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Presidential Plenary Session: Studying, Teaching, and Serving Your Locality in a Globalizing World
- Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 62, 2000
- pp. 112-114
- 10.1353/pcg.2000.0013
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Presidential Plenary Session: Studying, Teaching, and Serving Your Locality in a Globalizing World Robin E. D a te l Past President, APCG California State University, Sacramento Session held Thursday, September 30,1999 at Reno, Nevada M a n y geographers can't help becoming involved with their home areas, as they tend to be people who care about places. Even aside from natural inclination, we have a responsibility to do so. Accord ing to Richard Morrill (1983, p. 5), who in his 1983 AAG presidential address emphasized the serving part of my trilogy: "as geographers we should have a far better understanding of the processes by which places and regions change than does the average citizen or even the decision-maker__ Thus do we not have some responsibility, because of the investment of society in us, to help our communities toward more constructive decisions?" J. Russell Whitaker (p. 235) in his 1954 AAG presidential ad dress mentioned the practical considerations behind studying our own surroundings: Most of us would surely agree that the geographer is peculiarly responsible, or at least has a peculiar opportunity, for study of his home locality and regions. We areburdenedby the costin time and money required to study areas at a distance, we may be blocked by languagebarriers orthehostilityoftheinhabitants, and wemay not know the special channels of information. In all these ways the geographer at home has an advantage. While I would not for one minute argue that the home geographer has no business to study elsewhere, or, on the other hand, that he has a monopoly of local study, I have long thought that he is the proper person to do most of the work on his home area. 112 President's Plenary Session: Studying, Teaching, and Serving 113 In his 1981 presidential address, John Fraser Hart (1981, p. 18) quoted Torsten Hagerstrand on the teaching opportunities afforded by our local areas: "regional studies have a unique educational value for children and adults alike as a means of elucidating complex re lationships. It should be the obligation of every geographer to know his (her) home-area and help people there to understand it." The three geographers who spoke at the 1999 APCG Presiden tial Plenary Session, and whose remarks follow, put flesh on these exhortatory bones. They show how an atlas of greater Los Angeles, a guide book to Oakland, and a sustained period of environmental activism in San Diego County constitute research, enrich teaching, and deliver valuable information to their local communities. Jim Allen, Paul Groth, and Phil Pryde provide inspiration, as well as expert advice, for those interested in similar efforts. George Demko in his 1991 (p. 579) AAG presidential address, quoting Robert Kates, noted the need to link our local work of what ever kind to the big themes and global processes that otherwise concern us: "But most of all we need to do good work on the great questions, to see that even the local, most specific and most practi cal of our endeavors relate to them, draw upon them, and contribute to them." The pieces that follow demonstrate that geographers till ing the soil of home do not lose sight of the far horizon. Our national organization, the Association of American Geog raphers, works hard to give geography a higher profile at the national level. Projects like the Rediscovering Geography volume and the Ad vanced Placement course in geography are recent examples of its success. Efforts like those described in the following pages give ge ography a higher profile at the local level. I am pleased that the APCG was able to showcase them in a special session and in the Yearbook. I hope that by these means, the APCG has played a role in encourag ing others to follow the leads of these three accomplished geographers. Literature Cited Demko, George J. 1988. Geography Beyond the Ivory Tower. Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers 78(4): 575-579. Hart, John Fraser. 1982. The Highest Form of the Geographer's Art. Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers 72(1): 1-29. 114 APCG YEARBOOK •Volume 62 •2000 Morrill, Richard L. 1984. The Responsibility of Geography. Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers...