Where are we heading? The example of generational change in British academic Geography

Abstract

Between the first two decades of the 21st century, the gentrification of the academic subject of Geography within Britain rose to a new peak. By the mid-2010s, undergraduate geographers had become the least likely group, of all British university students, to have qualified for free school meals while at school. This article reveals that they are now also the most likely group to have grown up in the most affluent parts of Britain and suggests that this rising segregation of origins is the cumulation of a long running process which can be indexed to the growth in social divides in Britain over the last four decades. As Britain changed from being one of the most equal nation states to become the most economically unequal large state in Europe, British Geography departments became the least likely place to find students from disadvantaged or even average income backgrounds. This article also demonstrates that an unusually high number of academic geographers working in Britain grew up in Britain and attended a British University. The article explores what else is now known, and is unusual, about the changing demographic characteristics of academics employed in the Geography departments of British Universities. It then speculates as to how these changes over time may have influenced the lived experiences of British Geography students and academics, the subsequent contributions that British geographers now make, and then how the gentrification of British Geography may influence the subject and politics in particular ways and directions globally. The article ends with a plea: if we can better know ourselves, we may choose to not continue supporting the current self-referential siloes in geographical thought and may better understand how and why they came about.