Debating geographers and/in development

This deliberately provocative set of interventions arises from a session by the same name at the annual conference of the Association of American Geographers in Seattle on 14 April 2011 and reflects closely each panellist's contribution there. The session drew a large audience and generated such animated discussion in view of the topicality of the subject matter that we felt the issues deserved broader exposure among geographers. My thanks go to my coconvenor, Ed Carr, and the other panellists for providing such stimulating contributions and then delivering and editing their manuscripts rapidly. By virtue of the very nature of their subject and regardless of their immediate motivations, geographers concerned and/or engaged with developmentönot all of whom would regard themselves as development geographersöhave long grappled with dilemmas of positionality, modes and terms of engagement, ethics, data mining, `pure' versus `applied' research, or `making a difference'. All of these constitute dimensions of `impact' in today's increasingly instrumental higher education lexicon and therein lies one aspect of their topicality. There are no easy answers and most of us have found a workable modus vivendi for ourselves but are forced to reexamine assumptions or practices periodically as a result of changing circumstances or specific experiences. This panel's composition deliberately reflects some key elements of diversity, including age and gender. Most relevantly to this symposium, two of us were born and partially or wholly formally educated in Africa, two in the USA, and one in the UK; three of us are based in US institutions, one in the UK, and one now in the Netherlands but previously the UK and Singapore; four of us have extensive experience in Africa and three in parts of Asia; while one is currently working on secondment in a bilateral development agency and another has substantial consultancy experience for bilateral and multilateral agencies and NGOs. This symposium took shape against the backdrop of recent research on aspects of the archaeology of development: in particular the motivations of a particular religiously and/or politically identified cohort of early `development pioneers' who had escaped or survived the Holocaust (Simon, 2009). Although there has been a marked increase of interest in, and engagement with, spiritual and religious dimensions of development over the last decade, many development practitioners and volunteers from both the Global North and South have always been inspired by religious convictions or spiritual precepts. It often relates to doing something more Symposium: Geographers and/in development Edited by David Simon