Rethinking 'disciplinary' history: geography in British universities, c. 1580–1887

Against a background of recent work in the history of geography and of geographical knowledge, the paper considers evidence for the place of geography within British universities before the formal establishment of the first departments of geography. Attention is paid to geography's discursive connections with other subjects within given university curricula, and to the values placed upon its teaching by contemporaries. The paper argues that extant historiographies for British geography should be revised in the light of such evidence. More importantly, the paper raises questions about the sites and intellectual spaces in which geography has been situated and about the content, nature and purpose of writing geography's 'disciplinary' history.     

‘The first duties of persons living in a civilized community’: the Maya, the Church, and the colonial state in southern Belize

In recent years, historical geography has been at the forefront of new scholarship on the spatiality of colonial power and its complex relations with indigenous communities. This literature shows that imperial policies – emerging through state and scientific institutions, cultural practices, and capitalist ventures – required particular ways of conceptualizing, mapping, and organizing spaces and territories which transformed the geographies of indigenous communities, livelihoods, and identities. Through a close reading of archival texts from the late 19th and early 20th century, this paper examines the spatial and political relations between three groups: the Catholic Church, the British colonial state, and the Maya communities of southern British Honduras. Differences between the Catholic Church and the British colonial state – in their aims and approach to winning hegemony over the Q'eqchi' and Mopan Maya – were accommodated and assuaged by a tacit agreement: that the Maya must be settled in permanent communities. Colonial power, in both its spiritual and statist modalities, was imminently geographical, and this geography comprised the common ground between Church and state in their approach to the Maya.     

Picturing the homeland: geography and national identity in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Iran

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in geography as an ideologically loaded discourse about the world and its inhabitants which has operated both within and beyond educational institutions. Particular attention has been paid to the complex relationships between geography and imperialism, militarism and nationalism. For the most part, these studies have focused on the development of a western geographical imagination in Europe and North America. This article considers the development of geography in Iran during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and charts some of the connections between this new spatial sensibility and an emerging Iranian nationalism. Based on rare and hitherto unexplored nineteenth-century Persian sources, including several newspaper images, this article examines the importance which Iranian statesmen and diplomats in the service of the Qajar dynasty attached to geography and to geographical reasoning in their attempts to protect their authority from external threats. The forms of Iranian geography which developed in this period sustained various myths and legends about Persia's historic importance and reflected both external, western ideas and concepts as well as indigenous, Persian traditions. Forged in a context of acute vulnerability to «Great Power» incursions, Iranian nationalism and Iranian geography both represented an intermingling of external, western and internal, non-western ideas.     

Geography in higher education in the USSR

Abstract

Soviet geography in higher education stems from a solid tradition long pre‐dating 1917, but in Soviet times the subject's practical relevance to environmental problems has been especially emphasised. University courses are very specialised, yet in certain respects they are also extraordinarily broad by British standards. Geography graduates usually enter either teaching or scientific/ research bodies, to which they are readily suited by their training. The practical emphasis of geographical education, however, occasionally produces certain strains in the discipline.     

Geo-centric education and anti-imperialism: theosophy, geography and citizenship in the writings of J. H. Cousins

While much has been written of the complicity of geography with British Imperialism and projects of the nation state, the focus of this paper is the educational writings of James H. Cousins who advocated geography as a source of ordered knowledge, mystic insight, and resistance to imperialism. Cousins' formulation of nationhood in his writing on national education, his scheme of geographical education and his concern of ideal citizenship are discussed in order to explore his attempt to develop a Theosophical geographical imagination of non-hierarchical difference and global spiritual unity.     

Study of the History of Geographical Ideas

Two recent books on the history of geographical ideas, by A. G. Isachenko of Leningrad University, and by Preston James of Syracuse University, are reviewed in the general context of the need for a textbook for courses now being taught at Soviet universities. The Isachenko book is criticized on the ground that it reduces the history of geographical ideas to a history of physical geography, ignoring the impact of human activity. James, who deals with the history of geographical ideas as a whole, is praised for having included a chapter on the new geography in the Soviet Union and on the innovative aspects of theoretical geography, such as systems theory, spatial systems, diffusion on studies, etc. In the reviewer's opinion, the two books need to be examined critically in connection with preparation of a text for a Soviet university course on the history and methodology of geography.     

Introductory texts in biogeography

Abstract

Only a view of extreme pessimism or arrogance discounts the knowledge already acquired by those who enter the study of geography in higher education. The changes which occur in the teaching of school geography should be of considerable interest to those who teach geographical and related studies in higher education. This paper outlines and assesses the significance of the major changes which have occurred in geography teaching in schools in England and Wales in the past two decades. It also seeks to identify some of the influences which are likely to shape such teaching in the future.     

