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areajournal.bsky.social
Area
@areajournal.bsky.social
1.5K followers 240 following 200 posts
Area publishes concise papers and commentaries that shape key debates within and beyond the discipline of geography. Area is especially welcoming of work by early career researchers & awards an annual ECR prize.
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areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Fleshing out law: Embodied encounters and the material geographies of legal space' by @sklosterkamp.bsky.social

This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork in German district courts to explore how legality is produced through embodied encounters in courtrooms.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Sarah Klosterkamp (2025) entitled: 'Fleshing out law: Embodied encounters and the material geographies of legal space' with a black banner at the top. This paper explores how legality is made material, affective and meaningful through the human body. Drawing on courtroom ethnography conducted in German District Courts—particularly in cases of eviction and housing insecurity—it examines how legality emerges not only through texts and rulings but through bodily presence, sensory atmospheres and everyday encounters. Grounded in feminist legal geography and affect theory and building on the concepts of encounter and slow violence, the paper develops a conceptual framework around three interrelated modalities of legal embodiment: appearing, suspending and filtering. These modalities illuminate how bodies both absorb and resist legal authority—not passively, but through subtle acts of endurance, adjustment and refusal. By tracing the mundane yet charged practices of waiting, moving and being seen, this article argues for a more embodied approach to legal geography—one that takes seriously how law is enacted, lived and contested through flesh, posture and breath.
November 26, 2025 at 10:05 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Creating home territories during housing relocation: Affects and activity rhythms' by Siyao Gao & Elaine Lynne-Ee Ho

This paper explores how older adults in Singapore remake a sense of 'home' after relocation, developing the concept of 'home territory'.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Siyao Gao & Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho (2025) entitled: 'Creating Home Territories During Housing Relocation: Affects and Activity Rhythms' with a black banner at the top. This paper expands understandings of home by developing the concept of home territory to comprehend the experiences of older adults who experienced housing relocation and how they reconstituted a sense of home. The study draws on the experiences of 41 older adults who underwent the Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) in Singapore. Our conceptualisation of home territory argues that homemaking can extend across multiple locations, other than the old and new home. Home territory emphasises how a person establishes home through processes of territorialisation, reterritorialisation and deterritorialisation. We argue that older adults' experiences of home territorialisation are constituted through sensory experiences, social connections and the placement of material objects within and outside of their immediate domestic space. Connecting with familiar faces and recreating activity rhythms in the new neighbourhood are referred to as home reterritorialisation processes. Travelling beyond the neighbourhood to engage in everyday activities that help them recapture feelings of nostalgia and familiarity constitutes home deterritorialisation. This broader conceptualisation of home territories reflects the fluidity and expansion of geographical boundaries associated with home space, experienced through affects and rhythmic activities.
November 21, 2025 at 12:36 PM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Conference-based method: Interviewing elites at intergovernmental conferences' by @saddy94.bsky.social & Katie Peters

This paper reflects on the logistical elements of undertaking geographical research at intergovernmental conferences.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Liam Saddington & Katie Peters (2025) entitled: 'Conference-Based Method: Interviewing Elites at Intergovernmental Conferences' with a black banner at the top. Conferences have increasingly featured within geographical research as sites of knowledge production, performance and contestation. However, this article explores how intergovernmental conferences can be productive sites for geographical research fieldwork with elites on topics such as climate geopolitics and disaster risk reduction (DRR), particularly through interviews. Reflecting on research conducted at over two decades of intergovernmental conferences in all regions of the globe, this article argues that conferences allow access to participants who may otherwise be difficult to secure interviews with. Although intergovernmental conferences may not be perfect spaces for research, they should be considered more often by geographers as valuable opportunities for conducting interviews. This research need not be limited to the focus of the conference itself, but can also provide opportunities to engage with actors working on a wide range of governance issues. This article reflects on the logistical elements of undertaking such research, the ethical considerations and the temporal opportunities and challenges afforded by a conference-based method. It concludes by reflecting on how a conference-based method can be integrated into other geographical approaches to qualitative research.
November 19, 2025 at 10:03 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Being land, becoming research: Relational and Country-led accountability in research outputs and milestones' by Liz Murphy-May with Yandaarra et al.

