Institute of Australian Geographers

Legal Geography Study Group

Chair/Convenor:

Robyn Bartel
Geography & Planning, UNE.
rbartel@une.edu.au

Secretary:

Andrew Gorman-Murray
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wollongong.
andrewgm@uow.edu.au

Treasurer:

Stewart Williams
School of Geography and Environmental Studies, UTAS
Stewart.Williams@utas.edu.au

Ordinary committee members:
Lesley Instone, Newcastle.
Paul McFarland, UNE.

Co-convenors:
Daniel Robinson, UNSW.

Legal Geography Study Group: Background

Legal Geography is a vital area of Geography internationally and encompasses several areas of geographic interest including: regulation of land use through planning (urban or town planning, regional and rural planning, social and environmental planning) and property (both land and in personalty and in the privatisation of the global commons and interests in non-human nature); mobility (regulation of personal movement and migration); political environmental geography; regulatory theory (theorizing of the relationship between formal and informal means of regulation and people and place); markets (the ultimate regulator of all markets is the law); governance and social justice issues (relationships of power with regards to inclusion/exclusion, citizenship, community planning, rights and freedoms, including public participation, movement and political expression of minority groups and interests). All of these are regulated in some way through the mechanism and institution of the law.

The study group members foresee that the interest of geographers in these areas will escalate in the near future as the law increasingly enters the sphere of geography in the regulation of globalized markets, terrorism and security, trade in carbon and water, land management and land use, and in the blurring of the boundaries between private and public ownership and management of land and natural resources. This will only compound and reinforce the significance of the law as both a necessary variable and explanatory tool for the spatial variation of human activity. Likewise, the social justice, participation, representation and inclusion of minority groups (on the grounds of race, ethnicity, Indigeneity and sexuality) are increasingly voiced and regulated through legal mechanisms, framing and underpinning issues of governance, mobility and rights.

In establishing this study group for Legal Geography under the auspices of the IAG the members hope to provide a “home” for geographers researching and otherwise interested in these areas, where they can engage in discussion with other geographers and members of allied disciplines with like interests and are supported to further the intellectual examination and promotion of this sub discipline of geography in Australia.

Legal Geography Study Group: Constitution

The authors propose that the Study Group named Legal Geography would be instituted under the following constitution:

1. The group shall be called the Legal Geography Study Group, hereinafter referred to as the Group.
2. The Group shall be a Study group of the Institute of Australian Geographers Inc, hereinafter referred to as the Institute.
3. The aims of the Group shall be to:
i) create and manage a forum for discussion and intellectual examination of the spatial effects and relationships of regulation via legal mechanisms on the relationship between humans and the landscape, and between different groups and interests in society;
ii) promote the study of the spatial effects and relationships of regulation via legal mechanisms on the relationship between humans and the landscape, and between different groups and interests in society, among undergraduate and postgraduate students;
iii) engage interest and collaboration in the research and study of the spatial effects and relationships of regulation via legal mechanisms on the relationship between humans and the landscape, and between different groups and interests in society; and
iv) represent geographers with an interest in the spatial effects and relationships of regulation via legal mechanisms on the relationship between humans and the landscape, and between different groups and interests in society, both in Australia and internationally.
4. Membership of the Group shall be open to all members of the Institute and such other persons as the committee of the Group shall consider eligible, subject to any general rules of the Institute.
5. With the exception of members who are not members of the Institute all members may be nominated for any office of the Group.
6. The annual subscription of the Group shall be such sum as may be determined by its General Meeting from time to time.
7. Management of the Group shall be in the hands of a committee, which shall normally consist of at least two officers and one ordinary committee member.
8. A brief Annual Report of the Group shall be compiled and sent to the Honorary Secretary of the Institute. A more complete statement of Group activities shall be submitted to each general business meeting of the Institute.
9. The funds of the Group shall be managed at the discretion of the Committee in pursuit of the aims of the Group (para. 3 above). Proper books of account shall be kept by the Group Treasurer.
10. Should the Group wish to engage in publication involving the name of the Institute prior consultation shall be held with the Editors of Geographical Research.
11. The group may cease to be the Group of the Institute either by a decision at the General Meeting of the Institute, or by a decision of the Council of the Institute.
12. The Group may at any time be dissolved at a General Meeting of the Institute or Extraordinary General Meeting of the Institute by two-thirds of those present.
13. In the event of the Group being dissolved, the members of the Group shall discharge all debts and liabilities. No individual member of the Group shall benefit financially. Any balance remaining in the account will be made over to the Institute.