TIBG

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Rachael Squire & Kimberley Peters (2025) entitled: 'Crafting the Ocean: The Geographies of Environmental World-Making' with a red banner at the top. This paper brings cultural and environmental geographies into further conversation by linking theories of crafting and world-making together, via the lens of the contemporary public aquarium and nascent oceanic geographies. Far from a niche example, the public aquarium—which represents, and in some form aims to replicate (and preserve), the ocean ‘out there’—demonstrates how crafting aims to establish particular connections with environmental worlds amidst change. Drawing on fieldwork from six UK aquariums, both privately run and those with charitable status, the paper unpacks the politics of crafting in the making of aquarium tanks as well as the oceans they represent. Building on interviews with key actors (aquarists, curators, outreach and education officers, managers), visual and discourse analysis of promotional materials (websites, flyers, information boards, documentaries, memoirs, etc.) and ethnographic observations at each site, the paper offers a critical examination of three distinct modes of marine world-making behind the glass: (1) exploring how water is itself crafted, (2) the crafting of more-than-human worlds in the storying of species selection and (3) crafting light in dark, fabricated, ocean worlds. This paper thus enables a deeper understanding of craft and world-making in the context of the aquarium, also situating this space within broader geographical thought and ocean geographies. Finally, the paper draws together work on aquariums, craft and oceans in excess to argue for renewed attention on analogue worlds. It explicates how, through processes of replication, preservation and remaking, they might hold space for an ocean (and planet) undergoing profound change both now and in the future.

New in TIBG:

'Crafting the Ocean: The Geographies of Environmental World-Making' by @squirerachael.bsky.social & Kimberley Peters

This paper explores more-than-human crafting and marine world-making, drawing on fieldwork conducted across six UK aquariums.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library The paper departs from existing analyses of ‘world making’, bringing cultural and environmental geographies into further conversation through linking theories of crafting and world-making together, t....

Crafting the Ocean: The Geographies of Environmental World-Making - a new paper by Kim Peters and I in @tibg.bsky.social. rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Huge thanks to the team at Transactions for such a constructive process.

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library In this paper, we explore what the experiences of some children and families in their neighbourhoods during the first UK COVID-19 lockdown can tell us about the value and importance of neighbourhood ...

Our recent article reflecting on neighbohood play during the first covid-19 lockdown, using Donald Winnicott (and Bonnie Honig and Joanna Kellond) to think about play, space, and care, both in the pandemic and beyond, now has a home in @tibg.bsky.social's December issue.

@wendyrussell.bsky.social

Screenshot of an intervention abstract in Transactions by Yu-Shan Tseng (2025) entitled: 'Re-spiritualising geographies of subjectivity through Daoism' with a red banner at the top. This intervention seeks to advance geographical interpretations of the body as the ‘usual’ and ‘universal’ site for understanding subjectivity and spirituality in human geography. Affective and emotional geographies have predominantly located subjective experiences within the lived body—the site where bodies actively engage with the world through embodied practices such as sensing, affecting and feeling. Through these bodily engagements with the world, geographers have mapped the landscapes of embodied subjective experiences and space-making. However, the geographies of subjectivity face significant challenges in understanding spirituality beyond worldly embodiments and without equating it with religious faiths and their spatial productions. Drawing on Daoist philosophy, I propose an alternative account that re-spiritualises the geographies of subjectivity. In Daoist thought, re-spiritualisation is seen as processes of relocation, reconnection and respatialisation of subjectivity in the Universe. Subjective experiences are relocated from the lived experiences of bodies to the spiritual place—the Heavenly heart in the Universe. They are reconnected within its mind, body and spirit, and with the Universe as Oneness, through the spiritual, understood as vital and life-giving energies. They are respatialised through spiritual energies making different spiritual spaces (e.g. the empty, the unbounded, the transcendental) in the Heavenly heart. Such spatial–spiritual processes are animated by three actions: emptying, resonating and awakening. Daoist geography makes a cosmological call for an ethical–political movement that harmonises spiritual disconnections through invoking the cosmological in selfhood without subjectivisation.

