Must be Marxist: A Situated History of Danish Radical Geography

Abstract

Largely unrecognised in prevailing historical accounts of (radical) geography, Danish university geography from the late 1960s saw the emergence of a strong radical strand. In terms of student support, this radical geography became a dominant feature of geography at the University of Copenhagen, and was a defining element in the establishment of geography at the new Roskilde University Centre. This radical movement spawned its own journal, had a strong impact on upper-secondary school geography, and played an important part in developing the Nordic critical geography network. As a contribution to the emerging situated histories of radical and critical geography, this article investigates the conditions of possibility for the rise of radical geography in Copenhagen and the movement’s institutionalisation during the 1970s. More briefly, the article also considers the transformative crisis of Danish radical geography in the 1980s.