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Mainstreaming public geographies or In what sense non-public geographies

Talk Structure. 1. Introduction and aims2. What's behind the current public turn' in UK human geography? 3. The current condition: national and disciplinary contexts 4. Writing, talking and performing human geography5. Human geography and its publics 6. Conclusions . 1. Introduction and aims

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Mainstreaming public geographies or In what sense non-public geographies

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    1. Mainstreaming ‘public’ geographies or In what sense ‘non-public’ geographies? Kevin Ward Geography, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester Workshop at Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Monday March 31 2008

    2. Talk Structure 1. Introduction and aims 2. What’s behind the current ‘public turn’ in UK human geography? 3. The current condition: national and disciplinary contexts 4. Writing, talking and performing human geography 5. Human geography and its publics 6. Conclusions

    3. 1. Introduction and aims To detail the range of factors behind the current ‘public turn’ in human geography To outline the construction of something called ‘public geographies’ To examine some of the issues this raises for the sub-discipline of human geography To set out the case for mainstreaming public geographies

    4. 2. What’s behind the current ‘public turn’ in UK human geography? Be specific about UK human geography context … Intellectual: changes in the internal constitution of ‘human geography’ (substantive, methodological, epistemological and ontological) and its external relationships with other cognate disciplines

    5. For example: emergence of ‘cultural’ geography; re-focusing of human geography around some issues and away from others; dominance of qualitative methods in human geography;

    6. Institutional: changes in the conditions under which academics labour, their activities are valued and their performances are evaluated For example: RAE in the UK; other regimes elsewhere in the world (Castree et al 2007; Ward et al 2008/09) and ‘local’ variations on new management practices

    7. Political: reform of higher education as part of ‘restructuring’ of public services, changing the nature of the relationship between academic and student For example: increased student numbers; introduction of student fees; new teaching and assessment techniques

    8. Cultural: changing values attached to the education system in the context of the production of a range of other knowledges (consultancies, media etc) For example: growth in number and range of knowledge intermediaries

    9. Societal: changing relations between science and society and the questioning of authority and expertise For example: undermining of the historical and geographical specific place of academics (as experts?) and the knowledges they produce in UK society

    10. In combination these various processes have combined to create the conditions in the UK for a range of types of geographies to emerge Underpinning them two fundamental questions are posed - knowledge for whom and for what?

    11. 3. National and disciplinary differences Emergence up to the late 1990s in the UK of a range of ‘named’ human geographies Each with its own particular geographies and histories – points of disconnection and connection Activist geographies: unites a quite heterogeneous body of work that goes under this label and others, such as ‘autonomous geographies’. The emphasis amongst this work is on action -personalising academic geography and professionalizing personal geographies

    12. Critical geographies: stemming from emergence of radical and Marxist geography in the late 1970s and the concerns, amongst others, of Harvey (1984: 10) that ‘the disenfranchised … must be heard through the kind of geography we make, no matter how unpopular that voice within the corridors of power or with those who control our purse strings.’ Challenges normative assumptions of professional geography.

    13. Participatory geographies: work that draws on one of the many participatory research approaches, which have as their common element that research is undertaken collaboratively with and for the individuals, groups or communities who are its ‘subject’.

    14. Policy geographies: regarded by some human geographers as ‘the reactionary cousin of activist and participatory research’ (Pain 2003: 653), this work consists of a highly differentiated set of contributions to the involvement of human geographers in ‘policy’, from inputting into its formation to tendering for its evaluation.

    15. And of course … Professional geographies: geographical knowledges primarily produced by and for professional geographers. So, debates around issues within the academia. Have tended to be the most valued geographies in the RAE.

    16. So we have witnessed an emergent division of UK geographical labour – produced through the restructuring processes These types of geographical labour are inter-linked – of course – Within different areas of the discipline particular types of geography are stronger or weaker and the same goes for the particular histories of the different ideal types

    17. Other disciplines have histories of engaging with ‘publics’ – e.g. anthropology (Sanjek 2004) and sociology Re-emergence in the US of ‘public sociology’ Initiated in 2004/2005 by Michael Burawoy (for example see 2005), taken up and critiqued and discussed by others in the US and Canada (for example see Social Problems 2004, Social Forces 2004, Critical Sociology 2005)

