ABSTRACT
Central to understanding geography’s new citizenship role and advocacy for global perspectives is a shift that occurred within parts of the discipline, and social theory more widely, from the late 1960s. This change of direction was itself a response to a period of social and political upheaval in the US and UK, the so-called counter-cultural movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. This movement led to widespread questioning of social norms and practices, including capitalism, tradition, academic values, the role of academics and even the very basis of knowledge itself. With the intellectual basis of the academy thrown into question academics, and schoolteachers, began to interpret their roles differently, becoming more directly engaged with political causes. Detached, objective study was frowned upon as elitist and supportive of the status quo. Ethical rationale became increasingly important to justify research and education. This is what is meant by geography’s ethical turn, which gave rise to the field of radical and/or Marxist geography. This has sometimes been described as the humanizing
KEY QUESTIONS
1 Should geography seek to explain how the world is or how it ought to be?
