Changing Geographies: Embracing Diversity in Geography Studies
Emphasizing the importance of diversity in Geography studies, this lecture explores the impact of increased minority students in the discipline. It delves into challenging the white colonial narrative, advocating for decolonization, and empowering students to incorporate their own geographies into academic work.
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Writing our geographies and changing the discipline Margaret Byron, School of Geography, Geology and Environment
Lecture Outline - Increase in proportion of students from the African and Asian Diaspora doing Geography degrees at University. - Diversity matters - How to engender parity of experience in a diverse student population - The history of who writes what about whom in Geography. - What geographies we explore and create. - Telling our stories: new dissertation themes. - How opening up creation to a diverse student body challenges and broadens all our geographies. www.le.ac.uk 2
A more diverse cohort of students - Increase in the proportion of minority students taking degrees in Geography. - That enables institutions to tick some diversity boxes. But that is not enough. - Shilliam (2015) The doors have been opened the architecture remains the same - Jackson, C. (2021) there s more to it than that sure increase the number of Black and other ethnic minority students but if the reins of power are held by those who discriminate we need to change the systems which make ethnic minority students feel unwelcome. First year Geography students by Ethnic group Source: University of Leicester, 2018 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 Black and Minority Ethnic Unknown/not applicable White www.le.ac.uk 3
Challenging and changing a white colonial discipline - Relevant reading: Kobayashi (2014) - racialized assumptions have been deployed to steer who writes what about whom and who has the opportunity to read, engage, critique, and steer further directions in the discipline (2014, p.1112) - Esson et al. (2017) - An effective decolonial movement in geography needs to focus on revealing problems of coloniality within the discipline and beyond, and attempt to destabilise the architecture of white patriarchal privilege (see Shilliam 2015). Beginning debates about decolonisation and decoloniality with those racialised as Indigenous and non white is a fundamental starting point for such a move. - Similar arguments are made by Daigle and Sunberg (2017) as they aim to unsettle geographical knowledges . - In the rest of this lecture I discuss some of my work with students on selecting and executing dissertation projects. 4
You cant say that - How Chimamanda Adichie (writer) and Darren Chetty (writer, teacher and Hip Hop educator) have influenced my agenda. - The danger of the single story short video Adichie - Chetty s chapter in The Good Immigrant : You can s say that: stories have to be about white people . - I invest a lot of time in mining for students stories and this helps me to encourage them to develop and integrate aspects of their geographies into CW. www.le.ac.uk 5
Dissertation themes Geographies of the body Follow the Weave: Tracing Black Hair fashion Place and identity Navigating Culture One Ghanaian Diasporic experience: Italy-Ghana-US-UK A journey of Afro- Cuban Jazz Imagining Islam We are invisible: PALOP Migrant women cleaners in the London economy Filipinos in Space Offline and online geographies of Black Hair From West Africa to H&M: how indigenous textile designs become exotic fast fashion Women of colour in the Beauty industry: a case study of makeup Geographies of Memory (and forgetting): Caribbean elders remember Smethwick 6
This is my journey so far Italy Ghana Italy UK Maryland, USA 7
Presenting our projects - Presentation day as a time for owning, for sharing for learning and respecting. - Each supervisor meets with their dissertation students who each make a 10-15 minute presentation summarising their dissertation to the group. There are between 5 and 9 students present usually. Initial nerves are reduced by creation of a celebration atmosphere ( the session is close to the Christmas break so I provide snacks, hot drinks and soft drinks). - Students can ask questions and the supervisor makes a few comments. - I will never forget the student who was so moved he gave a standing ovation to a presentation on Afro Cuban Jazz. - Nishnaabeg scholar and activist Leanne Simpson has written, - when we come together with one mind and one heart we can transform our land and our city into a decolonised space and a place of resurgence, even if it is only for a brief amount of time for an hour that day, we created a space and a place where the impacts of colonialism were lessened. (2011, 11 13) Cited in Daigle and Sundberg (2017). 8
Some concluding thoughts - It is high time that we are cognisant in our every day engagement with our professions and our discipline of the many stories and geographies that surround us. We need to seek out opportunities to incorporate them. - This lecture has focussed on an example. I have written recently about other aspects of the curriculum which perpetuate the status quo in the discipline and proposed small changes that could help increase parity of experience of the student experience. - 9
