Initially, a large number of possible solutions is
identified using random generatingprocesses,
and by iterative processes built in to the search
algorithm alternatives are generated and
assessed according to a fitness function until
a solution is found that meets predetermined
criteria (cf. cellular automata; neural
networks). rj
genetic geographies An umbrella term
for the ways in which geographers, among
others, have been developing critical analyses
in novel theoretical and methodological direc-
tions to address some of the profound social
challenges to ideas of bodily integrity and
intervention (see body); social identity and
kinship; and the distinctiveness of living, in
contrast to other material kinds generated by
the practices and technologies of the life sci-
ences (see alsohuman genome). Geographers
have been slower than some (notably anthro-
pologists) to rise to the new questions and
analytical opportunities presented by the bio-
technological capabilities, processes and prod-
ucts that rely on various forms of genetic
engineering, data banking and commercia-
lization (Haraway, 1997). As well as contrib-
uting to the analysis of the space–times of
bio-informatic scientific practices themselves
(see Hall, 2003), geographers have been
involved in studying thepolitical economy
of global struggles over corporate attempts to
commercializebiodiversity(Hayden, 2003),
the history of the genetic framing of ideas and
practices of social ‘improvement’ (Flitner,
2003) and various interrogations of the bio-
informatic management and manipulation of
human genetic materials (see Greenhough
and Roe, 2006). In this, genetic geographies
can be thought of as a subset of the renewed
interest in, and framing of, the project of
biogeography that is distinguished by the
ways in which it refocuses that project from
the malleability of the world ofnature‘out
there’ to the human being ‘in here’. sw
Suggested reading
Flitner (2003); Greenhough and Roe (2006);
Hall (2003); Haraway (1997).
genius loci The spirit ofplace, or the dis-
tinctive atmosphere found in a place. In
Roman mythology, each place was protected
by a guardian deity (a ‘genius’), embodied in
the form of ananimalor supernatural being.
While resonances of this idea remain (e.g. in
New Age notions of sites of mystical energy,
such as Stonehenge),genius locinow primarily
refers to the unique assemblage of cultural
and physical characteristics that make a place
distinctive, with a characteristic ambience.
Loukaki (1997, p. 308) describesgenius loci
as ‘a place’s fingerprint’. Often found in liter-
ary depictions (the novelist Lawrence
Durrell’s works are perhaps the most well
known, especially hisAlexandria quartet),gen-
ius locihas enjoyed only sporadic use inhuman
geography, because it is such an imprecise,
difficult to use and contested term. Early on, it
was taken up by Herbertson (1915, p. 153),
who viewedgenius locias the equivalent to the
historian’sZeitgeistor ‘spirit of the age’ (‘There
is. .. a spirit of place, as well as of time’).
During the 1970s, kindred versions ofgenius
loci, although rarely the exact term itself, were
championed inhumanistic geographyunder
the guise of ‘sense of place,’ ‘topophila’ and
‘personality of place’. More recently, the term
has been taken up critically by Loukaki
(1997), who has been concerned with its im-
plications for ideology, and by Barnes
(2004b), who links the term to recent work
inscience studies. tbgenocide The deliberate systematic mass
killing and physical liquidation (‘extermin-
ation’) of a group of human beings who are
identified by their murderers as sharing na-
tional origin,ethnicity, race, gender or
other social distinction.
The term was proposed by the Polish jurist
Raphael Lemkin in hisAxis rule in occupied
Europe(1944), from the Latingenus(birth,
class, order, tribe) andcida(a person who
kills). Lemkin defined genocide as ‘the de-
struction of a nation or of an ethnic group’
and, as the title of his book suggests, he was
concerned with the mass murders carried out
by the Third Reich in occupied Europe, and
specifically with what came to be known as the
holocaust(see alsofascism). Lemkin pro-
posed that the industrialized murders of mil-
lions of Jews, Romanies, Slavs, gays and others
should be deemedcrimesagainst humanity,
which he suggested involved either ‘barbar-
ism’ – acts directed at the physical elimination
of a group – or ‘vandalism’ – acts directed at
the destruction of the group’sculture. But
these distinctions have turned out to be prob-
lematic: partly because the first almost always
involves a series of cultural constructions that
sustain a narrative of purification and contam-
ination to animate and legitimate the atroci-
ties, so that it is difficult to hold the two apart,
and partly because ‘barbarism’ and ‘vandal-
ism’ are themselves historically sedimented,Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_G Final Proof page 272 2.4.2009 6:30pmGENETIC GEOGRAPHIES