Cultural Geography Blog

"Getting informed consent from 7.8 billion people who have no voice and no say, who are subject to the potentially catastrophic consequences of this wackadoodle proposal that somebody comes up with to try to rearrange the entire Earth's atmosphere and hope and pretend that it's going to cancel out the fact that we're putting 152 million tons of heat trapping manmade global warming pollution into the sky, every day that's what's really insane." New from TED for June 2020. An important interview with Al Gore. I remember 'An Inconvenient Truth'. The coronavirus brought much of the world to a standstill, dropping carbon emissions by five percent. Al Gore says keeping those rates down is now up to us. In this illuminating interview, he discusses how the steadily declining cost of wind and solar energy will transform manufacturing, transportation and agriculture, offer a cheaper alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear energy and creat...

A new website for those who are in the SW, and those who aren't. Launched by Simon Ross, John Davidson and Emma Espley, and supported by a team of geographers including Harry West from UWE. The site already includes resources for all key stages and also advice for those wanting to visit the SW, those studying at University, and teachers requiring CPD in the area. Plenty of links through to GA support materials and resources are included. The site will continue to grow over time. There are already some interesting GCSE case studies added for example. Of course, we could now have other groups of geographers stepping up to produce similar portals for other parts of the country. Guidance on how to contribute to the site is here.  This could be a way for those who want to share their work and ideas to have them publicised so that others can easily access them.

A multi-media essay from J R Carpenter  - worth a read. Some interesting ideas.

Now available to pre-order on Uniform Books website. ‘Landscapes of Detectorists’ considers the programme’s engagement with landscape, its ecological resonances, and its attention to place and identity. This book offers four distinct geographical readings of Detectorists—Innes M. Keighren attends to the sensory, technological, and emotional interpretation of landscape; Isla Forsyth examines the relationship between objects, memory, and place; the significance of verticality, the aerial, and groundedness is discussed by Andrew Harris; and Joanne Norcup considers the contested interconnections of gender, expertise, and knowledge making. The collection is bookended by reflections on the creative processes and decisions that supported the journey of Detectorists from script to screen: in a foreword written by its writer-director, Mackenzie Crook, and in an afterword written by its originating producer, Adam Tandy. Illustrated throughout with black and white stills from the progra...