Dr. Kenneth Madsen

182 LeFevre Hall 
1199 University Drive 
Newark, Ohio 43055

Areas of Expertise

• Borders
• Indigenous-Academic Interactions
• Conflict Between Interest Groups

Education

• 2005 PhD, Geography, Arizona State University
• 1999 MA, Geography, Arizona State University
• 1989 BA, International Studies, Graceland College

Kenneth Madsen's research focuses on the interaction between local communities and border security / border law enforcement activities. Much of his work considers the specific circumstances of the Tohono O'odham of southern Arizona and northern Sonora.  He is also interested in dynamics of indigenous-academic interactions and insights from fiction on geographic processes.

Ongoing Newark Earthwork's Center's Research

• Indigenous Ohio: OSU and Native Arts and Humanities Past and Present Grant

Research

• Madsen,  Kenneth D. 2021. "Terminus Unleashed: Divine Antecedents of Contemporary Borders." Journal of Borderlands Studies (available ahead of print). [external link DOI]
• Bein, Rick, Et Al. 2020. "Fifty Years of Fieldwork in Latin America (contribution to photo essay)." Journal of Latin American Geography. 19 (1): 115-131. [external link DOI]
• Weiser, Elizabeth; Low, John; Madsen, Kenneth. 2019. "One site, many interpretations: managing heritage at an ancient American site," in Smeds, K. and Davis, A. (Eds.) Museum and Place.  Paris: ICOFOM (International Committee for Museology), pp. 138-161. [external link]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2018. "Walls, waivers and what we don’t know (part of the JLAG Perspectives Forum – The Border Wall and Beyond: Political and Environmental Perspectives)." Journal of Latin American Geography. 17 (3): 262-264. [external weblink] [external link as printed]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. and D.B. Ruderman. 2016. "Robert Frost’s ambivalence: borders and boundaries in poetic and political discourse." Political Geography. 55: 82-91.  [external link DOI]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2015. Research dissonance. Geoforum. 65: 192-200.  [external link DOI]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2015. Graffiti, art and advertising: re-scaling claims to space at the edges of the nation-state. Geopolitics.  20 (1): 95-120. [external link DOI]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2014 Contextualizing cultural landscapes and political geography with montage. you are here.  XXVI: 42-45.
• Madsen Kenneth. D. 2014. A basis for bordering: land, migration and inter-Tohono O’odham distinction along the U.S.-Mexico Line, in Jones, R. and Johnson, C. (Eds) Placing the Border in Everyday Life. London: Ashgate, pp. 93-116. [external link]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2014. The alignment of local borders. Territory, Politics, Governance. 2 (1): 52-71. [external link DOI]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2014. Blue Indians: teaching the political geography of imperialism with fictional film. Journal of Geography. 113 (2): 47-57. [external link DOI]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2011. Barriers of the US-Mexico border as landscapes of domestic political compromise. cultural geographies. 18 (4): 547-556. [external link DOI]
• Soto-Berelov, Mariela and Kenneth D. Madsen. 2011. Continuity and distinction in land cover across a rural stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border. Human Ecology. 39 (4): 509-526. [external link DOI]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2008. Indigenous research, publishing and intellectual property. American Indian Culture and Research Journal. 32 (3): 89-105. [external link]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2007. Local impacts of the balloon effect of border law enforcement. Geopolitics. 12 (2): 280-298. [external link DOI]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2005. A Nation Across Nations: The Tohono O’odham and the U.S.-Mexico Border. PhD. Dissertation, Arizona State University. [external link]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. and Ton van Naerssen. 2003. Migration, identity and belonging. Journal of Borderlands Studies. 18 (1): 61-75. [external link DOI]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 2002. Writing for non-geographers: lessons from the J.B. Jackson Prize. Geographical Review. 92 (1): 63-72. [external link DOI]
• Madsen, Kenneth D. 1999. The U.S.-Mexico Border Fencescape Along the Arizona-Sonora Boundary. MA. Thesis, Arizona Sate University. [external link]
• Arreola, Daniel D. and Kenneth Madsen. 1999. Variability of tourist attraction on an international boundary: Sonora, Mexico border towns. Visions in Leisure and Business. 17 (4): 19-31.

If you are interested in obtaining digital or print copies of any of these publications, please email me.

Exhibits

• Up Close with U.S.-Mexico Border Barriers Exhibit
  • February 6 – March 29, 2019. LeFevre Art Gallery. This exhibit was also displayed at the Dayton International Peace Museum and Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio.