New in Area:
'Can you see us now? Negotiating Indigenous citizenship at a road blockade in Argentinean Chaco' by Alberto Preci
This paper is part on an ongoing Special Section on roadblocks in extractivist landscapes.
doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Certificate saying Top cited article Wiley 2025. Congratulations to Saanchi Saxena whose work has been recognized as a top cited article in Area "Gender, caste, and street vending in India: Towards an intersectional geography"
My first ever journal article has been awarded as a top-cited article of the year!
While publication metrics are not the be-all and end-all in my field, it's nice to know that my work has resonated with other scholars.
Special thanks to @areajournal.bsky.social for the great publishing experience.
New in Area:
'Intimate juxtaposition: Bounded coexistence and the making of multispecies home in Guangzhou' by Duo Yin
This paper explore more-than-human cohabitation in urban Guangzhou, drawing on interviews with reptile, amphibian & arthropod keepers.
doi.org/10.1111/area...
Maddie is a superstar and this is so richly deserved!
Every year, the Editors of the RGS-IBG Area journal award the Area Prize for the best paper written by an early-career scholar, in recognition of excellent geographical scholarship.
Our congratulations to the 2025 winner, Madelaine Joyce 👏
Find out more and read the full paper ⬇️
Really important intervention from the brilliant @oliviamason.bsky.social
Reading for the Area Prize each spring is a really lovely opportunity to engage with all the amazing early career work being produced across the discipline and that @areajournal.bsky.social is proud to publish. Well done to Maddie, Stefano, and Rosie on their excellent papers! @rgs.org
Huge congratulations to Maddie!
Good news! Applications for the 2026 Fi Wi Road Internship are still open.
An exciting opportunity for Black and mixed-Black heritage geography students, the Fi Wi Road project supports you to build networks, develop your voice, and gain experience.
Apply by 20 April 👇
https://bit.ly/4undzvM
Surprised and delighted to be the recipient of this year’s Area Prize! Incredibly grateful to be recognised and thankful to all the people who made my research and the paper possible! 🏆🤩☺️🌏
Congrats to Stefano Pagin who just finished his PhD with me who was Highly Commended in the Area Prize for early career researchers 🤩🎉
Screenshot of a highly commended paper in the 2025 Area Prize: Rosie Knowles (University of Liverpool, UK) “Narrating health and well-being with vulnerable participants: The ethics of composite fiction as a creative method in health geographies” Area, 58(1), e70042 This impactful article by Rosie Knowles pushes health geographers towards a more sustained engagement with how composite fiction can be assembled ethically and rigorously. Reflecting on what it means to tell stories together and to build collective reflection into accounts of health geography, Knowles’ paper offers a creative and insightful methodological contribution.
& Rosie Knowles for her paper 'Narrating health and well-being with vulnerable participants: The ethics of composite fiction as a creative method in health geographies' ⬇️
doi.org/10.1111/area...
@livunigeog.bsky.social
Screenshot of a highly commended paper in the 2025 Area Prize: Stefano Pagin (University of Leicester, UK) “Bringing nuance to real estate financialisation: Insights from Brazil” In this carefully argued article, Stefano Pagin and Daniel Sanfelici examine how institutions take shape within, and most importantly give shape to, the financialisation of real estate. The piece shows both the utility of broader political economic thought and cautions against overextending its analytical reach. It convincingly argues that contextualising financialisation in particular places enables it to be seen as one of many logics shaping urban geographies, making a significant contribution to thinking from and with the Global South.
The editors also recognised two highly commended authors:
Stefano Pagin for his co-authored paper with Daniel Sanfelici: 'Bringing nuance to real estate financialisation: Insights from Brazil' ⬇️
doi.org/10.1111/area...
@uniofleicester.bsky.social
Screenshot of the 2025 Area Prize-winner announcement: Madelaine Joyce (Royal Holloway University of London, UK) “Sensing the sky’s edge: Atmospheric insights into the Korean demilitarised zone” With this innovative article, Madelaine Joyce pushes cultural and political geographers to attend closely and creatively to both affective and material atmospheres. Taking the anticipation of an encounter with the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea as both prompt and problematic for rethinking borders across fog, radio signals, and no-go zones, Joyce’s article is a deserving Area Prize winner.
