Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

the end of the 1980s are represented. As an innovativecharacteristic, is it built not only by students andprofessors, but also by professionals, administationworkers and the unemployed.Figure 1: heading of the journal and logoIn November 2002, a group of people decided to gettogether to talk and to debate about Geography-related topics. A diverse agglomerationof people with a common subject: concerns about Galician Geography, andhow to make it useful for the society. Despite the fact that some of the members ofthe collective were part of the educational institutions of Galicia, also taking partin “official” initiatives, this path recently has shown a landscape full of illusion butnot exclusion.Ours is an open and plural association with critical formulations related withGeography and the present World. The interchange of ideas from very different vital,job perspectives and ideological positions, the supression of hierarchies or the studyof topics which cannot be comfortable for Academia, are some of our basis in orderto build for our future (Editorial of Abalar Journal, № 0, 2003).Dignifying Geography in Society is taken as a previous idea and has been adoptedas a starting point. The Project must be based on the social utility of everything,of all our products including writings, speeches and thoughts. A very importantissue is the concern shown towards all the problems directely related with Galicia.ABALAR was the only geographical organization which explained to society itsposition with regard to the Prestige disaster (an oil spill with dramatic ecologicalconsequences in Galician coasts in 2002). Firstly, the journal EL PAÍS publisheda manifesto (26‐11‐2002), and afterwards, a complete report was published in thenumber 0 of the ABALAR journal.The journal is the most visible part of the project wich tries to put the basis ofthe new (we are hoping) construction of Galician Geography. Nevertheless, at thesame time this association is concerned and worried about global conflicts, likethe war in Iraq or the celebration of the World Social Forum, the Brazilian MST– “Movemento dos Sem Terra” among others. But the ABALAR Project demandsand claims to be something more than a journal. Roundtables, lectures, symposiums,field trips, cinema-forums or meetings are activities in which ABALAR is in chargeof organizing. This mobilization made possible that ABALAR is now counted asone of the main groups of Critical Geography in Spain. This was recognized byGarcía Ramón in the recent “IV International Conference of Critical Geography”,celebrated in México DF in January 2005 (see García Ramón, 2005: “Does it exista Critical Geography in Spain?”). It also is important that the organization the FirstSymposium of the Group of Geographical Thought within the Spanish Associationof Geographers, with the title: “Histories, Geographies, Cultures” will be celebratedon 27−29 June 2005 in Galicia.Galicia must be shaken with energy, in its structures, in is conscience, in order toawake from the false dream of the opulence of capitalism, wich sometimes seems tobecome an authentic nightmare. Rural areas are becoming more and more regressive,the sea has became black, the cities and villages are badly managed, the territory123