'Critical' commentaries on the CGF itself has always been the list's most
recurrent theme! As for 'new critical geographies', given Michael's last
paragraph (below), shouldn't that be 'New critical geographies'...
____________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Duncan Fuller
Division of Geography / PEANuT (Participatory Evaluation and Appraisal in
Newcastle upon Tyne)
Lipman Building
Northumbria University
Newcastle upon Tyne
UK
Tel (Direct): (0191) 2273753
Mobile: 07946 401359
Tel (Division Office): (0191) 2273951
Fax: (0191) 2274715
Geo-publishing.org: http://www.may.ie/nirsa/geo-pub/geo-pub.html
> -----Original Message-----
> From: FISHER MICHAEL D [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 02 May 2003 11:05
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Topic of the week
>
> My experience of this list is not dissimilar to my experience of a
> few other radical lists I am a member of. Among friends and
> colleagues of mine, the most common reason for not engaging in
> discussion and debate on lists like this, and in political activity
> outside these lists, is lack of time.
>
> As workloads increase and resources decline in much of the
> university sector (in the UK at least), the time for independent
> critical discussion and debate is squeezed. It seems to me that
> these increasing pressures have some of their origins in the
> imposition of the "RAE law of value": the intensification of
> academic labour in the hope of securing a slice of an increasingly
> unequal distribution of research resources. (Somewhat curiously,
> some senior "critical" geographers are involved in administering and
> enforcing this law. Maybe we could label a subset of critical
> geography as "new critical geography").
>
> These are very real pressures, given added ideological weight by
> the unspoken view of many on the "left" that there is very little point
> in discussing critical/radical ideas (unless they are presented in an
> RAE-friendly journal), because there is very little chance of those
> ideas having a significant concrete political impact.
>
> It is perhaps ironic that as critical geography and geographers have
> become more numerous and influencial within the academic
> "mainstream", they have begun to adopt, however unintentionally
> and unconsciously, some of the traits of the "geography
> establishment" they had sought to criticise: a pragmatic, career-
> driven submission to unchangable political and economic "realities".
>
> Michael.
>
>
> Dr Michael Fisher
> Business School
> Greenwich University
> London SE10 9LS
>
> Tel: 0208 331 9740
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