Derek Alderman in ‘The Conversation’: Offensive names dot the American street map − a new app provides a way to track them
The racially motivated tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, when a white supremacist murdered nine Black worshippers, and the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, two years later compelled Americans to confront the role played by memorials, monuments and other symbols in glorifying racist ideologies.
George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020 only lent urgency to that challenge.
Part of the racial reckoning in the wake of Floyd’s death is a movement to remove offensive names from public places. Some names perpetuate demeaning slurs and stereotypes against people of color. Others honor historical figures linked to racism and colonization. This movement is what we geographers call America’s “renaming moment.”
Government officials, activists and other people have called for a renaming of certain places and institutions. Examples include removing Christopher Columbus’ name from a Chicago public school and erasing the name of former KKK leader and governor Bibb Graves from a University of Alabama building. The elimination of names of Confederate generals from several U.S. military bases provides another example.
These changes have become flash points of community activism and debate, both in support of and in resistance to name revisions.
A widespread element in this renaming moment are offensive street names. We believe discussions and decisions about removing these names may benefit from comprehensive sources of information that allow the public to know how pervasive a problem the country might be confronting.
The recent release of an app developed by STNAMES LAB, an international team of scholars of place names, allows users to conduct nationwide inventories of discriminatory roadway names, revealing how often and where they are found.
We believe the app is an important educational tool. It will help communities understand how discriminatory beliefs are woven into everyday spaces and the harm caused by offensive names.
After tracking a few of America’s most contested place and institution names, we believe the app will help people see the changes necessary to recognize and repair past wrongs in street naming.
Recognizing that names can harm and heal
There is growing public recognition that place names are not neutral identifiers of locations. Rather, place names can transmit harmful messages that misrepresent the history and identity of minority communities. As a result, they work against the possibility of a more equal society.
One highly publicized effort at identifying and replacing offensive place names happened in November 2021.
U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold that post, ordered the removal of the word “squaw,” hereafter called “sq—,” from the names of 650 mountains, rivers and other sites on federal lands. Haaland’s order capped many years of demands from Native American groups to eradicate the racist and sexist label.
Then, in 2022, Haaland established the Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names, comprising members from tribal nations, Native Hawaiian organizations and scholars. Its guiding principles call on the U.S. to recognize the historical role of racism and sexism in naming places. They also highlight how those in power have used names to disrespect, misrepresent and control certain groups that have been historically discriminated against.
Drawing from public comments over two years, the committee found that derogatory place names are a source of recurring trauma for groups that have been historically discriminated against. As one Native American community leader told the committee, “Names matter, as they can build or break a relationship with the land and have the power to uplift or marginalize communities.”
Similarly, a 2022 report by the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers and the Wilderness Society found derogatory place names can create an unwelcoming environment that some people avoid. Additionally, a 2022 study by Emory University found that homes on streets named for pro-slavery Confederate figures sell for less and take longer to sell than comparable houses on nearby roads.
Renaming roads serves as an important moment of community reconciliation. That’s because the frequent use of offensive street names exacts a hefty social and psychological toll on marginalized communities, according to the cultural historian Deirdre Mask.
When hurtful names are removed from roads, some members of oppressed communities describe how the spirit or feeling of places can change and allow healing to begin.
The difference an audit makes
The Interior Department committee suggests that efforts to change offensive names should be driven by research. It encourages local residents to identify where derogatory place names exist, when and how they were named, and how those names can harm the well-being of community members.
Data scientist Catherine D’Ignazio and her team at the Data + Feminism Lab agree. They call for conducting audits that collect and visualize data on unjust names, to challenge the damaging effects and abuses of power behind these symbols.
The newly released street names app from STNAMES LAB allows people to do that. Fed with Open Street Map data, it lets users carry out queries, as well as map and download streets containing certain terms.
Once users enter a name, they can check the specific location of named roads on a map. They can also download query results as a spreadsheet to get the full list of streets.
The app offers an easy visualization of the frequency and geographic distribution of names. You can see whether the name is found across the nation or concentrated in a specific region.
Demonstrating the app
To illustrate the app’s capabilities, we searched for names that have sparked public controversy.
Federal condemnation of “sq—” as a place name does not mean that local authorities will follow suit, even if some cities and states are already doing so. We found 429 streets scattered across 47 states with a name containing the word “sq—.”