E. G. Ravenstein and the “laws of migration”

E. G. Ravenstein's three articles on migration, the first published one hundred years ago, form the basis for most modern research on migration; if the three articles are collated, his “laws” or perhaps more accurately, hypotheses, total eleven. This article considers, briefly, Ravenstein's career, the sources on which his “laws” were based and some of the difficulties of interpreting the British Census place of birth data. The bulk of the article reviews subsequent work on his eleven hypotheses with reference to nineteenth-century British internal migration. Subsequent work has confirmed that migration was mainly short distance and that there was relatively little increase in the average distance travelled by migrants until after 1850. His step-by-step hypothesis remains untested, but his belief that most migration was from the countryside to the towns is confirmed as is his identification of counter currents. His ideas on sex and age differentials have been borne out. However, his assumptions about the relative importance of natural increase and migration in the growth of cities and the relative importance of “push” and “pull” factors in causing migration merit further research. His original hypotheses have for the most part been confirmed. However, the defects of the published data suggest that nineteenth-century migration will not be properly understood until the enumerators' schedules for the century have been analysed.     

Exploring normative whiteness: ensuring inclusive pedagogic practice in undergraduate fieldwork teaching and learning

Higher education commentators have become concerned about how learning and teaching praxis across the sector may unwittingly advantage White British (WB) compared to Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students. Adopting critical race theory, this article explores these issues in relation to field teaching in geography and related subjects. It reports on primary data collected from students about to attend their first residential field trip. The research shows that WB and BME students approach their first field trip with diverse geographical experiences. The findings indicate a need to reflect critically on our fieldwork routines in order to promote inclusivity in field learning.     

‘Taken captive by the mystery of the Great River’: towards an historical geography of British geography and Atlantic slavery

By examining the case of James MacQueen (1778–1870), this paper initiates a research agenda that contributes to what David N. Livingstone has argued remains the most pressing task for historians of geography: to write ‘the historical geography of geography’. Born in Scotland in 1778, MacQueen was one of the many ‘arm-chair’ geographers whose efforts at synthesising contemporary and historical sources were a significant feature of the encounter between Europe and the rest of the world. Indeed, although he never visited Africa, his speculations about the course and termination of the River Niger turned out to be broadly correct. What makes MacQueen a particularly significant figure was the original source of his theory: enslaved Africans in a Caribbean plantation-colony. In this light, a remark that MacQueen's imagination was ‘taken captive by the mystery of the Great River’ carries a dark double-meaning, because ‘captive’ knowledge was the very source of MacQueen's interest in African geography. Beginning with MacQueen's time in Grenada, the paper explores a series of personal relations, textual traces and West African ethno-histories to reveal how his geographical knowledge and expertise were bound up with Atlantic slavery. This shows not only how the colonial economy, centred on the Caribbean, underwrote the production of geographical knowledge about Africa, but also how British geographical discourse and practice might be probed for traces of Atlantic slavery and enslaved African lives. More generally, the case of James MacQueen illuminates a broader field of relationships between Atlantic slavery, West African exploration, and the development of modern British geography in the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Examining these relationships is key to writing a ‘historical geography of British geography and Atlantic slavery’ and contributes to postcolonial histories of the discipline by revealing the tangled relationships that bound geography and slavery, knowledge and subjugation, that which ‘captivates’ and those held ‘captive’.     

Materialist hermeneutics,textuality and the history of geography: print spaces in British geography,c.1500–1900

This essay canvasses a range of recent work in literary studies and the history of science advocating a ‘materialist hermeneutic’, an approach to the study of texts which takes seriously their printed format as a bearer of expressive meaning. The essay goes on to show the role of such a hermeneutic in revising our narratives of the history of geographical thought by looking at the print format of British geography books in the era 1500–1900. It is argued that the age of discovery created a ‘problem situation’ for geographical knowledge which was solved by the geographical grammar, this solution only collapsing with the closing of the world in the late-nineteenth century. It is further shown that the so-called ‘new’ geography of the late-nineteenth century developed a radically different print space for geography. The print spaces of early modern and new geography are shown to have been key determinants of the social and intellectual positioning of geography as a scholarly enterprise.     

‘Fighting from the fields’: developing the British ‘National Farm’ in the Second World War

The Second World War had a profound impact on British Agriculture, with state intervention at an unprecedented level cementing the idea of a ‘National Farm’ in both the popular and the governmental psyche. Critical attention has recently begun to refocus on this period, adding to the somewhat celebratory meta-narratives written in the official histories. Drawing from the practice of micro-historical research and recent work in geography that seeks to understand the production of the landscape ‘from within’, this paper explores how ‘small stories’ can afford an appreciation of the ‘complications of everyday existence’ and bring greater depth, nuance and understanding to these ‘larger’ historical events and their influence on the British countryside. Utilising oral histories from farms in Devon (UK), the paper explores the micro-geographies which shaped as well as destabilised the national farm message as it was translated into the local context.     

Teaching Geography to Non-geographers at Glasgow Caledonian University

This paper discusses the teaching of geography to 'non-geographers' at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU). GCU is one of the so-called 'new' universities in the UK and it shares with many of these institutions a mission to facilitate access to groups that have traditionally been under-represented in higher education. Human geography is one of the six subject area streams within the interdisciplinary social sciences degree programme, although geographical subject matter is taught in many other degree programmes, in each of GCU's three faculties. The arrangements for teaching human geography at GCU present pedagogical challenges for staff. Means to address these problems have been implemented. In this case study, it is argued that the experience of teaching human geography to 'non-geographers' at GCU may be of more general significance to the discipline, to the teaching of geography in both 'old' and 'new' universities and to those responsible for the delivery of mainstream geography degree programmes.     

