Mountains: A Special Issue

Abstract

The special issues of the Annals allow the editors to highlight themes of international significance that showcase the breadth and depth of geography in a format accessible to a broad array of readers. This ninth special issue of the Annals of the AAG focuses on mountains. The understanding of mountain environments and peoples has been a focus of individual geographers for centuries and for the organized discipline of geography for more than a century; more recently, the geographical interest in mountain regions among researchers has been growing rapidly. The articles contained within are from a wide spectrum of researchers from different parts of the world who address physical, political, theoretical, social, empirical, environmental, methodological, and economic issues focused on the geography of mountains and their inhabitants. The articles in this special issue are organized into three themed sections with very loose boundaries between themes: (1) physical dynamics of mountain environments, (2) coupled human–physical dynamics, and (3) sociocultural dynamics in mountain regions.

美国地理学家协会年鑑的特刊, 让编辑得以强调具有国际重要性的主题, 透过对更广泛的读者而言具可及性的形式, 展现地理学的深度与广度。本期美国地理学家协会年鑑的第九个特刊将聚焦山岳。对山岳环境及人们的理解, 是各别地理学者们数百年来, 以及地理学的组织化学门一百多年来的关注焦点; 近年来, 研究者对山岳地区的地理兴趣正迅速地成长中。本特刊的文章, 包含来自世界各地处理聚焦山岳地理及其居住者的物理、政治、理论、社会、经验、环境、方法论和经济议题的广泛研究者。本特刊中的文章, 以三大主题章节进行组织, 各主题之间具有鬆散的边界: (1) 山岳环境的物理动态, (2) 对偶的人类—物理动态, 以及 (3) 山岳区域的社会文化动态。

Los números especiales de los Annals permiten a los editores destacar temas de valor internacional, lo cual resalta la amplitud y profundidad de la geografía en un formato accesible para una amplia variedad de lectores. Este noveno número especial de los Annals de la AAG está enfocado a las montañas. La comprensión de los ambientes y gente de montaña ha sido del interés especializado de geógrafos durante siglos y para la disciplina organizada de la geografía durante más de un siglo; más recientemente, el interés geográfico por las regiones montañosas entre investigadores se ha incrementado rápidamente. Los artículos que se incluyen en este número provienen de un amplio espectro de investigadores de diferentes partes del mundo que abocan temas físicos, políticos, teóricos, sociales, empíricos, ambientales, metodológicos y económicos, enfocados sobre la geografía de las montañas y sus habitantes. Los artículos de este número especial están organizados en tres secciones temáticas, con límites muy sueltos entre los temas: (1) dinámica física de los entornos montañosos, (2) dinámica humano-física acoplada, y (3) dinámica sociocultural en regiones montañosas.

Key Words:

• coupled human–environment systems
• environmental change
• mountains
• region
• system

关键词：:

• 对偶的人类—环境系统
• 环境变迁
• 山岳
• 区域
• 系统。

Palabras clave:

• sistemas humano-ambientales acoplados
• cambio ambiental
• montañas
• región
• sistema

The understanding of mountain environments and peoples has been a focus of individual geographers for centuries and for the organized discipline of geography for more than a century. Two hundred years ago, Alexander von Humboldt was undertaking some of the first large, systematic studies of mountain environments. One hundred years ago, William Morris Davis's theories on mountain landscape evolution became a centerpiece of physical geography teaching for decades, including an article on the Colorado Front Range in the very first issue of the Annals (Davis 1911). Since those times, geographers have diversified in their scholarship of mountains to include such wide-ranging and seemingly disparate topics as the relationships between land use and mountain geomorphology (Marston 2008), mountain climatology (Barry 2008), specialized geographic information science tools and approaches for mountains (Bishop and Shroder 2004), mountains as sacred spaces (Tuan 1974; Bernbaum 1997) and tourism centers (Price, Moss, and Williams 1997), the place of mountains in the geopolitical realm and the conflict over borders (Libiszewski and Bachler 1997), the response of mountains to a changing global environment (Orlove, Weigandt, and Luckman 2008), the education of geographers of the physical and human dimensions of mountains (Price et al. 2013), and many other areas. Over the past fifty years, mountain studies have moved from being the purview of a few individual scholars to a social process involving global agencies (Funnell and Price 2003). With such a growing, global interest in the mountains of the world, the time is right for an Annals special issue on this subject.