🏆Area Prize Announcement!🏆
This year's Area Prize for the best paper written by an ECR has been awarded to 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐉𝐨𝐲𝐜𝐞 for her paper 'Sensing the sky's edge: Atmospheric insights into the Korean demilitarised zone' ⬇️
doi.org/10.1111/area...
@maddiejoyce.bsky.social @rhulgeography.bsky.social
Bright orange circular sign on a brick wall reading 'Welcome' with Royal Geographical Society branding partially obscured by green foliage.
Welcome to our research and higher education Bluesky! 👋
Follow us to stay up to date with our work in geographical research, including events, funding opportunities, new publications and more.
Learn more about how we promote geography in higher education and beyond: https://ow.ly/CMgN50YI795
New in Area:
'Weaving through crises: Longitudinal looks at post-COVID life and livelihoods in Eastern Indonesia' by Jessica Clendenning & Elisabeth Dinan
This paper is part of an ongoing Special Section: 'Rural-Urban Lifeways Post-Pandemic: Views from Southeast Asia'.
doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Hocine Boumaraf & Amara Hima (2026) entitled: 'Assessment and Combatting of Crime and Violence in Urban Public Spaces in Southeast Algeria' with a black banner at the top. The primary objective of this article is to examine the relationship between violence and the sense of insecurity in urban public spaces, using the Algerian city of Biskra as a case study. Two contrasting types of public spaces are analysed: Martyrs' Square in the historic downtown and Independence Square in a newer suburban district. The article proposes and further develops the concept of Personal Risk Assessment (PRA), defined as the socially embedded and dynamic process through which individuals interpret environmental cues, social interactions and available support networks in order to evaluate potential threats and mobilise coping strategies. Unlike the narrower notion of perceived risk, PRA emphasises the assemblage of built environments, gendered interactions, collective imaginaries and socio-cultural narratives of danger. Methodologically, the study is grounded in 51 semi-structured interviews and is complemented by field observations, photographic documentation and local statistical data. The findings demonstrate that insecurity is shaped not only by actual incidents of violence but also by social stigma, anticipation, rumour and ambiguity. They further highlight how everyday strategies of avoidance, reliance on commercial infrastructures and gendered experiences reflect broader dynamics of socio-spatial inequality. By situating Biskra within its postcolonial, socio-economic, climatic and geopolitical context, the article contributes both conceptually and empirically to critical debates on urban insecurity in the Global South.
New in Area:
'Assessment and combatting of crime and violence in urban public spaces in Southeast Algeria' by Hocine Boumaraf & Amara Hima
doi.org/10.1111/area...
My first journal article has been published! It outlines the novel methods I used to study household food waste. Turns out noone has asked people to put Post-It notes in their fridges before? Weird
Thanks to Area for a great publishing experience and the reviewers for their supportive comments!
New in Area:
'Tracing waste: Using post-it notes and "fridge maps" to record food waste in household refrigerators' by @emmaatkins.bsky.social
This paper presents a novel material method of visually representing food waste inside domestic fridges.
doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Olivia Mason (2026) entitled: 'Doing geography amidst precarity' with a black banner at the top. Neoliberal agendas are increasingly shaping both what it means to do geography but also who can do geography. This is especially true for early career academics. In this intervention I suggest the question of why we do geography is increasingly being buried as we simply survive in the neoliberal academy. What I argue is that the experiences of what it means to enter, get a job in, and then stay in the neoliberal academy are defining mine and others' experiences of being an academic. The number of job interviews undertaken, grants applied for or stories of precarity now dominate discussions rather than our research itself. These challenges in turn alter the ability to do geography research, especially research that involves long-term ethnography and/or else overseas fieldwork. Yet, I also argue that there are ways we can create more caring and careful research environments. Drawing on examples and experiences, this paper will end by exploring the acts of collective care, solidarity and resistance that can speak to the questions of what geography is for and why we do geography.
