ABSTRACT
The poet’s ambition speaks to other realms. Throughout the twentieth century, and particularly in the latter half, it has been the ambition of successive generations of geographers ‘to lodge a few poems where they will be hard to get rid of ’ – in other words, to set the professional discipline of geography on such a sound conceptual and methodological footing that it will be hard to dislodge it from the true and rightful path revealed. Have any groups succeeded? The general answer, in this eclectic discipline, must be no. And yet, as each phase has appeared and disappeared, it has left a residue, a kernel of insight that has given geographers much enhanced methodological competence, as well as deeper conceptual perspectives viewed from positions of greater sensitivity, which have developed as a result of more critical and reflective traditions (Abler 1999). In this first chapter, we seek to present critically some of the key positions and voices
that have shaped (or attempted to shape) the discipline as a whole. Needless to say this cannot but be a highly selective attempt and one that is influenced by the interests and generational affiliation of its authors. These limitations, among others, will become apparent in the relative space allocated to pre-and post-Second World War developments within the discipline. As such, this essay will provide a context for the chapters to follow, as it concentrates on the philosophical positions and theoretical issues that surround the more topical debates within human geography. In the interest of the volume as a whole, we have made every effort to reduce repetitive overlaps with subsequent chapters. The overall aim of this introductory chapter is to provide a context for what is to follow rather than to give its readers a definitive account of theoretical considerations. Given the scope of the present undertaking, any pretence of comprehensiveness would be dwarfed by the sheer number of traditions and voices that demand to be heard. The relative neglect of many important voices from this chapter –
geography. Throughout, we have attempted to give weight to individual practitioners contributing
to change within the discipline just as we have sought to do justice to the power of structural conditions shaping geographical discourses. Clearly, the precise mechanisms through which individual creativity and persistence contribute to (and are in turn shaped by) networks of power, technologies and institutions within a discipline and beyond constitute one of the more hotly contested subject domains within the social and human sciences today. The following pages will not attempt to resolve the issue; they will, however, be quite content to provide some material for future discussions.