New in TIBG:

'Re-spiritualising geographies of subjectivity through Daoism' by Yu-Shan Tseng

This intervention draws on Daoist philosophy to provide an alternative account of spiritual selfhood, re-spiritualising the bodily geographies of subjectivity.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

The joy of a fabulously collective “et al.” writing experience with @mhoussayh.cpesr.fr @marineduc.bsky.social @rlg.bsky.social >> to think & write about how we muddle on making sense of the world with & across languages, concepts & theories, including in our teaching, writing & speaking #geography

That’s us!
With @mariegibertflutre.bsky.social @marineduc.bsky.social @rlg.bsky.social and others !

Viva multilingual geographies viva!

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary, Cheikh Abdoul Ahad Mbacké Ba, Sophie Buhnik, Marine Duc, Juliet J. Fall, Marie Gibert-Flutre, Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch, Renaud Le Goix, Laura Péaud & Charlotte Ruggeri entitled: 'Worlding geographies: A question of languages' with a red banner at the top.

New in TIBG:

'Worlding geographies: A question of languages' by Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary et al.

This intervention responds to the 'Geography in the World' series, shifting focus to the process of worlding geographies & practices of multilingualism in the academy.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geo

Screenshot of a paper abstract in TIBG by Tyler Blackman & Daniel Cockayne (2025) entitled: 'Subtractive, ambient and bifurcated attention at work and when working from home: Towards a geography of workplace attention' with a red banner at the top. In this commentary, we draw on research on working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada, to expand on Bissell, Crovara, Gorman-Murray and Straughan's (2025) paper ‘What does it mean to be present at work? Negotiating attention, distraction and presence in working from home’. We corroborate and add to their analysis of attention in relation to working from home in two ways. First, we develop further how their analysis of attention relates to social difference in working from home settings. Second, we consider through additional examples how attention relates to a working from home politics. These points lead us to push for the importance of the multiplicious theory of attention that the authors outline in their paper, against the declension narratives that often accompany solely subtractive theories of attention that they critique in their conclusion. We emphasise a theory of attention that is ambient, bifurcated, open, complex and multifaceted, as well as one that is, under certain circumstances, subtractive. We see these former ideas of attention as more central to notions of presence and better foreground the broad range of subjective experiences of work and working.

New commentary in TIBG:

'Subtractive, ambient and bifurcated attention at work and when working from home: Towards a geography of workplace attention' by @tylerb.bsky.social & @dcockayne.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library This commentary responds to and extends recent research by Bissell al. (2025). We add to their analysis of attention, focusing on social difference and workplace politics by drawing on examples from ....

New Commentary w/ @dcockayne.bsky.social in @tibg.bsky.social.

Daniel and I comment further on the politics of attention at work, building from @davidjbissell.bsky.social, @lillicrovara.bsky.social, Andrew Gorman-Murray, and @lstraughan.bsky.social excellent recent article.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library Svamitva drone survey in Rajasthan. Source: Author.

New paper in @tibg.bsky.social:

High-resolution property: drone enclosures in digital India

In it I examine how mass digitized enclosures rely upon a new regime of perception - able to speculatively extract private ownership from collectivised land
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Ruizhe Hong, Bo Zhao & Shangyi Zhou (2025) entitled: 'Root metaphors in cartography: Bridging critical and quantitative approaches' with a red banner at the top. The evolution of contemporary cartography has long been attributed to two significant trajectories: the adoption of new technologies like computers, the Internet, and Artificial Intelligence into the map-making process, and the critical examination of cartographic methods and practices. Existing literature has rarely explored the potential of bridging these specialised parallel developments because of their seemingly inconsistent epistemological basis. This article argues that Anne Buttimer's four root metaphors—mosaic, mechanism, organism, and arena—provide a valuable lens to scrutinise these dynamics. These root metaphors, deeply embedded in the understanding of human–environment interactions, present a multifaceted framework for exploring the nexus of map representation, socio-spatial inequalities and spatial justice, all within the context of evolving technological shifts, marked by recent advances in spatial data science and geospatial artificial intelligence. We further examine the potential of these metaphors to foster a deeper appreciation of the interplay between established geographical and cartographic knowledge systems, to critically assess their limitations and to probe the synergy between cartography and emerging metaphorical constructs. This article encourages a flexible adoption of these metaphors to address the unique cartographic challenges of our time, advocating for a broader, more inclusive cartographic discourse.

