Pub Date : 2026-01-24DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104535
Laura R. Blume , Laura Aileen Sauls , Fernando Galeana
This paper examines how counternarcotics policies have shaped state presence and territorial governance in the Moskitia region of Honduras and Nicaragua. Drawing on historical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, we argue that the Hemisphere’s almost exclusively militarized response to the international narcotics trade has undermined the potential for more Indigenous-centered governance, even in areas like the Moskitia where collective land rights have been recognized and titled. Instead, this response has enabled the extension of the Honduran and Nicaraguan states into this region in specific and often perverse ways, evidenced through modalities of authoritarianism, rent extraction, and violence against community leaders and environmental defenders. Rather than state absence, it is in fact these modalities of state presence that have resulted in the selective forms of enforcement and violence that constrain the potential for alternative governance models. We also highlight how U.S. counternarcotics policies in particular have facilitated the development of these state modalities. By tracing the evolution of narco-state relations and foreign intervention, we demonstrate how external influences continue to impact local realities and the prospects for Indigenous territorial governance in contested frontier spaces. This paper responds to calls to better explain actually existing and emerging territorial governance under competing political economic systems.
{"title":"Militarized margins: Counternarcotics policy and the struggle for territorial governance in Central America","authors":"Laura R. Blume , Laura Aileen Sauls , Fernando Galeana","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104535","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104535","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how counternarcotics policies have shaped state presence and territorial governance in the Moskitia region of Honduras and Nicaragua. Drawing on historical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, we argue that the Hemisphere’s almost exclusively militarized response to the international narcotics trade has undermined the potential for more Indigenous-centered governance, even in areas like the Moskitia where collective land rights have been recognized and titled. Instead, this response has enabled the extension of the Honduran and Nicaraguan states into this region in specific and often perverse ways, evidenced through modalities of authoritarianism, rent extraction, and violence against community leaders and environmental defenders. Rather than state absence, it is in fact these modalities of state presence that have resulted in the selective forms of enforcement and violence that constrain the potential for alternative governance models. We also highlight how U.S. counternarcotics policies in particular have facilitated the development of these state modalities. By tracing the evolution of narco-state relations and foreign intervention, we demonstrate how external influences continue to impact local realities and the prospects for Indigenous territorial governance in contested frontier spaces. This paper responds to calls to better explain actually existing and emerging territorial governance under competing political economic systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104535"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146074993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-22DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104543
Johanna Hohenthal, Jenny Rinkinen
Maps are widely used in planning and guiding energy systems towards a more sustainable future. This study examines how mapping functions as a performative practice and a medium that contributes to the development and stabilisation of sociotechnical imaginaries (STIs) of energy transition. Maps are shaped by the visions of their makers, and therefore, they have the potential to support the embedding and extension of STIs or to promote alternative imaginaries. Maps are also used for different purposes and read through various imaginaries, and therefore, map users also have a crucial role in these processes. To illustrate how maps construct and circulate the STIs of energy transition, we analyse online maps and digital spatial data portals related to sustainable energy transition in the Finnish context. Our findings demonstrate that maps are active co-productive visual mediums through which STIs of energy transition and associated conceptions of sustainability are spatialised, stabilised, and contested. Most of the studied energy transition maps are produced by energy elites such as administrative authorities, energy companies, and researchers. These maps serve certain purposes, such as promoting energy solutions to decision-makers and citizens, and often address issues of sustainability, energy security, or the economy related to the energy transition. However, concomitantly, these maps also extend a techno-optimistic STI of the energy transition based on various renewable energy solutions. Spatially, the maps highlight the Global North as the forerunner of energy transition and point to idealised spaces for renewable energy production. At the same time, they hide the adverse environmental and social impacts and fail to address relationality and issues of justice. To promote energy democracy, alternative imaginaries of energy futures should be better represented in mapping practices.
