Cite as:
Noxolo P, Raghuram P, Madge C, 2008, "‘Geography is pregnant’ and ‘geography’s milk is flowing’: metaphors for a postcolonial discipline?" Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26(1) 146 – 168
Download citation data in RIS format

‘Geography is pregnant’ and ‘geography’s milk is flowing’: metaphors for a postcolonial discipline?

Pat Noxolo, Parvati Raghuram, Clare Madge

Received 14 October 2005; in revised form 2 February 2007

Abstract. This paper attempts to mobilise the metaphors of pregnancy and lactation to address the imperatives arising from British academic geography’s postcolonial position. We embed our argument in our readings of extracts from two consciously postcolonial fictional texts. In the first part of the paper we consider geography as a discipline that is pregnant but ‘in trouble’ to illustrate the paradoxical struggle of the discipline to be a global discipline whilst at the same time marginalising the voices and perspectives that make it global. In the second part of the paper we consider geography as a discipline whose ‘milk is flowing’ to suggest ways that the discipline can acknowledge its global interconnectedness to produce a mutually responsible academic agency.

Restricted material:

 Full-text PDF size: 211 Kb

 References  121 references, 52 with DOI links ()

Your computer (IP address: 107.22.25.119) has not been recognised as being on a network authorised to view the full text or references of this article. If you are a member of a university library that has a subscription to the journal, please contact your serials librarian (subscriptions information).