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.