For whom is the human geography discipline?

Abstract

Human geography is a staple course taught in universities globally, yet its introductory textbooks are consistently produced in the Global North. Ninety-seven percent of the editors and authors of “introduction to human geography” textbooks are from Anglophone universities in the Global North. While textbooks cover fitting themes, such as colonialism, development and globalisation; there are issues of perspective, positionality and epistemic apertures that omit critical geographic thought from the Global South. Since the 2000s there has been a growing and emphatic call to recognize and unlearn the coloniality embedded in the geography discipline. Alongside student-led movements across the Global North and settler colonies in the Global South, like South Africa and Australia. Through postcolonial teachings on representation and hermeneutical injustice, I critique four international human geography textbooks. I use a manual content analysis to show bias toward contributors from Global North universities; theorists that privilege Anglo-American history and case studies that teach from a northern perspective. Through this critique I suggest ways to integrate Southern scholars, theories and concepts into existing textbooks. I also call for the creation of a Human Geography of the Global South textbook. Both options intend to support an unbiased and expansive human geography introductory curriculum.