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Okay. I'm just going to write this out now, because tomorrow I'm going to go fail an exam because due to panic and breakdown and illness and worry about dissertations and crap, I've spend exactly one day studying for a subject that's supposed to have upwards of a 100 hours study time attached. According to the lectures, one third of your peers last year failed this module, you haven't done the reading, you're all going to FAIL. Which, you know, cheerful. Helpful. Not at all panic-making. Anyway.
So, since I'm about to fail my Geography 3001 exam, Theory of Geography, I'm going to write out what geography, studying geography, seeing geography, has meant to me. So that, tomorrow, when I'm crying and in the dumps, I can look at this and remember why I love the subject, despite all the current evidence to the contrary. I did this a couple years back (here), but things have somewhat changed a little since then. Heh.
So, since I'm about to fail my Geography 3001 exam, Theory of Geography, I'm going to write out what geography, studying geography, seeing geography, has meant to me. So that, tomorrow, when I'm crying and in the dumps, I can look at this and remember why I love the subject, despite all the current evidence to the contrary. I did this a couple years back (here), but things have somewhat changed a little since then. Heh.
The thing about me is, I learn things spatially. Tactile, kinetic. Show me how things fit, how they move, how they physically relate to each other, and I will ... well, not necessarily always understand them, but at least come a lot closer to it than I would otherwise. So geography ... geography was perfect to me. So damn perfect. Geography was the world translated in space, the interrogation of space and relationship and what everything meant when placed as it is. Geography gave me a sense of context, made the world real and physical and there in a way nothing else ever had (except chemistry, but that's something else again - chemistry gave me the underpinnings of the world, atoms and bonds and the way even the most still and silent of things vibrates with untold energy at all times - it was awesome, and terrible, and shook my world open, and I only passed the exam by the skin of my teeth because how do you explain that?)
And studying geography in college, studying it at that level ... that opened up something else again. That has opened ... so many things, to me.
See, what geography is, above all else, is the study of context. Geography as a discipline is at it's base an articulation and a study of power as expressed in space. A study of process and scale and connection, the interweaving of forces from the physical to the political to the spiritual, as they impact on the physical world. Geography is a way of reading that world, a way of extrapolating back from the spatial evidence to the forces that create it. Geography is a nexus, where multiple disciplines and modes of thought come together. Geography is something that spans out to touch the world and everything in it.
And this last year, what I've managed to take from it, what little I've managed to grasp between ... well, all the shit that has been this three year breakdown and struggle for functionality ... this last year, I've gotten a look at the underpinnings of geography itself. A look at the modes of thought that have, do and will drive it, a look at the context of the discipline itself, a look at what geography itself has done to affect the world around it. I've gotten to look at geography as a force, in and of itself, and the marks that force has made on the physical world. Geography, expressed in space.
I've gotten a look at the geographies of colonialism, of the way geography was sent into schools and taught to young, imperial citizens to shape their views of the world, to show them what was now theirs and what was yet to be, and why it was their right to go out and take it. A look at how geography explained race and nationality, at environmental determinism and social darwinism, at the biases inherant in Dead White Male Geography. At geography as quite frankly a truely frightening tool of power, an expression of it, an articulation of it. How geography was used to shape a world, how its maps divided out the land and the peoples on it. How geography was born from the military mind, how time and again over the past two centuries geography has fed off military and political needs to keep itself afloat, how they in turn have fed of it as a means of explanation, as a tool of war, as a philosophy of justification. How geography as a discipline is, and always has been, both product and tool of the society around it.
I've gotten a look at the massive, world-shaking shifts in thought over the last couple centuries, and how they've shaped a nascent discipline. The Enlightenment and the search for science, the idea that the world was there to be measured and mapped, and in mapping, owned. Darwin, the massive paradigm shift across all human knowledge that he engendered, the linking of human and world, the exploration of Deep Time, the sudden sense of context and explanation that we suddenly had for the world around us. The perversions of that idea, the intersection of the social and the biological, the physical and the political, that gave rise to social darwinism, environmental determinism, and on the extreme ends, colonialism, race theory, eugenics and worse.
I've gotten to look, through the lense of geography, at the way no idea is pure. No idea is contextless. No idea exists that has not aims, agenda, goal. No idea is incorruptible. No idea remains neat and tidy in its box. Each idea comes from a place inside society, comes from a framework of values. And each idea, once formed, once sent out, interacts with those frames of values, with that society, with those people, and that idea changes in the interaction. That idea evolves, and not always for the better. No idea is safe. No idea is pure. And no idea is without consequence.
