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"Decolonizing Geography: An Introduction" by Sarah A. Radcliffe explores the decolonization of Anglophone geographical curricula. The book emphasizes the importance of approaching fieldwork with humility, respecting local knowledge, and avoiding the imposition of Western paradigms. It calls for action to avoid blinders, respect counternarratives, question official histories, acknowledge privilege, employ collaborative research, and entertain alternative epistemologies. The book also highlights the significance of indigenous environmental knowledge in physical geography and addresses the lack of diversity in the discipline. Overall, "Decolonizing Geography" offers a comprehensive exploration of decolonial approaches in geography and provides practical examples and suggestions for further research. [Extracted from the article]

"Settler Colonial City: Racism and Inequity in Postwar Minneapolis" by David Hugill examines the history of racism, inequity, and settler-colonial structures in Minneapolis, particularly focusing on the post-World War II era. The book explores the impact of urban change, racialized policing, and American imperialism on marginalized communities, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous peoples. Hugill highlights the structural barriers faced by marginalized groups and the need to dismantle white supremacist and settler-colonial structures. While the book primarily focuses on the violent aspects of settler-colonial urban policy, it also touches on the need to examine more subtle elements such as access to education, healthcare, and legal services. Overall, the book provides a critical perspective on the history of Minneapolis and challenges the perception of the city as progressive and inclusive. [Extracted from the article]

"Big Bend National Park: Mexico, the United States, and a Borderland Ecosystem" by Michael Welsh is a historical exploration of Big Bend National Park, situated on the border between Mexico and the United States. The book examines the unique landscape of the park, shaped by the Rio Grande river, and the challenges posed by its borderland ecosystem. Welsh discusses the efforts of conservationists, politicians, and scientists in establishing the park and highlights the potential for binational cooperation and collaboration. The book also addresses the tensions between preservation and development in national parks and the need to navigate the changing cultural and political landscape. While the book lacks an examination of the park's future in the face of climate change and public policy, it offers valuable insights for students and scholars interested in national identity, border relations, and environmental protectionism. [Extracted from the article]

Since its launch, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the China-led economic and cultural development strategy, captured impressive media and scholarly attention and critiques. CHINA'S ASIAN DREAM: Empire Building along the New Silk RoadGEOCULTURAL POWER: China's Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty-First Century: By Tom Miller. Miller connects the China's "Go-West" policy with the rise of infrastructure financing as a key component of the international donor community where China is taking the lead. [Extracted from the article]

At a time when the world is critical of the Brazilian government and the loss of Amazonian rainforest, Brian J. Godfrey casts his 40-year gaze on Rio de Janeiro. Geographer Godfrey deftly uses various scales of analysis - global, hemispheric, national, regional, metropolitan, and neighborhood - to point out how memory can be used to reinvent places both in Rio and elsewhere. Godfrey's real nugget is chapter 3's examination of Little Africa in Rio. [Extracted from the article]

"Near Woods: A Year in an Allegheny Forest" by Kevin Patrick is a book that explores the natural and cultural phenomena of White's Woods, a 500-acre stand of mixed hardwood forest near Indiana, Pennsylvania. The author, who has lived in the area for three decades, highlights the beauty and richness of this local sylvan gem, emphasizing the importance of appreciating and exploring the forests in our own backyards. The book combines geomorphological, natural historical, and physical and cultural geographic background to provide a comprehensive understanding of the area. Through vivid prose and stunning photography, Patrick invites readers to stop, listen, and interpret the wonders of nature. [Extracted from the article]

"Wayfaring Strangers: The Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia" is a book by Fiona Ritchie and Doug Orr that explores the cultural pathways of traditional Scottish and Irish folk music as it traveled to Appalachia. The book examines the influences of Welsh, English, German, Dutch, French, African American, and Cherokee cultures on these songs. It is structured into three main sections and includes photographs, maps, and sidebars covering various topics related to folk music. The authors also exchange letters discussing their perspectives on Old and New World music. The book sheds light on the history of American folk music and its connection to immigrant experiences. It includes a contextual timeline, resource centers, a discography, and a bibliography for further exploration. Scholars and music enthusiasts will find this book to be a valuable resource. [Extracted from the article]

