Royal Geographical Society Research Articles

Medals awarded to the personnel of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902–1904: an inconsistency of recognition

ABSTRACT The 1902–1904 Scottish National Antarctic (Scotia) Expedition led by William Speirs Bruce was overshadowed by the 1901–1904 British National Antarctic (Discovery) Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott. The establishment of the independent Scottish expedition had been resented by those promoting the ‘official’ British venture and the accolades accorded to each on their return home were very different. The Royal Scottish Geographical Society honoured both leaders with prestigious medals and later, after public pressure, rewarded Scotia’s captain and scientific staff but not her officers or crew. By contrast, the Royal Geographical Society rewarded the leader and personnel of the Discovery expedition and completely ignored Scotia. An even greater demarcation arose when the Polar Medal was hastily created for the benefit of Scott and the Discovery team, and subsequently extended to the crews of their two relief ships. Aggrieved that his men had not received such public recognition, Bruce commissioned his own expedition silver medal, yet did not present it to all eligible personnel. His exclusion of artist William Cuthbertson and taxidermist Alastair Ross is paradoxical given his indignation over the partiality of other awards but may indicate some unacknowledged personal friction during the Scotia expedition. The paper illuminates the politics and personalities involved in recognition of the achievements of early twentieth-century Antarctic exploration after the events themselves.

The social agency of instruments of surveying and exploration c.1830–1930

ABSTRACT This paper utilizes the concept of the agency of material objects, proposed as a tenet by several historians of science in the late twentieth century. It argues that scientific instruments have agency in the field due to their value and fragility, both of which attributes served to dictate a social hierarchy of activity. Furthermore, the resulting numerical outputs served to discriminate between various groups. The principal focus is the role of instruments used by travellers sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society, London, but it also looks at the role of instruments on a larger triangulation; the project to survey the African part of the arc of the 30th meridian east of Greenwich. Seeing the instruments as material objects allows insights into the social arrangements and interactions taking place. It is argued that instruments, and the results of instrument use, entrenched existing power hierarchies, imparting greater prestige to those who were previously endowed with privilege. It is argued the instruments contributed to ‘othering’ both in the field and in the publications resulting from the expeditions.

Depiction and Description: Insights into Southern Alps Glaciers Conveyed by John Gully’s Paintings and Julius Haast’s Paper at the Royal Geographical Society

In June 1862, Julius Haast (1822–1887), the Canterbury Provincial Geologist, wrote to Joseph Hooker, Assistant Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, informing him that “being now naturalized I think it my duty to offer my work to the scientific societies in England.” Haast informed Hooker that as soon as his topographical map was finished, he would send the botanist “an account of the geological features of the Alps, on deposits of the glacial period, accompanied by maps, sections and sketches,” requesting him to present the account to the Geological Society of London.[i] Although this anticipated initial foray into publishing in British scientific journals did not eventuate until 1865,[ii] on 12 November 1863 Haast sent a copy of his large topographical map of the Southern Alps,[iii] accompanied by extensive notes on the physical geography of that region and a set of 12 watercolour paintings (e.g. fig. 1), to the geologist Sir Roderick Murchison,[iv] President of the Royal Geographical Society. Haast hoped that those landscape paintings would “best enable the members, to gain an insight into the wild mountain masses [of the Southern Alps], with their snowfields, glaciers and lakes [emphasis added].”[v] [i] Sascha Nolden, Esme Mildenhall and Simon Nathan, The Correspondence of Julius Haast and Joseph Dalton Hooker, 1861–1886 (Wellington: Geoscience Society of New Zealand, 2013), 22. Haast became a British citizen in February 1861. [ii] See Julius Haast, “Notes to a Sketch-Map of the Province of Canterbury, New Zealand, Showing the Glaciation During the Pleistocene and Recent Periods as Far as Explored,” Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 21, nos. 1–2 (1865): 87–96. [iii] On 11 June 1863, Haast informed Hooker that he was sending Murchison a large map with a set of watercolour drawings by the next mail (Nolden, Mildenhall and Nathan, Correspondence Haast-Hooker, 42–43). [iv] Ibid., 57. [v] Julius Haast, “Notes Accompanying a Map of the Province of Canterbury” (Royal Geographical Society Manuscript Archive, 1862), 1.

Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Medals and Awards celebration 2024

Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Medals and Awards celebration 2024

Reflections on a healthy discipline: Celebrating 50 years of health geography within the Royal Geographical Society

AbstractThis article introduces a special section comprising papers examining the evolution, current state and potential futures of the subdiscipline of health geography. Geographers’ engagement with ‘health’ has transformed from a strict rooting in the ‘(bio)medical’, coinciding with, and contributing to, a paradigm shift emphasising a recognition of health as multifaceted and shaped by everyday experiential spatial practices, rhythms and identities. The development of this area of geographic scholarship, we argue, has been inextricably linked to the simultaneous growth of the Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group (GHWRG) of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), founded in 1972. Celebrating this golden jubilee, the Research Group initiated a project reflecting on how geographical knowledge on health has been produced and the networks that have influenced thinking. This coincided with an additional anniversary, the twentieth iteration of the ‘Emerging and New Researchers in the Geographies of Health & Impairment’, a conference developed to support new conversations relating to geographical scholarship around ‘health’, playing an important role in the development of ideas, scholarship and community since its inception in 1994. In introducing this special section, we underscore the importance of geographic interrogations of health for addressing contemporary challenges and providing interdisciplinary contributions. The articles in the collection delve into conceptual, theoretical and methodological developments that have shaped health geography, featuring work showcasing the breadth and depth of research within the subdiscipline. Complementing these empirical pieces, the special section traces the history of the GHWRG and its contributions, alongside interviews and conversations with scholars who have played pivotal roles in shaping the evolution of the subdiscipline. Overall, we are keen to celebrate health geography scholarship, question how academic networks shape thinking about interrelationships between health and place, and reflect on potential future directions for geographical scholarship on health and wellbeing.

Mapping, geography

AbstractThis Themed Intervention consists of short papers written by nine plenary speakers at the 2024 Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers plus a paper by the Society's Cartographic Collections Manager. In this introduction, I explain why I chose mapping as the conference Chair's theme. I give a sense of how the relationship between geography and mapping has been addressed through previous conference addresses and themes. I then explore three types of cartographic genealogies. The first shows how histories of cartography traditionally took the form of family trees. The second explores disjunctures between previous phases of cartography and brings us to current definitions of mapping. The third genealogy is that of previously subjugated forms of mapping knowledge and practice which are now defining features of the field (critical quantitative; empire, race, and Indigenous; counter‐; representational and more‐than‐representational).

Mapping collections

AbstractMaps are politically, socially, and culturally inflected objects that can communicate information and teach us about the time and society that shaped them. They are not only tools to serve present needs, but are also rich historical sources that require curation, conservation, and care. This historical legacy is well represented in the map collection of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). The stewardship of these historical maps offers many challenges, but also an opportunity for education, for example on the complex history of empire, and collaboration, for example with artists. This paper highlights the varied work of the RGS in the preservation and promotion of its large collection of maps, charts, and globes.

Mapping COVID‐19 at home

AbstractHand‐drawn maps are an effective method for collecting information around sense of place. In this project, we have used a hand‐drawn mapping methodology as a tool for supporting children and young people in navigating and articulating their experiences of COVID‐19 at home. The nationwide exercise was conducted in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers and National Museums Liverpool, and was part of the larger AHRC‐funded ‘Stayhome Stories’ project. The mapping initiative provided a platform for children and young people to visually convey their encounters with the pandemic and provides a lens through which to view how they understood and renegotiated meanings of home through the repeated lockdowns.

Conversations in geography: Journeying through four decades of history and philosophy of geography in the United Kingdom

This article offers a critical appraisal of institutionalised knowledge production and exchange on the history and philosophy of geography in the United Kingdom. We examine broad epistemic trends over 41 years (1981–2021) through an analysis of annual conference sessions and special events convened by the History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group (HPGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG). We show how organisational, sociocultural, and epistemic changes were coproduced, as expressed by three significant findings. Organisationally, the group emerged through shared philosophical interests of two early career geographers at Queen's University of Belfast in 1981 and received new impetus through its strategic plan 1995–1997, which inspired long-term research collaborations. Socioculturally, the group's activities contributed to national traditions of geographical thought and praxis in masculinist academic environments, with instances of internationalisation, increasing feminisation, and organisational cooperation. Epistemically, the group's events in the 1980s shaped contextualist, constructivist, and critical approaches, and coproduced new cultural geography, but the emphasis shifted from historically sensitive biographical, institutional, and geopolitical studies of geographical knowledges, via critical, postcolonial, and feminist geographies of knowledge-making practices in the 1990s, to more-than-human and more-than-representational geographies in the early twenty-first century.

History and philosophy of geography: Looking back and looking forward

This introduction to the special issue Reflections on Histories and Philosophies of Geography discusses the context and content of nineteen articles written to mark the fortieth anniversary of the History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group (HPGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG). The group was founded in 1981, two years after the early career researchers who set up the group, Richard T. Harrison and David N. Livingstone, published jointly their first critical interventions in support of human geography's paradigmatic shift away from positivism, based on an early form of social constructivist argumentation. We argue that the subsequent proliferation of epistemic pluralism, which is discussed in the contributions to this special issue and has characterised the activities organised by the HPGRG, exemplifies the considerable value of three historiographical practices: first, engaging with the history and philosophy of geography collectively in one research group; second, situating methodologies within the history and philosophy of geography; and third, critically interrogating the discipline's evolving geographical knowledges, professional practices, and material cultures from different authorial positionalities.

