Articles | Volume 80, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-123-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-123-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Standard article
| 
28 Apr 2025
Standard article |
| 28 Apr 2025
| 28 Apr 2025
Studying state violence through an embodied approach: methodological reflections
Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Related subject area
Human Geography
The emotional politics of territorio: women's resistance at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico
Peripherien, Konflikte, Transformationen – Perspektiven einer kritischen Energiegeographie
Geographien des Verlusts auf dem Tierfriedhof: Tote Tiere zwischen Subjekt, Objekt und Abjekt
Designing landscapes of affordances for ageing in place
Verlust lokalisieren: Auf der Suche nach einem unvergänglichen Objekt in Aleppo
Philanthrokapitalistisches Engagement in der Stadt. Memetische, hörbare und kartographische Perspektiven auf Heilbronn
Doing urban geography in times of crisis: introduction to the forum “Urban geography in times of crisis”
Illustrating qualitative research findings: the reflexive and epistemic potential of experimental visualization
Wärmewende in der multiplen Krise – die Rolle der Gasindustrie und die Kämpfe um eine sozial-ökologische Transformation der Wärmeversorgung
“We learn Latin, they learn to cook”: students', principals', and teachers' coproductions of exclusive public secondary schools
Oral history in geographischer Forschung: Emotionen und Verlust in Erfahrungsgeschichten ehemaliger Werftarbeiter:innen erforschen
Breakdowns, (Un-)Sichtbarkeiten und glitches. Kritische Geographien der Resilienz digitaler Infrastrukturen
Suspended in time? Peripheralised and “left behind” places in Germany
Schutz- und Sorgepraktiken: Wie LSBT-Organisationen in Deutschland Safer Spaces für ihre Arbeit mit queeren Asylbewerber:innen und Geflüchteten adaptieren
„Der Park als Problemraum“. Regieren städtischer Drogenkulturen am Beispiel des Görlitzer Parks
Die räumliche Produktion von Alternsbildern durch Smart-Home-Technologien
Material agency in art installations: exploring the interplay of art, space, and materials in Detroit
Au centre est l'État-nation. Le Monde vu par des étudiants du Kazakhstan
Von Stadt, Land, Fluss zur Nachhaltigkeitskunde: (Irr-)Wege der Ausgestaltung des Fachwissens in den Berliner Geographielehrplänen der letzten drei Jahrzehnte
Intime Infrastrukturen: Feministisch-geographische Perspektiven auf Energie
Shifting values at the cemetery – the artistic interventions of DeathLab
Making space for community energy: landed property as barrier and enabler of community wind projects
Theorizing power and agency in state-initiated municipal climate change adaptation: integrating reflexive capacity into adaptive capacity
A situated governmentality approach to energy transitions: technologies of power in German and Indian smart grid strategies
Critical critical posthumanism in human geography
Editorial: Infrastructures and migration
Towards an integrative understanding of multiple energy justices
„We are making it on ourselves“ – Infrastrukturen der (Im)Mobilität in Bosnien und Herzegowina
Legal Ecologies der Klimawandelanpassung
Infrastructuring environmental (in)justice: green hydrogen, Indigenous sovereignty and the political geographies of energy technologies
Methodologische Reflexionen zur reflexiven Fotografie aus den Perspektiven postkolonialer Kritik
Sauerian phenomenology: German Theory and Carl Sauer's The Morphology of Landscape
Situated sites of migration control: Swiss deportation practices and their relational materiality in prisons, hospitals, and airports
Challenging global changes in a post-revolutionary context: the case of irrigated olive growing in central Tunisia
Adaptive governance as bricolage
Arrival brokers as a key component of the arrival infrastructure: how established migrants support newcomers
Intentionality and visibility in state- and society-led climate approaches: towards a more comprehensive understanding of local adaptation initiatives
Infrastructures in the context of arrival – multidimensional patterns of resource access in an established and a new immigrant neighborhood in Germany
The open society and its life chances – from Karl Popper via Ralf Dahrendorf to a human geography of options and ligatures
German Theory als Geographie im Konjunktiv, oder: „Was nie geschrieben wurde, lesen“
„Diskursiv-konsensual ausgerichtete Konfliktregelung“? Versuche der Versachlichung und die Widerständigkeit von Emotionen im Umgang mit Atommüll
The contested environmental futures of the Dolomites: a political ecology of mountains
Unruly waters: exploring the embodied dimension of an urban flood in Bangkok through materiality, affect and emotions
Landscape and its possible “new” relevance: ethics and some forgotten narratives on human mobility
Framing REDD+: political ecology, actor–network theory (ANT), and the making of forest carbon markets
Production of knowledge on climate change perception – actors, approaches, and dimensions
„Just human“ – Eine phänomenologische und philosophisch-anthropologische Perspektive auf unser leibliches Mensch-Umwelt-Verhältnis
What is lost from climate change? Phenomenology at the “limits to adaptation”
Overview: Für eine (Neu-)Theoretisierung und (Neu-)Methodologisierung bevölkerungsrelevanter Phänomene
Mackinder's “heartland” – legitimation of US foreign policy in World War II and the Cold War of the 1950s
Rosa Felicitas Philipp
Geogr. Helv., 80, 109–122, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-109-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-109-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Using the example of resistance to a mega-project in southern Mexico, this paper explores the emotional connections between bodies and land. The mega-project in question is the Interoceanic Corridor, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, leading to significant territorial reorganisation. Based on interviews with women who identify as defenders of territorio, I investigate how the women use their emotional link strategically in their practices of resistance.
