Newsletter 2011
Akwaaba!
Hello ASG members, I am welcoming you in Twi as I am writing this newsletter from Accra, Ghana
where I am settling in to conduct my dissertation field work. I will be returning just in time for AAG in
February, and I look forward to seeing many of you there. In this newsletter you will find information
about the AAG relating to ASG, updates from some of our members, and other interesting info. See
you in New York!
-Marta Jankowska, San Diego State University
AAG 2011 – Seattle
At the AAG 2011 in Seattle, WA we elected a
new set of board members, and were updated
about the exciting future of our specialty group
Journal – the African Geographical Review.
The new board members are:
Chair: Dr. Iddrisu Adam
University of Wisconsin – Marshfield/Wood
County
Email: iddi.adam@uwc.edu
Finance Director: Dr. Joseph Zume
Shippensburg University
Email: JTZume@ship.edu
Secretary: Marta Jankowska
San Diego State University
Email: mjankows@rohan.sdsu.edu
Graduate Student Reps:
Ryan Good
University of Florida
Email: ryangood@ufl.edu
Amelia Duffy-Tumasz
Rutgers the State University of New Jersey
Email: ameliadt@eden.rutgers.edu
Kathleen Dietrich
Pennsylvania State University
Email: kdietrich@psu.edu
Dr. Kefa Otiso, of Bowling Green State
University (kmotiso@bgsu.edu) continues to be
the editor of the ASG’s journal – the African
Geographical Review. At the 2011 business
meeting Dr. Otiso proposed (with a yes vote) to
accept an offer by Taylor and Francis to publish
the journal (electronically and in print), with an
eventual increase in the number of issues being
released. ASG members will continue to enjoy
access to the journal. Over the course of the
last year this agreement is in the process of
being finalized, and Dr. Otiso will be updating
the group of the progress and move to Taylor
and Francis at the New York AAG ASG
business meeting.
We remind you to please continue
contributing to the Review – particularly as
with the move to a major publishing company
impact factor, visibility, and cite-ability will
become much larger.
For now the journal can still be found at:
http://www.macalester.edu/geography/agr/index.ht
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AAG 2012 – New York
AAG 2012 is coming up fast in New York! We
hope you are having no problems in planning
your stay, and are looking into the online
preliminary program to find interesting
sessions.
The AAG is now utilizing an online platform for
messaging and discussion within specialty
groups. Please be sure that you are properly
signed up to receive these messages through
email – as a member of the group you should
be automatically eligible. After logging into
aag.org, under membership/knowledge
communities there is an option to set email
preferences, and to enter the community
interface where you can read and send out
messages.
You are all invited to the business meeting, and
we hope to see you there!
Africa Specialty Group Business Meeting
Saturday, 2/25/2012 from 7:30 – 8:30 pm
Green Room, Fourth Floor, Hilton Hotel
The ASG is sponsoring 17 sessions. Many of
these sessions are multi-part series. Be on the
lookout for:
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Africa is not a country: Challenges and
opportunities in teaching about Africa I
and II
Africa through GIS and other formats
Designing summer abroad programs:
Challenges and opportunities
Gender, development and
transnationalism
Genetically engineered geographies in
the global South I and II
Health, poverty, and place in Ghana I, II,
and III
International partnerships in communityrelated environmental and sustainability
research and education: Ethical,
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structural and institutional issues of
collaboration
New geographies of African
development
Remaking spaces and places in Africa’s
cities
Rex Honey’s contributions to geographic
research and to the AAG
The role of geographers in promoting
leadership in environmental
sustainability, food security, and health
policy initiatives in Africa
Transnationalism and development
impacts of migration on Africa, Ghana
Urban planning and informality in African
development
Please remind your students about the Student
Paper Competition. First place includes a
monetary prize and a chance to contribute to
the African Geographical Review. Submissions
are due on December 20th to Marta Jankowska
- mjankows@rohan.sdsu.edu. The full call can
be found on the ASG website at:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~asg/Awards.htm
Our graduate student representatives are hard
at work planning a social event for the Africa
Specialty Group members. The announcement
will go out in the coming months, so be on the
lookout! We encourage you to join us for this
even to meet and mingle with your fellow group
members.
Member News and Other
Announcements
A big congratulation goes out to Mark Hunter
of the University of Toronto. His book Love in
the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender, and
Rights in South Africa won this year’s C. Wright
Mills Award, one of the most prestigious awards
given in the area of social science research.
Congratulations!
Member Pádraig Carmody of Trinity College
Dublin recently published a book on The New
Scramble for Africa. He has also taken over as
one of the editors of the journal Geoforum.
Member Roland Abah of the National Agency
for the Control of AIDS has been working on a
new report and fact sheets for the geographical
state of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. Please email him
for the report, and other information regarding
the organization’s work at
rolann04@yahoo.com.
Congratulations to Benjamin Neimark, who
has received a tenure-track post at Old
Dominion University in the department of
Political Science and Geography!
Tom Bassett of University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign has had a productive year
publishing numerous articles including
“Reducing hunger vulnerability through
sustainable development,” Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 107 (13) 56975698, 2010; “Defending Democracy in Côte
d'Ivoire: Africa Takes a Stand,” Foreign Affairs
90(4): 130-140, 2011; “Slim pickings: Fairtrade
cotton in West Africa,” Geoforum 41(1): 44-55,
2010; and “Winning Coalition, Sore Loser:
The 2010 Presidential Elections in Côte
d’Ivoire. African Affairs 110 (440): 469-479,
2011. In addition he and A. Winter-Nelson won
the 2011 James M. Blaut Innovation Publication
Award for their book The Atlas of World
Hunger. Congratulations!
Attention graduate students or those thinking
about graduate studies. The Department of
Geography at Miami University in Ohio is
seeking a master’s level graduate research
assistant beginning fall 2012 for the project
'Short Term Dynamics in Changing
Environments: A Geospatial Analysis of
Seasonal Forest Response and Extractive
Resource Entitlements at Mt. Kasigau, Kenya'
co-directed by Drs. Kim Medley and John
Maingi. As part of a collaborative research
project, the selected student will focus on a
past analysis of land-cover change at Mt.
Kasigau and ecological change in forest
community types. The GRA includes travel
support for field research in Kenya. For more
information, please contact Dr. John Maingi at
Miami University, Department of Geography,
maingijk@muohio.edu.
Ellena Andoniou of University of Western
Ontario announces the Transcending Borders
Toward Global Health Conference April 27 to
29th in Ontario, London. The conference aims to
advance awareness and knowledge of Global
Health issues, locally and abroad by engaging
members of the global health community and
other academics and professionals across
different disciplines to share their innovative
ideas and concepts on the dynamics of Global
Health and the socio-ecological determinants
that impact health worldwide. Deadline for
abstract submission January 15th, 2012.