Ethics as first method: Reframing geographies at an(other) ending-of-the-world as co-motion

Abstract

Drawing inspiration from diverse Indigenous scholars and mentors, as well as Levinas’ advocacy of ‘ethics as first philosophy’, this article advocates a radical contextualist reframing of geographical research as needing to address the challenges targeted by this new peer review journal. Reframing our disciplinary challenges in this way might acknowledge the need to cast off the discipline’s Eurocentric (or more particularly, its Anglo-American) blinkers, and also many other taken-for-granted notions of philosophy, theory, models, methods and practice. Even the most critical geographies often start with the imperative to speak rather than listen, to direct rather than engage, to command rather than respond. In Geography, we aim literally to write the world. This article argues that transforming chaotic commotion to ethical co-motion invites deep listening across barriers of difference to begin the skills of learning to belong together in place with diverse others over time.

Geoethical futures: A call for more-than-human physical geography

“…Particular knowledge makers stepping into this academic void enact a politics and a different geoethical practice (often performed generously, and sometimes documented, outside of academic spaces and literature). Vitally, considering the more-than-human subject, and who has stepped into this void of knowledge production and curation we witness a suite of exciting indigenous works in which land (Bawaka et al, 2015; see Head, 2022) and water (RiverOfLife et al, 2020) speak (see Howitt, 2022). As noted in the title of the text by Brierley (2020), this might envisage ‘Finding the Voice’ of the more-than-human subject, to take us ‘ beyond Restoration and Management’ (italics added), enacting respectful and sustainable approaches to living with rivers rather than asserting human authority over rivers in the ways that we manage them.…”

“…Geoethical pursuits must also recognise that human participants are relationally bound to more-than-human entities in research processes, and thus also require deeper contemplation (see Howitt, 2022). Land ‘owners’, for example, require more consideration than just land access, as either high copper residues or positive identification of erionite on their land have potential health (physical and mental) implications and economic costs.…”

“…Such practices embed an inherent environmental ethics in practices of knowledge production and promise more productive futures for Geography and better futures for the world. From a declarative standpoint, we might insist that an ethical physical geography is a decolonised physical geography that faces up to its ethical dilemmas, builds bridges with the various turns in human geography that have embraced a more open stance to engagement with ethics, and is developed through a grounded, post-productivist methodology (see Howitt, 2022). An ethical physical geography would be a distinctive disciplinary base for a geoethical future.…”

Geography and the present conjuncture

“…The emergence of feminist geography provides strong evidence of how including other social positionalities strengthen geographical thinking and scholarship (Mohammad, 2017; Nelson and Seager, 2005). Finally, we also are now seeing substantial bodies of recognized Anglophone scholarship in Black, Latinx, and indigenous geographies (Howitt, 2022) and geographies of sexuality and disability, also exploring their complex intersectionalities (Oswin, 2020). Yet there remains much to be done to dismantle existing gender and racial hierarchies in Anglophone geographical thinking.…”

Making molehills out of mountains: Keeping the tempest in the teapot

“…For those without secure access to food, water, shelter, health care, personal security, and safety, let alone the “luxuries” beyond mere existence, these dilemmas also constitute the state of affairs that must be changed. (On these latter crises, and the enormous store of understanding that has been built up around them through Indigenous and other knowledges, see Howitt, 2022, and to a somewhat less explicit extent, Sheppard, 2022.) And, of course, the issues intersect: militarism and the climate crisis in many ways; militarism, climate, and more mundane catastrophes through both direct and opportunity costs of current, ongoing allocations of financial and other resources (as just one example of these intersections, see “The Costs of War” project, available at: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/).…”