Here's a thought for you.
The first year or so of the life of the crit-geog-forum discussion group
was pretty lively with many members engaging in critical debates. I would
say that this fertile period was fuelled primarily by two issues: (1) the
meaning(s) of "critical" as in critical geography; and especially (2) the
IBG-RGS /Shell issue. Since then, contributions of a critical nature have
become intermittent and of no great volume.
With 373 members on the list at present - and if the point above is valid -
why should this be so? Some thoughts that occur to me incude:
(i) It could be that all such groups (including real - as opposed to
virtual - groups) go through cycles of activity, so another burst of
intellectual activity will come along in due course;
(ii) That the raison d'etre of crit-geog-forum was essentially the Shell
issue and it has no longer a function as a CRITICAL geography forum.
If the second is the case, then the honest thing would be to abandon the
'critical' component in the title and to 're-launch' the group as a more
general 'human geography billboard'. This would open the group to members
possibly put off by the present title. Part of me says that we should
consider this option, whilst another part of me remembers the reason why I
joined in the first place - that there was a need for open and broad
critical geography debates (and yet I too have been largely
non-participatory).
Does any of this make sense? Any comments?
Christopher Ray
Newcastle
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