Cultural Geography

universal truths can be discovered, and that

Eurocentric knowledges have revealed at least

some of them, means the idea of knowledge itself

is often not problematized in academic discourse.

This renders invisible processes that construct

knowledge, and many of their consequences.

Eurocentric knowledges, boundaries and rela-

tionships are conventionally treated in the

academy as the only possible knowledges and as

universally relevant.

The assumption of Eurocentric knowledges’

universal relevance parallels the political

processes of imperialism and displacement.

Other knowledges are rendered silent. They are

ignored, devalued and/or undermined so that

Eurocentric knowledges see only themselves,

becoming self-legitimating rather than self-

aware. D. Rose eloquently describes the circular

argument formed by these assumptions as an all-

knowing self, centring itself in a hall of mirrors:

The self sets itself within a hall of mirrors; it mistakes

its reflection for the world, sees its own reflections end-

lessly, talks endlessly to itself, and, not surprisingly,

finds continual verification of itself and its world view.

This is monologue masquerading as conversation,

masturbation posing as productive interaction; it is a

narcissism so profound that it purports to provide a

universal knowledge when in fact its violent erasures

are universalizing its own singular and powerful isola-

tion. It promotes a nihilism that stifles the knowledge

of connection, disabling dialogue, and maiming the

possibilities whereby ‘self’ might be captured by

‘other’. (1999: 177)

Irigaray (1985a) also draws on metaphorical

mirrors. She discusses how the male imaginary

duplicates and reflects itself to ensure ‘coher-

ence’ and legitimacy. Cultural geographer

G. Rose expands further upon this in her

‘dialogue’ with Irigaray:

And the mirrors are frozen ... Solidified in their repeti-

tive reflection of the same, a solidity of morphological

tumescence and of death. And mirrors can be walls.

They cluster together, overlap, build a ‘palace of mir-

rors’ (Irigaray, 1985b: 137), provide ‘solid walls of

principle’ (Irigaray, 1985a: 106). They give form, they

turn ideas into structures, edifices, they produce ‘the

absolute power of form’ (Irigaray, 1985a: 110), the

solidity of concepts, boundaries and order (Irigaray,

1985a: 107). (1996: 67)

We seek to engage cultural landscapes on the

other side of the mirrors constructed by

Eurocentric knowledges. We aim to open readers

to possibilities unthought of, and spaces inacces-

sible from within, the hall of mirrors. Blunt and

Rose (1994: 15–16) identify two strategies used

to open up spaces of resistance. One strategy

draws on ‘imagined geographies’ as an

‘imaginative resource’ to challenge colonization.

The other engages with the inherent limits of

Eurocentric knowledge itself. Nader identifies

three research directions that challenge notions

of western rationality as the benchmark for all

other cultural knowledge: describing knowledges

in traditional societies; ethnographic studies of

the socio-cultural context of western science; and

linking studies of science with studies of other

knowledges to encourage ‘mutual interrogation’

(1996: 6).

In this chapter, the self-defining limits of

the circular argument which characterizes

Eurocentric knowledges are exposed by decon-

structing key concepts in cultural geography and

investigating how Eurocentric knowledges

become colonizing knowledges. Concurrently,

situated knowledges and practices, diverse

systems of local knowledge and social organiza-

tion arising from cultures being-in-place, are

drawn on to challenge and unsettle the position of

Eurocentric knowledges within the hall of

mirrors. This is done not to romanticize other

knowledges but to challenge, unsettle and recon-

figure the knowledge–power nexus constructed in

cultural geography, and elsewhere in the academy.

GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGES

IN THE HALL OF MIRRORS

Academic knowledges positioned within this

metaphorical hall of mirrors play vital roles in

making invisible, writing over and blocking out

other knowledge systems. For example, it is no

coincidence that many of the words associated

with research are drawn from and embedded in

colonizing discourses: re-searching, exploring,

collecting, journeying, examining, investigating,

travelling, discovering. Clifford identifies colo-

nizing legacies in his examination of how anthro-

pology problematizes the concept of fieldwork –

a concept similarly cherished by geographers:

Fieldwork has become a problem because of its

positivist and colonialist associations (the field as

‘laboratory’, the field as place of ‘discovery’) ... they

[anthropologists and ethnographers, and we might add

geographers] have navigated in the dominant society,

often enjoying white skin privilege and a physical

safety in the field guaranteed by a history of prior puni-

tive expeditions and policing. (1997: 194, 196)

Geographical research is certainly not immune

from these colonizing legacies, contexts and

practices. However, geographers are turning

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