The Complex Politics of Relevance in Geography

Abstract

As a discipline, geographers have debated what it means to make research relevant. In this article, we argue that the issue of what makes research relevant cannot be separated from the questions of why research should be relevant, how research becomes relevant, the goals of research, and for whom it is intended to be relevant. In this sense, the determination of relevance is a social and political process. We make this point through an evaluation of various writings on relevance, editorials that have appeared in the Newsletter of the Association of American Geographers, and through interviews with researchers. We argue that relevance can be intended, but that commitment to relevant research requires a long-term view and an appreciation for the indirect pathways of relevance.

Key Words:

• relevance
• knowledge construction
• social studies of science
• ethics

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant BCS-9819828; that support is greatly appreciated. The article has benefited from the comments of anonymous reviewers, the patience of Audrey Kobayashi, and, of course, the insightful comments of our respondents. As authors, we are equally responsible for this article.

Notes

1. What follows is a summary of developments in human geography. We leave it to others to trace the development of physical geography and its changing relevance to other sciences and society at large. What is obvious, though, is that something akin to the revolution in theory that has transformed human geography and placed it at the center of so many critical social-theoretical debates, has been paralleled by an impressive growth of physical geographic theory and techniques that have likewise reasserted the centrality of physical geography to environmental sciences.

2. One can argue that the mainstream of debate in SSK, especially as represented by the so-called Edinburgh School, has had little to say about “relevance as such.” That may, to some extent, be true, but what is at stake is how we use the ideas from SSK and related discourses in order to develop a frame for interpreting discourses of practices of relevance in our own field. Indeed, the whole point of the development of the field of social studies of science has been to create a means to turn a critical eye on the social practices of knowledge production. In geography, concerns about, debates over, and practices of relevance have been a central part of our social practices. And while Edinburgh School sociologists of science may not have interested themselves in “relevance as such,” they, and their interlocutors like Latour (1987, 1996,;1999), have been deeply concerned not only with how scientific (and other) knowledge is produced, but also how it is used.

3. As noted, these interviews were conducted as part of a larger study of public space in which the production of knowledge (in its diversity) was a central concern. We set out to interview all academic geographers based in the U.S. who have published public space research on U.S. topics in the period 1945–1998. Thirty-three scholars were identified as fulfilling these criteria. One person refused to be interviewed, six were unavailable for interviews during the period we conducted the research, and one had died. Respondents were given the option of maintaining confidentiality. Six people maintained their right to confidentiality; no names are associated with quotations from these individuals. While our own research is related to public space, we did not interview each other: our views on the topic will be apparent enough in this article.

4. Susan Hanson was one of the few AAG presidents to talk about this issue in her columns. Her columns were also notable for the references she made to her family. These references suggest an additional sense of relevance in her presidency—that our personal lives are relevant to the ways in which we operate as a discipline.