A Kent State geography professor earned an Outstanding Research and Scholarship Award for bringing a geographical perspective to war, violence and genocide.

James Tyner, a professor in the Department of Geography, focused his research on viewing social and political issues through a geographer’s point of view. In the last 10 to 15 years, he has tried to understand the mass genocide in Cambodia, specifically from 1975-1979, according to a university press release.

“Geography has not historically engaged with genocide or mass violence,” Tyner, whose study is concentrated in political and population geography, said in a university press release. “As a geographer, I’m focused on the where of occurrences. After starting my research on the Cambodian genocide, there were a number of geographical questions that weren’t answered because they weren’t asked.”

Tyner recreated what was happening in Cambodia and shed light on the genocide there, analyzing documents to evaluate the country’s daily political and economic activities.

His book War, Violence and Population: Making the Body Count won the 2009 Association of American Geographers’ Meridian Book Award.

Tyner teaches courses at Kent State including the Geography of East and South East Asia, Political Geography and graduate course Seminar on Geographic Thought.

Contact Katie Nix at [email protected].