Reuben Rose-Redwood

The naming of places is one of the primary ways in which the spatial
imaginaries of colonialism have been entrenched within the spaces of everyday life in settler-colonial societies. Consequently, the reclaiming of Indigenous toponymies has become a key strategy for decolonizing space and place in the neocolonial present, thereby revalorizing place-based Indigenous ontologies and challenging the neocolonial state’s assertions of authority over geographical naming practices. This article examines the efforts of Indigenous peoples in WSÁNEĆ and Lekwungen Territories to reclaim their “storyscapes” through the renaming of PKOLS, a mountain known by the settler society as Mount Douglas in Saanich, British Columbia. In doing so, this study highlights how the reassertion of
Indigenous ontologies of place challenges the white supremacist logic embedded in the commemorative landscapes of settler colonialism as part of the broader struggle for Indigenous self-determination. The article also draws attention to how institutions of higher education are themselves implicated in the legitimation of settler-colonial spatial imaginaries and calls upon scholars and activists to move beyond a politics of recognition, which reinforces the authority of the settlercolonial state, by decentering the heroics of settler political agency in the struggle for decolonization both on and off university campuses.

Disagreement is a fundamental aspect of scholarly inquiry, yet it is exceedingly rare for scholars on opposite sides of the political spectrum to engage in a sustained dialogue across the political divide. This article seeks to contribute to precisely such a dialogue with specific reference to the field of cultural geography. The discussion featured herein consists of an encounter between “critical” and “conservative” approaches to cultural geography in the form of a back-and-forth  exchange  of  arguments  and  counter-arguments  by  the interlocutors. The dialogue covers a wide range of issues, including the cultural  politics  of  essentialism,  white supremacy,  racial  segregation, patriarchy,  traditional  morality,  secularism,  justice,  authority,  friendship, difference-as-strangeness, and the very question of disagreement itself. The broader aim of this dialogical intervention is not to find some sort of common ground that will resolve all differences but rather to explore what those differences are with the hope of opening up a space for more constructive dialogue on cultural geography across the political divide.

The proliferation of recent works on the place of memory in social life and political culture has called attention to the various struggles over remembering and forgetting the past and, hence, the imagining of alternative futures. Moreover, numerous geographers have ...

Recent geographical scholarship on the politics of calculation has led to a reevaluation of the role of statistics, census-taking, and mapping as calculative techniques that have been of primary importance to the rise of the modern territorial state. The current study contributes to this literature by examining how the political technologies of street addressing have been employed to reconfigure the

The designation of streets by number is one of the hallmarks of North American urbanism, yet very few studies have examined the geographies of street numbering in U.S. cities and towns. This article provides one of the first comprehensive, nationwide assessments of the spatial distribution of street numbering and lettering practices across the United States. Drawing on data collected from Google Maps, census records, state almanacs, and related sources, we analyze the proportion of incorporated places in all fifty U.S. states that have adopted some form of street numbering or lettering; the regional variation in the prevalence of alphanumerical systems of street designation and the relationships between the occurrence of street numbering, population size, and date of incorporation. In doing so, the broader aim of this study is to undertake the empirical groundwork needed to develop a more nuanced critical theory of the social production of calculable space.用数字指派街道，是北美城市主义的里程碑之一，但鲜少有研究检视美国城镇的街道编号地理学。本文对全美以数字编号及字母编排街道的空间分佈，提供其中一个全面性、全国性的最初评估。我们运用搜集自谷歌地图、普查资料、各州年鑑，以及相关资源的数据，分析全美採取以数字编号或字母编排街道的某种形式的五十州之中，注册为治理单位的地方之比例；盛行以字母系统指派街道的区域变异，以及街道编号的出现、人口规模和地方注册日期之间的关联性。本研究这麽做的更广泛目的在于，为了对社会生产的可计算空间建立更细緻的批判理论，着手进行所需的经验性基础工作。La designación de calles con números es uno de los distintivos del urbanismo norteamericano; no obstante, muy pocos estudios han examinado las geografías de la numeración de calles en las ciudades y pueblos de los EE.UU. Este artículo provee una de las primeras evaluaciones amplias de la distribución espacial de prácticas de numeración y diseño de placas para identificar las calles a través de los Estados Unidos. Con base en datos generados de los Mapas de Google, registros censales, almanaques del estado y fuentes relacionadas, analizamos la proporción de lugares incorporados en todos los cincuenta estados de los EE.UU. que han adoptado alguna forma de numeración o designación de calles; la variación regional en la prevalencia de sistemas alfanuméricos para la designación de calles; y las relaciones existentes entre la ocurrencia de la numeración de calles, el tamaño de la población y la fecha de incorporación. Haciendo esto, la meta mayor de este estudio es emprender el trabajo empírico de base que se necesita para desarrollar una teoría crítica más matizada sobre la producción social del espacio calculable.

