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Notes
1. My argument here is purposely at odds with CitationHarmon (2003). While Harmon is surely right in his argument that our future is determined in large part by factors beyond our control, his market metaphor, relying as it does on a number of hidden and untenable assumptions about both individual and societal rational choice, prematurely precludes the possibility that either there is nothing “rational” at all about choices societies make (witness the survival of economics as a discipline) or that “markets” (or other social forces) can be dominated, directed, transformed.
2. The point is not that the twentieth century is exceptional—that other eras were golden eras of peace and prosperity—but rather that the twentieth century saw the scale and scope of violence expand even as the global geography of prosperity and deprivation was finally, and firmly, knitted together.
3. This list does not even begin to scratch the surface: to cite work centrally concerned with social justice in geography would really require citing whole runs of several major journals (Gender, Place and Culture, Society and Space, Antipode, Environment and Planning A, Progress in Human Geography), much work in human geography in the main disciplinary journals (Annals, Transactions, Professional Geographer, Area), and whole sections of the library.
4. Consider, for example, CitationTurner's (2002) apparent dismissal of theory about space, spatiality, scale, and everything but “the human-environment condition” as mere “approach.”
5. Nor can it be measured by the sort of market forces CitationHarmon (2003) suggests are at work in the Darwinian selection of the fittest academic disciplines.
6. Matters are, if anything, more dire in the K–12 schools, and the AAG needs to work in solidarity with progressive teachers and others working to roll back the test culture that now determines the content of learning.
7. The recent arguments of Alec Murphy in his presidential columns are a welcome exception (see e.g., December 2003), and, I hope, a signal of change.
8. An excellent, heavily documented analysis is CitationHouse of Representatives (2003).
9. The American Geophysical Union is a good model in this regard: the recent declaration by its council on climate change is exemplary of the sort of intervention the AAG should make (CitationNPR 2003).
10. In Texas, it is now law that when women ask about abortion, they must be counseled that it can increase the risk of breast cancer. This is an outright untruth, unsupported by any science—but now mandated in law, in some places and not others (CitationElliott 2003; CitationMarcotty 2003). But the real geographic issue is one of highly unequal access as women's heath centers that provide abortions are driven out of many cities and counties and as state laws make it a crime for some women to cross state lines to seek an abortion.
11. The AAG's response to various organizations seeking to censor papers concerning Palestine/Israel presented at the 2001 AAG meetings in Los Angeles was heartening.
12. This is true also of physical geography, though the political implications and content of research in physical geography may be indirect (and, as in much basic research, not at all apparent or even integral): consider the struggles over paleoclimate data at the heart of much contemporary global climate change politics.
13. As a professor of English recently remarked to me, “I need to really learn cultural geography, that is where everything important and exciting is happening.” Such comments give lie to CitationTurner's (2002) argument that the study of space, spatiality, and scale (what he anachronistically calls “spatial-chorological”) has no object. It most certainly does, though these objects (including his own favored one, “the human-environment condition”) are plural.
14. The development, expansion, and continued success of NCGIA/UCGIS makes it clear that such institutes in geography are possible.
15. I leave outlines for institutes related to the environment and physical geography to others.
16. Alec CitationMurphy (2003) has recently suggested that every geographer write an op-ed at least once every five years or so. I have found that I have only had success in getting pieces published on op-ed pages when I work through the media liaison employed by the Maxwell School where geography is housed at Syracuse. This liaison advises on approach and wording, calls editors and reporters, and generally pushes editorials and articles: she gets the attention of the media, a time-consuming process. The AAG would do well to employ such a media and public relations liaison, especially one with experience working among the Washington media. The AAG's conference in May 2004 that brought together geographers and the media at the National Press Club was an important step.
17. The December 2003 issue of the AAG Newsletter lists jobs related to such initiatives at both the University of Arizona West and the University of Illinois—a welcome sign.