Jump In! The Water's Warm: A Comment on Peck's ‘Grey Geography’

Using Social Geography

“…Nearly a decade later, Knight ' s (1986) exasperation was clearly evident in his call for geographers to " take our heads out of our armpits and do something useful, " by " addressing some real problems " (p.334, emphasis in original). More recently, Peck ( 1999 : 131) sparked a debate in Transactions of the Institute in British Geographers by claiming that " geographers have on the whole been conspicuous by their absence from substantive policy debates " (see the responses from Banks and Mackian 2000 ;Pollard et al 2000 ;also Peck 2000 ). This was followed by the perhaps most oft -cited, and heated, exchange (containing reference to " gratuitous insults " and " wilful misunderstandings, " even) between Massey (2001Massey ( , 2002 , Martin (2001Martin ( , 2002 , and Dorling and Shaw (2002) in Progress in Human Geography .…”

“…There are however many examples of social geographers successfully conducting policy -relevant work without compromising their academic independence or integrity -see Imrie (2004) , Martin (2001) , and Pain (2006) for overviews of such work. There is also evidence that rigorous empirical and/or applied work can and does make a valuable contribution to the development of theory (Banks and Mackian 2000 ;Pain 2003 ). Peck ' s (1999) differentiation between " shallow " and " deep " policy analysis is helpful in elucidating this.…”

Politicization of research and the relevance of geography: some experiences and reflections for an ongoing debate

“…By 'politicization' we mean the intentional or unintentional process of embroilment in political contestation; it may stem from one source or many sources and does not necessarily pose problems for the researcher. Our concern is neither the problem of reconciling contract research with academic liberty, nor engagement with the politics of urban policy evaluation (Turok 1991;Wilks-Heeg 2003), nor does it discuss whether we need more policy -relevant or 'grey' research (Peck 1999(Peck 2000Banks and MacKian 2000;Pollard et al 2000). We want to show that more ambitious political relevance can be thoroughly limited by 'Kafka-esque' forces beyond the researcher's immediate knowledge or control.…”

“…We want to show that more ambitious political relevance can be thoroughly limited by 'Kafka-esque' forces beyond the researcher's immediate knowledge or control. Whispering in the minister's ear (Banks and MacKian 2000;Peck 2000) does not suffice when he or she is unwilling to listen and take heed of what the researcher has to say.…”

“…Re-engagement requires a move away from esoteric deliberations and an enhanced willingness about 'getting one's hands dirty ' (Peck 1999, 131) and to 'jump in!' (Banks and MacKian 2000), by working in and with the phenomena in question, eschewing any pretence of detached and value-free observation and becoming integral to the very process of trying to affect social and political change.…”