Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-10: Kenneth Cardenas on the geography of possibility

In 2005, David Prytherch and Sallie Marston posed a question regarding an urban geography of possibility: How may we better see the potential of people and localities, where new spatial networks are forged by actors who embody and must negotiate a world of material and symbolic flows? Prytherch and Marston offer a possible first step: "[C]hallenge ... a rethinking [of] urban geography’s dominant perspectives on the city, neoclassical positivist and Marxian political-economic, and their chronic blind spot: social and cultural practice" (p. 99).

The UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) proudly present this month's Heo/Geo Lecture Series with Dr Kenneth Cardenas as speaker. This will be on Monday, 14 September 2026 at 5:30PM (Philippine Time) / 5:30AM (Eastern Standard Time) via Zoom. The talk, titled For a geography of possibility for the 21st century Philippines: Three ways of noticing, intersects some of the question's broad strokes. 

The talk suggests three ways of seeing possibility in the political economy of the early 21st century Philippines. Dr Cardenas will articulate a version of geography as a mode of knowledge attuned to unevenness and difference, uniquely positioned for reading against ‘damage-centred’ accounts of neoliberalism, underdevelopment, and inequality. Specifically, reflexive, careful attention to scale and abstraction, as dimensions to how we theorize about the Philippines, can help sensitize us to how projects of concentrating wealth and power had never fully consolidated in this place, and to the ways that non-, anti-, and post-capitalist practices co-constitute its economic and political life. 

Through completed and in-progress research on capitalism and state formation in the Philippines, the talk illustrates (1) attention to long timescales, (2) small spatial and institutional scales, and (3) unlikely comparisons across places, periods, and commodity relations as elements to a research repertoire in the aid of noticing possibility.

Dr Kenneth Cardenas completed his PhD in Geography at York University, where he remains affiliated as a research associate with the York Centre for Asian Research. He holds an MA (distinction) in Sociology from the University of Manchester, and a BA in Sociology from the University of the Philippines Diliman. His PhD dissertation, Land, infrastructure, and the new geographies of class power in the 21st century Philippines, is an urban and economic geography of the Philippines' ruling rentier class, as it has been transformed by remittances and a globally-deployed workforce. His Heo/Geo talk draws from feminist and institutional economic geographies to attend to non-, anti-, and post-capitalist possibilities, as they inhere in the Philippine landscape. See more of his work at https://kennethcardenas.com/.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series exists because of an abundance of geography-related undertakings in multiple scales. The Lecture Series which is a rebranded version earlier brown bag iterations brings together place-based ideas, intellectual provocations, and practices from scholars, geography practitioners, and communities. This monthly talk remains online to reach a broader audience, especially those outside of Metro Manila and the Philippines. It is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) of the United Nations. This is also co-sponsored by the Human Geography (HUG) research cluster of the UP Department of Geography.

To participate in the lecture, use this link to register: https://tinyurl.com/y7mfud2p

Work cited: 

David L. Prytherch & Sallie A. Marston (2005) Editorial: An Urban Geography of Possibility, Urban Geography, 26:2, 97-99, DOI: 10.2747/0272-3638.26.2.97

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-09: Angelo Galindo on sense of place among Filipinos in diaspora

In 1975, Yi-Fu Tuan argued that to know a place well requires long residence and deep involvement. "Experience takes time. Sense of place is rarely acquired in passing" (164)*. This humanistic perspective has since undergone various revisions, reiterations and reinterpretations, but this tenet's school of thought persisted and has stood the sediments of time. 

A recent research on sense of place was undertaken to explore how first-generation Filipino immigrants in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (LPGC) develop and negotiate a sense of place through emotional, cultural, and spatial practices in an island setting. On Monday, 24 August 2026 at 5:30PM, Angelo Galindo will give a talk for the Heo/Geo Lecture Series for 2026: Tracing First-Generation Filipino Immigrants’ Sense of Place in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Migrant Narratives and Spatial Patterns of Attachment, Identity, and Dependence. Jointly sponsored by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the talk -- the ninth for 2026 -- will be done via Zoom (5:30PM PHT / 11:30AM CEST).

 

Grounded in sense of place theory—the talk revisits the dimensions of place attachment, place identity, and place dependence. The study utilizes a multimodal framework for representing migrant spatial experience by combining ethnography, participatory mapping, and spatial-statistical analysis. With 14 participants, the study generated both rich qualitative narratives and 126 spatial data points for LPGC of Gran Canaria —a peripheral island setting with a demographic that remains understudied. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is the capital of Gran Canaria Island of the Canarian archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. 

Findings reveal that, place attachment is shaped by sensory and nostalgic connections to built and natural environments as well as spiritual and social connections to people within community spaces; Place identity is enacted in intimate built environments such as churches and Filipino gathering sites spearheaded by Filipino grassroots organizations; Place dependence is strongly linked to the migrant labor landscape, migrant obligation, and the pursuit of actualization—both self and familial. Moreover, while the island setting forms a relevant spatial backdrop, it is the transnational labor experience that most significantly structures Filipino migrant sense of place in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Ultimately, this study invites further work exploring multimodal approaches that foreground migrant place experiences for diasporic island contexts.

Angelo Galindo earned a BSc in Environmental Science from Ateneo de Manila University (with minors in creative writing and literature) and completed his MSc in Geography at the University of the Philippines Diliman, with a thesis on land cover change simulations and the lived experience of urban transitions. After which, Angelo pursued an Erasmus Mundus Research Master in Spatial Sciences in the University of Groningen and Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (cum laude); his thesis combined spatial narratives with spatial statistical analyses—exploring sense of place of Filipino immigrants in Spain. Prior to moving to the Netherlands, Angelo worked in local environmental consultancy firms, tech (ML) startups, government-funded research projects, and as an environmental science and GIS lecturer in the Philippines. He is currently a PhD candidate at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) where he works to reconstruct the history and spatial patterns of deforestation in the Philippines since 1850 and trace its enduring colonial legacies through archival research and spatial analyses.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly event that brings together geography-focused scholars, field and industry practitioners, communities and civil society to engage in a conversation about a broadly geographic topic based on research, pedagogy, field practice, and new innovations in geospatial technology. In its rebranded form, the Heo/Geo Lecture Series was carried out continuously since August 2019, and facilitated by the various research clusters of the UP Department of Geography. This talk is co-sponsored by the Human Geography (HUG) research cluster and in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) of the United Nations.