    18. Underpinning it is a drive to ‘take sociologies to publics beyond the university, engaging them in dialogue about public issues that have been studied by sociologists’ (Burawoy 2005: 3) Academic division of labour – critical, policy, professional, and public sociology Argument for a discrete but inter-related ‘public’ sociology

    19. Subsequently taken up, critiqued and discussed in the UK (Sociology 2007; The British Journal of Sociology 2005, 2006) Paralleling this has been the emergence within UK human geography of the term ‘public geographies’

    20. Draws on US ‘public sociologies’ work but also acknowledges past and existing related work within UK human geography (Ward 2006; Fuller 2007) – in its early stages of development – may go somewhere or nowhere One way forward is for closer specification – would involve struggling with issues of organizational identity, theoretical coherence, and methodological integrity

    21. A second way forward it to use its emergence as an opportunity for a wider re-think of ways in which human geographers have and might continue to engage with ‘publics’ Different ways in which human geographers construct ‘publics’: First, examples where the current state of university geography has been popularized by engagement with non-academics;

    22. Second, examples where academic geographical knowledges are made accessible to non-academics; Third, geographical knowledges have been co-produced by academics and non-academics working together, working and/or writing in partnership; Fourth, non-academic geographical knowledges have been legitimised in their own rights, through deploying a range techniques designed to un-hide lay geographies

    23. In light of these different tendencies two important elements characterise this ‘public’ work Points of connection across the different geographies … activist, critical etc. These are the ways in which human geography is represented and the construction and maintenance of its publics

    24. 3. Writing, talking and performing human geography Modes of representing human geography Writing: ‘We suppose a direct equation between value and numbers – imagining that a clear style results in a popular audience and therefore in effective political engagements (Warner 2002: 138) Issues of poetics – the art of writing – write ‘better, and for audiences outside of academia’ (Mitchell 2006: 205)

    25. Talking and performing: Academic geographers present their geography in a number of arenas: the lecture theatre, the seminar room, the city hall Means of producing publics for geography – some easier than others

    26. 4. Human geography and its publics How do we understand the term ‘public’? Bounded publics Relational publics

    27. 5. Conclusion Range of factors produced the conditions at the end of the 1990s for the ‘public turn’ in UK human geography Emergence of a series of geographies that are both different – in terms of terms of their emphasises, logics, rationales etc. – but that also share some common characteristics ‘Public’ geographies – narrowly defined -- draws both on influences within UK human geography and outside from US sociology

    28. Eleven point conclusion: 1.The notion of human geographers constructing ‘publics’ for their work not new – despite the newness of the label ‘public’ geographies. Need for more historically and geographically sensitive accounts (Burawoy 2003; McLaughlin and Turcotte 2007). 2. ‘Public’ geographies as currently defined refers to a very particular area of human geography that draws directly from Burawoy. Room for widening.

    29. 3. Need to remind ourselves of the particular histories of ‘activist’, ‘critical’, ‘participatory’, ‘policy’, and ‘professional’ geographies while drawing out the emphasis on ‘publics’. 4. ‘Public’ geographies involve meanings that are contested, conflicting, multiple and variegated. Acknowledge differences.

    30. 5. Those who participate in ‘public’ geographies do so for different reasons. Working under different regimes. Unpack and acknowledge differences. 6. ‘Different ‘public’ geographies are legitimized and valued in different ways by different publics with differing consequence depending on power asymmetries. Redistribute ‘capital’ (cultural, economic and social) across the field – value ‘publics’ other than us!

    31. 7. Representing ‘publics’ in this way might shift emphasis from management-speak in universities over talk of ‘consumers’ and ‘customers’. Might also readdress the unevenness in how different ‘publics’ are valued (a la ‘knowledge transfer’ and ‘users’ in ESRC-speak) 8. Arguing against a discrete ‘quadrant’ (a la Burawoy). Way forward not to compartmentalize and essentialize different types of geographical knowledge. Stress commonalities while acknowledging and valuing ‘difference’.

    32. 9. In principle thinking about the different ‘publics’ for different geographical knowledges provides a way of mainstreaming ‘public’ geographies – of reclaiming past ‘publics’ and of putting current ‘publics’ centre stage in the current sub-disciplinary configuration. 10. Remember Burawoy’s (2005: 259) quests to “engage multiple publics in multiple ways”. 11. We are geographers! Let’s make sure we name ourselves and what we do as geography ... Klaus Dodds (Geography, Royal Holloway) Historical geographer or geopolitical historian?

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