The new board of the Asian Geographical Association. The rightmost person is Igor Okunev. Photo: press-service of the AGA
The well-known political geographer and member of the RGS Igor Okunev has been elected Vice-President of the Asian Geographical Association. This happened on October 22 in the city of Nanjing (China) at the general meeting of members of this authoritative international scientific organization.
The Asian Geographical Association was established in 2018 and currently unites 28 national geographical societies. Its mission is to develop geographical science in Asia, strengthen academic cooperation, promote geographical schools of this part of the world at the global level, and stimulate joint research. Today, it is the only major international geographical association that supports Russia’s institutional membership. Our country is represented in the association by the Association of Russian Geographers and Social Scientists, where Igor Okunev holds the position of Vice-President for International Relations.
At the general meeting, the representative of the Geographical Society of China, Director of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician Fahu Chen, was elected President of the Asian Geographical Association. The board also includes the heads of geographical societies from India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Japan.
A distinctive feature of the election procedure in the Asian Geographical Association is the need to ensure representation in the leadership of all five subregions of the continent: West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. During the voting, the secretariat did not assign Russia to any of the subregions, which immediately worsened our country’s starting position. At the same time, no delegates from Central Asia were nominated to the board.
«Meanwhile, Russia is geographically, obviously, not only a European but also an Asian state, and, secondly, being located in Northern Eurasia, thanks to long-standing friendly ties, it can contribute to more active involvement of the geographical communities of post-Soviet states, ” Igor Okunev noted in his speech at the forum.
This position was supported, in particular, by the Geographical Societies of Tajikistan and Pakistan, and this became an important argument in favor of electing the Russian delegate as Vice-President of the Asian Geographical Association.
In addition to organizational issues and the election of new leadership, the delegates took part in the scientific events of the Asian Forum for the Development of Geography, where they discussed current issues related to spatial development, climate change, and the sustainability of Asian regions.
Igor Okunev is a Candidate of Political Sciences, Associate Professor, Leading Researcher at the Institute of International Studies at MGIMO University of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Director of the MGIMO Publishing House, Editor-in-Chief of the scientific almanac on political geography Terra Politica, and founder of the Youth Center of the Russian Geographical Society at MGIMO. He is also the author of a textbook on political geography, which has been translated into several foreign languages, four individual monographs, and more than 150 publications on issues of political and electoral geography in leading Russian and foreign scientific publications.