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Echoes of the New Geography? Progress report Progress in Human Geography 36(4) 518–526 ª The Author(s) 2012 Echoes of the New Geography? Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav History and philosophy of 10.1177/0309132511411880 geography I phg.sagepub.com Richard C. Powell University of Oxford, UK Abstract Taking as its cue the debates in 2009 at the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) about the relative role of the institution in geographical exploration, science and pedagogy, this essay reviews recent work in the history and philosophy of geography. It argues that there is a long tradition of debates between educators and explorers within the RGS, and shows how these have been revisited in current work on Halford Mackinder and Charles Darwin. It concludes that attention to the processes of remembering and forgetting should be particularly acute at this moment in the history of geographical practices. Keywords Charles Darwin, Halford Mackinder, histories of geography, philosophies of geography, ‘New Geography’, Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Freshfield saw that recognition of geography by the 1885 report, on behalf of the RGS, into the Universities was essential to secure a supply of teaching of geography in schools (Keltie, 1885). competent teachers. It was his advocacy which led The response to this by the RGS, Oxford and our Society to subsidize geographical teaching at Cambridge instituted what became known as the Oxford in 1888 and at Cambridge in 1903. This cost our Society some £20,000; but there is now no ‘new Geography’ of the 1880s. University in Britain without a School of Geography. Dr Tom Longstaff, the author of Freshfield’s It is perhaps the greatest work we have accomplished, obituary above, was himself an accomplished for exploration would have gone on somehow even mountaineer in the Himalayas, Spitsbergen and had our Society never existed. (Longstaff, 1934: 259) west Greenland, and the pioneer of ‘‘‘travelling light’’, unencumbered by the gangs of porters I Introduction and excessive baggage trains’ (Roberts, 1965: Douglas Freshfield (1845–1934) was a Victorian 776). Longstaff received the Gill Memorial mountaineer who, among other exploits, Award in 1908, and the Founders Medal in composed a classic account of climbing in the 1928, from the RGS (Shipton, 1964), and was Caucasus, apparently ‘with no trace of self-glori- fication’ (Longstaff, 1934: 258). Having been elected as a Fellow in 1869, between 1881 and Corresponding author: 1894, Freshfield served as an honorary secretary School of Geography and the Environment, South Parks of the Royal Geographical Society. Critically, it Road, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK was Freshfield who commissioned J.S. Keltie’s Email: [email protected] Downloaded from phg.sagepub.com at Oxford University Libraries on November 16, 2015 Powell 519 elected President of the Alpine Club in 1947 Lumley and Michael Palin have been called upon (Roberts, 1965). Perhaps my favourite anecdote to debate our purpose. For some geographers, about Longstaff is that, as the leading British perhaps we should be grateful that anyone cares. authority on Mount Everest by the 1930s, he For others, this sounds the death-knell for a cer- would dispense advice at the RGS to expectant tain type of geography. Welcome to the history novices thus: ‘The man who collapses above the and philosophy of geography for 2009 and 2010. North Col is a scoundrel – a scoundrel,Sir!’ (Shipton, 1964: 444, original emphasis). As the author of one of Longstaff’s obituaries com- II Classical geographies? plains, ‘[h]e was one of the last survivors of an I have often thought that a striking aspect of the age of amateur exploration which is already pedagogical tradition in geography is the rapid- becoming legendary’ (Roberts, 1965: 777). ity with which geographers, and their writings, So far, so obvious: exploratory praxis com- are elevated to the status of classics. A cursory memorated through nostalgia for feats of mascu- glance at this journal’s excellent ‘Classics in linity and self-reliance. But Longstaff, like Human Geography’ reveals the relatively recent Freshfield, was also committed to geographical date of the majority of the selected papers, as education. During the 1930s, while serving as does the list of those geographers chosen to be honorary secretary and then Vice-President of recorded in Hubbard and Kitchin’s (2011) Key the RGS, Longstaff was able to appreciate the Thinkers on Space and Place. Moreover, this efforts of earlier fellows like Freshfield, as classic status can be lost again just as quickly. Honours Schools in Geography were finally As approaches fall out of favour, so too does the being confirmed in universities across Britain reputational power of the geographer. It is geo- and Ireland. Without the RGS’s funds, would graphy, peculiarly among the serious social anything have become of the preposterous idea sciences, that seems to be cursed by the culture of university geography? of celebrity. This means that many central The activities of individuals like