Geography Commons^™

No. 01: South Africa At War: Food Insecurity, Migrant Exclusion And Covid-19 Policies, Jonathan Crush, Sean Sithole

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

The policy audit critically examines the South African government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly focusing on the militaristic enforcement of lockdowns and the resulting food insecurity and exclusion of migrant populations. The report aims to inform policy-makers about the impacts of these policies and provide recommendations for crisis management.

On 27 March 2020, South Africa imposed a nationwide lockdown to combat the spread of COVID-19. This lockdown, enforced by the police and the military, was characterized by stringent measures including curfews, bans on inter-provincial travel, and the closure of non-essential businesses. These measures, while necessary to control the pandemic, …

Air Conditioning (Or Lack Thereof) In France: A Cross Cultural Comparison, Jean Lavigne

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

‘Brain Drain’: Net Gains And Losses Of College- Educated Residents In The Mountain West, 2023, Dre Boyd-Weatherly, Annie Vong, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Higher Education

This fact sheet examines the number of college-educated individuals who moved to Mountain West states (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) and to selected metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the Mountain West in 2023. The “2024 Study: ‘Brain Drain’? The States With the Largest Net Gains and Losses of College-Educated Americans” report contains data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) of the Current Population Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau. The study includes data on where college-educated residents move and which areas experienced ‘brain drain,’ where college-educated residents move to other places.

Waterhouses : Landscapes, Housing, And The Making Of Modern Lagos, Mark Duerksen

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Waterhouses is about the places the people of Lagos have inhabited, imagined, and made home for the past two centuries. It asks what a house in Lagos is and explores how the answer to that question has been historically constructed and reconstructed in turn with the city’s changing landscapes. Written for historians of African and Atlantic history, scholars and practitioners of urbanism, and anyone looking to make sense of Africa’s most populous metropolis today, the book is an approachable history of how houses and water have formed modern Lagos.

The book argues that in the coastlands from which Lagos rose, …

Cover And Forewords, Casey D. Allen

The Geographical Bulletin

Cover and Forewords

A Note From The Editor, Casey D. Allen

The Geographical Bulletin

A Note from the Editor

Volume 59-1 Complete Issue, Casey D. Allen

The Geographical Bulletin

Volume 59-1 Complete Issue

Creating Skateboarding Spaces Or Corralling Skaters? The Rise Of Public Skateparks In Rural Northeast Alabama, Stephen G. Tsikalas, Mark Allen Jones, Jr.

The Geographical Bulletin

The construction of a series of public skateboarding parks (skateparks) in rural areas in northeast Alabama came about between 2005 and 2007. Skateparks are expensive projects for rural Alabama city governments to undergo; yet, numerous parks have been built within the last decade. Our research explores why these parks were built, where space was allocated for the park, who funded them, and how the space is regulated. The majority of our data come from interviewing city authorities or parties that had a role in funding or campaigning for a skatepark. We have found the establishment of these parks had mix …

Performance Art And Pedestrian Experience: Creating A Sense Of Place On The Third Street Promenade, Kalli F. Doubleday

The Geographical Bulletin

It is well attested that wherever people gather, acrobats, poets, musicians, dancers, and tricksters also appear and perform. Although street performers can be found throughout the entire world, they are curiously shunned in New York City, while Plovidiv, Bulgaria in March 2015 decided to follow other European cities in having auditions or qualifiers for performers in public places. This research adds to scholarship on performance art as a beneficial element in developing a sense of place in urban environments, particularly pedestrian malls. A hundred surveys were collected from Promenade visitors to highlight these connections in a case study of street …

#Makeamericaspollsgreatagain: Evaluating Twitter As A Tool To Predict Election Outcomes, Jaryd Hinch

The Geographical Bulletin

Traditional political polling methods have become less reliable as society adopts more smartphone technology. Internet and social media use have also risen due to increased smartphone use, which have given a digital voice to political views. This study assessed one social media platform, Twitter, as a means for predicting election outcomes more accurately than traditional methods. Michigan and Wisconsin’s ‘tweets’ related to the 2016 presidential election campaign slogans of candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were compiled and a numerical comparison was performed. WordCloud technology was employed for a visual representation of the numerical data. Numerical comparison yielded results and …

Paleo Environment And Archaeology Provide Cautionary Tales For Climate Policymakers, Brett Kaufman, Christopher S. Kelly, Richard S. Vachula

