Geography and Development: 'Core and Periphery'? A ReplyAuthor(s): Rob PotterSource: Area, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Jun., 2002), pp. 213-214Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of BritishGeographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20004226 .

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Comment 213

Berkeley (http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/NewGeog/) Accessed 18 January 2002

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Anthropology 24 95-117 Massey D 1994 Space, place and gender Polity, Cambridge Potter R 2001 Geography and development: 'core and

periphery'? Area 33 422-39 Power M 1998 The dissemination of development

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577-98 Sidaway 1 2001 Post-development in Potter R and Desai V

eds The Arnold companion to development studies Arnold, London 16-20

Geography and development: 'core and

periphery'? A reply

Rob Potter Department of Geography and Centre for Developing Areas Research, Royal Holloway,

University of London, Egham TW20 OEX

Email: r.potter@rhul.ac.uk

Revised manuscript received 6 February 2002

It in now over 18 months since I penned the draft of 'Geography and development: core and periphery?'. Inevitably, much has happened since then, both globally and locally. Adrian Smith's comments on my polemical observation occasioned my going back to the original, and I was surprised just how much I agreed with what I had written. Indeed, in certain respects recent world events have served to strengthen my resolve that, in collective terms, it

would be in the interests of us all if Anglo-American geography were far less parochial.

Looking back, I am glad that I took an explicitly historical shot at establishing the 'poor relation' status of development geography, which seemed to be so clearly exemplified in Wooldridge's beliefs and Prothero's post-war experiences. The observation presented two key issues; firstly, what Adrian Smith describes as my central concern, the relative ten dency of 'core' geographers to work in 'core' areas. But it was also intended to focus on what I see as the strong tendency of 'core' geographers to act in an imperious manner, in appearing not to notice

geography done other than in, and on, the core. How else can one start to explain the fact that

research outside the Anglo-American orbit received such minuscule attention in the last two major reviews of British geography collated by Richards and Wrigley (1996) and Thrift and Walling (2000) (Stoddart 1 996; Potter 2001)? Whilst there may be practical, financial, ethical and personal reasons for not working overseas, together with the second bias of not even noticing that work is done elsewhere, the net outcome is a form of parochialism which not only seems very old-fashioned, but highly misplaced in the new world order.

The observation did not seek to debate the hegemony of capitalist development, with all its manifest inequalities, but rather sought to draw attention to the degree to which Anglo-American geography seems to be reproducing such inequali ties in what it studies. Looking back, perhaps I could even have referred to 'capitalist-' or 'neo-liberal' geography. In this regard, the observation could have stressed that, since 1960, the world has become

more than twice as unequal (UNDP 2001). Yet, my note suggests that since 1 950 the output and con cerns of British geographers have remained largely unresponsive to this major global change. It was for

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214 Comment

this reason that I stressed a common agenda for

geography and development, even if this can be regarded as inferring an 'essentialist' view of devel

opment. Even Bill Clinton (2001) in his recent Richard Dimbleby Lecture inferred a direct link

between uneven development (in the form of glo

balization) and the generation of global terrorism. Clinton states openly that the Anglo-American 'core' has benefited richly from globalization, but that half the world (the periphery) is not part of the new economy, and that such inequality presents a major threat to world peace and stability.

I am pleased that Smith is sympathetic to some of my concerns, agreeing in particular that 'Anglo American centricity' does at times marginalize all kinds of Others. Hence, I am open to his 'piggy-back' argument that recent work in critical area studies, focusing on the trans-local, has more potential for

widening the remit of contemporary geography. But

if the approach means building up incrementally from the bottom, then I just hope that there are indeed enough geographers and other social scientists ready and able to take up the challenge at

this grassroots level! And I can't help wondering that

if there are enough for the task, whether they might find a major congruence between studying people, their environments and development on the one hand, and the detailed examination of trans-localities on the other. But anything that puts a bit more 'geo-' back into 'geography', and increases our responsi bilities to distant geographies, would indeed be a step in the right direction.

References

Clinton B 2001 The struggle for the soul of the 21 st

century The Richard Dimbleby lecture 2001 (http:// www.bbc.co.uk/arts/news-comment/dimbleby) Accessed 1 7 December 2001

Potter R B 2001 Whatever happened to development geography? Geographical Journal 167 188-9

Richards K and Wrigley N 1996 Geography in the United Kingdom 1992-1996 Geographical Journal 162 41-62

Stoddart D 1996 Letter to the editor Geographical Journal 162 354-5

Thrift N and Walling D 2000 Geography in the United

Kingdom 1996-2000 Geographical journal 166 96-124 UNDP 2001 Human development report 2001 Oxford

University Press, New York

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