Special issue  

Analyzing the development of theoretical debates in geography over the last decades, Peter Weichhart criticizes the growing fragmentation of theoretical discussions in the discipline. Carolin Schurr questions his search for a new center, arguing that many of geography's key concepts have been challenged from the margins of society and the discipline. The future of geographic research lies for both in an increasing engagement with questions of social justice.

Die Intervention befasst sich vor allem mit der Dynamik des Dialogs zwischen Carolin Schur und Peter Weichhart. Die leitende rage lautet, Wie kann wissenschaftlicher Dialog am besten gestaltet werden unter Bedingungen der tendenziell zunehmenden Wissenslücken der jeweiligen Dialogpartner*innen gegenüber anderen Standpunkten? Es wird argumentiert, dass diese Frage am besten geantwortet werden kann, wenn wir unser Verständnis für die subtile Auswirkungen der Positionalität verbessern.

In this editorial, we introduce the special section on the politics of memory of Kiel 1969, the famous German geographers' conference, in which, as the myth narrates, a revolution took place within the discipline of German-language geography. We introduce the three individual statements by Verne, Strohmayer and Weichhart, who all recount their entanglements with the myth of Kiel 1969, and place them in a wider context of the history of geography.

This intervention into the ongoing evaluation of Kiel 1969 within german-speaking human geography adds a personal voice to those debates. The focus of the paper is on practices defining the Department of Geography at the Technical University Munich during the 1980s. Discussing research and teaching, structures and personalities defining geography at this institution, the paper positions the revolution ostensibly emanating from the 1969 Geographentag in the context of everyday experiences.

Kiel 1969 bietet einen Einstieg, um über die spezifisch deutschsprachige Entwicklung des Faches nachzudenken und wissenschaftliche Dynamiken in gesellschaftliche Kontexte einzubetten. Kiel 1969 zeigt, wie spannend und vielschichtig die Geographie ist, und die Debatte darum zeigt, wieviel wir nicht wissen, wie einfach wir es uns manchmal machen und wieviel es noch zu entdecken gibt. Aus meiner Perspektive ist Kiel 1969 wichtig, aber eben nicht nur Kiel 1969!

By means of hermeneutic source criticism, my paper investigates how the events of “Kiel 1969” gave rise to a myth. It concludes that the congress’s participants experienced “Kiel 1969” as the site of an enormously dense social interaction within their science. Most importantly, participants’ suggestive oral reports in the aftermath of the congress turned it into the “myth of Kiel”, which became an essential driving force of German-speaking geography’s modernization.