Annals of the Association of American Geographers

Mode of access: Internet

American Association of Geographers, Southeastern Division records, MSS.0071

Abstract: A collection of annual conference programs, membership information, lists of officer and members, and paper proposals submitted for the annual conferences. Access to the collection is restricted; please contact Hoole staff for additional information.Scope and Content Note: The collection contains a collection of annual conference programs, membership information, lists of officer and members, and paper proposals submitted for the annual conferences.Biographical/Historical Note: The Southeastern division of the American Association of Geographers, whose members are geographers and related professionals who work in the public, private, and academic sectors

An ethnography of private houseboats and public fluvial areas in Belgium.

The communication will be based on an ethnographic work conducted with private houseboats inhabitants of public fluvial areas in Belgium. In the French speaking part of the country, more than 100 people live on the water, and waiting lists to get an ‘official’ location are 3 years long. In this paper, I will focus on the ambiguous ties - symbolic and material - that this phenomenon entails. Even though they established their homes in former commercial barges, these rivers occupants are not bargemen. Despite that, their discourse is infused with recurring representations such as long distance journeys, or the possibility to move their homes whenever they wish. But by their own admission most of them do not know how to navigate and even transformed their ships according to their permanent mooring place… However, the roots of fluvial housing in Belgium are directly fed by the inland water shipping history: the decrease of industrial activities and the simultaneous boost in road transportation reinforced the lack of interest for the fluvial structures and their surroundings, therefore abandoned for a long while. It is there, at the margins of cities that groups of fluvial inhabitants began to tie their moors, pitch their fences and plant their gardens. They turned their noses up at land-based borders and anchored themselves in the interstices of fluvial regulations. But now that waterfronts are meant to be the new hubs for big and upper-middle-class housing schemes, a new light is shed on them. Not always for the best

Urban vacancy, in/visibility and politics at the margins of the city

In this paper we intend to explore the complex relation between urban vacancy and the in/visibility of the margins, arguing that a reconnaissance (Honneth 2004; Ricoeur 2004) of the pivotal role that the margins play within urban transformation processes is urgent. Abandoned places, vacant lots and buildings, urban wastelands: these mis-used spaces and the people who live there –homeless, refugees, and other precarious groups and individuals– are often interpreted by dominant discourses and representations as an extreme example of invisibility or on the contrary as the hyper-visible Otherness that is scaring and unsettling. In both cases, the constant becoming that links together these two dimensions is denied, which results in the reification of the margins themselves, worsening prejudices, exacerbating conflicts and re-establishing unequal power relations (Allen 2004).Evictions and other eradication strategies become therefore the ideological legitimation for urban transformations according to neoliberal logics. Against this dystopic perspective, we consider the margins as spaces of possibility, where alternative configurations to the way contemporary city is imagined and lived can appear.We are therefore convinced that the margins should be rethought (Lancione 2016) in order to take some distance from fixed and prejudiced representations and open up new perspectives both at the academic and political level. Relying on our ethnographic work with-in urban margins and homeless people in Brussels (2017-ongoing), we will explore the margins through the articulation between visibility and invisibility: how can we recognise and then reveal the spaces of micro-politics where new futures are possible far removed from current dystopias

[Organisation économique et territoire dans l'industrie française des vins. La Bourgogne dans un système d'appellation d'origine]

International audienceLa production de vin dans les pays de l'Union européenne (UE) est encadrée par un dispositif de régulation particulièrement complexe, normes de production, quotas de plantation, etc. Ces dispositions sont remises en question par certains observateurs qui les assimilent à des entraves à l'exercice d'une libre concurrence. Or, contrairement à une idée assez largement admise hors des frontières de l'UE, la réglementation actuelle n'est pas un ensemble de lois imposées aux producteurs. Cet article montre que c'est un dispositif construit par les producteurs avec des visées économiques et sociales. Les producteurs ont recours à l'Etat lorsque celui-ci s'avère efficace et complémentaire de leurs propres moyens. Cette démonstration passe par deux étapes : (i) une description des formes de l'écheveau d'interventions réglementaires et prescriptives : syndicats, offices interprofessionnels, organes administratifs, normes sociales et professionnelles, (ii) et une analyse historique des évolutions sectorielles

Multiple Fabric Assessment: application to the case of Brussels

Finding the spatial unit at the right scale for analyzing urban fabrics has always been a challenge for spatial analysts. Administrative partitions (wards, municipalities) often do not match with urban landscapes: each spatial unit is heterogeneous in terms of built-up and not built-up surfaces hence not fitting with further spatial statistical analyses. In the context of rising interest on the impact of the urban environment on (mental) health, we start the analysis from the road network for taking into account the perceived public spaces. Multiple Fabric Assessment methodology (MFA) (Araldi and Fusco, 2017) is applied to Brussels (Belgium) in order to investigate urban fabrics from the street point of view. Once the basic spatial unit is redefined around each street segment, the so-called Proximity Bands are described by a set of geometrical and spatial indicators of urban form as perceived by the city-user. Then, geostatistic analyses (ILINCS) are achieved to identify local patterns of urban form features. Finally, clustering is carried out to identify and describe neighborhoods. Despite the small extension of Brussels, a large amount of detailed geographic information is available: new indicators are proposed and tested within the MFA method. Urban vegetation, sidewalks, new visibility indicators are added to the traditional urban morphometric evaluation. With this new combination of indicators, MFA is now fitted to the context of studying the impact of urban spaces on mental health. Finally, results of this application are compared to administrative neighborhoods to evaluate their suitability in terms of morphological context

Margins at the Center: Experiments in Immersive Instant Geotelling

This paper is about four short films on the city centre of Brussels, produced during a five-day workshop we have organised in October 2018, with eight PhD students, two video-makers and three teachers (us), set to explore the heterotopias and heterocronies of a huge construction site presently transforming the main boulevard into a pedestrian area. For their production, we have devised and experimented a method and exploratory practice of “immersive instant geotelling” (IIG), inspired by approaches of body and emotional immersion and disorientation, where the “privileged observer” is not only immersed, but also involved in the socio-spatial reality, acting upon it and perturbing it, even if only by the mere act of holding a camera and pointing it at people and spaces. The four films thus chronicle our errant roaming, encounter, astonishment and contrasting affects with places and people who live there. Bodies pushed by the city, chasing gazes, and us moving along and among smells, shapes, borders, people, and practices; the rhythms and temporalities of people and practices intersecting, overlapping and opposing the tectonic materiality, rhythms and sounds of the overblown building site, aimed at making the city centre more attractive and competitive within a neoliberal logic. Yet “other” geographies arise beyond these expectations, creeping into the interstices and unfolding socio-spatial-temporal margins, and new scenes, meanings, and hypothesis. We shall argue that the method and practice of IIG is apt to offer an embodiment of narratives of actions, representations, and their relationship to space by means of social practices