Progressing physical geography

Abstract

Now and then certain commentators – usually established ones – venture opinion on the current health and prospects for physical geography (either in its own right, in relation to human geography, or relative to some other field of research). In this editorial I want to consider the way that normative arguments about the future of the field are phrased, seen within wider discussions about geography as a whole (its present challenges and future goals). The education of students, I suggest, has been marginalized in published debate despite providing perhaps the most viable of several possible means by which physical geography might amount to more than the sum of its otherwise vibrant parts. At base I ask: ‘What counts as ‘‘progress’’ in physical geography?’ and ‘By what means might it be achieved?’. The second question can only be answered in light of the first, so I will come to it presently. I write as someone who, while not a physical geographer, is strongly committed to the idea that its component areas – and those comprising human geography – have value in themselves but also (importantly) when taken together. To my first question, then. Interpreted one way, this journal’s title (like that of its twin, Progress in Human Geography) is more a profession of hope than a statement of fact. Even supposing we could all agree on what ‘progress’ might mean, the object in question is elusive. ‘Physical geography’, as readers well know, is a label of convenience. It describes an archipelago of specialisms whose diverse practitioners exist in departments of geography, but also cognate locations too (in schools of ecology, earth science departments, environmental science schools, geoscience departments, and so on). These specialisms (though internally diverse) have far more integrity than the putative physical geographic ‘whole’ they are said to comprise – hence the scare quotes. This is not to suggest that they exist in splendid isolation from each other; far from it. But a lot of good science, and excellent degree teaching, is done within the existing heterodox arrangements. We thus have lots of physical geographers but, many would argue, little ‘physical geography’. Should physical geography continue to progress thus, as what one commentator calls ‘a residual category, convenient for lumping together all of the various different sciencytypes populating our Geography departments’ (Demeritt, 2009: 5)? Some would say not. Writing 14 years ago, Olav Slaymaker and Tom Spencer (1998: 18) insisted that ‘If physical geography is to survive as a recognizable entity, a focus on interconnections is long overdue’. More recently, this journal’s managing editor has detected opportunities for a less fragmented physical geography as its constituent parts rise to the challenges presented by a range of planetary-scale environmental threats and opportunities (Clifford,