University Geography in China: History, opportunities, and challenges

Abstract

This Themed‐Intervention commentary provides a brief overview of the history of Geography as a modern academic discipline in China, its development in the reform era (1979–), and the distinctive conventions and norms that distinguish it from paradigms and practices of geography in the Anglophone academia. We identify two tensions: between sciences and social sciences orientations, and between applied knowledge and critical/reflexive knowlegde. These tensions are both internal to Geography in China, and exist between Chinese and Anglophone Geography, the latter as embodied in major international journals. Mindful of these tensions, this commentary develops reflections over geography education in China and the challenges faced by academic dialogues between Chinese and Anglophone geographers.

History and philosophy of geography III: Global histories of geography, statues that must fall and a radical and multilingual turn

“…Among scholarship from ‘outside the core’ that is nourishing English-speaking journals, it is also worth mentioning some recent contributions from China, accounting for the increasing development of historical geographies that target internationalisation as a priority (Ding, 2021), and addressing the history of Chinese geography in comparison with Anglo-American concurring trends. Junxi Qian and Han Zhang match the arguments of GBS’s editors in criticising the commonplaces considering as ‘international [only] journals published in English’ (Qian and Zhang, 2021: 1), and highlight the importance of political contexts for the production of geographical knowledge. While geography as an academic discipline was imported in their country from the ‘West’ in the first half of the 20th century, Qian and Zhang note that, after the 1949 Revolution, the adoption of scientific paradigms inspired by the Soviet Union’s academic system became hegemonic, and only physical geography and economic geography were authorised.…”

“…Conversely, ‘urban geography, social and cultural geography, tourism geography, political geography, etc. were stigmatised as degenerate thoughts of the bourgeoisie’ (Qian and Zhang, 2021: 2). Considering that this occurred almost in the same years in which cultural approaches accompanied the rising of radical geographies in the ‘West’, one finds an amazing confirmation of how political uses of geography can change through the mobilisation of similar intellectual tools for very contrasting aims.…”

“…After 1979, according to the authors, human geography has been resumed as a field of study, being increasingly open to influences form Anglophone scholarship, although ‘more has been drawn from quantitative paradigms’ (Qian and Zhang, 2021: 2) that were never challenged by critical scholarship as it occurred in Europe and in the USA. This is also due to the permanence of a macro-disciplinary classification assigning human geography to the realm of ‘natural sciences’, which suggests that some lingering technocratic mindset still affects Chinese scholarship.…”

“…This is also due to the permanence of a macro-disciplinary classification assigning human geography to the realm of ‘natural sciences’, which suggests that some lingering technocratic mindset still affects Chinese scholarship. Indeed, the authors lament the scarcity of conversations about ‘the postmodern, post-structural, Marxist, feminist, performative, non-representational, and material turns in Anglophone geography’ (Qian and Zhang, 2021: 3). The main challenges remain political, given the authors’ concern about current ‘geopolitical animosity’ (Qian and Zhang, 2021: 5) between China and Western countries such as the USA, which might hinder transnational and transcultural dialogues.…”

The Belt and Road Initiative as Multiple Geographies of Knowledge Production

“…The issue of political correctness in Chinese academic research is also deeply embedded in China's fast-changing geopolitical relations with the rest of the world. In addition to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP's) interventions in using the party lines to shape the social science research agenda, recent and ongoing global events, notably the US-China trade wars, Hong Kong and Taiwan's political movements, the reviving anti-Chinese and Asian sentiments induced by the Covid-19 pandemic, have also intensified the existing gap between Chinese and Anglophone academic research on China (Cheng and Liu, 2021;Qian and Zhang, 2021). Alongside these global events, the Chinese government has pushed towards developing social sciences with 'Chinese characteristics', particularly highlighting the importance of China's national interest in research agenda (Dirlik, 2009;Acharya, 2019;Cheng and Liu, 2021).…”