Publication OA: Geographical Imagination in Forthcoming _Intl Encyc of Geography_

I recently made my article, “Size Matters to Lesbians Too: Queer Feminist Interventions into the Scale of Big Data,” public via the open access (OA) services SocArxchiv and SSRN. While I am sharing a new publication through same means but on the geographical imagination–the topic of my first blog post and, still and weirdly, my most popular–I also want to write a little more about why I am keen to place my OA work in these archives. Specifically, my dear friend / feminist geographer Sara Koopman pointed out in a recent comment that I didn’t “explain why [I] like these two cites better than academia[.edu] or research gate – both of which have their issues but are WAY prettier and easier to use than these two [sites, i.e. SSRN and SocArxchiv].” Indeed! In brief: while I will surely load my work to academia.edu and ResearchGate as well, I believe that the archival focus of SocArxchiv and SSRN (which claims to be a network but functions pretty lamely in comparison to its impressive archival ability) is much more appealing and exciting to me than seeking out academic networking sites as a placeholder for my work. Somehow, it seems less stressful and more exciting to me. But to each her/his/their own!

2017 (forthcoming). Gieseking, J. Geographical Imagination. In International Encyclopedia of Geography (eds. D. Richardson, N. Castree, M. Goodchild, A. Jaffrey, W. Liu, A. Kobayashi, and R. Marston). New York: Wiley-Blackwell and the Association of American Geographers.

ABSTRACT

Geographical imagination affords ways of thinking about space and place, whether conscious or unconscious, that evoke power as it shapes practices, behaviors, and social structures. Scholars across the disciplines attach a range of related definitions, most of which can be traced back to the work of geographers Hugh Prince, David Harvey, and Derek Gregory. The geographical imagination is also often confused or used interchangeably with other key concepts, such as imaginative geographies, geographic imaginary, and geopolitical imagination. Gregory recently addressed the theoretical contributions of the geographical imagination in the Dictionary of Human Geography (2009). Theoretical and applied uses of the term address how power and knowledge are deployed in and upon space on behalf of social justice. The following threads emerge in this work: perception, cognition, and behavior; processes in the urban and nature; tensions between the arts and sciences; trends in of communications and mapping; elements of identity ranging from the individual to the structural; and imagined futures, especially as they relate to policy.