Visual culture and geographical citizenship: England in the 1940s

This paper addresses the place of geography in England in the 1940s in relation to debates over reconstruction. It focuses on the ways in which a particular sense of geographical citizenship was promoted around questions of landscape and the visual. The paper addresses the aesthetic geographies developed in relation to debates on planning and preservation, and shows how they embodied a particular social aesthetic. The relational definition of citizenship in contrast to an “anti-citizenship” is discussed in connection with legislative moves for national parks and open-air recreation. The place of physical geography as a cultural practice is addressed in relation to issues of coastal survey and field study. The paper concludes by connecting these geographical imaginations into broader movements for visual education and the promotion of principles of design in modern life.     

Geography and the Australian Curriculum: Unfulfilled Knowledges in Secondary School Education

The introduction of geography as a separate discipline within the Australian Curriculum offers hope for revitalisation of the subject in Australian school education after decades of decline. Since the 1990s, the subject has been largely submerged within an integrated curriculum framework that has had significant consequences for the presence and character of secondary school geography. Its inclusion in the learning area of SOSE (Studies of Society and Environment) within schools has diluted the degree, breadth and depth of geographical education. However, in spite of the hope provided by its re‐institution, the process of national curriculum construction has had disconcerting consequences for the type of geography being offered to Australian students at the secondary level. Building on critical overviews of the history of secondary geography as an Australian school subject since the 1980s, recent philosophical discourse on approaches to geographical knowledge in a school context, and the author's personal experience as a geographical educator and researcher, this paper argues that the nature of knowledge embodied by the new geography study design in Years 7–10 is flawed in both its scope and its direction. While reflecting many of the characteristics of a social realist approach to geographical knowledge, the Australian Curriculum minimises the elements of critical analysis that provide geography with its unique educational identity and value.     

Law and the historical geography of the Galilee: Israel's litigatory advantages during the special operation of land settlement

This article contributes to a re-evaluation of the role of law in historical geography. It focuses on Israeli officials' application of the complex legal process of ‘settlement of title’ to land in the all-Arab central Galilee during the 1950s and 1960s, which was aimed at transforming Jewish–Arab socio-spatial power relations in the region. Expanding Israeli conceptions of state land and the government's focus on contesting land claims of Arab citizens transformed the process into an overwhelmingly litigatory one, triggering thousands of legal disputes between state agencies and Galilee Arabs. Drawing on Galanter's work on repeat player advantage and Kritzer's work on government litigants, this article characterizes the state as a ‘government compound repeat player’, enjoying advantages that not only won cases in the Haifa District Court but that also had direct impact on the subsequent geographical transformation of the region. On a more general level, this article argues that law has played a greater role in shaping historical geographies than the literature might suggest and encourages additional work on the subject.     

地理学思想史指要——杰弗里·马丁《所有可能的世界:地理学思想史》评介

地理学思想史研究对地理学学科发展具有重要意义.当前国内对地理学思想史的研究比较缺乏.地理学思想史的任务并不仅仅是讲述地理思想和知识的产生、形成和演变过程,而且要通过这一过程达到对地理学性质的把握和准确认识.通过地理学思想史研究可以把握地理学的要旨:地球表面的差异性是地理学的关键,而对此进行描述和解释是地理研究的主要内容.地理学思想史有两个大的发展阶段:古典时期和近现代时期.在面临坚持传统与积极创新的抉择时,地理学家应该多从思想史中吸收和借鉴,并避免掉入二元论的语义陷阱.     

Teaching Geography to Non-traditional Students: Inducting,nurturing and retaining them

The Department of Environmental and Biological Studies at Liverpool Hope University College recruits an above-average number of students who could be classified as 'non-traditional'. Many are mature and many have gained entry to higher education via routes other than A level. In addition, and increasingly, many have selected or been allocated to the first-year geography modules with little or no experience of geography education. These students undertake a carefully structured programme of small-group teaching, designed to induct and train them in the practices of higher education and through which they are introduced to key geographical concepts. This paper highlights some of the issues arising from teaching non-traditional students and identifies as case studies elements of the programme, which support the development of students' skills and geographical understanding.     

Performing the Lodge: Masonry, masculinity, and nineteenth-century North American moral geography

Geographies reinforce gender and facilitate gender performativity. In this study of nineteenth-century Masonry, we demonstrate the influence of Masonic Temples in the promotion and performance of ‘Masonic masculinity.’ Masonry, through its design and construction of interior space, its embedded material symbolism and especially the geography of Masonic ritual itself, inculcated morality in prospective and raised Master Masons. Masonic Temple architecture and décor typify Victorian moral environmentalism vis-à-vis the parlor, the Masonic Lodge a domesticated male space where significant numbers of bourgeois men (and women) acted out a particular and peculiar masculine moral geography.