The Geographical Bulletin

Federal climate policy in the United States is still in its infancy and is in large part characterized by efforts to reach a consensus on the very existence and causality of climate change. This has stemmed from a sociopolitical rift within the country, with the objectivity and usefulness of science attacked by detractors. Scientists who are most qualified to defend their methods and provide information to policymakers rarely have an institutional incentive to share this knowledge, but should be encouraged to communicate their findings to the public, especially those who receive public funding. By not doing so, they are effectively …

Cover And Forewords, Steven M. Schnell

The Geographical Bulletin

Cover and Forewords

Volume 58-1 Complete Issue, Steven M. Schnell

The Geographical Bulletin

Volume 58-1 Complete Issue

Blurring The Protagonist/ Antagonist Binary Through A Geopolitics Of Peace: Star Trek’S Cardassians, Antagonists Of The Alpha Quadrant, Hannah C. Gunderman

The Geographical Bulletin

The plotlines of many science fiction television programs and films establish the identities of the protagonists and antagonists at an early stage of the viewing experience . T hese boundaries serve to position the viewer on a particular side of the story, rendering it difficult to fully consider the Other’s actions and motivations . It is in this manner that media influences our perceptions of place and social dynamics through a formation of popular geopolitics . In this paper, I present the Cardassians, an extraterrestrial species in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as a …

Star Trek And The Anthropological Machine: Eliding Difference To Stay Human, Jacob Barber

The Geographical Bulletin

This article considers the work of Giorgio Agamben’s ‘Anthropological Machine’ (2004) in the depiction of human-nonhuman interactions in Star Trek . While Star Trek aims to present a utopian vision of the future, a contradictory reading is equally plausible . Instead of embracing novel encounters with nonhuman life and technology, Star Trek retreats into an idealized vision of the human . Encounters with the nonhuman become vehicles through which to reinforce this vision of a bounded and pure human subject . In Star Trek, humans are made to be human through their constant encounters with nonhuman forms, and the possibility …

“Most Damning Of All… I Think I Can Live With It”: Captain Sisko, President Obama, And Emotional Geopolitics, David K. Seitz

The Geographical Bulletin

This paper argues that the proliferation of geographical inquiry into popular culture as a prism for understanding geopolitical processes can benefit from more sustained engagement with psychoanalytic theory, particularly the work of Melanie Klein . Klein’s account of guilt and the urge to make reparation as both central to the development of conscience and profoundly unevenly distributed contributes to a critique of dominant, uneven geographies of guilt and encourages a nuanced approach to guilt’s potential ethical implications . To illustrate, I identify resonances between the contradictory legacy of the Obama administration and the character of Captain Sisko on the television …

Alternative Pasts, Presents, And Futures In Star Trek: Historical Engagement And Representation Through Popular Culture, Mark Alan Rhodes Ii

The Geographical Bulletin

Star Trek has long used its unique situation as a socially and politically engaged television show to approach contemporary, historical, and futuristic ideas of race, labor, gender, nature, landscape, and place . The concept of alternate perceptions of history continues to provide engaging insights into historical representation . This paper explores how Star Trek, as an example of performance, media, and popular culture, contributes to dialogues of alternate pasts, presents, and futures . It builds upon these concepts to engage with and influence geographical dialogues of public space, nature, geopolitics, and societal structure . I explore examples from the television …

Introduction: The Geographies Of Star Trek, Mark Alan Rhodes Ii, Fiona M. Davidson, Hannah C. Gunderman

The Geographical Bulletin

There are relatively few media products that can compete with Star Trek in terms of longevity and cultural saturation . First introduced to audiences in 1966, the franchise now encompasses more than fifty years, six television series, thirteen films, countless spin-off novels and ancillary books, multiple annual international fan conventions and an enduring place in the popular culture lexicon of the English language—a remarkable feat for a television show that almost never made it to the screen and, even when it did, was canceled for poor ratings after just three seasons . San Francisco served as both the site of …

Owning The Future: Manifest Destiny And The Vision Of American Hegemony In Star Trek, Fiona M. Davidson

The Geographical Bulletin

As one of the most enduring television franchises of the late 20th century, Star Trek has had an unparalleled influence on the popular culture representation of humanity’s future as ultimately utopian . In this paper, however, I argue that even as the on-screen text of Star Trek was condemning the narrow parochial interests of nationalism, greed, xenophobia and fear, the narrative subtext throughout the fifty years of the franchise supported the idea of the expansion of western hegemonic power . The paper utilizes examples from all f ive series and the thirteen films to illustrate the ways in which western …

Notes From The Past And New Editors, Casey D. Allen

The Geographical Bulletin

A Note from the Editor