Matthias Naumann, Sören Becker, and Antje Bruns
Geogr. Helv., 80, 99–107, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-99-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-99-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This introduction presents the fields of peripheries, conflicts and transformations as core topics of critical energy geographies. These fields point to different ways how the provision of energy is interwoven with social inequalities and uneven spatial development. Tackling the relations between energy technology and social power, the contributions to this Theme Issue highlight how power and resistance unfold in different spatial contexts and are linked to various notions of justice.
Elisa Kornherr
Geogr. Helv., 80, 81–94, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-81-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-81-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Empirical research on pet cemeteries demonstrates that ambivalent attributions to pets as social partners, material objects, and abject cadavers shape the place and related practices. Situated within the frameworks of more-than-human geographies and animal geographies, the article argues (1) that analysing the multidimensional status of dead animals provides a productive lens for understanding human-animal relations and illustrates (2) how loss processing can be read in a more-than-human way.
Ola Söderström, Tania Zittoun, Fabienne Gfeller, Aurora Ruggeri, and Isabelle Kloepper
Geogr. Helv., 80, 67–79, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-67-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-67-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This article contributes to studies on and interventions in the quality of old persons' everyday environments. First, it draws on work in geography and psychology to develop an innovative theoretical and methodological framework for interventions aiming to improve the quality of this environment. Second, it shows, step by step, how this framework was used in the context of a project in Switzerland targeting the prevention of old people's social isolation.
Zoya Masoud
Geogr. Helv., 80, 57–65, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-57-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-57-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The loss was commonplace in Aleppo during the recent war. This paper explores how various groups at the front lines in East Aleppo sought to preserve heritage to reconstruct it after the war. I argue that these individuals were exposed to existential fear. Their efforts to localize grief and loss imagined the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the old city of Aleppo as an eternal object that preceded their human life span. In exile, their attitudes diverted toward this legacy.
Katharina Schmidt and Iris Veronica Restrepo Lopez
Geogr. Helv., 80, 39–55, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-39-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-39-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Using memes, maps, and audio collages, we discuss the politics of giving and its impact on urban development in the city of Heilbronn. Focusing on the activities of one powerful philanthropist, the perspectives of local residents reveal ambivalent interpretations of recent urban developments. While acknowledging the new opportunities and dynamics offered by philanthropy, they also raise concerns about its effects on local democratic decision-making processes and unequal urban power relations.
Hanna Hilbrandt and Julie Ren
Geogr. Helv., 80, 23–29, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-23-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-23-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The forum
Urban geography in times of crisisdiscusses the transformation of urban geography in the entanglement of epistemological and worldly crises. In our introductory reflections, we highlight some of its contributions' crosscutting insights, weave a common thread through this dialogue, and discuss obstacles to as well as critical resources necessary when rethinking and possibly changing practices of knowledge production.
Lea Bauer and Sarah Ruth Sippel
Geogr. Helv., 79, 373–389, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-373-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-373-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Drawing on auto-ethnographically documented experimental visualization practices and in conversation with critical cartography and the debates on diagrammatic reasoning in the arts, this paper argues that visualization should be considered more systematically as a method that bears self-reflexive and epistemic potential within qualitative research processes.
Hendrik Sander
Geogr. Helv., 79, 357–371, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-357-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-357-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In the struggles on the decarbonization of the mainly fossil-based heat supply in German cities competing actors and corporations try to achieve their strategies. Especially in Berlin these debates are fierce. Those disputes crystallize in the question whether the corporate gas-based infrastructure will be adjusted by means of green gases resp. hydrogen or whether it will be transformed to a new system based on renewable energies resp. heatpumps.
Carlotta Reh and Sara Landolt
Geogr. Helv., 79, 343–356, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-343-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-343-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Focusing on Gymnasia, Zurich's selective public secondary schools, this article analyzes how Gymnasium staff and education policies address students and how students perceive the Gymnasia. Students learn to see Gymnasia as stellar schools for hard-working and intelligent students who earned their privileges and coproduce and legitimize their privileged status by drawing on their merit. These processes contribute to a hierarchization of Zurich's schooling landscape.
