The Academy in Activism and Activism in the Academy:
Collaborative Research Methodologies and Radical Geography

Sebastian Cobarrubias

 

It would be difficult for a political activist entering the ‘trade’ of geography to not be enthused or at least interested by the radical tradition in the discipline, more so in a time when political activism itself seems to be taking on more and more spatial thinking as a way to conceive of globalization. For different reasons though, one can often see that the development of radical geography did not necessarily develop alongside activism- often the two walk different paths. Yet at different moments and in different places, activism and the academy have ‘met’ and challenged each other in fruitful and paradigm-shifting ways.

With this in mind, this essay will attempt to follow (in an illustrative way) the history of collaborative research methodologies utilized in radical geography as a ‘contact zone’ (Merrifield 1995; p. 64) between the academy and activism. The idea of the ‘contact zone’ can basically be seen as a point of ‘contamination’ and hybridity. While many academics are and have been social activists and vice versa, they often participate in the academy and activism as spheres of life which are differentiated psychologically, socially, institutionally, etc. The ‘contact zone’ in this case helps to breakdown the mental ‘wall’ between the academy and activism, and helps deconstruct the notions of an isolated site of knowledge creation and diffusion (i.e. the autonomous Kantian university). In order to be clear it should be stated that not all participatory research is necessarily radical nor is all radical geography participatory but rather when these two tendencies meet they can create this unique space of interaction referred to here as a ‘contact zone’.

These interactions between social spheres though don’t occur out of the blue. One of the main arguments of this essay is that the impetus for the combination of radical geography and participatory research (or even similar projects such as popular education) comes from ‘society’ in periods of heightened conflictuality and mobilization. In a more general sense, as Harvey puts it: “The history of our discipline cannot be understood independently of the history of the society in which the practices of geography are embedded… The difficulties and alternatives geographers now face are likewise rooted in conflictual processes of societal transformation” (Harvey 2001; p.108).

The history will follow more or less chronologically. First the emergence of radical geography in the late 60’s early 70’s will be presented, focusing on the tradition of the Geographical Expedition of William Bunge and concerns with radical methodology. The next part, called the ‘Long March’, will discuss the development of radical geography which disengaged from the tradition of the Geographical Expedition and the re-hardening of the ‘cognitive wall’ between the academy and activism. This part will also include the challenges that the women’s’ movement presented through feminist geography to the dominant methodologies of research. Finally the essay will conclude looking at more recent developments including new calls to break down the academy/activist divide, recent projects by geographers, as well as engagement with geographical thinking on the part of activists themselves. These recent developments will be situated in the context of a developing and expanding round of mobilization at the global level, specifically through the movements of global resistance.

II. The Emergence of Radical Geography and the New ‘Expeditions’

The tradition, or movement as some would prefer to call it (see Blaut 1979), of radical geography in the Anglo-American countries appeared and coalesced in the late 1960’s. It emerged largely as the response and engagement on the part of geographers with the series of social struggles and processes of social transformation occurring throughout the time period. Movements against the war in Vietnam, anti-colonial struggles in countries of the Global South, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, what seemed to be the string of international revolts in ’68, provoked a reaction. As Peet states: “radical science in general and radical geography in particular are, at least in North America, of fairly recent origin. They are largely the product of the events of the 1960’s,” (Peet 1977; p. 7). Geographers were “forced by events to question the conceptual bases and practices of their discipline,” (Harvey and Smith 1984; p. 102).