New in Area:
'Doing geography amidst precarity' by @oliviamason.bsky.social
This short piece is part of the ongoing Special Section: 'Dialogues in Radical Geography'.
doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Olivia Mason (2026) entitled: 'Doing geography amidst precarity' with a black banner at the top. Neoliberal agendas are increasingly shaping both what it means to do geography but also who can do geography. This is especially true for early career academics. In this intervention I suggest the question of why we do geography is increasingly being buried as we simply survive in the neoliberal academy. What I argue is that the experiences of what it means to enter, get a job in, and then stay in the neoliberal academy are defining mine and others' experiences of being an academic. The number of job interviews undertaken, grants applied for or stories of precarity now dominate discussions rather than our research itself. These challenges in turn alter the ability to do geography research, especially research that involves long-term ethnography and/or else overseas fieldwork. Yet, I also argue that there are ways we can create more caring and careful research environments. Drawing on examples and experiences, this paper will end by exploring the acts of collective care, solidarity and resistance that can speak to the questions of what geography is for and why we do geography.
New in Area:
'Doing geography amidst precarity' by @oliviamason.bsky.social
This short piece is part of the ongoing Special Section: 'Dialogues in Radical Geography'.
doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Silvia Romio, Antonio A. R. Ioris & Emmanuelle Piccoli (2026) entitled: 'Road Blockades During the Pandemic: Indigenous Citizenship and New Territoriality' with a black banner at the top. In the Peruvian Amazon, the blocking of land and river routes has become an increasingly common strategy among Indigenous groups to exercise active citizenship. Originally a means to express opposition to government decisions—particularly those concerning land tenure, territorial governance and property rights—this form of collective political expression has long shaped Indigenous histories across the Americas throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Road blockades in Peru have a long and complex trajectory; through them, Amazonian communities have redefined their position vis-à-vis the state, shifting from marginalisation and invisibility to recognition as legitimate political actors. Despite their significance, the spatial dimensions of these protests—especially in relation to infrastructure as both the site and object of contention—remain understudied in social science research. In 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Indigenous communities in Peru deployed road blockades for an unprecedented purpose: as a strategy of health self-defence, grounded in political and economic self-organisation. This response echoed long-standing demands and exposed deep-rooted structural inequalities. The adoption of this protest tactic during the pandemic raises two central questions: First, what socio-political and cultural factors shaped this collective action? Second, what consequences did it have within the triangular relationship between emergent spatial practices, modes of collective action and broader political disputes?
New in Area:
'Road blockades during the pandemic: Indigenous citizenship and new territoriality' by Silvia Romio et al.
This paper is part of an ongoing Special Section: 'Roadblocks shaping extractivist landscapes'.
doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Hanna Baumann, Dareen Sayyad, Reema Shebeitah, Nawal Hamad, Manar Younes, Isra Assaf & Chris Harker (2026) entitled: 'The Personal Is Professional: Rethinking the Ethics of Collaboration and Responsibility in Citizen Social Science in Palestine' with a black banner at the top. This paper examines the personal-professional nexus in community-based research to propose expanded ethical responsibilities for research involving Citizen Science. The article emerges from shared reflections by a UK and Palestine-based team on research conducted by the Palestinian Citizen Social Scientists within their own communities in Ramallah between 2023 and 2024 – a period marked by devastating war and genocide. We foreground the negotiation and care required to adapt and continue research work in an extreme situation of collective mourning and personal risk. Based on our experience, we highlight the need to: (1) allocate space and time to consider positionalities when working in international teams and remotely in times of heightened violence; (2) attend to the risks to the reputation of Citizen Social Scientists, rarely covered by conventional risk protocols even for dangerous/conflict settings; (3) offer psychological support for researchers, whether distress is caused by the research or the wider context. These points are underpinned by the need to rethink the personal–professional distinction in research that builds on local researchers’ lived experience and personal relationships.
