‘Left behind places’: a geographical etymology

‘Left behind places’ has become the leitmotif of geographical inequalities since the 2008 crisis. Yet, the term’s origins, definition and implications are poorly specified and risk obscuring the differentiated problems and pathways of different kinds of areas. This paper explicates the geographical etymology and spatial imaginary of ‘left behind places’. It argues that the appellation and its spatial expression have modified how geographical inequalities are understood and addressed by recovering a more relational understanding of multiple ‘left behind’ conditions, widening the analytical frame beyond only economic concerns, and opening up interpretations of the ‘development’ of ‘left behind places’ and their predicaments and prospects. While renewing interest in fundamental urban and regional concerns, what needs to endure from the ascendance of the ‘left behind places’ label is the terminology and spatial imaginary of reducing geographical inequalities and enhancing social and spatial justice

“More-than-viral” Eurasian geographies of the covid-19 pandemic: interconnections, inequalities, and geopolitics

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper develops the notion of “more-than-viral” geographies of the covid-19 pandemic. It introduces a set of commentaries on the pandemic in the Eurasian region and its links with the rest of the globe. Taking “more-than-human” perspectives in Human Geography as an inspiration, it develops ways of analyzing the covid-19 pandemic as a “more-than-viral” phenomenon in which human and viral agencies are entangled. In this Introduction to the special issue, we focus on three key intertwined sets of processes that run through this volume, and which both shape, and are being radically reshaped by, the pandemic: interconnections, inequalities, and the geopolitics of disease. Each of these inter-related processes is developed in various ways by the commentaries which make up the special issue