these litter figures from geography’s past are purposefully the pages of dusty old geography journals. forgotten. No doubt there are many good reasons Figures many of us do not want to remember, for this. Who wants to be reminded about the undertaking practices that we would rather for- central role that Ritter or Haushofer played in the get. Who cares? Well, Freshfield’s obituary institutionalization of geography in Germany? raises all sorts of questions about remembrance, Or, indeed, about Halford Mackinder’s role in disciplinarity and social networks, but I use it for the establishment of the Oxford School or the its relevance in recent debates about the his- growth of a certain form of violent geopolitics? tories, philosophies and purposes of geography. Why does this matter? Well, it does seem that In short, discussions about the relative role of the the geographical community is rather distinct in RGS in geographical pedagogy and exploration this, in comparison to introductory courses in have preoccupied its constituent Fellows for a Anthropology, Sociology, History or, even, very long time. Biology and Geology. I do not think anyone It is worth saying this again now, because we would go so far as to identify a canon, but should geographers live in interesting times. This is an students perhaps be required to read Mackinder, era in which many myths circulate about geogra- Isaiah Bowman or Ellen Semple, or other geogra- phy. Even Fellows of the RGS despondently ask, phical thinkers such as Charles Darwin or Franz well, ‘what is geography?’, as Departments of Boas? Without a sense of these texts, geographers Geography are merged into larger Schools of become increasingly divorced from any sense ofa Environmental and Geosciences. Even Joanna community of practice or, indeed, of a shared, Downloaded from phg.sagepub.com at Oxford University Libraries on November 16, 2015 520 Progress in Human Geography 36(4) contested enterprise. Yet, over the period of this David Grann (2009) has provided a popular report, historians of geography have begun to account of Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Harrison recover many of these figures. Moreover, this Fawcett’s RGS expeditions to the Amazon in the matters because as universities in the UK and 1920s. across Europe restructure into larger administra- There has been a vast range of excellent work tive units, the discipline is entering an epoch in on the hidden histories of geography over the which geographers, on the whole, are no longer past decade or so, and this continues to be making decisions about the institutional emplace- produced. Indeed, this corpus has perhaps ment ofgeography.Consequently, myths begin to reached its apogee in Avril Maddrell’s (2009) circulate about geography not being a real sub- Complex Locations, an exhaustive prosopogra- ject, or being an artifice of the British system, and phy of female geographers during the formative geographers positioned in these new institutional development of the discipline in UK universi- structures often lack sufficient knowledge to ties. In Maddrell’s fascinating account, biogra- speak back to this power. phical accounts are presented that show the What has been conspicuous about the current critical importance of various women in the period, then, has been the return to biographies spaces through which the geographical tradition of ‘big’ geographers.1 The previous compiler has been enacted. There has also been innovative of these reports, Trevor Barnes, often discussed work in dissemination in histories of geography. the importance of obituaries, and reading the Felix Driver and Lowri Jones, in collaboration vast archive that continues to mark Denis with the RGS-IBG, held an AHRC grant on the Cosgrove’s passing in 2008 indicates what can ‘Hidden Histories of Exploration’ that produced be learnt from these about the past practices of an exhibition at the refurbished exhibition space geography (Brotton, 2010; Driver, 2009). at the RGS at the end of 2009 (Royal Geographi- Obituaries have been produced for other influen- cal Society, 2009). Involving a website and tial historical geographers with important views podcast, this was an intriguing attempt to open on the history and philosophy of geography, up thinking about the histories and spaces of such as Michael Williams (Baigent, 2010b) and exploration (Driver and Jones, 2009). Bob Woods (Williamson, 2011), while a histor- iographical essay on Jack Langton’s approach is included in a festschrift marking his retirement III Ages of exploration? (Baigent and Mayhew, 2009). During 2009, debates about the proper conduct It should also be noted that work has continued of geographical science and pedagogy have to examine other key themes in history and emerged again in the public arena. A number philosophy of geography. The role of the space of Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society of the laboratory in scientific practice has been laid the blame for geography’s problems upon re-examined (Gieryn, 2008; Gooday, 2008; the RGS’s funding of certain types of research Kohler, 2008; Withers, 2009).
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