Just prior to the emergence of its critical wing, geography during the mid 60’s was primarily seen as a spatial science fully immersed in (or taken over by) the quantitative revolution. The subject matter addressed by the discipline was varied (from the study of glaciers to neighborhood segregation) but the theoretical bases that had often given geography it raison d’être-the synthesis of the human and physical sciences- seemed a thing of the past (Harvey and Smith 1984; p. 102). The writers of the history of radical geography often give the impression that while geography had its niche, there was a feeling of a certain stagnation (Peet 1977, Blaut 1979, Harvey and Smith 1984). It is interesting to note that up until the 1960’s there seems to have not been anything that could be called a critical ‘tradition’ or lineage. Although many geographers hark back to the work of anarchist geographers such as Kropotkin and Réclus, there had not been a body of work or string of authors that one could say had picked up where those two had left off in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. In the decades prior to the 60’s there had been individuals and small groups of people involved in critical work (Sauer, and Lattimore are cited by some) but no ‘body’ of work that could be called ‘critical’ much less ‘radical’. Blaut attempts to explain the lack of this tradition as due, at least partly, to: the cultural monotony of the professoriate (mostly white male), the affluence (in the U.S. at least) of the post-war period and McCarthyist repression (Blaut 1979; p. 160). Harvey even ventures that due to McCarthyism, at least some ‘progressive’ geographers began to “…express their social concerns behind the supposed neutrality of ‘the positivist shield’” (Harvey 2001; p. 114). To break through this ‘quiet’ then would require something fairly massive to occur, a ‘social crisis’ according to Blaut: “Radical geography certainly emerged out of such a crisis, in my view the most serious crisis yet faced by capitalist society,” (Blaut 1979; p. 159).

The convulsions and mobilization sweeping through entire societies did not pass over geographers of course. “Inevitably, a number of geographers were drawn into the struggle, and we brought our scientific tool bags with us,” (Blaut 1979). A call for the ‘relevancy’ of geographical work towards addressing social problems began to be circulated (Peet 1977; p. 11). Localized responses to and experiences with these social struggles on the part of geographers, especially in the US and Canada, began to seriously connect and network after the 1969 meeting off the AAG. “It was at the Ann Arbor meeting of the A.A.G., in 1969, that most of these local movements- including the Detroit Geographical Expedition and the Antipode group at Clark University- suddenly became aware of one another’s existence, and it was at these meetings that the radical movement congealed and the radical tradition was born,” (Blaut 1979; p. 160).
As stated in the quote above, it was at this intense moment of protest that the tradition of the new Geographical Expedition came about under the initial guidance of William Bunge. The Expedition projects came to be an extremely interesting experiment at uniting both community concerns and mobilization with academic expertise and research. In fact, during the first several years of the development of radical geography, simultaneous to a period when high levels of social mobilization were maintained, the pages of Antipode often reported the experiences of the expeditions, the complexities around ‘advocacy geography’ and community involvement, and even an entire issue was dedicated to ‘radical methodologies’ with several of the articles addressing similar questions. During this initial period of the critical tradition, the idea of constructing those bridges between activism and the academy were in the forefront along with developing more general critiques of either society or the discipline itself. We will now proceed to a brief ‘exploration’ of these experiences, focusing on the ‘expedition’.

EXPEDITIONS AND RADICAL PARTICIPATORY METHODOLOGY

The tradition of the new Geographical Expedition and the ‘Society for Human Exploration’, came about largely as a result of the contacts and initial exchanges of ideas between William Bunge and Gwendolyn Warren- the main academic representative and community representative initially (Horvath 1971; p. 74). It was an engagement between the serious problems of marginalization (of all sorts) in an African American community in Detroit, and engaged faculty and students at the University of Michigan. The idea was to combine academic and local expertise to create effective political tools, community empowerment, consciousness and provide educational opportunities (suited to greater or lesser degrees) for those inner-city communities. After several years of initial forays and exchanges-the final result became the D.G.E.I. Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute which lasted approximately from the summer of ’1969 until the fall/winter of 1970.

Bunge in his description of the early years of this experiment reclaims the use of the words ‘expedition’ and ‘exploration’ so tied to the geographical tradition but redefines their use (Bunge in Peet 1979; p. 31-35). While mentioning the usefulness of the expedition/exploration tradition for those that undertook them he goes on to establish the ideas behind a new exploration. Bunge defines this ‘new’ type of expedition as a “human” one: it is “a democratic, as opposed to an elitist expedition.” “[H]uman explorations are ‘contributive,’ (resource contributing instead of resource taking)…Priorities are totally reversed,” (Bunge in Peet 1979; p. 35). The traditional idea of the ‘field’ and the geographer’s relationship to those who lived there also changes dramatically and here one can also see some more of the organizational philosophy behind the D.G.E.I. experiment:
“Local people are to be incorporated as students and as professors. They are not to be further exploited. Their point of view is given first place. It is democratic also in that if planning work results, and that is one of the main purposes of the Expedition, then the planners, the geographers, are expected to live in the mess that they create. (Bunge in Peet 1979; p. 35)

The methodology employed (or at least attempted) seemed to have been undertaken with the express goal of breaking down the wall between academy and activism mentioned earlier and creating a new political/educational beast in its wake. Different criteria were used to attempt to put these ideas into effect. For one, an Expedition had to set up a ‘base camp’/headquarters in the same neighborhood that was being ‘explored’ (Stephenson 1974; p. 98). The setting up of free classes with open access and no tuition for community members within a defined area was another important aspect. The class material was ideally to take into account the experience and knowledge of the community which made up the students, and also could count for college credit (Merrifield 1995; p. 55 and Horvath 1971).
Those members of the community participating in the expedition had a leading role in defining the issues and problems to be researched and where the efforts of exploration would be concentrated (Stephenson 1974). Possibly one of the most interesting and stickiest points of the expedition project dealt with the point of community control: “And, most importantly, the power of the expedition itself, who hires and fires, who writes checks and so forth must be in the hands of he people being explored, risky as that sounds to academics,” (Bunge in Peet 1979; p. 39 italics original). Since these expeditions also served to provide college education in ‘explored’ neighborhoods one can imagine the issues that this would raise with university administrations in terms of management, oversight, funding, etc. and this in fact came to be one of problem points where universities could pressure and speed along the closure of an expedition (Horvath 1971). Another interesting point of methodology, when comparing to historic expedition culture, was that the desire for exploration had to come primarily from organizations and activists within the community in question. “This proved to be as crucial step: we had been invited into a community; we did not simply arrive announced. An expedition must not be an invasion,” (Stephenson 1974).

Although the work done by the expeditions could result in tools or evidence for concrete political campaign work, it was made clear that the goal of the expedition was not to ‘organize’ the community. With an awareness of the implicit power relations between the ‘academic’ geographers and the ‘folk’ geographers that seems a premonition of later feminist critiques there was a clear slant against the idea of paratrooping into an place with a clear political program, even if the work was implicitly political and recognized as such (Stephenson 1974; p. 101).
The experiment in expeditions tried to break down the dichotomy of researcher-researched which was already being felt fairly keenly it seems, by some of the communities where expeditions later occurred. As Stephenson writes of the early days of the Toronto Expedition, the ‘initial reaction’ on the part of many in the neighborhood was similar to “…’go away we are studied to death’” (Stephenson 1974; p. 99). Through the establishments of base camps, community control, and the creation of categories like ‘folk geographer’ the expedition began to be recognized as a useful institution and a cooperative partner. With respect to the back and forth between professional and folk geographers “beyond learning the technical skills of the academics, these folk geographers learn to generalize their experiences to a larger world. In return, the campus explorers gain valuable knowledge and insights into the community. There is a commerce between the community and the campus explorers, not a dominance of one by the other,” (Stephenson 1974; p. 99).