This ninth special issue of the Annals of the AAG focuses on mountains. The call for abstracts went out in May 2015, and the paper invitation, submission, and revision process lasted until October 2016. Papers were sought from a wide spectrum of researchers from different parts of the world who address physical, political, theoretical, social, empirical, environmental, methodological, and economic issues focused on the geography of mountains and their inhabitants. These articles include cutting-edge research with themes such as mountains as regions highly sensitive to climate change, as sites and corridors of cultural and environmental diversity and gradients, as sacred spaces, as sources of hazard and risk, as spaces of geopolitical conflict, as “water towers of the world,” and many other major geographical themes. The goal of this special issue is to highlight the breadth of research in mountain geographies that spans systematic, regional, and synthetic approaches and to showcase major mountain issues around the globe to which geographical researchers contribute.

The articles in this special issue are organized into three themed sections with very loose boundaries between themes: (1) physical dynamics of mountain environments (nine articles), (2) coupled human–physical dynamics (nine articles), and (3) sociocultural dynamics in mountain regions (nine articles). These sections are artificial and do represent well the fuzzy boundaries between these themes. These artificial divisions also do not include major potential thematic areas such as division by regions or emphasize methods in understanding mountain areas geographically. As one example, multiple articles in this issue highlight the theme of sacred spaces in mountains, and these are often strongly linked to the physical landscape and landscape processes, but the themed sections in this issue do not perfectly reflect these interconnections. Luckily, many of the articles themselves work to highlight some of these cross-cutting or poorly represented thematic areas. It is clear from the articles in this special issue that many of the authors have worked hard to connect disparate mountain processes and ways of knowing into their research.

Whether mountains are best viewed as particular geographic systems or as regions unto themselves is a question for which an answer is not generally agreed on. Many of the articles in this special issue, though, find commonalities among different mountain areas, such as their inhabitants being politically and economically marginalized from lowland populations, and populations who are vulnerable to natural hazards that are often large and frequent. The physical environments of mountains are often highly sensitive to climate change and resource development but also contain a rich diversity of processes, forms, and organisms. Across these articles, it is clear that to better understand the connections between different mountain environments and the peoples that inhabit them will require a variety of approaches; “muddy boots” fieldwork, geographical modeling, social theory, and new tools and analytical techniques are and will be needed for the diversity of mountain questions we have today. The other clear theme among the articles in this special issue is the importance of place-based geographical research. Finding systematic commonalities between the mountains of the world has been and should continue to be an important geographic endeavor. Understanding the uniqueness of mountain places and how and why this uniqueness arises is of similar importance. In many respects, the genesis for this special issue began with Richard Marston's Presidential Address in the Annals, “Land, Life, and Environmental Change in Mountains” (Marston 2008). In the conclusion, Marston made an impassioned case to geographers: “Let us endeavor to use geographic theory, knowledge, and techniques to improve the human condition in the mountains and for all who live downstream” (517). That is a fitting endpoint for this special issue as well.

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my sincere thanks to several individuals who helped make this special issue possible. Dick Marston and Don Friend provided early support and excitement for the special issue's topical focus. The experiences and advice from my fellow Annals editors were very useful in helping me refine the special issue topic, develop its process, and make suggestions for how to avoid difficulties. The authors of this special issue were given a very tight schedule and deadline, and they have my gratitude for not only meeting these deadlines but also for producing high-quality articles that now make up this special issue. In addition, the special issue required the services of a large number of reviewers and editorial board members who contributed important and helpful reviews that improved the many articles herein. Alec Murphy helped me with the structural organization of the issue, and the other members of the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon provided positive emotional support throughout the development of this issue. Most important, the Managing Editors of the Annals, Jennifer Cassidento and Jenny Lunn, and our Production Manager at Taylor and Francis, Lea Cutler, have been extraordinarily important in getting this issue from the beginning to the end. To these people and a great many others, I am extremely grateful.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark A. Fonstad

MARK A. FONSTAD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the physical geography of rivers and mountains, the fusion of physical geography with geographic information science, geomorphology, hydrology, and remote sensing.