I The Digital City i is not about the separation of digital and physical environments, nor is it about the digital permeation of physical environments, but rather about how digital media can be used to build and reinforce a physical sense of place. Halegoua puts digital media front and center as the latest communications technology to shape the urban landscape. I The Digital City i finds a home within research questions regarding smart city development, media and communications technology, and cultural geographies. [Extracted from the article]

DEEP TIME RECKONING: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now: By VINCENT Ialenti. The overall goal of Ialenti, however, was to use the example of Onkalo to prompt us to modify our behavior so that we have a better understanding of how to survive into a future that makes getting there possible. We, too, were concerned about future generations, but the Onkalo Safety Case workers have been considering all possible circumstances that could endanger future inhabitants up to 1200 centuries from now. [Extracted from the article]

INTIMATE GEOPOLITICS: Love, Territory, and the Future on India's Northern Threshold: By SARA SMITH. In a vivid ethnographic study of the Ladakh region in northern India, Smith provides an intricate examination of how community tensions are shaped by ethnic identities, family planning, and majoritarian politics - and one incendiary moment on a public street. Though I Intimate Geopolitics i is overtly a study of Ladakhi territorial politics as related to family dynamics, the commentary on sectarianism is relevant beyond the confines of the distant province. [Extracted from the article]

ANIMAL TRAFFIC: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade: By Rosemary-Claire Collard. First is the erasure of social relations that occurs in the commodity fetishism explained by traditional Marxian analyses, and second is Collard's assertion of the erasure of the animals' socio-ecological relations in their (former) biotic communities. These traits are what provide "use value" for humans, and Collard explains that for the commodity transformation to happen, exotic animals "are subject to a double fetishism" (p. 18). [Extracted from the article]

One of the joys of I The Radical Bookstore i is the series of fascinating, unusual venues Kinder includes, and anyone interested in book culture will no doubt keep a running list of these radical book-based places to patronize next time they travel. As Kinder methodically defines how she is using core concepts of counterplacemaking, constructive activism, and activist entrepreneurship, it quickly becomes clear that the category of "radical bookstore" encompasses myriad variations. THE RADICAL BOOKSTORE: Counter-space for Social Movements: By KIMBERLY KINDER. photos, bibliog., index. [Extracted from the article]

Using digital data collection devices in the field is now commonplace among many faculty and students. However, there is less attention to how the use of GPS units, tablets and devices transforms or alters our understanding of the field itself. Does the embrace of the digital simply replace paper, or does it fundamentally transform our ways of knowing? What do we gain and what do we lose as we move from paper to digital in the acts of doing fieldwork? What are the limits of technology in the field and after the field? In this paper, I wrestle with these questions through my own fieldwork experiences through two story-telling narratives. In the first, I discuss the process of documenting pastoralists' cattle movement through GPS units, while in the second I relay the process of using tourists as volunteer citizen scientists for wildlife monitoring efforts. Through these examples, I demonstrate a number of key lessons for fieldwork with digital devices and call for a more thorough understanding of the dialectics between devices and users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some nomads have their own websites and are on Facebook, which might be worth exploring. There is no typology of these nomads; some have regularity, some on highly ad hoc (just hitting the road) ventures, and some using websites, Facebook, and Internet gatherings to construct a community. Bruder mentions the I RV Daily Report i , the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, roving GTG (get togethers), FreeCampsites.net, Kampgrounds of America, Amazon's CamperForce, and Craigslist (for job opportunities). [Extracted from the article]