To participate in the lecture, register to this link: https://bit.ly/4bZBV7o

* Tuan, Y. F. (1975). Place: An experiential perspective. Geographical review, 151-165.

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-08: Levin Daran on the importance of geonarratives in geospatial storytelling

What stories are underlain in the 2-dimensionality of a map?

While maps have always been powerful tools, they are frequently viewed as technical instruments for data. Reducing spaces to raw data, tables, and layers strips away the human element that gives those locations their true meaning. 

For the 8th Heo/Geo Lecture Series for 2026, the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) are presenting a lecture titled Weaving Narratives into Spaces with ArcGIS StoryMaps. To be given by Lou Benedict Daran of Geodata Systems Technologies, the lecture happens on Wednesday, 29 July 2026 at 5:30PM via Zoom.

This presentation explores how to use ArcGIS StoryMaps as an immersive digital storytelling platform. By shifting our focus from technical aspects of data toward narrative design, we can weave together images, videos, and interactive maps to build a genuine emotional connection with the places we showcase. We are hoping that attendees will leave with a different perspective from the traditional norm and present spatial data as compelling, human-centered stories.

Lou Benedict "Levin" Daran is a GIS instructor from the Training and Technical Support Division of Geodata Systems Technologies, Inc. A graduate of the University of the Philippines with a Bachelor of Science in Geography, his technical competencies include spatial analysis, map design, and application configuration. He has extensive experience equipping major organizations such as the City Government of Makati, Batangas State University, and MMDA with spatial data skills through ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online. His professional portfolio also extends to high-impact humanitarian initiatives. He previously contributed to the PhilAware project, mapping and validating critical lifeline facilities in Pampanga and Quezon City for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team – Philippines (HOTPH).

Jointly sponsored by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly talk / lecture given by academic geographers, geography-adjacent scholars, practitioners working in geospatial industries, and partners that engaged in geography through their multiple publics. Speakers are invited for the relevance of the talk to our local to global allies and partners. The talk ranges from the sharing of research findings to pedagogical practices and field-based experiences. This current lecture is facilitated by the Geographic Information Systems and Techniques (GIST) research cluster at the UP Department of Geography and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) of the United Nations.

To participate in the lecture, click this link to register: https://tinyurl.com/53u6w53w

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-07: Cole Yokingco on the intersection of geography, law and climate change

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series continues during the midyear. For the seventh presentation of this long-running series, the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) are co-sponsoring the talk of an alumnus who is knee-deep in conservation work.

The talk is Ignoring boundaries: How geography, law, climate change, and biodiversity intersect by John Colin Yokingco from Conservation International Philippines and is happening via Zoom on Tuesday, 16th of June 2026 at 5:30PM. His talk looks at the link between the legal system and climate change. Where things are, how justice is defined, the impacts of climate change, and the diversity of life are important in addressing the challenges of our times, according to Yokingco. 

Geography and law are fields of study that may not be connected at first glance. One deals with how things interact spatially while the other deals with the obligatory norms set by those in power. Climate change and biodiversity on the other hand, although considered as subjects studied under the physical sciences, are usually addressed separately in the legal framework of the Philippines. In spite of their apparent boundaries, geography, law, climate change, and biodiversity intersect in more ways than we think. The impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss have no respect for boundaries set by the law. The international commitments of states mean nothing if local action receives no support. Finally, justice is fundamental to any solution to these issues. Discourse on these issues have progressed over the past 12 years. The overlaps and intersections will be discussed through the experiences of a geography graduate who has navigated the space over the same period through their professional career. From land use planning, defending human rights, and now conserving nature geography remains at the core of the approach. 

John Colin E. Yokingco is a legal and development professional who has worked on issues related to climate change, disaster risk management, and human rights. Cole currently works on policies related to natural climate solutions, biodiversity, and indigenous people’s rights as the Philippines Policy Senior Manager of Conservation International Philippines.

Jointly sponsored by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly resource talk / lecture given by academic geographers, geography-adjacent scholars, practitioners working in geospatial industries, and partners that engaged in multiple publics, and based locally and abroad. The talk ranges from the sharing of research findings to pedagogical practices and field-based experiences. This month’s Heo/Geo Lecture Series is facilitated by two research clusters at the UP Department of Geography: Human Geography (HUG), and Environment and Development Geographies (EDGE) and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) and SDG #13 (Climate Action) of the United Nations.

To participate in the Zoom lecture, please click this link to register: https://tinyurl.com/53rf59w2

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-06: Patrick de Castro on the making, un-making and re-making of place

In a recent article by Christophe Claramunt (2025), he echoed what several critical cartographers and historical geographers have said before about power relations that result in a lacunae and concealment of places in historico-cartographical practices: "[T]here are numerous instances where information is intentionally omitted or concealed from maps, driven by motivations ranging from security and privacy concerns to political, social, economic, and cultural interests" (2025, p. 1).

It is in the un-making of places in the past that drives a corrective -- and a remaking of places -- that situates power relations and tells alternative historical accounts. Such is the case of the Iglesia y Hospital in Spanish occupation-era San Gabriel de Manila.

On Tuesday, the 19th of May at 1:30PM via Zoom, the Heo/Geo Lecture Series presents a talk by Associate Professor Patrick Anthony de Castro with a title: The search for the lost narrative and discursive reconstruction of the whereabouts of Iglesia y Hospital de San Gabriel de Manila. 

Using methodologies from various disciplines and a discursive approach in reconstructing the subject matter at hand, the research hoped to correct some long-standing misconceptions, pointed-out unknown lacunae, and clarified muddled loopholes on the beginnings of Intramuros in general, and particularly the proselytization activities of the Dominican congregation in the Philippines. Known as the church cum hospital established by the Dominicans for non-Christian Chinese immigrants to Manila, it is discovered that Iglesia y Hospital de San Gabriel was already operational, both as a church and hospital, even before the establishment of Dominican’s mother church and monastery, Monasterio y Iglesia de Sto. Domingo, and that the latter’s location at the Gran Cienaga or great swamp at the northeastern corner of what would become Intramuros was based on the location of their missionary works among the said Chinese group in the Parian and not the other way around as written in many positivistic studies about them before.

