The landscape of cultural geography: ideologies lost

This piece reflects on the contemporary resonances, value and legacy of Cosgrove and Jackson's (1987) Area paper entitled ‘New directions in cultural geography’ (Area, 19, 95–101). It argues that much scholarship in today's cultural geography (its innovations and interventions), were inspired by Cosgrove and Jackson's call. These myriad collaborations and experimentation in formats include research outputs engaged in forms of poetry, art, theatre, dance, music performances, exhibitions, curating and film-making (to name just a few) to be included as tools for the production and dissemination of geographical knowledge. There has been an exponential expansion in cultural geography's vocabularies, dimensions of ‘fields of vision’ and the grammars through which these are narrated. Often, however, the values that underpin these new trajectories are also borne out of an academy ideologically tethered to neo-liberal values. The university thus risks becoming a space where a moral commitment to principles that challenge injustice and uneven geographies within and outside the academy are thwarted; and thus becomes the absolute antithesis of Cosgrove and Jackson's vision for truly good scholarship.