FAQ

The call for BDS aligns with the AAG Statement of Professional Ethics on numerous points.

First, the preamble outlines that “Our discipline of geography is stronger when we uphold equity, human rights, and educational freedom across the breadth of geographic inquiry. We appreciate the diversity of our members’ experiences and backgrounds.” Equity, human rights, and educational freedom are all under attack by the state of Israel - from the bombings, starvation, and other war crimes committed by Israel on the people of Gaza, to Israel’s fundamentally unequal two-tiered system of citizenship, to assaults on education inquiry in the form of destroying academic institutions and archives to the everyday censorship and imprisonment of journalists, academics, and others. It is thus a professional responsibility for geographers to stand together to uphold our commitments to equity, human rights, and educational freedom for Palestinians through the BDS call.

Second, AAG Statement on Professional Ethics states that “do not harm” is “an overarching ethical principle, serving as the basis for all academic and professional activities of geographers [III]. Harms are further outlined include those “affecting the dignity, livelihood, and well-being of human and non-human lives as well as the resilience and sustainability of ecosystems and environments. Beyond direct harm, we should also consider long-term and indirect implications, and possible unintended consequences, being willing to step back from or terminate those activities when harm feels unavoidable.” Israel’s record on harms committed against Palestinians and those working in solidarity with Palestine (including Israelis) is widely documented. The Israeli colonial project has also had negative impacts on the region’s ecosystems as Israel has committed what scholar Irus Braverman refers to as “ecological warfare” on non-human lives (olive trees, goats, etc.) associated with Palestine. Moreover, geographic research has shown the assault on Gaza has substantially increased carbon emissions which has negative impacts on climate change. Given the myriad harms committed by the state of Israel–as expressed and upheld by its universities–the call for BDS aligns with the AAG’s call for geographers to “step back from or terminate those activities when harm feels unavoidable.”

Third, the AAG Statement of Professional Ethics calls for geographers to “Abstain From Actions That Pose Serious Risk…geographers should eschew collaborating with or seeking funding from public or private organizations known to participate in warfare or similar acts of violence – such as those associated with the military, intelligence, security, or police” [III.4; VI.1]. The call for BDS is at its core a commitment to not collaborate with academic or cultural institutions associated with the Israeli military, intelligence and security services which by definition participate in, contribute to or justify warfare and violence against Palestinians.

1. AAG bylaws stipulate that members can propose resolutions to the executive council. A first step is circulation of a petition to the membership to call for a special meeting. The petition to hold a special meeting must garner signatures of at least 10% of the active membership. Geographers for Justice in Palestine conducted a petition drive at the 2025 AAG meeting in Detroit and surpassed the 10% threshold!

2. Once the signatures were verified, the AAG executive ought to call the special meeting. The meeting can be held online.

3. The purpose of the special meeting would be to discuss the resolution or resolutions proposed by the organizers of the petition.

4. A vote, open to the entire membership, could be held following the special meeting.

AAG bylaws stipulate that members can propose topics for discussion and call meetings. The first step is circulation of a petition to the membership to call for a special meeting, which must garner signatures of at least 10% of the active membership. Geographers for Justice in Palestine conducted a petition drive at the 2025 AAG meeting in Detroit and surpassed the 10% threshold! The AAG council has approved our call for a special meeting and is planning the next steps, but it will be important to keep the pressure on to make sure that the resolutions and next steps proposed by GJP are actually exercised by the council.

If you would like to keep abreast of where the campaign is headed, please sign up for our listserv here [LINK].

Geographers for Justice in Palestine is currently drafting resolution language. These resolutions will ask the AAG to undertake the following actions:

Boycott

• Endorse and honor Palestinian civil society’s call to boycott Israeli academic institutions until such time as these institutions end their complicity in the illegal occupation, Israeli apartheid regime, and violation of Palestinian rights as stipulated in international law; and,

• Suspend all institutional and organizational partnerships and contracts with Israeli academic institutions and Israeli commercial interests until such time that Israel ends its policies of military occupation and apartheid.

Divestment

• Endorse and honor the call of Palestinian civil society for divestment from financial ties to the state of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid,

• Disclose all current investments of the organization,

• Take active and timely steps to divest from companies and state entities profiting from Israeli apartheid, according to the criteria of the BDS movement, and with the assistance of the American Friends Service Committee who have identified a clear path to divestment focusing on companies facilitating or profiting from the Israeli settlement industry, the exploitation of natural resources on Occupied Palestinian land, walls and checkpoints, weapons and military equipment, and discrimination against Palestinians.

• Commit to refrain from making any future investments in companies and state entities profiting from Israeli apartheid until the Palestinian people have dismantled the apartheid structure of Israel, have been granted the right of return, and have successfully brought an end to the occupation.

