Inaugural Lecture of Dr. Holly R. Barcus as DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography (In-Person)

The Inaugural Lecture of
Dr. Holly R. Barcus
as DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography

“The Importance of Place: Exploring Geographies of (Im)Mobilities, Landscapes, and People”

Reception following the lecture.
 

Holly R. Barcus is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she has taught since 2005. Barcus holds BA and MA degrees in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (1995, 1997) and a PhD in Geography from Kansas State University (2001) and a Master of Asia-Pacific Studies (MAPS) degree from The Australian National University (2014). 

A human geographer by training, Barcus’s research interests converge at the intersection of migration, ethnicity, and community change in rural places. Her work since 2006 is amongst the Kazakh population of western Mongolia and considers questions of identity, environment, and changing migration trajectories. Her broader interests include the implications of migration and (im)mobility for place identities, landscapes, and community change in rural regions across the globe, including previous research in rural regions of the United States, such as Appalachia and the Great Plains.
 
Barcus’s work appears in journals such as Population, Space and Place, Geographical Review, Asian Ethnicity, and Regional Studies and has been funded by the National Science Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among others. In 2018, she co-authored Lives Across Space: An Introduction to Contemporary Population Geographies (Taylor & Francis, Routledge) with Keith Halfacree (Swansea University, Wales). Her 2022 edited volume, Rural Transformations: Globalization and its Implications for Rural People, Land, and Economies (Routledge, with Roy Jones, Curtin University, Australia; and Serge Schmitz,University of Liège, Belgium), profiles case studies of rural sustainability and transformation from countries spanning the Global South and North. Barcus continues to work closely with colleagues across the globe through her elected position of Vice President and Treasurer of the
International Geographical Union (IGU) Executive Committee.  

Collaborative teaching and scholarship are essential components of her work and professional identity. She considers the opportunities to work with community members, students, and colleagues, in coordinating international field schools and international faculty seminars, in addition to local and regional project-based collaborations to be among the most rewarding of her career. When not at Macalester, she enjoys hiking, biking, and paddling with her family as well as exploring the material representations of culture and place, such as food preparation, textile production, and glass blowing.