The future of geography field course pedagogy in UK higher education

AbstractField courses are widely regarded as integral to geography degree programmes, providing students with opportunities for experiential learning, often in unfamiliar international environments. Yet, this key area of pedagogy appears increasingly unsustainable and complex for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) within the context of the urgent need for decarbonisation, increasing financial costs, and the institutional challenges of comprehensively embedding necessary Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) considerations into these activities. Here, we report on a national‐level workshop (April 2024) that brought together a wide range of HE practitioners to discuss the future of UK field course pedagogy, using the fieldwork principles adopted by the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) (RGS‐IBG) in 2020 as a basis for framing future discourse. Using a Three Horizons approach to guide our conversations, we critically explored the (un)sustainability of current academic and institutional practices, alongside future directions and ‘disrupting’ (innovative) practices for promoting transformative change in this area of education. Here, we argue for two sector‐wide discussions that require collaborative engagement with practitioners, institutions and students. Firstly, we highlight the urgent need for transparent and critical reflection on the challenges and hypocrisy of aeromobility in academia and the need for more widespread adoption of low‐carbon (‘slower’) modes of travel. Secondly, we call for the immediate reconceptualization of field course pedagogy to place EDI considerations at the core of field course design and practice, aiding a transition towards Universal Design for Learning (UDL). As such, we call on the geography community in higher education to engage in critical reflection on how we take meaningful and urgent action to address the disconnect between our stated educational values around environmental sustainability and EDI, and our actual educational practices.

The Rural Geography Research Group at 50: Reflections on an evolving community of practice

This paper explores the development and work of the Rural Geography Research Group (RGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society over the last fifty years since its inception in 1972. It draws on the minutes of the RGRG's Annual General Meetings, content in its biannual newsletters, and reports of conferences. Using the concept of academic communities of practice (CoP), the paper explores the RGRG's contributions to UK and international geography and allied disciplines. It charts the evolution of the RGRG as a CoP through the influence of its members in (re)shaping rural geography. The roles of quadrennial conferences dating to 1991 between rural geographers from the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and a series of bilateral conferences with Dutch, French, German and Spanish geographers are explored. These conferences produced a series of books which help illustrate the evolution of ideas and research in rural geography. In addition, the paper outlines how the RGRG functions as a space for personal and professional development, and the influence its office holders have had both within and beyond the Research Group. The paper concludes with a consideration of the future of rural geography, including the position of the Research Group within contemporary critical debates and likely themes for future research.

Afterword: Method, voice and politics in the history and philosophy of geography

This commentary reviews the papers in the special issue on the history of the History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group, part of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). It outlines three main themes: methodological approaches in history and philosophy of geography; the need to consider history and philosophy of geography together; and critical approaches and politics. It draws attention to the important work that HPGRG has done during its four decades of existence. It argues for enduring resonances in the history and philosophy of geography around peace, biographies and invisible labour.

Disability and gender in the history of geographical exploration: Understanding Isabella Bird Bishop as a disabled geographer

AbstractStudying the life and travels of the Victorian explorer Isabella Bird Bishop offers important insights into the history of disabled people within the discipline of geography. Bird Bishop is an important figure within geography's disciplinary history, as one of the first women admitted to the Royal Geographical Society in 1892. She also had a long‐standing spinal condition that intermingled with psychological symptoms. In studying how her disability (and contemporary understandings of her body) shaped her travels, this paper shows how disability interacted with Bird Bishop's racial and gender identity in shaping where and how she travelled and how she wrote about her experiences. By drawing attention to the role that disability played in justifying her travels and the positive effect travel had on her health, this paper highlights her generally positive experiences of geographical travel as a disabled person.

Possibilities of population thinking: Histories and futures of Population Geography through reflections on 50 years of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers) Population Geography Research Group

AbstractReflecting critically on 50 years of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers) (RGS‐IBG) Population Geography Research Group (PopGRG), and drawing on interviews with leading population geographers of the British Isles, this paper identifies defining features of Population Geography that attest to its longevity: personal connections and material production; fluidity and adaptability over time and through interdisciplinary contexts; and utility, vitality and relevance of the subdiscipline. We argue that continuation of care, material production and nimbleness can sustain the subdiscipline in the context of ongoing neoliberalisation across Higher Education. To remain vital, Population Geography must also decolonise and promote ‘population thinking’ to more boldly and critically attend to contemporary global challenges.

