Edinburgh's geographical centenary – but an intellectual and a departmental history?

Abstract

Recent research in the history of geography has highlighted the significance of biographical perspectives, of different institutional narratives and the importance of memory and of non-foundationalist accounts in understanding the development of geography as a formal subject. Attention to various practices such as fieldwork, the production by undergraduates of geographical magazines and research-led teaching has further enriched our understanding of the experiences of doing geography. This paper draws upon such work in outlining the 100-year history of geography as a teaching department in the University of Edinburgh. Despite such new perspectives and, perhaps, because of them, and because the history of geography as a department is not the same as the history of the subject, it is not possible to offer a full centennial history of the lives lived within a department of geography. Using evidence relating to Edinburgh's century of geography teaching in a department, the paper questions the extent to which it is ever possible to reconstruct narratives of geography's institutional presence and addresses the implications of this for the history of geography more generally.