Dear all
I am disappointed by the recent turn of discussion on the forum. I
consider some of the Marxist reactions (particularly around about
1990 and in the last few days on the CGF) to the broadening of the
notion of radical geography a really depressing development. Of
course, exploring the tensions between historically materialist
analyses and engagements based on gender, "race", sexuality and
other expressions of culture and power is undoubtedly vital to a
radical geography. But this involves dialogue not a series of
proscriptive statements: the colonising of "radical" by Marxist
geographers, as if this form of theorising automatically granted the
author/speaker the moral high ground, can be offensive and is often
patronising. What right have Marxists to suggest that other
understandings and experiences of domination, exploitation and
exclusion are somehow less valid?
I'm sorry if this sounds angry, but I am tired of being told that my
ideas and values are _automatically_ less valid than others. The
forces of domination (whether capitalist, patriarchal or whatever) are
clearly doing this already--it seems increasingly difficult to project
radical alternatives of whatever nature--so why make the silencing
of radical voices easier by destroying outright creative engagement,
analysis and politics within this forum, and in the discipline?
Jo
Dr. Joanne Sharp
Department of Geography
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ
tel: 44-(0)141-330-4782
-5405 (direct)
fax: 44-(0)141-330-4894
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