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Building a Research Agenda on the Geographical Dimensions of Terrorism: An On‐going Process
Author(s) -
Richardson Douglas
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
transactions in gis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.721
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9671
pISSN - 1361-1682
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9671.00108
Subject(s) - citation , terrorism , association (psychology) , library science , sociology , political science , history , computer science , law , epistemology , philosophy
The Association of American Geographers (AAG) recently initiated a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research project entitled `̀ The Geographical Dimensions of Terrorism: A Research Agenda for the Discipline.'' The project builds on a foundation recently established by the AAG's on-going Strategic Initiative to encourage greater coordination of public, private, and university geographic research agendas (Association of American Geographers and GeoResearch Institute), and is the result of an AAG proposal developed by Susan Cutter, Thomas Wilbanks, and myself (Cutter et al. 2001) in response to the NSF's urgent call for research associated with the recent terrorist attacks on the United States of America. The project includes a twofold research effort that: (1) addresses the immediate disaster situation in a pilot study of the role and utility of geographic information and technologies in emergency management and response to the 11th September, 2001 World Trade Center attack; and (2) initiates a process to enhance the discipline's research capacity by establishing a focused research agenda on the geographical dimensions of terrorism. The pilot study component of the project is reviewing the knowledge base on the use of geographic technology in hazards response and what has been learned to date; evaluating local experiences in providing spatial data in support of rescue, relief, and recovery efforts; and conducting a broad survey on the use of geographic technologies in the immediate response phase of the disaster. A second track of the research effort convened a workshop in January 2002, to begin the process of formulating a substantive research agenda on the geographical dimensions of terrorism. A draft research agenda is being developed as the first step of an evolving and on-going process to define a clearly focused set of research themes, needs, and tasks. The topics addressed are inclusive, ranging from analyses of the potential roles of new geographic technologies to exploration of methods for better understanding the root causes of terrorism. We invite the participation of the Transactions in GIS international research community in this process. The resulting research agenda and recommendations will be widely disseminated to national and international governmental and NGO agencies, the geographic Transactions in GIS, 2002, 6(3): 225±229