As mentioned earlier, it was the pressure of intense social mobilization, and geographers’ participation therein, that prompted creative responses such as the Expedition movement. In a work from 1979 were Bunge reflects on some of his own experiences and influences, he cites participation in the Martin Luther King Jr., demonstrations in Chicago during 1966 as being a particularly powerful experience. Bunge’s later encounters with community organizing in Detroit, especially through the work of Gwendolyn Warren, convinced him that people were analyzing and interpreting the world all around him and that to make his own tools and expertise more relevant he had to engage with and embrace this organizing work going on (Merrifield 1995; p.53). At least in part it seems then that the recognition on the part of Bunge of the analysis and interpretation already occurring, informed the design of an expedition model were there would be a mutual recognition of knowledge and this could lead to a collaborative mix of academic and activist work.

Bunge’s thinking on this is interesting since he believed in the usefulness of academic geography (which was fairly rooted in quantitative methods) but increasingly felt “the urgent political necessity to ‘bring global problems down to earth, to the scale of people’s normal lives,’”. Academic geographers for him “tend to sever theory from practice and prioritize citing over sighting,” (Merrifield and Bunge in Merrifield 1995; p. 53). To help overcome this distance for Bunge then the geographers participating in the expedition could take a journey that would bring them into contact with a new reality. “The seven mile journey from rich suburban Detroit to its poor inner city is a trip half-way around the world in terms of infant-mortality rates,” (Merrifield 1995; p. 54).

While the expedition is one of the most salient examples and is cited by many who write histories of critical geography the discussion of how to bring together the production of research within the university and mobilization occurring in different sectors of society was occurring at a more general level amongst those geographers who were attempting to respond to the social reality they were embedded in. Many articles in the early editions of Antipode reflect this spirit, for example an article on ‘advocacy geography’ speaking to a wider audience on how to challenge notions of advocate-advocee and allowing communities to articulate their own ‘problems’ to be solved instead of the advocate dictating the problem. Mention of popular education and the methods of radical pedagogy of Paolo Freire come up (Campbell 1974). The experiences of critical planners attempting to work with community organizations are another example. In fact, the second issue of Antipode was dedicated to discussions of ‘radical methodology’. While that is a very broad term and included articles on bringing critical analysis into geography more generally, discussions also took place of how to make research more participatory and develop new ways of interfacing official academic work with non-official intellectual/political work.

Yet this initial energy was not to last. Many of these efforts seemed either to go beneath the radar or simply not catch on or get taken up by a large portion of geographers engaging with critical thought. The D.G.E.I. was eventually chased out and terminated by university administrations anathema to the ‘expeditions’ methods. Bunge and others inspired by the Detroit example did continue their work (in the case of Bunge this meant having to go to Canada because of begin essentially chased out of the university in the US) and at least several other expeditions took place in Vancouver and Toronto, several others were either executed or at least planned in places such as Montreal, Quebec city and one in London (Colenutt 1971 & Stephenson 1974). Soon after this though, little is heard with relation to the ‘new expeditions’ and they seem to fade into an interesting experiment from another time.

III. ‘The Long March’?

As the seventies went on and critical geography grew, the emphasis became the development of theory and technique for doing radical/critical research within the discipline. Although activism continued, and there are some interesting efforts at uniting radical geographers such as through the Union for Socialist Geographers, the activism is no longer as focused on breaking down our proverbial ‘wall’. The movement to develop critical geography grew and with rather incredible energy but the focus changed. Numerous sessions at the American and Canadian Associations of Geographers took place under this rubric, Antipode established itself as the publishing outlet for critical geography although others such as Transition also came into existence and scholarly groupings including the USG mentioned above and SERGE (Socially and Ecologically Responsible Geographers) began to coalesce at this time (Blaut 1979; p.160-161).
As critical geography grew different trends and foci emerged, came together, specialized and divided. Two examples of this are welfare geography which was firmly embedded in the quantitative modeling tradition, and Marxist geography which in general criticized that same tradition. Yet even though both developed quite a bit during this period, far less attention was paid to the inclusion of affected communities or social movements in the research process even if this was of concern during the early years of their respective development. Welfare Geography for its part developed very elaborate models to measure the spatial distribution of ‘public goods’ necessary to attain a certain level of “quality of human life” (Smith 1977; p. xi). In one of the most important works of that tradition, David Smith describes the mission of welfare geography to be “the study of ‘who gets what where, and how’” (Smith 1977; p.7). Marxist geography, as one can imagine, emerged with a more radical critique of the direction and methods of the discipline. Marxist geographers had their work cut out for them in some sense. Considering the general dearth of complex spatial thinking in Marxist thought, and the previous lack of engagement between geographers and Marxists, Marxist geographers had to engage in elaborating theoretical mechanisms that would allow the mutual incorporation of the two traditions. Besides elaborating on these general debates though, Marxist geographers began to apply their thinking to the different subfields of concern in human geography at the time, for example: geopolitics/imperialism, regional development, urban geography and planning, and human-environment relations (Harvey and Smith 1984).