{"title":"Maps in the service of sociotechnical imaginaries of energy transition","authors":"Johanna Hohenthal, Jenny Rinkinen","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104543","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104543","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Maps are widely used in planning and guiding energy systems towards a more sustainable future. This study examines how mapping functions as a performative practice and a medium that contributes to the development and stabilisation of sociotechnical imaginaries (STIs) of energy transition. Maps are shaped by the visions of their makers, and therefore, they have the potential to support the embedding and extension of STIs or to promote alternative imaginaries. Maps are also used for different purposes and read through various imaginaries, and therefore, map users also have a crucial role in these processes. To illustrate how maps construct and circulate the STIs of energy transition, we analyse online maps and digital spatial data portals related to sustainable energy transition in the Finnish context. Our findings demonstrate that maps are active co-productive visual mediums through which STIs of energy transition and associated conceptions of sustainability are spatialised, stabilised, and contested. Most of the studied energy transition maps are produced by energy elites such as administrative authorities, energy companies, and researchers. These maps serve certain purposes, such as promoting energy solutions to decision-makers and citizens, and often address issues of sustainability, energy security, or the economy related to the energy transition. However, concomitantly, these maps also extend a techno-optimistic STI of the energy transition based on various renewable energy solutions. Spatially, the maps highlight the Global North as the forerunner of energy transition and point to idealised spaces for renewable energy production. At the same time, they hide the adverse environmental and social impacts and fail to address relationality and issues of justice. To promote energy democracy, alternative imaginaries of energy futures should be better represented in mapping practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104543"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146036190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social cash transfer schemes that provide small regular payments to poor people have become a key social protection tool in many African countries. Such schemes often employ household targeting, ostensibly to maximise poverty alleviation, based on assumptions about households and their functioning. Building on geographical work on both cash transfers and the household, we demonstrate how three starkly different versions of the household – imagined, documented and lived – are entailed in the design, implementation and outcomes of targeting.
We draw on datasets from a project that explored how social cash transfers intervene in household and community relations in two household targeted schemes: Malawi’s Social Cash Transfer Programme and Lesotho’s Child Grant. First, 109 interviews with key national and international stakeholders explored how the two household targeting designs reflect transnational political, technocratic and ideological considerations. Second, ethnographic research in two rural communities, focused around 20 recipient households, examined how the schemes play out in people’s lives.
Going beyond analyses that see cash transfer schemes as products of multi-scalar relations, with households as the most local end of a global–local spectrum, we identify three mismatched versions of the household, each intersecting across multiple spatial scales. The imagined household of the scheme blueprint (stable and easily defined) is a product of transnational relations between a range of actors. This is translated into a documented household, inscribed in national beneficiary registers that direct funding to specific constellations of individuals. The lived household, distinct from both, is fluid and porous and responds reflexively to the payments. Ultimately, the mismatch between these three households breeds resentment and undermines the legitimacy of the schemes, leading to their local subversion or reinterpretation. Finally, we propose that this three-fold conceptualisation of the household may be useful to geographers seeking to understand the effects of a diversity of social policy interventions that target households.
{"title":"Household targeting of social cash transfer programmes: transnational poverty alleviation and community subversion in Malawi and Lesotho","authors":"Nicola Ansell , Roeland Hemsteede , Flora Hajdu , Thandie Hlabana , Lorraine van Blerk , Evance Mwathunga , Elsbeth Robson","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104538","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104538","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social cash transfer schemes that provide small regular payments to poor people have become a key social protection tool in many African countries. Such schemes often employ household targeting, ostensibly to maximise poverty alleviation, based on assumptions about households and their functioning. Building on geographical work on both cash transfers and the household, we demonstrate how three starkly different versions of the household – imagined, documented and lived – are entailed in the design, implementation and outcomes of targeting.</div><div>We draw on datasets from a project that explored how social cash transfers intervene in household and community relations in two household targeted schemes: Malawi’s Social Cash Transfer Programme and Lesotho’s Child Grant. First, 109 interviews with key national and international stakeholders explored how the two household targeting designs reflect transnational political, technocratic and ideological considerations. Second, ethnographic research in two rural communities, focused around 20 recipient households, examined how the schemes play out in people’s lives.</div><div>Going beyond analyses that see cash transfer schemes as products of multi-scalar relations, with households as the most local end of a global–local spectrum, we identify three mismatched versions of the household, each intersecting across multiple spatial scales. The <em>imagined</em> household of the scheme blueprint (stable and easily defined) is a product of transnational relations between a range of actors. This is translated into a <em>documented</em> household, inscribed in national beneficiary registers that direct funding to specific constellations of individuals. The <em>lived</em> household, distinct from both, is fluid and porous and responds reflexively to the payments. Ultimately, the mismatch between these three households breeds resentment and undermines the legitimacy of the schemes, leading to their local subversion or reinterpretation. Finally, we propose that this three-fold conceptualisation of the household may be useful to geographers seeking to understand the effects of a diversity of social policy interventions that target households.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104538"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146036189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-20DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104537
Ioanna Chatzikonstantinou , Elia Apostolopoulou
Amid the global proliferation of wildfires, in this article we explore post-disaster fire governance in Greece. Drawing on empirical research into the aftermath of the 2021 North Evia wildfires and engaging with scholarship on the political ecology of fires and disaster capitalism, we examine how the wildfire was framed as an opportunity for spatial restructuring. Our analysis unpacks the mechanisms through which state and non-state actors reconfigured planning and environmental governance to bypass democratic processes, undermine local environmental claims and marginalize resin cultivators, beekeepers, shepherds and farmers in favor of touristification and urban expansion. We argue that, under the guise of the climate emergency, recovery strategies not only displace rural livelihoods but also erode socio-environmental resilience, facilitating processes of wildland gentrification that reproduce and intensify vulnerabilities to climate change-induced catastrophes in fire-prone areas. Elite actors hold a key role in these processes as they attempt to capitalize upon their involvement in climate change adaptation strategies and gear recovery policy towards their interests.
