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Power, Knowledge and Geography is a uniquely accessible introduction to the most important debates in contemporary geography. Elegantly written and trenchantly expressed, it situates geographical enquiry within an invigorating political and intellectual landscape, and is organized around geography's own conceptual structure.In Part One, Derek Gregory examines the ways in which geographical enquiry relates to intellectual history, philosophy, science, and culture. He then considers how the wider political, social and institutional context of this enquiry may affect the ambitions, methods and content of both human and physical geography. In Part Two, he identifies a series of strategic geographical "sites" - conceptual locations where geographers have done some of their most characteristic work - and explores key moments in their development. Part Three isolates and reveals what the author argues are the most acute intellectual, social, and moral issues facing contemporary geographers, considers how they might be resolved, and outlines the impact of such resolutions on the theory, practice and study of the subject. Each chapter is richly illustrated with substantive examples, and contains capsule summaries of key terms, debates and figures. The book concludes with an annotated guide to further reading and a full index.
1. Geography and the Politics of Knowledge. Part I: Bearings: These essays raise five basic issues that travel through many disciplines and fields of inquiry - to do with intellectual history, philosophy, science, culture, 'fieldwork' and 'theory' - and explores their implications for geography. 2. Disciplinary Formations: Intellectual Histories and Geographical Traditions. 3. Shaking the Foundations: Philosophy, Geography and Situated Knowledge. 4. Scientific Practice and Geographical Inquiry. 5. The Two Cultures and the Cultural Turn in Geography. 6. Speculations: The Imaginative Geographies of Theory. 7. Spaces of Knowledge: Archives, Libraries, Laboratories, Fields. Part II: Sites: These essays in this section are contributions to a 'history of concepts' in geography. They identify a series of strategic geographical 'sites' - conceptual locations where geographers have done some of their most characteristic work (with others) - and explore key moments in their uneven development. 8. Regions, Representations and Regional Geographies. 9. Nature, Science and the Cultural Politics of Nature. 10. The Lie of the Land. 11. Into Deep Space: Frictions of Distance and Productions of Space. 12. Going Places. 13. Mappings: Images and Technologies of Power. Part III: Positions: These essays identify a range of issues over which geographers - like other intellectuals - need to position themselves, personally, strategically and institutionally. 14. Commitments: Ethics and Politics in Geography. 15. Differences: Representation, Performance and Practice. 16. Actors, Networks and Geographies. 17. Colonialism and (Post) Colonial Geographies. 18. Transnationalism: Geography and the University in Ruins. Glossary.
Powerfully and persuasively argued. Passionately written. A daring, brilliant analysis of the devastating work performed by imaginative geographies" in the post 9-11 'war on terror,' in the "military campaigns launched by America against Afghanistan, by Israel against Palestine, and by America and Britain against Iraq." Quite simply the most significant book written by a geographer in some time." Allan Pred, Professor of Geography, University of California, Berkeley