Related to this is providing a re-examination of the sources used in academic studies and secondary works placing the beginnings of Dominican missionary works at Baybay, the local town with Chinese Christian inhabitants located at the tip of the southern banks of the Pasig River.

Associate professor Patrick de Castro teaches history at Miriam College. He previously served as chairperson for the Department of International Studies and the Department of Social Sciences in Mirian College. He is a member of the Philippine National Historical Society (PNHS) as well as in Manila Studies Association. He published several modules on Philippine History and the life and works of Jose Rizal. His research includes the history of Malabon before the arrival of the Maryknoll sisters, and his past and present engagements with the lost churches in Intramuros. His academic degrees are in history with forays in geography, anthropology and urban planning. 

To provide a contemporary context to areas in Intramuros used to be occupied by such institutions, it is pinpointed that Iglesia y Hospital de San Gabriel was located at a spot currently occupied by the Letran Gym and part of the northern façade of the College of San Juan de Letran fronting it. This was discovered here through what was established in earlier scholarship as the eastern boundary of Manila from 1577 to 1583. This boundary was established earlier as being only along what became Legazpi street and not beyond where the eastern walls of Intramuros (which were constructed later).

Based on the research, when, how, and where the church and hospital of San Gabriel were transferred to two different sites on the islet of Binondo; the church in 1594 and the hospital in 1598 along its Pasig River banks, and their eventual demise. The presentation will show how the hospital completely disappeared in the 19th century while the church being destroyed during the British Invasion of Manila in the 18th  century but upon whose grounds the current church of Binondo was built almost a century later.

Additionally, the presentation argues that the first name given to the said church and hospital of the Dominicans for the Chinese in the Parian is San Pedro de Martir, considered  as one of the actual founders, aside from UST’s founder Fr. Miguel de Buenavides, Juan Maldonado de San Martir in honor of the same saint he was named after.

Thus, its well-known identifying designation in honor of San Gabriel after whom the northeastern bulwark of Intramuros was named after, Bastion de San Gabriel, that was built towards the end of Spanish rule over the country, as the current source of knowing about parts and parcel of the said subject matters of the research, has nothing to do with them except occupying portions of the site in Intramuros where they used to be located. This paper attempts to prove the historicity of Iglesia y hospital de San Gabriel built by the Dominicans for Chinese residents of the Parian and their geographical whereabouts within the city of Manila and its environs from their inception until their disappearance as Spanish institutions.

This presentation is part of a research conducted a few years ago called 'Search of Two Lost Catholic Churches in Intramuros de Manila towards the ed of the 16th Century' that was funded by the Center for Strategic Research of Miriam College then directed by  Dr. Joey Alagaran. Moreover, de Castro discovered about the muddled and incomplete historicity

of the Iglesia y hospital de San Gabriel out of his studies in the masters program on the urban development of Manila, 1571 – 1593, done a more than a century ago (1998).

Jointly sponsored by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly resource talk / lecture given by academic geographers, geography-adjacent scholars, practitioners working in geospatial industries, and partners that engaged in multiple publics, and based locally and abroad. The talk ranges from the sharing of research findings to pedagogical practices and field-based experiences. This current lecture is facilitated by the Human geography (HUG) research cluster at the UP Department of Geography and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) of the United Nations.

To participate in the Zoom lecture, click this link to participate: https://tinyurl.com/4zhefnwz

Reference:

Claramunt, C. (2025). The phenomenon of hidden geographical information in cartography. International Journal of Cartography, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/23729333.2025.2595717

POSTPONED: Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-06: Alyson Mabie on cities, machines and the 'future of law enforcement'

This talk is postponed due to the speaker's family emergency. We will announce the rescheduled date sometime soon. - Heo/Geo Lecture staff

"Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law."

That is RoboCop's response when asked by Bob Morton what his prime directives are. This was in the 1987 film directed by Paul Verhoeven.

RoboCop helped cement the science fiction genre in the 1980s that delved into, among other things: dystopia, transhumanism, artificial intelligence, technology gone rogue and future glimpses of urban landscapes. 

On 15 May 2026 at 5:30PM Philippine Standard Time (2:30AM Pacific Standard Time), Alyson Mabie will talk about city futurities in the age of technology using the figure of RoboCop as case study. Titled ‘RoboCop Protects Delta City’: Yesterday’s Urban Dystopic Sci-fi Cinema and the Technofascist Capture of Tomorrow, this online talk is mounted by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) through the Heo/Geo Lecture Series.  

While a fair number of people think they know science fiction, the science fiction (SF) genre is one of cognitive estrangement allowing the audience to imagine a plausible yet strange “newness” within the familiar that occurs in the subjunctive tense of “events that have not happened” (Suvin, 1972; Delany 2009). This speculative invitation enables us to imagine radical change and otherwise futures. However, SF has also been a medium of white supremacist and fascist worldbuilding. The 1970s-90s were a golden age for urban dystopic sci-fi action films in the US, often presenting a bleak future where privatization and carceral state control have melded into an urban hellscape maintained by robotic and automatized systems, and inescapable surveillance technologies. While the heroes of these films pop the ideological balloon and expose the corrupt inner logics, many aspects of the films’ technofascist urban futures are present in our lives today. 

This presentation analyzes the cinematic representation of the future city in the film universe of RoboCop as it intersects with present day technocapitalist narratives of products as ‘science fiction made real,’ framing carceral and automated technologies in urban and state governance as ‘the future’ precluding all others. With the tagline, “The Future of Law Enforcement, ” Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 cult classic, RoboCop, is set in a near future ‘Old Detroit’ where the city has privatized its social services, including its police force, under a single conglomerate. As labor strikes loom, corporate VPs race to produce a law enforcement solution that doesn’t eat or sleep. Enter Robocop, a highly militarized, robotic police officer programmed to detect and eliminate crime. Robocop is the key feature of the “urban pacification” program that paves the way for construction of Delta City, the CEO’s sleek, controlled urban utopia built on the ashes of Old Detroit.

