https://gh.copernicus.org/articles/ Recent articles of the journal Geographica Helvetica https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-393-2026 <b>“Doing” ontological security: on the role of traditional festivals and heritage in times of crisis</b><br> Joanna Jurkiewicz and Ilse Helbrecht<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 393–405, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-393-2026, 2026<br> The paper shows how a centuries-old traditional festival can stabilize people’s sense of security in a world marked by crisis. Based on qualitative research in rural Germany, we analyse how the Schäferlauf enables individuals to anchor their identities through embodied and place-based practices, including wearing traditional costumes and preparing the festival. We show that security is not only imagined or narrated but also something people do. 2026-07-16T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-375-2026 <b>Fleeting encounters: digital labour mobility and the loss of public sociality in Blaha Lujza Square, Budapest</b><br> James Clifford Viloria<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 375–391, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-375-2026, 2026<br> This study examines how the renewal of Blaha Lujza Square in Budapest changed everyday life in a busy public space. Using photos, interviews, observations, and online discussions, it explores what residents feel has been lost. Findings suggest social life has not disappeared but shifted toward faster, more temporary, and digitally mediated interactions, showing how renewal reshapes how people connect. 2026-07-14T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-361-2026 <b>When the city wakes the dead – silence, noise pollution, and politics within the contemporary French cemetery</b><br> Louis Dall'Aglio<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 361–373, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-361-2026, 2026<br> This article is about silence in French cemeteries. Cemeteries are often expected to be silent to allow for peaceful meditation, and local rules and regulations do show a well-established expectation for quietness. However, while historically expelled from the city’s limits, cemeteries have been increasingly integrated within the urban matrix and its noisier environment. This raises the question of the contemporary metropolis contempt for the dead and their spaces. 2026-07-03T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-347-2026 <b>From destabilisation to disruption: deactivation network dynamics in an Italian fossil infrastructure conflict</b><br> Daniel Delatin Rodrigues, Giuseppe Calignano, and Marco Grasso<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 347–360, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-347-2026, 2026<br> Why do some campaigns stop fossil fuel projects, while others fail? Using two conflicts of a power plant in Civitavecchia, Italy, we traced who worked with whom across protests, meetings, and legal and political actions in 2000–2010 and 2018–2023. Protest are not enough to stop these infrastructures; success came when activists built ties with unions, officials, and parties that could block permits and decisions, showing how broad alliances can speed energy choices: a deactivation network. 2026-06-25T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-335-2026 <b>Between planning euphoria and civil resistance: the construction of the “Hüttentalentlastungsstraße” in Siegen (approx. 1960–2000)</b><br> Daniela Mysliwietz-Fleiß<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 335–346, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-335-2026, 2026<br> This article focuses on the experience of loss in urban spaces in late modernity, taking as a graphic example the construction of an urban highway and its consequences in a densely populated and geographically challenging area in western Germany. The article argues that the shift in social narratives during the transition from modern to late-modern society had a direct impact on the perception of loss caused by previously autocratic urban planning. 2026-06-24T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-325-2026 <b>Feminist research on platform economies: a conversation on current perspectives and future challenges</b><br> Emma Dowling, Olivia Blanchard, Yannick Ecker, Barbara Orth, and Mê-Linh Riemann<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 325–333, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-325-2026, 2026<br> This article presents an edited transcript of a roundtable discussion on the ways in which a feminist perspective may help to better understand digital platform labour in Europe, current developments in feminist theorising on platform labour and new concerns arising for research and practice. 2026-06-22T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-311-2026 <b>The promissory narratives of the Dutch National Protein Strategy</b><br> Willem Rogier Boterman<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 311–323, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-311-2026, 2026<br> This paper investigates the National Protein Strategy (NPS) of the Netherlands, an important producer and global exporter of meat and dairy products that largely relies on the import of plant-based proteins from across the globe. The paper shows that the strategy is riddled with techno-optimist narratives that are promising to resolve the strategic deficit of proteins, sustaining the Dutch intensive livestock farming. 2026-06-17T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-305-2026 <b>Book review: Visualisierung Qualitativer Geographien – Ein Handbuch</b><br> Lilith Kuhn<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 305–309, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-305-2026, 2026<br> This is a book review of the handbook: Visualisierung Qualitativer Geographien – Ein Handbuch. 2026-05-20T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-297-2026 <b>Researching the authoritarian: a conversation on methodology and ethics in closed contexts</b><br> Sven Daniel Wolfe and Dasha Kuletskaya<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 297–304, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-297-2026, 2026<br> This short academic conversation covers the challenges of doing work in contexts shaped by authoritarian practices. Based on our experience living and working in many countries from the former Soviet Union, we compare these experiences with the authoritarian turn in the broader West. 2026-04-30T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-293-2026 <b>Book review: Chris Philo: Adorno and the Antifascist Geographical Imagination</b><br> Felicitas Kübler<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 293–295, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-293-2026, 2026<br> This review examines Chris Philo’s Adorno and the Antifascist Geographical Imagination (2025), which develops an antifascist geographical imagination through a detailed engagement with Theodor W. Adorno’s work. It highlights the book’s key contribution in rendering Adorno’s critical theory productive for human geography by foregrounding its spatial dimensions. 