Elsevier

Geoforum

Volume 33, Issue 3, August 2002, Pages 291-298
Geoforum

The future of geography

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7185(02)00019-2Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to assess the current state and future prospects of Geography especially but not only in Britain. It is quasi-polemical and should be read in that spirit. The paper looks first at the notable successes of physical and human geography. It then considers how these successes are being buttressed by current events taking place in the world. Next, the paper considers the main problems that beset geography. Finally, however, the paper ends on another positive note by considering some of the exciting new developments that are now taking place in the discipline which will allow it to relate to more of the many worlds that make up geography's vocation.

Introduction

My relationship with geography has been rather like that of a child with its parent: an underlying love but interspersed with periods of sulking and waywardness. I will leave it to the reader to decide which phase I am currently in!

One thing that the reader can be sure of is that I have no privileged insight into the future of Geography. What I do have is a reasonably broad knowledge of British human and physical geography – and a set of fairly strong (though not I hope rigid) opinions. What I will try to do is to put this knowledge and these opinions together to provide a kind of synopsis. Inevitably, that synopsis is very partial, strongly biased to the situation in Britain and even then to examples drawn from close to home. But one thing that struck me in writing this piece is just how many other convincing examples I could have chosen which would have been just as illustrative – one more testimony, I think, to the extraordinary richness of geography as a discipline at this point in time.

I want to begin this piece with the good news – all the things that I think it is possible to be justifiably proud of. And, as will become clear, there are a lot of things to be proud of. Further, as I will point out, the times are on our side: things are becoming `more geographical'. But not all the news can be good: I will also note some of the problems that are going to have to be faced in the next 10 years or so that should give us all some pause for thought. Then, in my concluding section, I will set out what I think are the most exciting intellectual developments currently going on in Geography on which I think much of our future depends. If I can convey even half the excitement that I feel about these developments, then I think I will have done my job.

Section snippets

The successes of geography

Let me start, then, with the undoubted successes. And I think there have been a lot of these of late.

Let me begin by addressing the topic of physical geography. Recently, physical geography has come out fighting and the battleground it has chosen has been mainstream science. In Britain, for example, there are now a series of science groups who are regularly getting their work in to the pages of Nature or Science in subjects as diverse as glaciology, geomorphology, Quaternary studies, and the

The increasing relevance of geography

These four developments have to be seen against a backcloth of wider change which has made geography a peculiarly relevant discipline at this point in time. Take the case of recent geopolitical change. If nothing else, the events of September 11 and after have made clear that ignorance of the world is no excuse. Geographical knowledge is crucial. But the argument goes farther than simply knowing more about the world. These events have also underlined the need for producing new forms of ethic

Some problems in geography

In other words, my argument is that geography is becoming more successful and at the same time, the world is adding new and exciting geographies that we can study. But, of course, not everything in the garden of geography is entirely rosy. It never is. I want to concentrate on four problems in particular.

First, and most importantly, human and physical geography are splitting apart. In part, this divergence is actually a product of success – as physical geography has moved firmly into the

Prospects for the future of geography

So where can I see geography going in the future? I think that geography is about to enter a very exciting phase, one in which the discipline will make some genuine intellectual and practical leaps.

I want to start by considering methods. I think the methods used in geography have generally been boring. But I think that the next five years or so will see a renaissance of methods, based on two main sources: large-scale computing and performance. Let me start with computing. Large-scale computing

Conclusions

So, let me conclude by stressing just how central geography can be intellectually and practically to the world we live in. This is not a weak-kneed discipline. It is a discipline which, though stretched for resources and struggling with a number of problems, is going from strength to strength. And I like to think that it is doing this both with a certain amount of integrity and without reneging on the promises of interdisciplinarity.

Most of all, I think what is pivotal about geography now is

Acknowledgements

This paper was originally written as an address to the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Geography Teachers' Association of Singapore on March 2nd 2002 and is meant to take the form of a quasi-polemic. The paper is a product of my time as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore and I would like to thank the University and the Department of Geography for their hospitality. Henry Yeung, Andrew Leyshon, and Ron Johnston provided invaluable advice and encouragement.

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