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British social and cultural geography: beyond turns and dualisms?

We have sympathized with ourselves while working on this review, given the volume and breadth of British social and cultural geography, but it has also crossed our minds that at least we can begin without the standard apology for Anglo-American bias (an issue we return to at the end of the paper). This is not to say that it is always easy to place work as British when researchers work co-nationally, across sub-disciplines and within a broader international and human geography context. Our focus is very selective, but none of the current interests we consider is solely British. Perhaps one enduring characteristic of British social and cultural geographers, though, is our self-absorption. The last four years, to which we are largely restricting this review, have seen several commentaries by British geographers grappling with the problems of social and cultural geography and seeking to establish its identities (Gregson 2003; Jackson 2003; Pain 2003; Peach 2002; Smith 2000). A symposium held by the Social and Cultural Geography Study Group in 2003 also took stock of the direction of social and cultural geography, key issues and challenges for the future, and its engagement with other disciplines. While it sometimes feels that there is more talk than action, there are signs that any potential ‘crisis’ has been averted, or at least, is being responded to in constructive ways. There are palpable shifts that are attempting to rise to various challenges, with some interesting theoretical and methodological perspectives, some of which we go on to outline. There is considerable diversity within these discussions; but a key theme has been the call to ‘rematerialize’ social and cultural geography in different ways. Our focus is on this response to the cultural turn and the related re-emergence of ‘the social’. Although these are generic debates in human geography, they are ‘turns’ that have been most intensely felt in social and cultural geography, and in British work in particular.