Nora Mariella Küttel
Geogr. Helv., 79, 325–339, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-325-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-325-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This article explores people's narratives about changing shipyard work in East Germany since 1989. The shipyard serves as a central place where loss, emotions and memory condense. Using oral history interviews with former workers, it delves into their experiences and emotions about (the fear of) losing their jobs. This sheds light on how transformations affect people emotionally, highlighting oral history's role in capturing personal experiences in geographic research.
Boris Michel and Finn Dammann
Geogr. Helv., 79, 311–323, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-311-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-311-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Critical geographers in recent years became interested incidents of failure, disruption and glitches in digital technologies. While we sympathize with the basic assumptions of this discussion this paper proposes an opposing perspective. Using the example of Internet infrastructures, we focus on the work of preventing glitches and maintanance. We are particularly interested in the production of resilience the rationalities of redundancy and addressing latency.
Jeroen Royer and Tim Leibert
Geogr. Helv., 79, 221–237, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-221-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-221-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The terms
left behind, Abgehängte (suspended), and
structurally weakhave gained popularity to describe regions with increased support for right-wing populist parties in Germany and elsewhere. These concepts are not clearly defined. We give meaning to
left behind placesin Germany both by identifying the dimensions and varieties of
left-behindnessand by framing it as an outcome of peripheralisation processes.
Lotte J. Hiller
Geogr. Helv., 79, 205–220, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-205-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-205-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This article explores how LGBT organizations in Germany create safer spaces for queer asylum seekers and refugees. With the help of interviews with experts and an analysis of their websites, different constructions of space are identified. Although the organizations use different concepts of safer spaces, they mainly fall back on essentialist notions of space. The assumption of an essentialist safer space bears the risk of oversimplification, which does not meet the needs of the target group.
Frederieke Westerheide and Boris Michel
Geogr. Helv., 79, 191–204, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-191-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-191-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The governance of urban drug use and its economies has played an important role in the production and control of public space in numerous cities of the global North since the 1970s. Using the example of Görlitzer Park in Berlin's Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, this paper argues for a spatially sensitive perspective on the spatializing practices of urban drug policies.
Marlene Hobbs and Linda Pasch
Geogr. Helv., 79, 177–189, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-177-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-177-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Smart home technologies promote
ageing in placeas solution for the care crisis in ageing societies. Based on an ethnographic investigation in technology showrooms and interviews with developers, we show how smart home technologies construct images of active age on the one hand, and dependent old age on the other. We show that images of ageing are also spatial constructions that idealize the home as a place of active age and devalue the nursing home as a place of old age.
Nora Mariella Küttel
Geogr. Helv., 79, 149–160, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-149-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-149-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Decades of neglect and disinvestment have left Detroit with many abandoned buildings, ruins, and empty lots. These structures and materials can act as catalysts, substances, and co-creators of artworks. By focusing on the two Detroit artists Olayami Dabls and Scott Hocking, the paper explores how art, space, and materials interact and how materials actively contribute to art.
Clarisse Didelon Loiseau, Almagul Mussina, Yann Richard, Nurzhanat D. Shakirova, and Julien Thorez
Geogr. Helv., 79, 101–117, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-101-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-101-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In a 2010 survey, Central Asia was absent from the representations of the World of students in 18 countries. The survey was repeated in 2018–2019 in Kazakhstan, on the assumption that Central Asia would be represented by the students. The results support the theory of social representations of space, but shed some original light on the issue, particularly the importance of states in the way the world is divided up.
Péter Bagoly-Simó
Geogr. Helv., 79, 73–84, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-73-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-73-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This article explores whether the reduction in geographical knowledge leads to better Education for Sustainable Development or to a general loss of quality in Geography teaching and learning.
Rosa Aue
Geogr. Helv., 79, 65–72, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-65-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-65-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Facing multiple and embodied inequalities inscribed in the energy system, this intervention argues for an feminist perspective on energy geographies. Extending critical research on urban infrastructure with concepts of care, it seeks to contribute to more just energy relations.
Mirko Winkel, Mathias Siedhoff, and Jeannine Wintzer
Geogr. Helv., 79, 51–59, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-51-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-51-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Cemeteries are a reflection of the values, history, and composition of their communities. Current social developments are therefore also visible through them. This contribution describes the work of DeathLab, a public event series that uses contemporary artist-designed urns as a means of exploring shifting values in funeral culture and linking them to population geography. It explores the possibilities of scientific analysis by incorporating artistic interventions.
Robert Wade and David Rudolph
Geogr. Helv., 79, 35–50, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-35-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-35-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Renewable energy technologies require land. Landowners therefore often play a crucial role in wind energy development, shaping participation opportunities of various groups. Through case studies of the Netherlands and Scotland, we unpack how landownership influences the possible strategies for community energy. We find that securing community ownership of the land or wind resource itself is a potentially powerful, long-term strategy for community energy movements to achieve their goals.