{"title":"Disaster capitalism and the political ecology of wildfire recovery in North Evia, Greece","authors":"Ioanna Chatzikonstantinou , Elia Apostolopoulou","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104537","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104537","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Amid the global proliferation of wildfires, in this article we explore post-disaster fire governance in Greece. Drawing on empirical research into the aftermath of the 2021 North Evia wildfires and engaging with scholarship on the political ecology of fires and disaster capitalism, we examine how the wildfire was framed as an opportunity for spatial restructuring. Our analysis unpacks the mechanisms through which state and non-state actors reconfigured planning and environmental governance to bypass democratic processes, undermine local environmental claims and marginalize resin cultivators, beekeepers, shepherds and farmers in favor of touristification and urban expansion. We argue that, under the guise of the climate emergency, recovery strategies not only displace rural livelihoods but also erode socio-environmental resilience, facilitating processes of wildland gentrification that reproduce and intensify vulnerabilities to climate change-induced catastrophes in fire-prone areas. Elite actors hold a key role in these processes as they attempt to capitalize upon their involvement in climate change adaptation strategies and gear recovery policy towards their interests.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104537"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146036187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-19DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104541
Ngabiyanto , Danang Puji Atmojo
Neoliberal reforms in Indonesian higher education are reshaping urban landscapes through studentification, a phenomenon still underexplored in the Global South. Using the case of Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) after its 2022 transformation into a legal-entity state university (PTN-BH), this article shows how policy pushes students into a stratified rental market. It finds a clash between local residents’ informal kos-kosan economy and speculative investment from external actors, a dynamic distinct from Global North contexts. Digital platforms intensify this divide by structuring access and pricing while marginalizing affordable options. The study argues that studentification in the Global South is structurally driven by neoliberal university policy and positions students simultaneously as consumers, sites of value extraction, and potential political actors.
{"title":"Studentification in the Global South: Neoliberal University Reform and Speculative Housing in Semarang, Indonesia","authors":"Ngabiyanto , Danang Puji Atmojo","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104541","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104541","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Neoliberal reforms in Indonesian higher education are reshaping urban landscapes through studentification, a phenomenon still underexplored in the Global South. Using the case of Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) after its 2022 transformation into a legal-entity state university (PTN-BH), this article shows how policy pushes students into a stratified rental market. It finds a clash between local residents’ informal <em>kos-kosan</em> economy and speculative investment from external actors, a dynamic distinct from Global North contexts. Digital platforms intensify this divide by structuring access and pricing while marginalizing affordable options. The study argues that studentification in the Global South is structurally driven by neoliberal university policy and positions students simultaneously as consumers, sites of value extraction, and potential political actors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104541"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146036680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-19DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104530
Sidney James Boegman-Watt, Sophia Carodenuto
Chocolate is a staple of the North American diet whose main ingredient, cacao, can only be grown in equatorial regions that are distant from their principal consumer markets in the Global North. The commodity chocolate industry has been criticized for perpetuating environmental, social, and economic inequities for smallholder cacao farmers, especially those in West Africa, where the majority of cacao is produced. Craft chocolate presents an alternative to commodity chocolate, offering a promise of more ethical consumption and better outcomes for cacao producers. In addition to prioritizing alternative sourcing practices, this morality-driven sector is defined by a wide variety of cacao ‘origins’, or the places where cacao beans are grown. Many craft chocolate companies are dedicated to educating consumers about cacao origins, including the diversity of geographic regions, harvesting processes, and land stewardship—all of which impact chocolate flavour. The ubiquity of online consumption has shifted most of this education to digital spaces, resulting in increased mediation of place in online settings. In this study, we explore how digital placemaking—the construction of place that occurs through digitally-mediated experiences—is employed on direct-to-consumer craft chocolate websites operating in North America. Drawing on a human-place-technology framework of digital placemaking to analyze focus group data, we assert that these websites ‘bridge the gap’ between producing and consuming geographies by sharing experiences connected to place. We also critique the use of simplified location-based marketing narratives within placemaking practices for their potential to construct certain origins as innately ‘good’ and others as ‘bad’.
