Fieldwork continues to underpin undergraduate geography in the UK and elsewhere. In recent years fieldwork destinations in UK geography programmes have grown more global in scope. This paper examines the pressures and processes that underpin the increased reach of fieldwork in undergraduate geography. Based on a recently implemented research practice module that includes long-haul fieldwork, the academic value of such fieldwork and its positioning in subject benchmarking statements are discussed, and the implications of long-haul fieldwork, in particular for effective module design and assessment forms, are further considered. The authors suggest that reflective research diaries are a particularly useful assessment form for students to fully engage and consider the political and ethical dimensions of long-haul fieldwork.

Summary The critique of whiteness furthers important critiques of static notions of ethnicity and identity. Interesting work on ‘white‐blind’ geographers working on race and ethnicity has recently been initiated, yet a more systematic and wide ranging critique of the norms and assumptions of contemporary geographical research has yet to be fully established. After reviewing the recent White Studies literature, this paper examines an influential piece of contemporary geographical writing and suggests that if geography really is to matter, geographers need to consider more self‐consciously how they themselves might be (unwittingly) complicit in such constructions.

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This paper considers recent patterns of departmental change in the management of Geography in UK universities. It notes the increasingly multidisciplinary management of Geography since the mid‐1990s. Various measures of this trend are explored and discussed. The paper also considers the problematic accommodation of Geography within the faculty structures of institutions. These findings speak of a problematic identity for the discipline within this institutional context. The paper goes on to consider some of the impacts of these trends for the practice of Geography in UK higher education.

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