TY - JOUR
T1 - Popularization and Geography
T2 - An Inseparable Relationship
AU - Downs, Roger M.
N1 - Funding Information:
9. Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) was a scientist and inventor credited with the invention of the tele-phone. Through his daughter’s marriage to Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Bell became a patron of the fledgling NGS, recommending Grosvenor for an editorial position and providing financial support to the Society.
PY - 2010/4
Y1 - 2010/4
N2 - Geography in America is inseparably entwined with popularization: historically from its inception, structurally in its composition, and functionally in its mission. Despite its centrality to geography, the role of popularization remains largely ignored and therefore is poorly understood. To put popularization into a conceptual and historical context, I explore two public debates about popularization: one structural, involving the rationale for the separation of the National Geographic Society and the Association of American Geographers, and the other functional, involving conflicts between the popular intellectual and academic geographic reviewers of a popular text, Van Loon's Geography. Using analytical frameworks taken from the history and sociology of science and communication studies, I show how issues of demarcation, authority, and authenticity have, through debates about popularization, shaped the history and current structure of the geographic enterprise.
AB - Geography in America is inseparably entwined with popularization: historically from its inception, structurally in its composition, and functionally in its mission. Despite its centrality to geography, the role of popularization remains largely ignored and therefore is poorly understood. To put popularization into a conceptual and historical context, I explore two public debates about popularization: one structural, involving the rationale for the separation of the National Geographic Society and the Association of American Geographers, and the other functional, involving conflicts between the popular intellectual and academic geographic reviewers of a popular text, Van Loon's Geography. Using analytical frameworks taken from the history and sociology of science and communication studies, I show how issues of demarcation, authority, and authenticity have, through debates about popularization, shaped the history and current structure of the geographic enterprise.
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U2 - 10.1080/00045601003638774
DO - 10.1080/00045601003638774
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77951217657
SN - 0004-5608
VL - 100
SP - 444
EP - 467
JO - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
JF - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
IS - 2
ER -