Boyle, Mark (2008) A Good Act of Contrition? Geography, Civilisational Thinking, and the Colonial Present. Geopolitics, 13. pp. 724-729. ISSN 1465-0045

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Abstract

There exists a growing interest in the complicity of geographical knowledge and practice in the colonisation by European powers of territories in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.1 In particular, the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century professional and institutional development of Geography cannot, it seems, be studied without reference to the historical geography of European imperialism and colonialism. Through the mapping of coastal zones, transport routes, soil and climatic conditions, natural resources, and disease patterns, Geography provided technical support to colons and serviced their commercial and business imperatives. More importantly, by contributing to the development of environmental determinist ideology and the notion that there existed a hierarchy of civilisations or a number of civilisations surrounded by a sea of debased barbarism and savagery, Geography aided in the development of forms of scientific racism that legitimated colonial settlement and economic exploitation. It was the discipline of Geography that codified and mobilised civilisational thinking and lent authority to its role in colonial aggrandisement.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Act of Contrition; Geograph;, Civilisational; Thinking; Colonial Present;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography
Item ID:	8707
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1080/14650040802275628
Depositing User:	Mark Boyle
Date Deposited:	28 Aug 2017 17:17
Journal or Publication Title:	Geopolitics
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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