Trajectories of geography and public policy

ABSTRACT

Amidst political and institutional demands for a focus on ‘translational’, ‘applied’, ‘useful’, ‘relevant’, ‘impactful’ and ‘engaged’ research, this Special Section revisits and resituates the question of geography’s relationship with public policy and asks how do we respond to these societal demands? We need not start from scratch; in fact, there exists a substantial established literature on the geography–public policy relationship and its actual and potential trajectories. These debates need to be recontextualised and supplemented so that they are more thoroughly situated and sensitized to contemporary conjunctures, risks and opportunities.

KEYWORDS:

• Applied geography
• critical geography
• geographic thought
• relevance debates

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shaun Lin

Shaun Lin is a Lecturer in NUS College at the National University of Singapore. His current research agenda focuses on geography pedagogy, geography and public policy, environmental politics, and border studies.

James D. Sidaway

James D. Sidaway has served as Professor of Political Geography at the National University of Singapore since 2012, having previously worked at several British universities and the University of Amsterdam. His most recent book is: Paasche, T.F. & Sidaway, J.D. (2021) Transecting Securityscapes: Dispatches from Cambodia, Iraq and Mozambique, University of Georgia Press.

Michiel van Meeteren

Michiel van Meeteren is an Assistant Professor in Human Geography at Utrecht University, Netherlands, having previously worked in Belgium and the UK. His current research agenda focuses on the past, present, and future of geographic thought and practice in society, education, and academia.

Mark Boyle

Mark Boyle is Professor of Geography at Maynooth University in Ireland. He has an interest in historiographies of debates on relevance within human geography and specifically urban theory and its relationship with urban policy.

Tim Hall

Tim Hall is a Professor in the Department of Policing, Criminology and Forensics, and Social Sciences at the University of Winchester. His current research focuses on the geographies of crime, with a particular focus on the ways in which geographers have explored transnational organised and cyber crime.