connects two areas of controversy within contemporary geography: the parochialism of contemporary human geography and the gulf between university and nonuniversity geography. It is argued that we can find the cause of the latter phenomenon in the origin of the former, namely in academic geography's unwillingness to re-imagine the 'global claim' that it has inherited from its imperial past. This difficulty has created the conditions for the representation of popular geography as intrinsically dated, as politically suspect and/or as mere 'traveller's tales'. It is suggested that geography cannot escape the burden of its global claim. Rather it needs to critically engage this formerly imperial paradigm and, in so doing, re-ignite geography's role in public debate and as public knowledge.
Drawing on interviews with ex-residents of Tyneside (United Kingdom), this paper builds on recent reappraisals of nostalgia as a 'productive' and 'living' disposition, to show how fond memories and a sense of loss shape and sustain engagement with the city. In contrast to recent attempts to identify active nostalgia only with its 'reflective' forms, or to separate out 'official' and 'non-official' nostalgia, the paper demonstrates that nostalgias are mobile and interwoven. It is shown that 'restorative' and 'reflective' forms can co-exist and state-led practices of conservation be maintained in a complex and mutually sustaining relationship with more personal, less official, visions of the value of the past. Thus it is argued that urban nostalgia for the city needs to be acknowledged as a potentially critical intervention that draws together different modes of attachment and yearning.
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