New in Area:
'The personal is professional: Rethinking the ethics of collaboration and responsibility in Citizen Social Science in Palestine' by Hanna Baumann et al.
doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Emma Wainwright, Ellen McHugh & Mamoon Bhuyan (2026) entitled: 'Feeding Hungry Students: Geographies of On-Campus Free Food Provision Across England' with a black banner at the top. In 2023, one in four UK universities was reported to be operating a food bank for their students amidst a ‘cost-of-learning crisis’. With nearly half of students facing financial difficulty, student food poverty has become a vital issue in contemporary higher education, with food banks marking an important addition to on-campus student support. This paper adds to the growing extant literature on food banks by empirically and conceptually examining the geographies of on-campus free food provision across English universities. We define free food provision for university students as food that is free at the point of collection and consumption and is based on presumed and/or evidenced student need. The paper draws on qualitative and quantitative data from a survey administered to all English universities to map provision across institutions and explore on-campus geographies of free food. It makes two important contributions to existing research. First and empirically, it moves the discussion of food poverty and educational institutions beyond a focus on schools and families with children. Second, and conceptually, it extends understandings of food poverty alleviation beyond food banks to consider a broader set of mechanisms through which support is given to those in need, with universities vitally positioned to tackle food poverty given their role in anchoring students in place. The paper concludes by questioning the longer-term commitment and sustainability of free food provision across universities in England at a time of financial uncertainty.
New in Area:
'Feeding hungry students: Geographies of on-campus free food provision across England' by @emmawainwright.bsky.social et al.
doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
2023 - one in four UK universities was reported to be operating a food bank for their students.
Paper exploring the geographies of food poverty in UK HE out now in Area ⬇️ @rgs.org #OpenAccess
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Emma Wainwright, Ellen McHugh & Mamoon Bhuyan (2026) entitled: 'Feeding Hungry Students: Geographies of On-Campus Free Food Provision Across England' with a black banner at the top. In 2023, one in four UK universities was reported to be operating a food bank for their students amidst a ‘cost-of-learning crisis’. With nearly half of students facing financial difficulty, student food poverty has become a vital issue in contemporary higher education, with food banks marking an important addition to on-campus student support. This paper adds to the growing extant literature on food banks by empirically and conceptually examining the geographies of on-campus free food provision across English universities. We define free food provision for university students as food that is free at the point of collection and consumption and is based on presumed and/or evidenced student need. The paper draws on qualitative and quantitative data from a survey administered to all English universities to map provision across institutions and explore on-campus geographies of free food. It makes two important contributions to existing research. First and empirically, it moves the discussion of food poverty and educational institutions beyond a focus on schools and families with children. Second, and conceptually, it extends understandings of food poverty alleviation beyond food banks to consider a broader set of mechanisms through which support is given to those in need, with universities vitally positioned to tackle food poverty given their role in anchoring students in place. The paper concludes by questioning the longer-term commitment and sustainability of free food provision across universities in England at a time of financial uncertainty.
New in Area:
'Feeding hungry students: Geographies of on-campus free food provision across England' by @emmawainwright.bsky.social et al.
doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Sander van Lanen, Jaap G. Nieuwenhuis, Mitchell D. van Dijk (2026) entitled: 'Limits to Participation: Neighbourhood-Based Volunteer Initiatives and Contradictions of the Dutch Participation Society' with a black banner at the top. The Dutch participation society, like similar programmes elsewhere, aims to shift care responsibilities to households and communities, with the state only acting as a carer or last resort. In this paper, we investigate whether volunteer neighbourhood-based initiatives are capable of delivering various forms of care: general assistance, mobility services and sustainability efforts. Interviews with 54 individuals active in nine initiatives in the north of the Netherlands inquired about the motivations of volunteers to become and remain active, and what influenced potential decisions to stop. The results show that important incentives to start volunteering are social networks, a sense of duty and self-interest and a desire for experience and fulfilment. Volunteers appreciated the sense of fulfilment from social networks and providing support, and the informal nature of volunteer work. Volunteers responded negatively to tendencies of formalisation, the absence of challenges or personal friction with other participants. We argue that there is a central contradiction for care and support delivered by neighbourhood-based initiatives: the levels of formalisation necessary to provide structured high-quality care and support run the risk of alienating volunteers. Either initiatives remain informal to maintain volunteer satisfaction but are unlikely to deliver structured care to people in need, or they professionalise at the risk of dissatisfied volunteers.
