An other geography

Abstract

The marginalization, sidelining, erasure and dismissal of ‘othered’ people and epistemologies persist within the discipline of geography today. In the present article, I discuss this fact as a source of harm for many individuals, a result of centuries of white supremacist heteropatriarchal grounding and a failure of the collective critical geographical imagination. A new turn is underway, however, one that turns away from the mainstream of the discipline and toward each ‘other’. Solidarities across modes of difference are building in scholarship that inhabits an epistemological elsewhere, and these can and must be harnessed in this time of serious threats to academic freedom and social justice.

‘We didn’t have time to sit still and be scared’: A postcolonial feminist geographic reading of ‘An other geography’

“…We open our response to Oswin’s ‘An other geography’ with Thelma Glass to underscore that for us, as critical feminist geographers of color, we stand on the shoulders of Glass and other women of color intellectual-activist trailblazers. While we acknowledge that much has changed in the discipline, and the world, since the 1950s, we agree with Oswin that the discipline of geography is limited by ‘systemic injustice’ practiced globally and institutionally across the field (Oswin, 2020). As such, ‘An other geography’ represents for us the invitation to reflect on what is at stake in geographical knowledge struggles.…”

“…Our third intervention builds on those above. We assert that to meaningfully work against the ‘marginalization, dismissal, and erasures of “others” (and their epistemologies)’ (Oswin, 2020) requires more than understanding power intersectionally, in co-constituted ways. ‘An other geography’ only moves forward with a material imperative to decenter whiteness and reject white supremacy (Mollett and Faria, 2013, 2018).…”

Anti‐racist learning and teaching in British geography

“…In Geography, there has been an interest in the links between teaching and anti‐racism for several decades (cf. Alderman et al, 2019; Dwyer, 1999; Eaves, 2020; Jackson, 1989; Kobayashi, 1999; Mahtani, 2006; Oswin, 2020). Contemporary concerns about this topic were poignantly articulated in Domosh's (2015) provocative AAG column “Why is our Geography curriculum so white?” In this paper, Domosh points to the pressing need to assist one another in building a new intellectual history, and ways of teaching, because such moves promise to enrich the discipline for everyone.…”

The white unseen: On white supremacy and dangerous entanglements in geography

“…If we are to speak about Black lives, let us speak about the Black lives in our discipline. Let us examine how white space-making practices continue to inform our curriculum, discourse, and departments (Eaves, 2020; Oswin, 2020). As a Black geographer, I feel compelled to call out the spaces of geography that are ‘seemingly incapable of hearing the cries emanating from the soul of this nation’ (Woods, 2002: 63).…”