Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

the whole world will, according to this way-of-thinking, inevitably move in this directiontowards what the eminent –and globally published- American academic FrancisFukuyama described as the ‘the end of history’ (Fukuyama, 1993). This diffusion ofthis ‘dominant ideology’ is, some argue, facilitated by the global spread of English;other ideological perspectives evolving in other linguistic-cultural communitiescannot counterbalance this English-speaking cultural juggernaut (Cassen, 2000).Germany provides another example of anxieties related to language and interculturalunderstanding. Its politicians and diplomats are alarmed by the falling numbersof English-speakers learning German and the paltry flow of translations out ofGerman into English. This, it is suggested, produces no cultural counterbalance tothe persistence of distorted and ‘negative’ images of modern Germany based on analmost obsessional study of ‘Nazi’ Germany in British schools (Economist, 2004)and the incessant showing of World War Two films UK television (Goethe Institut).In the English-speaking world, some worry that it’s characteristic monolingualismis isolating it dangerously from an understanding of developments in other culturallinguisticcommunities. The minute numbers of Americans studying Arabic becomeTable 4. Country of origin of authors ofarticles published in major ‘international’journals, 1991−97PercentageCountryof articlespublished1991−97USA 38.25UK 35.14Canada 8.58Australia 3.24Israel 1.51New Zealand 1.42South Africa 1.19The Netherlands 1.09China 0.62Singapore 0.61Sweden 0.52France 0.52Italy 0.51Japan 0.49Germany 0.47Greece 0.47Others 5.36Total 100.00Source: Gutiérrez and López, 2001296starkly apparent when demands for knowledge of thedevelopments in the Islamic world increased followingthe ‘September 11 th ’ attack on New York.Language and intercultural understanding inacademic GeographyIn 2001, two Spanish geographers challengedthe ‘international’ pretensions of some 19 majorgeographical journals based, significantly, in theUSA and the UK (Gutiérrez amd López, 2001). Theyrevealed that these so-called ‘international’ journalsare heavily dominated by the English-speaking countriesand academics (see Table 4).Of course, geographers from countries like Spaincan publish in their own national languages in essentiallynational journals. But few from outside theselinguistic communities are likely to read them. Thisproduces cultural isolation rather than interculturalunderstanding, a point made by another Spanish-Catalan geographer who argued that the ‘growinghegemony of English as a global language privilegesthe geographical discourse of the Anglophone world’at the expense of other cultural traditions (Garcia-Ramon, 2003: 1−4). She argued that articles submittedby native English speakers are more likely to beaccepted because of their ‘mother-tongue’ advantageand because their ‘ways of thought’ are more likely toaccord with those Anglophones dominating the edito-