Paul Treanor's message about the national and Anglo-centric form of
some aspects of geography (and especially, he claimed, "relatively
new, less established, less mainstream initiatives) was interesting to
me. Partly because of the emotions which seemed to be involved. Partly
because it seems to be a really intransigent issue: one which is easy
to feel moralistic about, but extraordinarily difficult to do anything
about! In some ways it does seem that it is the less "avant-garde"
sections of the discipline which have more connections with
Geographers working outside of the Anglo-American orbit (witness the
IGU...). There are a lot of different issues going on here, though,
which appear to cross-cut the (impossible to disagree with)
internationalist morality which Treanor expressed. These might
include, of course, language, but also
- geographical traditions within which work is carried out. South
African geographers, for example, have always been rather aware of the
lag-time involved in translating Western geographers' latest fads into
their work; and the academic system, for some reason, has enabled very
old-fashioned geographical traditions to persist, if not to dominate.
- the politics of institutions in different places - who gets employed
and who gets to speak is in some places more or less male-dominated
and authoritarian than others
- the politics of different places...some visitors from Eastern Europe
have expressd a much stronger positive interest in the dynamics of
privatisation and capitalism than might be fashionable in Western
geography
- what questions seem interesting is very context dependent - I have
been thinking about transformation for ages, because living in South
Africa over the last while this was weighing very heavily on my mind
and influencing my political and personal life: colleagues in the West
have a very different kind of interest in this question - if they have
any at all. How does one then keep (or even get) a conversation
going???
Is it worth trying to understand these dynamics more, perhaps thinking
about creative things to do, or cretive ways to think? Would a more
post-colonial than Internationalist view help???
I would enjoy to hear from anyone else thinking about this...
Jenny Robinson
Department of Geography
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London
WC2A 2AE
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