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The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 took 10 million lives. The British East India Company's (EIC) extraction of resources and imposition of brutal tax policies in Bengal exacerbated the disaster. By exploring the intersections of corporate interests, colonialism, and biopolitics, this paper provides a new perspective on the Bengal famine of 1770 by introducing and visualizing it through a unique theoretical framework—corporate colonial biopolitics. Adopting Michel Foucault's notion of biopolitics, my focus is primarily on the corporate colonial biopolitical strategies enforced by the Company, which led to dispossession, violence, and resource extraction exploiting Bengal's landscape and impeding the region's progress and development. The essay unveils the racist policies and profit-driven principles of the EIC and how they prioritized generating revenues, financing its military, and exporting food grain even at the peak of the famine. I point out how the EIC systematically dismantled the Indian agricultural system, fueling deindustrialization in India and ultimately making the region vulnerable to famines. The Bengal famine of 1770 remains unexplored by geographers despite being the first colonial famine in India. One of the primary objectives of this paper is to bridge this gap by shedding light on the geographical dimensions of this pivotal historical catastrophe. [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]

Building on reinvigorated scholarly debates on the concept of value, this paper examines forms of valuation that coexist with and challenge those typically associated with capitalist natures. Based on archival, ethnographic, and interview data, we analyze a historical case of the Venezuelan Society of Speleology (SVE) that since 1967 has been exploring and mapping the country's caves. Its results are published in a national cave survey that the group manages. Not only is each cave entry the representation and materialization of the group's volunteer efforts. Each is also part of a relational regime of valuation by which all caves are worth mapping. The survey's classificatory logic not only transforms underground value, it also acts as boundary object bringing together diverse actors and promoting the SVE's collective ethos, at least in theory, of valuing all members. The survey is the fulcrum of distinct regimes of valuation, wherein value and values are two sides of the same coin. The spaces where these value/s are enacted matters, suggesting the critical contributions that geographers can make in understanding the spatial qualities that contribute to—or hinder—the materialization of certain regimes of valuation over others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How might geographers better understand the active, lived, on-the-ground experiences of musicians in places, and their role in place-making? As a professional musical practitioner, I bring to geography the perspective of a musicking-geographer, drawing on Christopher Small's (2011) concept of "musicking," and Harriet Hawkins' (2011) work on geographic-artistic "doing." To examine the co-constitutive processes of music-making and place-making, this paper describes how I have developed a new research framework that brings together two methodological approaches: musicking ethnography, and music mapping. I consider how my approach has developed in response to my aspiration to working with musicians of all age groups, musical backgrounds and interests from across the amateur-professional continuum, and to create egalitarian, engaging, respectful and useful research experiences for the musicians with whom I work. I also discuss how my dual-positionality framed my work, and how these methods might be further developed and adapted by practitioner-geographers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While feminist scholarship has long recognized the inherent "messiness" of fieldwork, research encounters can easily mutate from messiness to "failure." As little work has been conducted on fieldwork failure, reflexive analysis of the complications and disappointments of fieldwork is crucial. Increasingly, human geographers are engaging in participatory and visual methods with populations characterized as "marginalized" or "vulnerable." Though touted as reflexive, possibly empowering, and culturally sensitive, these methods do not automatically overcome neocolonial tendencies of fieldwork. Realization of these methods varies between participants, sites, and the fieldworkers themselves. Drawing on field notes and reflections, this paper analyzes fieldwork failure in dissertation research involving participatory visual methods with resettled refugees. These encounters reveal complex and challenging circumstances that can arise in implementing participatory visual methods with marginalized or vulnerable populations. This analysis advances understandings of participatory visual methods, and answers calls for transparency in fieldwork reflections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Profiles Peter Gould, geographer and author of the books 'Becoming a Geographer' and 'The Geographer at Work'. Childhood in southwestern England; Educational background; Influence of August Losch's book 'The economics of Location' on his life; Research career in West Africa; Fascination with quantitative methods and with philosophical issues.

