Talk:Doreen Massey (geographer)

Why yet another obscure geographer?
...more "puff"? No, she is very famous to anyone who does a bit of modern geopolitics...I heard about her in a lecture, for instance.Zigzig20s 23:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC) El zalamero (the phantom sycophant) strikes again... What is it with you geographers? Why do you subscribe to 'fame' in this star-struck manner? ('Guess whom I just saw? It was - hold it - Michael Watts/David Harvey/Derek Gregory wandering down our corridor, sheathed in an aura of light') Does the discipline actually suffer from a mass inferiority complex ('we have famous people, we really do, we really really do'), and is critical endeavour as a result completely absent from its ranks? 29.12.06

The attempt to blank this page has been reversed, and the talk section restored. Oh dear, zigzalamero, trying to censor a critical observation made by someone else is what dictators do when they cannot answer criticism. The issue here is quite simple: academic geographers appear to be the object of a promotional campaign via wikipedia, a campaign to which you are contributing. Why?


 * They are prominent intellectual figures putting forward interesting, challenging contentions and therefore contributing to the history of ideas...something seemingly 'obscure' to you - perhaps you can learn and whittle away at your ignorance of those contentions? Zigzig20s 18:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Not just sycophantic but incoherent as well. This confirms the view that the apparent erudition of a senior academic geographer labelled a ‘prominent intellectual figure’ to fawning subordinates who post ‘achievements’ on wikipedia is an effect less of the intellectual stature of the senior academic geographer concerned and more of the ignorance on the part of the fan/client. Rather than go around acting like one of the latter, and posting adverts (or puffs), why not get a life? 6th February 2007


 * Wrong assumption. Zigzig20s 08:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

No, right assumption. You continue to avoid the issue, zigzalamero, which is why you go around posting adverts for people you erroneously classify as ‘prominent intellectual figures’ [sic]. I suspect you really have no idea who a ‘prominent intellectual figure’ might be, let alone what constitutes a ‘contribution to the history of ideas’. Much rather, it seems to be a case of a sad person who needs to indulge in a classic form of displacement: that is, fawning hero-worship by someone who doesn’t have a life of his/her own. In short, something akin to a geography groupie who serves what are actually very ordinary senior academic geographers much the same way as groupies serve rock stars: making them feel good about themselves. Writing puffs says more about the person who composes and curates such nonsense than about the ‘prominent intellectual figure’ whose ‘reputation’ they attempt to inflate. So, in addition to your BAPPP, you are now a GG (geography groupie). Many congratulations on these awards. 8th February 2007.

So right you are McKippler, being a wikiGG is truly pathetic. However, I wonder how might one describe those who regularly attack these poor folks in the discussion section?201.207.97.7 18:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * How comes there are so many un-signed comments on this page? is it all really written by one person with a multiple identity, thereby enacting the thesis of the article's subject? Eyedubya 20:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

