The point is to change it: Locating community geography and praxis in a neoliberalizing academia

Abstract

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the multiple issues we are confronting at the contemporary moment, geographers are faced with the critical task of finding ways to address and grapple with these concerns. This commentary advocates for community geography as an important praxis-oriented intervention that utilizes theory and methods for community issues. However, the practice of community geography is constrained by academia's neoliberalizing terrain, whereby a globalizing deployment of ‘publish-or-perish’ productivity has been reconfiguring what geographers can and ought to be doing. By going against the neoliberal grain and practicing community geography, the possibilities for theoretical innovation and political potentials open up towards a geography that is socially relevant and directly addresses issues affecting the lives of marginalized community members.