While there is much to like in Simon Springer’s article, in this commentary I would like to re-examine several concepts that Springer consigns (much too prematurely, in my view) to the dustbin. Two of these he identifies quite explicitly—vanguardism and revolution; a third by implication—important dimensions of the state.

Hegemony is a preferred mode of governance. Because it relies more heavily on consent than on coercion, it tends to produce a more willing, and less resistant, citizenry. By its nature, hegemony depends crucially upon a widely shared, common-sensical view that elites are acting in the interests of those being governed, and this common sense underpins the legitimacy and authority of those in power. Failure to maintain such legitimacy can produce moments of severe crisis in governance, and such threats must be avoided or ameliorated. Typically, this kind of boundary work takes place “behind the scenes.” There are moments, however, when these efforts at state maintenance become visible, and might be investigated to reveal mechanisms that could be turned to progressive ends. We contend that official, state apologies offer one such avenue for investigation, and we offer our substantiation for this claim in the paper below.

The title of the Association of American Geographers session that gave rise to this set of papers,`What Next?', immediately implies a telos. Even to pose the question suggests some kind of coherence to history, and some sense of progress through time. The only way I can make sense of such a question is to ask for its object, its metric.``What next'', in what sense? There is a definite sense of taking stock, and then moving on. But judged against what? There is also some sense of self-satisfied accomplishment ...`there, that's done, what next'? But what is done? What has been accomplished? And, in terms of moving on, how do we know where we are unless we have some set of goals or objectives against which to gauge our present position? How can we begin to think about what is next unless we know where we want to go? In addition to a sense of motion, the question`what next?' also implies a metric for evaluation, that moving from where we are to where we might go would constitute some improvement over present conditions. Again, determined and measured how, and by whom? And, of course, who is this`we'?Before turning to these matters in some detail, let me explain the origin and significance of the title. The idea for the paper actually began on a car trip from Oaxaca City out to Las Bahias de Huatulco (on the coast of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca; hardship, yes I know). As we tried making our way out of town (and elsewhere on the road system), we encountered inordinate (to my mind anyway) numbers of speed bumps, called in Spanish topes. They were ubiquitous, and became particularly thick in front of the innumerable roadside stands. They took on many forms, some familiar, some not soösuch as the variation called the vibrador, which consisted of a series of minitopes spaced closely together to produce a washboard (and moderate Magic Fingers 2 ) effect, and thus the name. Clearly, while the topes constituted impediments to our`progress', they were serving others' purposes.In The Prison Notebooks, and elsewhere, Gramsci (1995Gramsci ( [1971) termed structures that legitimate dominant practices and organize consent`hegemonic apparatuses'. The tope embodies such an apparatus in both metaphoric and material terms. As Artz and Ortega Murphy describe,``hegemonic apparatuses build consent by establishing accepted practices through sheer repetition (`this is the way we do things here'), then legitimizing them as valuable and natural (`this must be the best way to do things')'' (2000, page 40). Topes are (almost always) emplaced by authorized agents. Even when

In this short piece, drawing on personal and professional experience, and based on the urgency of myriad crises, I suggest ways of moving our considerable accumulated theoretical, methodological, and substantive insights more consciously (rather than tacitly) into wider circulations of dialogue and activism. I examine extant hegemonic relations of academic production and reproduction, the relationships between academia and the “outside" worlds in which we operate, and conclude with some specific recommendations for the role that this newest member of the Environment and Planning suite of journals might take in these critical endeavors.

Understanding the mechanisms that construct and maintain the taken-for-granted, "common sense" understandings of everyday life is an essential prerequisite for reconfiguring conditions in more progressive directions. Highlighting particular moments, when these processes can be made visible, and drawing appropriate insights from such interrogations is useful not only for illuminating the fundamental malleability of "common sense" (itself a crucial element of change), but also for providing suggestive strategies and tactics for effectuating change. Here the construction and reconstruction of the "common sense" around tobacco is offered as an instructive case.