Inequality and Geography

Human geographers became directly interested in the study of inequality when the focus of the discipline shifted to examining spatial differences using quantitative methods and exploring how different variables varied across space. Typically, such variations occurred across a country or city, although a few scholars were interested in variations across [Page 1587]the globe. At first, the main focus was on how to map, measure, and explain variations, but gradually more normative approaches began to address welfare and justice issues. How did the differences among areas that were being observed affect human life, and insofar as they did, how could the negative aspects be remedied? When Marxism began to influence the discipline in the 1970s, interest in spatial variations was transformed into a stronger, more explicit concern for inequality in all its dimensions. The world was unfair, and something needed to be done to remedy injustices. Of course, for many Marxists the only answer was the demise of the capitalist system.

In recent years, many human geographers have continued to be interested in the broad inequalities in and across societies, but arguably most have concentrated on the problems of specific groups. The unfair treatment of women, black people, ethnic minorities, gays, migrants, those with HIV/AIDS, and others has dominated geographical journals. Only development geographers have really been interested in poverty on a global scale, and only those writing in the more left-wing journals of the discipline, such as Antipode, have focused on class. With the shift to postmodernism and poststructuralism, geographers have tended to neglect the normative and policy issues linked to inequality and have focused on how unfairness has developed over time. Postmodern thinkers are typically more interested in discourse analysis and differing interpretations of reality than in remedying past and present wrongs. The idea that progress is possible has diminished in importance by questioning what progress means and whether it is actually desirable. Inequality is integral to postmodern and postcolonial discussions but mainly takes the form of showing how one group or another has been harmed as “progress” or “development” has occurred.

Of course, the field of geography has always attracted a substantial number of those who wanted to get involved in policy issues, but it seems that most geographers are currently less interested in influencing policy than they once were. Those who do get involved in policy work tend to be dismissed as empiricists, insufficiently engaged with theory to take their place at the forefront of the discipline.