Although “sq—” originated in the Algonquian language, European settlers corrupted and misused the word in reducing Native American women to a simplistic and sexualized image. Being called “sq—” is still a painful daily reality for Indigenous women. Many of them say the term injures their self-image and sense of belonging.
The street name app exposes other racist Native American stereotypes. Variations of “redman/men” and “redskin” appear on 211 roads.
“Redskin” is a portrayal of Native Americans as warlike and dangerous. According to Native writer Angelina Newsome, colonialists often used it interchangeably with “savage.”
We found 415 roads in 46 states using the word “savage” in their name.
Though references to “redman” and “redskin” have long shown up in consumer products and sports team mascots, many Native groups challenge these stereotypes as demeaning.
Searching for offensive street names across the country is about more than simply collecting information. Data and maps can be part of the process of expanding one’s sphere of awareness and caring for people living with unjust naming practices.
Tracking and visualizing these inequalities is key to developing the “civic imagination” that scholar Catherine D’Ignazio believes is necessary to imagine and call for more inclusive alternatives to the current American landscape of names.
What is at stake is not just removing insulting names in and of themselves, but ensuring that the places marked by these names feel more welcoming and respectful of all Americans.
Derek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee; Daniel Oto-Peralías, Associate Professor of Economics, Profesor Titular de Economía, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, and Joshua F.J. Inwood, Professor of Geography and Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
UT Geographers Put GIS on the Map at Statewide Meeting
UT Department of Geography and Sustainability faculty, students, and staff represented Vol geography in a huge way at the annual Tennessee Geographic Information Council (TNGIC) Conference for geospatial professionals April 9–11, 2024, at Montgomery Bell State Park, in Burns, Tennessee, west of Nashville.
Michael Camponovo, director of both UT’s GIS outreach and the GIST Program, was conference chair. A host of Vol geographers led workshops, gave presentations, and earned awards during the conference.
“As a student, TNGIC gave me the opportunity to create and share maps, give presentations, and build the professional network that eventually led to my job here at UT,” said Camponovo. “As a GIS professional, I want my students and alumni to have these same opportunities to launch their careers. That’s why I’m so passionate about getting involved with TNGIC.”
The TNGIC works to improve connections among agencies working with geographic information systems (GIS) in Tennessee. Their annual conference offers opportunities for GIS professionals and students to network, learn, and share their work and new ideas in the field. Keynote addresses at the conference were delivered by Budhendra Bhaduri, director of the Geospatial Science and Human Security Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Nikolas Smilovsky, geospatial solutions director at Bad Elf, a global navigation satellite systems company.
Associate Professor Qiusheng Wu led a workshop focused on cloud computing with Google Earth Engine and Geemap and presented with the FOSS (open-source GIS) community on Leafmap and data visualization. Wu also organized the inaugural TNView Remote Sensing Presentation Contest for students.
Lecturer Mayra Roman-Rivera and Professor Derek Alderman shared the work their students are doing as part of the GEOG 420—GIS in the Community class.
UT’s GIS Lab Manager Tim Kane volunteered with the UT cemetery mapping team to collect terrestrial lidar as part of a service project at Montgomery Bell State Park.
Student Caroline Petersen earned first place in the conference mapping contest, best analysis category, for her research using MaxEnt for pollinator prediction in Davidson County. She and fellow Vol Josiah Cubol were selected to join the TNGIC Outreach committee.
Emma Blanks and her team from GEOG 420 earned the Viewer’s Choice award in the map gallery for their work on the revised Tennessee Atlas. Blanks also gave a presentation highlighting how she and her team used ESRI’s Experience Builder to create the interactive Tennessee Atlas.
Mahnaz Meem won third place in the inaugural TNView Student Remote Sensing Presentation Contest. Cam Corsino presented a fascinating, in-depth storymap focusing on Knoxville’s Red Summer.
In a less GIS-specific activity at the conference, Ben Pedersen and recent alumnus Robby Lape won first place out of 32 teams at the 2024 cornhole tournament. They took home brand new cornhole boards as prizes.
“I hope anyone interested in learning more about GIS and geospatial technology will join us for future TNGIC events,” said Camponovo. “It’s a great way to learn about new technologies and workflows, meet alumni and network, and learn about jobs. Between presenting, submitting maps and posters, leading workshops, serving as business partners, and more, there are many ways for students and alumni to engage with the organization.”
Interested geographers can participate in the free, one-day East Regional Fall Forum in Johnson City (ETSU) on Tuesday October 15, 2024. The next annual meeting will be at the Embassy Suites in Murfreesboro April 15–17, 2025.
