Geography’s Role in Civic Engagement: Conversations, Analysis, and Reflections on U.S. Electoral Districting

Every ten years, following the census, the United States engages in electoral redistricting—the process of redrawing congressional, state, and local districts. Given legislative, political, and social repercussions, participation in redistricting is a powerful form of engaged scholarship and an opportunity for geographers to communicate directly with community members and policymakers and to demonstrate the power of geographic analysis. This article highlights different ways that geographers contributed to the 2021 round of electoral districting as researchers, educators, organizers, legal experts, and cartographers. As geographers with highly varied backgrounds located in different institutional contexts in states with widely varied political identities, theorizing the way individual positionalities shaped the form and effectiveness of our particular modes of engaged scholarship frames our perspectives. Geographic research has specific promise for enhancing the function of democratic institutions, extending the popular understanding of maps and geography, and strengthening civic engagement by promoting outreach underpinned with rigorous scholarship. Through our research and advocacy, we demonstrate how electoral redistricting offers promise for geographers in terms of direct impact and as a means to convey to the public and crucial stakeholders what geography has to offer a democratic society. Although the next mandated federal redistricting cycle is several years off, planned redistricting continues in cities, school districts, and other jurisdictions; litigation persists across multiple courts; and elected officials across the country are redrawing district lines off-cycle for partisan advantage. We call on geographers to seize opportunities to strengthen and guide democratic processes in places where they live and work.