an op-ed for the newspaper. We all have a lot to tell the world.

The Growth and Internationalization of Our Association

It is gratifying to see our membership climb to a record level of almost 12,000. Fantastic. This growth bodes well for the future of the association and our discipline. However, it does come with some challenges. First, about a third of our membership and meeting attendees are from outside the U.S. The AAG has become a vibrant world marketplace for the discipline of geography. Are we serving both our domestic and international membership well? I was concerned about our international members and our professional non-academic members getting good value from the AAG. I asked council members Stuart Aitkin and David DiBiase to strike small committees to examine how we could improve service to our international and professional members respectively.

Stuart and his team tabled a report that amongst other things pointed out that the exclusionary border and immigration policies propounded by the Trump Administration in the U.S., were posing serious challenges for our international membership. In some cases members were officially excluded from attending the annual meeting and others felt personally uncomfortable traveling to the U.S. In other cases, some international members felt compelled to boycott meetings in the U.S. in solidarity with those excluded by border and immigration policies. The AAG continues to oppose such exclusionary and discriminatory policies and to work for solutions. How do we monitor this situation and accommodate members? How can we influence changes in such policies? We need all your help here.

In addition, some international members felt out of the loop in terms of AAG governance. Although any member can run for office, the term “national councilor” does imply a domestic focused position. After discussion, council would like to remedy this by perhaps focusing one of the present councilor positions on international representation. Perhaps slightly changing the name national councilor to national and international councilor would also better reflect the international scope of the AAG? We would like consensus on how to move forward here. Please do help your with your thoughts and suggestions. Council will continue to work on this at the fall meeting.

David found that for many professional members there was a desire to remain engaged with academic geography, but the annual meeting and our publications were not as industry and applications focused to be of practical value in many cases. Council would like to work on this and needs your thoughts and ideas. One suggestion was twin some of our annual meetings with more applied and professional-oriented meetings.

The Growth of Our Annual Meetings and the Increasing Importance of the Regions

Our annual meeting in Boston was a record breaker with more than 9,400 attendees. Although the growth of the meeting is satisfying in many regards, it is not without costs. With a plethora of concurrent sessions and other events it may seem that one misses more sessions of interest than one actually attends. In addition, I noted that many sessions at the Boston meeting had only a small handful of members there to hear the hard work of the presenters. This is a shame. We have not moved to a model of decreasing oral presentations through vetting abstracts. Should we do so? Can we institute more concise time limits — say 10-minute maximums for most presentations? Is it possible to promote poster sessions more, such as the AGU has done successfully? Can we shift the proportion of poster to oral presentations in a voluntary manner?

A meeting that involves more than 9,000 people also limits the cities that can host us. Many places in which we would enjoy congregating simply do not have the hotel rooms, conference facilities or travel infrastructure to host the meeting. Many of the cities that do offer these services are also expensive in terms of hotel rooms. I have seen firsthand how hard our executive director and the AAG staff work to find suitable venues and keep costs low. I have also learned that arrangements for a meeting this size must be made several years in advance. The logistics are incredible. Of course, aside from the limitation on potential host cities and the costs of attending the meetings, the size of our annual gathering also means something is lost in terms of the intimacy and sense of community that is engendered. Alas, I am not sure there is much to be done about these issues short of shrinking the size of the annual meeting.

In light of this all I want to emphasize the importance of our regional meetings in providing venues at which a wide range of talks can be given and heard effectively. A sense of intimacy and community pervades the regional meetings and interesting new towns and cities can be experienced at often reasonable costs. One of the greatest pleasures of being president was the chance to attend regional meetings around the country. I cannot adequately express how much I enjoyed this and how much geography I learned. My faculty and student hosts were so gracious and the enthusiasm of the attendees about geography was energizing. The AAG should do all it can to promote our regions and their meetings. Alas, in some regions the larger research departments seem very uninvolved with the regional meetings. I think this is a shame for faculty and particularly for undergraduate and graduate students. I will confess that I and my department are as guilty of this as many. I am going to work hard to address this — and plan to rent a van to take some of our UCLA students up to the APCG meeting in Chico this fall. Join us there!