Dennis Fila, Hartmut Fünfgeld, and Stefanie Lorenz
Geogr. Helv., 79, 21–33, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-21-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-21-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This paper explores the role of power, institutions, and actors in climate change adaptation. We introduce
reflexive capacity, which is the ability of organizations to include diverse stakeholders and knowledge in decision-making. By analyzing a case study from Germany, we highlight how this capacity can transform over time and impact adaptation strategies. We conclude that understanding power and agency in this context can provide important insights for improving climate change adaptation.
Leonie Büttner and Lucas Barning
Geogr. Helv., 78, 581–592, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-581-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-581-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This paper develops a situated governmentality approach to the particularities of energy transition projects, focusing on smart grid strategies in Germany and India. By analysing the underlying rationalities and power dynamics driving these energy transition projects, we challenge the dominant perception of smart grids as a universal solution. Our findings emphasize the different contexts in which smart grids are being developed and the various technologies of power at play.
Huib Ernste
Geogr. Helv., 78, 567–580, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-567-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-567-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
A critique of critical posthumanism from the perspective of the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner argues that practitioners of critical posthumanism are too quick with their critique of hitherto used conceptualisations of the human and too easily assume their utopian thinking to be the end of the debate, instead of engaging in a continuing search for a more human or posthuman world. This reflection could help to make critical posthumanism even more critical.
Anna-Lisa Müller and Leonie Tuitjer
Geogr. Helv., 78, 559–565, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-559-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-559-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This article deals with the interrelation of migration and infrastructures. These are key topics of social geographic research. With this article we provide an overview on conceptualisations of infrastructures and migration, focussing in particular on the forms that infrastructures take in the course of migration journeys and the actors that are involved, as well as the effects the infrastructures have on migrants and their (im-)mobility.
Stefanie Baasch
Geogr. Helv., 78, 547–558, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-547-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-547-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Energy transitions are closely linked to various justice issues, which are increasingly being studied in research contexts. In order to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of energy justice, including a greater consideration of emotions, this paper proposes an expanded model of energy justice that brings together existing concepts of environmental and energy justice.
Philipp Themann and Benjamin Etzold
Geogr. Helv., 78, 531–546, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-531-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-531-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The article focuses on the cross-border movements of refugees at the Croatian external EU border and which infrastructures are used to enable, guide, regulate or completely prevent (im)mobility. The places presented in the article are nodes where physical, digital and social dimensions of infrastructures are intertwined in order to cope with situations of protracted displacement, social marginalization and forced immobilization.
Tino Petzold
Geogr. Helv., 78, 507–518, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-507-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-507-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
More comprehensive legislation and litigation indicate a new significance of law in recent years within climate change politics. In order to illuminate these issues, this article engages with the political and legal scientific debates on juridification; traces the processes of juridification of climate policies in the German context from a historical perspective; and introduces the concept of "Legal Ecologies of Climate Change Adaptation" as a novel and legally nuanced perspective.
Benno Fladvad
Geogr. Helv., 78, 493–505, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-493-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-493-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This article develops a conceptual approach for energy-related environmental justice research. This
infrastructural lensis exemplarily applied to the issue of green hydrogen, drawing on brief insights from Colombia and Canada. It shows that hydrogen infrastructures can be sources of injustice but also vehicles for decolonization and Indigenous sovereignty. The conceptual research was conducted as part of a fellowship at the Research Institute for Sustainability, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam.
Andreas Eberth
Geogr. Helv., 78, 479–491, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-479-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-479-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
In diesem Beitrag wird der Fokus primär auf post- und dekoloniale Konturierungen epistemischer Gewalt gelegt. Dabei wird der Frage nachgegangen, ob und inwiefern Visualisierungen, die im Rahmen qualitativer empirischer Forschung entstehen, einen Beitrag leisten können, der Kritik zu begegnen und Gewaltverhältnisse zumindest zu reduzieren oder epistemische Gewaltverhältnisse weiter stützen.
Maximilian Gregor Hepach
Geogr. Helv., 78, 467–478, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-467-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-467-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Carl Sauer is considered to be the founder of cultural geography. I reassess Sauer's work by considering the debates in German geography that led up to the publication of his seminal work
The Morphology of Landscape. Instead of focusing on culture, I focus on Sauer's use of phenomenology (for the first time in geography). I argue that Sauerian phenomenology provides answers for central philosophical problems of geography regarding the reality of area, region, and landscape.
