At the limits of critical geography: Creative interventions into the exclusionary spaces of U.S. geography

Abstract

In recent years, geographers have increasingly called for and enacted more sustained engagements between geography and the arts. This creative (re)turn represents both a renewed interest in recovering interdisciplinary practices within the history of the discipline and a desire to create space for new methods and creative approaches. This article develops in response to two areas requiring further critical engagement and development within the creative (re)turn: questions about the place of identity in creative geographies and the potential for creative geographies to perform critical interventions into disciplinary spaces and identities. I explore and develop these areas of concern alongside a discussion of a critical-creative geographies exhibit, The Critical Futures Visual Archive. Through a presentation of select works in this collection and a candid discussion of the institutional obstacles encountered in curating it, I elaborate upon the challenges and critical potentials of integrating creative practices into geography as a form of feminist praxis.     

Boundary spanning in social and cultural geography

This article situates interactions between German- and English-language social and cultural geographies since the mid-twentieth century within their wider intellectual, political and socio-economic contexts. Based on case study examples, we outline main challenges of international knowledge transfer due to nationally and linguistically structured publication cultures, differing academic paradigms and varying promotion criteria. We argue that such transfer requires formal and informal platforms for academic debate, the commitment of boundary spanners and supportive peer groups. In German-language social and cultural geography, these three aspects induced a shift from a prevalent applied research tradition in the context of the modern welfare state towards a deeper engagement with Anglophone debates about critical and post-structuralist approaches that have helped to critique the rise of neoliberal governance since the 1990s. Anglophone and especially British social and cultural geography, firmly grounded in critical and post-structuralist thought since the 1980s, are increasingly pressurized through the neoliberal corporatization of the university to develop more applied features such as research impact and students’ employability.     

Gender and geography in Italy

Abstract

This article attempts to provide a picture of Italian gender geography in order to better understand the discipline’s key achievements and development. Rooted in a lively tradition of feminism stretching back to the 1970s, Italian gender geography has faced cultural and academic resistance while achieving a number of milestones. There is still much to be done if the multifaceted theme of gender is to be fully engaged by Italian geography. However, seminars, national and international congresses on gender geography themes, and the dialectic encounter with international gender geography have stimulated the domestic debate since the new millenium. Italian gender geographic voices may be self-perceived as limited and isolated but are continuously engaged in the struggle to overcome the many structural and cultural constraints imposed by Italian society and academia. This article tries to review Italian gender geography’s history to look forward and encourage new agendas and projects within a larger academic audience.     

Cultural geography of vernacular architecture in a cross-cultural context: houses of the Dai ethnic minority in South China

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the cultural geography of the vernacular architecture of the Dai ethnic minority in Dehong Prefecture, located on the border between southern China and Myanmar. The objectives of the study include: exploring the characteristics and distributions of built forms, identifying the hybridization of ideal Dai pattern-built forms in Southeast Asia caused by the influence of the Han Chinese, and discussing the continuity and change of vernacular architecture in a cross-cultural context. The field methods include a physical survey of the cultural geography of Dai living as rice farmers in lowland geographies, a detailed investigation of their houses, and in-depth interviews with local informants about the dynamics of changes under socio-political constraints in China. The findings provide insight and knowledge about the cultural geography of architecture in a cross-cultural context.     

Recognizing and undisciplining feminist geography in the Caribbean

Abstract

The aim of this piece is to provide an overview of the state of feminist geography in the Anglo-Caribbean. In doing so via the metaphor of a gayap, we provide a précis of work that has been completed by feminist geographers across the region; offer an analysis of the historical, structural, and institutional obstacles of why it is not more robust; and propose that it can be seen across the region via an undisciplined and anti-orthodox standpoint. In addition, we review how Caribbean feminist scholarship and praxis contributes to feminist geographies through analyses of how people in the region, particularly women, are contesting, negotiating, disrupting, and responding to prevailing heteropatriarchal ideologies across differing social contexts and political arrangements within the Caribbean.     

School geography: some key issues for higher education

Abstract

Recent changes in the character and organisation of the school curriculum in England and Wales are making a direct impact on geography. Despite its place in the National Curriculum for 5–14‐year‐olds and its current popularity in public examinations at 16 + and 18 +, there are growing indications that geography may not be guaranteed security, status or quality in the long term. In particular, geography's position may be threatened in the 14–19 curriculum by its failure to be included in the statutory core, by increasing competition from vocational courses and by the possibility of further changes now proposed for the 16–19 qualification structure. There is also evidence of a growing discontinuity in content and approach between geography at school and in higher education. Threats to geography in schools are likely to have a direct impact on the supply of students to higher education and on the continuity of educational experiences. It is suggested that there needs to be a greater dialogue and joint school/higher education activity not only to ensure continuity and progression in the existing situation, but also to influence the next round of school curriculum change. Some areas for potential action are identified and these may have wider relevance to geography educators in other countries.     

