It's Not Your Mother's Geography Anymore

Jul 26, 2011
James Gibson

Image of Lake Travis Texas from European Space Agency's First Small Satellite, Proba using Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS) - photostream

Geography has changed. Integrative as always and armed with geotechnologies, geographers around the world are tackling world problems.

One may ask: What do geographers do? Do they study capes and bays like in the old days? No…but, because the field is so diverse, the question is difficult to answer definatively; and it changes according to the times and regions. Certainly, in general, they approach human problems with a spatial point of view- horizintally across a surface (mapping) and vertically in interaction with the existing physical landscape and biome of a place or region (ecology) and occassionally venture into other fields (GIS in business applications). But if you really want to know, the best way is to watch them work.

One method of watching practicing geographers from public and private sectors and from universities is to follow the conference sessions of their professional organizations and the papers presented in their professional journals. Following is a brief survey.

Educational Trends:

The Ontario Association for Geographic and Environmental Education (OAGEE) holds spring and fall conferences plus summer institutes and reports back by way of its professional journal, The Monograph. The 2011 spring conference was held at the Ganaraska Regional Conservation Authority in Peterborough and focused on:

Sustainability,
Geographic Positioning Systems (GPS), and
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

The 2011 fall conference is being held at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, located on the Oak Ridges Moraine, a remnant of ancient glaciation. Session themes include:

geotechnology ,
physical geography and resources,
strategies for ecological awareness,
urban issues, and
social justice/global citizenship

The 2011 summer institute, partially sponsored by the Department of Geography at Ryerson University involves an intensive program that includes:

Workshops in GIS using environmental applications
Data collection in the field using GPS

Research Trends:

In 2006 the Association of American Geographers (AAG) organized a panel in San Marcos Texas for US and Latin American Collaboration in Geographic Research and Education. Presenters from the region focused on notable research trends as follows:

Chile- territorial and regional instability, transnational corporations and social disruption, rural and urban ethnic segregation, labor migrations patterns, life quality in middle sized cities, and sustainability.
Mexico- tension between multiculturalism and interculturalidad, development of indigenous peoples, and territorial geography
Argentina- geographical consequences of integration with other countries, impact on nature (destruction of ecosystems) and society (problems of increasing unemployment) of privatization of major companies, urban fragmentation, migratory process and patterns, tourism, and the political annihilation of geographic space.
Panama- sustainable development, geographic view of the AIDS virus, links between climate, population and disease (e.g. TB), economic development and culture diffusion, tourism sites to help develop rural communities

Practicing geographers from public and private sectors and from universities in Canada are represented by the Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG). Its weekly news digest, Geog News, focuses on hot papers by Canadian geographers. A June 2011 edition included:

Variability of regional snow cover in spring over western Canada and its relationship to temperature and circulation anomalies
Toronto's urban heat island exploring the relationship between land use and surface temperature.

Geographical Research is the international journal of the Institute of Australian Geographers. At the time of writing, the top 5 Geographical Research articles accessible online included:

The Challenge of Change: Australian Cities and Urban Planning in the New Millennium (2006) by Clive Forster
Planning to Reduce Risk: The Wildfire Management Overlay in Victoria, Australia. (June 2009) by Rachel Hughes and David Mercer
Study of the Impact of Urban Development on Surface Temperatures Using Remote Sensing in Ho Chi Minh City, Northern Vietnam Tran Thi (February 2010) by Van, Ha Duong Xuan Bao
Labor Relations and the Transfer of Knowledge in Industrial Clusters: Why do Skilled Workers Share Knowledge with Colleagues in Other Firms? (February 2010) by Lou Wilson and John Spoehr, and
Indigenous Methodologies: Suggestions for Junior Researchers (February 2010) by Naohiro Nakamura

The Institute of British Geographers is represented in print by the Geographical Journal. It cited published landmark articles which advance the discipline of geography, including:

The Political Geographies of Transitional Justice by Alex Jeffrey
Understanding Ethnic Differences in the Migration of Young Adults within Britain from a Lifecourse Perspective by Nissa Finney

Information Systems:

Certainly a major development in geography has been the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Some trends in this field include:

New ways of extracting more information from map data e.g. trend-surface mapping, object information from aerial images
Capabilities for geographic technologies in many related fields e.g. business- demographic and market analysis

So, do you now know what geography is? It’s certainly not your mother’s geography anymore.