Celebrating 50 years

This year marks 50 years since the Society’s Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG) was founded. The group are interested in research which explores how social and cultural difference is produced, engaging with key debates concerning identity, citizenship and belonging, embracing diverse perspectives and areas of geography which include that of the body, sexuality, gender, disability, ethnicity and religion as well as geographies of the non-human. 

To mark this milestone and reflect on its evolution over five decades, the SCGRG Committee hosted a day of discussion, debate and celebration at the University of Nottingham yesterday. Across the day, sessions included a reflective discussion panel with Professor Chris Philo and a panel exploring cross-subdisciplinary connections with representatives from a range of Society study groups, including the Political Geography Research Group. Early and mid-career scholars were invited to share experiences of navigating the contemporary academy, developing opportunities for exchange and mutual support.

Reflecting on the event as well as the group’s hopes for the future, SCGRG Chair Dr Rebecca Collins said: “Our shared intention – as a research group committee – was to host a day of conversation that would consider where we’ve come from as a sub-discipline, how that has shaped the form, focus and preoccupations of social and cultural geography today, and where we, as a community, want to go in future, both intellectually and practically.

“Throughout the event, the word I heard most often was ‘community’. This reflected not only the genesis of social and cultural geography as a sub-discipline, but also what many in the room felt was critical to enabling social and cultural geography (and geographers!) to thrive over the next five, 10, 50 years. It underlined the crucial role played by the Society’s research groups in being facilitators of intellectual community. For that reason, we were particularly pleased to be able to support eight student bursaries enabling eight PhD students, including SCGRG’s two postgrad reps, to attend.”
 
To mark the anniversary, the research group has made the compilation New Words, New Worlds available to access online for the first time, accompanied by a new dialogue between the book’s original compiler, Professor Chris Philo, and the group’s current Treasurer, Dr Vickie Zhang. Vickie commented: “New Words, New Worlds brought together what is, from today’s vantage point, a truly remarkable set of social and cultural geographers. These thinkers, and the germinating ideas archived in this volume, have gone on to have a major influence across human geography in Britain and beyond.”  

Find out more about the SCGRG.