Worlding geography: From linguistic privilege to decolonial anywheres

Abstract

Geography studies the world. Our knowledge of the world, however, comes mostly from Anglophone sources. This makes Geography in urgent need of worlding – of including multiple voices and languages from around the world. Introducing the notion of linguistic privilege, the article establishes language as an important dimension of epistemic struggle, alongside gender, race, class and others. Its analysis finds the greatest linguistic privilege in the most influential positions in knowledge production – editors of handbooks and journals and authors of progress reports. Three strategies of worlding should challenge this: making gatekeepers multilingual, promoting multiple Englishes and valorising ex-centric knowledge.