Alyson Mabie is a PhD student in the Geography Department at the University of Washington. Her current work approaches issues of science, technology, and society (STS) through a feminist relational lens. She likes to think about the entanglements of fictional worldbuilding, futurity, visual media and narratives of urban futures in digital spaces such as video games, social media comment sections, and metaverses.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series which is co-sponsored by PGS and the UP Department of Geography continues to challenge conventional notions as to what geography as an intellectual field of inquiry is all about and what range of topics traverses the discipline's multiverse (pun intended). The Heo/Geo Lecture Series was borne out of the need to energize and enrich academic geographers and geography-adjacent scholars' need for exciting intellectual mashups that fuse geographical ideas and provocations with new-ish methodologies and field-based practices. This current Heo/Geo Lecture Series is facilitated by the Media, Literary Geographies, and Geohumanities (MELANGE) research cluster of the UP Department of Geography and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) of the United Nations.

To participate in the event, click this link to register. You can also click this link: https://bit.ly/3QPv1dj

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References:

Delany, Samuel R. (2009). The jewel-hinged jaw: Notes on the language of science fiction. Wesleyan University Press.

Suvin, Darko (1972). On the poetics of the science fiction genre. College English, 34(3), 372-382.

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-05: Kevin Fox on geographic inquiries initiated by the Geographical Imaginations Expedition & Institute

When Derek Gregory published Geographical Imaginations in 1994, the book puts emphasis on relational understanding of individual worlds as intertwined with global-universalisms. Gregory was not the first one to discuss permutations of imagination in relation to geography. Hugh Prince, David Harvey, Yi-Fu Tuan, Katherine McKittrick and Jen Jack Gieseking added different interpretations, case studies, and situated ecologies to expand the scope and reach of geographical imaginations. 

It is perhaps in this spiritual vein that Kevin Fox's version of geographical imagination as formalized by founding The Geographical Imaginations Expedition & Institute (The GIEI), stems from pluralizing the concept (like Gregory) and providing multi-scalar and multi-cultural examples of meaning-making that situate individuals and collectives in space and place.

For the fifth Heo/Geo Lecture Series for 2026, the Department of Geography (DGeog) of the University of the Philippines-Diliman together with the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) proudly present a talk: Inner Geographies: Imagination, Experience, and Global Citizenship by Kevin Fox on Friday, 24 April 2026. To be delivered via Zoom, the talk starts at 5:30PM-Philippine Standard Time (11:30AM CET). 

The talk introduces the work of The Geographical Imaginations Expedition & Institute (The GIEI), a non-profit initiative working across three interconnected geographical dimensions: the global, the local, and the inner. The GIEI translates key ideas from human geography into accessible and participatory forms, expanding popular understandings of geography to include the internal dimensions of perception, imagination, and meaning-making that shape how individuals locate themselves within an interconnected planet.

The name draws inspiration from the Detroit Geographical Expedition & Institute (1968–1971), an experiment in local, community-based geography that sought to democratize knowledge production and center marginalized perspectives.  Building on this legacy, The GIEI extends geographic inquiry inward, treating the inner world as a legitimate site of exploration. From this foundation, it develops participatory approaches to global citizenship education through interconnected practices including research, storytelling, simulation, advocacy, and lexicon-building.

Central to this work is The World as a Village of 100 People, a civic-assembly simulation that translates global inequalities into lived, dialogic experience. The process unfolds across three phases—orientation, imagination, and transformation—guiding participants from understanding global systems, to inhabiting diverse perspectives, to collectively envisioning alternative futures.

Moving from The GIEI’s earlier work in visual and audio storytelling toward a broader institutional vision (The GIEI 2.0), the talk reflects on the shift from project-based initiatives to the design of scalable frameworks for global citizenship learning.

Kevin S. Fox is a human geographer and the founder and director of The Geographical Imaginations Expedition & Institute. With over 20 years of experience in global citizenship education, his work explores how individuals and communities understand their place within an interconnected world. He has developed programs that integrate storytelling, simulation, and field-based learning to make global systems more accessible and participatory. A National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow and Inner Development Goals Ambassador, he works at the intersection of human geography, critical pedagogy, and imagination to advance new models of global learning. Originally from Connecticut (USA), he currently lives on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly resource talk / lecture given by academic geographers, geography-adjacent scholars, practitioners working in geospatial industries, and partners that engaged in multiple publics, and based locally and abroad. The talk ranges from the sharing of research findings to pedagogical practices and field-based experiences. This month’s Heo/Geo Lecture Series is facilitated by two research clusters at the UP Department of Geography: Human Geography (HUG) and Media, Literary Geographies, and Geohumanities (MELANGE) and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) of the United Nations.

To participate in the event, click this link to register. You can also click this link: https://tinyurl.com/4bmbjrz2

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Works cited:

Fox, Kevin S. The Geographical Imaginations Expedition & Institute

https://www.geographicalimaginations.org/about/ 

Gieseking, Jen Jack. 2017. Geographical Imagination. In International Encyclopedia of Geography (eds. D. Richardson, N.Castree, M. Goodchild, A. Jaffrey, W. Liu, A. Kobayashi, and R. Marston). New York: Wiley-Blackwell and the Association of American Geographers.

Gregory, Derek. 1994. Geographical imaginations, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Harvey, David. 1973. Social Justice and the City. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press.

McKittrick, Katherine. 2006. Demonic Grounds Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Prince, Hugh C. 1962. The Geographical Imagination. Landscape 11: 22–25. 

Tua, Yi-Fu. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, University of Minnesota Press.

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-04: Kukasina Kubaha on the archive and queerness in a Thai borderland

How do we queer the archive?

In the late 1980s, Thailand’s first lesbian magazine was published. Although most of the readership were concentrated in Bangkok and other metropols, there were entries from ‘women loving women’ from Patani —the borderland of Thailand and Malaysia where the Muslim minority are a majority. This is an area where Queer stories have been silently erased from history. Much has been said about male homosexuality in Islamic history and culture, and while there is a rise in feminist scholarship in Patani, it only seems to focus on the experiences of cis-female and heterosexual women. Furthermore, there is a tendency to compare the feminist movements that are happening in Patani to the Middle Eastern Arab world, but few have compared the situation to neighbouring Islamic societies such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei Darussalam. 

