Commentary: Disrupting and destabilizing Anglo-American and English-language hegemony in geography1

Abstract

This commentary considers the perceived hegemonic status of Anglo-American Geography and the role of the English language as the lingua franca of academia. The first half of the paper outlines in brief the hegemonic status of Anglo-American Geography, the structures and practices of the global knowledge economy and Anglo-American Geography itself that help sustain and reproduce its hegemony, and the disciplining effects of this hegemonic status on geography practised elsewhere. The second half examines how Anglo-American norms and the hegemonic status of English as a global lingua franca are being, and might be further, challenged, resisted, subverted and re-shaped through discursive and practical interventions aimed at disrupting and destabilizing them. By focusing on how the history of the discipline is constructed, and the protocols of publishing and organizing conferences, how geography can be transformed to open it up to a plurality of (non-Anglo-American) voices, different ways of ‘doing’ geography, and alternative ways of valuing forms of geographical enterprise, are considered.