This paper reflects on research milestones and Gumbaynggirr Ngambaa ways of being in current-day Australia.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Liz Murphy-May, with Yandaarra including, Aunty Shaa Smith, Uncle Bud Marshall, Lara Daley, Sarah Wright & Paul Hodge (2025) entitled: 'Being land, becoming research: Relational and Country-led accountability in research outputs and milestones' with a black banner at the top.
November 13, 2025 at 9:32 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New Special Section in Area:

'Gentle Geographies' edited by @mattmattfinn.bsky.social & @drjeffers.bsky.social

This collection features five papers and an editorial introduction which reflect on ideas of 'gentleness' in research and practice.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...
November 11, 2025 at 10:02 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Toward a feminist geo-legal reading: US country-of-origin information in asylum adjudication' by Malene H. Jacobsen et al.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Malene H. Jacobsen, Austin Crane & Elise Dosch (2025) entitled: 'Toward a feminist geo-legal reading: US country-of-origin information in asylum adjudication' with a black banner at the top. In this article, we offer what we call ‘a feminist geo-legal reading’ of documents used in spaces and practices of law. Legal cases and decisions are often based on different legal and non-legal documents, including laws, explanatory memorandums, testimonies, medical reports, and so forth. In contemporary asylum adjudication, country-of-origin information reports (COIs) have become a crucial source of authoritative evidence as asylum officers and immigration judges use these reports in their determination of a person's need for and right to protection. However, there is no straight line from COIs' substance to the prevailing authority that they command within asylum adjudication. Thus, we bring together insights from feminist legal geographies and critical refugee studies to develop a critical method of reading and analysis of documents, like COIs. Specifically, we provide a feminist geo-legal reading of a 2022 COI on El Salvador produced by the US Department of State. Our reading interrogates COIs' substance, what they are made of and what they obfuscate. We argue this method of reading can enable legal geographers to question the claimed neutrality, objectivity and impartiality of documents used in law and juridical decisions through highlighting the legal and political geographies that these documents are part of and (re)produce. In this way, a feminist geo-legal reading functions as a mode of critique and enables scholars to make space for other knowledges. Thus, this article contributes to the growing body of work on methods and methodologies used by socio-legal scholars and legal geographers.
November 4, 2025 at 9:30 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New Special Section in Area:

'Digging into Data' adds to our 'Thinking with Methods' collection, with 6 papers reflecting on the messy process of qualitative empirical analysis.

Edited by @citiesandstuff.bsky.social & Lauren Wagner - available here⬇️

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...
A black tile publicising the new 'Digging into Data: Learning together from analysis experiences' Special Section in Area. There is a quote from Lauren Wagner & Alan Latham's (2025) introduction in the centre. It reads: "We need to open up the process of doing analysis so that it does not feel like a process of simply following an established procedure, turning the handle, and magically getting a good finished research paper or dissertation". A second black tile publicising the 'Digging into Data: Learning together from analysis experiences' Special Section in Area. Listed contributors include: Lauren Wagner, Alan Latham, Jennie Middleton, Marta Bivand Erdal, Andrew Barnfield, Geoff Bates, Amanda Rogers, Jennie Doyle & Katja Garson.
October 30, 2025 at 5:13 PM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Local authorities' capacity to advance climate action in the food and farming sectors' by Aimee Morse et al.

This paper argues that local authorities are well-placed to support the transformation of food production & consumption in the face of climate change.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Aimee Morse, Daniel Keech, Philippa Simmonds, Fahimeh Malekinezhad, Janet Dwyer & Benjamin Dent (2025) entitled: 'Local authorities' capacity to advance climate action in the food and farming sectors' with a black banner at the top of the page. The mitigation measures needed in the face of climate change require transformation in the production and consumption of food. This paper examines local authorities' role in driving practical transformation in the food and farming sectors at the local level, reflecting on the complexity of these sectors and the implications for the effective sub-national delivery of climate goals. A policy review identified food and farming-related actions occurring in a two-tier local authority in England. Local authority staff were invited to one of four workshops to reflect on ongoing activity and to identify actions that have implementation potential and those that are beyond the remit and/or resource of local authorities. The workshops demonstrated participants' ambition to support mitigation measures that foster resilient food systems and deliver co-benefits to local residents. We argue that, despite their constrained capacity, local authorities are well-placed to develop innovative climate solutions relevant to local need. This capacity to deliver climate action should continue to be supported, including through national recognition of the innovative delivery approaches examined in this research.
October 30, 2025 at 10:01 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area!