Lisa Marie Borrelli
Geogr. Helv., 78, 453–465, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-453-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-453-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This work takes up diverse sites of deportation and their socio-materiality. It adds to the growing literature on deportation infrastructures by emphasizing the inseparability of deportation procedures from the specific sites in which they unfold. It highlights the analytical interest and political agency of such spaces. The ethnographic data analyse the role of human and non-human actors, giving particular attention to the situatedness and relationality of deportation infrastructures.
Emilie Lavie, Pepita Ould Ahmed, Philippe Cadène, Ismail Chiab, and Vassili Kypreos
Geogr. Helv., 78, 417–428, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-417-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-417-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Our research in central Tunisia shows how olive growers are implementing strategies to respond to a triple problem: a capitalist agriculture that depends on global governance, climatic changes that are observed through a decrease in rainfall at the regional scale of the Mediterranean Basin and post-revolution political changes at the local scale.
Fanny Frick-Trzebitzky, Rossella Alba, and Kristiane Fehrs
Geogr. Helv., 78, 397–409, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-397-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-397-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Institutional bricolage and socio-technical tinkering are lenses that expose everyday entanglements, arrangements and processuality in governance. We combine both lenses to analyse adaptive water governance in Accra, Ghana, and Mansfeld-Südharz, Germany. We conclude that the bricolage perspective contributes to bringing multiple forms of being and knowing into engagement when envisioning adaptive water governance in the Anthropocene.
Nils Hans
Geogr. Helv., 78, 381–391, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-381-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-381-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The article shows that new immigrants in arrival neighbourhoods can draw on the experience of previous immigrants, who pass on their arrival-specific knowledge. The research is part of a PhD thesis, in which the relevance of arrival infrastructures for the arrival process of immigrants is investigated. The findings of this article are based on 17 interviews with established migrants in an arrival neighbourhood in the German city of Dortmund.
Peter Eckersley, Wolfgang Haupt, Viviana Wiegleb, Jens Niewind, and Antje Otto
Geogr. Helv., 78, 369–380, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-369-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-369-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Research into climate adaptation may neglect activities that are (1) not undertaken by government bodies, (2) not designed specifically to reduce the potential impact of climate threats and/or (3) not labelled explicitly as
adaptation. We present a framework to examine these under-explored initiatives and draw on two studies of municipalities and small businesses in Germany to highlight various activities that contribute to climate resilience but are largely unintentional and/or hidden.
Nihad El-Kayed and Leoni Keskinkılıc
Geogr. Helv., 78, 355–367, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-355-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-355-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We analyze different kinds of local infrastructures in an established and in a rather new immigrant neighborhood in Germany and compare how they shape the arrival of refugees who have come to Germany since 2014/15. The results show that we need to understand infrastructures and the way they shape arrival in a multidimensional way that includes inclusive as well as exclusive aspects of local infrastructures, specifying for whom infrastructures work in an inclusive or exclusive way.
Olaf Kühne, Laura Leonardi, and Karsten Berr
Geogr. Helv., 78, 341–354, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-341-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-341-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The struggle for life chances, especially in the context of related social conflicts, is a global phenomenon, although the concept originated in the German-speaking world. Using a case study of possible conflicts over space and landscape, the relevance of these four approaches for spatial research and human geography, as well as for dealing with space- or landscape-related conflicts, is demonstrated.
Benedikt Korf
Geogr. Helv., 78, 325–336, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-325-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-325-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
In this paper, I approach German Theory as a conjunctive geography: as something that could, but did not take place. I explore the reasons why there is no German Theory (yet) by tracing the Foucault reception in German language geography and the German humanities. I study why these two variants of a
German Foucaulthave not traveled to Anglophone geography. Finally, I speculate what could have happened had the German Foucault traveled to Anglophone geography.
Christiane Schürkmann
Geogr. Helv., 78, 309–323, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-309-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-309-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Managing radioactive waste is a highly emotional issue. From an ethnographic perspective, the article examines how emotions and affects are voiced and represented by the actors involved in the ongoing site selection process in Germany. This opens up a field of tension in which emotions and affects are once marginalized in order to make the procedure objective. At the same time emotions and affects emerge as a resource for engagement in interaction.
Andrea Zinzani
Geogr. Helv., 78, 295–307, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-295-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-295-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
My paper reflects on mountain environmental futures by bringing into dialogue political ecology and mountain geographies. The Dolomites show contested environmental futures and their politicization between accumulation by sustainability ideas and radical environmental visions. Moreover, they encompass experiences and practices that envision the convivial conservation perspective and could advance the political ecology of the mountain with specific regard to the Global North.
Leonie Tuitjer
Geogr. Helv., 78, 281–290, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-281-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-281-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We need to consider the emotional and bodily ways in which we connect to the ecologies of the city. This paper joins such efforts and explores the flood experiences of a diverse group of Bangkokians during the 2011 inundation. The paper attends to the interactions between social forces and material forces that shaped the flooding event and contributes nuanced insights about the embodied and emotional experiences of floods within the delta city.
