Abstract
This article explores the relevance and value of cultural geography within the undergraduate geography curriculum in light of graduate employability. The article is based on the assertion that employability is an objective to which universities are required to engage, and yet, cultural geography, as a sub-discipline, may be more challenging to map against the prevailing neoliberal employability discourse. To bridge this gap, I propose the use of ‘powerful knowledge’ as a conceptual frame in order to demonstrate specific skills and knowledges cultural geography can and does offer the employability agenda. I briefly demonstrate how visual and ethnographic methods are deployed on two current geography courses in the UK in order to engage students with cultural geography. I end by proposing three key forms of powerful knowledge cultural geography has the potential to generate in graduates. These are: 1) situated knowledge and reflexivity; 2) thinking beyond the human, and; 3) a consideration of cultural landscapes.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 516-522 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Geography in Higher Education |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 29 Jul 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords
- Graduate attributes
- cultural studies
- geography curriculum
- reflexivity
- teaching theory
- Education
- Geography, Planning and Development
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Education