City with or without God? Features of post-secularism in religious landscape of post-communist Prague

The religious climate caused significant changes over the last few decades which led to intense debates about post-secularism in Western Europe. However, there is particularly a distinct lack of analyses of the features of post-secularism in post-communist cities. The paper draws on the case study of Prague where the religious landscape is in many ways unique in a European context because of its highly secularized society. Nevertheless, Prague also experienced a revival of religious life, which has found expression in the religious landscape (not only) through the emergence of new sacral structures, pluralization of religion and post-secular rapprochement in religious institutions. The paper examines the convergent and contradictory processes shaping the religious and non-religious landscape in Prague and therefore opens the discussion about post-secularism in post-communist context. The results point to the importance of historical, social, and urban development for the new geographies of religion. New areas of research should also draw attention on the new religious movements and alternative spirituality which helps to explain the relationship between sacred and secular phenomena in current European society and space and the re-definition of the minority role of religion in the secular society.     

(Just) a walk with the dog? Animal geographies and negotiating walking spaces

In this paper, we present findings from interviews conducted with people who walk with dogs. Drawing on new walking studies and animal geographies as our theoretical framework, we adopt the view that walking is more than just walking; it is often a highly sensual and complex activity. We argue that walking with dogs represents a potentially important cultural space for making sense of human–animal relations. We show how the personalities of both dog and walker can shape not only walking practices, but also the human–animal bond. We contend that the walk is a significant arena where relations of power between animal and human are consciously mediated. We also provide evidence which indicates the contested nature of walking practices and spaces. We conclude that the dog walk is a useful practice through which to examine human–animal relations and thus to contribute to the field of animal geographies.     

Moon,mud, and cell phones: geographies of race and construction of difference through normalization

How does the meaning of space emerge and get negotiated when individuals of diverse backgrounds interact with each other? Studies reporting that African Americans tend not to spend time in outdoor space attribute this finding to limited access to resources, cultural values, degree of assimilation to mainstream practices, discrimination in outdoor space, or a perception that outdoor recreational space is “white space”. Little research has addressed how such meanings relate to other meanings attached to outdoor space, let alone how this happens through interactions between people with different views on outdoor space. This article, based on interviews and participant observation of college students on an alternative break trip from the Northeastern U.S. to New Mexico in 2014, shows how students of various backgrounds experienced nature differently, how differences were articulated and explained, and how they subverted normalization processes that render not “being in tune with nature” as deficiency. Suggesting that geographies of race are fluid and influenced by individuals’ agency, this article calls for encouraging students to examine the ways their subject positions have shaped their experiences and challenge cultural bias in what is deemed universally desirable.     

Dimensions of remapping: Heinrich Schiffers and his mental map of Africa

ABSTRACT

At the beginning of the 1960s, the Athenäum publishing house in Germany planned a revised and extended edition of Heinrich Schiffers’ (1901–1982) successful book Wilder Erdteil Afrika (English translation: The Quest for Africa). The bestselling author had published several monographs about Africa since the 1930s, and authored and edited numerous works after World War II. Nearly all of these works, whose substantial print runs are testament to their popularity, are characterized by an engaging combination of text, images, and cartographic material, creating narratives and mental maps about Africa, its history, and the colonial past. In his later writings, he stressed the importance of “relearning” with regard to Africa and struggled to remap the imaginative geography of Africa. In this paper, I examine the characteristics of Schiffers’ imaginative geography and the change in his writings and maps. I explore whether his concept of “relearning” was an epistemological decolonization or if there were any continuities found in his imaginative geography. In order to grasp the specifics of his thinking, his geography will be briefly compared with that of his contemporary, Frankfurt zoo director Bernhard Grzimek.     

No Place for the Political: Micro‐Geographies of the Paris Climate Conference 2015

Building upon post‐foundational political philosophies, this article scrutinizes the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015 from a micro‐geographical perspective. The analysis suggests that three different spaces exist at the site of the summit and reveals how their constituting practices and material arrangements rendered “Paris” post‐democratic. We begin with exposing the staged statements of the world's political elites in the meticulously orchestrated Leaders Event as different phenotypes of the post‐democratic condition. We then investigate the formal negotiations in the cordoned‐off backrooms, where positions within the system were at stake, but not the system as such. Finally, we wander through the strictly policed “trade fair” and unveil attempts to entice delegates into techno‐managerial solutions to the climate crisis. In the conclusion, we ponder over the prospects of environmental activism at the COPs in the light of their massive depoliticization.     