Healthy Departments and a Healthy Discipline

Given the growth of the AAG itself, it came as an awakening to me how many departments are finding it difficult to grow or even sustain numbers of majors. With geographical awareness, perspectives and techniques exploding across the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities we as a discipline should be at an exciting growth point. What is going on? In some states the population size of university-aged people is declining and many departments are having trouble maintaining student numbers. However, this is not universal. It is a fact that geography departments do face competition for student interest from expanding environmental studies, earth systems sciences, sustainability, global studies and development studies departments. We should not castigate these programs, as they seek to produce graduates well-trained to tackle the challenges of the 21^st century. However, we should also not shirk from proudly promoting our own discipline. Part of this must involve thinking about how we market the discipline. What does a course title such as “Introductory Physical Geography 1” denote to a brand new freshman? Not much I would guess. How about considering something like “Our Dynamic Planet — Processes of Physical Change on the Earth’s Surface”? You get the idea. Aside from naming courses — are our courses exciting and compelling in terms of content and student experience? Do we offer courses that speak to the challenges of the 21^st century and the importance of geographical perspectives and methods in tackling those challenges? How often do we as faculty and geography students speak to undergraduate groups and clubs about the discipline? Do we speak and provide resources to high schools and community colleges to get geography on student’s radars? Do we work to get articles about geography in student newspapers? Do we generously provide service courses for other majors? No small number of undergraduate geography majors come to the discipline through elective courses they took while pursuing an earlier major.

Here also the AAG has a role to play. The association has long had initiatives on healthy departments and goes to bat for departments in trouble. I think we can do more — but we need help. Given the importance of YouTube as an information source, the council has been considering developing very short online videos about geography. What else can and should the AAG be doing as a central resource to grow geography as a major? How can we better use social media? How do we market geography to the changing demographics of the U.S.? The health of the discipline in our schools must be an important continuing focus going forward.

Diversity

I have written previously regarding the mismatch between the diversity of the U.S. and of the world at large, and the diversity of our membership and the discipline of geography in the U.S. Every member of council takes this issue extremely seriously and seeks for our diversity to be vastly better. I take this as a major concern. I can tell you that this is one area in which the association comes in for continuing criticism from our members. I know that we as an association can do more. We need help and ideas from you. What communication strategies can we undertake to better understand the needs and educational aspirations of our diverse national and international populations and serve these as an association? How can we make a true diversity of populations feel comfortable and empowered within our association as members? How can we encourage and promote greater diversity amongst AAG leadership?

One area I feel strongly about in this regards is our Developing Regions Program. This program helps support participation in the AAG by people from economically disadvantaged regions, largely in the global south. Not only does this help deserving individual geographers, but it grows both the international engagement and diversity of the AAG. It is a triple bottom line. I know though there is more we must and can do — both domestically and internationally. Please give us your ideas and help here.

I also must state that the diversity challenge is one that, in the end, cannot be won solely at the level of the AAG. Substantially increasing the diversity of geography must be recognized as the personal responsibility of every member. The AAG does not create new geographers. They are created by our universities, our departments and by us as individual faculty and students interacting with students. It is through the creation of new geographers who represent the diversity of the U.S. and the world that the AAG will grow to reflect the diversity of the nation and the planet. So, this challenge extends to our members also. What are you personally doing in your university, in your department and in your day-to-day interactions with students and the public to build a more diverse discipline? Increasing the diversity within geography is a challenge that must be taken on by all, working through personal engagement and not just via theory and polemics.

Importance of Geography and the AAG Going Forward

I would not be honest if I did not admit to concern about the state of world affairs as I look forward to the next year and decade. This is a world in which I am sure geography is of vital importance and in which the AAG has a role to play. In practical and applied terms the world is becoming both smaller and seemingly more fragmented. Through electronic communication, trade and transportation, and social networks of a mobile world population, events that are distant from our homes can have immediate and significant impacts. At the same time the grand ideas of a global society and continental to global partnerships and governance for the greater good of all appear to be losing favor. Whether we talk about Brexit and fragmentation of the European Union, the Make America Great Again agenda and regional political divisions in the U.S., or the vicious regional and civil conflicts in Ukraine, Africa and the Middle East, geographical differences have not been erased, but are arguably ascendant. The withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord is one more sign that the fragmenting power of short-term self-interest at the sacrifice of longer-term common-good seems to be gaining traction. The discipline of geography provides geospatial, environmental and socioeconomic perspectives and tools relevant to all of these issues.