{"title":"Place, Process, People: Digital Placemaking across Global Supply Chains","authors":"Sidney James Boegman-Watt, Sophia Carodenuto","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104530","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104530","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Chocolate is a staple of the North American diet whose main ingredient, cacao, can only be grown in equatorial regions that are distant from their principal consumer markets in the Global North. The commodity chocolate industry has been criticized for perpetuating environmental, social, and economic inequities for smallholder cacao farmers, especially those in West Africa, where the majority of cacao is produced. Craft chocolate presents an alternative to commodity chocolate, offering a promise of more ethical consumption and better outcomes for cacao producers. In addition to prioritizing alternative sourcing practices, this morality-driven sector is defined by a wide variety of cacao ‘origins’, or the places where cacao beans are grown. Many craft chocolate companies are dedicated to educating consumers about cacao origins, including the diversity of geographic regions, harvesting processes, and land stewardship—all of which impact chocolate flavour. The ubiquity of online consumption has shifted most of this education to digital spaces, resulting in increased mediation of place in online settings. In this study, we explore how digital placemaking—the construction of place that occurs through digitally-mediated experiences—is employed on direct-to-consumer craft chocolate websites operating in North America. Drawing on a human-place-technology framework of digital placemaking to analyze focus group data, we assert that these websites ‘bridge the gap’ between producing and consuming geographies by sharing experiences connected to place. We also critique the use of simplified location-based marketing narratives within placemaking practices for their potential to construct certain origins as innately ‘good’ and others as ‘bad’.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104530"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145993531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-18DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104539
Prerona Das , Orlando Woods , Lily Kong
Data-driven solutions and innovations have been extended to various industries, including agriculture, to increase efficiency. With the emergence of smart farming and agriculture 4.0, advanced technologies such as IoT, big data, machine learning, and cloud computing are increasingly integrated into farming. Among these, technologies such as digital models, digital twins and the metaverse are now used to control various farming activities remotely based on real-time data. However agricultural ecosystems, involving uncertain nature-based factors and complex human-nature interactions cannot always be accurately represented or predicted by digital models. Digital models aim to reduce natural environments into controllable game-like situations and undermine the multifaceted human and natural intelligences at play in agricultural ecosystems. This paper critically examines this reductionist view of the digital modelling of nature within the context of smart farming. We approach digital twinning not only as a technical tool but also as a conceptual lens that reflects a broader epistemological shift; one that assumes complex agro-ecological systems can be fully rendered calculable. By engaging with the idea of untwinning, we argue that this approach fails to account for the context-sensitive, dynamic dimensions of farming, particularly those rooted in traditional farming knowledge. Using the case of smart farming initiatives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, we show how digital modelling technologies, while offering certain efficiencies, face challenges as some factors in agro-ecological systems cannot be fully captured or controlled by technological solutions.
{"title":"Modelling nature? The digital twinning and untwinning of urban farms","authors":"Prerona Das , Orlando Woods , Lily Kong","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104539","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104539","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Data-driven solutions and innovations have been extended to various industries, including agriculture, to increase efficiency. With the emergence of smart farming and agriculture 4.0, advanced technologies such as IoT, big data, machine learning, and cloud computing are increasingly integrated into farming. Among these, technologies such as digital models, digital twins and the metaverse are now used to control various farming activities remotely based on real-time data. However agricultural ecosystems, involving uncertain nature-based factors and complex human-nature interactions cannot always be accurately represented or predicted by digital models. Digital models aim to reduce natural environments into controllable game-like situations and undermine the multifaceted human and natural intelligences at play in agricultural ecosystems. This paper critically examines this reductionist view of the digital modelling of nature within the context of smart farming. We approach digital twinning not only as a technical tool but also as a conceptual lens that reflects a broader epistemological shift; one that assumes complex agro-ecological systems can be fully rendered calculable. By engaging with the idea of <em>untwinning</em>, we argue that this approach fails to account for the context-sensitive, dynamic dimensions of farming, particularly those rooted in traditional farming knowledge. Using the case of smart farming initiatives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, we show how digital modelling technologies, while offering certain efficiencies, face challenges as some factors in agro-ecological systems cannot be fully captured or controlled by technological solutions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104539"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145993529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-15DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104534
Mariyam Anaa Hassan , Celia McMichael , Uma Kothari
Islands have long been depicted as vulnerable, lacking in resources, and constrained in their ability to adapt and recover from socio-economic and environmental challenges. Specifically, food systems in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are widely viewed as vulnerable to disruptions and shocks including the impacts of climate change, trade volatility and geopolitics. This paper assesses the opportunities and challenges to achieving a resilient food system in the Maldives, illustrating the ways in which islanders respond to disruptions and shocks to their food system. Drawing on research on two islands, this paper highlights three factors that support food system resilience: social and cultural norms that enhance everyday agency; multi-scalar connectivity between people and places; and decentralised governance and collective action in response to risks and shocks. Building on literature that challenges colonial and homogenized discourses of islands as being predominantly vulnerable, the paper presents a place-based and multi-scalar analysis of food systems. While vulnerability discourses around SIDS have been critiqued, few studies have done so in relation to food systems. This paper contributes novel insights by situating these critiques within the lived experiences of food system actors during a major crisis and grounding them in the Maldivian context. While acknowledging constraints and threats to food system resilience in SIDS this paper argues the need to look beyond conventional vulnerability paradigms to understand the form and extent of their agency and capabilities.