For the fourth talk in the Heo/Geo Lecture Series for 2026, it is with pride that the U.P. Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) announce a jointly-sponsored talk: Mapping Sapphic Patani, Tracing the Southeast Asian “Queer Regional Imagination" to be given by Kukasina Kubaha from the University of Hamburg via Zoom. The talk is on Friday, 27 March 2026 at 5:30PM [UTC +8 Philippine Standard Time (PHT) / 11:30AM UTC +1 Central European Time (CET)]. The talk is also in celebration of the National Women's Month in the Philippines. 

In this project presentation, Kukasina Kubaha intends to trace the queer movements in Islamic Southeast Asia, especially in works of art, to see the negotiations between the self and religion, the conversations, and the influences they had on each other. Thus, mapping and archiving the ‘queer regional imagination’ (Gopinath, 2018.) The project will touch upon two main notions: the archive and Queerness. By delving into entanglements of Southeast Asian queer art networks along with its connections to outside the region, the talk intends to ‘queer’ the archive both in terms of the thinking about the archive as not static, and to tell more stories or Queers who are often left out of main historiography, while also challenging the notion of archival violence and how the archive can be imagined otherwise.

Kukasina Kubaha is a translator, writer, curator and dreamer of better worlds. She is currently completing a Master’s degree at the Universität Hamburg, where she is pondering the question of the archive and how to build a counter-archive of queer women in Thailand's Deep South through literature, film, and contemporary art. Her recent historical fantasy, ‘Nidra Nirat: A Dream Depository’ is published with New Naratif (https://newnaratif.com/nidra-nirat-a-dream-depository/) and a collage of prints she made based on her archival research is exhibited in the upcoming edition of Southeast Asia Queer Cultural Festival which can be found here: https:// seaqcf.net/. Her curatorial projects also aim at using art as a form of activism and advocacy.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly lecture given by academic scholars, field-based geography practitioners, members of the local community, and spatial justice advocates to share their knowledge- and practice-based research undertakings. Jointly presented by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series which previously underwent several iterative rebranding positions geography as a discipline that not only straddles the realms of natural/physical and social sciences, humanities, political ecologies, regional and area studies, GI technologies and geospatial storytelling, it is also a vibrant and convivial space that welcomes multiplicities and plural voices. The name Heo/Geo is itself an accommodation to the various understandings, meanings and pronunciations of geography in its indigenous and vernacular forms and the Anglicized name that has since been adapted in the local lexicon. 

This Heo/Geo Lecture is presented by the Human Geography (HUG) and the Media, Literary Geographies and Geohumanities (MELANGE) research groups of the UP Department of Geography and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) and #15 (Life on Land) of the United Nations.

To participate in the lecture, click this link to register via Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/2phrrfdp

References: 

Gopinath, Gayatri. Unruly visions: The aesthetic practices of queer diaspora. Duke University Press, 2018.

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-03: Sayd Randle on her book 'Replumbing the City'

In a 2022 article on water and storage focused on Los Angeles, political ecologist Sayd Randle opined: "[T]he infrastructural ecology ... demands new spatial and infrastructural practices for the thousands of residents sited above the aquifer, an arrangement that raises questions of environmental justice rarely associated with urban space" (Randle, 2022, 2295). For what are the ways the seeming urbanization of nature reflect local and global situations of resource  storage, particularly subterranean water, and how does it shape spatial and social relations. 

For the third Heo/Geo Lecture Series for 2026 jointly sponsored by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), Sayd Randle will discuss water storage in a talk titled Replumbing the City: Water Management as Climate Adaptation in Los Angeles, which is also the title of her book which came out in 2025. The talk happens on Friday, 27 February 2026 at 5:30PM (UTC +8) via Zoom. Dr Randle's talk marks the 100th lecture since the Department of Geography initiated the Heo/Geo Lecture Series which is the rebranded name after earlier iterations.

Moving between shower drains, aqueducts, rain gardens, and even kitchen sinks, Replumbing the City traces the enormous urban waterscape of Los Angeles in a state of flux. For more than a century, the city of Los Angeles has relied on faraway water for the vast majority of its municipal supply, but climate change is making these distant sources much less dependable. To adapt, Angelenos - including city engineers, advocates at NGOs, and residents - are developing new water supplies within the space of the city. Sayd Randle’s ethnography examines the labor of replumbing LA’s sprawling water system, detailing how a desire to sustain unlimited and uninterrupted water provision for paying customers is reshaping the urban environment and its management. Tracking how such projects redistribute the work of water management, the book explores thorny questions of how the labor of climate adaptation should be mobilized and valued.

Sayd Randle is an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at Singapore Management University. Trained as an environmental anthropologist, she studies processes of urban ecological transformation with a focus on infrastructure, water, and climate change. Her peer-reviewed research has been published in a wide range of outlets, including American Anthropologist, Antipode, City & Society, Environment and Planning E, Journal of Political Ecology, and WIREs Water.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly lecture given by academic scholars, field-based geography practitioners, members of the local community, and spatial justice advocates to share their knowledge- and practice-based research undertakings. Jointly presented by the UP Department of Geography and PGS, the Heo/Geo Lecture Series which previously underwent several iterative rebranding positions geography as a discipline that not only straddles the realms of natural/physical and social sciences, humanities, political ecologies, regional and area studies, GI technologies and geospatial storytelling, it is also a vibrant and convivial space that welcomes multiplicities and plural voices. The name Heo/Geo is itself an accommodation to the various understandings, meanings and pronunciations of geography in its indigenous and vernacular forms and the Anglicized name that has since been adapted in the local lexicon. 

This Heo/Geo Lecture is presented by the Environment and Development Geographies (EDGE) research group of the Department and is in line with the SDG #11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and #15 (Life on Land) of the United Nations.

To participate in the lecture, please click this link to register: https://tinyurl.com/yvtantve

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References:

Randle, S. (2022). Holding water for the city: Emergent geographies of storage and the urbanization of nature. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 5(4), 2283-2306. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486211047387

Randle, S. (2025). Replumbing the City: Water Management as Climate Adaptation in Los Angeles. University of California Press.

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-02: Mike Pretes on sovereignty resources and the "economic space" of small states

For the first onsite Heo/Geo Lecture Series for 2026 (and the second for the year), the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) are co-sponsoring the talk Sovereignty Resources and Economic Development in Small Island Countries by Dr Michael Pretes on Monday, 23 February 2026 at 10:30AM in Pavilion 2246-2248 (Conference Room).