But beyond academic and policy-relevant perspectives and tools, I believe geography and geographers have something even more to offer. Geography is about understanding and appreciating the general truths, linkages and differences that play out across the surface of the earth. Any solutions we might hope to find for hunger, poverty, terrorism, war, denial of civil rights or environmental degradation must come from deeper understanding of the world. The understanding I am speaking of is not just something expressed in the academic sense of facts, figures and scholarly discourses, but something that includes a deeper respect, empathy and sense of shared destiny. I believe that of all the disciplines, because of our broad roots in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, geographers have the potential to develop, communicate and implement such holistic understanding. A heavy charge to our discipline? Perhaps. But if not us as geographers, then who?

A Final Act as President in Support of the AAG Developing Regions Program

As should be clear, I believe in a diverse and international AAG acting for the good of individual geographers and for the aggregate good of the planet and its people. I was very impressed to see that a number of AAG members who could not attend the Boston AAG, out of immigration concerns or in solidarity with those who could not attend, contributed their refundable registrations fees to the AAG Developing Regions Program. The program fosters the scholarly and personal exchanges that directly contribute to the type of understanding I describe above. For those members who contributed their registration refunds to the Developing Regions Program, I want to thank and honor you for your generosity and tangible commitment to your values. Therefore my last act as President will be to join you and write a check in the amount of $500 as contribution to the AAG Developing Regions Program on behalf of my wife Joanne (a University of Toronto, Geography alumna) and myself.

I close my final presidential column by inviting you to join me in providing Derek Alderman our best wishes and support as he takes up the presidency of the AAG.

Join the conversation on Twitter #PresidentAAG

—Glen M. MacDonald

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0007

Post

Administration Releases FY 2018 Budget

May 24, 2017

The Trump Administration’s budget proposal, which was released on May 23, includes sharp cuts for Federal science agencies. The document is the first step in the Fiscal Year 2018 appropriations process, and many bipartisan Senators and Representatives have taken issue with multiple aspects of the proposal.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) would receive $6.7 billion – a cut of approximately $800 million (11 percent) from the FY 2017 enacted level of $7.5 billion. The NSF indicated that it would be able to fund 19 percent of grant proposals (as compared to the current 21 percent) under the proposed funding level. The Foundation’s Geography and Spatial Science Program is housed in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences Directorate, which was cut by 10 percent, and the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, which was cut by 7.5 percent. The reduction for the SBE Directorate is not as steep as some social and behavioral science advocates had feared.

For other agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was budgeted at $26.9 billion, a $7.2 billion cut (21 percent) from the current-year funding level. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was cut by $163 million (15 percent) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is proposed for a $902 million reduction (16 percent). The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science and Technology program was cut by approximately 40 percent in the budget. The U.S. Census Bureau received a 3.7 percent increase, but there are concerns that this modest amount will not enable the Bureau to fully ramp up its 2020 Census preparations.

The budget also proposes the elimination of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), a long-expected move that prompted the resignation of NEH Chairman William D. Adams on the day of the budget’s release. Adams was an Obama Administration appointee whose term was slated to run until next year. Other programs eliminated in the proposal include the National Endowment for the Arts; the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; the Corporation for National and Community Service; the U.S. Institute of Peace; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. It is unclear whether Congress will support these moves.

In a significant policy initiative, the Administration’s budget proposes to reduce reimbursement of indirect costs in research grants. Indirect costs, which support salaries, facilities, and other expenses tied into carrying out funded projects, are a crucial component of Federal research grants. Most institutions would face significant difficultly in adapting to such a policy change and it would likely cause many universities and others to rethink their approach to seeking grant funding from Federal agencies.

The final FY 2018 appropriations will not be settled for months. House and Senate leaders are focused on tackling healthcare reform and tax-law changes and will only turn to a full debate on appropriations once those issues have been dealt with. While some science agencies will probably face cuts from current funding levels, it is unlikely that Congress will support reductions on the magnitude of those included in this budget proposal.

As always, we encourage AAG members to reach out to their elected officials about issues that are of importance to them. Stay tuned for updates on these and other important policies by visiting the AAG Policy Action page.

Post

Meredith Stone Joins AAG Staff as Public Policy and Outreach Specialist

May 23, 2017

Meredith Stone has joined the AAG staff as Public Policy and Outreach Specialist at the Washington, D.C. headquarters. She recently completed her Master of Arts in Geography at Ohio University. There, she served as a teaching assistant for Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and Mapping Sciences and also as a research assistant for the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, a National Science Foundation granted project investigating urban green space in the city. Her master’s thesis focuses on street art and murals and their relationships with racial justice in Baltimore neighborhoods.

