New Zealand Geography and the International Geographical Union Part II: Audience to stage, 1956–1974

Abstract

A second phase of New Zealand engagement with the International Geographical Union spans from 1956 to 1974. The nature of this engagement which culminated in the hosting of a Regional Conference in New Zealand in 1974 is the subject of this paper.

From an “Absent to a Silent Presence”—New Zealand at the International Geographical Congress 1875 to 1952

“…It is the absence of NZ performers that is thrown into sharp relief, they were merely an audience and comments on the geography of NZ were made by overseas experts. Geographers from NZ would not contribute to knowledge building at the IGU until the 1960s (Roche, ). The era discussed here as an “absent to silent presence” was never‐the‐less a necessary prelude to a phase of greater university level involvement with the IGU in the 1960s and 1970s.…”

“…The NZGS differed from the Canadian Association of Geographers and Institute of Australian Geographers in having a mixed membership of university and secondary geography teachers as well as lay members. For NZ the teacher membership would actually be important in initiating a second phase of IGC engagement from 1956 to 1974 (Roche, )…”

Kenneth Cumberland on historical geography at the first New Zealand Geography Conference in 1955

“…Craggs and Mahony (2014, p. 414) depict conferences as sites of knowledge production but more than that as events which can be interrogated in terms of “visibility, performance and space.” More specifically they write of conferences as sites for “questions of expertise, accreditation and legitimacy of questions of belonging as delegates understand and (re)construct the boundaries of their epistemological community.” They also refer to conferences acting as a “technology of power” that excluded those not invited or unable to attend and “render other spaces and times as inappropriate for discussion and debates” (Craggs and Mahony (2014, p. 415). Even so conferences remain an under‐explored facet of disciplinary activity (Hodder, 2015; Roche, 2019).…”