Beyond Germany, Leo Waibel (1888-1951) built a distinguished reputation for his work in Africa and the Americas. Today he is remembered especially in Brazil, where he boosted the development of geography as a research discipline in the years 1946-1950. During his tenure of the chair in geography at Bonn (1929-1937), Waibel's main research preoccupation became the role of the tropics in the world economy. In early 1937, he sought research leave to make an extended field trip to Brazil. Stripped on political grounds in the same year of his chair, Waibel came to the United States, where he became the only geographer to receive help from the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars. He would eventually serve as one of the very limited core staff on President Franklin Roosevelt's "M" Project on migration and settlement. This paper reconstructs the context of his work in the United States, clarifying especially the nature of his collaborations with Isaiah Bowman, widely regarded at the time as the leading geographer within the United States. Waibel's correspondence from the United States, and later from Brazil, reveals an international career marked by contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's reflections on the article "The Acorn-Hog Economy of the Oak Woodlands of Southwestern Spain," originally published by geographer James J. Parsons for the journal in 1962. The author compliments Parsons, the journal, and the research paper as exemplary cases of high quality scholarship. A brief review of Parsons' career is included. Mention is also given to the editorial members and policies when the article was first printed. Additional discussion is given concerning the article's use of historical narrative rather than complex research paradigms.