I've gotten to look at the contexts for geography. At the Quantitative Revolution that boomed out of the Cold War, at the safe, remote sensing of physical things, at the cold realms of logic and modelling and the representations of the world, and how somehow, they're not as cold as they'd like to be. Not as impartial.
I've gotten to look at the raw chaos of the Post WWII world, the upheavals of the civil rights movements, the emergence of identity politics, the traumatic fracturing of old empires and the long and arduous processes of decolonisation. I've gotten to look at how these world-shaking events and thoughts and trends fed back into the discipline I love (sometimes much, much later, the discipline shielded by the conservative halls of academia for up to decades after the events).
How postcolonialism sparked a whole new literature, looking back over geography as it had stood for over a century, and pointing out how flawed it was, how focused, how blind. How Marxism and the critique of capitalism sparked something in some small section of geography, how it combined with the civil rights movement to make geographers realise that the world was out there, that things were happening, and that they could do something about it. How geography, funnelled through urban planning, funnelled through education, funnelled through teachings on race and class and territory, actually could have something to say about decolonisation, about the ghettos and the segregation, and the way these things had spatial manifestation.
I've gotten to look at the foundering of geography. How it has split internally, first in the early years of the 20th century as hard, physical geography, environmental determinism and the german school bumped heads with the emerging regional geographies and budding humanistic and possibilist strands of thought. Then later, as social upheaval shook the belief in the relevance of the quantitative, remote, ivory-tower geographies, the shuddering divide between human and physical geographies, and quant geographies almost a science unto itself. I've gotten to see how that divide has never healed, how even now geography struggles to bridge the chasms opened within itself, how it loses ground constantly to other subjects through its own fractured nature.
I've gotten to examine myself in light of this. I've gotten to examine which side of the divide I fall on, which frameworks of thought shape my outlook. Who is writing back to me, without ever knowing me, and saying 'think about this'. Think about the assumptions you make, have been making all your life. Think about the texts you took at face value. Think about the 19th century literature you read, and what it says, what it was built on. Look at science, pure, inviolable, and see how real it is, how stained, how connected. How fallible.
Look at how you have understood the world. Look at what geography has been for you, this idealised nexus where the world makes sense, and look now at the flaws you've learned to see in it. Look at how very much a work-in-progress it is. Look at how much you've learned to question. Look at how much you've come to realise you don't know.
Look at what is not pure, look at what is not sure, look at what shudders to its knees before you, what is no longer innocent. Look at it.
And love it still.
Geography has done that for me. Geography has brought together history and physics and sociology and politics and space and maps and people. Geography has woven them together for me. Geography has given me a context for the world, and then, in turn, a context for itself. Geography has shown me its flaws, its weaknesses, its promises, its past. Geography has asked me of its future. Geography has dared me to think, about the world, about myself, about itself. About the production and sanctity and uses of knowledge. About the interactions of forces, and the writings in space, on the land, into people, of those forces. Geography has taught me about the articulation and expression of power. Geography has made me think.
And tomorrow, I'm going to walk into an exam, and I am, in all probability, going to fail. On lack of evidence, on lack of reading, on the problems of real life that have remade me over the past three years.
But tomorrow, I'm going to look back at this post, and whatever happens, win, lose or draw, I'm going to remember why I love this subject. Why it matters to me. What it has shown me. I'm going to remember why it was worth it.
And studying geography in college, studying it at that level ... that opened up something else again. That has opened ... so many things, to me.
See, what geography is, above all else, is the study of context. Geography as a discipline is at it's base an articulation and a study of power as expressed in space. A study of process and scale and connection, the interweaving of forces from the physical to the political to the spiritual, as they impact on the physical world. Geography is a way of reading that world, a way of extrapolating back from the spatial evidence to the forces that create it. Geography is a nexus, where multiple disciplines and modes of thought come together. Geography is something that spans out to touch the world and everything in it.
And this last year, what I've managed to take from it, what little I've managed to grasp between ... well, all the shit that has been this three year breakdown and struggle for functionality ... this last year, I've gotten a look at the underpinnings of geography itself. A look at the modes of thought that have, do and will drive it, a look at the context of the discipline itself, a look at what geography itself has done to affect the world around it. I've gotten to look at geography as a force, in and of itself, and the marks that force has made on the physical world. Geography, expressed in space.
I've gotten a look at the geographies of colonialism, of the way geography was sent into schools and taught to young, imperial citizens to shape their views of the world, to show them what was now theirs and what was yet to be, and why it was their right to go out and take it. A look at how geography explained race and nationality, at environmental determinism and social darwinism, at the biases inherant in Dead White Male Geography. At geography as quite frankly a truely frightening tool of power, an expression of it, an articulation of it. How geography was used to shape a world, how its maps divided out the land and the peoples on it. How geography was born from the military mind, how time and again over the past two centuries geography has fed off military and political needs to keep itself afloat, how they in turn have fed of it as a means of explanation, as a tool of war, as a philosophy of justification. How geography as a discipline is, and always has been, both product and tool of the society around it.
