The Passing of “Geography’s Empire” and Question of Geography in Decolonization, 1945–1980

Abstract

Critical engagement with the relations between geography and empire has become integral to the view that geography is a power-laden venture rather than an impartial or self-contained discipline. The literature on this imbroglio, however, focuses either on the imperial past or on present-day colonialisms and pays scant attention to the postwar era of decolonization (1945–1980). Why is this so? What happened when the empires that geography had helped to shape came to an end after World War II? What impact did decolonization have on the discipline? It is claimed that decolonization had a marginal place in postwar geography but can still be discerned, in buried forms, and that some geographers wrote about it with perspicacity. This contention is pursued with reference to the writing of Western (mainly U.S., British, and French) and some African and Asian geographers and probes how decolonization was differently positioned within different geographical traditions and debates and how geographical knowledge both advanced and challenged understanding of this process. This article promotes a comparative approach to the two facets of the title and delineates both differences and commonalities in geographers’ views and experiences. There are two key findings: First, geographers were much more interested in the everyday geographical violence of decolonization than in its high politics or the writings of revolutionaries; second, this concern prompted some to observe that questions of decolonization were subordinated too easily to ones of development.

有一种观点认为，地理学是一个充满权力斗争的领域，而非一个公正独立的学科。关于地质学和帝国之间关系的批判性讨论也已成为这一观点中的重要组成部分。但与这一激烈争论有关的文献中，大多都是关注帝国的过去或当今的殖民主义，很少关注战后的去殖民化时期 (1945-1980年)，为什么会这样？第二次世界大战结束后，在地理因素促成帝国走向灭亡的过程中，到底发生了什么？去殖民化对这一学科产生了怎样的影响？有人认为，去殖民化在战后地理学中虽仅占很小的部分，但仍可从其势微的存在形式中隐约可辨，一些地理学家就曾深入洞察并撰写了相关文章。这种争论所参考的文献来自西方（主要是美国、英国和法国）以及一些非洲和亚洲地质学家的著作，探讨了不同地理传统和辩论中对非殖民化的不同定位；也讨论了在这个过程中，地理知识如何促进人们的理解，同时也为其提出了挑战。本文提出了对这个主题的两个方面进行比较，阐述了地理学家观点和经验的差异与共同点。同时还提出了两个主要发现：第一，对于去殖民化，地理学家似乎更关注日常地理暴力而非高层政治或革命著作。其次，这样的关注也让有的学者发现，去殖民化问题很容易就会让步于发展问题。

El compromiso crítico con el tema de las relaciones entre geografía e imperio se ha convertido en parte integral de la visión de que la geografía es más un emprendimiento cargado de poder que una disciplina imparcial y autónoma. Sin embargo, la literatura sobre este embrollo se enfoca, bien sobre el pasado imperial o sobre los colonialismos de la actualidad, y pone poca atención a la era de la descolonización de la posguerra (1945–1980). ¿Por qué ocurre tal cosa? ¿Qué ocurrió cuando los imperios que la geografía había ayudado a conformar llegaron a su final después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial? ¿Qué impacto tuvo la descolonización sobre la disciplina? Se aduce que la descolonización tuvo un lugar marginal en la geografía de la posguerra, aunque todavía sea posible que se la discierna, en formas sepultadas, y que algunos geógrafos escribieron al respecto con perspicacia. Esta opinión controvertida se persigue con referencia a los escritos de geógrafos occidentales (principalmente norteamericanos, británicos y franceses) y de algunos africanos y asiáticos, al tiempo que se sondea cómo la descolonización fue posicionada de modo distinto dentro de diferentes tradiciones y debates geográficos, y cómo el conocimiento geográfico a la vez avanzó y retó la comprensión de este proceso. Este artículo promueve un enfoque comparativo de las dos facetas del título y delinea las diferencias y cosas en común en los puntos de vista y experiencias de los geógrafos. Hay dos hallazgos claves: Primero, los geógrafos estuvieron mucho más interesados en la violencia geográfica cotidiana de la descolonización que en sus aspectos políticos salientes, o en los escritos de los revolucionarios; segundo, esta preocupación dio pie a que algunos observaran que las cuestiones de la descolonización estuvieron subordinadas con demasiada facilidad a las relacionadas con el desarrollo.

Key Words:

• decolonization
• empire
• postwar geography

关键词:

• 非殖民化
• 帝国
• 战后地理

Palabras clave:

• descolonización
• geografía de la posguerra
• imperio

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Nik Heynen, the anonymous referees, audiences in Glasgow, London, and St. Andrews (especially Felix Driver, Deborah Dixon, Nina Laurie, Simon Naylor, and Chris Philo), and colleagues from around the world — Trevor Barnes (as ever), Paul Claval, John Darwin, Joe Doherty, Katherine Gibson, Susanna Hecht, Glen MacDonald, and Jo Sharp for their valuable input. Any infelicities should be laid at my door.

Notes

1 The few geographers who have considered postwar decolonization as part of a wider treatment of empire (e.g., Butlin 2009, 577–610) largely ignore geographers’ work on the question.

2 Only fleeting reference is made to Belgian, Dutch, and Portuguese geography. Germany’s colonial empire was confiscated in 1919, and postwar German geography was preoccupied with de-Nazification rather than imperial decline. Translations from French are my own.

3 Just once in the title of essays in this journal (1973) and the Geographical Journal (1965); twice in the Annales de Géographie (1969 and 1972)—in essays on Libya, Kenya, Tunisia, and Morocco, respectively; and not at all in either the Geographical Review or Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.

4 Geographers will be identified by their nationality rather than university affiliation (which, in many cases, shifted during their careers), research specialty, or area of regional expertise (which, in some cases, likewise changed).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel W. Clayton

DAN CLAYTON is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, UK KY16 9AL. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests are in the area of colonial and postcolonial geographies and include recent funded projects on twentieth-century tropicality and the Vietnam War.