Stefania Bonfiglioli
Geogr. Helv., 78, 267–280, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-267-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-267-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This article aims to provide a reinterpretation of the concept of landscape and to investigate, in some respects, its possible
newrelevance. I argue that the possible
newrelevance of landscape also lies in some forgotten ethical narratives on mobility that it has inherited from its chorographic roots. The final section is dedicated to the theoretical contributions that the chorographic side of landscape can provide to some contemporary debates on mobility and to geographic ideas of ethics.
Juliane Miriam Schumacher
Geogr. Helv., 78, 255–265, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-255-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-255-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
New theoretical approaches like actor–network theory have become influential in human geography, questioning previous approaches to addressing human–environment relations. In this paper, I use the example of a controversial, forest-based climate protection scheme, REDD+, to show how these approaches are changing research foci and practices – from an analysis of the neoliberalization of nature to the making of markets and from the effects on human users to those on non-humans.
Anika Zorn, Susann Schäfer, and Sophie Tzschabran
Geogr. Helv., 78, 241–253, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-241-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-241-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Adapting to the impacts of climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. How we perceive climate change impacts plays an important role in this. Our study shows that previous research on climate change perceptions predominantly examines affected actors and their individual behavior, neglecting perceptions of decision-makers and perceptions of the collective and institutional level of climate change. This desideratum may contribute to a lack of perspectives on adaptation policies.
Thomas Dörfler and Eberhard Rothfuß
Geogr. Helv., 78, 223–240, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-223-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-223-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This contribution would like to give an introduction to the anthropologically and phenomenologically founded philosophy of corporeality, which can be connected to human geography, in order to enable a deeper understanding of our human-environment relationship. That is, because Phenomenology and Philosophical Anthropology are still marginal in human geography as a source of knowledge of spatial-social facts.
Maximilian Gregor Hepach and Friederike Hartz
Geogr. Helv., 78, 211–221, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-211-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-211-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Our paper develops a theoretical framework to help one understand what is lost when changes due to climate change are irreversible. In particular, we focus on the existential aspect of such loss as opposed to, for instance, the economic aspect. We argue that phenomenological theory can help one appreciate the full existential nature of loss from climate change, namely not only the loss of objects or even land but also the loss of whole ways of relating to the world.
Mathias Siedhoff, Birgit Glorius, and Jeannine Wintzer
Geogr. Helv., 78, 199–205, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-199-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-199-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The authors of this editorial call for a more consistent opening of population geography in epistemological, methodological and theoretical respects. They want to point out possibilities of connection to debates that have already found a firm place in other fields of human geography. At the same time, it is a concern to emphasize the necessity of continuously subjecting the discussion of the phenomenon of population to critical scrutiny, both within (human) geography and outside of it.
Oliver Krause
Geogr. Helv., 78, 183–197, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-183-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-183-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Halford J. Mackinder's heartland theory became one of the most popular and cited geopolitical concepts in the 20th century. Through a complex process of trans- and international reception and adaption, the theory lost its attachment to its original geographical and historical parameters. Its translation from text into a simplified representation in maps accompanied the process of popularization and made the theory an instrument of legitimizing political actions in the public sphere.
Cited articles
Alemdaroğlu, A. and Göçek, F. M. (Eds.): Kurds in dark times: new perspectives on violence and resistance in Turkey, 1st Edn., Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York, 432 pp., ISBN 978-0-8156-3770-7, 2023.
Althusser, L.: Lenin and philosophy and other essays, Monthly Review Press, New York, 173 pp., ISBN 9781583670392, 1971.
Aras, R.: The Formation of Kurdishness in Turkey: Political Violence, Fear and Pain, Routledge, ISBN 9780367410384, 2014.
Art, D.: Archivists and Adventurers: Research Strategies for Authoritarian Regimes of the Past and Present, Soc. Sci. Q., 97, 974–990, https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12348, 2016.
Aslan, S.: Incoherent State: The Controversy over Kurdish Naming in Turkey, Eur. J. Turk. Stud., 1–20, https://doi.org/10.4000/ejts.4142, 2009.
Atılgan, M. and Işık, S.: Cezasızlık zırhınıaşmak: Türkiye'de güvenlik güçleri ve hak ihlalleri, TESEV yayınları, İstanbul, 88 pp., ISBN 978-605-5832-81-0, 2011.
Blakele, R.: State Violence as State Terrorism, in: The Ashgate research companion to political violence, Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, 63–78, ISBN 978-0-7546-9493-9, 2012.
Brown, S.: Dilemmas of self-representation and conduct in the field, in: Surviving field research: working in violent and difficult situations, Routledge, London, 213–226, ISBN 9780415489355, 2011.