New in TIBG:

'Root metaphors in cartography: Bridging critical and quantitative approaches' by Ruizhe Hong et al.

This article uses Anne Buttimer's 4 root metaphors - mosaic, mechanism, organism, & arena - to bridge the gap between critical and quantitative cartography.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Thomas Cowan (2025) entitled: 'High-resolution property: Drone enclosures in digital India' with a red banner at the top. Drawing from ethnographic research on the implementation of Svamitva, one of the largest digitalized property titling schemes in the world, this paper examines how new drone and geospatial technologies are being deployed to enclose rural customary lands across contemporary India. Focusing on the initial processes of droney survey, GIS mapping and data-creation under the scheme, the paper argues that the creation of ‘high-resolution property’ is achieved not through simple technological observation, but rather via the imposition of a new regime of perception. One coordinated through the speculative and ideological property-making practices of drone surveyors, GIS technicians, and local residents. This new regime of perception aims to extract individual ownership lurking within collectivity, subdivide collectivised lands, and cleanly link rural property to global asset markets and digital public infrastructures. In doing so the paper seeks to provincialise contemporary geographical scholarship on property technology or PropTech, drawing from the diverse property systems and emerging technological apparatus of the Global South, and examine the lively and mediated sociotechnical practices required to convert hundreds of thousands of rural territories into high-resolution private titles and data-points. In doing so, the paper seeks to challenge the overt techno-determinism and solutionism within official debates concerning property digitalization, highlighting instead the ways digitialized property remains socially, ecologically and institutionally mediated.

New in TIBG!

'High-resolution property: Drone enclosures in digital India' by @termcern.bsky.social

This paper examines how drone & geospatial technologies are being deployed to enclose rural customary lands across India.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library Svamitva drone survey in Rajasthan. Source: Author.

Such a nice paper on feature extraction as a project of perception - drone enclosures in digital India. “Feature extraction is an entirely speculative endeavour” rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A great issue!

My paper on SDG investment pipelines in Ghana is now in the latest @tibg.bsky.social issue, in great company with other excellent works!

@rpjf68.bsky.social
@ayunita.bsky.social
@citiesandstuff.bsky.social
@jonnyjjt.bsky.social
@jlorimer.bsky.social
@constancecarr.bsky.social
@kbrickell.bsky.social
@benandersongeog.bsky.social

Featuring work by: @ihnji.bsky.social
@jonpughislands.bsky.social
@saddy94.bsky.social
@carolynprouse.bsky.social
@katarinaschwarz.bsky.social
@vdonfrancesco.bsky.social
@csandbrook.bsky.social
@carinafearnley.bsky.social
@markpendleton.bsky.social
@laurahsheppard.bsky.social

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library This paper seeks to outline an alternative mode of critique, one that places both relational and negative approaches under the scrutiny of an ‘abyssal’ approach. Here, after Fanon, the world violentl....

Now published

Critique beyond relation: The stakes of working with the negative, the void and the abyss

David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

v50, Issue 3 e12724

#openaccess

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A graphic showing the title page of Transactions on a read background with TIBG in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles with 2 interventions and 6 standard articles, with the names of papers in the issue. 1) 'On limit and love in times of environmental crises' by Ihnji Jon 2) 'Geographies of creativity/creative geographies' by Pat Noxolo 3) '‘My body was no longer a problem’: Electric mountain biking, disability, and the cultural politics of green exercise' by Jim Cherrington & James Brighton 4) '‘A wonderful day and a wonderful crossing!’: Internment (im)mobilities, ambivalence, and the residual tourist gaze in Second World War Britain' by Michael Holden & Peter Adey 5) '‘Smartness’ narratives: A critical discourse analysis of smart eldercare in urban China' by Yi Yu 6) 'Critique beyond relation: The stakes of working with the negative, the void and the abyss' by David Chandler & Jonathan Pugh 7) 'Poetics in the work of three urban photographers: Love for the chaotic city from the site of urban rooftops' by Paulina Nordstrom 8) 'Places as refrains: A non-constructive alternative to assemblage thinking' by Peter Merriman