Popular geographies and scholarly geographies in provincial France: the Société Normande de Géographie, 1879–1937

Geographical societies were established in many provincial cities of France during the final quarter of the nineteenth century. Through lectures and publications, these organizations promoted popular geographies at a time when academic geography was in its infancy. The Geographical Society of Normandy was founded at Rouen in 1879 and survived for six decades. Unlike some of its counterparts, it did not provide commercial information after its early years nor did it receive funding from the local chamber of commerce. Its annual Bulletins presented aspects of popular geography at the time and elucidated views held by explorers, colonial administrators and other contributors. Tales of expeditions to distant lands were reported enthusiastically, but assessments of opportunities for European settlement were not always optimistic. European affairs rose to prominence in the life of the Society in the years surrounding World War I. Its popular geographies conveyed in public lectures continued to enjoy success but contacts with academic geographers were intermittent. Largely forgotten geographical societies, such as that in Normandy, played a significant role in raising knowledge of the world before geography became firmly established as a university discipline.     

Feminist geography in the UK: the dialectics of women-gender-feminism-intersectionality and praxis

Abstract

Feminist praxis has always been about both the individual and the collective; one of the revolutionary and utopian promises of feminism is that of being, bringing, and working together. This piece provides a brief account of some of the significant scholarship and collective activities within British feminist geography over the last twenty five years, with a particular focus on the work of the Women and Geography Study Group/Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group. We underscore the importance of intersectional approaches to scholarship and praxis in UK feminist geographies in this period, and in going forward, as well as signalling some of the dialectical opportunities and tensions arising from this approach.     

Emotional geography of education for history learning

ABSTRACT

This conceptual paper explores two empirical examples to illustrate the need for ‘emotional geographies of education’ in relation to history learning at the level of primary education. It uses discursive analysis to analyse a specific WW2 history project, from a public school in England, to highlight the necessity to bridge formal environments of learning such as educational institutions, and informal spatialities of learning like the home and the community which provide the ‘funds of knowledge’ that students bring into the classroom. The article then discusses emotionality in the classroom (as a formal space of learning) by analysing pedagogical tools, such as testimonial literature used to facilitate emotional understanding of events like the Holocaust. Drawing from the literature on safe space, this article presents the nuances that have been raised with regard to power, dialogue and emotion, in relation to the discussion of classrooms as spaces of critical engagement with history.     

Vibrant mentoring landscapes in feminist geography

Abstract

Building on the feminist geography tradition of mentoring, in this brief introduction, I advance a vision of vibrant mentoring landscapes that are alive with difference and that continually renew the discipline. The diverse contributions to this themed issue approach questions around mentoring from a variety of perspectives and positionalities, including: gender, national origin, racialized identity, sexuality, career stage, life stage, parenting status, scale, geography, and type of educational institution. Some articles divulge personal experiences while others focus on roles that mentors play within a continuum of change versus stasis in institutions of higher education. Of particular note is a call to those with relative privilege to engage self-reflexively with the ways in which one may become more accessible to those who are structurally oppressed. Anything less than a truly diverse mentoring landscape within feminist geography impoverishes us collectively as well as the knowledge we produce.     

The challenges of feminist geography in Taiwan

Abstract

This article explores the development of feminist geography in Taiwan within the time frame of last three decades, since the first author became involved in the IGU Gender and Geography Working Group in 1988. It is found that Anglo-American influences have contributed significantly to the feminist movement in Taiwan. An important outcome over time has been the improved visibility of Women and Gender studies courses in academe. As social geographer and cultural anthropologist respectively, the authors trace important dynamics of growth in the academic fields of geography and the social sciences in post-secondary education. Owing to the history and the nature of the discipline of geography, and the structural constraints due to male-domination, there is still a high fence to cross over. Statistics show that a rising number of women in Taiwan have received PhD degrees. The authors note the mitigating development that younger women geographers have taken up administration positions as chairs of four of the five geography departments. However, up to the present time, in academic meetings and conferences, it is unlikely that any presentations on the topic of gender will be offered. The authors encourage younger generations of scholars in Taiwan to continue to look for and connect with feminist geographers abroad, to embrace diversity and inclusiveness in their research, and to help our society to grow in the level of gender equity.     

Israeli feminist geography: women,gender and queer geographies

Abstract

This article charts the changing knowledges within Israeli feminist geography in the last few decades. It briefly reviews some of the topics that characterize Israeli scholarship, and in particular the ways in which the academic knowledge changed from the focus on women’s geography, to feminist and gendered analysis of spaces, to a more recent focus on sexuality and gender. We argue that it is not that one knowledge replacing others, but rather all knowledges and approaches exist simultaneously within Israeli geography today.     

