This section features readings lists and resources I’ve (co)written/produced to support learning and teaching, and/or provide tools for understanding an issue through a critical geographical lens.
Geographers in solidarity with Palestine
Members of the RGS-IBG Race, Culture and Equality (RACE) Working Group have compiled resources for geographers, including works by Palestinian authors and critical commentaries, on the longstanding conflict in Palestine. These living documents, shared as two blog posts, will be updated with new contributions.
Racism, Islamophobia, and Muslim Geographies
In the summer of 2024, Islamophobic, racist, and fascist riots across the UK underscored the normalization of anti-migrant and anti-Muslim violence. In response, members of the RGS-IBG Race, Culture and Equality group (RACE) Working Group created a working document with resources on racism, Islamophobia, and Muslim geographies to foster understanding, solidarity, and action.
A few of my favourite websites and/or people
Amina Pagliari
Working with Amina is an absolute joy and privilege. She is, without a doubt, one of the most talented and visionary people I’ve ever had the pleasure to collaborate with. Her work is inspirational and empowering! I cannot recommend and endorse Amina highly enough — her creativity and dedication are brilliantly unique.
Building the anti-racist classroom (BARC)
This collective provides insights on critical research and methodologies, arts-led interventions, inclusive workshopping and centring the marginalised in society. They have some useful resources on inclusive teaching practices and the recommended resources are excellent.
Decolonising Education for Peace in Africa
What are the different knowledges and values that underpin peace in Africa? How can these practices be connected and compared across countries to decolonise African peace education? The Decolonising Education for Peace in Africa (DEPA) project answers these questions using Arts and Humanities methodologies and, for the first time, provides new data on how peace is understood within displaced and marginalised communities across the continent.
Dr Angela Martinez Dy
Angela Martinez Dy is an internationally recognised and award-winning feminist entrepreneurship scholar, poet, community organiser, mentor, and public speaker. Her work connects communities, bridges diverse knowledges, and inspires compassionate change.
Decolonising Geography
The Decolonising Geography Educators Group provide ways to decolonise the curriculum. They aim to challenge the reproduction of colonial practices of knowledge in our classrooms.
FI WI Road
Since 2021 the Fi Wi Road Internship has welcomed Black heritage Geography and Geoscience students to join a paid Summer internship. Focusing on centering Black Geography undergraduate voices within their field, the interns are invited to build new networks, skills and experiences, and shape what the discipline looks like.
Global Social Theory
An intuitive and free resource for anyone keen to understand social theory through a global rather than parochial perspective.
Global Black Geographies
The Global Black Geographies Collective is a network of international Black scholars supporting those outside of traditional centres of formal knowledge dissemination in the North Atlantic, to enter and make meaningfully contributions to the discipline.
Mutable Matter
Dr Angela Last is a remarkable academic, and her blog Mutable Matter is an essential read for anyone interested in critical and creative scholarship in geography and beyond. Described as exploring ‘the production of matter and its consequences with regard to power, and our social and geographical imagination,’ this blog is so much more. It’s where I turn when I want to make sense of the contemporary moment—a space that challenges, inspires, and expands the way I think about the world.
Oceanic Refractions
Oceanic Refractions is a multisensory audio-visual work featuring videography from Laisiasa Dave Lavaki (Fiji), Tumeli Tuqota (Fiji) and Mere Nailatikau, and sound design by Joseph Kamaru (Kenya/ Germany) and AM Kanngieser. To be clear, this is more than a website, it is an experience!
Salaam Geographia
A space, created by educator Iram Sammar, for people who want to learn about anti-racist approaches to teaching geography in schools and to help understand decoloniality – and how this can transform or enable plurality in the learners’ view of the world they share with billions of other humans.
States of Precarity
States of Precarity is a research project conducted in collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute for British Geographers. It aims to understand peoples’ experiences of precarity within UK geography, in the UK higher education sector. These insights are vital if we are to better understand the effects of precarious working on the discipline, and if we are to work towards better working conditions for those experiencing precarity in academia.
Thatlittlemapshop
Full disclosure: the person behind this site is my best friend of several decades. I’m not on commission, promise! They’re an incredibly talented artist and geographer who creates playful and entertaining maps and place-based artwork. So I just had to share. Please do take a look – if only for the comedic value!
James Esson 