The International Critical Geography Group (ICGG) describes itself as...
> geographers and non-geographers committed to developing the theory and practice
> necessary for combating social exploitation and oppression.
Like all organisations dealing with highly politicised issues of global
geography, it has its own ideology. That ideology does not correspond with the
emotional tone of the self-description. The reality is that some people
involved with the ICGG promote new forms of oppression, whatever the name they
give to it.
The ideology appears in the statement of purpose
http://econgeog.misc.hit-u.ac.jp/icgg/Statement_ICGG.html
for instance in this self-definition..
> We are CRITICAL because in opposing existing systems that defy human rights, we
> join with existing social movements outside the academy that are aimed at social
> change.
Human rights are in themselves a typical ideology of oppression, used to
justify superpower military intervention, and the recolonisation of Asia and
Africa. The inability of the ICGG to distance itself from human rights, shows
the degree of its identification with "western" values, the values of the
liberal tradition. A person who refuses to even consider that human rights
might be evil, can not themselves be considered "critical".
At present, there is a general shift in western foreign policy thinking,
towards intervention, unilateralism, and unipolarism. To a large extent that
is the result of the NGO lobbies which have acquired so much power in the last
20 years. It is this NGO cartel and its client 'civil society' in eastern
Europe, which the ICGG calls "social movements". There are no longer any
"social movements" in the traditional sense: in fact I can not think of any
non-NGO "movement" in Europe with more than a few hundred members. I am not
advocating 1960's nostalgia, but a recognition, that critical geographers
often align themselves with oppressive organisations, advocating the
imposition of liberal values on the world.
> http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/human.rights.html
> Why human rights are wrong
I think there is no mystery about the general ideology of critical geography.
It accepts the fundamental values of liberal democracy - human rights, civil
rights, the separation of powers, democracy. It accepts liberal historicism -
in which the world is believed to be advancing from atrocity to
liberal-democracy. I think no critical geographer would say - as I do - that
it was wrong for US troops to liberate Nazi concentration camps and introduce
a free market economy. I think that every critical geographer, given a
non-avoidable choice between the free market and the Holocaust, would choose
the free market. Although these examples tend to irritate people, they are
useful for revealing differences in value orientation (which is why they are
used in ethics courses).
So although there are internal differences, it is possible to speak of a
single 'critical-geography' world view, approach , and ideology. The
academic/theoretical culture of critical geography also has a culturally
definite origin - in the English-language academic world, and especially the
US and the UK. Two-thirds of the ICGG steering committee come from the
Anglophone academic world. (However this is certainly an improvement on the
100% anglophone Critical-Geography tradition in the UK)...
Swapna Banerjee-Guha (University of Bombay, India)
Lawrence Berg (Massey University, New Zealand)
Luisa Bialasiewitcz (University of Colorado, USA)
Nick Blomley (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Caroline Desbiens (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Teresa Christine Dirsuweit (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa)
Joe M. Painter (Durham University, UK)
Steve J. Pile (Open University, UK)
Beverley Pitman (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Geraldine Pratt (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Sue Ruddick (University of Toronto, Canada)
Neil Smith (Rutgers University, USA)
Africa, east Europe and the post-Soviet states are unrepresented by the rest....
Byung-Doo Choi (Taegu University, the Republic of Korea)
Claudio Minca (Universita Venezia, Italy)
Fujio Mizuoka (Hitotsubashi University, Japan)
Kirsten Simonsen (Roskilde University, Denmark)
Blanca Rebeca Ramirez Velazquez (Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico)
However, it is the lack of openness (rather than geographic location or
language hegemony), which contributes to the 'ideological-block' character of
critical geography.
---
Paul Treanor
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/nato.html
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