Early geography in the United States has a rich history, though not always understood or acknowledged. One American geographer in the pre-Humboldt era who has been largely overlooked is Columbia University's John Daniel Gross, who has been described as "arguably the first American professional geographer." The purpose of this research is to shed more light on this eighteenth-century geographer. Evidence suggests that, unlike some other prominent geographers of their day who subsequently became relegated to obscurity, Gross displayed neither controversial views nor a personality that conflicted with more powerful contemporary rivals. Instead, although geographical, synchronistic, epistemological, and personal attributes make it seem likely that his work created a bridge to the new geography of Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter, his work and reputation appear to have been overshadowed by that of the "new geography." The demise of Ivy League geography appears to have cemented his lost legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global ocean dominates the world spatially. While there is growing understanding that these vast marine spaces are more valuable than ever, there is also mounting concern over escalating threats to the marine environment and vulnerable ecosystems. Governance of the oceans is both inherently and increasingly geographical in character, illustrated here through consideration of the zonal system of maritime jurisdiction, the definition of baselines along the coast, delineation of the outer limits of maritime zones and delimitation of maritime boundaries. In response to the increasing diversity and intensity of activities and uses of the ocean, a variety of geospatial management approaches are being applied. Geography and geographers will therefore have a salient role to play in present and future global oceans governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enduring appearance of agriculture landscapes in the American West belies their dynamic nature. The Clover Tract, a 4,000-acre agricultural development in southern Idaho, was part of a reclamation and irrigation infrastructure project that transformed the landscape through topographical reshaping, new technologies, and cultural and economic forces. Geographic, heritage, and thingly theoretical approaches are used to analyze this cultural landscape. The interdisciplinary approach demonstrates the physical landscape's entanglement with everyday human actions and meanings. Heritage professionals should consider how cultural geographers' approaches reveal heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) had a lifelong interest in geography. Except for his role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition and a few references to his Notes on the State of Virginia, however, geographers have taken a relatively slight interest in this aspect of his thought, despite his having sometimes been referred to as "one of the greatest American geographers." This essay suggests that we need to reexamine Jefferson as a geographical thinker. Reviewing some of the more important literature thus far, it suggests where such topics may profitably be extended and points to some aspects of his geographical interests not yet incorporated into the geographical literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attachments are intrinsic to the human condition. Geographers and related scholars are especially interested in place attachments and how they shape everyday routines (e.g. routes to work, shopping, social interactions), major life choices (e.g. places of residence, education, vacations), and identities (e.g. civic, national, religious). This article explores the complexity and richness of place attachment as researched across multiple disciplines while also outlining how geographers can make a more pronounced contribution. To that end, this article surveys place attachment research and in the process demonstrates the recent dearth of explicit research on the topic in geography compared to other disciplines, especially psychology. Subsequent sections show how geographers implicitly engage place attachment as a theme, even if by other names, and identify areas of possible synergy with cognate disciplinary approaches. In an effort to reinvigorate interest among geographers and emphasize the need for a multi-dimensional consideration of place as integral to understanding place attachment, this article provides a model of place attachment as an assemblage of materiality, performance, and narration. Rather than being static or deterministic, this model points to people's varied capacities to make and remake place attachments, and in doing so reasserts the power of place in place attachment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on calls for "slow scholarship," we highlight the importance of time and care in producing rigorous, ethical research through our advising practices. We describe how feminist ethics and epistemologies shape each of our research clusters: the Hydro-Feminist Lab at West Virginia University and the Feminist Geography Collective at the University of Texas at Austin. We show a couple of ways that feminist geographers can adopt the "lab model" and use it to build meaningful mentoring networks, fostered through time and care, and in a way that both meets and transgresses the demands of academic neoliberalism. We then show how this approach extends into our fieldwork, recounting instances where the importance of mentoring through a caring ethic emerged. Unfolding over weeks, months, and years we show the value of time and care, both in deepening the quality of advising relationships and in creating mentoring relationships of trust and support. We contend that this better prepares students for the intellectual and emotional challenges of feminist research and, in turn, strengthens that research. In the face of neoliberalism's quickening drives, we highlight the benefits and the contradictions of this kind of slow and caring "lab-field" feminist mentoring for geographic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political and ethical quandaries of the "crisis of representation" that beset the social sciences from the 1980s on continue to reverberate in how geographers conduct their research today. Illustrated with two vignettes from my research in the UAE and Kazakhstan, this article explores the idea of "deep listening" as a methodological tack and mindset to guide geographic fieldwork, rooted in intellectual humility. Deep listening involves a critical reflexivity about our subject positions as researchers, as well as a suspicion of metanarratives that prevail in the media and academic debates, and a willingness to question our complicity in reproducing those narratives through our choice of research topics and methods. Deep listening is ultimately a way of practicing intellectual humility - which involves accepting that we could be incorrect at many levels, whether theoretical, factual, emotional, social, cultural, or political, and seeking out opportunities to change our mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I discuss a methodological approach I refer to as "critical financial analysis," which blends critical theory with public finance tools. As geographers and other scholars have documented, there have been profound shifts in urban governance over the last three decades (Harvey 1989; Brenner and Theodore 2005; Hackworth 2007; Whiteside 2018). The squeezing of public budgets and tax restrictions, compounded by the 2007–2009 recession, have pushed municipal governments to look for cost-saving measures, seek out creative financial resources, and engage in entrepreneurial activities (Sbragia 1996; Weber 2010; Ashton, Doussard, and Weber 2014; Beswick and Penny 2018). While a robust and growing body of work on financialization exists, the state's role in financialization (as an initiator and innovator, not just passive facilitator) is an emerging area with fewer studies to date (Aalbers 2017; Beswick and Penny 2018). Critical financial analysis is one approach that can be used to help fill gaps in the literature in light of these shifts. Critical financial analysis operates from the premise that financial data is a "field site" through which contested spaces, practices, and power relations can be explored.I illustrate my approach and its potential using a case study of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). The CHA example highlights the type of rich information that can be obtained by conducting detailed financial analysis. It demonstrates how empirical data combined with critical theory can be used to probe how public finance functions as a technology of power, and how particular finance logics can orient public institutions away from their social missions. Such work can help deepen our understanding of urban governance, and illuminate how macro processes intertwine with locally specific histories, political-economic conditions, and material realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography's existence as a school or college subject has never been a given. While geographers make cases for geography's importance, acceptance of those cases rests not on impassioned rhetoric but on the social and intellectual contexts into which disciplines fit. Contexts are contested and they change. From a seemingly secure position at the beginning of the twentieth century, geography's role in American schools has been eroded and diminished by corrosive forces. Geographers need convincing answers to the existential question lest the subject disappear entirely. Geography's enviable position was in large measure the work of William Torrey Harris. Harris made a compelling existential case for geography and his vision, its implementation, its rejection, and its fate offer a model from which geographers can learn. Understanding how to respond to a social and intellectual context is crucial to geography's future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on San Diego State University geographer and urban researcher Larry R. Ford, particularly focusing on his work published in previous issues of the journal. It examines his fieldwork and his interest in ethnic neighborhoods. The author considers several of Ford's articles, including ones on ghettos in San Diego, California, city structures in Indonesia, and multiunit housing in U.S. cities.