The geography department thanks the dozens of Vol alumni who attended the conference and made current students feel welcome within the organization:
- Danielle (Dami) McClanahan organized the cornhole tournament and was elected to the TNGIC board of directors.
- Tracy Homer shared her expertise with the FOSS community on creating art from digital mapping products.
- Caitlyn Mills presented her work with Stantec for the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
- Paul Dudley served as the TNGIC president over the last year and presented on his project of mapping all the trails in Tennessee. He was also instrumental in organizing our very first “Nerf war.”
- Kurt Butefish of the Tennessee Geographic Alliance provided an update on K–12 geography education in Tennessee and was a business partner for the conference.
- Danielle McClanahan, Caitlyn Mills, and Bass Neal from Stantec were also business partners at this year’s conference.
- Tracy Homer designed and created the Tennessee Rivers laser cut map that was the grand prize for our door prizes.
- Sam McCloud, Caelan Evans, and Danielle McClanahan were instrumental in organizing the conference.
Schwartzman and Shade Map Economic Opportunity in Appalachia
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) awarded a planning grant of just over $389,000 to UT Assistant Professor Gabe Schwartzman, Department of Geography and Sustainability, and incoming Assistant Professor Lindsay Shade, Department of Sociology, to help create and improve geographical information system (GIS) services for rural counties in Appalachia. This important project will help provide valuable information for post-coal industry economic development throughout Appalachia.
The grant is part of ARC’s Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE) program, a $1.7 million investment of grants to develop workforce capacity plans in key industries in Appalachia. In addition to GIS development, these include cybersecurity, infrastructure, and housing.
“Better equipping counties in Central Appalachia with geospatial technology can help these communities adapt to a changing fiscal landscape, and a future without coal-based revenue,” said Schwartzman.
Added support from the University of Tennessee and other regional partners brings total funding for the project to more than $489,000.
The UT team’s project seeks to enable county governments to improve land records throughout Appalachian Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia to pursue economic development opportunities more strategically as the communities shift away from coal mining as a primary industry.
Community and university partners include the University of Virginia at Wise, West Virginia University, East Tennessee Economic Development District, Appalachian Voices, the Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network, West Virginia Association of Geospatial Professionals, and the West Virginia Geologic and Economic Survey. They will collaboratively plan for regional land records infrastructure.
“Accurate and accessible parcel data is crucial for property tax systems that county governments depend on for disaster response planning and long-term economic development,” explained Shade, who officially joins the college on August 1. “Yet, high quality parcel data and geographic information systems require ongoing human and financial capacity, which are often lacking in hard hit coal impacted communities.”
The project team will host listening sessions to assess the training needs for local governments, identify existing resources and gaps at the county, district, and state levels, and better understand how industry and community stakeholders can use GIS data to meet their goals. The team will develop a plan from these sessions to help county-level partners train and use GIS to help sustain their communities.
Companion projects receiving ARISE grants include cybersecurity education by Marshall University Research Corporation, training for water-supply operators by the University of Kentucky Research Foundation, and a plan to increase affordable housing by the Federation of Appalachian Housing Enterprises.
“This round of ARC’s ARISE funding truly represents the forward momentum of Appalachia’s future,” said ARC Federal Co-Chair Gayle Manchin. “From growing workforce capacity in cybersecurity, to training workers in state-of-the-art geographical information systems, these projects ensure that Appalachians will be active participants in building a new era of opportunity across our region and the entire country.”
ARC is an economic development entity of the federal government and 13 state governments focusing on 423 counties across the Appalachian Region, with a mission to innovate, partner, and invest to build community capacity and strengthen economic growth in Appalachia to help the region achieve socioeconomic parity with the nation.
Faculty Honored for Excellence at Annual College Convocation
During the 2023 UT College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Convocation, faculty with the Department of Geography and Sustainability received awards for excellence in research, teaching, and outreach.
LaToya Eaves, Associate Professor
Excellence in Research & Creative Achievement Awards: Mid-Career
Eaves is one of the most significant scholars and intellectual leaders in the field of human geography. She is credited with pioneering the new area of “Black Geographies” as an emerging sub-discipline that has altered how all of human geography conceptualizes race, gender, and location.
Her studies focus on Black people’s lived experiences with placemaking and spatial knowledge, specifically how race, gender, class, and regional/place context interact to form patterns of identification, belonging, and social injustice. For her contributions, she is one of the first associate professors to be selected as a lifetime Fellow of the American Association of Geographers, with two prestigious awards from that association.