Dr Pretes' presentation explores how small, isolated island states have made use of “sovereignty resources” such as postage stamps, passport sales, fisheries rights, satellite slots, offshore banks, tax haven status, and internet top-level domains to achieve relatively high levels of economic development. The presentation identifies various kinds of sovereignty resources and examines how the revenues derived from them have been invested in global financial markets using sovereign wealth funds, thereby enlarging the “economic space” of these small states. Case studies from the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans illustrate both how marginal island states can engage with globalization to their own advantage and how sovereignty itself can create new resources.

Michael Pretes, PhD, a native of San Francisco, California, is Professor of Geography at the University of North Alabama in the United States, and Research Fellow in Geography and Environmental Studies at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. He holds degrees from the University of California-Berkeley, Northwestern University, and the Australian National University. He is a Fellow of the American Association of Geographers and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. His research interests include economic development in islands and remote regions, tourism, national parks, the history of geography, and geopolitics, with a regional focus on North America, Polar Regions, southern Africa, and Australia and Pacific Islands.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly lecture given by academic scholars, field-based geography practitioners, members of the local community, and spatial justice advocates to share their knowledge- and practice-based research undertakings. Jointly presented by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series which previously underwent several iterative rebranding positions geography as a discipline that not only straddles the realms of natural/physical and social sciences, humanities, political ecologies, regional and area studies, GI technologies and geospatial storytelling, it is also a vibrant and convivial space that welcomes multiplicities and plural voices. The name Heo/Geo is itself an accommodation to the various understandings, meanings and pronunciations of geography in its indigenous and vernacular forms and the Anglicized name that has since been adapted in the local lexicon. 

This Heo/Geo Lecture is presented by the Human Geography (HUG) and the Environment and Development Geographies (EDGE) research groups of the UP Department of Geography and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) and #15 (Life on Land) of the United Nations.

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-01: Enrique Gallardo on sustainable energy pathways in the Philippines

A global energy transition is well underway. 

Fueled by dystopian scenarios of the climate crisis, governments, big business, and civil society organizations around the world have been on overdrive to rapidly scale sustainable energy. On all fronts, sustainable energy is being mainstreamed — from efficient cook stoves to green buildings, from LEDs to ocean energy, from rooftop solar to low-enthalpy geothermal. The Philippines itself is on an aggressive trajectory in increasing its renewable energy capacity, with a target to source at least 50% of all its energy needs from renewables by 2040, and 70% by 2050. This includes major portfolios on biomass, geothermal, solar, hydro, and wind, with increasing explorations in ocean energy. 

On Friday, the 30th of January 2026 at 5:30PM via Zoom, Enrique Gallardo will deliver a talk with a title Renewable Energy and Geographic Contestations in the Philippines for the first Heo/Geo Lecture Series for 2026. Presented by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), this Heo/Geo Lecture is the first among many diamond celebrations of PGS which turned 75 last December. 

Enrique Gallardo Jr has over 20 years of renewable energy work experience, ranging from missionary electrification initiatives to the launch of the first green energy auction program in the Philippines. He has worked extensively with the Department of Energy, various distribution utilities / electric cooperatives, international development organizations, and the private sector. He obtained a Master of Science degree in Renewable Energy Systems and is currently completing his PhD in Philippine Studies, with a research focus on the global energy transition and its impact on Indigenous communities and geographies. At present he is teaching a course on the concepts and principles of land use at the UP Department of Geography. 

The talk provides a glimpse how the pursuit of so-called sustainable energy pathways is fomenting rapid land conversion, encroachment into critical spaces, and social conflict. On balance, the presentation also explores the necessity and benefits of renewable energy development in the country, specifically in the context of building energy resilience and security in an increasingly volatile world. Attention is also accorded to possible solutions, or at least convergences, that enable the pursuit of energy resilience while mitigating its impact on vulnerable communities and spaces.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly resource talk / lecture given by academic geographers, geography-adjacent scholars, practitioners working in geospatial industries, and partners that engaged in multiple publics, and based locally and abroad. The talk ranges from the sharing of research findings to pedagogical practices and field-based experiences. This month's Heo/Geo Lecture Series is facilitated by the Environment and Development Geographies (EDGE) research group of the UP Department of Geography. The talk  is in line with the SDG #3 (Good Health and Well Being), #7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), 10 (Reduced Inequalities), #11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), #13 (Climate Action) and #15 (Life on Land) of the United Nations.

To participate in the lecture, click this link to register or just paste this link to your URL: https://tinyurl.com/44fthdye

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2025-12: Jessica Jacobs on the use of filmmaking and storytelling in community-led projects

In a Film Quarterly interview in 1970, Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha extolled that "we must be able to conceive of people all over making films in any form, in any shape, in any manner ... in every different way." His exhortation might as well apply to the newer and more progressive call to involve communities in employing film to tell local narratives using site-specific modes of production. In geography, the shift to the digital somehow opened up different modes and approaches in visual storytelling. Geographer and filmmaker Jessica Jacobs said that because "film is ... integral to the way people in the 21st century understand their world ... [it] helps geographers achieve a better understanding of how we experience our lived environment" (2016, p. 453).

For the 12th and last Heo/Geo Lecture Series for 2025, the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) together with Film Geographies (Films in Place), the Film Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), the Geographic Society of UP (GeogSoc) and the Junior Philippine Geographical Society (JPGS) present Place-making intangible heritage and climate mitigation with storytelling to be delivered by Jessica Jacobs on Thursday, the 4th of December 2025 at 5:00PM in Pavilion 2248. In her presentation, Dr Jacobs will talk about the research endeavor called Storytelling for All.

Storytelling for All was a community-led research project providing heritage focused filmmaking workshops to Bedouin communities in the South Sinai. The films created from this project include a series of short felted animations made by Bedouin women from St, Catherine's and Dahab. Each film offers a different story of a unique place, told by the people who live there.

The project set out to critically engage with the ways in which Bedouin cultural heritage, particularly women’s heritage, has been romanticized, extracted, or rendered invisible within national development agendas, tourism economies, and Eurocentric academic frameworks (Jacobs 2020). While there is a reasonable amount of digital content available online about Bedouin culture, the vast majority of it is about men and produced by men. This presentation argues that community practices of handcrafting held by women are a form of matrilineal knowledge transfer that, if adapted for digital use, can contribute to a future oriented practice able to support climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as being a form of engagement with a hard to reach community that can contribute more broadly to sustainable economic development.