The article presents an analysis of traditional public geography in terms of geographers' engagement with the public imagination through the use of op-ed pages. The author offers opinions on why geographers should engage with the public imagination via op-ed pages and discusses some of the basic strategies for writing and publishing an op-ed. He discusses a brief and incomplete review of the literatures on civic engagement, geography and the media, geography and public policy, and public geography that he conducted. He also discusses his own limited experience writing and publishing op-eds, and his participation in three forums at annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers.

The article presents a discussion of the contents of ten articles from 100 years of publication of the periodical "Geographical Review" that were considered by the periodical's former editor, Paul Starr, to be the top ten most influential journals to have ever appeared in the publication. Articles which were concerned with geography and place and geography and landscape, and which were written by several authors and geographers, including Dan Stanislawski, Edward Price, Fred Kniffen and Henry Glassie, are discussed.

Over the past quarter-century academic geographers have interrogated the concept of "scale." It had previously been conceived as an unproblematic and mechanical item in geographical representation, a device for moving "up" from the finely detailed to the general. Regular, commonsensical steps were supposed to move one from the corporeal scale to the global scale, each scale nested into the next higher. Such is the "Russian-dolls" mode, whereby an individual considering his or her geographical identity — as in this study — would proceed hierarchically in scale from self, to city, to region, to nation, to continent. Ethnographic evidence from Strasbourg, France, however, reveals another mode: "scale skipping." Here an individual, musing upon her or his identity, can plausibly make the leap from the individual to the supranational scale in one sentence. Instructive examples of both modes are furnished from two fifteen-strong groups of Strasburgers, selected for their presumed attachment to the supranational-scale ideal of "Europe." The older group comprises professional Eurocrats; the younger group, college students returning to complete their studies in Strasbourg after attending universities elsewhere in the European Union through the Erasmus Program of study abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the AGS Bowman Expeditions on the Mexico Indigena project sponsored by the American Geographical Society which began in 2005 and describes the background, development, and methodology of the prototype led by a multinational team of Latin American geographers. Each Bowman Expedition consists of one or more geography professors and several students who research a topic of the leader's choice concerning foreign lands and peoples. To develop an integrated, multiscale database, the researchers employed a combination of methodologies. The focus was on the geography of indigenous land tenure in Mexico which has one of the largest indigenous populations in the Americas whose homelands coincide with globally important biological diversity.

The author encourages geographers to tell their own stories. He states that most best-selling books on geography, such as Charles Mann's "1491," are written by science journalists like Mann. He points out that no geographer sits on the administration of the National Geographic Society or in the editorial board of the "National Geographic," magazine, which both shape the public's image of geography. He urges geographers to attempt writing for the public so that the public will know what it is that geographers really do.

The article presents a personal narrative of the author's experience of meeting cultural geographer Wilbur Zelinsky. Zelinsky had been an icon to the author long before he has met him in the early part of 1960. The author cites several works of Zelinsky including an article in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. He met Zelinsky at the meeting of the Association of American Geographers in East Lansing, Michigan in 1961. The personality of Zelinsky is described, along with his similarities with the author.