She holds Bachelor of Arts in Geography from the University of Mary Washington where she also completed a minor in Environmental Sustainability and a certificate in Geographic Information Science.

In her spare time she enjoys cooking, watching movies, and exploring the outdoors with friends and family.

Meredith Stone, Public Policy and Outreach Specialist

New Books for Geographers

New Books: May 2017

May 15, 2017

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.

May 2017

After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality by Heather Bushy, J. Bradford DeLong and Marshall Steinbaum (eds.) (Harvard University Press 2017)

Beyond Control: The Mississippi River’s New Channel to the Gulf of Mexico by James F. Barnett Jr. (University Press of Mississippi 2017)

Critical Norths: Space, Nature, Theory by Sarah J. Ray and Kevin Maier (eds.) (University of Alaska Press 2017)

Documents That Changed the Way We Live by Joseph Janes (Rowman and Littlefield 2017)

From California’s Gold Fields to the Mendocino Coast: A Settlement History Across Time and Place by Samuel M. Otterstrom (University of Nevada Press 2017)

Geographical Models with Mathematica by Andre Dauphine (ISTE Press 2017)

Icefall: Adventures at the Wild Edges of Our Dangerous, Changing Planet by John All and John Balzar (Public Affairs 2017)

Newspaper City: Toronto’s Street Surfaces and the Liberal Press, 1860-1935 by Phillip Gordon Mackintosh (University of Toronto Press 2017)

Science and Sensibility: Negotiating an Ecology of Place by Michael Vincent McGinnis (University of California Press 2016)

Understanding Spatial Media by Rob Kitchin, Tracey P. Lauriault and Matthew W. Wilson (SAGE Publishing 2017)

Weathering Katrina: Culture and Recovery among Vietnamese Americans by Mark J. VanLandingham (Russell Sage Foundation 2017)

President's Column

The Creation of Transformative Geographies

May 5, 2017

We all like to think of ourselves as being transformative in one way or the other. Indeed, we all are. In our personal interactions and the examples we set, we can transform the lives of those around us. Gifted teachers and graduate advisors play a critical role in transforming the lives of their students, and it is from such teachers that our discipline attracts new adherents and grows. The importance and power of the transformative process of education, student by student, classroom by classroom, department by department, cannot be overvalued. Because of its innately transformative role, teaching should always be highly regarded by our Association and by each and every one of us.

Those of us who are researchers would like to also think that our particular areas of investigation and our own scholarship are transformative. I was once told of a geographical journal editor who remarked that everything published in the journal was transformative. Sadly, publishing a peer-reviewed article provides no guarantee of transforming the scholarship of others. A few years back The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that 55 to 60 percent of all articles published in natural sciences and social sciences journals were not cited by other researchers. I suppose though, that even if a piece of published research is never read or cited, the conducting of the research and its distillation into an article is at least transformative for the authors.

Now, I would expect that most geographers do indeed see much of their published work cited by others. Interestingly, a study published online by the London School of Economics and Public Policy showed that geographers had higher citation h-Index values than economists, political scientists, sociologists and law faculty. Perhaps we may take some comfort that our publications are cited and judge our work to be transformational. I suppose in a way it is, in so far as our techniques, results and interpretation will help guide the work of other scholars. However, how often do we pause to consider what is meant by the term transformative research at the broadest and most influential scale? Are we endeavoring to educate our students as to the meaning and formulation of truly transformational research? How can we, our Association and the discipline in general work to create truly transformational geographers and geographies?

What is Transformative Research?

Several years ago, Mike Goodchild, Amy Glasmeier and I were asked by the National Research Council to convene a workshop of eminent geographers to examine the history of recent transformative research events in geography and see what lessons might be drawn to promote future transformative research. A prepublication copy of the report Fostering Transformative Research in the Geographical Sciences is available online from the National Academies Press. The first thing we had to grapple with is the definition of what is truly transformative research. There are a number of such definitions out there – often provided by national research councils and funding agencies. The National Science Foundation provides a succinct definition “Transformative research involves ideas, discoveries, or tools that radically change our understanding of an important existing scientific or engineering concept or educational practice or leads to the creation of a new paradigm or field of science, engineering, or education.” So, truly transformative research does not simply add new methods, results, and interpretations, but radically changes or creates the paradigms by which disciplines operate.