'Making geography move: The Royal Geographical Society and the exchange of periodical knowledge, 1830–1900' by Benjamin Newman

This paper examines how the RGS's Library and Map Committee controlled the circulation of the Society's journal in the 19th century.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Benjamin Newman (2025) entitled: 'Making geography move: The Royal Geographical Society and the exchange of periodical knowledge, 1830–1900' with a black banner at the top. This paper explores the decisions of the Royal Geographical Society's (RGS) Library and Map Committee in conditioning and constraining the circulation of Britain's first geographical periodical publication. Principally drawing on the committee's minutes in the last half of the nineteenth century, the paper unpicks the unwritten rules that shaped the flow of geographical knowledge to other institutions. As well as documenting the extent and reach of the RGS's periodical, the minutes also reveal the places to which the journal did not travel and the reasons for limiting the movement of geographical ideas and information. Uncovering the journal's travels in this way makes several important contributions to the history of geography and the geographies of knowledge. First, it contributes to new understandings of the RGS and its actors in conditioning the circulation and accumulation of nineteenth-century geographical knowledge. Second, it draws attention to the specificity of the periodical as a printed medium and illustrates its value in understanding the circulation of geography. Third, it makes clear the intricate processes that facilitate or disrupt the flow of geographical knowledge that should demand attention in the context of our modern-day scholarly practice.
October 21, 2025 at 11:58 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'The quarantine window: Atmospheres and anguish at the COVID-19 borderlands' by Mohan Li, Lisheng Weng & Peter Adey.

This paper is part of an ongoing Special Section on 'Atmospheric Borders'.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Mohan Li, Lisheng Weng & Peter Adey (2025) entitled 'The quarantine window: Atmospheres and anguish at the COVID-19 borderlands' with a black banner at the top. In this paper we want to consider border atmospheres—what we understand as the material-affective and emotional expressions of feeling in the dispersed borderlands of COVID quarantine spaces—through the quarantine hotel window. While the quarantine hotel is a seemingly more benign extension or expansion of the medico-political border through COVID-19 security controls and constraints, the quarantine hotel window became a symbol of the extension of the sealed borderzone into the wider archipelago of bordering legalities, spaces and infrastructures. Moreover, it became part of the lived experiences of those whose journeys during COVID were stalled and suspended by those practices. In this paper, we draw on the experiences of Chinese travellers returning to China who were interviewed in a research project on flying through COVID atmospheres in collaboration between scholars in China and the UK. We build on understandings of atmospheres to see how windows—as thresholds, surfaces and boundaries for atmospheres—may attenuate atmospheric movements, shaping their make-up and their qualities. Atmosphere draws attention to the expressivity of life behind, reflected in, and mediated by the window in a mixture of partitioning and condensing, separating and gathering effects.
October 20, 2025 at 10:00 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Youth-led theatre for climate resilience and action at COP26' by Kate Smith et al.

This paper is part of the 'Participatory Historical Geographies' Special Section.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Kate Smith, Briony McDonagh & Sukhmandeep Dhillon (2025) entitled: 'Youth-led theatre for climate resilience and action at COP26' with a black banner at the top.
October 17, 2025 at 1:49 PM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'The geographies of the Information Research Department: Intelligence, diplomacy & the British secret state' by Ben Gowland