How geographic thought happens: The autobiography of a mutable mobile

This article approaches the history of geographic thought through a partial autobiography that covers the last 40 years – a period that corresponds with the existence of the History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). The paper is informed by both memory and a personal archive of material from the mid to late 1980s. The autobiographical material is linked to the places that the author passed through and the ways these places, and the assemblage of people in them, influenced the author's development of ideas around place, mobility and knowledge. In this sense, this is an account of how theory, scholarship and the scholars that produce them arise in networked ways through connections that are embedded in place but are often from elsewhere, traveling through.

John Roundell Palmer, fourth Earl of Selborne. 24 March 1940—12 February 2021

Occasionally, the Royal Society confers a fellowship on individuals not because of distinction in any one branch of science but rather for their contribution to science as a whole. Among that select group of Fellows was John Roundell Palmer, fourth Earl of Selborne GBE DL FRS, who was elected in 1991. A member of the House of Lords for nearly 50 years, a primary focus for his work was the interface between science and technology on the one hand, and policy and legislation on the other. He was elected Chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology twice, being involved in some of the defining issues in the science agenda over those times. His involvement in the horticultural and agriculture business of his family's estate in Hampshire made him aware of how science research could be of great benefit to the agricultural sector and society at large. His interest led to his becoming the chair of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), where his ability to achieve a consensus between people with diverse views enabled complex projects to progress. He joined the House of Lords in 1971 as a hereditary peer. In addition, he used his skills and wide-ranging interests to engage with a range of bodies across different sectors. He was at different times: President of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers (IBG)); Chair of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Chancellor of the University of Southampton; Chair of Trustees, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Master of the Mercers’ Company; member of the Board of Lloyds Bank plc; Chair of Living with Environmental Change; Chair of the Foundation for Science and Technology; and chair or adviser to many other organizations. His contribution to the dialogue between science policy and society was recognized by the award of KBE in 1987 and GBE in 2011.

Himalayan Mountaineering, Imperial Masculinity and Altitude Records Before Everest

ABSTRACT Across the nineteenth century, European surveyors, explorers and mountaineers often sought to constitute the Himalaya as spaces of imperial duty, escape from civilisation, and manly experiences against and in nature. Rather than focusing on the homosociality of the better known climbing ventures of the twentieth century, this article instead considers the period before Mount Everest became the main prize. In particular, it examines an eclectic mix of Himalayan expeditions that made claims to the world ‘altitude record’: that is, the highest height ever climbed above sea level. The different ways that climbers discussed and doubted these record-seeking climbs in their accounts, and especially in talks at the Royal Geographical Society in London, provide a series of snapshots into manly self-fashioning around suffering and self-reliance at the edge of the British Empire. Here the masculinities of non-European guides and porters (especially Gurkhas) also always provided both a foil and a challenge. Ultimately, attempts on the altitude record reveal the way that casting the Himalaya as a space for the narration of masculine ideals and imperial expansion could be both mutually reinforcing and in conflict. Expressions of homosociality nevertheless also shifted across the nineteenth century, with the filling in of the last ‘blank spaces’ on the map seemingly narrowing the canvas for manly outdoor experiences. This was compounded by the way the Himalaya were constituted and maintained as spaces for manly experiences in part by the exclusion of women, even as women like Fanny Bullock Workman were themselves climbing towards record heights.

“Can You Get Anyone to Care?” Curating an Exhibition on the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Although COVID-19 has commonly been narrated as an impediment to the arts, I argue that it also offered exciting new opportunities to engage audiences with exhibitions focus on public health crises. In this article, I reflect on my experience of curating Picturing the Invisible with students at Technical University Munich (TU Munich) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organized in memory of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, the exhibition was shown at the Royal Geographical Society, London (October till December 2021) during the so-called “second wave” and at TU Munich (June 2022) amid the rise of the Omicron Variant. Departing from the common tendency to narrate events as having been successfully organized despite the pandemic, this paper presents the virus as co-creating—perhaps even co-curating—the exhibition. To do so, I provide a brief overview of Picturing the Invisible, before going on to analyze the role that the virus played in calling me to organize this project (as both a researcher and as a lecturer), how it has made it logistically possible, and how it presented new opportunities to engage foreign audiences with the experience of Japan’s triple disaster.

An open letter to the SJTG and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG): The War on Gaza, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), and a Palestinian literary event

An open letter to the <scp><i>SJTG</i></scp> and the Royal Geographical Society (with <scp>IBG</scp>): The War on Gaza, the Royal Geographical Society (with <scp>IBG</scp>), and a Palestinian literary event