Promoting Geography (or Part of It)—Yet Again!

Abstract

Geographers in the United States frequently express concern that their discipline's potential contributions to the understanding of contemporary society (including society–nature interrelations) and resolution of some of its major problems are underrecognized and undervalued. Understanding the Changing Planet (National Research Council 2010) is the latest in a series of reports addressed at policymakers, the scientific community, and its funders seeking to rectify that situation. It covers the geographical sciences more generally rather than geography specifically and pays particular attention to society–nature interrelations but does those disciplines something of a disservice with its greater emphasis on the infrastructure for data collection, visualization, and analysis at the expense of explanation and theory. It successfully promotes some aspects of the disciplines but largely ignores other vibrant and important parts. Its long-term impact is uncertain.

Los geógrafos de los Estados Unidos expresan frecuentemente su preocupación porque las potenciales contribuciones de la disciplina al entendimiento de la sociedad contemporánea (incluso las relaciones sociedad-naturaleza), y la resolución de algunos de sus principales problemas, sean poco reconocidas y subvaloradas. Understanding the Changing Planet(National Research Council 2010) es el último de una serie de informes dirigidos a quienes toman decisiones sobre políticas, a la comunidad científica y a sus proveedores de fondos, buscando rectificar tal situación. El informe cubre más a las ciencias geográficas en general que a la geografía específicamente y concede especial atención a las interrelaciones sociedad-naturaleza, pero en cierta manera les hace a aquellas disciplinas un flaco servicio con su énfasis desmedido en la infraestructura de la recolección de datos, visualización y análisis, a expensas de la explicación y la teoría. Es exitoso al promover algunos aspectos de las disciplinas pero en gran medida ignora otras partes vibrantes e importantes. Su impacto a largo plazo es incierto.

Key Words:

• cyberinfrastructure
• geographical sciences
• problem solving
• society–nature

关键词:

• 网络基础设施
• 地理科学
• 解决问题
• 社会与自然

Palabras clave:

• cyberinfraestructura
• ciencias geográficas
• solución de problemas
• sociedad–naturaleza

Acknowledgments

RON JOHNSTON is Professor of Geography, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include electoral and political geography, urban social geography, and the history of human geography.

Notes

1. After the report that Chisholm produced for an ad hoc committee of geographers was successful in gaining the discipline a secure place in the U.K. Social Science (later Economic and Social) Research Council, he produced two books based on its arguments (Chisholm 1971b, 1975) and coedited a third (Chisholm and Rodgers 1973) to promote the “new (human) geography” more widely.

2. The SSRC has not only changed its name—to Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)—but also its internal structures (many times); there are no longer separate disciplinary committees, but geographers are well represented in all of its activities. The “search for recognition” exercise is longover.

3. This is not the place for a long discussion of why nothing similar has been considered necessary in the United Kingdom. There, the discipline continues to thrive in the university system—in large part because its strong presence in the country's high schools generates demand for university degree programs (Johnston and Sidaway 2007) and ensures its established place in the research communities. The ESRC recognized the potential of GIS early and established a major program in the late 1980s—led by a sociologist but with much geographer involvement; its newly appointed chief executive, Paul Boyle, is a geographer. Physical geographers never needed to sell themselves in a public way. One of them—Ken Hare (Hay 2006)—was a founding member of the Natural Environment Research Council, to be followed by Keith Clayton, who also coestablished the country's first School of Environmental Sciences. Since then, geographers have been fully involved in the rapidly evolving earth and environmental sciences as well as the social sciences—as indicated by the number now being elected to the Royal Society as well as the British Academy.

4. It hardly needs saying—but I will—that this is in no way questioning the bona fides of the report's authors.