Policies and Practices for an Antiracist Geography at the Millennium

As we enter the new millennium, geographers have a momentous opportunity to reflect upon the historical development of our discipline and the academic culture within which it thrives, with the aim of setting out an antiracist agenda. We advocate a fundamental refashioning of the discipline, not simply an extension of its research agenda; for racism, like gender, is not just another item in the lexicon of geographical subjects. The agenda includes, but is not limited to: clarifying relations between racism and law; racism and immigration policy; racism and poverty; and mobilizing racialized groups around policy issues. These items need to be addressed both through scholarship and through activism, as centering geographical practices in the streets rather than in the academy impels not only more effective social change, but also new theoretical understanding of geographies of engagement. Our agenda for antiracist geography also involves three aspects of institutional change: to build up on and extend traditional geographical scholarship; to change the basis of the discipline by extending the principles of antiracism throughout our institutional practices, particularly in the classroom; and to change the face of the discipline by increasing the participation and contributions of geographers of color.