Social Geography www.soc-geogr.net 1729-4274 1729-4312 4 1 2009 10.5194/sg-4-83-2009 http://www.soc-geogr.net/4/83/2009/ http://www.soc-geogr.net/4/83/2009/sg-4-83-2009.html http://www.soc-geogr.net/4/83/2009/sg-4-83-2009.pdf 83 91 2009-12-23 The invented periphery: constructing Europe in debates about "Anglo hegemony" in geography U. Best ulrich.best@ubc.ca Centre for Social, Spatial & Economic Justice, Community, Culture & Global Studies, University of British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Kelowna, BC, V1V 1V7, Canada For a few years, a debate has been ongoing about a hegemony (in academic geography) of the English language, of "Anglo-American" journals and of the approaches developed in the North America and the UK. In many of the contributions to the debate, other languages and those who speak them appear as excluded, oppressed and forced to submit to Anglo-hegemony. But what kind of hegemony is this? The situation appears as a postcolonial one, and therefore it should be analysed using postcolonial theory. From this perspective, there is on the one hand an orientalist discourse, in which the coloniser's knowledge is the only valid one. These discourses can also be applied by elites in the (former) colonies. On the other hand, debates about the oppression of the "own" identity through the (former) colonisers are often means of an emerging postcolonial elite trying to legitimize their position. In order to analyse the debate about Anglo-hegemony, I draw on these concepts of hegemony. The debate is, so the argument of the paper, connected with a European elite formation – an elite that considers itself as transnational, multilingual, hybrid and anti-hegemonic. Aalbers, M. B. and Rossi, R.: Beyond the Anglo-American hegemony in human geography: a European perspective, GeoJournal, 67, 137–147, 2006. Amin, A.: Multi-Ethnicity and the Idea of Europe, Theory Culture Society, 21(2), 1–24 , 2004. Belina, B., Best, U., and Naumann, M.: Critical geography in Germany: from exclusion to inclusion via internationalisation, Soc. Geogr., 4, 47–58, 2009. Bell, M., Budin, R., and Heffernan, M. (Eds.): Geography and Imperialism, 1820–1940, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1995. Berg, L. D.: Scaling Knowledge: Towards a Critical Geography of Critical Geography, Geoforum, 35(5), 553–558, 2004. Berg, L. D. and Kearns, R. A.: America unlimited, Environ. Plann. D, 16(2), 128–132, 1998. Bialasiewicz, L. and Minca, C.: Old Europe, new Europe: for a geopolitics of translation, Area, 37(4), 365–372, 2005. Braun, B.: Introduction: tracking the power geometries of international critical geography, Environ. Plann. D, 21, 131–133, 2003. Cabral, A: Die Revolution der Verdammten: der Befreiungskampf in Guinea-Bissao, Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin, 1974. Chatterjee, P.: Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse?, University of Minnesota Press, London, 1986. Driver, F.: Geography's empire: histories of geographical knowledge, Environ. Plann. D, 10(1), 23–40, 1992. European Council Lisbon: Conclusions of the presidency, Bulletin 27.03.2000 – EN – PE 289.667, 9–34, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/bulletins/pdf/1s2000en.pdf, 2000. Fanon, F.: Die Verdammten dieser Erde, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1981. Garcia-Ramon, M. D.: The spaces of critical geography: an introduction, Geoforum, 35, 523–524, 2004. Godlewska, A. and Smith, N. (Eds.): Geography and Empire, Blackwell, Oxford and Cambridge MA, 1994. Gregson, N., Simonson, K., and Vaiou, D.: Writing (across) Europe: on writing spaces and writing practices, Eur. Urban Reg. Stud., 10, 5–22, 2003. Gunder Frank, A.: Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment, Macmillan, London, 1978. Gutiérrez, J. and López-Nieva, P.: Are international journals of human geography really international?, Prog. Hum. Geog., 25(1), 53–69, 2001. Hudson, B.: The New Geography and the New Imperialism: 1870–1918, Antipode, 9(2), 12–19, 1972. Mignolo, W. D.: Introduction, in: South Atlantic Quarterly, 105(3), 479–499, 2006. Minca, C.: Venetian geographical praxis, Environ. Plann. D, 18, 285–289, 2000. Minca, C.: Critical peripheries, Environ. Plann. D, 21, 160–168, 2003. O'Loughlin, J., Raento, P., and Sidaway, J.D.: Editorial: Where the tradition meets its challengers, Polit. Geogr., 27(1), 1–4, 2008. Paasi, A.: Globalisation, academic capitalism, and the uneven geographies of international journal publishing spaces, Environ. Plann. A, 37, 769–789, 2008. Raju, S.: Contextualizing critical geography in India: emerging research and praxis, Geoforum, 35(5), 539–544, 2004. Ramírez, B.: The non spaces of critical geography in Mexico, Geoforum, 35(5), 545–548, 2004. Robinson, J.: Political geography in a postcolonial context, Polit. Geogr., 22, 647–651, 2003. Rodríguez-Pose, A.: Is there an 'Anglo-American' domination in human geography? And, is it bad?, Environ. Plann. A, 38, 603–610, 2006. Sage publications: Theory, Culture & Society, http://www.sagepub.com/journalsProdDesc.nav?prodId=Journal200853 (last access: 1.12.2009), 2009. Samers, M. and Sidaway, J. D.: Exclusions, inclusions, and occlusions in `Anglo-American geography': reflections on Minca's `Venetian geographical praxis', Environ. Plann. D, 18, 663–66, 2000. Sarkozy, N.: A l'occasion du lancement de la réflexion pour une stratégie nationale de recherche et d'innovation Palais de l'Élysée – Jeudi 22 janvier 2009. http://www.elysee.fr/download/?mode=press&filename=22.01_Recherche_et_Innovation.pdf, 2009. Timár, J.: Soft critical geography in Hungary, with hard issues, Environ. Plann. D, 21(2), 154–160, 2003. Timár, J.: More than `Anglo-American', it is `Western': hegemony in geography from a Hungarian perspective, Geoforum, 35(5), 533–538, 2004. Vaiou, D.: Radical debate between local and international: a view from the periphery, Environ. Plann. D, 21(2), 133–137, 2003.