Knowing our own history? Geography department archives in the UK

Johnston, Ron; Withers, Charles

doi:10.1111/j.1475-4762.2007.00785.x

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…We build upon other attempts to write the history of geography not as a fixed and structured narrative, but instead as a fluid, multiple and disarticulated disciplinary scenario by tracing a series of (almost random) paths marked by people, books, events and episodes, emphasizing 'the importance of institutional histories and of biography and memory in explaining the modern development of the subject, its political and intellectual context, defining practices and changing cognitive content' (Johnston and Withers, 2008: 3;Withers, 2007). Writing about geography through geographers, rather than through national schools or concepts or narratives of progress, means no longer simply narrating tales of linear change in the subject's traditions (Johnston and Withers, 2008; see also Taylor, 1976), but instead remaining open to the institutional sites of the making and reception of knowledge, specifically to 'the fundamental importance of the spaces where reading literally takes place, for knowledge is produced in textual encounter' (Livingstone, 2005: 392; see also Keighren, 2006). This also draws from the wider recognition of the importance of unearthing past narratives that has found a small niche within scientific journals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not a geography of what doesn’t exist, but a counter-geography of what does

Fall

Minca

2012

Progress in Human Geography

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The shaping of geography as a discipline has been the result of a combination of productive and successful communication and missed opportunities, of presence and absence, of fluid travels of ideas and projects, but also of closures, impediments, good lessons that got lost. This paper suggests that using a counterfactual approach to draw attention to specific geographies that remained unfulfilled and poorly known helps to think beyond linear genealogies. By discussing a particular book called Le Metafore della Terra by Giuseppe Dematteis, published in Italian in 1985 but largely unknown in English-language geography, we reflect on what happened when it was published – and also specifically what did not happen and, cautiously, what might have happened. In his book, Dematteis took issue with geography and geographers’ past and contemporary mistakes, suggesting that the depoliticization of geographical knowledge had served merely powerful interests, rendering the imagining of alternative worlds impossible. He picked apart sacred tenets of the geographical tradition: escapist fantasies of exploration and conquest, the poorly problematized use of scale, the faith in the power of cartographic reason, the metaphysics of organicism, and the magical belief in the power of the market. Here, by extending the idea of counterfactual histories to look inwards to the discipline of geography itself, we choose to engage with what might have happened if this particular critical approach to geography had become better known, exploring why this radical project for the discipline was cast aside, including by the author himself. In so doing, we consider how scholars are located in so-called ‘peripheral’ places of production of geographical knowledge, discussing how this helps to understand the circulation and non-circulation of certain ideas. We use these alternatively rewritten geographies to show how dominant linear narratives of the emerging of critical thinking in the 1980s tell us an incomplete story, suggesting instead a tangled, multiple history of the discipline. We are interested in how scientific knowledge is communicated and received, how this exposes both the multi-sited nature of knowledge production and circulation, and cultural and national differences in the reception of science, and what this says about the possibility of critical thinking and progressive ideas having real impact.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not a geography of what doesn’t exist, but a counter-geography of what does

Fall

Minca

2012

Progress in Human Geography

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“…Castree & Sparke 2000;Sidaway 2000;Birnie et al 2005). The topics range from the use of archival material in geography (Johnston & Withers 2008), to learning to become a good geographer (Simandan 2002;Bauder 2006), and to the role of women in physical geography (Madge & Bee 1999). The present paper should be seen as a contribution to this tradition, which is well represented in Anglo-American geography journals but virtually absent in Scandinavian 2 geography journals (Norsk Geografisk TidsskriftÁNorwegian Journal of Geography, Geografiska Annaler from Sweden, and the Danish Journal of Geography).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Studying the making of geographical knowledge: The implications of insider interviews

Adriansen¹,

Madsen²

2009

Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography

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L.M. 2009. Studying the making of geographical knowledge: The implications of insider interviews.The article addresses the issue of being a 'double' insider when conducting interviews. Double insider means being an insider both in relation to one's research matter Á in the authors' case the making of geographical knowledge Á and in relation to one's interviewees Á our colleagues. The article is a reflection paper in the sense that we reflect upon experiences drawn from a previous research project carried out in Danish academia. It is important that the project was situated in a Scandinavian workplace culture because this has bearings for the social, cultural, and economic situation in which knowledge was constructed. The authors show that being a double insider affects both the interview situation and how interviews are planned, located, and analysed. Being an insider in relation to one's interviewees gives the advantage of having a shared history and a close knowledge of the context, and these benefits outnumber the disadvantages. Being an insider in relation to one's research matter makes it difficult to contest hegemonic discourses and tacit values and ideas. Recommendations on how to handle the double insider situation are given. The article concludes that for analytical purposes, it is useful to separate the two roles, but in reality they coexist and are intertwined.

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“…The comprehensiveness of this collection is probably unique. According to a survey undertaken by Johnston and Withers, about one in six Geography departments in the UK holds some kind of archival collection charting a local departmental history (Johnston & Withers, 2008, p. 8). The temporal range of the Glasgow collection, going back to the 1950s, makes it possible to examine well over a half‐century of developments within the discipline and its educational context.…”

Section: Methods and Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The geographers in the cupboard: Narrating the history of Geography using undergraduate dissertations

Bruinsma

2020

Area

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This paper explores the possibilities of examining undergraduate dissertations as sources. By means of archival research on a collection of Geography undergraduate dissertations at the University of Glasgow, comprising over 2,600 dissertations from 1954 to 2014, this paper argues for the epistemological value of both these “small” knowledge productions and the experiences of becoming a geographer for studying the history of Geography. A sustained study of the collection reveals that the dissertations comprise three kinds of sources: intellectual sources, seeing the dissertations as original pieces of academic research; cultural sources, examining the role of this “rites of passage” in becoming a geographer; and lastly, as social sources, whereby the dissertations illuminate a diverse, personal network within and beyond the university. The vastness of the archival collection of undergraduate Geography dissertations and the opportunities offered for a longitudinal examining of shifts within them over the years, revealing notable overall trends and traditions, ultimately discloses their own importance as exciting and striking original knowledge productions.

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Knowing our own history? Geography department archives in the UK

Cited by 12 publications

References 48 publications

Not a geography of what doesn’t exist, but a counter-geography of what does

Not a geography of what doesn’t exist, but a counter-geography of what does

Studying the making of geographical knowledge: The implications of insider interviews

The geographers in the cupboard: Narrating the history of Geography using undergraduate dissertations

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