The suffix "washing" refers to the practice of portraying controversial actions in a positive light by leveraging progressive principles, often used by economic corporations, organizations, political parties, or governments. This paper introduces and develops the term "studentwashing" to define the deliberate effort to present Israeli territorial development as an attractive, youthful, and unique experience. This portrayal aims to engage larger segments of society in the national geopolitical project while normalizing its settler-colonial aspects as a means to ensure its continuation. While the constant development of new territorial settlements is dependent either on the right-wing religious sector or on the "quality-of-life" settlers, studentwashing is reserved for areas that are not ideological enough for the first nor sufficiently attractive to the latter. Analyzing "student villages" in the Negev, this paper depicts a new territorial strategy meant to enhance the state's spatial control over the predominantly Arab periphery inside official Israeli borders. Accordingly, this paper offers a new perspective on Israel's territorial strategies and enhances the general study of geopolitical and geo-economic spatial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an analysis of the historical trajectory of Turkish geographical practice over the past four decades, situated within the broader socio-political landscape of the country. The transmission of the modern geographical tradition from continental Europe to Turkey during the interwar period established the discipline as a holistic science of the human-environment relationship. Although this understanding started to change after the 1968 events, the 1980 Turkish military coup abruptly disrupted innovative endeavors in the discipline, prompting a resurgence of regionally focused synthesis within geography. This insular approach prevailed for several decades but began to evolve in response to the internationalization trends that emerged in the 2000s, with deliberate steps taken toward fostering innovation. Despite institutional damage resulting from the political developments following the 2016 military coup attempt, the discipline maintained its commitment to innovation. This paper critically examines the divergent responses of Turkish geography and its practitioners to the 1980 military coup and the 2016 coup attempt, highlighting the significant influence of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural tourism is one of the most sustainable and fastest-growing types of tourism, and so has been widely studied. Despite countless works analyzing the possible factors that can condition the choice of the tourist destination, few have addressed how they may differ by sex and within cultural tourism, and they contradict. This paper analyzes this phenomenon through the dimensions of cultural offerings, services and motivations in the city of Málaga, a very tourist city in Spain, which is the fourth country out of 167 with the most world heritage sites—UNESCO. Partial least squares—structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) were performed for a database of 415 cultural tourists survey responses. The results showed differences between constructs depending on the sex of the tourists. For men, the factor that most affects the choice of destination is tourist motivation—namely, the reason for their visit—followed by services. Conversely, services are first for women, followed by cultural offerings and motivations. The results of this study can be valuable when designing more specific tourism strategies adapted to the profile of tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local development, especially in outlying or declining regions, is a perennial issue. "Neolocalism," a combined marketing and community-building approach, draws upon and strengthens local identity and culture to create unique products, to bolster tourism and place branding, but also as ends in themselves. Craft breweries are often associated with neolocalism. In this paper, which focuses on peripheral regions of Québec, we first explore how brewers perceive their connection with local areas: whilst marketing is part of the story, local development and community revitalization are also important to them. We then assess the degree to which local development aspirations are reflected at a wide scale, using a quantitative approach. Whilst there is evidence that local breweries in peripheral areas are associated with a wider tourist economy—comprising hospitality and cultural sectors—there is no evidence that breweries are associated with higher incomes or economic vitality. This contrasts with regions closer to metropolitan areas, where there is less evidence of local tourist economies in the vicinity of craft breweries, but where breweries tend to locate in more prosperous and economically dynamic areas, likely for reasons of market access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the problem of Delhi's air pollution is well recognized, as is the class bias of the judiciary in targeting certain sources of air pollution over others, what is less will understood are the unintended consequences of air pollution interventions on indoor and outdoor air quality. This paper shows how the National Green Tribunal has targeted one source of air pollution in recommending waste-to-energy technologies that deprive waste pickers of their livelihoods. The pandemic-related lockdown provides an opportunity to assess the impacts of livelihood deprivation on fuel use. Using data collected from surveys of waste pickers, this paper shows that decreases in income are related to an increase in reliance on solid fuels. Therefore, we argue that air pollution interventions designed to control air pollution from poor waste management have the unintended consequence of increasing air pollution from a different source (biomass burning for cooking) that specifically impacts waste pickers by increasing their exposure to indoor air pollution, while also undermining the government's urban air pollution mitigation efforts overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that in Patagonia-Aysén (southern Chile) nature discourses and neoliberalism have a close association. The current discourse of "green" development is presented as a capitalist practice, a renewed form of colonization that creates a narrative around the need to protect this pristine environment because it is a "Reserve of Life." To explore these complex processes further, the paper presents fieldwork undertaken from 2017 to 2019 in the municipalities of Tortel and O'Higgins. Through extensive fieldwork that encompassed interviews and analysis of the Land Registry (Conservadores de Bienes Raíces, or CBR) of the region, we investigated the evolution of private property rights in both municipalities over a period of 29 years (1989–2017) in order to illustrate the changes in land ownership that had occurred. The paper puts forward the concept of eco-extractivism, in order to identify green-grabbing processes undertaken by extractivist investors in Patagonia-Aysén. