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Timely geographies: ‘New directions in cultural geography’ revisited
Author(s) -
Wylie John
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
area
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1475-4762
pISSN - 0004-0894
DOI - 10.1111/area.12289
Subject(s) - cultural geography , ethnography , human geography , sociology , social geography , historical geography , focus (optics) , critical geography , social science , cultural studies , geography , economic geography , anthropology , regional science , optics , physics
In this commentary I focus on the timing and timeliness of Cosgrove and Jackson's ([Cosgrove D, 1987]) ‘New directions’ piece (Area, 19, 95–101). The discussion is structured in two parts. First, I consider the coincidence (or not) between the emergence of new cultural geography and the establishment of official measurements of research quality in UK Higher Education – an issue flagged for me by the contents of the Area issue in which ‘New directions’ appears. Second, the piece's timeliness resides in its nearly one‐off rapprochement between social‐ethnographic and historical‐interpretative traditions in cultural geography. Beyond the rich and evident legacies of new cultural geography, my commentary concludes by noting again the comparative lack of attention paid today to the concept of ‘culture’.