Development Geographies Research Group (RGS-IBG)

DevGRG is looking to sponsor sessions at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2026! Find out more info here: developmentgeographiesrg.org/devgrg-sessi... 👌

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DevGRG is looking to sponsor sessions at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2026! Find out more info here: developmentgeographiesrg.org/devgrg-sessi... 👌

Guidance for presenters | Annual International Conference Information about presenting at the conference for prospective presenters.

Looking to present at this year's Annual International Conference?

One route is to submit a proposal to an advertised session, with submissions welcome from all prospective delegates.

View the list of advertised calls for papers 👇
https://ow.ly/TOov50XVsJi

The RGS Explore Grants offer £500-£5,000 to support the next generation of explorers and fieldworkers on original overseas expeditions that aim to advance geographical knowledge 🥾🌍

Applications close 15 February 🗓️

Find out more and apply 👇
https://bit.ly/49sTQB7

📷: Ruizhe Liu

The war on ‘woke’: anti-ESG investing and research directions in financial geography Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing has become a site of struggle, around which a range of actors at multiple scales and in different legal, political and financial spheres are mob...

How did ESG go from BlackRock's mainstream opportunity to a political battlefield?

Christiansen et al's new commentary maps the anti-ESG backlash: 418 legislative proposals, $12B in divested funds, and the rise of explicitly anti-ESG investment products.

A graphic publicising a new Special Section in Area called 'Participatory Historical Geographies'. There are eight tiles with the names of papers and authors as follows: 1) Participatory historical geographies: Introduction Ruth Slatter, Edward Brookes 2) The Victoria County History and participatory historical geography Ruth Slatter 3) Mapping entangled mobilities: Using participatory historical geography to explore the migration of objects and people across (neo)colonial spatialities Sarah Linn, Jina Lee, Mariam Zorba, Caitlin Nunn, Jennifer Cromwell 4) Dancing in the archive: Bodily encounters, memory, and more-than-representational participatory historical geographies Lucy Thompson 5) Youth-led theatre for climate resilience and action at COP26 Kate Smith, Briony McDonagh, Sukhmandeep Dhillon 6) Participatory collaborations between geographers and performance artists: Taking urban renewal histories to the street Aled Singleton, Edward Brookes, Ruth Slatter 7) Watery archives: Reflections on doing participatory archival research for climate action and audience engagement Hannah Worthen, Claire Weatherall 8) ‘A series of abject failures’: Navigating the pitfalls of place-based participatory histories Juliette Desportes

A black tile publicising the new 'Participatory Historical Geographies' Special Section in Area. There is a quote from Ruth Slatter & Ed Brookes' (2025) introduction. It reads: "The production of participatory historical knowledge is contingent on a wide variety of skills and labour, including communities themselves that often go unacknowledged. The challenge of navigating these pitfalls and barriers serve to highlight the many reasons why researchers, practitioners or members of the public may be reluctant to engage in participatory historical research".

'Participatory Historical Geographies' Special Section - out now in Area!

This collection, guest edited by @ruthslatter.bsky.social & @ed-brookes.bsky.social, reflects on the increasing use of participatory methods in historical geography.

Read here⬇️
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

🌍 New paper published in Progress in Environmental Geography 🌎

'Geographies of Environmental Data 1' by Max Ritts

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... @

Small blue house perched precariously on the edge of a concrete structure against a cloudy sky.

📣Join the States of Precarity team for the launch of the States of Precarity in UK Higher Education Geography report.

📅 Wednesday 14 January
🎦 Online
👉 Sign up to attend: https://bit.ly/4rvQgP2

Check out the report before the launch: https://bit.ly/44HTUvg

A dense urban area with tightly packed houses and narrow streets under a hazy sky.

Why doesn’t resettling people away from polluted urban rivers reduce risk for marginalised communities?

In a new Geography Directions blog post, Christos Tsampoulatidis discusses the answer 📝

Check it out here 👇
https://ow.ly/6xyT50XAzcF

Sign the Petition Save Geography at the University of Leicester

Save Geography at the University of Leicester - Sign the Petition! c.org/8DPVj5j8hj via
@ukchange.bsky.social

New Special Section in Area:

'Gentle Geographies' edited by @mattmattfinn.bsky.social & @drjeffers.bsky.social

This collection features five papers and an editorial introduction which reflect on ideas of 'gentleness' in research and practice.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

