Mapping hegemony in geography: A historical perspective from the periphery

Abstract

One of the ongoing debates in geography in the last quarter-century has been on the Anglo-American hegemony in the discipline. In the present study, the historicity of geographical practice in Turkey as a periphery country is focused on, and it is aimed to determine how hegemonic relations in geography are felt by the geographical agenda of a typical periphery country. For this purpose, a database was created based on citations to non-Turkish geographers (with regard to their workplaces) in the articles published in all academic geography journals in Turkey between the years 1943 and 2018. Analysis shows that multiple hegemonies are present in Turkish geography. While French and German geographical practices dominated the ‘long twentieth century’ of the discipline in Turkey as standard-setting and emulated practices, the twenty-first century has been dominated by Anglo-American hegemony, which serves as the governor of capitalist relations and unguided internationalisation in the academy. This pattern, which also reflects a sharp intellectual transformation in Turkish geography, provides a striking example of how localisation (Anglo-Americanisation) can occur in line with internationalisation goals.