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Fuller Geographies: A participatory proposal for contesting insecurities Kelvin Mason, Kye Askins, Sophie Wynne-Jones, Kerry Burton The Fuller Geographies session at the 2012 RGS/IBG Annual International Conference took as its theme: The insecurity of geography and geographers’ insecurities, with the following call for participation: Amidst continuing debates about the relevance of geography, we find ourselves at a critical moment of increasingly uneven geographies: economic and environmental ‘crises’, poverty, social inequality, and disconnection between dominant political (and geopolitical) discourses and everyday lived lives. Through both our research and teaching, participatory geographers remain committed to working with communities and students in the co-construction of agencies and knowledges that can respond to these issues. Yet, this is also a time when we see academic jobs disappearing, an increase in precarious forms of academic employment, and artificially separated career tracts based on research or teaching-only positions. Collegiate and socially engaged modes of working remain undervalued, despite (we could argue) some reference to ‘impact’ in auditing processes across the academic world. This raises questions regarding what we are doing as geographers, to ourselves and to others, and what the academy is doing to us as we strive to teach and learn well, support each other, research where research is needed (and not just where it is funded), to work collaboratively and make our work public and useful, and attempt to have fulfilling lives beyond the academy.’ Fuller Geographies’ is an open/roundtable for discussion, inviting participants to explore possible spaces for mutual aid and to share strategies for securing our own and geography’s relevance and futures. In the heartening and creative roundtable discussion which resulted from this call participants took seriously the invitation ‘to explore possible spaces for mutual aid and to share strategies for securing our own and geography’s relevance and futures.’ One ‘outcome’ of the session is an embryonic ‘communifesto’ (a participatory communiqué) for contesting insecurities, which we hope will have ‘impact’. The aim of this current round-robin is to extend the discussion to include colleagues who could not make the Fuller Geographies session. We seek to develop the communifesto into something that we can all use in our professional practices: guidelines for creative resistance and constructive (re)engagement to contest our personal and disciplinary insecurities. Ultimately, we aim to post the manifesto on the Participatory Geographies Research Group website (http://pygyrg.org/) and to publish it. So, please read the manifesto and contribute to the emerging strategy and tactics as well as to the references and sources of information we have begun to compile. If you feel strongly that you cannot live with the communifesto as PyGyRG output, then do please let us know. Contributions, comments, and clarifications in the first instance to Kelvin Mason [log in to unmask] Towards Mutual Security: The Fuller Communifesto (first draft, July 2010) Strategies: · Refuse the imperative to become increasingly individualised in our reactions – build the ‘communiversity’ (Pain, 2008). · Resist the monetisation and thence trading of our academic practices. If we want universities to be socially just, we must consider not only the equitable distribution of education and research but also how we value them. · Realise our current time and situation as one to build solidarity, finding common ground with colleagues and others within and beyond the university who share our struggle, frustration and insecurities. We do not have to reach consensus on all issues, but aim to find the common concerns we do share. Solidarity can respect and accommodate difference. · Work across disciplinary boundaries and other divisions. · Do not allow our struggles within the university to be constrained by the very ethos that we seek to resist and change. · Foster an ethic of care and respect for each other: participate and reciprocate in our interactions. · Develop solidarities across academic, administrative, support and other staff boundaries in our universities. Tactics: · Compile and share an open-source list of subversion strategies and tactics that we have used to work in, against and beyond the neoliberalisation of the university. · Share such ideas via social media. · Suggest alternative forms of measurement – what do we want to be valued and how? · Continue to push for a progressive interpretation of ‘impact’ – and enact this, realising the power of iteration. · Communicate with management: inform them about participatory work and ethics, send them published work in this field and show them the strength of this scholarship; legitimate this approach as an alternative to the neoliberal trajectory. · Return to University Charters – and reassert original aims as core objectives for our institutions, which were not designed to be businesses but have a wide range of responsibilities. For example, many universities are charities with explicit commitments to their local communities. Raise awareness of this and hold management to account for such objectives. · Create a forum for academic trauma support – do not let the emotional pain and grief from the current situation be cleansed and erased. ú Continue to share the lived experiences of working in the neoliberal university with each , and make this experience public knowledge. References Anderson, C. (2012) Life and time(s) in the neoliberal university: Tell me about it (seriously, do) Available at http://antipodefoundation.org/2012/05/21/life-and-times-in-the-neoliberal-university-tell-me-about-it-seriously-do/#comments (Accessed 20 July 2012) Bailey, M. & Freedman, D. (Eds.) (2011) The Assault on Universities: A Manifesto for Resistance. London: Pluto Press. Boden, R. and Epstein, D. (2011), A flat earth society? Imagining academic freedom. The Sociological Review, 59: 476–495. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.2011.02014.x Brahinsky, R. (2012) Thoughts on transition: Public education, social justice, and geography. Available at http://antipodefoundation.org/2012/07/05/thoughts-on-transition-public-education-social-justice-and-geography/ (Accessed 17 July 2012) Canally,C. (2012) Intervention – Where’s our agency? The role of grading in the neoliberalization of public universities. Available at http://antipodefoundation.org/2012/03/30/intervention-wheres-our-agency-the-role-of-grading-in-the-neoliberalization-of-public-universities/ (Accessed 17 July 2012). Collini, S. (2012) What are Universities for? London: Penguin. Holmwood, J. (Ed.) (2011) A Manifesto for the Public University. London: Bloomsbury. Nussbaum, M. C. (2010) Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pain, R. (2008) 'Taking stock of participatory geographies: envisioning the communiversity: mrs kinpaisby.', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers., 33 (3). pp. 292-299. Pain, R., Kesby, M. & Askins, K. (2010) 'Geographies of Impact: Power, participation and potential'. Area, 1(1), 1-6. Sandel, M. (2012) What Money Can't Buy: The moral limits to markets. London: Allen Lane. Sources of information Times Higher Education http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/index.asp?navcode=92 Guardian HE http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/higher-education @GdnHigherEd Phil Batty on Twitter @phil_baty and @THEworldunirank Prof Patrick McGhee on Twitter @VC_UEL Fuller Geographies @fuller_geogs Wonkhe ‘the home of higher education wonks’ http://www.wonkhe.com/ University and College Union (UCU) http://www.ucu.org.uk/ Sally Hunt (UCU General Secretary) http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sally-hunt Campaign for the Public University http://publicuniversity.org.uk/ Dr Kelvin Mason Human Dimensions of Climate Change School of City and Regional Planning Cardiff University Glamorgan Building King Edward VII Avenue Cardiff CF10 3WA Tel: +44 (0)29 2087 4850 Mob: 07817 596 285 @KelvinMason1 Can we imagine Wales as consisting of a plurality of experiences, cultures and identities? Can we rethink Welshsness as heterogenous, as inclusive of difference? (Jordan, 2005)