In considering transformative research in the context of the recent history of geography I sometimes think about it this way. What are some of the important and pervasive areas of geographical research today that did not exist or were of incipient and minor importance a generation of two ago? During our workshop several of these areas bubbled up. These included Political Ecology, Spatial Social Theory, Remote Sensing of the Environment, Geographic Information Sciences (GIS), and Global Climate Change. The list above is clearly not exhaustive, but you get the idea. Although the antecedents and underpinnings of these research areas would have been detectable in the geography of the 1940s, no prewar geographer was likely to identify herself as a being a political ecologist or GIS specialist.

Another hallmark of transformational research in the context of geography is that there is a great fluidity of ideas between our discipline and other disciplines. What has been transformative within geography has not necessarily been conceived and developed strictly within our discipline. Geographers have made important contributions to the development of political ecology and spatial social theory, but geographers have also been influenced by the work of others such as anthropologists and sociologists. We may wish to claim GIS as our own, and indeed the Anglo-Canadian geographer Roger Tomlinson played a seminal role, but it should be remembered that Howard Fisher, an architect and founder of the Laboratory for Computer at Harvard and landscape architect, Jack Dangermond, also played critical roles in the inception of GIS. However, it is also clear that the work of geographers in transformational research areas often informs and transforms other disciplines. Consider the impact that the work on spatial social theory by David Harvey has had across a range of social sciences. I believe that the rise of Geo Humanities represents a wave of transformational research that is developing and influencing scholarship within geography and beyond.

Students listen to a career mentor during a session at the 2017 AAG Annual Meeting in Boston.

How Can Transformational Geographers Be Created?

How, at an early stage, might we identify those scholars who will be truly transformational? In our analysis of the workshop and examples we gleaned we were not able to able to delineate any predictive individual profile or unique hallmarks of the truly transformational scholars. Who they were, where they worked and how they worked ran a gamut. In reflecting on this it seems to me that there were two variables we might influence to help create transformational geographers and geographers. The first is imparting to our students a sense of what truly transformational scholarship is and instilling the vision that one can set a goal of being transformational. The second is providing the matrix of opportunities and mechanisms that allow transformational research to develop and flourish.

I had a wonderful undergraduate and graduate educational experience. My teachers and advisors imparted many valuable lessons on how to conduct research and perform as a scholar. However, never once was I exposed to the idea of striving to truly transform my own discipline. I was exposed to Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and the idea of paradigm shifts in science. However, this seemed highly philosophical and remote – not something that I or any other graduate student might strive for. Perhaps I, as many others, was more comfortable in the confines of Karl Popper’s idealized narrower approach of hypothesis generation and refutation.

I suggest that in training graduate students we consider how we can inspire students to at least consider the goal of being paradigm creators and true transformers of the discipline of geography. Narratives have great power to teach and inspire. Let’s tell aspiring scholars the stories of transformation and the stories of those who have affected it. Analyze in class the recent history of the discipline and current directions with a focus firmly on the questions of the transformative paradigms and personages, and how they were able to shape the discipline. Let’s set a goal of training students not just to be stellar scholars, but transformative ones. Certainly not everyone will join the pantheon of those who have truly transformed geography, but at least students will have such goals on their radar. In addition, as I will argue below, the creation of true transformative research is a team effort and the more scholars who are knowingly engaged the more likely we are to create transformational geographies.

How Can We Foster Transformational Geographies?

If we cannot at an early stage identify transformative geographers, perhaps we can provide for them the matrix of opportunities and mechanisms that allow transformational research to develop and flourish. One way to look at the development and spread of transformational research innovations and associated new paradigms is through the lens of diffusion of innovation models. The classic model was developed by Everett Rogers in the 1960s. He posited that the spread of innovation took the form of a logistic curve. A very small number of innovators create an initial idea, it this then taken up by a small, but growing group of early adopters and then rapidly adopted by the majority of users. Eventually the market for the innovation is saturated and the rate of adoption stabilizes. If we look at the use of terms such as Political Ecology, Social Theory, Remote Sensing of the Environment, Geographic Information Sciences (GIS), and Global Climate Change in books one can see a similar logistic pattern of the growth in use over time.

