Geographers Mobilize: a Network-Diffusion Analysis of the Campaign to Free Ghazi-Walid Falah1
Geographers Mobilize: A Network-Diffusion Analysis of the Campaign to Free Ghazi-Walid Falah1 Mark de Socio Department of Geography and Geosciences, Salisbury University, 1101 Camden Avenue, Salisbury, MD 21804 U.S.A. Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/awg/article-pdf/11/4/195/1447268/arwg_11_4_b81j3k78641t2223.pdf by guest on 23 September 2021 In summer 2006, Professor Ghazi-Walid Falah, a Mots-clés : réseaux sociaux, échelles, géogra- political geographer and editor-in-chief of the phie politique, Internet journal Arab World Geographer, was arrested by Israeli police after taking photographs of rural landscapes in Northern Galilee. Falah was Introduction subsequently held for 23 days, incommunicado, Kirby (1992, 236) defines geography as and without charge. An international campaign what “geographers choose to do.” Ghazi- to “Free Ghazi” was launched by his family, Walid Falah (2007, 588) demonstrates that friends, and colleagues, largely over academic what geographers choose to do can, at times, listservs and other media. Utilizing social be dangerous. Falah, for example, chose to network analysis and contextualizing the campaign within structures of telecommunica- research and write on the political geogra- tions technologies, the purpose of this paper is to phy of Palestine and Israel, beginning with assess the various factors that contributed to the his dissertation 25 years ago (Falah 1983). campaign’s coalescence, its rapid development, According to Falah, this career program of and its global reach. research runs counter to the hegemonic discourse—historical, political, or other- Key words: social networks, scale, political wise—concerning the geographies of geography, Internet Palestine and Israel (see, e.g., Falah 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2003, 2004).
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