Melissa Hinten, Senior Lecturer
Excellence in Teaching Awards: Lecturer
Hinten is the director of the sustainability program in the Department of Geography and Sustainability. She has successfully led the program since 2017 and helped it to transition from an IDP to a full major. She has created numerous courses in sustainability, physical geography, and ecology courses which are essential to the sustainability program. As an instructional leader with the UT Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning she helped institute evidence-based teaching and helped to make these programs more accessible to graduate students.
Hinten earned the Chancellor’s Honors Award for Excellence in Advising in 2019. Her teaching, mentorship and passion for knowledge greatly contribute to the broader goal and objectives of the department to not only provide an excellent education to our students, but also to create an environment for the college, the community, and our university.
Derek Alderman, Professor
Faculty Academic Outreach Award: Research & Creative Activity
Alderman is an exemplary role model of a scholar leveraging their research to assist wider communities in addressing issues of racial inequality and pushing for social justice in landscapes of public commemoration, naming, and tourism. A departmental awards committee composed of faculty and student members chose him as a nominee for his innovative perspective as a cultural geographer whose scholarship seeks to challenge and transform inequities in the organization of places, institutions, and social practices.
Alderman is a nationally recognized authority on street-naming, especially for civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. He explores place names as cultural arenas for reckoning with the histories and ongoing legacies of racism and as tools for promoting reconciliation, anti-racist education, and social justice.
The Conversation: ‘Excessively high rents are a major burden for immigrants in US cities’
Rents across the U.S. have climbed to staggering levels in recent years. Millions of renters spend more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities, a situation that housing experts call being cost burdened.
High rents affect almost all segments of the population but are an especially heavy burden for immigrants, particularly those who have not yet become U.S. citizens. Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, play important roles in the U.S. economy. They often provide the cheapest labor in the riskiest of industries. Yet they are still not broadly accepted or supported in many U.S. cities.
We are geographers who study housing market issues, including racial-ethnic diversity and housing affordability. Our research on Nashville, which has emerged as an immigrant metropolis in the Southern U.S., suggests that foreign-born residents who are not yet citizens are far more burdened by high rents than other groups.
Many immigrant workers in Nashville spend more than 50% of their incomes on rent. This makes it hard for them to afford education and job training, healthy food, health care and other necessities that can help them participate as productive residents. Heavy rent burdens undermine their ability to have a higher standard of living and to be included in mainstream society.
As immigrants increasingly fan out across the U.S., we believe cities receiving new foreign-born residents should anticipate a growing need for affordable housing.
Hard times for renters
The past 15 years have been challenging for renters across the country. In the 2008-09 recession, which was triggered by a collapse in the housing market, millions lost their homes to foreclosure and became renters. Tighter financing made it harder for others to buy homes. By 2015, almost 43 million households had been pushed into renting.
Today about 37% of U.S. homes are occupied by renters. By 2020, almost 46% of U.S. renters paid more than 30% of their household income toward rent. As of June 2021, the median monthly rent in the 50 largest U.S. cities was $1,575 – an 8.1% increase from June 2020.
The heaviest rent burdens fall disproportionately on minorities. Almost 46% of African American-led renter households are rent burdened, compared with 34% of white households.
The COVID-19 pandemic worsened housing insecurity for people of color because of longstanding racially targeted policies and widespread health and economic disparities. Renters of color faced higher cost burdens and eviction rates. In Nashville, this was especially true in Latino and Somali communities.
Why immigrant housing matters
Immigration is the main driver of population growth in the U.S., which is important for filling jobs and boosting tax revenues. After dipping because of pandemic-era restrictions in 2020-22, immigration to the U.S. started growing again, adding 1.1 million new residents in 2023.
Foreign-born residents make up 7.15% of the U.S. population today. Most of these immigrants are not citizens, although more than 878,000 people became citizens in 2023. The median length of time these new citizens spent in the U.S. before becoming naturalized was seven years.
Nashville is the largest metropolis in Tennessee and one of the fastest-growing immigrant gateways in the South. It is home to over 37% of Tennessee’s Latino population and has been a major destination for Latinos and other foreign-born residents since the early 2000s.
For our research, we used census data estimates for 2015-19 from the National Historical Geographic Information System covering metro Nashville’s 13 counties, which contain 372 census tracts. We found that Nashville’s most racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods had the highest levels of rent burden.
