For me the Shell issue has become the 'make or break' issue. OK we may have
lost a ballotted vote of all IBG members on such an issue but even ahead of
the result being declared can't you feel the backswoodmen (and surely that
is their gender) casting their weight behind the establishment just as they
do in the Upper Chamber. That is we don't have a prayer of changing an
organisation that lives for expeditions and likes to be seen taking money
from corporate capitalism. In the old IBG I did feel that my voice could be
heard. Perhaps it is time someone did their PhD on why the IBG broke away
in the 1930's to see where are real roots are and before all who were
involved are dead. And don't be fobbed off with the personality clash
explanation. Adam has put his finger on it exactly I feel more at home in
the AAG than the RGS/IBG and what is so wrong with meeting up in foreign
places we are geographers aren't we?
Couldn't we become the 51st state of the AAG, the European outpost? Nor
should we scoff at Terry Cannon's idea of joining the GA. The case Adam
puts ahead of the vote is that we have nowhere to go if we want to vote with
our feet. I am not so sure about that.
Andy Charlesworth
Department of Geography & Geology
Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education
----------
From: Atickell
To: CHARLESW; CMills; GParker; PMilbourne; SCooke; THall; crit-geog-forum
Subject: RGS
Date: 25 November 1996 14:02
In response to yet another example of the differences between the politics,
aspirations and culture of much of the 'old' RGS and many members of the
IBG,
Pyrs Gruffudd wrote last week that he is considering again the option of
leaving the RGS. Although this strategy has been pursued by quite a few
readers of the Critical Geography Forum - and one which I actively
considered
over the RTZ incident a couple of years ago - I think that the implications
of this action need to be fully thought through.
When any organisations merge, there are always major cultural clashes and it
was inevitable that politicised academics would find the highly
establishment
ethos of the ROYAL geographical society to be alien (and vice versa).
However, since the merger took effect, the influence of the 'new' fellows
has led to changes in the RGS which would have been unthinkable before.
While we will probably lose the Shell vote, that it is taking place at all
is symbolically importnat in such an establishment organisation and the new
ethics policy of the RGS is also significant. I'd stop far short of saying
that the RGS will become the type of organisation I'd always be happy being
a
part of, but the nature of civil society is surely that we are all
contributors to/ members of institutions we only partially like. (I don't
like paying taxes for nuclear weapons but don't believe in opting out of
specific taxes because of the dangers of the right adopting similar
strategies. I hate the car culture but drive a car. I'm a member of USS
which invests my pension fund in 'ethically challenged' companies ...) In
that context, we should work to make organisations better (and I know that
this is the classic call of the bourgeois reformist). The more 'critical'
voices that stay in the RGS, the more likely the RGS is to respond to calls
for change.
I'm also concerned that there are real losses for others from an eviscerated
RGS. People with established careers and reputations may not notice it, but
the losers from a dwindling critical academic presence in the RGS would seem
to me to be younger researchers and postgraduates who benefit enormously
from
meeting people at conference, research group meetings and other informal
'do's organised via the RGS. Of course, the annual conference will
continue,
but its rationale begins to disappear if research groupings (out of the RGS)
organise their meetings at other times and the most research active don't
bother to attend. The outcome will be that postgraduates suffer and we all
increasingly talk to people whose views are closer and closer to our own -
which is hardly very critical. The ridiculous outcome could be that the
only
time generic human geographers from UK universities come together would be
as
representatives of the largest geographic delegation to the AAG
Although I agree with Pyrs that there are real issues about "who journals
(especially "Transactions" and "Area") `belong to'" which go far beyond the
formal legal ownership of the RGS, it remains true that journals need to pay
for themselves. The classic problem of unregulated liberal capitalism is
that of the free rider - where collective goods are consumed by people who
won't/don't pay for them.
If all this sounds like the ravings of a liberal state theorist, its because
I strongly believe that when we talk about 'struggle', it means effecting
change rather than opting out. Comments and rotten eggs welcome.
Adam Tickell
Department of Geography
University of Manchester
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