Introduction: Retrospect and prospect of our discipline’s biographical record

History and philosophy of geography II: Rediscovering individuals, fostering interdisciplinarity and renegotiating the ‘margins’

“…The relevance of biography for the history of geography has been noted several times, including in this journal (Keighren, 2017). Yet, a new wave of interest for biographical and autobiographical accounts, based on both oral history and archives, is refreshing the pioneering endeavours of scholars like Anne Buttimer, such as the International Dialogue Project (IDP) and the series Geographers Biobibliographical Studies (GBS) (Baigent and Novaes, 2019;Ferretti, 2020d). Here, I would argue that rediscovering individuals' roles allows for a deeper understanding of Geography's plurality and complexity, making room for considering creativity, originality and dissidence beyond the limitations of readings which are based on 'normal' trends and statistics for broad geographical 'schools', taking the risk of generalisation.…”

“…This reveals an important feature of biographies: they can talk of lives and places of their authors as well as of those of the people who are their 'objects'. It is worth adding that the GBS's editors are committed to counter traditional Euro-centric and patriarchal approaches to the discipline, for instance, dedicating the 2019 issue entirely to women (Baigent and Novaes, 2019) and the forthcoming 2021 one to geographers from the Global South.…”

“…This reveals an important feature of biographies: they can talk of lives and places of their authors as well as of those of the people who are their 'objects'. It is worth adding that the GBS's editors are committed to counter traditional Euro-centric and patriarchal approaches to the discipline, for instance dedicating the 2019 issue entirely to women(Baigent and Novaes 2019) and the forthcoming 2021 one to geographers from the Global South.Biographical work continues addressing relatively traditional written records including travel diaries(Ferretti 2020c) and personal archives such as Edward A. Ackerman's papers. These were recently studied by Elvin Wyly, who argues for rediscovering the role that Ackerman played in the early stages of the so-called quantitative revolution in Geography(Wyly 2019).Matters on quantitative and 'applied' geography are likewise explored by Van Meeteren in his work on Dutch geography in the 1930s-1960s, paying special attention to careers, networks F. Ferretti, 2021, "History and Philosophy of Geography II: rediscovering individuals, fostering interdisciplinary and negotiating the margins", Progress in Human Geography, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0309132520973750 [pre-print author's version] and social (including family) relations among individual scholars in shaping the notion of polycentric urban region (Van Meeteren 2020).…”

The pedagogy of autobiography in the history of geographic thought

“…Expressions of sympathy for the issues of a new generation can be inserted that would be less appropriate in a biography, in which the author tends to situate work in its own time (cf. Baigent & Novaes 2017). Hence, autobiography invites dialogue in a more active sense than when it is mediated by a third party, the biographer.…”

Parrhesia and female leadership: radical women in Brazilian geography against dictatorship and academic conservatism

“…These include documents from Rosa Ester Rossini, Maria Regina Cunha de Toledo Sader, Odette Carvalho de Lima Seabra, Sandra Lencioni and Amélia Luisa Damiani. In the field of the history of geography, well-established methodologies exist in addressing autobiographical sources such as oral or written recollections. These allow analysing scholars' professional trajectories to understand geography's social and political contexts (Baigent and Novaes 2019;Scarim 2000;Van Meeteren 2019). However, it is worth explaining my use of these sources for this research.…”