Few would be brave enough to predict with certainty what the world will be like in a few years’ time. A deep sense of unease and restlessness has increasingly come to characterise the zeitgeist, with reverberations for geographic research and teaching. While there is nothing new in changes, the present seems different somehow. Human-induced climate change, socioeconomic and political retrogression, and startling technological leaps are creating profound uncertainties. Wars and social unrest are reshaping geopolitics. Hitherto mobile capital is facing the reintroduction of trade barriers. Also under pressure are ideals of solidarity with vulnerable groups, as well as the freedom of individuals to define their identities. Migrant and refugee mobilities are being thwarted while tourist mobilities keep growing. An exploding number of satellites populates the skies, facilitating global communication while also creating new risks and concentration of power.  Large language models and artificial intelligence technologies are upending work and politics, while also having the potential to accelerate the search for solutions to many of the world’s most intractable problems. The changing climate is manifested in extreme weather events – flash flooding and heat waves for instance – for which there is little preparedness in many cases. The Earth itself is thus more restless than it has been for a long time but growing political and regional divides are stumbling blocks for the pursuit of a green transition.

What implications does all this have for academic research and teaching? And what possibilities do exist for constructive and creative political engagement, within and beyond academia? In this regard, geographers have much to contribute. As a discipline, geography itself has been rather ‘restless’, albeit in a positive sense: the field has been exceptionally open to creative theoretical and methodological experimentation, and quick to take up new research themes and topics. Yet some constants remain, in most general terms an overarching concern with space and place. Geographers have also increasingly recognised the importance of more-than-human subjectivities and agencies. The ‘bird’s-eye view’ long associated with geographic practices of mapping and representation has been supplemented by acknowledgement of non-visual senses and sensibilities that need to be taken seriously. So do physical processes of the Earth. Current geography employs a broad array of approaches, theories, methods and empirical data, which cultivate inclusive, intersectional and interdisciplinary insights cutting across landscapes and political boundaries. Indeed, critical yet constructive analyses of spaces and places in our restless world have arguably never been more essential.

For exploring of these and other relevant themes, we welcome participation of scholars from all subfields of geography, as well as cognate disciplines, in the 11^th Nordic Geographers’ Meeting which will take place in Reykjavík, Iceland, 22–25 June 2026.