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates spatiotemporal dynamics of the effects of urban form on the Covid-19 spread within local communities in Salt Lake County, Utah, in the United States. We identify three types of communities—minority, traditional urban and suburban, and new suburban—and three stages throughout March 2020—September 2021, reflecting the initial, outbreak, and recovery stages. While the traditional urban and suburban communities experience the least risk of Covid-19, minority communities are severely impacted in the initial and outbreak stages, and remote suburban communities are primarily affected in the outbreak and recovery stages. The regression further reveals the role of urban form in the pandemic. High-density urban land use is the main density factor contributing to the disease's spread. In the initial stage, mobility factors such as street connectivity and walkability contribute to the local spread, while land use mixture is the catalyst in the outbreak stage. A comprehensive compact development might offset these negative effects on local public health, and its contribution to local resilience in the recovery stage is also confirmed. Thus, compact development is still valuable for building urban resilience, and proper planning and policies can offset the potential adverse effects of pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience thinking is a common component in the planning and implementation of interventions in humanitarian activities, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, and food security. Attention to the concept of livelihood resilience specifically has grown in these sectors in order to improve households' resilience to the impacts of climate change and other shocks. However, resilience is difficult to empirically measure and commonly-used approaches are top-down, expert-driven, and suffer from measurement-bias. To address these issues, in this paper we explore the contributions of geographers to this research, critique top-down objective measurements of resilience, highlight the benefits of employing subjective conceptualizations of resilience, and outline methods for measuring subjective resilience with participatory methods. By drawing from both objective and subjective methods of analysis we can expand upon the normative questions of "resilience of what, to what, and for whom" to include "resilience as defined and measured by whom" in future research and policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to the workplace is one of the most important rights of citizenship. In some areas, the unavailability of job opportunities pushes people to commute. Nevertheless, there are areas where even commuting does not allow the improvement of individuals' economic and social conditions. This locks residents into a local job market that can be, in many cases, limited, low-income, or just unsatisfying. In this paper, we focus on the latest conditions in the Lombardia region (Italy). In order to identify marginal areas where low transport accessibility and high commuting cost may represent a barrier to territorial disparities in job access, we compare different classifications of marginality: socioeconomic indicators, an institutional one (SNAI), and, finally, one based on an indicator of marginal commuting gain (MCG). Evidence from this work will show an almost perfect match between very-fragile territories in socioeconomic terms and areas characterized by a low MCG indicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades, North America as well as Europe have experienced a significant boom of craft breweries. While it has been understood mainly as a result of neolocalism, we argue that this view is overly unilateral and depending on spatial context. Other factors like glocalization may potentially also affect the emergence of craft breweries. This paper examined the factors influencing the expansion of craft breweries in seven regions of Czechia and Poland, two Central European countries that share similar history but differ in their brewing traditions. Based on semi-structured interviews with representatives of 59 breweries, we identified important similarities but also fundamental differences. Many breweries have indeed been significantly influenced by neolocalism, while some did not capitalize on it, and others even directly rejected it. The role of spatial context has also manifested, particularly through the increased importance of glocalization in several regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical geopolitics conceives of the internal organization of the state as a relevant geopolitical subfield. In this context, this paper aims to develop a geopolitical interpretation of the covid-19 crisis management in Catalonia and Spain from March 2020 to mid-April 2020. The paper begins by providing an overview of internal geopolitics literature by Spanish geographers, focusing on the Catalonia/Spain conflict, followed by a thorough analysis of written and oral materials compiled for that purpose. Three discursive periods are identified: up until the declaration of the State of Alarm in mid-March 2020, the first two weeks with this in force, and the first half of April 2020. The paper evinces that the examined materials support contested visions about the distribution of territorial powers within Spain, while also unearthing some