Fieldwork nearby and far away: Student-geographers and the expanded field in the history of geography

Abstract

This essay argues for a connection between studying the history of geography as an academic discipline and the research experiences and knowledge productions of undergraduate geography students. The whereabouts of undergraduate dissertation research and the conceptions of what the field actually constitutes shapes geography students’ perceptions of the discipline, and thus affects shifts in what future and novice practitioners see as geography, or geographical knowledge. When comparing the local educational versions of academic geography taught at one university to more traditional, perhaps canonical, narratives on the history of geography, it becomes obvious that although there are many similarities, the timelines between disciplinary trends and educational practices never fully match.