Race, Problems and Geography

Bibliographic Data

ID8962383
AuthorsBridget Leach (corresponding author)
Year1974
Issue63
Pages41-41
Publication date1974-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/621530
OpenAlexW2317642779
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited4

Research into social or spatial injustice, such as in the racial field, must inevitably lead to the study of capitalism itself. Geographers interested in policy, however, have looked only at more superficial manifestations at a smaller scale. Their work has strongly reflected the interests of the government or other bodies which have funded their research. Government itself has been prompted to encourage research into situations which it sees as threatening to its own stability. To this extent one can see the 'race relations industry' merely as part of a diversionary tactic. When research is directed at a macro scale, to look at the structure of society, it comes into conflict with the existing order. If our aim is to effect changes in society, we will be frustrated by the impotence of research directed to the establishment. CAN we understand the position of minorities without understanding society itself? Does the failure of the 'white liberals', now partially recognized by themselves,1 reflect the failure of the liberal conception of social, economic, political and psychological interactions, and a desire to remove race relations, like other integral parts of the system, to a separate sphere of investigation and specialism, as much as a changing situation? There has been a tendency for the observer to consider only causes-and cures-within the aegis of his own specialism; the historian might recall the experience of slavery and the attitudes it engenders, and so might the psychologist, but each defines it in a way that discourages and renders irrelevant debate between the disciplines. For geographers, the temptation to cast inequality in terms of spatial inequality rather than structural relationships in society, is part of a desire to define feasible problems within the legitimate scope of the discipline rather than the demands of the subject matter. Succumbing to this, we have geographers writing: Great advances have been made in Britain during the present century in the attempt to equalize opportunities and conditions between different socio-economic classes. Poverty and inequality still exist, to a degree that varies according to the definitions employed. But the undoubted achievements of the welfare state in demolishing the principal bastions of inequality have exposed more vividly than ever before other causes for equalitarian public concern, amongst which are several characterized by their spatial as much as by their social nature.2 What are these causes for concern? Chisholm and Manners also claim public appreciation that 'the dilemma of the two nations has shifted from being a class to being to an important degree a spatial problem, and a recognition that zones of urban blight are as much a technological and urban planning dilemma as they are a social and racial problem ..'.3 Thus they believe that there are 'new problems' in achieving the 'total welfare of society'.4 Problems defined in this way thus fall squarely within the realm of geography, through investigations of 'the way spatial structure relates to the wider structure of society and reflects aspects of that wider society'.5 There can be little doubt that 'what is received publicly depends very much on location relative to such spatial artifacts of a political system as job opportunities, schools, freeways, and the boundaries of different municipalities and of school catchment areas',6 but many research workers seem to shy away from laying the cause at the door of the 'so-called free play of market forces (which) gives rise to differently valued areas and the differences in land use related to economic forces'.7 Nor would Chisholm and Manners, for example, be eager to accept that income inequality and distribution are the major factors in social ills, even if some are 'due simply to the way resources are allocated in specific localities'.8 * The views in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the S.S.R.C

Economic geography · Geography · Race (biology · Sociology · Demography · Gender Studies · Historical Geography and Geographical Thought · Rural development and sustainability · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

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