Figure 2.1 The growth of the terms Political Ecology, Social Theory, Remote Sensing, GIS, and Climate Change in published books held in the Google database, normalized by the total output of books. Data from Google Books n-gram Viewer (Lin et al., 2012; http://books.google.com/ngrams). The terms relate to broad research areas that while transformative within the geographical sciences, extend into many other fields and include research beyond the geographical sciences. (Reproduced from – National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Fostering Transformative Research in the Geographical Sciences. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press)

Now, although our study of past transformative research in the geographical sciences did not provide any magic metrics to identify who individual transformative scholars might be, we did identify important aspects of the environments and processes by which their innovative ideas were developed, communicated and eventually transformed disciplines. Here are some. First of all, there is typically much two-way exchange of information between initial innovators and early adopters. A brilliant individual may have an idea, but it takes a team to really develop and diffuse it fully. This team approach of two-way communication allows for more effective refinements and expansions of initial ideas. This not only improves innovations, but increased rates of further adoption. Second, mechanisms for rapid communication and networking between innovators, early adopters and later adopters are important for allowing innovations to develop and spread rapidly. Third, diversity of perspectives by innovators and adopters is important for both innovation refinement and expanding applications. Fourth, a process of “open source” information exchange between innovators and adopters is more efficient than small and secretive groups keeping closely held information in the pursuit of competitive advantage. Finally, based upon the importance of the early interface stage where innovators and early adopters are working to refine and spread new innovations, we felt that this was a critical time for the allocation of support such as targeted research funding for transformative research.

As individuals and an association there are, I believe, some important lessons we might take from this all as we strive to develop the transformative geographies of the future. We should be supportive of new methods, ideas and paradigms. We should encourage diversity of participants and perspectives in research. We should embrace an open-source model of scholarship which values free exchange of ideas within geography and between geographers and other disciplines. The AAG must strive to be a nexus in that open-source endeavor. Through provision of networking opportunities such as the annual meeting and the communication mechanisms provided by our meetings and journals the Association has a critical role to play here. Most importantly though, we as individual educators and as an association must teach our students not just to be competent scholars, but explicitly inspire them with examples of transformative research and transformative researchers to reach for such heights themselves. The creators of the transformative geographies of the future are in our classrooms and meeting sessions right now. Let’s do our best to help them recognize their own transformative potential.

Join the conversation on Twitter #PresidentAAG

—Glen M. MacDonald

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0006

News

AAG Kicks Off Earth Day with the March for Science

April 27, 2017

Geographers from around the globe participate in the March for Science in Washington, DC

Geographers from around the country traveled to Washington, D.C. on Saturday, April 22, 2017, to demonstrate and show their support for the March for Science. Despite the rain, Geographers and scientists from many other disciplines and their supporters rallied to march for science!

As a formal partner of the march, AAG was proud to stand with many other organizations that shared a belief that science should be well funded and that political leaders should enact evidence-based policies for the common good.

To kick off the day, the AAG Meridian Place office served as a gathering place and information center for geographers participating in the March. Coffee and refreshments were available for marchers throughout the day. Guests included families like the Brownell family who traveled all the way from Columbus, Ohio, to take part in the march!

Lisa, Ellie, Adam and Jonas Brownell from Columbus, Ohio.

Accuweather reporting team interviews AAG President Glen MacDonald

Mid-day, you could see marchers holding banners and signs that read, “March for Science Including Geography – The Glue that Holds the Rest Together,” “In Science We Trust,” “Policy After Peer Review,” “The Climate is Changing, Why Can’t We,” “Science Not Silence,” and many more. AAG members and staff carried three signed Geographers March for Science banners during the march. The three banners had been on display during our Annual Meeting in Boston, April 5-9, and AAG attendees had a chance to sign the banners. Kudos to our AAG President Glen MacDonald who somehow managed to slip past the crowd and get in front of the march with our signed Geography March for Science banner!

AAG President Glen MacDonald carries the Geographers March for Science banner.

In addition to the March for Science in Washington, D.C., satellite marches were happening around the country and throughout the world. Many AAG member geographers participated in marches including AAG Past President Sarah Bednarz, in Albuquerque, NM; Eric Huntley, Lexington, KY; Paul McDaniel in Atlanta, GA; faculty and students from Salem State Geography, Salem, MA; Dawn Wright, in Vienna, Austria; and many more.

At the conclusion of the march, AAG invited members, partners and supporters to a happy hour reception at the AAG Meridian Place office to rest, catch up and to celebrate the march.

Marchers enjoy a happy hour reception at the AAG Meridian Place in Washington, DC.

AAG would like to thank all the members, partners and supporters who participated in the March for Science. The day was a great success and we look forward to collaborating and partnering in future events that will have an important impact to the discipline of geography and the overall future of science.

