Greetings!
This is my first official post since assuming the role of RGSG Chair. I am honored to have been elected at the 2008 meeting in Boston, and I look forward to working with current and future RGSG members over the next two years to continue the excellent work that outgoing Chair Marla Emery has done cultivating new energy and excitement around the dynamic and growing field of rural geography. Among other things, Marla has done a great job establishing linkages between the RGSG and other specialty groups, including the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group (CAPE) and the Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group (IPSG). We are hoping to engage in more collaboration with these groups and others in the coming years, and would welcome your help in this bridging endeavor.
A bit about me: I have been interested in environment-society relations in the American West, especially agricultural landscape change as it relates to land and water resource management, since I began studying geography in 1993. It is only recently, however, that I have begun to self-identify as a “rural geographer,” due mostly to my current position at Oregon State University, where I am affiliated with the Sustainable Rural Communities Initiative and engaging in research that is more explicitly framed as “rural.” Discovering the AAG community of rural scholars over the past few years, especially those studying similar issues in other developed parts of the world, has been a revelation for me. I now have a whole new peer group with whom I can exchange ideas and collaborate. I look forward to recruiting more geographers to our specialty group, people who may not yet realize that their interests overlap with many of ours. Please join me in sharing info about the RGSG and recruiting peers who might be interested in joining us.
As we approach the end of summer, it is time to begin preparing for the 2009 AAG meeting in Las Vegas. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 16 October 2008. Please consider organizing a session over the next month or so and contacting any officer or board member to request RGSG sponsorship. I will be happy to circulate calls for session papers to our membership through the specialty group listserv. You can send them to me at gosnellh@geo.oregonstate.edu. Feel free also to propose co-sponsorship with other specialty groups. As mentioned above, it’s a great way for us to establish fruitful links with our colleagues in other subdisciplines.
We look forward to receiving a good crop of submissions for the 2009 RGSG awards, which serve to highlight new voices in rural geography as well as lifetime contributions to the field. Also, the RGSG is pleased to again coordinate a new award on behalf of Brigham Young University. This award will be given to the author of an outstanding research paper focusing on the Intermountain West. Please see the "Awards" page for more details.
Please feel free to contact me with any ideas, suggestions, and/or concerns, or just to introduce yourself. I hope to see many of you over the coming year.
With best wishes,
Hannah Gosnell
Chair, Rural Geography Specialty Group
