Encyclopaedic vision: Speculating on The Dictionary of Human Geography

Abstract

Since the turn of the millennium, human geography has witnessed the publishing of an increasing number encyclopaedias and dictionaries as well as books under the headings of “handbooks”, “readers” and “companions” to different fields within the discipline. In the present paper, I take as a point of departure this encyclopaedic “frenzy” in order to speculate on the works and values of a long-standing and authoritative geographical companion, The Dictionary of Human Geography (DHG) [Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D., Haggett, P., Smith, D.M., Stoddart, D.R. (Eds.), 1981. The Dictionary of Human Geography. Blackwell, Oxford; Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D., Smith, D.M. (Eds.), 1986a. The Dictionary of Human Geography, second ed. Blackwell, Oxford; Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D., Smith, D.M. (Eds.), 1994. The Dictionary of Human Geography, third ed. Blackwell, Oxford; Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D., Pratt, G., Watts, M. (Eds.), 2000a. The Dictionary of Human Geography, fourth ed. Blackwell, Oxford]. Apart from being subject to regular book reviews, the DHG has escaped attention from geographers critically engaged in debating the works of the discipline. It is argued here that this is due to the fact that the DHG appears to have established itself as an apparently objective recording of human geographers’ myriad of interests. The DHG is, however, a product of complex webs of subjective, situated concerns and thus a version of the discipline deserving of debate.