It seems then, that while intellectual complexity developed, even to the point of having multiple specialties and foci within critical geography, the emphasis on ‘participation’ seems to have dissipated. At times, one can even find comments from the period in the mid and late seventies that could be construed if not as critiques of the participation model in research, then as calls for a change in emphasis (Peet and Harvey 1974; p. iv & Breitbart and Peet in Peet 1979; p. 15). In keeping with one of the themes of this paper dealing with the influence of social mobilization on the academy, it is important to note that it is during this time period that a general demobilization of society is beginning to take hold. While many thousands had been radicalized by the 60’s and early seventies, the same mass mobilizations around any multiplicity of issues that had occurred then were becoming more and more distant by the mid-late seventies. This was also the period when the ‘militaristic logic’ emerged in many small radical groups. Groups such as the Weathermen and the Black Liberation Army in the U.S. got involved in very short-lived armed conflicts with the state having misread the historical moment and chosen a strategy were these groups were a thousand times the weaker. In this ambiance it becomes easier to explain that while the development of radical geography pushed forward the ‘wall’ between the academy and more general activism re-hardened [1].

FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN GEOGRAPHY

Possibly the most important development in geography during this period being playfully called the ‘Long March’ with regards to challenging the degrees of separation between academic knowledge and other sources of knowledge comes from the development of feminist geography. The influence of the women’s movement and the challenges it posed to many pre-held notion in society was brought to geography during this time as the gains made by the movement facilitated the entrance of more women into the discipline that had been previously feasible. Those same destabilizing challenges were brought to research in order for feminist geographer to be able to do research on women as women.
Feminist geography emerged with and developed a very powerful and profound critique of research methodology, the implicit assumptions in status quo methodology and the voices or ideas silenced by it. In fact many of the developments in feminist geography represent a recapturing of the same spirit of contact between the academy and activism. Feminist geography has emphasized “politically committed, critical and place-based research,” (Nast 1994; p. 57). Feminist geographers have pointed out many dynamics of the research process that can hinder or help relationships with other groups outside the academy. Some of these ideas (among many others) include researching ‘with’ instead of ‘about’(Klein in Farrow, Moss and Shaw 1995; p. 71); the importance of keeping before oneself the power relations between researcher and researched (especially when dealing with marginalized groups) and how to address them (Farrow, Moss and Shaw 1995); the concepts and treatment of positionality, situated knowledge (Merrifield 1995), and representation (Nast 1994); also the notion that the process of research (topic selection, field work, etc.) is just as important as the finished product in terms of the dynamics and political implications of actions during each phase (Nast 1994 & Farrow, Moss and Shaw 1995).
With regards to breaking down the walls between academy and the ‘outside’ and challenging the researcher/researched divide feminist geographers have made some impressive contributions. Ideas on these issues come out very clearly in the symposium on feminist geographic research called ‘women in the field’ from 1994 in the Professional Geographer. The contributors pointed out that the political “objectives [of research] ideally work toward critical and liberatory ends, which are not formulated in terms of altruistically saving an exoticized ‘other,’” (Nast 1994; p. 57, italics original). Katz in the same symposium discusses how to establish a “mutual learning” process amongst participants in a research project particularly with reference on how each related to structures of power (Katz in Nast 1994). Nast and Kobayashi also discuss “…forging bonds between the academy (itself a ‘field’) and the world-at-large,” (Nast 1994; p. 57). Koboyashi explains “’[t]he political is not only personal, it is a commitment to deconstruct the barrier between the academy and the lives of the people it professes to represent,’” (Koboyashi in Nast 1994; p. 57).