This includes census tracts with high shares of foreign-born residents who are not yet citizens, especially if those residents are Black or Latino. Our analysis of the 37 census tracts (10% of the region’s total) with the largest shares of foreign-born residents who are not yet citizens shows that the average monthly rent paid by a household in these tracts was $1,306.20, compared with $1,288.70 metrowide.
In the 37 tracts with the largest shares of Latino residents and Black residents, we found that about 21% of households spent more than 50% of their household income on rent.
Our findings corroborate other scholarly analyses of Nashville’s Somali refugees, who tend to be clustered in communities that also house other diverse groups, including Egyptians and other African immigrants. In these areas, gentrification and urban renewal have forced several Black and Somali communities from ownership into renting.
We believe specific groups of foreign-born residents may either have been ineligible or didn’t know how to apply for government-funded housing and rental assistance programs and may have had to rent from predatory landlords as a result. Some Muslim immigrants also avoid applying for bank loans because of a concept in Islamic banking called ribā, which views charging interest on loans as unjust and exploitative.
More encouragingly, we found that tracts with newer housing stock, built since 2000, have relatively lower rent burdens even though those tracts are home to many Black and non-Asian minority residents. This suggests that newer development has an important role to play in mitigating rent, especially in suburban, relatively affordable locations. In the 37 census tracts with the most foreign-born residents who are not yet citizens, about 28% of the total housing stock was built in 2000 or later, compared with 23% across Nashville.
Easing rent burdens
One of the best ways to mitigate rent burdens is to build more housing and create affordable housing. However, communities sometimes oppose affordable housing projects and pro-development zoning because of fears of crime, traffic congestion or populations viewed as undesirable. Nashville is not immune to this syndrome.
The cost of housing has been a heated topic in the Nashville region since the mid-2010s. A 2023 Urban Institute report recommended creating more affordable housing in Nashville by promoting partnerships among academic, faith-based and health care institutions that own land that could be developed for housing. And the Metropolitan Council for the Nashville region plans to substantially revamp building codes to promote new housing construction.
However, critics argue that the council gives too much weight to anti-development arguments. And there is little discussion of specific ways to help groups that are ineligible for benefits and assistance that are available to U.S. citizens.
A priority for cities
Our research shows that creating more rental opportunities can help reduce rent burdens for all. We see great potential to take this research further through community-based investigations of local nuances that may add to rent burdens, especially factors and processes that can’t be adequately captured in quantitative data analysis. Many local actors have important roles to play, including elected officials and local nonprofits and community organizations that work to promote rights for immigrants and refugees.
Given the important role that immigrants play in filling jobs and contributing to local economies, we believe that helping them afford housing is a smart strategy, especially for growth-oriented cities.
Madhuri Sharma, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee and Mikhail Samarin, Lecturer in Geography and Sustainability, University of Tennessee
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The Conversation: ‘National parks teach students about environmental issues in this course’
Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.
Title of course:
Environmental Issues in National Parks
What prompted the idea for the course?
The University of Tennessee is a natural fit for this course, with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and all the learning opportunities it offers being only a one-hour drive away.
Although I did not create this course, I jumped at the opportunity to serve as an instructor for it. Growing up as a Boy Scout, and later a merit badge counselor, I found a love for place-based education. I have always valued using the outdoors to teach about the theoretical concepts shared in the classroom.
What does the course explore?
Each week of the semester we discuss an ongoing environmental issue and then dive into an applied case study in a different national park. For example, in one week students learn about fire regimes, or patterns of wildfires over time. Then, in the next class, we discuss how the fire regimes in Sequoia National Park in California naturally maintain the ecosystem of the sequoia groves there.
The highlight of the semester is an in-person field trip to Look Rock in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Here, my students and I meet a park ranger who teaches them about how trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere and how to measure it. The group also enjoys a hike to Look Rock Tower to learn more about the local area and see awesome views all around.
Why is this course relevant now?
Visitation numbers at national parks continue to rise each year. Most of my students have been to at least one or two national parks and are exposed to their increasing presence on social media.
If this course was just titled Environmental Issues, I do not believe it would have the same kind of draw it has now. Typically, the course fills to capacity early on every semester.
Using the parks as teaching tools not only keeps students engaged and entertained in the class but also gives them real-life lessons about environmental issues. They get front-row seats in learning about how landscapes change and the physical factors that affect them, like climate, topography and vegetation.
