Geographical

Official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)

Doug Specht

Dr. Doug Specht is a Chartered Geographer, a Reader in Cultural Geography and Communication, and Head of the School of Media and Communication at the University of Westminster.

His research explores themes related to environmental justice, human rights, and access to education, with a focus on the production and codification of knowledge though cartographic artefacts and in educational settings.

Dr. Specht has authored numerous articles and books, including Mapping Crisis, the Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technology and Society, and Imagining Apocalyptic Politics in the Anthropocene. He writes regularly on ethics, environmental and human rights, education, and mapping practices in such publications as WonkHE, The Conversation, Geographical, and for Times Higher Education. Dr Specht is a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Geography and is Chair of the Environmental Network for Central America.

What is the right to vote worth when the road disappears?

4 minutes

How heavy rainfall in the Navajo Nation exposed the barriers to voting and raised questions about democracy in a changing climate Much has already been written about the US midterms, possibly the most important American election in a generation. The scale of the swing, the seats that changed hands and the consequences for the rest of Donald Trump's presidency have … [Read more...] about What is the right to vote worth when the road disappears?

When land rights offer little protection in Honduras

4 minutes

For Honduras’s Garifuna communities, victories in international courts have failed to end a struggle against trafficking networks, territorial threats and criminalisation This October, Garifuna protesters outside Honduras’s Supreme Court are demanding that legal victories become something they can live by. The Garifuna are an Afro-Indigenous people whose ancestors … [Read more...] about When land rights offer little protection in Honduras

What does it take for an election result to be believed?

4 minutes

Israel's vote on 27 October is unlikely to be decided by fraud at the ballot box, but four years of pressure on the institutions that oversee it have made a credible result harder to secure When Israelis vote on 27 October, they will mark paper ballots counted in front of observers from rival parties. Wholesale fraud in such a system is difficult, and Israel has … [Read more...] about What does it take for an election result to be believed?

When the spy chief praises the press

4 minutes

Can journalism serve national security without losing its independence? When the Director General of MI5 stood up at Thames House on 13 October to deliver his annual threat update, most of the attention that followed went, understandably, to Iran, Russia and artificial intelligence. Tucked into the speech, however, was something that deserves rather more scrutiny … [Read more...] about When the spy chief praises the press

The execution that failed, and what it tells us about the right to life

4 minutes

As the world moves towards abolishing the death penalty, executions continue to expose deep divisions over human rights and justice When the State of Tennessee strapped Christa Pike to a gurney at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on the evening of 30 September, it did so having been warned by her lawyers about collapsing veins, degraded drugs and an … [Read more...] about The execution that failed, and what it tells us about the right to life