New in Area:
'Limits to participations: Neighbourhood-based volunteer initiatives and contradictions of the Dutch participation society' by @sanvanlan.bsky.social et al.
doi.org/10.1111/area...
Just published with @sanvanlan.bsky.social & Mitchell van Dijk: Limits to Participation: Neighbourhood-Based Volunteer Initiatives and Contradictions of the Dutch Participation Society.
@rug-gmw.bsky.social @rgs.org
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Caitlin Jones, Eliza Breder & Tyler McCreary (2026) entitled: 'Alligator Alcatraz and the Production of Environmental Carcerality in the Everglades' with a black banner at the top. In June 2025, the state of Florida opened 'Alligator Alcatraz', a federal immigration detention centre, in the Florida Everglades, weaponising animals and landscapes to construct racialised geographies of fear and rationalise multispecies environmental injustice. In this paper, we examine the symbolic and material conditions of Alligator Alcatraz, pulling apart how what appears to be a novel use of landscape and species for immigration enforcement, is in fact, a deeply historical logic that draws on long-standing settler colonial tropes of emptiness, danger and disposability. We illustrate how both the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), and the Everglades itself, are conscripted into carceral geographies that reflect both ecological degradation and racialised state violence. The alligator becomes conscripted as a federal immigration officer, touted by federal and state officials as a mascot of environmental carcerality. Meanwhile, the Everglades is deployed as an empty, deterrent landscape, reviving a settler imaginary that has long justified its destruction and casts Indigenous land, life and knowledge and the more-than-human beings living within it as expendable. Alligator Alcatraz pushes us to consider what carceral geographies of US immigration policy reveal about the disposability of certain bodies—human, ecological and more than human. Ultimately, existing in this spectacle of the racialised past and present are the real human costs of detention development in the Everglades, which is damaging local ecologies and Indigenous and migrant lives.
New in Area - 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝟑 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬
'Alligator Alcatraz and the production of environmental carcerality in the Everglades' by Caitlin Jones et al.
This paper explores the weaponising of animals & landscapes to construct racialised geographies of fear in the U.S.
doi.org/10.1111/area...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by Caitlin Jones, Eliza Breder & Tyler McCreary (2026) entitled: 'Alligator Alcatraz and the Production of Environmental Carcerality in the Everglades' with a black banner at the top. In June 2025, the state of Florida opened 'Alligator Alcatraz', a federal immigration detention centre, in the Florida Everglades, weaponising animals and landscapes to construct racialised geographies of fear and rationalise multispecies environmental injustice. In this paper, we examine the symbolic and material conditions of Alligator Alcatraz, pulling apart how what appears to be a novel use of landscape and species for immigration enforcement, is in fact, a deeply historical logic that draws on long-standing settler colonial tropes of emptiness, danger and disposability. We illustrate how both the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), and the Everglades itself, are conscripted into carceral geographies that reflect both ecological degradation and racialised state violence. The alligator becomes conscripted as a federal immigration officer, touted by federal and state officials as a mascot of environmental carcerality. Meanwhile, the Everglades is deployed as an empty, deterrent landscape, reviving a settler imaginary that has long justified its destruction and casts Indigenous land, life and knowledge and the more-than-human beings living within it as expendable. Alligator Alcatraz pushes us to consider what carceral geographies of US immigration policy reveal about the disposability of certain bodies—human, ecological and more than human. Ultimately, existing in this spectacle of the racialised past and present are the real human costs of detention development in the Everglades, which is damaging local ecologies and Indigenous and migrant lives.
New in Area - 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝟑 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬
'Alligator Alcatraz and the production of environmental carcerality in the Everglades' by Caitlin Jones et al.
This paper explores the weaponising of animals & landscapes to construct racialised geographies of fear in the U.S.
doi.org/10.1111/area...