What’s a critical lesson from the course?
I tell my students up front and repeatedly that the world is not black and white. Environmental issues are complex and difficult to solve.
For example, the bald eagle population in the U.S. fell drastically after World War II, and eventually they were declared endangered. This was a result of being poisoned by the insecticide DDT.
Upon quick reflection, it seems that banning DDT in the U.S. in 1972 was the obvious solution to save the bald eagle. Since then, there have also been international efforts to ban DDT across the world for environmental reasons. But this leaves out the context that DDT kills mosquitoes, which spread the deadly disease malaria. In other parts of the world, DDT had saved an estimated 500 million lives from malaria by the 1970s.
This example shows the nuance that’s required when thinking about environmental issues and solutions. Sometimes there is not an obvious right answer, and students visibly struggle to address ethical questions like these.
What materials does the course feature?
I do not use a central textbook or provide specific assigned readings. Instead, students participate in group activities, enjoy illustrated lecture slideshows and YouTube videos and work with online resources.
One assignment has students use Google Earth to create a guided tour of a national park of their choice. They play the role of a park ranger through their written descriptions of tour stops. Students enjoy getting to choose which national park they would like to explore and highlight for visitors.
What will the course prepare students to do?
Upon completing the course, I want students to become critical visitors of national parks and protected areas. I want them to be aware of the role they play in what happens in those spaces and of the complexities of the issues there. Examples could include the continual overcrowding of national parks, the removal of Indigenous peoples from these lands or the history of Black discrimination in our parks.
Whether grappling with strictly environmental issues or the larger political and social struggles related to the national parks, I want students to open their minds to new perspectives. In a way, this course is an intervention for students to understand that they can make a difference and help shape an ever-changing world.
Seth T. Kannarr, PhD Student in Geography, University of Tennessee
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
King’s Research Community Takes Root to Grow North American Climate History
Researchers across many scientific fields found themselves adapting investigative methods in the spring of 2020 to accommodate social-distancing and remote-work guidelines in the face of the COVID pandemic.
Karen King discovered that much of her actual fieldwork already met guidelines.
“As a dendrochronologist, ‘working remotely’—which I interpret as searching for old trees in some of the most remote forests of western North America—was something I’d already had a lot of experience doing,” she said.
King joined UT in August 2023 as an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Sustainability. She brought with her expertise in dendrochronology, plus experience in paleoclimate studies, biogeography, forest ecology, and fire-climate interactions. She applies these skills as lead author on research published in the January 2024 Science Advances. Her team used tree-ring chronologies to develop data that reconstructs a 500-year history of summer temperatures in the paper “Increasing Prevalence of Hot Drought Across Western North America Since the 16th Century.”
They combined their new dataset with preexisting drought and precipitation data to connect a historical record with current geographical climate conditions. COVID-related travel restrictions did lead them to find creative ways to fill in international gaps in data.
“I was able to get numerous preexisting collections from collaborators mailed to me,” said King. “This was particularly important for the southern Canadian portion of the network that would have otherwise been inaccessible. This project really is a testament to the power of building a strong and collaborative scientific community.”
Their results represent not just the needed data, but also contributions and expertise of fellow scientists, land managers, land stewards, technicians, and students.
“As my co-author and postdoc mentor Ed Cook once told me, ‘Atlases truly are community efforts,’ said King. “My co-authors and I are extremely proud to have built a dataset with our community that is also for our community.”
Their effort combines observational and modeling records with their new paleorecord, building evidence that hot drought—combined extreme heat and drought conditions—has been more frequent over the last century than ever before.
“Compared to the last circa 500 years, the data show an increasing trend in the frequency and spatial footprint of hot drought,” said King.
The data history reflects the imprint of the 1930’s era Dust Bowl and the modern megadrought, from around 2000 to the present, both characterized by some of the warmest temperatures over the 500-year time frame.
“I hope to clarify that recent trends in the occurrence of drought, simply defined by a lack of precipitation, are not unprecedented. Western North America is a very drought-prone region,” said King. “Instead, the nuance here with the recent decades is that these recent droughts are hotter on average than any previous droughts recorded since the mid-15th century.”
King’s ongoing research builds on their findings in the west as they establish a comprehensive North American Temperature Atlas—including studies in some favorite Tennessee natural areas.