{"title":"Islandness and resilience: a study of food systems in the Maldives","authors":"Mariyam Anaa Hassan , Celia McMichael , Uma Kothari","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104534","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104534","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Islands have long been depicted as vulnerable, lacking in resources, and constrained in their ability to adapt and recover from socio-economic and environmental challenges. Specifically, food systems in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are widely viewed as vulnerable to disruptions and shocks including the impacts of climate change, trade volatility and geopolitics. This paper assesses the opportunities and challenges to achieving a resilient food system in the Maldives, illustrating the ways in which islanders respond to disruptions and shocks to their food system. Drawing on research on two islands, this paper highlights three factors that support food system resilience: social and cultural norms that enhance everyday agency; multi-scalar connectivity between people and places; and decentralised governance and collective action in response to risks and shocks. Building on literature that challenges colonial and homogenized discourses of islands as being predominantly vulnerable, the paper presents a place-based and multi-scalar analysis of food systems. While vulnerability discourses around SIDS have been critiqued, few studies have done so in relation to food systems. This paper contributes novel insights by situating these critiques within the lived experiences of food system actors during a major crisis and grounding them in the Maldivian context. While acknowledging constraints and threats to food system resilience in SIDS this paper argues the need to look beyond conventional vulnerability paradigms to understand the form and extent of their agency and capabilities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"169 ","pages":"Article 104534"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145973222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-13DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104536
Elizabeth Bartholomew , Alida Cantor , Kate Berry , Noel Vineyard
Extraction of lithium, a key ingredient for renewable energy transitions, is a land- and water-intensive process. In this study, we use qualitative, place-based research to explore socio-environmental imaginaries surrounding a landscape on the verge of change due to lithium mining. We examine the ways that different actors are wrestling with the costs, benefits, and uncertainties of potential open-pit lithium mining in Oregon’s section of the McDermitt Caldera. In contrast to previous research which has described support for mining amongst those closest to the mine site, we find that in this case, perceptions of mining are characterized by ambivalence, uncertainty, and recognition of complexity and nuance. We note the ways in which tradeoffs, scalar tensions, connections to the local landscape, and uncertainty and unknowns are generating a prevailing sense of ambivalence around mining futures in the McDermitt Caldera. As the demand for critical minerals continues to rise, there is a growing need for place-based research to understand specific impacts of and reactions to potential extraction in areas on the verge of transformation. The expansion of critical mineral extraction for energy transitions generates internal conflicts and competing socio-environmental imaginaries.
{"title":"“We’re going to tear up the Caldera so we can have an electric car”: Wrestling with prospective lithium mining in the Oregon desert","authors":"Elizabeth Bartholomew , Alida Cantor , Kate Berry , Noel Vineyard","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104536","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104536","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Extraction of lithium, a key ingredient for renewable energy transitions, is a land- and water-intensive process. In this study, we use qualitative, place-based research to explore socio-environmental imaginaries surrounding a landscape on the verge of change due to lithium mining. We examine the ways that different actors are wrestling with the costs, benefits, and uncertainties of potential open-pit lithium mining in Oregon’s section of the McDermitt Caldera. In contrast to previous research which has described support for mining amongst those closest to the mine site, we find that in this case, perceptions of mining are characterized by ambivalence, uncertainty, and recognition of complexity and nuance. We note the ways in which tradeoffs, scalar tensions, connections to the local landscape, and uncertainty and unknowns are generating a prevailing sense of ambivalence around mining futures in the McDermitt Caldera. As the demand for critical minerals continues to rise, there is a growing need for place-based research to understand specific impacts of and reactions to potential extraction in areas on the verge of transformation. The expansion of critical mineral extraction for energy transitions generates internal conflicts and competing socio-environmental imaginaries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"169 ","pages":"Article 104536"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145973221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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