Boundary spanning in social and cultural geography

Abstract

This article situates interactions between German-and English-language social and cultural geographies since the mid-twentieth century within their wider intellectual, political and socio-economic contexts. Based on case study examples, we outline main challenges of international knowledge transfer due to nationally and linguistically structured publication cultures, differing academic paradigms and varying promotion criteria. We argue that such transfer requires formal and informal platforms for academic debate, the commitment of boundary spanners and supportive peer groups. In German-language social and cultural geography, these three aspects induced a shift from a prevalent applied research tradition in the context of the modern welfare state towards a deeper engagement with Anglophone debates about critical and post-structuralist approaches that have helped to critique the rise of neoliberal governance since the 1990s. Anglophone and especially British social and cultural geography, firmly grounded in critical and post-structuralist thought since the 1980s, are increasingly pressurized through the neoliberal corporatization of the university to develop more applied features such as research impact and students' employability.Keywords: Knowledge transfer; boundary spanning; history of geography; German-language geography; English-language geography & Cultural Geography, 2016 Vol. 17, No. 1, 1-22, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2015 l'université, à développer des spécificités plus appliquées telles que l'impact de la recherche ou le fait d'obtenir un emploi pour les étudiants.Mots clés: transfert des connaissances; décloisonnement; histoire de la géographie; géographie en langue allemande; géographie en langue anglaise La expansión de los límites en la geografía social y cultural Este artículo sitúa interacciones entre geografías sociales y culturales de los idiomas alemán e inglés desde mediados del siglo XX dentro de sus contextos intelectuales, políticos y socioeconómicos más amplios. Sobre la base de ejemplos de estudios de caso, se esbozan los principales retos de la transferencia de conocimiento internacional debido a culturas de publicación nacional y lingüísticamente estructuradas, diferentes paradigmas académicos y criterios de promoción variados. Se sostiene que dicha transferencia requiere plataformas formales e informales para el debate acadé-mico, el compromiso de aquellos que van más allá de los límites y grupos de apoyo. En la geografía social y cultural de la lengua alemana, estos tres aspectos indujeron a un cambio desde una tradición de investigación aplicada frecuente en el contexto del estado de bienestar moderno hacia un compromiso más profundo con debates anglófonos sobre enfoques post-estructuralistas que han ayudado a criticar el aumento de la gobernabilidad neoliberal desde la década de 1990. La geografía social y cultural anglófona y sobre todo la inglesa, firmemente arraigada en los enfoques post-estructuralistas y críticas desde la década de 1980, son presurizadas cada vez má...

The international transfer of human geographical knowledge in the context of shifting academic hegemonies

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