This paper provides a historical geographic analysis of the UK Foreign Office's IRD, contributing to intelligence & diplomacy geographies
doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Ben Gowland (2025) entitled: 'The geographies of the Information Research Department: Intelligence, diplomacy and the British secret state' with a black banner at the top. This paper develops a historical and political geographical analysis of the UK Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD). Empirically it is grounded in archival study of IRD files concerning operations in Ghana and South Africa during the Cold War and specifically the 1960s and 1970s. To date, there has been no geographical study of IRD and through this paper's critical study of the organisation I highlight where contributions can be made to existing scholarship on the geographies of intelligence and diplomacy. In examining IRD, I highlight strategies to be applied and spatialities to be investigated in relation to other organs of the British secret state. Through investigating the networks of communication, distribution and personal relations that animated IRD operations and geographers are well positioned to trace the contours of the secret state and its operations. Similarly, through interrogating IRD's relationship with the Diplomatic Service I suggest studies of the cultures and practices of diplomacy can be enriched by highlighting the role of state secrecy and subversion in these contexts. I suggest studying IRD can open up a more holistic examination of the geographies of the British secret state beyond a focus on particular figures or the impact of specific theories. Within British Geography there has been extensive study of the role that geography as a discipline and geographers as practitioners have played in the furtherance of British imperialism and militarism with covert actions and agencies central here. However, what this paper evidences and what I am proposing is the need for a determined and critical geographical analysis of the British secret state and its activities tout court.
October 16, 2025 at 11:06 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Friendship in academia: A radically ordinary praxis?' by @smhall.bsky.social

This piece is part of an ongoing Special Section: 'Dialogues in Radical Geography'.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Sarah Marie Hall (2025) entitled: 'Friendship in academia: A radically ordinary praxis?' with a black banner at the top. Friendships play a fundamental role in everyday life, offering companionship, mutuality, and care, across multiple and intersecting socio-spatial contexts. Drawing on scholarship and activism across feminist geographies, and contributing to this growing field of geographical interest, this piece brings together considerations of solidaristic friendship with/in everyday academic practice. Turning this critical lens inwards, I argue that everyday relational spaces of friendship within academia have radical potential – a radically ordinary praxis? – and yet are often overlooked or undervalued. I suggest that, in being so very ordinary, friendship has the possibility to be much more widely registered and deployed within academic spaces to engender greater and much needed solidarity in current times.
October 15, 2025 at 11:10 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Archival encounters: Troubling material and the historical geographies of workplace violence' by Liv Robinson & @paulgriffin1.bsky.social

This paper reflects on interactions between archival researchers & violent material relating to industrial death & injury

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Liv Robinson & Paul Griffin (2025) entitled 'Archival encounters: Troubling material and the historical geographies of workplace violence' with a black banner at the top. This paper reflects on the archival encounter. In our discussion, we consider interactions between researchers and more troubling and violent materials, specifically industrial death and injury, held within archives. We contribute to ongoing methodological thought within historical geography by drawing on literature relating to archival encounters, fragments, and labour injustice as a means to unpack archival interactions. We specifically consider the encounter with troubling material and the ambiguities of analysing it. Our archival reflections draw on two of our own archival research encounters with historical industrial settings. These are from two different archives and are broadly framed around workplace violence. The first is from the early twentieth-century British Coalfields, while the second is situated within the crisis of unemployment in Britain in the 1980s. We highlight our experiences in encountering troubling materials and some of reflexive commentary on how we navigated the material. Although the material we encountered did not sit completely comfortably within the broader scope of our research, it stood out in such a way that we felt it warranted acknowledgement but we encountered ethical and analytical dilemmas in doing so.
October 14, 2025 at 1:33 PM
areajournal.bsky.social
📢September Issue of Area📢

Our latest issue features an editorial from our new team, a Special Section on 'Gentle Geographies', and a discussion forum on #OpenAccess book publishing.

