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Comments on Julie Cupples' analysis of “geoscientisation”
New Zealand Geographer ( IF 1.3 ) Pub Date : 2020-03-06 , DOI: 10.1111/nzg.12249
Matthew G. Hannah 1
Affiliation  

Julie Cupples does geographers a great service by naming and analysing the effects of “geoscientisation,” a pattern of institutional reorganisation whereby former Departments or Institutes of Geography are brought together in larger academic units with physical science disciplines like geology, earth sciences or environmental sciences (Cupples, MS 1). Geoscientisation, Cupples argues, exacerbates the more general effects of the neoliberalization of higher education of which it is a part, and tends to marginalise, render invisible and/or delegitimate critical human geography in particular. “[A]sserting our right to analyse our working conditions,” as Cupples does with this paper, is simultaneously more difficult and more necessary than ever (Cupples, MS 10). My comments here are based on my own experiences and conversations with colleagues in North America and Europe. Much of the material I draw upon is very “grey”: snippets of conversations among others overheard in the hallway, brief comments in faculty meetings, sotto voce whisperings during lectures by visiting scholars, and the like. As critical human geographers know, these genres, marginal though they may seem, are the very stuff of what we hypostatize as “institutional culture.” And culture is the central question here. A second preliminary note is in order as well: many of the issues discussed below concern attitudes that largely remain latent, simmering beneath the surface of institutional culture. To the credit of many of my physical science colleagues, they only seldom break out into the open in ways that could do concrete harm. Nevertheless, their pervasive presence is in itself already a burden and a low-level threat that, as Cupples rightly insists, we ignore at our peril. In Germany, where I now work, it is not so much geoscientisation as a process but rather the condition of being in a geosciences unit that is the problem. Many institutes of geography in Germany have always been closely integrated with physical geosciences. At my university, the impacts of living in the geosciences are compounded by the fact that the geosciences are in turn located within a larger faculty composed also of chemistry and biology. Most importantly, it is at the faculty level that binding decisions on hiring or the awarding of postgraduate degrees are made. The often quite subtle forms of “epistemic erasure” attendant on geoscientisation are the product of a pervasive “lack of understanding of contemporary human geography” (Cupples, MS 4) on the part of most physical colleagues and of institutional and cultural power structures through which this ignorance is allowed to persist and even flourish. I would supplement the examples Cupples gives with a series of brief observations about this “epistemic erasure” and “lack of understanding.” Of course the degree of understanding—and the degree of openness to serious engagement with human-geographic scholarship—varies among colleagues on the natural science side. Nevertheless, beneath individual variation run some cultural issues that can be thought of as facets of a “style of thought” (Fleck, 1981 [1935]). First, a “lack of understanding of contemporary human geography” by itself is not necessarily a problem. Many human geographers do not understand large DOI: 10.1111/nzg.12249

中文翻译:

评朱莉·库普勒斯对“地球科学化”的分析

Julie Cupples 通过命名和分析“地球科学化”的影响,为地理学家提供了一项伟大的服务,这是一种机构重组模式,其中前地理系或研究所与地质学、地球科学或环境科学等物理科学学科合并在更大的学术单位中(杯子,女士 1)。Cupples 认为,地球科学化加剧了高等教育新自由主义化的更普遍影响,尤其是倾向于边缘化、使批判人文地理学变得不可见和/或非法化。“[A] 主张我们有权分析我们的工作条件”,正如 Cupples 在这篇论文中所做的那样,同时比以往任何时候都更加困难和必要(Cupples,MS 10)。我在这里的评论是基于我自己的经历以及与北美和欧洲同事的对话。我所使用的大部分材料都非常“灰色”:走廊里听到的其他人的谈话片段、教师会议上的简短评论、访问学者在讲座中的低声耳语等等。正如批判性人文地理学家所知,这些体裁虽然看似边缘,但正是我们假设为“制度文化”的东西。文化是这里的核心问题。第二个初步说明也是有序的:下面讨论的许多问题都涉及在很大程度上仍然潜伏在制度文化表面之下的态度。归功于我的许多物理科学同事,他们很少以可能造成具体伤害的方式公开露面。尽管如此,它们的普遍存在本身已经是一种负担和低级别威胁,正如库普斯正确地坚持的那样,我们会置之不理。在我现在工作的德国,问题不是地球科学化而是一个过程,而是在地球科学单位的条件才是问题所在。德国的许多地理学研究所一直与物理地球科学紧密结合。在我的大学里,地球科学的影响又因地球科学又位于一个更大的学院内而更加复杂,该学院也由化学和生物学组成。最重要的是,在教师层面做出聘用或授予研究生学位的具有约束力的决定。伴随地球科学化的“认识论擦除”通常相当微妙的形式是大多数物理同事以及机构和文化权力结构普遍“缺乏对当代人文地理学的理解”(Cupples,MS 4)的产物。任凭这种无知继续存在,甚至盛行。我会用一系列关于这种“认知擦除”和“缺乏理解”的简短观察来补充 Cupples 给出的例子。当然,自然科学方面的同事之间的理解程度——以及对认真参与人文地理学研究的开放程度——各不相同。然而,在个体差异之下存在一些文化问题,这些问题可以被认为是“思想风格”的各个方面(Fleck,1981 [1935])。第一的,“缺乏对当代人文地理学的了解”本身并不一定是个问题。很多人文地理学家不懂大DOI:10.1111/nzg.12249
更新日期:2020-03-06
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