specificities that ultimately relate to the Catalan national question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies David Lowenthal's 1968 Geographical Review article "The American Scene" and John Dos Passos' 1963 travelogue Brazil on the Move to develop a notion of the Brazilian scene. It argues for the importance of "scene" as a concept in geographic inquiry and the relevance of Brazil to concerns across the discipline. Scene matters to geographers because it provides immense pedagogical value in explaining the character and most important features of a place. As a demographic and socioeconomic "microcosm of the world," Brazil is fertile ground for constructing a theory of scene. Three interrelated concepts are integral to the Brazilian scene: ufanismo (pride in abundance of land and natural resources), a belief in the promise of the future, and movement inward from the Atlantic. A close reading of Brazil on the Move advances the concept of scene beyond the "long succession of idealized images and visual stereotypes" posed by Lowenthal, and toward including visions that better account for issues of contemporary interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dairying among Wisconsin's Amish and Old Order Mennonite farmers expanded through 2017, and by early 2018 Amish farms contained 12.9 percent of the state's total dairy herds of cows, goats, and sheep. Old Order Mennonite herds comprised 5.0 percent. Faced with a variety of challenges, Wisconsin lost 198 Amish herds between April 2018 and July 2020, yet its number of Old Order Mennonite herds grew. Together, these groups operated over half of the dairy farms within 59 of Wisconsin's towns in 2020. The paper examines the spatial patterns of expansion and contraction of Old Order dairying between 2012 and 2020, noting and explaining differences between the Amish and Mennonite farmers, as well as among the three conferences of Old Order Mennonites. Losses among the Amish were the greatest for can milk producers, yet 19 percent of Wisconsin's Amish dairy herds were on certified organic farms in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critique of the "specialty towns" program, a key constituent of China's current new-style urbanization campaign. It problematizes the contradictory accounts of the program, namely, emphasizing "place-based" strengths while simultaneously standardizing forms, functions, and goals with a strong "place-neutral" approach. We argue that three key building blocks are critical for understanding specialty towns: place dependence, embeddedness, and locational advantage. Through multiple-case studies in Zhejiang, evidence has shown that there is a mismatch between national policies and local practices in specialty town development. The latter has its own place-specific logic of development shaped by history, geography, institutions, and agency. In particular, existing small-scale growth settings (e.g., industrial parks, specialized markets) and characteristics of local agency are the main factors affecting local practices. This paper argues that without considering the specificities of places in a broader socioeconomic context, the program may fail to work as effectively as expected in its local implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classic approach to research on toponymy is limited to a linguistic focus. This reductionism has had a negative impact on the study of the toponymy of intercultural and indigenous territories, as in the case of the northern Patagonia. Based on a two-year ethnographic study in northern Patagonia, this article analyzes the socio-spatial dimension of Mapuche toponymy, through a mixed methodology involving both data collection and analysis, and an ethnographic approach. The article analyzes how these toponyms emerge from a variety of socio-spatial practices and meanings that are not only intertwined, but also involve several social, environmental, and political dimensions. We argue that the study of indigenous toponymy as a space-time compression entails an ontological opening of toponymy based on the process of inhabiting place. In this regard, the paper discusses the importance of understanding indigenous toponymy as a historically situated process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how social movement organizations shift scale through the case of the immigrant rights movement. This was largely a local movement for the first decades of its existence. However, in the late 1990s, repressive federal policies increased the salience of national politics for many organizations. While recognizing the importance of national politics, many organizations remained mostly engaged in local politics for nearly a decade. The aim of this paper is to examine why immigrant rights organizations stayed local for so long after the threat shifted to the federal level and why they actually shifted to the national scale when they did. It does so by focusing on the case of Los Angeles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hawai'i Island's shorelines provide intangible and tangible benefits for the island's residents and visitors. This paper examines residents' access to, values associated with, and uses of Hawai'i Island's blue spaces. It finds that Native Hawaiian residents and those who ascribe to Native Hawaiian cultural values encounter barriers to experiencing the diverse shoreline benefits they value. In-depth interviews reveal that although all shorelines on Hawai'i Island are designated as public property, individuals' abilities to access shorelines and shoreline benefits are not equal in this postcolonial context. We find that the Native Hawaiian ethic of care and reciprocity is present among the some of island's long-time residents, and suggest that an extension of this ethic into formal shoreline regulation and community and tourist educational programming may ensure culturally appropriate access to the diverse benefits blue spaces provide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mountains have been the object of an intense elaboration of national imaginaries. There is a widespread perception of Galicia as a rural and coastal country based on agricultural and seaside landscapes, with mountains being largely