My recollection is that impetus was provided by the ‘merger’ of the Institute of British Geographers (IBG) with the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), which was voted on in 1994 and came into effect during 1995, despite the overwhelming opposition of critical geographers in the IBG. I recall an informal but well-attended meeting of critical geographers at the IBG Conference at Northumbria in January 1995, post the merger vote, at which a number of ideas were discussed, ranging from setting up a new formal organization as a continuation of the IBG, to a more informal network linked through the internet. I presume that the CGF list was set up shortly after this meeting, in early 1995.

The ‘Shell’ dispute in the RGS helped to give the CGF momentum. As recorded in the special forum in Ethics, Place and Environment, this issue really developed in late 1995, following the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa in November 1995. The initial protests took the form of letters from individual geographers to the RGS President and/or Director, not necessarily coordinated through the CGF. These protests were summarily dismissed by the RGS Council in early December (as the postgrad representative on the Council I remember sitting between a Field Marshall and the former Governor of Gibraltar as Viscount Montgomery ranted that for the RGS to drop Shell as a sponsor would be an insult to the Queen, without ever declaring that he had himself worked for Shell in Nigeria. The recently retired CEO of Shell, Sir Peter Holmes, who was the RGS treasurer at the time had appropriately absented himself from the meeting – but I digress).

The Shell issue was debated at an ‘open forum’ at the new RGS-IBG Conference at Strathclyde in January 1996, and a vote taken that overwhelmingly backed the severing of ties with Shell. However, the ‘open forum’ had been introduced by the RGS to replace the previous IBG AGM at the conference, but had no constitutional basis. As such, the vote counted for nothing and was again dismissed by the RGS-IBG Council. It was after this that a group of critical geographers used an obscure provision in the RGS bye-laws to demand that the issue be put to the whole membership at a Special General Meeting of the RGS-IBG, which was duly held in November 1996, with a parallel postal vote. Unfortunately, the motion to end Shell’s sponsorship was lost by 4308 votes to 1590.

The CGF list came into its own as a vehicle for organizing this campaign, but this was only part of a much more widely ranging discussion on the list at the time about ways to advance and ‘institutionalize’ critical geography, including the drawing up of a statement of principles for the CGF, which I think happened in the spring or early summer of 1996.

Mike

Does anyone remember exactly when the CGF list was created?  The earliest posting in the CGF archive is from Joe Painter on 20 March 1996, but it is clearly not the first posting to the list.

I’m currently writing a little potted history of critical geography and I’m trying to understand the relationship between the RGS-IBG merger, Shell sponsorship, and creation of the CGF.  If anyone has a memory for these matters, I’d be very grateful if you could get in touch with me by email.  It might be useful to keep this discussion on the list, as it could spur old memories (and it might remind some of us why we are part of this coalitional thing called ‘critical geography’).

I’m quite familiar with the Ethics Place and Environment special forum on the Shell/RGS issue organised/guest edited by David Gilbert, but want to get some more specific details on the rise of the CGF, and thus the institutionalization in the UK of ‘critical geography’ as a well-recognized term.  There is lots in the CGF archive that points to the development of the International Critical Geography Group, but nothing to give me a hint about the formation of the CGF list itself.

Thanks in advance for any assistance,
Lawrence

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Lawrence D. Berg, D.Phil.
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