ABSTRACT. The war in Iraq has spanned the full spectrum of military operations: intense combat, stability-and-support operations, and peacetime activities. Regardless of their nature and relative intensity, military operations are shaped by the characteristics of the military operating environment. Consequently, the scale, tempo, and complexity of any type of military endeavor are linked to the physical and cultural landscapes of the region in which it is conducted. Military geographers use geographical information, tools, and techniques to examine those links. Iraq's operating environment is studied to identify the relevant components of its physical and human geography. This military geographical examination of Iraq tells us a great deal about how the physical and cultural environment have influenced the war, as well as how the complexity of its human landscape continues to affect the postwar rebuilding of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on geography and the Middle East. It discusses the unpreparedness of the U.S. for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Geographical perspectives are needed to understand this national challenge. Despite the importance of the Middle East to U.S. national interests, few U.S. geographers specialize in the region. The Association of American Geographers is said to overlook area studies in its official reaction to the attacks. Reconceptualization of Middle East geography is also tackled.

The search for a perfected place on earth is rarely easy or forgiving. Utopias and dystopias demonstrate the practical frailties of attempts to build better human associations, whether as literary efforts or in actual, on-the-ground experiments. With a proprietary interest in evaluating the dimensions of place making, geographers can lay claim to be frontline critics of efforts that attempt to craft a better world. The catalog of personality cultists, charismatically murderous leaders, and apocalyptic mass death is long. The Church Universal and Triumphant, currently of Paradise Valley, Montana, is examined as the home for twenty-five years of an ongoing effort to "improve" lives. II its dilemmas and apparent failures are in keeping with the history of past Utopian ventures, geographical lessons remain to be learned about the costs of planning for perfection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strabo of Amasia (ca. 64 B.C.-ca. A.D. 23) wrote the first comprehensive geography of the world known to the Greeks and Romans. Interest in Strabo and his Geography, which survives nearly intact in seventeen books, has fluctuated over the centuries among both classicists and historians of geography. After some historical background on Strabo and his reception, this essay considers the contribution of two significant recent English-language treatments, as well as Strabo's Geography itself, and suggests ways in which the Strabonic model may have renewed relevance to the geographer's task of interpreting the oikoumene in the contemporary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was the largest, most comprehensive, and most controversial regional development and planning project in U.S. history. Geographers were involved from its inception and made impressive contributions. Aside from the unit area method of data gathering and mapping, little is known about their contributions, some of which were truly ahead of their time. Although their work and recommendations were often discarded and unheeded because of political turbulence, the geographers rarely complained or entered into the political arena. Their work in the TVA has generally gone unheralded and even unappreciated within the geography profession. The primary purpose of this article is to document their contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the cultural iconography in Balkan Peninsula. Efforts of the geographer in the fieldwork; Descriptions on the heterogenous landscape; Discussions the condition of the people.

Features the urban geographer James E. Vance Jr. and his intellectual contributions in the field of geography. Profile of the man; Focus of his studies on urban settlement patterns and evolution of transportation systems; Textbooks on urban and transportation geography; Mercantile model of settlement; Concept of urban realms.

ABSTRACT. Academic geography is dotted with fly-specks from the fashion conscious who have skittered from one enthusiasm to another like aggravating bugs in mid-room flight. Our disciplinary history in fact abounds in dead-end roads entered at fatally high speed, theoretical turns not negotiated, crossroads oracles proved dismally inaccurate. By contrast, the formidable cultural geographer and landscape historian J. B. "Brinck" Jackson (1909-1996) conceived of a more slowly developing world, replete with enduring geographies. Although firmly Brahmin by origin, Jackson was chary of the fleeting fashions and power tropes of what he sometimes dubbed the Establishment. He was inclined instead to attend to the structures of the everyday, emphasizing community and connection over didactic fashion. With writing grounded in daily experience and a consummate ability to witness pattern, he urged geographers to think and envision. Keywords: durability, geosophy, J. B. Jackson, landscape, pretentiousness, theoretical turns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]