Public Geographies for Collective Worlds-Making: Praxis, Collaboration, and Care

In recent decades, geographers have increasingly explored the realm of public scholarship, pondering what it means to be “public geographers” and the strategies and impacts inherent in such engagements. Much of the theorizing of public scholarship in geography interprets such practices through frames of geographical communication. In this article, I draw from critical and feminist pedagogies to further conceptualize public geographies as praxis, collaboration, and care centered on collective worlds-making. I bring examples from Latin American scholars and traditions of academic work as political and public to demonstrate how public scholarship can become inherent to what it means to be an academic, rather than being considered as service or research communication. Ultimately, this article highlights the urgent need for public geographies to commit to praxis, collaboration, and care in the face of the current attacks on academia, research, teaching, and freedom of speech. Together, these propositions aim to inspire both critical reflection and meaningful action, underscoring the ethical and transformative responsibilities and potentials in the production of geographic knowledge by academics.