Fucking geographers! Or the epistemological consequences of neglecting the lusty researcher’s body

This article investigates the dichotomy within research on sexuality between the desiring body of the informant on the one hand and the non-desiring body of the researcher on the other. Despite earlier calls to acknowledge and include the eroticisms of the researcher, accounts where the desiring researcher’s body is a central focus remain exceptions to the rule. The main goal of this intervention is to investigate why the absence of the lusty researcher’s body seems to endure. I will first explore some of the reasons researchers might feel inhibited to self-disclose their desires, to continue with uncovering some of the techniques used to sustain the cover of the asexual, disembodied researcher. Afterwards, I will discuss my own experiences as a (junior) researcher in the field, mainly my own discomfort and embarrassment to be perceived as a desiring woman-researcher, and trace how this has informed my own research trajectory. I conclude by suggesting that writing down our negotiations between the validity of our research versus how much we are willing to self-disclose might be a first step towards an improved inclusion of lust and desire in sex research.     

A continuing agenda for gender: the role of the IGU Commission on gender and geography

In examining the development of the International Geographical Union’s (IGU) Commission on Gender and Geography over the last three decades, we first highlight the advances made to establish visibility for gender studies within the IGU and create structures for more inclusive feminist geographies across national, disciplinary and other borders. Given that many of the early and most widely-known advances were largely within Anglophone contexts, we then discuss the ongoing challenges and possibilities for advancement faced by feminist geographers who teach, research, and write on gender in other locations. While some of these challenges (such as a continued lack of recognition for gender studies, paternalistic hierarchies, and specific government regimes) are country-specific, others are related to broader issues of neoliberalism and corporatization, and inequities in academic publishing. Clearly, continued efforts are needed to strengthen the agenda for gender to promote more inclusive histories, practices and processes of gender/feminist geography in research, teaching and application in the international arena.     

The geography of transnational adoption: kin and place in globalization

International adoption involves crossing borders; it invokes space and geography as adoptive parents imagine distant countries, as children are moved from one nation to another, and as adoptees and their families return to their countries of origin. The spatiality of belonging and identity – but also of trauma and violence – are central concerns for the people involved and to the operations of their cultural, political, and legal practice. Yet surprisingly, cultural geographers have not yet developed a conceptualization of transnational adoption that theorizes it as a constitutive aspect of geographies of migration, domestic geographies, and geography of childhood. In this issue we seek to set out an agenda for the cultural and political geographies of transnational adoption. We do so by discussing three interrelated themes: the adoption-migration nexus, geographies of relatedness, and the biopolitics of mobility.     

'Hired Hands' or 'Local Voice': Understandings and Experience of Local Participation in Conservation

In recent years, the notion of local participation has emerged as a major force in both policy-making and political philosophy. This paper explores the role that participation is playing in mediating relations between local people, conservation organizations and the ideas and practices of nature conservation in England. Drawing upon empirical research in the county of Kent, the paper argues that there are systematic discrepancies between the motives, experiences and understandings of the various policy actors towards the theory and practice of a participatory conservation. It argues that these apparent discrepancies have serious implications for both the credibility and the effectiveness of present initiatives, whereby participatory practice serves to reshape existing conceptions of conservation and rural space.     

Supporting food security for Indigenous families through the restoration of Indigenous foodways

Indigenous families are overrepresented among those within Canada who experience food insecurity. Studies have largely focused on northern populations, with less attention paid to southern and urban communities, including the social, cultural, and geographic processes that challenge food security. In this study, we present findings from a decade‐long community‐based study with the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre (London, Ontario) to examine family perspectives related to the social determinants of food security. These topics were explored through qualitative interviews (n = 25) and focus groups (n = 2) with First Nation mothers with young children from the city of London, and a nearby reserve community. Interviewees from both geographies identified a number of socio‐economic challenges including household income and transportation. However, some interviewees also shed light on barriers to healthy eating unique to these Indigenous contexts including access issues such as a lack of grocery stores on‐reserve; loss of knowledge related to the utilization of traditional foods; and the erosion of community, familial, and social supports. Resolving these unique determinants of food security for urban and reserve‐based First Nation families will require a range of economic and culturally specific interventions, particularly those that support development and uptake of Indigenous foodways.