Feminist geography has thus been able to provide very profound critiques of the process of research and the dynamics between observer and observed, the academic institution, and the audiences that receive academic knowledge. These critiques develop in a more profound way some of the same issues that came up during the experiments with participatory action research that emerged during the late sixties. Yet issues of direct community participation (much less control) in the research process have still been a problem in terms of meeting some of the ideals stated above by some feminist geographers. In another symposium on feminist participatory research by Farrow, Moss and Shaw these geographers mentions some of the problems and constraints of their own work in terms of how participatory it was or could be. Issues such as that of paratrooping into a community or struggle without a clear mutual relationship with those being researched, predefining research questions and methods without much ‘community’/‘researched’ input, issues of who the research is produced ‘for’ and whose needs does it meet (even if it is participatory is it addressing the community’s concerns or only the researcher’s?). Limitations in doing this sort of participatory research were also brought up by the authors for example: the difficulty of doing profoundly participatory research in order to meet degree requirements, and the issue of needing to predefine issues and questions to a funding agency and being constrained if those same questions need to be changed due to community needs. Feminist geography has provided many theoretical tools for dealing with issues of participatory action research thus contributing to the production of ‘contact zones’. However, the attempts at concretely ‘deconstructing the barrier’ often surrounding the academy are continuing to struggle to find bridges.

IV. Recent Developments & Concluding Salvos

In recent years (at least since the mid 90’s) there have been an increasing number of critiques coming from within geography of the degrees of separation between critical sectors of the discipline and activism going on ‘outside’ (see Blomely 1994 & 1995, Tickell 1995, Castree 1999 and Wills 2002). Blomely, during some early volleys on the subject discusses the disconnect he feels between his own critical geography work and his community activism: “I have been struggling with the linkages between that academic world and my community activism. The two clearly feel like they should be linked-many of my interests in one sphere fold over into the other.” He goes on to state “there seems to be a notable lack of discussion about progressive activism and the academy. In geography we used to worry about it a lot more, as witnessed by early issues of Antipode, or the examination of ‘relevance’,” (Blomely 1994; p. 383). Castree, citing work by Chouinard, Katz, Smith and Routledge on the same issue states that these articles “indicate a more general awareness of, and concern to discuss, the apparent disjuncture between our learned discourses and our seemingly impoverished political practices,” (Castree 1999; p. 81). Both authors (Blomely and Castree) mention the idea of opening spaces for mutual learning, the same sorts of ‘contact zones’, between the academy and activism. Castree in particular cites some interesting work in this regard- specifically Routledge’s work on “…a ‘third space’ of engagement, which subverts the separation of activism and the academy,” (Castree 1999 & Routledge in Castree 1999; p. 82).

What is interesting to note about this discussion is that it’s emerging and multiplying itself at a time when we are seeing increased social mobilization and conflictuality. Issues such as globalizing capitalism, trade agreements, failed development, neoliberalism, and the war on terrorism are met by opposed dynamics whether they be Chiapas and the multiplication of indigenous movements, global resistance counter-summits and social forums or the independent organizing of the unemployed in numerous countries. Different struggles in distant places are articulating themselves through a similar discourse and already the term ‘movement of movements’ is one in common usage amongst activists. While in no way trying to say that this is a repeat of the sixties dynamic, it is interesting to see how similar discussions in geography begin to re-emerge with the increase of social conflictuality.