For her presentation, Dr Jacobs will discuss the films produced by the project and argue that the stories they contain not only offer advice on sustainable practices for climate change mitigation and adaptation they also show us vital the role of matrilineal intergenerational knowledge transfer is, in keeping this knowledge, alive.

The Heo/Geo Lecture by Dr Jacobs is preceded by a 2-hour film workshop called 'Crafting Your Research Story with Film' from 2:30-4:30PM on 4 December in Pavilion 2248. To join in this workshop, please click this link to participate, or just paste this link to your browser: https://forms.gle/zzE6UQ8CajhRhHXr6

Dr Jacobs is a Research Fellow at the Queen Mary University of London. Her work focuses on heritage and tourism in the Middle East with a particular interest in how heritage is visualized, remembered and enacted through the production of tourist space. Dr Jacobs' research methods and outputs use filmmaking, creative mapping and other community focused strategies that aim to engage a wider audience within the scope of academic research and knowledge production.

Dr Jacobs is the founder of Film Geographies, an online forum for films and filmmaking as a form of academic practice and knowledge production. Film Geographies organise two annual calls for films AAG Shorts and RGS-IBG Shorts, to promote films by geographers and films about geography. Founded in 2016, Film Geographies now have over 150 films online.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly lecture given by academic scholars, field-based geography practitioners, members of the local community, and spatial justice advocates to share their knowledge- and practice-based research undertakings. Jointly presented by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series which previously underwent several iterative rebranding, emplaces geography as a discipline that not only straddles the realms of natural/physical and social sciences, humanities, political ecologies, regional and area studies, GI technologies and geospatial storytelling, it is also a vibrant and convivial space that welcomes multiplicities and a plurality of voices. The name Heo/Geo is itself an acknowledgment of the various understandings, meanings and pronunciations of geography in its indigenous and vernacular forms as well as the Anglicized name that has since been adopted and adapted to the local lexicon.

Dr Jacobs's lecture is the inaugural MELANGE Lecture speaker presented by the MELANGE research group of the UP Department of Geography. MELANGE stands for Media, Literary Geographies and Geohumanites, and the lecture is in line with the SDGs #4 (Quality Education), and #13 (Climate Action) of the United Nations.

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Notes:

Gordon Hitchens (1970). The Way to Make a Future: A Conversation with Glauber Rocha, Film Quarterly, 24.1 (Autumn, 1970), pp. 27-30.

Jessica Jacobs. (2020). Fabricating herstory: Using embroidery to map Bedouin tribal borders in South Sinai. Journal of Arts & Communities, 11.1-2, pp. 109-127.

Jessica Jacobs (2016). Filmic geographies: the rise of digital film as aresearch method and output, Area, 48.4, pp. 452–454. 

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2025-11: Mylene De Guzman on pedagogy-based service learning in geography

Extension work and services in the academic setting can engender multiple approaches, not to mention definitions that hover around 'outreach', 'town-gown relations' and the provision of 'human capital-enhancing inputs' as Anderson and Feder prefer to call it (2003, 2). 

Like most academic units in the UP System, the Department of Geography of UP Diliman provides extension services to its multiple publics. Mobilizing specific undergraduate and graduate courses, the extent of the Department's various partnerships with local communities result in a range of field-based undertakings. From capacity-building skills rooted in geographic technologies and methods to the co-production of specific and particular outputs deemed important by the communities, the Department learned various (geography) lessons that not only recognize that the ever-shifting priorities of communities require reflexive innovations, but also in maintaining and sustaining multi-scalar relations.

For the month of November, the focus of the Heo/Geo Lecture Series is in presenting a version of the Department of Geography's model (if you will) of service learning culled from several years of grounded pedagogy-based engagements with local communities as well as public and private organizations. Mylene De Guzman, a member of the faculty of the UP Diliman Department of Geography will present Geography Beyond the Classroom: Service Learning as Pedagogy on Friday, 21 November 2025 at 5:30PM via Zoom.

The presentation highlights the processes and reflections of service-learning activities of the Department from 1995 to 2024. Service-learning combines classroom instruction with community service and is a vital component of several courses offered in the B.S. Geography curriculum. Service-Learning in Geography (SLG) courses enable students to acquire practical work experience using techniques, knowledge, and ideas learned as geography students while serving various publics. Fieldwork is an essential part of conducting geographic research, and the SLG courses are designed to train students in conducting fieldwork and collecting and analyzing empirical data using geographic theories, concepts, analytical techniques, and methods. The presentation examines the incorporation of service-learning into the undergraduate and graduate curricula, reflects on the challenges that faculty handlers have faced, and charts novel ways of conducting geographic research that incorporates service-learning in Philippine higher education. 

This presentation is an excerpt of a joint publication of nine faculty members of UPD Geography titled 'Integrating Service Learning in Geography in Philippine Higher Education' which came out in the Winter 2024 issue of the Pennsylvania Geographer. SLG not only fulfills the university’s mandate as a public service university, as stated in the UP Charter of 2008 (Republic Act No. 9500) but also serves as a reflexive examination of the collaborations and partnerships between Geography as an academic unit and as "a step towards addressing ... social concerns by applying learned skills and knowledge to benefit local communities" (De Guzman et al, 2024, 2).

Dr Mylene De Guzman is an Assistant Professor in the UPD Department of Geography. Her research interests span labor geographies, lesbian geographies, risk perception, geonarratives, digital geographies, and geographic education and pedagogy. Dr De Guzman’s research employs the aca-fan lenses in studying K-Pop acts both as an analytical and reflexive frame in relation to moving image, geographies of music, spectatorship, and positionality.  She is currently the Vice President for Internals and Memberships of the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) and an active member of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). She is currently serving as the Managing Editor of the Korean Social Science Journal (KSSJ), the official journal of the Korean Social Science Research Council (KOSSREC). But more than these academic commitments, she cares and serves two senior cats: Coco and Pepper.

As in previous iterations, the Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly resource talk / lecture given by academic geographers, geography-adjacent scholars, practitioners working in geospatial industries, and partners that engaged in multiple publics, and based locally and abroad. The talk ranges from the sharing of research findings to pedagogical practices and field-based experiences. 