Celebrating 30 years of feminist geographies in the German-speaking countries Germany,Switzerland* and Austria

Abstract

In this paper, we present the development of feminist geographies in the three German-speaking countries Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Since the emergence of feminist approaches in German-speaking geography in the 1980s, feminist geographers situated in these countries have worked closely together within the context of the Working Group “Geography and Gender”. The overview highlights cornerstones of the development of feminist geographies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland such as the Feminist Geography Newsletter (Feministisches GeoRundMail), the Doreen Massey Reading Weekends, the feminist geography student meetings (Feministisches Geograph_innentreffen) and the current DFG-research network “Feminist Geographies of the New Materialism”. By doing so, we try to appreciate both the historical development of feminist geographies and the current situation in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Highlighting both informal and institutionalized pillars of feminist geographies in these countries, we show how feminist geographies have moved from a marginalized position towards a vibrant field that gains more and more attention within the German-speaking geography community as a whole.     

Feminist geography in Ecuador

Abstract

Latin American feminist geography exists in historically strong academic centers in the region, such as Brazil, Mexico and Argentina with an incipient tradition in Colombia, Chile and now Ecuador. In countries like Ecuador, where institutionalized human geography perspectives are lacking, the rise of feminist geography provides the field with important reflections regarding the flow of knowledge and practice. This paper addresses two ways in which feminist geography has entered Ecuadorian academia and activist-research circles. The first is through the work of the Critical Geography Collective of Ecuador and the second, through an incipient interest in feminist geography from different universities.     

Geographies of gender and feminism in Mexico: a field in construction

Abstract

This paper sets out to present geographies of gender and feminism in Mexico in order to identify some of the conceptual contributions, thematic axes and key problems within the field’s corpus of knowledge that, while widely-recognized internationally, is only beginning to develop in Mexico. I examine the academic production of feminist geography with an emphasis on the institutional contexts that may facilitate or perhaps impede putting such studies into practice in different institutions throughout the country. Additionally, I provide an account of the main objects of study that have contributed to configuring original, committed field research under the conditions of exclusion and marginality that women face on a daily basis.     

The emergence and institutionalization of feminist geography in Ghana

Abstract

The emergence and institutionalization of feminist geography in Ghana was in tandem with the global feminist movement in the 1970s and its subsequent international women’s conferences. This paper discusses the pioneering work and research at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, and its effect on the institutionalization and diffusion of feminist geography in Ghana. Through research and external collaborations, the need for gender as an academic discipline was strongly argued for and instituted as an undergraduate course at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana. These external collaborations with other feminist geographers in international geography associations and universities served as a boost as they created opportunities for highlighting the spatial variations in the role and situation of particularly women’s lives in Ghana. Subsequently, there was a diffusion of feminist geography research and its institutionalization as an academic sub-discipline in Geography departments in other Ghanaian universities. These notwithstanding, the departments of Geography in Ghanaian universities are still dominated by male faculty members. Moreover, research work has been mainly in the field of human geography more than the physical aspects calling for the mainstreaming of gender issues in all the systematic branches of the discipline.     

Moral teaching in geography

Abstract

Moral issues tend to be marginalised in contemporary education. This paper argues that geography is well placed to help to address this defect. Some cases with an obvious geographical dimension are outlined, to show how they might be used to open up broader moral problems. Geography teaching in higher education could have an important part to play in the reassertion of a moral dimension in how people come to understand the world and play a part in its re‐creation.     

Evolutionary economic geography: reflections from a sustainable tourism perspective

ABSTRACT

Evolutionary economic geography (EEG) is receiving increasing attention from tourism geographers with over 30 publications explicitly incorporating EEG into tourism between 2011 and 2016. Many of these contributions are conceptual, which is not surprising given the novelty of EEG within economic geography, in general, and tourism, in particular. However, a sizeable number of these are built on detailed case studies, using EEG as an analytical lens rather than as a conceptual point of departure. Thus, many tourism researchers have found that EEG has great potential for understanding change in tourism destinations. In this Research Frontiers paper I critically reflect on this early research of EEG in tourism geographies from a sustainable development perspective. In the cases presented, EEG offers a fresh understanding of two related challenges in each of two separate aspects of sustainable tourism development. First, pro-growth governance models can be disrupted by engaged local stakeholders in order to make tangible sustainability gains but these gains remain precarious over time as pro-growth governance models prove tenacious in the very long-term. Second, regional institutional legacies hamper new path emergence in two ways – through institutional inertia which keeps the region's focus on past success in other sectors and through the (possibly competing) institutional imperatives of the dominant and emerging tourism sub-sectors or sub-regions. These challenges are illustrated through two complementary Canadian cases drawn from the extant literature – the mass tourism destination of Niagara and the resort community of Whistler. I highlight how a sustainable tourism perspective can also help to critique EEG theory and empirics in line with other recent political economy critiques in economic geography. I conclude that sustainable tourism, at its best, is an established reflexive lens which will help to develop, validate, and challenge aspects of EEG theory within tourism studies, in particular, and economic geography, in general.