This article examines the role that place naming has played in the rescaling of the Pacific waters along the Canada/United States border as the “Salish Sea.” Drawing upon archival materials and a series of semi-structured interviews, we argue that the scalar framing of such waters as a delimited spatial “unit” was dependent upon the performative reiteration of citational practices that were employed over a period of two decades to discursively assemble these fluid multiplicities into a cartographically bounded space. Although one of the ostensible aims of this geographical designation was to acknowledge the longstanding presence of Coast Salish peoples in the region, the naming of the Salish Sea has also had the political effect of reinforcing neocolonial relations of socio-spatial dispossession by further entrenching the powers of the state as the final arbiter of geographical naming conventions.This article examines the role that place naming has played in the rescaling of the Pacific waters along the Canada/United States border as the “Salish Sea.” Drawing upon archival materials and a series of semi-structured interviews, we argue that the scalar framing of such waters as a delimited spatial “unit” was dependent upon the performative reiteration of citational practices that were employed over a period of two decades to discursively assemble these fluid multiplicities into a cartographically bounded space. Although one of the ostensible aims of this geographical designation was to acknowledge the longstanding presence of Coast Salish peoples in the region, the naming of the Salish Sea has also had the political effect of reinforcing neocolonial relations of socio-spatial dispossession by further entrenching the powers of the state as the final arbiter of geographical naming conventions.Décoloniser la carte ? Les enjeux politiques de la toponymie et le transfert d'échelle de la mer des SalishCet article étudie le rôle que la dénomination de la « mer des Salish » le long de la frontière canado-américaine a joué dans le changement d'échelle des eaux du Pacifique. Des documents issus de fonds d'archives et une série d'entretiens semi-dirigés servent d'appui pour défendre l'idée selon laquelle la conception scalaire de ces eaux en tant qu'unité spatiale délimitée découlait de la réitération performative des pratiques citationnelles adoptées depuis deux décennies afin de traduire de manière discursive cette abondance aqueuse dans un espace cartographique circonscrit. Bien que l'un des objectifs apparents de cette appellation géographique fût de reconnaître l'ancienneté de l'établissement dans la région des peuples Salish de la côte, l'appellation de la mer des Salish a eu comme impact politique de renforcer les relations néocoloniales de la dépossession socio-spatiale en consolidant les pouvoirs étatiques comme arbitre final des conventions existantes en matière de toponymie.Mots clés : décolonisation, performativité, mer des Salish, toponymie, échelleCet article étudie le rôle que la dénomination de la « mer des Salish » le long de la frontière canado-américaine a joué dans le changement d'échelle des eaux du Pacifique. Des documents issus de fonds d'archives et une série d'entretiens semi-dirigés servent d'appui pour défendre l'idée selon laquelle la conception scalaire de ces eaux en tant qu'unité spatiale délimitée découlait de la réitération performative des pratiques citationnelles adoptées depuis deux décennies afin de traduire de manière discursive cette abondance aqueuse dans un espace cartographique circonscrit. Bien que l'un des objectifs apparents de cette appellation géographique fût de reconnaître l'ancienneté de l'établissement dans la région des peuples Salish de la côte, l'appellation de la mer des Salish a eu comme impact politique de renforcer les relations néocoloniales de la dépossession socio-spatiale en consolidant les pouvoirs étatiques comme arbitre final des conventions existantes en matière de toponymie.Mots clés : décolonisation, performativité, mer des Salish, toponymie, échelle

Recent geographical scholarship on the politics of calculation has led to a reevaluation of the role of statistics, census-taking, and mapping as calculative techniques that have been of primary importance to the rise of the modern territorial state. The current study contributes to this literature by examining how the political technologies of street addressing have been employed to reconfigure the territory of the United States as a calculable space of security. Drawing on extensive archival research and thirty semistructured, in-depth interviews, this study provides a genealogy of calculable space, focusing particularly on the extension of city-style street addressing systems into rural communities to aid emergency management, homeland security, and various other governmental measures as part of the general process that Foucault (2007) has referred to as the “urbanization of the territory.” As a case study, I consider the campaign to readdress rural areas in West Virginia to illustrate the social and political processes at work in remaking the territory into a space of calculation by encoding the landscape with a spatial regime of inscriptions. The results presented here show how 911 addressing systems have been central to the reorganization of political space at a time when the apparatuses of security are being “enhanced” by the apparent marvels of geospatial technology. To the extent that such technologies are themselves implicated in reshaping the very spaces that they are designed to represent, this study calls our attention to the pervasive role that spatial calculation plays in the production of a geo-coded world. El reciente interés de la academia geográfica por la política del cálculo ha llevado a la revaluación del papel de la estadística, el levantamiento censal y la cartografía como técnicas calculadoras que han sido de importancia clave para la consolidación del moderno estado territorial. El actual estudio contribuye a esta literatura examinando la manera como las tecnologías políticas de nomenclatura han sido utilizadas para reconfigurar el territorio de los Estados Unidos como un espacio calculable de seguridad. Apoyándonos en amplia investigación de archivos y en treinta entrevistas a profundidad semiestructuradas, este estudio permitió obtener una genealogía del espacio calculable, enfocándose particularmente en la extensión de los sistemas de nomenclatura de estilo urbano hacia comunidades rurales para ayudar en tareas de manejo de emergencia, seguridad del terruño y varias otras medidas gubernamentales, como parte del proceso al que Foucault (2007) se refiere como “urbanización del territorio”. A manera de estudio de caso, considero la campaña para reorientar las áreas rurales de Virginia Occidental como el modo de ilustrar los procesos sociales y políticos que intervienen en la reconstrucción del territorio en un espacio de cálculo codificando el paisaje con un régimen espacial de inscripciones. Los resultados que aquí se presentan muestran la manera como 911 sistemas de nomenclatura han sido centrales para la reorganización del espacio político en una época cuando los aparatos de seguridad están siendo “fortalecidos” por las aparentes maravillas de la tecnología geoespacial. En la medida en que tales tecnologías a la vez están implicadas en la reconfiguración de los propios espacios que representan según el cometido para el cual ellas fueron diseñadas, este estudio nos llama la atención hacia el penetrante papel que juega la calculación espacial en la producción de un mundo geocodificado.

