Towards mindful geographies

Abstract

This paper proposes a mindful geography, in which mindfulness is understood as a research praxis and an alternative way to inhabit academia. Mindful geographies offer a resistance to ways the neoliberal university (and the discipline of geography) impacts the minds and bodies of those marginalised by this system. Firstly, to provide context to my argument, I situate myself within the literature pertaining to mindfulness. Subsequently, this allows me to focus on the ways geographers have engaged with mindfulness through the geographies of transformation, critical geographical perspectives on mindfulness, and non-representational approaches to the practice. This review allows me to engage with critical and transformational approaches to mindfulness through the interdisciplinary literature offering alternative pathways for the practice. Towards the end of the paper, I offer a different inflection for the ways that mindfulness might be used in geography. Here, I provide an explanation of the ways we might bring mindfulness into our geographical research practices to contribute to collective and individual development and healing. This work is prompted by personal experiences in the academy and seeks to promote a more mindful approach to academic knowledge and practice, one that foregrounds (self)care and slowness in the production of geographical knowledge.