Why this journal and our partners invest time in webinars

For this editorial, it was tempting to dwell on how so many people are facing manifold and painful challenges, not least among them expressions of violence, mental and physical anguish, and conflict. But I have long followed the precept “do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” And, of course, much in the world is based in compassion, filled with joy, and supports individual and collective flourishing.

Geographical Research is a collaborative effort involving an editorial team, editorial board, authors, and readers; our Wiley publisher; and the Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG). The journal itself is one expression of that effort. Our webinars are another, and we have now logged 15 of those over time. I want to focus on those webinars here. They were, and remain, organised by a small working group from each of the aforesaid partners, and members of that group shoulder the different responsibilities that attend organisation, hosting, production, and promotion. We began in November 2021 with a keynote-style presentation from Lauren Rickards that built on her Wiley lecture at the IAG conference that year, when the pandemic’s effects were still strongly evident. We then decided to trial a “calendar” of offerings over 2022, electing to highlight issues we thought important or showcase special sections that had been or were to be published in the journal. Those sessions were interspersed with occasional keynotes. Among our constituents, interest in the webinars has remained constant, which has been both affirming and energising.

On that basis, we continued the program in 2023 and recommitted to it for this year. Why? We think that the webinars enliven our collegial life, open spaces of engagement and critical and creative reflection, and can showcase the discipline beyond its boundaries. Anecdotal feedback from those who attend and participate supports our view. But for the webinars to have greater traction, it would be marvellous for more people to know about them and spread the word that the recordings are universally available. We think that they also make for very interesting viewing that can work in teaching, stimulate research discussions, and connect us to colleagues and friends here and elsewhere.

Finally, it is useful to remind readers that papers in the journal, journal issues, and those webinars are all accessible on the journal website. Enjoy!

This issue leads with a timely Associate Editor commentary on the geography of the Anthropocene by Patrick Moss (2024, p. 213). In it, he considers the contours of current debates about “the benefits of formalising the Anthropocene as a geological unit,” and contextualises both the Great Acceleration and this new epoch. He also delineates why geography is central to international discussions about how to define, conceptualise, and work with “the Anthropocene,” given that “geographers are focused on space and time, which are core components of the formal definition of the Anthropocene as a geological unit.”

Two more of our special commentaries on COVID-19 follow that contribution. These commentaries are named as such on the basis that we asked authors responding to our special call on the pandemic’s legacy to be especially provocative. At the same time, these ’commentaries’ do constitute original articles subject to the same rigours as others in that category of papers we publish. Their presence in the journal will also continue for some time yet because the echo effects of the pandemic are both far-reaching and long-lasting. In the first paper, Gunagzhen Li, Darrick Evensen, and Rich Stedman (2024) establish how COVID-19 had certain surprising effects on sense of place and pro-environmental behaviour in Wuhan, China, the pandemic’s epicentre. In the second paper, Kurt Iveson and Mark Riboldi (2024) navigate what they call the dilemmas of mutual aid by reference to actions taken by and for international students affected by the pandemic in Sydney, Australia. They find that mutual aid is a powerful kind of care infrastructure that can be variously affected by institutionalising forces implicating the market, service, and state actors.

There follow five fascinating original articles that, yet again, showcase the diversity and interdisciplinary strengths of the discipline. Sarah Turner, Thi-Thanh-Hien Pham, Hanh Ngô, and Celia Zuberec (2024) explore diverse motivations, practices, and politics that inform rooftop gardening in the Global South, with particular reference to Hanoi, Vietnam. There, “gardeners face pressing food safety concerns while expressing doubt in formal political institutions’ ability to address these anxieties” (p. 248). Drawing on that rich empirical work, the authors deploy a critical geography lens to consider a range of policy recommendations to support more urban rooftop gardening and address food security.

Also focused on food security, Miriam Williams, Alinta Pilkington, and Chloe Parker (2024) examine the ways in which Sydney’s food relief providers may be understood as care infrastructures—and while that paper was not part of our call for papers on the pandemic’s legacy and anticipatory geographies,¹ it maps strongly onto the kinds of insights also provided by Iveson and Riboldi, noted above. Specifically, Williams and colleagues documented how, during the pandemic, there was increased demand for food relief, shocks to the food supply, and changes to the characteristics of those seeking food relief. They also brought to bear evidence that these infrastructures of care are “place-based and can be responsive, dynamic, and shaped by compassion” (p. 263).

The focus on urban settings continues in work by Junfan Lin, Xueqing Wang, and Geng Lin (2024) in a study showing that performance and atmosphere in street music in Guangzhou, China, shape urban public space and, more broadly, the city. Their analysis suggests that “performance theory and sonic geography research” can be applied to studies of “how buskers strategically appropriate urban public space by working with audiences, acoustic relations, and the quality of space” (p. 279). Their work is especially interesting because it contributes novel theorisations about the “roles and spatial processes of two levels of atmosphere: the atmospheric performance space and the atmosphere of a city” (p. 279). It also adds to the corpus of work on sonic geographies in the journal, about which I would like to see more in the near future.

Attention then shifts to rural and remote Australia and challenges to the local government’s work to develop strategies, services, and operations in the face of shifts in mining and a post-mining future. The work by Fiona Haslam McKenzie and Suzanne Eyles (2024) reveals the deep complexities embedded in mine closures and consequential planning for residential and other services by local governments. Focused on the Shire of Coolgardie, a small Western Australian local government authority, the authors show and evaluate how the council has embarked on a long-term mission to build economic and social resilience. Their findings are widely applicable across both Australia and comparable jurisdictions.

Then, insights on how to integrate space syntax and crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) in relation to outdoor physical activity have been provided by Mina Safizadeh, Massoomeh Hedayati Marzbali, Aldrin Abdullah, and Mohammad Javad Maghsoodi Tilaki (2024). They first establish the relationship between the spatial configuration of the built environment and outdoor physical activity and a gap in the literature on the role of crime prevention elements and safety in studies of that relationship. They then used structural equation modelling (SEM) and an analysis of demographic factors for 211 residents of an urban neighbourhood in Penang, Malaysia, to show “how the residential neighbourhood’s spatial configuration supports outdoor physical activity and simultaneously affects other social and physical characteristics of the neighbourhood” (p. 309). Again, both their methodology and empirical findings are widely applicable in other contexts.

Finally, Yiming Wang (2024) has written a thoughtful and comprehensive review of Alexandra Lang’s book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall. It is interesting that, following a rush of studies on this particular space in the 1990s, the mall is now being revisited. Like others, such as Jacob C. Miller and Sunčana Laketa (2019), Wang makes the point that despite the relative “quiet” on this subject for some time, the geographies of the mall continue to have significant influence in urban and suburban life, and in shifting ways that warrant ongoing and renewed consideration by scholars and more commentaries on public space, consumption geographies, and allied subjects.

I hope that you enjoy these offerings and look forward to providing our third issue in August. Until then, stay safe and well.