ignored. However, a production of local narratives around the Trevinca Massif has recently taken place, which has become quite widespread, with an emerging mountain landscape imaginary of its own around the notion of the Galician Highlands. This paper discusses these developments in the context of both the changing imaginaries of mountains in Western cultures and the different Galician landscape imaginaries. The research was carried out by means of semistructured interviewing, leading toward obtaining three narratives elaborated from semiotic clustering. These results allow us to infer that global forces, in particular tourism and promotion, have been essential for explaining the emergence and spread of the Galician Highlands as a socio-spatial imaginary. Another conclusion is the relevance of the disputed conception of "natural borders" coinciding with mountains in the case-study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to European Settlement in 1829, the Western Australian coast to the north of Perth, the state capital, had long been occupied by the Yued Nyungar Aboriginal group. However, much of this land had limited agricultural potential and, following Aboriginal dispossession, it remained as largely unoccupied Crown (public) Land for about a century. From the 1920s, farmers, crayfishers and Perth residents began to establish campsites and shacks for temporary use. However, since the 1960s, pressure has been growing: to develop better access routes and more formal (and legal) coastal/recreational settlements; to offer greater statutory protection to the natural coastal environment; and to acknowledge Aboriginal rights over some areas of Crown Land. This paper analyses the land use transitions experienced in this coastal area, with particular reference to the growing and diversifying external pressures that are being applied to this formerly isolated and currently vulnerable locality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wilderness is an important concept in the discourses and policies concerning contemporary European protected areas, inherently challenging in terms of sustainability. Since its designation in 1992, the Val Grande National Park, located in northwest Italy, has been portrayed and promoted as a wilderness area, thereby enhancing tourism, whilst disregarding the historical signs of human activity. In this paper we explore the wilderness concept, focusing on the narratives developed in the area, that changed from a strict conservationist approach to a more utilitarian one, influencing the National Park's policy-making. The research is based mainly on the content analysis of several literary texts. We conclude that wildernessneeds to be reconceptualized so that contemporary European protection policies might become more effective, and we may use our knowledge of nature to promote sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1976, the NGO "Qualité Village Wallonie" has worked to safeguard local rural heritage. Yet, over the years, the staff working at the NGO have noticed important changes in rural communities, including other perspectives on the local heritage. This may be linked with rapid changes in demography or changes of interests with globalization. This paper documents the apparent loss of sense of local heritage among inhabitants of the Belgian countryside and, in doing so, reflects on the sense of local places in an era of globalization. Based on interviews with the staff of the NGO and on an e-survey, the research presents a number of explanations for the findings. The results show a shift of attention away from religious and farming heritage toward places that make the village unique. The notion of heritage is evolving from something of the past that requires protection to things, sometimes intangible, that could be useful for the present and future generations. People claim that local heritage matters for the bonding and well-being of rural people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investigation of intergovernmental conferences is an important lens to examine international geopolitical issues that seem to remain understudied in the existing literature, especially from the perspective of how emerging countries shape their discourse, image, and geopolitical imaginations through such conferences. This paper aims to read China's relationships with the outside world from both its holding and participating in intergovernmental conferences between 2002 to 2017. Based on the textual analysis of conference materials from 919 intergovernmental conferences in which China has been involved, this paper highlights three lines with which China's self-definition of its geopolitical positions in international politics can be understood. First, China's delicate balance between the United States and Russia consists of the most fundamental structure of Chinese geopolitical views; second, China's self-construction as a responsible regional power also makes up a large portion of China's geopolitical view; third, the crucial role of intergovernmental conferences for the Chinese government is to convey China's nonthreatening model of development, which is also the most important principle of China's foreign relations. This paper helps to understand how China constructs its international relations and shapes international discourse and image through intergovernmental conferences. Such conference-based and self-defined geopolitics has furnished a special and, most importantly, a Chinese-styled geopolitical view that can further the understanding of international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Geographical Pivot of History paper (1904), Halford Mackinder suggested that four powers might strive for control of Eurasia: Germany, Russia, China, and Japan. In Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919), Mackinder announced that East Europe would be the key to Heartland control. Only two powers abutted East Europe: Germany and the emerging Soviet Union, Germany being the stronger power. Throughout World War I, Mackinder was a member of Parliament and, via his friend L. S. Amery M.P., of the Cabinet Secretariat, Mackinder was given access to cabinet papers, and discussed territorial issues with Amery. Mackinder's views