Benjamin Forest
Title:
Associate Professor
Link(s):
Research areas:
Social geography
Political geography
Urban geography
Current research:
I study the geographical nature of identity and identifications, and I am especially concerned with the political representation and construction of race, ethnicity, and nationality. My current research examines the political representation of ethnic minority groups, the use of monuments and memorials for (re)constructing post-Soviet national identities, and various issues of electoral geography, political parties, and governance.
Topics of interest
- Shaping Democracy: Boundary Commissions, Parties, and Citizens
- Municipal Policy Variation in the United States
- The Power of Symbolic Capital: Post-Communist Monuments Project
Degree(s):
- PhD Geography, UCLA (1997)
- Associate Member, Department of Political Science, McGill University
- Member, Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, McGill University
- Research Fellow, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada
Selected publications:
- Martin, Lily, Juliet Johnson, and Benjamin Forest (2026) "What's in a Name? Name Change, Memory-Work, and Symbolic Resistance in Rhode Island." Political Geography 131:103675. DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2026.103675
- Forest, Benjamin (2026) “The Geographic Polarization of Party Support in Canada: 2006-2021” in How John Agnew Transformed Geographic Thinking: The Territorial Trap and Beyond edited by Michael Shin. New York: Routledge: 110-131. DOI: 10.4324/9781003581031
- Johnson, Juliet and Benjamin Forest (2025) “Aspirational Iconography: The European Union Flag as an Extraterritorial Political Symbol” Annals of the American Association of Geographers: DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2025.2569511
Group:
Faculty