A graphic showing the title page of Transactions on a read background with TIBG 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) Climate change, bodies and diplomacy: Performing watery futures in Tuvalu Liam Saddington 2) Digital animal deathscapes: The online circulation of animals killed for conservation Alexandra Palmer 3) The medium is the message: The geographies of cryptocurrency remittances to Venezuela Daniel Robins 4) ‘One school, two systems’: Navigating the geographies of alternative education in an elite primary school in China Zhenjie Yuan, Huiyu Xie, Hong Zhu 5) Translating India to India: Travelling translations, Patanjali Ayurveda, and the visual language of spiritual consumerism Raksha Pande, Alastair Bonnett 6) Urban political ecologies of sewage surveillance: Creating vital and valuable public health data from wastewater 7) Constructive (in)visibility and the trafficking industrial complex: Leveraging borders for exploitation Audrey Lumley-Sapanski, Katarina Schwarz 8) Translations, translocations, and pluralism: A transnational and multilingual analysis of the circulation of radical geographical knowledge Federico Ferretti 9) From biopower to affirmative biopolitics: A (bio)political ecology of becoming with wolves Valerio Donfrancesco, Chris Sandbrook

A graphic showing the title page of Transactions on a read background with TIBG in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles with 6 standard articles and 2 commentaries, with the names of papers in the issue. 1) Mining an Anthropocene in Japan: On the making and work of geological imaginaries Deborah P. Dixon, Carina J. Fearnley, Mark Pendleton 2) Uneven ambient futures: Intersecting heat and housing trajectories in England and Wales Caitlin Robinson, Lenka Hasova, Lin Zhang 3) Examining the ‘gendered’ places and spaces of UK doctoral education using multilevel modelling Laura Harriet Sheppard, Jonathan Reades, Richard P. J. Freeman 4) The (non-)performance of the financial frontier: Building investment pipelines for the Sustainable Development Goals in Ghana Abbie Yunita 5) Thinking through an ethnography of infrastructure: Commonsensical reasoning, road sharing, and everyday infrastructural settlements Alan Latham, Russell Hitchings, Michael Nattrass 6) (Re)wilding London: Fabric, politics, and aesthetics Jonathon Turnbull, Tom Fry, Jamie Lorimer 7) Resilient education: The role of digital technology in supporting geographical education in Ukraine Simon M. Hutchinson, Elizabeth R. Hurrell, Kateryna Borysenko, Vladyslav Popov, Dariia Kholiavchuk, Yana Popiuk 8) Imagining post-war futures amid cycles of destruction and efforts of reconstruction Constance Carr, Olga Kryvets

📢New issue of TIBG📢

Transactions' September Issue features two interventions on environmental crisis & geographies of creativity, 21 papers, and two commentaries on the war in Ukraine.

22/25 pieces are #OpenAccess and available to read here⬇️

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14755661...

This is the graphical abstract to this paper in Transactions. It shows a historical map of the Alde and Ore estuary, drawn by Ananias Appleton in 1588.

#OpenAccess in TIBG

'Infra-culture and infrastructures: Relational placemaking at the coast' by Julian Clark

This paper explores the concept of 'infra-culture', illustrating how cultural practices & material interactions influence the development of physical infrastructures
doi.org/10.1111/tran...

Keen to hear what people here think: Is our work on #climatechange facing a #crisis of #imagination?
I certainly feel that. you?