2026-04-22T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-289-2026 <b>Book review: Après la ville. Défis de l'urbanisation planétaire de Pierre Veltz (Éditions du Seuil, 2025)</b><br> Sébastien Lambelet<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 289–291, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-289-2026, 2026<br> In Après la ville, Pierre Veltz offers a perceptive analysis of the profound transformations reshaping 21st‑century cities and urban spaces. He argues that the morphological definition of the city — and the radioconcentric model that structured 20th‑century urban studies — has now become obsolete. Indeed, thanks to increasingly dense networks and territorial ramifications linking major cities, the urban condition now asserts itself everywhere. 2026-04-22T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-273-2026 <b>Fragmented reproduction: women's reproductive experiences and the carcerality of Swiss federal asylum camps</b><br> Laura Perler, Milena Wegelin, Nina Etter, and Carolin Schurr<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 273–287, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-273-2026, 2026<br> The article explores the reproductive experiences in Swiss federal asylum camps, arguing that these camps function as carceral spaces that severely impact women's reproductive lives through logics of fragmentation. Combining insights from carceral geography and studies on reproductive health, the authors argue for the abolition of asylum camps and the creation of alternative housing and care models that centre women's needs. 2026-04-16T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-255-2026 <b>Cellular agriculture in the media: newspaper coverage in Australia, Brazil, Germany, and India</b><br> Brenda Buhr Voth, Peter Rothe, Rodrigo Luiz Morais-da-Silva, Mariana Hase Ueta, Frank Meyer, and Carla Forte Maiolino Molento<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 255–271, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-255-2026, 2026<br> Cellular agriculture (CellAg) is a technology used to produce meat alternatives. It aims at lowering carbon emissions, reducing animal cruelty, and mitigating the adverse environmental effects of mass meat production. We analyzed media coverage of CellAg in four countries (Australia, Brazil, Germany, and India) and compared which topics were most frequently associated with it. 2026-04-14T08:09:56+02:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-237-2026 <b>Grounded relationalities, the socio-ecological (de/re)territorialization of São Paulo's urban marginalities</b><br> Lucas Lerchs<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 237–253, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-237-2026, 2026<br> This study retraces the production, loss, and defence of a self-built urban settlement in the ecological peripheries of São Paulo. This study explores how such self-built marginalized communities build and defend their territory in the face of environmental laws and urban expansion. It shows how everyday relations with land and the ecologies – what the work calls grounded relationalities – are both the basis of home and the target of oppression and potential resistance for the evicted families.  2026-03-24T08:09:56+01:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-223-2026 <b>Festivalisation in a new light: characteristics and objectives of light art festivals in Germany</b><br> Jochen Burger<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 223–236, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-223-2026, 2026<br> This qualitative study researches light art festivals in Germany. Over the past 25 years, 25 light art festivals have been implemented by various actors, mostly in small- and medium-sized cities across Germany. The analysis indicates that public authorities do not adopt this format solely for the purpose of promoting the city's brand and attracting tourists. Instead, these events are also founded with the aim of defamiliarising routines and addressing multiples challenges in city centres. 2026-03-20T08:09:56+01:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-207-2026 <b>Declining red brick factories in Greater Cairo (Egypt): unveiling military-led urbanization through its productive peripheries</b><br> Corten Pérez-Houis<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 207–222, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-207-2026, 2026<br> This paper deals with Cairo's contemporary urbanization through one of its main building materials: red brick. Although the Egyptian capital has been expanding for the last few decades, the production of this building material is being challenged. The modernization policies implemented by al-Sisi's government have led to a technical standardization of red brick and an economic marginalization of its factories, with concrete block emerging as a competing material. 2026-03-19T08:09:56+01:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-193-2026 <b>Klassenzusammensetzung und die Produktion verräumlichter Gemeinschaften in Barcelona-Sants</b><br> Martin Sarnow<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 193–206, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-193-2026, 2026<br> The article analyses the production of spatialised communities in the Sants district of Barcelona from a historical-materialist perspective. The case study outlines how rising rents, displacement and forced evictions threaten existing social structures, while at the same time new spatialised communities are produced in struggles against neoliberal urban development. The composition of these struggles reflects an international, heavily feminized, and precarious working class. 2026-03-17T08:09:56+01:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-179-2026 <b>Preparing for war: citizenship, militarization and the agencies of children and youth in security politics</b><br> Kathrin Hörschelmann and Lukas Dreßen<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 179–192, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-179-2026, 2026<br> This paper examines how young people are enrolled in military security politics as a politics of killing and letting die that is enabled by generational injustice. Based on the analysis of the three case studies of military recruitment and citizenship in France, Sweden, and Latvia, the paper argues for greater attention to the militarization of young people’s lives and to the ethical and generational justice implications of this. 2026-03-16T08:09:57+01:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-171-2026 <b>German Theory: Ein Nachwort</b><br> Benedikt Korf and Eberhard Rothfuß<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 171–177, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-171-2026, 2026<br> In this afterword to the themed issue German Theory, we explain the origins and meaning of German Theory as a constellation of German-Jewish thought that although it has its origins in the cultural and intellectual life of Weimar still has something important to say to contemporary human geography and its theoretical debates. 2026-03-12T08:09:57+01:00 https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-155-2026 <b>Between faith and nature: sacred landscapes of South Tyrol in nineteenth-century travel accounts</b><br> Lorenzo Brocada<br> Geogr. Helv., 81, 155–169, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-155-2026, 2026<br> This study explores how religion and nature shaped the Alpine landscapes of South Tyrol in the nineteenth century. By analyzing travellers' writings and images, it shows how faith was expressed through mountain spaces and how these sacred places helped form local identity. The research reveals that sacred landscapes are dynamic, linking memory, belief, and a sense of belonging that still resonates today. 2026-03-06T08:09:57+01:00