On Geographic and geography

New Zealand Geographic is one of a number of geographical magazines published in the English‐speaking world that make little or no reference to work by academic geographers. It recently launched a New Zealand Geographic Trust to promote research into ‘New Zealand's life, culture and sciences’ and collaborated with four other publishers of geographical magazines to raise awareness of climate change: the work of academic geographers is again ignored. This exclusion of academic and school geography from such enterprises raises important issues regarding the discipline's public profile in New Zealand and suggests the need for greater public engagement activity by the country's geographers.     

Shaping and Sharing Responsibility: Social Memory and Social Learning in the Australian Rural Bushfire Landscape

Responding to increased frequency and severity of bushfires, Australian governments called for “shared responsibility” for bushfire preparation and mitigation. This requires engagement between all sectors of community—government agencies, businesses, not-for-profit, and residents. Fire management agencies remain concerned about whether all communities in fire-prone landscapes are equally equipped to participate in sharing responsibility. A related question is how experience of bushfire influences subsequent community fire management practices. This paper addresses social learning and social memory in a landscape that has experienced repeat bushfires between 2006 and 2013. It examines the relationships between memory, learning and practice among a farming community in western Victoria and government agencies with bushfire management responsibility. Findings suggest that social learning and social memory interact and new practices emerge as the participants embrace “shared responsibility.” However, ambiguities remain about “what” is being shared and what being “responsible” means at different points in preparation and response.     

Understanding the 24-Hour City: Engagement,Positionality, and the Coproduction of Knowledge

This article explores the production of geographic knowledge arising through civic engagement, using the example of a research course in Pittsburgh's South Side Flats neighborhood. Although civic engagement is a persistent feature in geography research and education, recent papers note that the term civic engagement conceals diverse practices and goals and that the outcomes of engagement are usually uncertain. In this article, I argue that attention must be paid to the positionality of stakeholder groups at all stages of the engagement process and that there are necessary limits to how participatory the coproduction of knowledge can be during a civic engagement course.     

Developing the Next Generation of Community-Based Scholars

As we train the next generation of scholars, we should be cognizant that the academy is increasingly being asked to justify its value to broader society. We discuss ways in which students can prepare for the changing directions of the academy as they participate in a community geography research training program. Our results reveal the impacts of our program, contextualize lessons learned from creating community-based research experiences, and provide data to support a framework for other scholars to develop community-based research training programs.     

Teaching the Land of Israel as Civic Education: A Historical Exploration

Guided by the assumption that geography teaching is connected to nationalism and civic education, this study focused on the manifestation of different citizenship conceptions in the teaching of the land of Israel as implemented in the Israeli educational system. This historical content analysis of Israeli curricula resulted in a division into three periods. Whereas the first two periods reflected specific citizenship conceptions—nationalistic in the former and individualistic in the latter, the third period is characterized by an amalgamation of contradictory conceptions. These findings point to the potential and challenges facing geography education in creating a truly democratic space.     

Establishing attitudes and perceptions of recreational boat users based in the River Hamble Estuary,UK, towards Marine Conservation Zones

Research was completed focusing on a population of recreational boat users with moorings on the River Hamble Estuary, United Kingdom. Issues explored include: (1) boater setting preferences; (2) sources of perceived conflict; and (3) understanding and support for Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs). Several sources of perceived conflict emerged. Action taken to address conflict must be problem specific, targeting the individual as opposed to the activity in general. Results suggest that there is little awareness and a lack of understanding and support amongst recreational boaters with regards to the role of MCZs. The MCZ Project was set up in 2009 in order to work with sea users and interest groups to make site recommendations. Many participants in this research stated that the MCZ Project has: taken an unbalanced approach, represents overregulation, and poses a threat to safe anchorages. It is apparent that compliance and support for management tools being employed will be achieved only if the process is transparent and inclusive. An appropriate and equitable mechanism must be developed in order to move beyond ‘public consultation’ to ensure stakeholders are more fully engaged in both the implementation and management of MCZs. Such strategies will help to alleviate feelings of powerlessness as is so often the case in public consultation.     

Citizen science and the power of public participation in marine spatial planning

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is becoming increasingly used in the sustainable management of marine and coastal ecosystems. However, limitations on time and resources often restrict the data available for MSP and limit public engagement and participation in the MSP process. While citizen science is being increasingly used to provide fine-scale environmental data across large terrestrial planning areas, there has been little uptake in MSP to date. This paper demonstrates how consistent citizen observations can be used to identify hotspots of good and poor environmental health across a MSP region, and where environmental health has improved or degraded in the past five years; information that is difficult to obtain by other means. The study demonstrates how citizen science provides valuable insight into environmental health across a MSP region, while fostering a supportive space for the public to contribute their own observations and participate in the planning process.