Sentinels of geography: legacy, public policy and contemporary relevance

ABSTRACT

Many geographers, past and present, have addressed public policy issues facing nations and peoples and in the process offered solutions to highly complex problems. Three ‘sentinels’ of the discipline, Halford Mackinder, Carl Sauer and Thomas Griffith Taylor, served as protectors of geography speaking up for the science in a way often confronting public officials, politicians and others. They contributed significantly to the development of geography in Britain, the USA, Australia and Canada, while engaging in public policy debates on topics such as geopolitics, geographical constraints on land use and natural resource management. All three were advocates for the unity of geography, stressing how an understanding of the interconnectedness of natural and human phenomena can assist in decision making. They were often frustrated by what they saw as ill-informed policies which did not respect geographic realities. Given their varied contributions, it is difficult to fully assess their impact both during their long and productive lifetimes, and subsequently, especially given the interdisciplinary and contested nature of their research. Today, academic geographers are faced with having to increasingly ‘prove the impact’ of their research, something beyond the comprehension of previous generations. Lessons from an analysis of the work of these ‘sentinels’, as well as my own experience, show how difficult a task this will be.

KEYWORDS:

• Mackinder
• Sauer
• Taylor
• geopolitics
• public policy
• unity of geography
• impact of research

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Professor Phil McManus for the opportunity to present the ideas in this essay to the Year 4 Honours Geography class in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney. This opportunity encouraged me to write the essay and thus to pay tribute to three geographers who have contributed so much to the discipline. I thank Phil and Stuart Pearson from ADFA for their helpful suggestions and those of the anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.