A graphic showing the title page of The Geographical Journal on a blue background with The GJ in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles showing the Special Section 'Legacies of Austerity', with the names of papers in the issue. The names of the papers and authors are as follows: 1) 'Legacies of Austerity: Editorial Introduction' by Sander van Lanen & Sarah Marie Hall 2) 'Family Hubs and the vulnerable care ecologies of child and family welfare in austerity' by Tom Disney et al. 3) 'Relational legacies and relative experiences: Austerity, inequality and access to special educational needs and disability (SEND) support in London, England' by Rosalie Warnock 4) 'Lived experiences of utilities-based indebtedness in Greece: Tracing the afterlives of austerity' by Aliki Koutlou 5) 'Grassroots temporary urbanism as a challenge to the city of austerity? Lessons from a self-organised park in Thessaloniki, Greece' by Matina Kapsali 6) 'De-municipalisation? Legacies of austerity for England's urban parks' by Andrew Smith et al. 7) 'Austerity's afterlives? The case of community asset transfer in the UK' by Neil Turnbull 8) 'Austere futures: From hardship to hope?' by Julie MacLeavy

A graphic showing the title page of The Geographical Journal on a blue background with The GJ in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are nine tiles with standard articles, with the names of papers in the issue. 1) 'The rise of education-featured gated communities in Chinese cities: (Re)producing the enterprising self via the entrepreneurial local state–capital nexus' by Shenjing He 2) 'Policy-driven education-led gentrification and its spatiotemporal dynamics: Evidence from Shanghai, China' by Rong Cai, Lirong Hu & Shenjing He 3) 'The market formation of private sector, purpose built student accommodation in Sheffield 2000–2019' by Carl Lee 4) 'Evaporation losses from residential swimming pools and water features under climate variability and change' by Alicia Cumberland & Robert Wilby 5) 'Forecasting urban shifts post-earthquake: LULC change analysis in Elazığ, Turkey using ANN and Markov models' by Fatih Sunbul, Enes Karadeniz, Mustafa Taner Sengun & Muhammed Kocaoglu 6) 'Care-ful encounters: A case for empathetic youthful encounters with coastal environments' by Mark Holton 7) 'How do you like your rivers? Portraying public perception and preference for urban rivers in China via a combined visual and textual analysis' by Yixin Cao, Wendy Yan Chen & Karl Matthias Wantzen 8) 'Understanding place-to-place interactions using flow patterns derived from in-app mobile phone location data' by Mikaella Mavrogeni, Justin van Dijk & Paul Longley 9) 'Gender difference in space–time fixity from household structure in urban China: A case study of Beijing' by Hongbo Chai, Patrick Witte, Stan Geertman & Dick Ettema

A graphic showing the title page of The Geographical Journal on a blue background with The GJ in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are five tiles with commentaries and RGS-IBG Regulars, with the names of papers in the issue. 1) 'On commons, state institutions and capitalism' by Ioannis Rigkos-Zitthen & Nikos Kapitsinis 2) 'From The Hague to the margins: The ICC, feminist geopolitics and alternative legal futures' by Sarah Klosterkamp & Alex Jeffrey 3) 'Everyone's talking about climate change actions, but can we learn from Wales’ approach?' by Lynda Yorke, Athanasios Dimitriou, Sonya Hanna, Corinna Patterson, Sara Parry & Georgina Smith 4) 'Presidential address and record of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) AGM 2025' by Dame Jane Francis 5) 'Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Medals and Awards celebration 2025' by Jane Francis, Murray Gray, Børge Ousland, Gillian Rose, Susan Smith & Dariusz Wójcik

📢New Issue of The GJ!📢

𝐺𝑒𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑝ℎ𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡

September's Issue features the 'Legacies of Austerity' Special Section alongside 9 papers, 3 commentaries, and records of the 2025 RGS-IBG Medals and Awards ceremony.

Take a look here ⬇️

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754959...

🌍 New paper published in Progress in Environmental Geography 🌎

'The Radical Edge of More-Than-Human Political Ecology: A Clarification of Scope and Approach' by Valerio Donfrancesco

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @vdonfrancesco.bsky.social

How does stakeholder participation in natural resource management change when conservation rules are grounded in near real-time data? Recent technological advances have increased the feasibility of the ‘dynamic management’ of natural resources, which promises to align the spatiotemporal scales of management with ecological variability and resource use. Drawing on Kelty's (2020) concept of ‘contributory autonomy’, this article offers a critical comparison of how participation is conceived of in the more established context of static conservation areas and planning versus the emergent field of dynamic management. A systematic review of the dynamic ocean management literature reveals a varied, but shallow engagement with the topic of stakeholder participation in that context. Whereas static management regimes are governed by relatively intuitive and contestable maps, dynamic management is governed by models and data flows. Overall, the decision-making stakeholder of participatory mapping processes under static management is displaced by the stakeholder conceived as an ‘end-user’ of a dynamic management product and consultant in its design. Yet, these shifts also open up potential points of contestation, which may pattern the future theory and practice of participation in dynamic management: counterdata, countermodelling and data chokepoints. Beyond the empirical focus on oceans, this article contributes to broader conversations about the political stakes of environmental data, and algorithmic and artificial intelligence-driven natural resource conservation by considering how possibilities for participation are foreclosed, enabled and reconstituted by new spatiotemporal and technological conditions.