Available to read here ⬇️
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754762...
A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are seven tiles with the names of papers in a Special Section titled 'Gentle Geographies', and an editorial. The papers are: 1) Areas of opportunity Jeremy J. Schmidt, Mary Lawhon, Jonathan Darling, Eli D. Lazarus 2) Editorial: Towards more gentle geographies: Narrating a virtue turn, and possibilities for multi-tonal politics of activism and academic labour Matt Finn, Jayne M. Jeffries 3) The quiet politics and gentle literary activism behind the battle for Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument Laura Smith 4) Power in numbers/Power and numbers: Gentle data activism as strategic collaboration Jonathan Cinnamon 5) For diffident geographies and modest activisms: Questioning the ANYTHING-BUT-GENTLE academy John Horton 6) Treading carefully through tomatoes: Embodying a gentle methodological approach Laura Pottinger 7) CoPSE: A methodological intervention towards gentle more-than-human relations Suzanne Hocknell A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles with the names of papers in the issue. The papers are: 1) ‘What is visible… and what isn't’: A public art intervention for re-imagining the food system Ekaterina Gladkova, Naho Matsuda 2) Reimagining the streetscapes of Varanasi city: Public art, urban regeneration and smart city practices Iman Banerjee, Amrita Bajaj, Apala Saha 3) It takes a team to participate – Refining working participant observations through multiple researchers Maria Thulemark, Susanna Heldt-Cassel, Tara Duncan 4) Right-sizing the smart city in Southeast Asia Prerona Das, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong 5) The role of virtual field trips in Geography higher education: A perspective paper Elizabeth R. Hurrell, Simon M. Hutchinson, Lynda Yorke, Lesley C. Batty, M. Jane Bunting, Dan Swanton, Derek A. McDougall, Daniel R. Parsons 6) Is the spatial persistence of deprivation dependent on neighbouring areas? Stephen D. Clark, Fran Pontin, Paul Norman 7) ‘Backward geographies’: Contested lives and livelihoods in the tea plantation enclaves of South Asia Suranjan Majumder 8) On the forms of borderwork in public institutions: Bordering social security through conditions and tests Kathryn Cassidy, Gill Davidson 9) Navigating inequalities and shaping aspirations: The role of supplementary education in low-income immigrant youth's transition to selective secondary school Lara Landolt A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are nine tiles with the names of papers in a Special Section titled 'Open Access Book Publishing: A Forum for Debate' and three 'Ethics in/of Geographical Research' papers. The papers are: 1) ‘The city is not for us’: Ethics, everyday sexism, and negotiating unwanted encounters during fieldwork Morag Rose 2) Participation, inclusion and reflexivity in multi-step (focus) group discussions Marina Korzenevica, Engdasew Feleke Lemma, Catherine Fallon Grasham, Khonker Taskin Anmol, Daniel Ekai Esukuku, Fahreen Hossain, Mercy Mbithe Musyoka, Saskia Nowicki, Dalmas Ochieng Omia, Salome A. Bukachi 3) The ‘creative thesis’ in the academic ‘anxiety machine’ Angela Last 4) Against book enclosures: Moving towards more diverse, humane and accessible book publishing Simon P. J. Batterbury, Andrea E. Pia, Gerda Wielander, Nicholas Loubere 5) Uneven geographies of power in UK higher education's conjunctural crisis: A response to Gandy Julie Cupples 6) Beyond open access: Book publishing in a metric culture Clancy Wilmott 7) Gandy & 'Books under threat': A response Frank Houghton 8) Challenges and opportunities for open access book publishing: A perspective from a society publisher in the geosciences Jenny Lunn, Kate Lajtha 9) Ex Libris: Books, creativity and academic freedom Matthew Gandy
October 3, 2025 at 10:22 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Grabbing the wind? Assetisation of land & enclosure of wind rights in the Outer Hebrides' by David Rudolph & Laura Tolnov Clausen

This paper examines conflicts between rival wind farm projects on the Isle of Lewis to understand processes of 'wind grabbing'.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Graphical abstract of this paper in Area: a photograph of two wind turbines against a cloudy sky.
October 2, 2025 at 2:08 PM
areajournal.bsky.social
#OpenAccess in Area:

'Confluences of art and research: Reflections on curating an art exhibition as interdisciplinary method' by Helen Underhill & Cat Button

This paper reflects on 'curation-as-method' in relation to the 2024 'Confluences: Water and People' exhibition.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Helen Underhill & Cat Button (2025) entitled: 'Confluences of art and research: Reflections on curating an art exhibition as interdisciplinary method' with a black banner at the top. The exhibition ‘Confluences: Water and People’ drew together creative, participatory, community-focused research by partners in Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Malaysia, and the UK, as well as artists whose work connects with the River Tyne, its tributaries, people, and landscapes. This paper addresses this exhibition as a piece of research in its own right, aiming to answer two core research questions: (1) How do people connect with water? and (2) How can we develop new insights into the intangible values of water through exploring these relationships at both local (the specific) and global (the universal) scales? We explore the challenges of interdisciplinary work in relation to our curatorial-research process. The paper does not present or discuss the exhibition itself (we encourage readers to explore the online exhibition at: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/apl/events/water-and-people/), but rather the curatorial process that underpinned it, and what it meant as a piece of research. In doing so, we offer learnings for the development of curation-as-method within interdisciplinary research projects, particularly those with a physical sciences focus such as water security.
October 1, 2025 at 11:13 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Theorising invisibility: Migrants in shifting institutional landscapes' by Kali Abel