Responses to these dynamics and the discussions within geography have already begun to emerge. One notable effort is the People’s Geography project organized out of Buffalo and its effort at making research and geographical concepts relevant to social struggles (see www.peoplesgeography.org). Other initial responses come from critical development work. This work is marked by efforts to construct venues for community or organizational input on development and planning work being done by geographers. One example of this is Howitt’s work in Australia on participatory social impact assessment by aboriginal communities as an empowerment tool vis-à-vis the mining and other resource extraction industries. He specifically sees his work as responding to the ‘applied people’s geography’ called for by Harvey in 1984 (Howitt 1993). More recently, the International Association for Participatory Development has promoted or collected many studies on issues dealing with community empowerment and spatial thinking in development. Some of the issues deal with participatory GIS and participatory 3-D modeling (www.iapad.org). Even more surprising was a collaborative study between two anthropologists and a Hawai`in indigenous sovereignty group on the possible uses of GIS for indigenous self-determination and even the creation of a specifically Hawai`in GIS (Cogswell and Schiotz 1996).
So taking into account these developments (i.e. people’s geography project and critical development work) and the discussions about how to increase collaborative projects between activism and the academy we may be seeing the beginnings of a move by a portion of critical geography into developing new ‘contact zones’. Yet as some other geographers have noted, engagement for the large part, particularly between movements of global resistance and geographers has yet to happen. “Geographers have, as yet, made only a fragmentary engagement with these movements and there has been little detailed empirical engagement with either their organizing or spatial practices,” (Featherstone 2003; p. 405).

GLOBAL ACTION GEOGRAPHIES (GAGS)?

Radical geography may be better placed now than during the sixties to engage with this apparently new round of social mobilization in a collaborative and participatory manner. While the tradition that began in the sixties had to ‘start off from scratch’ in some sense, critical geography has now had many years of development and has become a respected part of the general geographic inquiry. Feminist geographers have also elaborated complex critiques of methodology that could provide the necessary theoretical and practical considerations for the reconstruction of spaces to link the academy and activism. This could lead to a very productive engagement with the ‘here and now’ of current political praxis, that is if academic ‘path dependency’ (of the sort that authors above were complaining about).

Conversely geographers will need to recognize and engage with the elaborate amount of geographic thinking and analysis occurring within the movements of global resistance. A veritable potpourri of spatial practices and metaphors occupies many movement collectives’ imaginaries: the analysis of the links between the global and the local (as well as the regional and national) and the different sorts of political strategy necessary at each scale are often debated within movement groupings; the idea of ‘reclaiming’ is one that permeates much thinking within the movement-whether the reclaiming of concrete places (squatters’ movements) or reclaiming landscapes (such as Reclaim The Streets actions); the existence of groups with explicit names such as the Department of Land and Space Reclamation which is utilizing Lefebvrian thought on the creation of space and is now toying with uses of GIS to map corporate power in Chicago [2] ; the creation of ‘maps’ of networked power structures at a global scale to complement cognitive mapping practices and begin to visualize that global scale (Holmes 2003).

In other words, social movements are already grappling with geography and geographical concepts in a way that seems rather unique. In some sense they are ‘moving in’ to the same intellectual neighborhood as geography and knocking on the door to meet the other residents. Geographers need only turn the knob and invite their neighbors in for tea.

Notes:

[1] It is interesting to note, that as this period in history of demobilization continued, and the Reagan era began David Harvey, in his 1984 manifesto “On the History and present Condition of Geography” makes a call for creating an “applied people’s geography” and a “popular geography” that could “open channels of communication” presumably outside of academic circles (Harvey 2001). Harvey even goes on to state that “geography is too important to be left to geographers,” (Harvey 2001; p. 116). This tone could be seen as making a call to reestablish some of the same sorts of contact zones that had occurred in the late sixties. Some time would have to pass before this interpretation of Harvey’s text would gain its due currency though.

[2] See www.dlsrwest.org or www.counterproductiveindustries.org

December 2003


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