Dr De Guzman's lecture is co-organised by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society. It is also presented by the Human Geography (HUG), Geographies of Disaster and Hazards (GEDI), Environment and Development Geographies (EDGE), Media, Literary Geographies and Geohumanites (MELANGE), and the Geographic Information Systems and Techniques (GIST) research groups of the UP Department of Geography and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education), #10 (Reduced Inequalities), #3 (Good Health and Well Being), #15 (Life on Land) and #13 (Climate Action) of the United Nations.

To virtually attend the talk, please click this link to participate: https://tinyurl.com/4y4f752k

*Notes

While the members of the faculty constantly review, evaluate and reflect on the conduct of each class with an SLG component, one of the Department's SLG courses  -- the Geography Field School [Geography 192 (Field Methods in Geography)] -- has received the following recognition both in UP System and UP Diliman: 2017 Gawad Pangulo Award for  Excellence in Public Services, and 2016 Best Extension Program of Degree Granting Units. 

*Citations

Anderson, J.R. and Feder, G. (2003). Rural extension services. Policy Research, Working Paper 2976. World Bank: The Agriculture and Rural Development Program and Development Research Group.

De Guzman, M., Martinez, M.S., Garcia, E., Palis, J., Anacta, V.J., Cadag, J.R., Amorsolo, D.S., Ocampo, L.A. and Gutierrez, D. (2024). Service Learning in Geography in Philippine Higher Education, Pennsylvania Geographer, Volume 62, No. 2 - Fall/Winter 2024, 1-22.

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2025-10: Yaw Ofosu-Asare on landscape, decolonisation and everyday design

In The Four Seasons of Ethnography (2014), scholar and writer Sarah Amira de la Garza asserted that a Eurocentric perspective has insinuated itself to the wisdom traditions of local communities everywhere in ways that insist on domination, superiority and ownership. Providing a 'rich tapestry' and culture-specific contexts to emphasize lived experiences, scholar Yaw Ofosu-Asare employs storied-ethnography as a qualitative methodology that finds kindred affinity to postcolonial theory and participatory research towards "centring and valuing the narratives of those traditionally marginalized in scholarly research" (2025, p. 10). Through counter-acts, storied ethnography and creation-centered ontologies, there is an active refusal in the "erasure of lifeworlds" (Gagnon, 2024, p. 100). 

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series presents a lecture titled Land, Story and Design: Cultural Geographies of Care and Decolonisation from Dr Yaw Ofosu-Asare from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University on 17 October 2025, Friday at 5:30PM (Philippines Standard Time / 7:30PM AEST) via Zoom. 

The talk explores the geography of design as lived practice, showing how communities inscribe memory, resilience, and identity into landscapes through storytelling, ritual, and everyday design. Reading from his most recent book African Design Futures (2024), Ofosu-Asare centres the narrative of Efua from Edina, a coastal town in Ghana, to illustrate how coastal life, market spaces, and communal rituals embody forms of environmental care and spatial knowledge. These ideas may find echoes in the Philippines, where Indigenous practices, local markets, and rituals also root people’s relationship to land and sea. Alongside this, Dr Ofosu-Asare draws on Decolonising Design in Africa to pose a provocation: in seeking to decolonise, how do we avoid creating new hierarchies of knowledge? Together, these perspectives invite us to see landscapes not only as sites of ecological management but also as cultural geographies where futures are imagined and lived.

Yaw Ofosu-Asare is a Ghanaian designer, educator, and researcher based in Australia whose work bridges decolonial design, critical pedagogy, and African futures. He is the author of Decolonising Design in Africa: Towards New Theories, Methods, and Practices (Routledge, 2024) and African Design Futures: Decolonising Minds, Education, Spaces, and Practices (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). With a PhD in Education, his research explores the intersections of Indigenous knowledge systems, storytelling, and visual communication as tools for liberation and transformation.

Currently he is a Lecturer in Communication Design at RMIT University, where he  guides students in connecting theory and practice through industry-partnered studios and critical approaches to design pedagogy. Alongside his teaching, Dr Ofosu-Asare designed for grassroots organisations, educational institutions, and global social change movements, blending community-based design with speculative thinking. He also contributes to projects on climate justice, disability inclusion, and cultural sustainability. His work is rooted in a deep commitment to equity, memory, and creative reimagination.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly lecture given by academic scholars, field-based geography practitioners, members of the local community, and spatial justice advocates to share their knowledge- and practice-based research undertakings. Jointly presented by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series which previously underwent several iterative rebranding positions geography as a discipline that not only straddles the realms of natural/physical and social sciences, humanities, political ecologies, regional and area studies, GI technologies and geospatial storytelling, it is also a vibrant and convivial space that welcomes multiplicities and plural voices. The name Heo/Geo is itself an accommodation to the various understandings, meanings and pronunciations of geography in its indigenous and vernacular forms and the Anglicized name that has since been adapted in the local lexicon.

Dr Ofosu-Asare's lecture is also presented by the Human Geography (HUG) and Media, Literary Geographies and Geohumanites (MELANGE) research groups of the UP Department of Geography and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) of the United Nations.

To participate in the lecture, please register through this link: https://tinyurl.com/5bvfkrjn

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Works cited:

De la Garza, S A (2014). The Four Seasons of Ethnography: A Creation-Centered Ontology for Ethnography, In The Global Intercultural Communication Reader, 2nd edition (M K Asante, Y Miike and J Yin [eds.]), Routledge, pp. 151-173.

Gagnon, T (2024). Storying Against Dispossession: Nurturing Memories of Other Worlds, In Embodying Biodiversity: Sensory Conservation as Refuge and Sovereignty (T V Gagnon [ed.]), The University of Arizona Press, pp. 79-104.

Ofosu-Asare, Y (2025). Reimagining foundations: Storied-ethnography as a pathway to decolonized design education, Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, pp. 1-29.

Ofosu-Asare, Y (2024). African Design Futures: Decolonising Minds, Education, Spaces, and Practices. Springer Nature/Palgrave Macmillan.

Ofosu-Asare, Y (2024). Decolonising Design in Africa: Towards New Theories, Methods, and Practices, Routledge.