Decolonising and Internationalising Geography: Essays in the History of Contested Science (Historical Geography and Geosciences)

International scholarship is increasingly aware that the ‘geographical tradition’ is a contentious and contested field: while critical reflections on the imperial past of the discipline are still ongoing, new tendencies including de-colonial studies and geographies of internationalism are focusing on the progressive aspects of plural geographical traditions. This volume contains selected papers presented at two Symposia of the Commission on the History of Geography of the International Geographical Union within the 25th International Congress of History of Science and Technology which took place in Rio de Janeiro in July 2017.

The papers address processes of ‘decolonising’ and ‘internationalising’ science in the 19th and 20th century, with a special emphasis on geography. Internationalization, circulation and dissemination of geographical concepts and ideas are in the focus. The volume includes case studies on Latin America, tropical regions as well as Europe and Japan. Thereis also an emphasis on the history of international congresses and organizations and on the international circulation of knowledge.

Bruno Schelhaas received his PhD from the University of Leipzig. He is Head of the Archive for Geography at Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig and is the archivist of the International Geographical Union. His interests include the history of geography and cartography, historical geography and archival science. He is member of the Steering Committee of the Commission History of Geography of the International Geographical Union.

Federico Ferretti received his PhD from the Universities of Bologna and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2011. After research and teaching experiences in Italy, France, Switzerland and Brazil, he is serving as Associate Professor at UCD School of geography, working in the fields of philosophy and history of geography and on critical and anarchist geographies with a special focus on Latin America. He authored, co-authored or edited fifteen books in Italian, French and English and published research papers in the major international peer-reviewed journals in my area of study, in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. He is Secretary/Treasurer for the Commission History of Geography of the International Geographical Union, Secretary of the History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG and member of the Geosciences and Geographical Sciences Committee of the Royal Irish Academy.

André Reyes Novaes is associate professor at the Rio de Janeiro State University. He is currently Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Geography at the Royal Holloway University of London and member of the Steering Committee of the Commission History of Geography of the International Geographical Union. He is on the editorial team of the book series Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies and the journal Espaço e Cultura, a pioneering publication on cultural approaches in human geography in Brazil. His research interests include visual methods, history of cartography, popular geopolitics and history of South American borders.

Marcella Schmidt di Friedberg is full Professor of Geography, at the “Riccardo Massa” Department of Human Sciences for Education (University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). She is Chair from 2016 of the International Geographical Union Commission on History of Geography and vice-director of the Marine Research and High Education Center in Faaf-Magoodhoo (Rep of Maldives). Her research interests concerns Cultural Geography, Hazard and Resilience, Gender Geography and History of the Geographical Thought. She has been working especially on the relations between nature, culture, memory and landscape in different contexts, from the Mediterranean, to Japan.