Historical geographic information systems (GIS) scholarship has provided important insights into a broad spectrum of historical questions in recent years. This article contributes to the emerging field of historical GIS by employing map algebra and transect analysis to quantitatively assess topographical change resulting from rapid urban growth in New York City since the first quarter of the nineteenth century. These methodological techniques enable a systematic comparison of Manhattan's historical and contemporary topography through a spatial analysis of various topographic metrics, including the extent of positive and negative elevation change, shifts in elevation range, the percentage of geographic area that experienced elevation changes, and the estimated volume of Earth added to and removed from particular areas within the study site. The results indicate that there were more valleys filled than hills leveled on Manhattan's East Side, whereas the reverse was the case on the West Side. The West Side, however, experienced considerably more topographic changes than its eastern counterpart, in large part due to the former's more rugged terrain. Overall, the evidence suggests that although Manhattan's topography has been radically transformed in certain respects, the broader spatial pattern of topographic variation has remained largely constant. These findings, therefore, can be used to support competing narrative claims concerning the significance of the topographical transformations that resulted from the urbanization process in New York City. En años recientes, el conocimiento relativo a los sistemas de información geográfica (SIG) históricos ha proporcionado importantes visiones dentro del amplio espectro de las cuestiones históricas. Este artículo es un aporte al campo emergente de los SIG históricos mediante el uso de álgebra cartográfica y el análisis de transectos, para evaluar cuantitativamente los cambios topográficos que resultan del rápido crecimiento urbano de la ciudad de Nueva York desde el primer cuarto del siglo XIX. Estas técnicas metodológicas permiten la comparación sistemática de la topografía histórica y contemporánea de Manhattan a través de un análisis espacial de varias métricas topográficas, incluyendo la amplitud del cambio de elevación positiva y negativa, los cambios en el ámbito de la elevación, porcentaje de área geográfica que experimenta cambios de elevación y el volumen estimado de tierra agregada y removida de áreas particulares dentro del sitio de estudio. Los resultados indican que hubo más valles rellenados que colinas obliteradas en el East Side de Manhattan, mientras lo contrario se registró en el West Side. Este segundo lado, sin embargo, experimentó muchos más cambios topográficos que su contraparte oriental, en gran medida debido a la mayor escabrosidad de su terreno. En términos generales, la evidencia sugiere que aunque la topografía de Manhattan ha sido radicalmente transformada en ciertos respectos, el patrón espacial principal de variaciones topográficas ha permanecido muy constante. Estos descubrimientos, por lo tanto, pueden utilizarse en apoyo de narrativas de reclamos competitivos en relación con la significación de las transformaciones topográficas que resultaron del proceso de urbanización de la ciudad de Nueva York.

The proliferation of recent works on the place of memory in social life and political culture has called attention to the various struggles over remembering and forgetting the past and, hence, the imagining of alternative futures. Moreover, numerous geographers have highlighted the important role that spaces of commemoration play in reshaping the geographies of memory and oblivion (Dwyer and Alderman 2008; Foote 2003; Foote and Azaryahu 2007; Forest et al. 2004; Hebbert 2005; Hoelscher and Alderman 2004; Johnson 2004; Legg 2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2007; Pred 2004; Rose-Redwood, 2008; Till, 2003, 2005, 2006). Scholars from both the social sciences and humanities have contributed to the interdisciplinary field of “memory studies” (Till 2006), which now has its own set of professional publication outlets, such as the journal Memory Studies (launched in January 2008). Additionally, the new scholarly forum, H-Memory, first went online in March 2007 and serves as an informal network to promote th ...