Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
In this bean-counting society where academics are now driven by academic outputs (see
Page 2003b), applied research has often been downgraded or dismissed where academic
publications cannot be obtained from commissioned research. Yet this in itself is self-
defeating and inward-looking, missing the wider community service and social benefits
of the knowledge economy associated with universities and its main clients—the
population. These debates have also been aired in the Spanish geographical community
(e.g. Segrelles-Serrano 2002) and the lack of social awareness in the training and
education of geography graduates for professional careers (Naranjo 2001). Indeed, while
there is much discussion about knowledge management in tourism, it often tends to be
seen just in terms of transferring knowledge to industry rather than all those for whom
knowledge, in its various forms, may be relevant.
All too often the application of geographical skills outside the academy in commercial
and noncommercial contexts has been poorly developed. There are notable exceptions in
the history of geographical thought where the skills of spatial analysis have been used for
practical and commercial purposes, particularly in colonial times where the pursuit of
resource inventories and mapping assisted in imperialist expansion in new territories (see
Johnston 1991). In the post-war period some aspects of geography clearly dissipated to
new disciplines such as town planning while the greater social science involvement and
expansion of geographical subject matter saw geographers lose some of their competitive
edge which had been gained in the pre-war and inter-war years. In recent times, some
geographers have made transitions into the public and private sector where their skills
have been in high demand (e.g. GIS) and some have made major contributions to public
policy formulation and analysis in recreation and tourism (e.g. Patmore 1983). There has
been the development of new specialisms which have emerged from a geographical
tradition with an explicit public and commercial dimension. Recreation and tourism are
two examples which have furnished many opportunities for geographers to apply their
skills in a wider context than academia, although this has not always meant that they have
been particularly successful in capitalising on such opportunities.
While geographers still make a substantial contribution to planning, this contribution
is perhaps not widely acknowledged by society at large. Similarly, GIS is increasingly
being usurped by marketers, while the contribution of geographers to tourism and
recreation is now adding far more of an academic base for the field of tourism and
recreation studies than it is for geography. Should we care? The answer we believe is
'yes'. As Harvey (2000) commented:
In facing up to a world of uncertainty and risk, the possibility of being
quite undone by the consequences of our own actions weighs heavily
upon us, often making us prefer 'those ills we have than flying to others
that we know nor of. But Hamlet, beset by angst and doubt and unable to
act, brought diaster upon himself and upon his land by the mere fact of his
inaction.
(Harvey 2000:254)
As the topic stated at the outset by imitating the title of Massey and Allen's (1984) work,
Geography Matters!,
the geography of tourism and recreation also matters. One of the
problems however is that we are often not very good at convincing other people that we
