Representation, Politics of

Abstract

Following a definition of ‘representation’ and ‘the politics of representation’, the article provides a brief introduction which highlights the lack of critical attention that geographers paid to representation until the emergence of post-structuralism. This is followed by a broad overview of how, in the late twentieth century, representation was transformed into a prominent focus of debate and inquiry. The following sections examine some of the ways in which the politics of representation have been explored in two significant arenas of inquiry in social and cultural geography – landscape and feminism. These two areas provide overlapping but distinctive insights into geographers’ engagements with the politics of representation. A central concept in cultural geography, landscape provides an especially important focus for the critical study of representations that include not only images and texts but also built form. By way of examples, the article discusses the critical analysis of landscape representations in the form of cartography, and the study of the material landscape as a contested site of representation. While much feminist research in human geography engages with the critical analysis of representations, it has also played a vital and influential role, first in seeking greater representation of women as subjects of geographical research and as academics, and second, in encouraging reflexivity where human geographers’ own representational practices are concerned. The article ends with a brief reflection on current and future trends in geographical engagements with the politics of representation.