Twitter and Academic Geography through the Lens of #AAG2018

Twitter has emerged as a global social network of active users who share conversations with one another in an online setting. Academics are one community that has increasingly taken to Twitter as a means of connecting with other scholars, sharing research, and obtaining meaningful feedback. Tweeting has become especially popular during academic conferences where conference attendees use Twitter hashtags to filter conference conversations into a separate dialogue. For geographers, the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) represents one such occasion to use Twitter to discuss contemporary developments in geographic research. In this article, we provide an overview of Twitter as well as the ways in which the academic community uses the platform. Following this, we discuss the tweets sent using the hashtag for the 2018 AAG Annual Meeting, #AAG2018. To analyze these tweets, we collected all tweets with this hashtag for a period of four weeks and examined the content using word clouds and sentiment analysis to explore general feelings and trends associated with geography and the AAG Annual Meeting. We conclude with suggestions for future research avenues that could use Twitter data to gauge the pulse of the geographic discipline. Key Words: academic conferences, American Association of Geographers, geography, sentiment analysis, Twitter.     

We Are All Makers: The Method of Keyword Selection in Teaching and Learning Human Geography

Abstract

Geographers continue to engage in public debate “inside the Beltway” by participation within and through federal agencies and through the National Research Council. Several examples illustrate the level and kind of this engagement, which has been concentrated on environmental and spatial data and analysis themes. Most professional geographers have the opportunity to engage in this form of public debate through participation in the activities of the National Research Council. The level of this participation has been surprisingly strong, given the small size of the community of professional geographers, and has helped to shape both U.S. and international research agendas relevant to geographic research. Participation, however, is concentrated in a few programs and individuals, raising questions about the sustainability of geography's voice in this public activity.

     

A Long Way to Go: Collective Paths to Racial Justice in Geography

Despite decades of recognition and worry about diversity, our discipline remains persistently white. That is, it is dominated by white bodies and it continues to conform to norms, practices, and ideologies of whiteness. This is a loss. At best, it limits the possibilities and impact of our work as geographers. At worst, it perpetuates harmful exclusions in our discipline: its working environments, its institutions, and its knowledge production. This remains deeply concerning for many geographers, and there has been important research, commentary, and institutional activity over the years. Yet, research shows us that little meaningful progress has been made. We know that mentoring is one vital part of the journey toward change. As such, we reflect here on our experience developing a research collective built on a transformative mentoring practice. We outline the key challenges, strategies, and tentative successes of the collective in supporting women of color undergraduate, graduate, and faculty geographers, arguing that such feminist formations are a vital part of the path to intellectual racial justice in our field. Key Words: diversity, feminist geography, higher education, mentoring, race.     

Clusters of Nonmedical Exemptions to Vaccination in Illinois K–12 Schools

Vaccination rates in Illinois schools are decreasing as more parents opt for nonmedical exemptions (NMEs). At the local scale, higher levels of exemptions affect herd immunity levels. Few studies have previously conducted or proposed methods to conduct local-scale spatial and temporal cluster pattern analysis. This study used vaccination exemption data from the Illinois School Board of Education’s annual Immunization School Survey for the 2003–2004 and 2013–2014 academic years. The Getis–Ord General G statistic was used to identify cluster detection by individual vaccine at the school level. The Getis–Ord Gi* statistic was used with two different parameter models to identify hot and cold spots. This study found that NMEs are highly clustered. More clusters of high and low NMEs were identified for the 2013–2014 academic year than for 2003–2004. The percentages of schools that were neither hot nor cold averaged 94.0 percent for the 2003–2004 school year and 78.7 percent for the 2013–2014 school year. NME rates in Illinois are rising. The increase in hot and cold spots is evidence that the polarity of vaccination choice is growing. As vaccination exemption rates continue to polarize U.S. society, it is essential for public health efforts to monitor and conduct local-level studies. Key Words: antivaccination, hot spot analysis, medical geography, nonmedical exemption, spatial statistics.     

Reordering China,Respacing the World: Belt and Road Initiative (一带一路) as an Emergent Geopolitical Culture

Since it was set out in speeches by China’s Premier Xi Jinping in September and October 2013, discussion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has proliferated in China. We argue that the scale and density of this discussion can usefully be conceptualized as an emergent geopolitical culture, reworking geopolitical narratives and spatial policies established in China in the second half of the twentieth century. In charting this emergence, we examine the ways in which the BRI links the reordering of China’s economic geography with articulations of China and the world. Surveying BRI as an emergent geopolitical culture, we draw on the example of the narratives of familiarity, partnership, and location vis-à-vis China and Singapore. Our conclusions reflect on how the BRI is appropriated to visions of China’s destiny. Key Words: Belt and Road Initiative, China, geopolitical culture, Singapore.     