Celestina, M.: Between trust and distrust in research with participants in conflict context, Int. J. Soc. Res. Methodol., 21, 373–383, https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2018.1427603, 2018.
Chakravarty, A.: “Partially Trusting” Field Relationships Opportunities and Constraints of Fieldwork in Rwanda's Postconflict Setting, Field Methods, 24, 251–271, https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X12443664, 2012.
Clark, J. A.: Field Research Methods in the Middle East, PS Polit. Sci. Polit., 39, 417–424, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096506060707, 2006.
Clark, J. H.: “My Life Is Like a Novel”: Embodied Geographies of Security in Southeast Turkey, Geopolitics, 18, 835–855, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2013.780038, 2013.
Coleman, M. and Stuesse, A.: The Disappearing State and the Quasi-Event of Immigration Control, Antipode, 48, 524–543, https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12209, 2016.
Cronin-Furman, K. and Lake, M.: Ethics Abroad: Fieldwork in Fragile and Violent Contexts, PS Polit. Sci. Polit., 51, 607–614, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096518000379, 2018.
Das, V. and Poole, D. (Eds.): Anthropology in the margins of the state, Oxford Univ. Press, New Delhi, 330 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-566893-3, 2004.
Duruiz, D.: “I Would Have Recognized You from Your Smell”, in: Kurds in dark times: new perspectives on violence and resistance in Turkey, Syracuse University Press, 164–191, ISBN 978-0-8156-5564-0, 2023.
Ergin, M.: The racialization of Kurdish identity in Turkey, Ethn. Racial Stud., 37, 322–341, https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2012.729672, 2014.
Flader, U.: Struggle for a Livable Life Everyday Resistance among the Kurdish Population in Turkey, Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities, The University of Manchester, 2014.
Franzoni, C., Stephan, P., and Veugelers, R.: Funding Risky Research, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, https://doi.org/10.3386/w28905, 2021.
Fujii, L. A.: Shades of truth and lies: Interpreting testimonies of war and violence, J. Peace Res., 47, 231–241, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343309353097, 2010.
Fujii, L. A.: Research Ethics 101: Dilemmas and Responsibilities, PS Polit. Sci. Polit., 45, 717–723, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096512000819, 2012.
Gambetti, Z. and Jongerden, J. (Eds.): The Kurdish Issue in Turkey, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London New York, 338 pp., ISBN 978-0-367-87109-3, 2015.
Garmany, J.: Space for the State? Police, Violence, and Urban Poverty in Brazil, Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr., 104, 1239–1255, https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2014.944456, 2014.
Gentile, M.: Meeting the “organs”: the tacit dilemma of field research in authoritarian states: Meeting the “organs”, Area, 45, 426–432, https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12030, 2013.
Glasius, M., De Lange, M., Bartman, J., Dalmasso, E., Lv, A., Del Sordi, A., Michaelsen, M., and Ruijgrok, K.: Research, Ethics and Risk in the Authoritarian Field, Springer International Publishing, Cham, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68966-1, 2018.
Goner, O. and Rebello, J. T.: State violence, nature, and primitive accumulation: dispossession in Dersim, Dialect. Anthropol., 41, 33–54, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-016-9440-7, 2017.
Gunes, C.: The Kurdish Question in Turkey, Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203796450, 2013.
Gunes, C. and Zeydanlıoğlu, W. (Eds.): The Kurdish question in Turkey: new perspectives on violence, representation, and reconciliation, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, London, New York, 285 pp., ISBN 978-0-415-83015-7, 2014.
Hemming, J.: Exceeding scholarly responsibility: IRBs and political constraints, in: Surviving field research: working in violent and difficult situations, Routledge, London, 21–37, ISBN 978-0-203-87527, 2011.
Hutta, J. S. and Pohl, L.: Geographies of killing and letting die. Themes and approaches, Geogr. Helv., in press, 2025.
Jacoby, T.: Semi-Authoritarian Incorporation and Autocratic Militarism in Turkey, Dev. Change, 36, 641–665, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0012-155X.2005.00428.x, 2005.
Janenova, S.: The Boundaries of Research in an Authoritarian State, Int. J. Qual. Methods, 18, 160940691987646, https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919876469, 2019.
Jessee, E. and Anderson, K. F. (Eds.): Researching perpetrators of genocide, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1 pp., ISBN 978-0-299-32973-0, 2020.
Keyman, E. F.: Rethinking the `Kurdish question' in Turkey: Modernity, citizenship and democracy, Philos. Soc. Crit., 38, 467–476, https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453711435655, 2012.
Kurban, D.: The Kurdish Question in Historical Context, in: Limits of Supranational Justice The European Court of Human Rights and Turkey's Kurdish Conflict, Cambridge University Press, 79–132, ISBN 9781108776585, 2020.
