RESEARCH AREAS:

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT RELATIONSHIPS

In a period of global environmental upheaval and in a dynamic place like Tucson Arizona, where changing water policy, disturbed ecosystems, invasive and exotic plant invasions, wildfires, urban growth problems, arid lands management, and air pollution are among a few of many problems, GRD's human-environment program pursues and innovates diverse approaches to tackle current problems. Substantively, faculty engage in research areas that include international water compacts governing transboundary rivers, village forest use and wildlife population changes in India, wildfire hazards and management in Greece, solid waste management conflicts in Mexico, and lawn chemical use in suburban America. Theoretical perspectives range from approaches emphasizing institutions and markets to those critically evaluating postcolonial development conditions. With top-flight graduate students, wide-ranging techniques, and diverse theoretical approaches, Arizona is a leading source of expertise and graduate education in this field.

Current research areas in human-environmental geography at the University of Arizona include:

• Disease and the environment
• Rematerializing political ecologies
• Socio-cultural and biophysical dimensions of water
• Environmental justice and risk

CRITICAL HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

Research in critical human geography reflects the theoretical and political transformations in the field of geography that accompanied the social movements of the late 1960s. For the first decade or so in its development, critical human geography was primarily influenced by Marxism and feminism. These were later augmented by engagements with postmodernism and poststructuralism, postcolonial theory and subaltern studies, anti-racist theory, post-Marxism, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and continental and American social theory. The impact of these theories – all of which share a commitment to social justice – has been felt in nearly every subfield of human geography. At the University of Arizona, the department’s faculty tend to work in economic, political, urban, and cultural geography, as well as in development, political ecology, and critical GIS.

Current research areas in critical human geography at the University of Arizona include:

• Space and identity
• Globalization and trans-nationalism
• Geographies of resistance
• Space and representation

METHODOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY

Though technically a support field and an infrastructure rather than a substantive domain, methodology and technology are at the heart of every subfield in the department, and hence worthy of calling out for special attention. The department supports a full range of methodological approaches, the choices of which are best made on the basis of research questions and objectives rather than pre-set ideas about the relevance of this or that technique. We support critical methodologies such as discourse analysis and participatory methods, traditional qualitative methods such as interviewing and ethnography, mixed quantitative and qualitative approaches relying on survey data, and traditional quantitative approaches, especially spatial statistics and GIS. In terms of technology, faculty support projects with specialized software and hardware dedicated to GIS and remote sensing. Increasingly the department is home to new approaches in web-based technology, decision support science, and geo-visualization.

Current research areas in methodology and technology in geography at the University of Arizona include:

• Public participation in data gathering and analysis
• Web-based decision support systems
• Integrating GIS, remote sensing, and field-based methods
• Spatial analysis of human and physical systems

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

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Modern regional development has its intellectual roots in efforts during the 1950s and 1960s to build a new approach to geography, one that is analytically rigorous and addresses theoretical abstraction and real world problems, as well as their interrelation. This research concentration shares substantial overlaps with the fields and practices of economic development, urban planning, and regional science. Scholars in regional development at the University of Arizona tend to concentrate in population geography, economic geography, and urban geography. Methodologically, regional development has often been aligned with the tools of spatial analysis – spatial statistics, mathematical modeling, optimization, simulation, and GIS – but as the subfield has become more diverse theoretically and substantively, so too has its range of techniques. The University of Arizona’s regional development faculty work closely with those identifying with critical human geography and human-environmental geography, and vice-versa.

Current research areas in regional development at the University of Arizona include:

• National and trans-national migration
• Quality of life
• Urban governance
• Regional growth and decline

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

Contemporary physical geography draws on a long-standing earth science tradition as well as current approaches in the environmental sciences to produce knowledge about natural systems, especially as they relate to society. In recent decades, physical geography has come to organize itself in terms of systems and processes, both natural and human-caused, which are involved in environmental change at global, regional and local scales. Physical geographers embrace a variety of quantitative methods in their work, including dynamic modeling, statistical approaches, geographic information science, remote sensing tools and good old-fashioned field work. Increasingly, physical geography has come to play a pivotal role in many kinds of interdisciplinary environmental research projects that integrate natural and social science perspectives within and outside the discipline. Furthermore, while the traditional subfields of geomorphology, climatology and biogeography are still present, many leading scholars now work in a mix of these areas and in overlapping fields such as human-environment geography, environmental planning and policy.

Current research areas in physical geography at the University of Arizona include:

• Climate variability and change
• Landscape dynamics and biogeography
• Fire ecology
• Remote sensing of environmental change