Perhaps it is not always helpful politically to think of the RGS/Shell
issue as an either/or question: either one stays in and fights the good
fight or one gets out completely. The RGS is an institution organized
around imperialist vision and imperialist identity, a certain "British"
identity centered on the monarchy, the state, masculinist expertise, etc.
While I am not saying it is essentially this (or that it will always be
this way), it does seem to me that its de facto vote of support for Shell's
predatory capitalism in Nigeria re-affirms its "imperialist" approach to
the world. "We've looked at this problem and decided that Shell is good for
Africa. And we know Africa..." [I guess the whacky old guy who spoke in
Glasgow about Africa represented the thinking of a lot of the working and
retired cadres of "empire"]
At a time when the hegemonic British identity the RGS represents is more
fragile than ever, surely the strategic future of (post?) "British"
geography is elsewhere, in projects, as Andy Charlesworth and Neil Smith
have suggested, which are explicitly beyond the (imperial) nation-state and
its institutions. I respect the people who are in the RGS working to change
it but isn't that work tactical rather than strategic? There are many sound
tactical reasons to be within the RGS -- publicizing injustices, ethics
policies, etc. and we all work in state space -- but isn't "our" strategic
future in terms of institutions and identity -- the "critical geographer"
identity that is given life by this forum -- way beyond it?
_____________________________________________
Gerard Toal (Gearóid Ó Tuathail),
Department of Geography,
127 Major Williams,
Virginia Tech,
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0115.
Phone: (540) 231-5806.
Fax: (540) 231-6367.
Email: [log in to unmask]
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