Whose geography, whose future? Queering geography’s disciplinary reproduction

Abstract

In this commentary, responding to the prompt ‘reimagining the futures of geographical thought and praxis,’ I offer some provocations to queer this question of geography's future. I begin from moments of my queer experience in and of geography, from the recurring perception that I am ‘out of time’ in the discipline: that my ‘time’ and my ‘place’ in the discipline as a trans person have yet to come. Reflecting on the origins of this perception, I find that my present belonging in the discipline is foreclosed and deferred in part by the promise of a more progressive future. I refuse this discourse of the future – and the liberal progress narrative of geography upon which it relies – and instead approach the question of geography's future as a matter of disciplinary reproduction. Drawing on ideas of queer futurity, I situate the future as a site of queer potential in the present: an ever-present capacity for difference-making located in our embodied relations and practices. Doing so encourages us to transform our discipline by queering its reproduction in the here-and-now – by making a difference – rather than waiting for a progressive and inclusive future to come upon us.