New article out in Geo: Geography and Environment with an interdisciplinary dream team of coauthors: “From maps to models: Participation and contestability in the dynamic management of natural resources.”
doi.org/10.1002/geo2... (open access)

✍️ Join editors from Development In Practice for tips on getting published
📅 9 Oct, 10am (UK)

Get tips on
▪️ Pitching for a journal article
▪️ The peer review process
▪️ Common mistakes in journal submissions

👉 Find out more and register now: buff.ly/aXNAqtI

🌍📢 Call for Papers!! Urban Studies seeks submissions for a special issue on Climate Urbanism, Resilience & Justice — exploring how cities confront the climate crisis, risk, & inequality. @urbanstudiesjournal.com @acuto.bsky.social
 www.urbanstudiesjournal.com/callforpaper...

Hey climate experienced and climate curious political scientists:

Send your hottest (!) climate paper to this @epssnet.bsky.social section 🔥🌱🔌

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Just a little reminder:
Applications for the position as Professor for Urban and Regional Geography are still possible!
Deadline is Sept. 28, 2025

Please share!

Screenshot of a paper abstract in The Geographical Journal by Kabila Abass, Gift Dumedah, Aminu Dramani, Andrews Ofosu, Lawrence Guodaar, Emmanuel Nyaaba, Alex Yao Segbefia, Kwadwo Afriyie, Hubert Bimpeh Asiedu, George Appiah, Samuel Awuni Azinga & Razak M. Gyasi entitled: "‘We live in fear and face endless physical and emotional health problems’: Perceived health implications of floods among urban households in Ghana" Urban flooding significantly affects the health and well-being of populations, yet its health impacts remain underexplored in Ghana and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper investigates the health effects of recurring floods on households in Greater Kumasi through a qualitative study involving 55 purposively selected household heads. The findings reveal substantial negative health consequences, including immediate and medium-term issues such as injuries, bodily pain, fatigue, skin infections, upper respiratory diseases, diarrhoea, typhoid fever, and fatalities from drowning. Additionally, the study highlights a high prevalence of long-term psychological distress among affected households. The findings highlight the under-researched nexus between flooding and health in SSA and underscore the need for more vigorous institutional enforcement of land-use regulations, public education and collaborative health interventions involving the Ministry of Health and other key stakeholders. These measures are critical for reducing the health risks of floods and building resilience in vulnerable communities.

New in The GJ:

'"We live in fear and face endless physical and emotional health problems": Perceived health implications of floods among urban households in Ghana' by Kabila Abass et al.

doi.org/10.1111/geoj... #geosky

Text saying: "Call for Panels - submit by 07 September 2025! with logo, titles and dates of the conference and image from Antwerp

📢 Call for Panels for our flagship event! ⛵

EADI / IOB 2026: Shaping Sustainable Futures: Global Challenges, (G)local solutions?

📅 29 June – 2 July 2026
📍 @iobua.bsky.social, University of Antwerp, Belgium
⏰ Deadline for submissions: 7 September 2025
➡️ bit.ly/EADI-IOB-26-call

Pathways for environment research: academia, activism, policy- Environment and Climate Politics | BISA - Environment and Climate Politics Working Group

The latest event for @bisa-ecpwg.bsky.social is now open for registration:

'Pathways for environment research: academia, activism, policy' will have three speakers: @rosaleenduffy.bsky.social ; @kaiheron.bsky.social and Jane Clarke.

@mybisa.bsky.social

www.bisa.ac.uk/events/pathw...

🚨The Development Geographies Research Group AGM is tomorrow! Email the address below for the meeting link. 🚨

📣 @crasshlive.bsky.social call for papers!
Interdisciplinary perspectives on empire, colonialism, and anticolonialism

This call for papers is aimed at presenters from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences at any stage of their career

⏰ Submit by 30 August 2025
🔗 t.co/OVtkuGQQqw

Our AGM is coming up next week! 💃

Teaching Fellow in Global Development Job at UEA - www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOK784/t...

Teaching Fellow (110795-0825) at University of Warwick Searching for an academic job? Explore this Teaching Fellow (110795-0825) opening on jobs.ac.uk! Click to view more details and browse other academic jobs.

Teaching Fellow in Global Sustainable Development Job at Warwick - www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOK759/t...

The @devgeogsrg.bsky.social ‬AGM will take place on Wednesday, 3rd September from 1.00 to 2.30pm on Zoom. Get in touch for further details! We hope to see you there. 😊

Dialogues in Human Geography - Volume 15, Number 2 Table of contents for Dialogues in Human Geography, 15, 2

The July 2025 Issue of Dialogues in Human Geography is now available.

Including three regular article forums and two book review forums.

Available here:

journals.sagepub.com/toc/DHG/curr...

Interesting PhD opportunity: karriere.uni-vechta.de/fileadmin_ka...