Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
M. Steiner (ed.), Clusters and Regional Specialisation. On Geography,Technology, and Networks
Denis J.B. Shaw, Russia in the Modern World. A New Geography
Ron Martin, Money and the Space Economy     

“In Front of the World”: Translating Beatriz Nascimento

This collection translates some of the work of the influential Black Brazilian thinker and activist Beatriz Nascimento (1942–1995) for the first time into English, in collaboration with her only daughter, Bethânia Gomes. Historian, poet, theorist and organiser, Beatriz Nascimento was a key figure in Brazil’s Black Movement until her untimely death in 1995. She dangerously wrote at the height of Brazil’s Military Dictatorship (1964–1985), and theorised extensively on the Black condition in Brazil; the unique experience of Black women; and quilombos—Brazilian maroon societies that she imagined as spaces of both historical and contemporary fugitivity. Following Alex Ratts, this introduction outlines her contribution to radical geography, in particular Black geographies, territoriality and embodiment. It also positions Nascimento within the trans‐Atlantic Black radical tradition. We present two of Nascimento’s essays in translation here. The first, “The Concept of Quilombo and Black Cultural Resistance”, introduces a crucial strand of her scholarly work, on the history and socio‐political significance of quilombos (maroon communities). The second, “For a (New) Existential and Physical Territory”, shows Nascimento in a different mood: philosophical, reflective and iconoclastic. In addition, two of her poems—“Dream” and “Sun and Blue”—are also translated here for the first time.     

Geographies of Policing: Domestic Violence,Mandatory Arrest,and Police Liability

For most of United States history, the police did not intervene in domestic violence. To redress for this history, police departments began implementing mandatory arrest policies in the 1980s. These policies require police to arrest in cases of domestic violence when injuries are present, regardless of victim consent. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research conducted in central Pennsylvania, including participant observation in a domestic violence unit of a police department and interviews with police officers, this paper examines how mandatory arrest policies extend the spatial reach of the state into private space and intimate relationships. Specifically, I argue that the policing of domestic violence positions police officers as neoliberal subjects responsible for mediating abusive relationships on behalf of the state. This paper contributes to geographic research on policing in the private sphere, while also offering a detailed accounting of the mechanics of police practice.     

Frontiers’ violence: The interplay of state of exception,frontier habitus,and organized violence

As global capitalism is expanding to the most remote areas of the world, the notion of “frontier”, where competing social orders are contesting each other, is gaining traction in academic analyses. Contemporary frontiers are associated with resource exploitation in marginalized spaces and processes of socioecological transformation, which are characterized as particularly violent. This article offers a conceptual contribution to the frontier debate by putting violence in the center of a frontier concept. Building on a sociology of violence, this approach assumes that every social order comes with some form of organized violence. We argue that the frontier is characterized by a tidal passage: Existing orders and their institutions, which socially embed and constrain a particular use of violence, are challenged by an expansive order which comes along with new formations of violence, leading to a reorganization of violence. Thus the frontier describes a momentum in which the interplay of social order and organized violence becomes highly disputed. Representatives of the expansive order refuse to recognize existing orders and favour a state of exception, in which law is set aside to impose the new order.     

COVID-19, mental health,and rurality: A pilot study

COVID-19 has caused enormous economic and social disruptions that may have lasting effects on employment, income, and working conditions. Critically, these disruptions often have a negative impact on mental health. While significant research has examined the relationship between COVID-19 and mental health, most of these studies focus on urban centres. This paper presents results from a pilot study conducted in two rural counties in Ontario, Canada on the experiences of residents from small and rural communities related to COVID-19. Based on 3496 survey results, this study quantifies the negative impact of COVID-19 on overall mental health and the confounding role of gender, income, and age. Results must be used to expand the dialogue around rural mental health and to ensure appropriate programs and policies are developed.     

