Geography matters? Whiteness and contemporary geography

Abstract

Summary The critique of whiteness furthers important critiques of static notions of ethnicity and identity. Interesting work on ‘white‐blind’ geographers working on race and ethnicity has recently been initiated, yet a more systematic and wide ranging critique of the norms and assumptions of contemporary geographical research has yet to be fully established. After reviewing the recent White Studies literature, this paper examines an influential piece of contemporary geographical writing and suggests that if geography really is to matter, geographers need to consider more self‐consciously how they themselves might be (unwittingly) complicit in such constructions.