Over the past twelve years, several professional organizations have passed BDS resolutions, including: the Association for Asian American Studies (2013), Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (2013), American Studies Association (2013), Critical Ethnic Studies Association (2014), International Critical Geography Group (2015), National Women’s Studies Association (2015), Middle Eastern Studies Association (2022), American Anthropological Association (2023), the Geographical Society of Ireland (2025), and Canadian Association of Geographers (2025). These academic organizations have passed BDS resolutions through a mixture of methods in alignment with their respective bylaws.

Implementation of BDS involves a responsibility towards taking proactive steps towards academic boycott and divestment. For instance, the Middle Eastern Studies Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom has written letters on behalf of its membership denouncing state partnerships between US and Israeli universities. National Women’s Studies Association recommitted to BDS in 2024 after the association’s then-president traveled to Israel in 2022. NWSA committed to plenary sessions, conference subthemes, and intellectual production centering Palestinian feminists and feminism. While we are not clear if AAG currently has institutional ties with Israeli universities or scholarly associations, passing the boycott would prevent new ties from forming. Our association could also highlight issues with geography-specific complicit ties even if outside of our association, for instance, recent NSF calls for partnership with Israeli universities on Geo-sciences and Human-Environment and Geographic Sciences divisions. Additionally, the International Cartographic Association has announced it may hold its 2027 conference in Tel Aviv; this campaign would encourage AAG members and the AAG to pressure the ICA to hold the conference in a different location, or to boycott that conference if it were held in Tel Aviv.

Divestment usually involves an audit of current funds and a directed investment strategy. Our understanding is that AAG’s portfolio has already committed to some “ethical investment” strategies, so it is within the already existing best practices of our organization to reconsider where and how these funds are located. Specific companies which would be the most likely targets for divestment might include tech companies like Microsoft and Palantir, weapons and drone manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and other multinational firms which have been condemned by a new UN report as “profiting from genocide.”

Geographers for Justice in Palestine is planning an open meeting with representatives from cognate disciplines to better understand their implementation strategies.

Our archival research has shown that member-driven political activity was quite common in the AAG’s history. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was fairly common for AAG members to circulate resolutions, and members cast votes on these resolutions by mail-in ballot. These included resolutions on support for the Equal Rights Amendment (1978) and against nuclear war (1986). Interestingly for our campaign, the AAG briefly ratified the position that it would affirmatively boycott any state which had not passed the ERA, a move that council understood as participation in “economic sanctions” (AAG newsletter 1978 issue 10). Even earlier, in 1969 the AAG convention was moved from Chicago to Ann Arbor in protest of the actions that took place during the 1968 Democratic Party convention.

There are numerous more recent available models for member-driven change within the AAG. The first was relatively straightforward: in 2013, the AAG voted to rename itself from “the Association of American Geographers” to “the American Association of Geographers.” Though the proposal had full support of the executive council at the time, it was submitted to member vote and approved in 2015.

Another example of member-driven change was the efforts by a group known as the Network of Concerned Geographers (NCG). This group crafted a petition demanding that the AAG create a commission charged with 1) studying the relationships between geographers and the military; 2) weighing the ethics of these engagements; and 3) providing recommendations. Formed in 2016, the group gathered signatures on a petition before eventually presenting to the AAG executive and council in 2017. The Executive Council passed the proposal in 2017, creating the Geography and Military Study Committee. Though under-resourced and on a tight timeline, this group eventually produced the “Final Report on Geography and Engagement with the Military: Issues, Status, Findings” in 2019. The publication of Joel Wainwright and Bryan Weaver’s commentary on the report resulted in its release to AAG membership in 2020. However, though the report includes several recommendations, these have not been implemented.

Finally, the Climate Action Committee, created as a task force in 2019, was charged with reducing emissions from the AAG’s annual meeting. This task force was created after Pam Martin and Joe Nevins circulated a petition in spring 2019 to various geography listservs requesting that the AAG Council take significant action “to reduce CO2 emissions related to the Annual Meeting.” A report was published in 2021, though many of the recommendations from this report remain unenacted. Nonetheless, the AAG did change its investments after these events and proudly describes them under the heading “Members spoke: AAG listened.”

A number of the results from these processes are important precedents for today. Firstly, principles of transparency and publicity, commitment to implementation, and devotion of resources are important to ensure appropriate action is taken. Importantly for our campaign, the Geography and Military Study Committee recommended comparing AAG policy “with the codes of ethics related to research developed by other disciplines such as the American Anthropological Association (AAA)...” This would be a revealing comparison, since the AAA has adopted a BDS resolution. Finally, while there are similarities and overlap between the NCG report recommendations and BDS (i.e., ending AAG participation in research partnerships and collaborations with military or intelligence agencies), there are also important differences. While the NCG report emphasizes the AAG’s direct collaborations and complicity with military activities, implementing BDS would involve boycotting and divestment from all companies and institutions (including non-military organizations) that play a significant role in supporting and profiting from Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide in Palestine. Furthermore, the NCG ultimately did not rely on membership mobilization or votes after the initial petition. By contrast, our BDS effort steadfastly rests on ongoing membership support and mobilization – in part because implementation requires education and organization of our members.