“We are using slightly altered sampling approaches in the eastern US,” she said. “For example, we are targeting different species of trees. Here in the eastern US, we are primarily looking at data from Eastern Hemlock and Red Spruce. Some of our sample sites include Mount LeConte and Clingman’s Dome in the Smokies.”
Her team continues to find creative ways to maximize the depth and detail of their sample data.
“In addition to collecting living and remnant samples, we are also looking into using archeological samples—e.g., wood samples from historical structures—to help extend the tree ring data even further back in time,” she said.
King and crew’s adaptability exemplifies the Volunteer Spirit as they build research foundations for both environment and community.
Derek Alderman Published in ‘The Conversation’:
Black communities are using mapping to document and restore a sense of place
When historian Carter Woodson created “Negro History Week” in 1926, which became “Black History Month” in 1976, he sought not to just celebrate prominent Black historical figures but to transform how white America saw and valued all African Americans.
However, many issues in the history of Black Americans can get lost in a focus on well-known historical figures or other important events.
Our research looks at how African American communities struggling for freedom have long used maps to protest and survive racism while affirming the value of Black life.
We have been working on the “Living Black Atlas,” an educational initiative that highlights the neglected history of Black mapmaking in America. It shows the creative ways in which Black people have historically used mapping to document their stories. Today, communities are using “restorative mapping” as a way to tell stories of Black Americans.
Maps as a visual storytelling technique
While most people think of maps as a useful tool to get from point A to point B, or use maps to look up places or plan trips, the reality is all maps tell stories. Traditionally, most maps did not accurately reflect the stories of Black people and places: Interstate highway maps, for example, do not reflect the realities that in most U.S. cities the building of major roads was accompanied by the displacement of thousands of Black people from cities.
Like many marginalized groups, Black people have used maps as a visual story-telling technique for “talking back” against their oppression. They have also used maps for enlivening and giving dignity to Black experiences and histories.
An example of this is the NAACP’s campaign to lobby for anti-lynching federal legislation in the early 20th century. The NAACP mapped the location and frequency of lynching to show how widespread racial terror was to the American public.
Another example is the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s efforts to document racism in the American South in the 1960s. The SNCC research department’s maps and research on racism played a pivotal role in planning civil rights protests. SNCC produced conventional-looking county-level maps of income and education inequalities, which were issued to activists in the field. The organization also developed creative “network maps,” which exposed how power structures and institutions supported racial discrimination in economic and political ways. These maps and reports could then identify urgent areas of protest.
More recently, artist-activist Tonika Lewis Johnson created the “Folded Map Project,” in which she brought together corresponding addresses on racially separated sides of the same street, to show how racism remade the city of Chicago. She photographed the “map twins” and interviewed individuals living at paired addresses to show the disparities. The project brought residents from north and south sides of Chicago to meet and talk to each other.
Maps for restorative justice
Restorative mapping is an important part of the Living Black Atlas: It helps bring visibility to Black experiences that have been marginalized or forgotten.
An important example of restorative mapping work comes from the Honey Pot Performance, a collective of Black feminists who helped create the Chicago Black Social Culture Map, or the CBSCM. This digital map traces Black Chicagoans’ experiences from the Great Migration to the rise of electronic dance music in the city. The map includes historical records and music posters as well as descriptions of important people and venues for that music.
While engaging Black Americans in the effort, the CBSCM map tells the story of Chicago through a series of artistic movements that highlight African Americans’ connection with the city.
After years of gentrification and urban renewal programs that displaced Black people from the city, this project is helping remember those neighborhoods digitally. It is also inviting a broader discussion about the history of Black Chicago.
Restoring a sense of place
An important idea behind restorative mapping is the act of returning something to a former owner or condition. This connects with the broader restorative justice movement that seeks to address historic wrongs by documenting past and present injustices through perspectives that are often ignored or forgotten.
The CBSCM map is not a conventional paper map. While it includes many things you would find in such a map, such as road networks and political boundaries, the map also includes links to fiction writing and the Chicago Renaissance, art and music, as well as expressions of food, family life, education and politics that document a hidden history of Black life in the city. The map provides links to specific historic documents, socially meaningful sites, and to the lives of people that tell the story of Black Chicago.
Thus, the map helps highlight how this geography is still present in Chicago in archives and people’s memories. Through this digital representation of Black Chicagoans’ deep cultural roots in the city, the mapping aims to restore a sense of place. Such work embodies what Black History Month is about.
Joshua F.J. Inwood, Professor of Geography and Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State and Derek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee
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