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by James Esson, Ebenezer F. Amankwaa, Katherine V. Gough, Peter Mensah, Katie McQuaid & Ross Wignall (2025) entitled: 'Later life mobilities at the margins of urban geography' with a red banner at the top. The projected increase in older people within the African population, alongside rapid urbanisation, points to the growing importance of understanding how older people navigate towns and cities across the continent. This aligns with wider concerns that geographical scholarship needs to pay more sustained attention to ageing in Global South contexts. Rather than treating these developments as problems or absences, we approach them as opportunities to explore how geographies of later life can generate new ways to conceptualise the urban experience. To this end, the paper draws on the local vernacular of older residents in the Ghanaian cities of Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi to decentre, contextualise and expand the vocabulary used to depict and interpret urban mobilities. The findings reveal ‘hidden geographies of ageing’ through three forms of mobility practice: Mpanyinfo ho hia (respectful mobilities), YƐ mboa nkoa (collective mobilities) and Me te fie (retired mobilities). These insights enrich conceptual understandings of city life by showing how older people navigate, engage with and shape social hierarchies, communal support networks and economic rationalities. By amplifying the voices of a population often overlooked in epistemological and policy deliberations, this intervention supports interdisciplinary efforts to reimagine how knowledge is produced with and about cities in the Global South. Crucially, the paper challenges the Southern urban critique to better reflect the plurality of marginality that influences everyday life in the Majority World.

#OA in TIBG:

'Later life mobilities at the margins of urban geography' by James Esson et al.

This paper examines how older people navigate African cities, focusing on Ghana, & contributes to reimagining how knowledge is produced with & about cities in the Majority World.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...

A graphic advertising a new collection of papers in Transactions called 'Geography in the World 3: Area Studies' with the title curved around a black and white image of the globe in the centre, and the Transactions logo next to the Royal Geographical Society logo at the top of the red background. With contributions from: Aya Nassar, Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Deen Sharp, Han Cheng, Maano Ramutsindela & Vera Smirnova

New in TIBG!

Geography in the World, part 3: Area Studies

Han Cheng & @deensharp.bsky.social's collection draws together authors from Egypt, Singapore, China, South Africa & Russia to explore non-Western geography's relationship with Area Studies.

Read all papers here ⬇️

tinyurl.com/5n72yt46

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Maano Ramutsindela (2025) entitled: 'Beyond the Limpopo: Geography and the worlding of South(ern) Africa' with a red banner at the top. This paper contributes to the discussion on the relationship between geography and area studies and the proposed reorientation of the critical geography of ‘area’ by situating the production of geographical knowledge in South Africa in national and regional contexts. It argues that Southern Africa provides a useful entry point for geography-African studies dialogue because of the region's shared histories and struggles, and the changing roles played by South Africa in the region. This regional context is useful for illuminating the convergence of the study of area and nationalism, and why and how geography became disconnected from African studies. The paper attributes this disconnect to parochialism and the prevailing negative views of Africa as a place of lack. It concludes that deconstructing Africa as ‘a disaster area’ and reorientating the South African Geographical Journal as a platform for African geographies are critical for bridging the geography-African studies gap.

6) 'Beyond the Limpopo: Geography and the worlding of South(ern) Africa'

The final contribution to this collection is by Maano Ramutsindela, examining the gap between Geography and African Studies in South Africa.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Han Cheng (2025) entitled: 'Global China's spatial ambition and area studies with geography' with a red banner at the top. This paper critically evaluates the contemporary remaking of China's area studies and world geography as part of a nationalist project of spatial knowledge production, by examining an emerging landscape of individuals, institutions and ideologies. Two arguments are made. First, China's area studies and world geography are shaped by not only their milieus, but also the ‘milieu of milieus’ as defined and delimited by the state-disciplinary apparatus which impedes a geography–area studies interface. Second, both milieus are underpinned by reductive epistemologies, engendering depolitised discourses that omit critical self-reflections and other geographies of knowing. As well as offering insights for China's ongoing and unfinished ‘world-writing’, this paper draws particular attention to the geographical scales and spatialities of knowledge translation, consumption, circulation and reproduction.

5) 'Global China's spatial ambition and area studies with geography'

This contribution by Han Cheng evaluates the remaking of China's area studies and world geography as part of a nationalist project of spatial knowledge production.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Brenda Yeoh (2025) entitled 'Geography and area studies as critical bedfellows? The view from Singapore' with a red banner at the top.