I've gotten a look at the massive, world-shaking shifts in thought over the last couple centuries, and how they've shaped a nascent discipline. The Enlightenment and the search for science, the idea that the world was there to be measured and mapped, and in mapping, owned. Darwin, the massive paradigm shift across all human knowledge that he engendered, the linking of human and world, the exploration of Deep Time, the sudden sense of context and explanation that we suddenly had for the world around us. The perversions of that idea, the intersection of the social and the biological, the physical and the political, that gave rise to social darwinism, environmental determinism, and on the extreme ends, colonialism, race theory, eugenics and worse.
I've gotten to look, through the lense of geography, at the way no idea is pure. No idea is contextless. No idea exists that has not aims, agenda, goal. No idea is incorruptible. No idea remains neat and tidy in its box. Each idea comes from a place inside society, comes from a framework of values. And each idea, once formed, once sent out, interacts with those frames of values, with that society, with those people, and that idea changes in the interaction. That idea evolves, and not always for the better. No idea is safe. No idea is pure. And no idea is without consequence.
I've gotten to look at the contexts for geography. At the Quantitative Revolution that boomed out of the Cold War, at the safe, remote sensing of physical things, at the cold realms of logic and modelling and the representations of the world, and how somehow, they're not as cold as they'd like to be. Not as impartial.
I've gotten to look at the raw chaos of the Post WWII world, the upheavals of the civil rights movements, the emergence of identity politics, the traumatic fracturing of old empires and the long and arduous processes of decolonisation. I've gotten to look at how these world-shaking events and thoughts and trends fed back into the discipline I love (sometimes much, much later, the discipline shielded by the conservative halls of academia for up to decades after the events).
How postcolonialism sparked a whole new literature, looking back over geography as it had stood for over a century, and pointing out how flawed it was, how focused, how blind. How Marxism and the critique of capitalism sparked something in some small section of geography, how it combined with the civil rights movement to make geographers realise that the world was out there, that things were happening, and that they could do something about it. How geography, funnelled through urban planning, funnelled through education, funnelled through teachings on race and class and territory, actually could have something to say about decolonisation, about the ghettos and the segregation, and the way these things had spatial manifestation.
I've gotten to look at the foundering of geography. How it has split internally, first in the early years of the 20th century as hard, physical geography, environmental determinism and the german school bumped heads with the emerging regional geographies and budding humanistic and possibilist strands of thought. Then later, as social upheaval shook the belief in the relevance of the quantitative, remote, ivory-tower geographies, the shuddering divide between human and physical geographies, and quant geographies almost a science unto itself. I've gotten to see how that divide has never healed, how even now geography struggles to bridge the chasms opened within itself, how it loses ground constantly to other subjects through its own fractured nature.
I've gotten to examine myself in light of this. I've gotten to examine which side of the divide I fall on, which frameworks of thought shape my outlook. Who is writing back to me, without ever knowing me, and saying 'think about this'. Think about the assumptions you make, have been making all your life. Think about the texts you took at face value. Think about the 19th century literature you read, and what it says, what it was built on. Look at science, pure, inviolable, and see how real it is, how stained, how connected. How fallible.
Look at how you have understood the world. Look at what geography has been for you, this idealised nexus where the world makes sense, and look now at the flaws you've learned to see in it. Look at how very much a work-in-progress it is. Look at how much you've learned to question. Look at how much you've come to realise you don't know.
Look at what is not pure, look at what is not sure, look at what shudders to its knees before you, what is no longer innocent. Look at it.
And love it still.
Geography has done that for me. Geography has brought together history and physics and sociology and politics and space and maps and people. Geography has woven them together for me. Geography has given me a context for the world, and then, in turn, a context for itself. Geography has shown me its flaws, its weaknesses, its promises, its past. Geography has asked me of its future. Geography has dared me to think, about the world, about myself, about itself. About the production and sanctity and uses of knowledge. About the interactions of forces, and the writings in space, on the land, into people, of those forces. Geography has taught me about the articulation and expression of power. Geography has made me think.
And tomorrow, I'm going to walk into an exam, and I am, in all probability, going to fail. On lack of evidence, on lack of reading, on the problems of real life that have remade me over the past three years.
But tomorrow, I'm going to look back at this post, and whatever happens, win, lose or draw, I'm going to remember why I love this subject. Why it matters to me. What it has shown me. I'm going to remember why it was worth it.