This paper presents a theoretical framework for invisibility, using the lens of irregular migration to illustrate how invisibility is produced.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Kali Abel (2025) entitled: 'Theorising invisibility: Migrants in shifting institutional landscapes' with a black banner at the top.
September 30, 2025 at 2:34 PM
areajournal.bsky.social
#OpenAccess in Area:

'Photo go-alongs for researching the relations between people and place' by @amycbarron.bsky.social

This paper discusses the advantages of photo go-alongs as a qualitative method for researching the complex relationships between people and place.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Amy Barron (2025) entitled: 'Photo go-alongs for researching the relations between people and place' with a black banner at the top. This paper demonstrates the value of photo go-alongs as a qualitative method for researching the complex relationships between people and place. By integrating two traditional research methods, photo elicitation and go-alongs, the paper considers the utility of photo go-alongs in providing rich insights into how participants make sense of themselves and the world in the present moment. Photo go-alongs were used as part of a research study in Prestwich, Greater Manchester, UK, which worked with older people to better understand places of significance across the life-course. This was against a policy back-drop of the city-region becoming more ‘age-friendly’. Within this context, photo go-alongs were used to showcase participants' lived experiences. Through vignettes and using a more-than-representational epistemology which prioritises movement and the present moment, the paper highlights three key advantages of using photo go-alongs to research the relations between people and place. First, photo go-alongs show how pasts and futures shape the unfolding present. Second, they highlight how biographical and social memories intertwine. Third, they reveal place-making practices and routines. The conclusions highlight the utility of photo go-alongs in illuminating the interplay between people and place, as well as how method itself can be a space of potential. The benefits of photo go-alongs are stronger when they are approached with a flexible, adaptive, and responsive ethos.
September 29, 2025 at 9:15 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Rural transformation research: Current state, dynamics, and future directions' by Arief Rahman et al.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Arief Rahman, Vely Brian Rosandi, Galuh Syahbana Indraprahasta, Abdurrakhman Prasetyadi, Andi Yoga Saputra & Andrea Emma Pravitasari (2025) entitled: 'Rural transformation research: Current state, dynamics, and future directions' with a black banner at the top. While the term rural transformation was first coined in the late 1960s, it is only recently that there has been a significant increase in interest in research employing this label. This particular corpus of research has evolved into a diverse body of literature. However, there is a lack of understanding of the academic landscape of this literature. The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the key characteristics, research topics, and evolution of this body of literature over the past six decades. To this end, the paper employed a science mapping tool, namely CiteSpace, to retrieve data from the Scopus database, combined with an exploratory review. A total of 580 academic articles published up to 2023 were identified and analysed. As the notion of rural transformation has evolved, the extant literature has expanded beyond its initial focus on economic and demographic changes to encompass a broader range of topics, including sustainability, young population, and spatiotemporal analysis, as well as to capture diverse experiences from around the globe. This diversity indicates the need to situate rural transformation within different geographical contexts. In addition to the recent trend, potential areas of research that may shape the future direction of rural transformation literature include environmental sustainability, contemporary globalisation, technological progress, and population dynamics.
September 26, 2025 at 10:37 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
#OpenAccess in Area:

'Networks of securitisation in the academy: The role of friendship, solidarity and radical geographies' by @shereenfdz.bsky.social