anticipated and paralleled British Cabinet strategic views. When Mackinder drafted Democratic Ideals and Reality, he had, through Amery, knowledge of high-level British policy objectives concerning postwar Europe. Research in the Amery papers, Churchill College, Cambridge, documents the evolution of Mackinder's strategic thinking in World War I. Keywords: Mackinder, pivot, Heartland, World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the politics and practices of commemoration in the aftermath of Turkey's July 15, 2016 coup attempt. Developing a concept of "memorial publics," this paper examines two distinct but interrelated forms of commemoration: websites that have been set up to tell the story of the resistance to the coup attempt and a new monument that commemorates the victim-heroes of that night's fighting. I focus on two shared aspects that link the digital and the physical: The use of key terms to frame the coup attempt's heroes and villains, and the role of website and architectural design in focusing the audience's attention. I argue that these commemorative projects work together to create a memorial public in which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's position is both naturalized and justified. This paper's analysis contributes to geographers' ongoing interest in the symbolic and material dimensions of cultural and political geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the work of critical toponymy, this paper provides an example of the active contestation of a place name. Since the early 1990s, successive Korean governments have argued that the singular use of "Sea of Japan" is a colonial legacy. We provide a brief historical context for this dispute. We identify the array of names currently used in newspapers, journals, educational texts, and internet sites and show that a dual naming is now a more common usage, especially in international English-language newspapers, atlases, educational textbooks and internet materials. A colonial naming practice has been challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents empirical material drawn from an intentionally local AIDS quilting project in a disadvantaged inner-city district of Dublin, Ireland. The paper aims to address two key gaps in human geography. Firstly, by examining the AIDS quilts through their primary functions of therapy, activism, and commemoration, this paper finds an emphasis on place, rather than names that foregrounds the geographical, as opposed to merely rhetorical dimensions of the AIDS quilt. In doing so, it questions the forms of political community that have been claimed through the more well-studied NAMES Memorial Quilt. Secondly, by conceptualising AIDS quilts through the lens of humanistic geography, it reflects upon the act of quilting as producing what Yi-Fu Tuan described as a "field of care," a place that may be more attentive to the structural AIDS vulnerability visited upon affected communities. It concludes with implications for the study of AIDS interventions amid wounded cities. As these damaged communities seek ways to repair themselves, the quilts act as paradigmatic cases of care for others, through care for place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through legal interpretation of immigration categories, such as the refugee definition, signatories to the UN Refugee Convention restrict access to political asylum. This paper examines how scalar logics are used in legal interpretation to filter out particular people from national space and control the number legally entitled to enter and remain in the U.S. Scalar logics shape access by requiring asylum seekers to prove they have been 'singled out' for persecution and by steering the meaning of the 'particular social group' provision of the refugee definition. The restrictive effects of these scalar logics are analyzed in relation to case law involving Central American asylum seekers fleeing gang‐related violence. These cases are often rejected on the basis that the asylum seekers possess identities and experiences exceeding the limited protection offered by asylum. Through analysis of these scalar logics, the paper highlights how interpretations of the refugee definition are an ongoing site of struggle over the scope of asylum protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since first proposed, the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines have been extensively covered by the media, shaping readers' perceptions of the pipelines, as well as perceptions of the places and peoples impacted by them. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper examines the media coverage, their Plains descriptions, and expressions of place attachment. Through the media's use of "place talk," it presents a hybrid Plains: placeless, yet with a strongly place-attached population who are "tied to the land." As conflicts over environmental and energy projects become increasingly contentious, place and place attachment are important for understanding the conflicts and potentially mobilizing resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of indigenous place attachments tend to focus on the alternative environmental ontologies that animate and inform indigenous peoples' relationships with place, but rarely engage with the material and psychological impacts of colonialist practices—namely, displacement and dispossession of land. Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 triggered the internal displacement of tens of thousands of Crimeans to mainland Ukraine, including ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, and indigenous Crimean Tatars. This multiethnic flow of internally displaced peoples (IDPs) affords the opportunity to contrast the post-displacement attachments of both indigenous and nonindigenous peoples to the same place. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper argues that Slavs' attachments to Crimea are principally individualistic and rooted in a reverence for the peninsula's natural environment, while Crimean Tatars possess an intergenerational narrative of national belonging to Crimea informed by cyclical patterns and experiences of colonialist displacement from their homeland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]