Defining the Historical Northeastern Forested Boundary of the Great Plains Grasslands in the United States

The Great Plains is the grasslands of the central United States, but precise delineation of this region has evaded agreement due to the transition between Great Plains grasslands and forests of the eastern United States. After comparing Great Plains delineations in readily available geographic information system layers, I established a northeastern boundary using evidence from historical tree surveys during the 1800s. Additionally, I described tree presence within the Great Plains over time and potential drivers of change. The definition documented here diverges from others by including most of Iowa and part of Illinois, and even small sections in Indiana and Wisconsin, but excluding Missouri due to regular tree presence overall at landscape scales of ecological subsections. In this definition, the Great Plains had an extent of 2.29 million km² in fifteen states, including Indiana and Wisconsin, and 2.19 million km² after removal of open forests in Oklahoma and Texas. Tree presence occurs within the Great Plains and tree encroachment is not a new process; however, tree encroachment is increasing in the Great Plains, which causes a decrease in the grasslands region. Nevertheless, clarifying the historical eastern boundary provides a solution to the problem of competing versions of the Great Plains region. Key Words: ecotone, prairie, savanna, tree encroachment.     

(What Geographers Should Know About) The State of U.S. and Canadian Academic Professional Associations’ Engagement with Mental Health Practices and Policies

The professional organizations to which geographers belong and by which they are represented have a civic duty and ethical responsibility to educate their members about mental health issues in their professions and, by default, their work environments. And yet national-level professional associations in North America are lagging behind universities in adopting initiatives, commissioning reports, and looking into best practices around the mental health of their members. A survey of the Web sites of sixty-six professional associations in the social sciences, geographical sciences, and humanities in the United States and Canada reveals an uneven presence of attention to mental health issues in terms of their members’ research on mental health issues, awareness of mental health as a professional development issue, and engagement in mental health advocacy and public outreach. In this article, we explore how geography’s professional organizations compare to others with respect to these issues and suggest ways in which they can develop their own mental health protocols to address the crisis of mental health in the academy. Key Words: Academic professional associations, American Association of Geographers, Canadian Association of Geographers, mental health, mental health practices and policies.     

Courtroom Ethnography: Researching the Intersection of Law,Space, and Everyday Practices

This article argues for a more sustained use of courtroom ethnography by geographers as a means to research legal phenomena, especially in matters of court trials. To do this, I begin by referencing two main threads of courtroom ethnographies conducted in disciplines outside geography, specifically the spaces of the courthouse and courtrooms and the study of emotion and bodily performances by sociolegal and sociology scholars. To then underscore the ways in which a geographical perspective can enhance this existing research and point to topical and theoretical interventions that courtroom ethnography might offer geography, I draw on my experiences with courtroom ethnography on the criminal trial against former Enron chief executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. This experience produced a nuanced and lively understanding of how law, justice, and space comingle through the court’s physical spaces and performative embodiments. My conclusions emphasize courtroom ethnographies’ scholarly opportunities for researchers who study the intersection of law and space, while also reflecting on its challenges. Key Words: corporation, courtroom, Enron, ethnography, legal geography.     

Exploring the Impact of Contextual Information on Student Performance and Interest in Open Humanitarian Mapping

The opportunity to engage university students in authentic, open humanitarian mapping raises important questions about how to guide the quality and productivity of volunteer spatial contributions while providing a valuable learning experience. It presents the unique chance to pique new mappers’ interest, satisfaction, and confidence in spatial technologies in particular, and technology in general, as well as pique their interest in the people and places that are served by the humanitarian mapping projects. This article shares the findings of a study that explores the importance of sharing authentic contextual information about the purpose of the humanitarian mapping task. Two groups of beginner mappers were given mapping tasks, with only one group being provided details on the purpose. Comparisons were made on their respective performance and changes in affective response to a series of questions about technology, education, good citizenship, and empathy. Measures of the quantity and quality of spatial data produced; their respective levels of interest, satisfaction, and confidence in technology; and affective responses before and after mapping show the relative effects of contextual information. Results provide insights about the potential effectiveness of authentic instruction on the performance of mapping as well as the potential effect on mappers themselves. Key Words: citizenship, data quality, empathy, humanitarian mapping, volunteered geographic information.