This paper is part of an ongoing Special Section: 'Dialogues in Radical Geography'.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Shereen Fernandez (2025) entitled: 'Networks of securitisation in the academy: The role of friendship, solidarity and radical geographies' with a black banner at the top. This intervention has three aims: (1) to consider how solidarities are being policed in the academy; (2) how friendships and solidarities emerge in practices of resistance; and (3) what a radical geography which embraces a decolonial pedagogy can offer us in these unsettling times. While solidarity with the Palestinian cause is transnational, it is also heavily policed and disciplined by our academic institutions. Although universities are heavily influenced by neoliberalism that prioritises profit over people, I examine how these activist spaces allow for the organic development of solidarity and friendship, which is fundamental to these movements, both in the USA and the UK. As universities increasingly embrace national security discourses and policies, such as the deployment of counter-extremism measures in UK universities, activism is being pushed outside of our institutions. Through a call for the recognition of radical geography which embraces a decolonial framework, this intervention highlights the need for the discipline to re-imagine how knowledge can be produced outside the narrow parameters of the institution, while centring and nurturing dynamics of friendship and care.
September 24, 2025 at 12:03 PM
areajournal.bsky.social
Discussion forum in Area:

'Open access book publishing: A forum for debate'

Read 5 responses to Matthew Gandy's 2023 commentary on OA book publishing and the neoliberal academy, with a further reflection by Gandy on the issue two years on ⬇️

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...
A graphic advertising a collection of commentaries in Area on the topic of 'Open Access Book Publishing: A Forum for Debate' with contributions from Andrea E. Pia, Clancy Wilmott, Frank Houghton, Gerda Wielander, Jenny Lunn, Julie Cupples, Kate Lajtha, Matthew Gandy, Nicholas Loubere & Simon P.J. Batterbury. These names appear as a list on the pages of an open book with a black background and the Area and Royal Geographical Society logos at the top.
September 22, 2025 at 9:23 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
#OpenAccess in Area:

'Participatory collaborations between geographers and performance artists: Taking urban renewal histories to the street' by @aledsingleton.bsky.social et al.

This paper is part of an ongoing Special Section on 'Participatory Historical Geography'.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
This image is the graphical abstract for a paper in Area on collaborations between geographers and performance artists. It is a photograph of a filming process taking place, with a person holding a boom and a second person holding a camera on the lefthand side of the shot recording two men on a street pavement, one man in jeans, sunglasses and a black jacket with his arm around a second man dressed in rainbow striped trousers with sunglasses and a clown's red nose, pointing at the sky.
September 18, 2025 at 2:28 PM
areajournal.bsky.social
New in Area:

'Boundary violations and extinction phobias: Trans studies meets invasion science' by Anita Simha & Banu Subramaniam

This paper is part of an ongoing Special Section on 'Trans Ecologies'.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Anita Simha & Banu Subramaniam (2025) entitled: 'Boundary violations and extinction phobias: Trans studies meets invasion science' with a black banner at the top. From its inception, trans studies has approached rigid categories critically, questioning both the stability of concepts like gender and the fixedness of boundaries like male/female and cis/trans. Thinking about geography through a trans lens, we explore the connection between the spatial, temporal, and moral as they appear in US discourses of plant invasions. We show that the concept of the ‘native’ rests on shaky grounds. Stories of good stationary bodies (both vegetal and human) and bad transplants reveal how transphobia and xenophobia intersect and undergird projects of biological control. We further explore the effects of this framework. Invasion science limits the horizon of just ecological futures by misdirecting blame from colonial land acquisition and ongoing resource extraction to a focus on organisms themselves as intrusive and aggressive. White settlers, meanwhile, are remodelled into guardians of the landscape in the process of protecting national purity. Finally, we use theoretical insights from trans studies about the paranoia of trans-exclusionary feminisms to consider the affective dimension of invasion scientists' urgent calls.
September 15, 2025 at 10:47 AM
areajournal.bsky.social
#OpenAccess in Area:

'Adjective-based qualitative comparative analysis: Relating immobility situations across contexts' by Josef Novotný et al.

This paper introduces an adjective-based qualitative comparative method for analysing lived experiences across diverse contexts.

doi.org/10.1111/area...
A graphic showing a network of adjectives e.g. 'helpless', 'happy', 'united', connected to different case studies e.g. 'Syrian refugees in Lebanon', 'Smallholders in Zambia' with some connective lines overlapping.
September 12, 2025 at 8:36 AM