For a visual recap of the day’s event, check out our Twitter Moment here. In addition, we’ve captured the highlights of the day on Facebook as well, and you can watch it here.

Visit the AAG Policy Action page to learn more about our work on the March for Science and to see the ost recent policy actions taken by the AAG.

Marvin W. Mikesell

Marvin W. Mikesell, Professor of Geography in the Committee on Geographical Studies, died unexpectedly Wednesday morning, April 26, 2017, at the University of Chicago Hospital in Hyde Park, aged 88, in the midst of teaching his seminar on problems in the human geography of the Middle East this Spring Quarter.

Marvin Wray Mikesell was born on June 16, 1929, in Kansas City, Missouri, attended high school in Los Angeles and received his B.A. (1952) and M.A. (1953) from UCLA. He earned his doctorate at the University of California–Berkeley in 1959 under the tutelage of the celebrated cultural geographer Carl Sauer. He joined the Department of Geography at the University of Chicago in 1958 and spent his entire 59-year teaching career, from instructor to professor, at the University.

Mikesell’s interests in research and teaching ranged over the whole orbit of global cultural geography, while his special concerns included the ethnic and environmental diversity of North Africa and the Middle East, the bases of ethnic conflict and self-determination worldwide, and the ominous trends in regional environmental degradation. He placed great emphasis on fieldwork in research. His books include Northern Morocco: A Cultural Geography (1961); Geographers Abroad: Essays on the Problems and Prospects of Research in Foreign Areas (1973); Perspectives on Environment (1974), and, most notably, Readings in Cultural Geography (published by the University of Chicago Press, 1962). This last volume brought together classic articles written by authorities around the world, many translated from their original language; the book quickly became a standard work that shaped the international field of cultural geography for more than a generation.

At the University, Mikesell was chairman of the Department of Geography (1969–74, 1984–86), and Master of the Social Sciences Collegiate Division (1981–84), among many administrative responsibilities. Nationally he was a member of the U.S. National Commission for Unesco (1973–78), and an advisor to the National Science Foundation (1977–79). Marvin was a long-time AAG member, and served the Association in many capacities over the years, particularly as Assistant Editor of the Annals (1962), Editor of the AAG Monograph Series (1966–72), the Commission on College Geography (1970–73), National Councilor (1972–74, Vice President (1974–75) and President (1975–76).

Marvin is survived by his wife Reine M. Mikesell. A memorial service for Marvin Mikesell will be arranged for early this coming fall.

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John Davey

John Davey, a prodigious figure in academic, trade and reference publishing for almost 50 years, died at home with family at his side on April 21, 2017. He had just celebrated his 72 birthday days earlier.

After making his mark in publishing in the 1970s, John joined Blackwell as their first full-time academic editor. During the 1980s he took the company from obscurity to being a major force in the industry. He rapidly became an editorial director, appointed several specialist editors, initiated Blackwell’s reference publishing, acquired and started several new journals, and had responsibility for rights and contracts.

In 1989, John went to Blackwell in the USA where he ran the business for three years, expanded the editorial and production staff, and transformed several years of losses into a profit. His personal contribution to geography publishing was so distinguished that in 1992 he was awarded a certificate of special recognition by the Association of American Geographers and in 1997 the Gill Memorial from the Royal Geographical Society. The field of geography was being radically reconstructed during this time and John was the go-to publisher for a younger generation of scholars. He had a similar impact on urban studies, publishing key works such as David Harvey’s Social Justice and the City and Manuel Castells on The Urban Question. His endeavors in these fields were transformative and remain legendary to this day.

Derek Gregory wrote in his touching tribute to Davey, “[He] was one of those rare publishers who believed passionately that books created their audiences and that geography was so much more than a textbook machine. He didn’t spurn textbooks, but he had a non-mercenary and thoroughly ambitious sense of what they ought to strive for.”

A man of many talents, John was a keen fly-fisherman, gardener, cook and poker player. He is survived by his wife, four children from two marriages, and five grandchildren.

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Post

Library of Congress Publishes New Book, “Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps”

April 20, 2017

Designed to educate, amuse, or advertise, pictorial maps were a clever and colorful component of print culture in the mid-20th century, often overlooked in studies of cartography. A new book published by the Library of Congress in association with the University of Chicago Press, “Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps,” by Stephen J. Hornsby, celebrates these vibrant maps, tracing their development and proliferation from the 1920s to the 1970s. Learn more.

Library of Congress