Kurda, Z. A.: The European Union and the Kurdish issue: the EU as a rational and normative actor, Springer, Cham, 175 pp., ISBN 978-3-031-05186-9, 2022.
Kurt, G.: Cezasızlık Sorunu: Soruşturma Süreci, Hafıza Merkezi, ISBN 978-605-5276-03-4, 2014.
Longhurst, R.: Embodied Knowing, in: International encyclopedia of human geography, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 429–433, 2009.
Loyle, C. E.: Overcoming Research Obstacles in Hybrid Regimes: Lessons from Rwanda: Overcoming Research Obstacles in Hybrid Regimes, Soc. Sci. Q., 97, 923–935, https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12346, 2016.
Malekzadeh, S.: Paranoia and Perspective, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Loving Research in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Research in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Soc. Sci. Q., 97, 862–875, https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12342, 2016.
Markowitz, L. P.: Scientific Closure and Research Strategies in Uzbekistan, Soc. Sci. Quart,, 97, 894–908, https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12344, 2016.
Martin-Ortega, O. and Herman, J.: There and back: Surviving research in violent and difficult situations, in: Surviving field research: working in violent and difficult situations, Routledge, London, 213–226, ISBN 978-0-203-87527, 2011.
McDowall, D.: A modern history of the Kurds, Tauris, London, 515 pp., ISBN 978-1-85043-416-0, 2007.
Mertus, J.: Maintenance of personal security: ethical and operational issues, in: Surviving field research: working in violent and difficult situations, Routledge, London, 165–176, 2011.
Mountz, A.: Embodying the nation-state: Canada's response to human smuggling, Polit. Geogr., 23, 323–345, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2003.12.017, 2004.
Mountz, A.: Seeking Asylum: Human Smuggling and Bureaucracy at the Border, University of Minnesota Press, 248 pp., https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816665372.001.0001, 2010.
Norman, J.: Got trust? The challenge of gaining access in conflict zones, in: Surviving field research: working in violent and difficult situations, Routledge, London, 71–90, 2011.
Pugliese, J.: State Violence and the Execution of Law, Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203597743, 2013.
Pulido, L.: Geographies of race and ethnicity II: Environmental racism, racial capitalism and state-sanctioned violence, Prog. Hum. Geogr., 41, 524–533, https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516646495, 2017.
Sharp, J.: Geography and gender: finding feminist political geographies, Prog. Hum. Geogr., 31, 381–387, https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132507077091, 2007.
Shesterinina, A.: Ethics, empathy, and fear in research on violent conflict, J. Peace Res., 56, 190–202, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343318783246, 2019.
Sluka, J. A. (Ed.): Death squad: the anthropology of state terror, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 260 pp., ISBN 978-0-8122-3523-4, 2000.
Sriram, C. L. (Ed.): Surviving field research: working in violent and difficult situations, Transferred to digital print, Routledge, London, 262 pp., ISBN 978-0-203-87527, 2011.
Thaler, K. M.: Reflexivity and Temporality in Researching Violent Settings: Problems with the Replicability and Transparency Regime, Geopolitics, 26, 18–44, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2019.1643721, 2021.
Thomson, S. M.: “That is not what we authorised you to do”: Access and government interference in highly politicised research environments, in: Surviving field research: working in violent and difficult situations, Routledge, London, 108–124, ISBN 978-0-203-87527, 2011.
Tomforde, M. and Ben-Ari, E.: Anthropology of the Military, in: Handbook of Military Sciences, edited by: Sookermany, A. M., Springer International Publishing, Cham, 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02866-4_82-1, 2021.
Turner, S.: Red stamps and green tea: fieldwork negotiations and dilemmas in the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands: Red stamps and green tea, Area, 45, 396–402, https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12017, 2013.
Ünlü, B.: The Turkishness Contract and the Formation of Turkishness, in: Kurds in dark times: new perspectives on violence and resistance in Turkey, Syracuse University Press, 90–118, ISBN 978-0-8156-5564-0, 2023.
Van Roekel, E.: Getting Close with Perpetrators in Argentina, in: Researching perpetrators of genocide, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 115–136, ISBN 978-0-299-32973-0, 2020.
Veugelers, R., Wang, J., and Stephan, P.: Do Funding Agencies Select and Enable Risky Research: Evidence from ERC Using Novelty as a Proxy of Risk Taking, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, https://doi.org/10.3386/w30320, 2022.
Short summary
This paper addresses the methodological complexities of researching state violence, focusing on the accounts of security bureaucracy in Türkiye. It delves into the challenges of obtaining state permission, navigating discussions on state violence, and addressing self-reflective ethical and embodied questions. The goal is to contribute to scholarly discourse on methodological approaches to challenging geographies and provide guidelines for researchers studying geographies of violence.
This paper addresses the methodological complexities of researching state violence,...