Dams,Diversions, and Development: Slow Resistance and Authoritarian Rule in the Salween River Basin

We engage geography's longstanding debate on what “counts” as resistance by introducing slow resistance to account for temporal-political strategies against unjust developments, particularly under authoritarian conditions. We draw on over a decade of fieldwork in the Salween River Basin where dams and diversions have been proposed since 1979, including the most recent iteration, the Yuam River water diversion project in Northwest Thailand. We find that resistance by impacted communities and civil society encompasses slow, strategic, and considered actions over time and generations. Such resistance is necessarily protracted to contest developments (re)proposed over decades. By foregrounding the strategic use of time and temporality, we highlight often overlooked actions and strategies of resistance by a diverse range of actors, showing how resistance movements are incremental and interconnected over time, even when “under the radar”. These strategies are key to contesting and (re)shaping the conditions of development in the Basin.     

Whose Streets? Roadway Protests and Weaponised Automobility

The article examines the role of automobility in US-based anti-racism demonstrations and counter-demonstrations. We contrast the spatial strategies of highway occupations by racial justice activists, with so-called “weaponised car” attacks by the American far right. Analysing online memes and anti-protest legislation, the article explores under-acknowledged links between “automobile supremacy”—the structure of motorists' privilege as embedded in law, the built environment and the popular imaginary—and the patterns of racial stratification often termed “white supremacy”. We document three ways in which automobility has been enlisted as means of violence against protestors and against wider Black communities in the US: through the use of vehicles, right-of-way conventions, and roadways as weapons. The article demonstrates how the imperative to make way for the motorist has long provided cover for racial injustice.     

“Protect the women!” Trans-exclusionary feminist issue framing and support for transgender rights

An increasingly salient policy innovation pursued by LGBT+ rights groups and socially liberal policy entrepreneurs is the right of trans people to bring their legally recorded sex in line with their lived gender by way of self-identification. In response to these moves toward trans inclusion, a unique coalition of trans-exclusionary (gender critical) feminists and traditionalist conservatives has emerged to challenge these reforms. This coalition of policy opponents, mirroring historical issue frames that present homosexuals as predatory sexual deviants, campaign on a salient issue frame that presents transgender individuals and the expansion of trans rights as an inimical threat to the security, safety, and welfare of (cisgender) women, particularly in single-sex spaces. In this paper, we address two questions. First, we ask: do trans-exclusionary “protect women” issue frames over the alleged threat of trans persons to (cis) women shape mass public opinion? Second, we ask: in a relatively LGBT+ friendly policy environment, who supports the right to self-identification for trans individuals? We answer these questions via an original pre-registered survey experiment embedded within the 2021 Scottish Election Study. We find that trans-exclusionary issue frames appealing to (cis) women's safety significantly depress support for trans rights, particularly among women respondents. Highlighting these concerns is an effective means of increasing already robust opposition to reforms designed to improve the welfare of transgender individuals, which should be of concern for proponents of self-identification policies.     

The Imperial Subject: Geography and Travel in the Work of Mary Kingsley and Halford Mackinder

How do places shape and interact with subjectivity? By exploring how a change of location had implications for the way the effects of imperialism were registered, this paper shows how imperialism shaped subjectivity both at home and abroad. It takes the travels and mountain climbing of Mary Kingsley and Halford Mackinder as case studies for a consideration of gender as an effect and as a part of these processes.     

Settlement and social change in central Europe, 3500–1500 BC

The chronology of the period is briefly considered in the light of the dendrochronological results which have appeared in recent years. Patterns of settlement history in different parts of the area are then examined, and it is suggested that in some of them the late fourth millennium was a period of population decline which was not reversed until the Early Bronze Age, 1000 years later. Detailed information about specific local occupation patterns is provided by recent work on the circum-Alpine lake villages. Changes in cultural patterns during the period, especially the appearance of the Corded Ware, are discussed and explanations of them reviewed. It is argued that changing patterns of gender relations were a major feature of the period, linked to processes which eventually led to the development of small-scale chiefdoms. The development of copper and bronze metallurgy and its connection to these processes are discussed.