This is an appeal to human geographers:
When was the last time you went into a book shop for a browse? Where do
you end up looking? Is it in that well stocked geography section of
Blackwells, Waterstones, Borders etc? Obviously not. More often than not
you are forced to drift over to the sociology, cultural studies and
anthropology sections. Could it be that geographers have had nothing
important to say recently? Obviously not. What is happening to all our
geography books then? The answer, sadly, is that human geography books
written by human geographers are constantly placed on the shelves of
sociology, cultural studies and anthropology. Today for example I saw the
Routledge Critical Geography series of books placed on the shelves of
Sociology. Unless the book literally has the word 'human geography' in the
title and it is an undergraduate textbook it fails to make it to geography
section of book shops.
Time to take action. Books shops refuse to listen. So we need to take
direct action. Go down to your local bookshop and remedy the situation.
Find the geography books written by geographers and move them. Take them
away from the shelves of sociology, cultural studies and anthropology and
re-file them where they should be, in geography. I have moved five books
today, and will keep doing so until the situation is resolved. If the
geography section has been abandoned in your bookshop as it might aswell
have been in mine, then make one. Take a sign and some blue-tak and get to
work.
Please encourage your colleagues to also take action, before our identity
as human geographers becomes completely subsumed into other disciplines.
Peter Thomas
PhD Researcher
Ironically based in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology
Newcastle University
NE1 7RU
Tel: 0191 222 8510
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