4) 'Geography and area studies as critical bedfellows? The view from Singapore'

Brenda Yeoh's contribution to this collection considers the challenges faced by Singapore-based geographers operating both inside and outside Euro-American traditions.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Vera Smirnova (2025) entitled: 'Constructing and contesting meta-geographies in Russian area studies debates' with a red banner at the top. This paper contributes to broader efforts to examine how ‘world-writing’ practices operate beyond dominant area studies debates through the case of Russia. It traces the evolution of Russia's discipline of area studies through its two core meta-geographies—the East and Eurasia, showing how they were constructed, contested and repurposed to make sense of other regions across the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Moving from anti-colonial solidarities, in which the Soviet ‘East’ mediated knowledge exchange between Moscow and the decolonising world, to the revival of ‘Eurasia’ as a geopolitical project, academic production increasingly aligned with foreign policy ambitions, often framed in civilisational and expansionist terms. By situating Russian area studies within its geopolitical, institutional and disciplinary contexts, the article interrogates its entanglement with imperialist legacies and its selective engagement with Western debates, reproducing past hierarchies under the guise of alternative epistemologies.

3) 'Constructing and contesting meta-geographies in Russian area studies debates'

In this contribution, @vrsmirnova.bsky.social examines the evolution of Russian area studies and its geopolitical imaginations from the Soviet to the post-Soviet era.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Aya Nassar (2025) entitled: 'Egypt's geographical tradition: The post-independence moment and shifting regional imaginations' with a red banner at the top. The aim of this intervention is to respond to the provocation of how different worlds and regions are imagined from the non-west. This ‘non-west’ is often regarded as the object of area studies, rather than an author of geographical knowledge and cannons. Egypt represents a classic example of this. The concomitant aim of this task is not to package these ‘other’ traditions as useful additions that diversify the histories of geography (as this reinforces the centrality of Anglocentric questions through an add-and-stir approach), but to acknowledge these traditions as evolving, and possibly problematic but always already in conversation with worldly intellectual and geopolitical traditions. To do this from the vantage point of Egypt, I start with the specific moment of post-independence to show how it was complex and imbricated in intellectual inheritances, shifting geopolitical orders, national revisions of worldly orientations and geopolitical ambitions. For many, an Egyptian regional geographic imagination finds its bedrock in the post-independence moment. It was at this time that Egypt, as an anticolonial world actor, sought to redefine its geopolitical global and regional commitments. Indeed, the post-independence moment saw a strong and forceful regional geographical imagination and praxis, in politics as well as in intellectual geography.

2) 'Egypt's geographical tradition: The post-independence moment and shifting regional imaginations'

In her contribution, @ayanassar.bsky.social considers how different worlds and regions are imagined in the non-west from the vantage point of Egypt.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library The aim of this intervention is to respond to the provocation of how different worlds and regions are imagined from the non-west. To do this from the vantage point of Egypt, I start with the specific....

"Egypt's geographical tradition: The post-independence moment and shifting regional imaginations " a short intervention, part of a set, out and open access in case of use.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Han Cheng & Deen Sharp (2025) entitled 'Worlding geography, area studies and the study of area' with a red banner at the top. This paper introduces the collection of five short papers written by scholars from Egypt, Russia, Singapore, China and South Africa that advance this journal's ‘Geography in the World’ initiative through a more robust engagement between geography and area studies. Geographers have increasingly addressed the troubled relationship that their discipline has with the field of area studies. Less registered, however, in Anglophone debates are the presence and politics of other geographical traditions of area studies. In this themed intervention, we propose a reoriented critical geography of ‘area’ by closely assessing non-Western geography's relationship with its area studies counterpart across a range of (geo)political, economic, institutional and cultural contexts beyond the Anglo-American ‘core’.

1) 'Worlding geography, area studies and the study of area'

Han Cheng & @deensharp.bsky.social's introduction to the collection proposes a reoriented critical geography of 'area' by examining geography's relationship with area studies beyond the Anglo-American tradition.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...