She's hardly obscure - Nor is her work solely relevant to the geography discipline. I'd agree that the article is overly-fawning. But her work does deserve some mention. --Cooper-42 (talk) 17:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Ask yourself, therefore, why is the entry 'overly fawning'? Who, one wonders, would write something like that, if not the subject of the entry or a subordinate of the latter? 25 January 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.29.137 (talk) 15:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The article isn't even fawning, let alone 'over-fawning'. For an article about an academic of international note on WP it is remarkably restrained and to the point. Eyedubya (talk) 04:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, a ‘comment’ from the simian school of George W., accompanied by the sound of knuckles scraping along the ground. You assume as given what is in fact disputed – that the subject of this entry is, as you put it so inaccurately, an ‘academic of international note’. You have missed the point, which is why the subject has an entry in the first place. Who decides – and why – who is in fact an ‘academic of international note’? The assumption is that all those in the latter constitute a ‘natural’ category: they do not. Academic geographers appear to be the object of a promotional campaign via wikipedia, notwithstanding the modesty and/or derivative nature of their ‘achievements’. In the case of this entry, the claims made on her behalf – by whom, one wonders? – have long been known about. That ‘places do not have single identities but multiple ones’, that ‘places are not frozen in time, they are processes’, and that ‘places are not enclosures with a clear inside and outside’ are all longstanding commonplaces in the social sciences generally, and development studies in particular. Entries such as this one – about purportedly ‘famous’ geography professors – resemble nothing so much as mini-fanzines, inaugurated/curated by a fan base composed (one imagines) of clients and acolytes. One is tempted to suggest that the apparent erudition of a senior academic geographer labelled ‘famous’ by the fawning subordinates who post his/her ‘achievements’ on wikipedia is an effect less of the intellectual stature of the senior academic geographer concerned and more of the ignorance on the part of the fan/client. 26 January 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.29.137 (talk) 12:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Just goes to show how wrong you can be, eh? Every single statement you make to support your assertions is incorrect. One at a time then:
 * 1. Notability of the article's subject and whether such notability is a 'natural category' is an old saw - see WP:Note
 * 2. Since I am not a geographer of any description, I'd have no idea about the claim regarding a promotional campaign - perhaps you should write an article about it on WP?
 * 3. Whether or not social scientists have known something for any length of time has little to do with the importance of those ideas in a different field, in this case, geography.
 * 4. 'Clients and acolytes' ... 'fawning subordinates' - I, for one, am neither a purchaser of services from Massey, nor have I been a student, assistant, colleague, co-author or employee of hers, in fact, I've never even met her. I have read some of her work, and I've read others' commentaries on it, which, among other things, establishes her notability.

Eyedubya (talk) 12:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You just don’t get it, do you? In an important sense, this is unsurprising, given that wikipedia epitomizes the current process of dumbing down. Since you evidently have difficulty in comprehending the issues at stake, I’ll explain them to you slowly. 1. Your claim that the question of who is, as you so breathlessly put it, ‘an academic of international note’, is unproblematic is not just nonsense, but nonsense on stilts. Many of those who now have entries have done no more than the rest of the academic world, so why is it that their names – and not those of others – are up in lights? Either every academic who has ever published a book or written an article is deemed ‘famous’ thereby, or none is. Linked to this is the question of who actually writes these entries, and at whose behest? Until there is transparency in this regard, the suspicion will be that they are the work of clients and/or subordinates (or perhaps even of the ‘famous’ geographer him/herself). 2. Ignorance about a promotional campaign is no excuse. If you are going to intervene in a debate, make sure that you are first aware of what it is about. 3. Nor is it the case that the issue is whether or not ideas are important in a different field, but rather where those ideas come from in the first place. In cases where someone presents ideas originally put forward by a person working in a different field, then the ‘famous’ one is obviously the latter, not the former. Were I to re-present the ideas of, for example, Marx, Adam Smith or Hayek, any resulting ‘fame’ would be theirs, not mine. Linked to this is the issue of whose ideas these actually are, a problem addressed by Nitzan and Bichler with regard to Michael J. Watts (see the discussion section linked to his entry). Even wikipedia accepts that, in the case of academics, the central criterion for ‘notability’ is that the subject of an entry ‘is known for originating a significant new concept, theory or technique’. None of the ‘famous’ geography professors who merely recycle ideas developed in other areas of the social sciences meets this condition. 4. This, too is nonsense, and I’m tempted to respond simply with the words ‘gottle-o-geer, gottle-o-geer’. More seriously, why do you subscribe to this inane fandom that permeates these wikipedia entries (‘my hero is ever more famous than yours, so there’)? Not the least problem is that by doing so you uncritically – and probably unknowingly – endorse academic hierarchy and promote the ideology of ‘celebrity’. 2 February 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.4.64 (talk) 08:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Siiiiiggghhhh ... how tiresome this is! Again, for the benefit of those, who in those immortal words 'there is none so blind as one who will not see', one at a time:
 * 1. The words 'an academic of international note', mean, simply, an academic whose work is recognised beyond that academic's domicile, no more no less. It is not a value judgement on the quality, originality or value of the work, simply that the work has been registered by a broader audience than that of academics whose work is of interest to a local audience. At the same time, the latter kind of academic may also be notable for the level of interest their work generates at a local level. If you are suggesting that the notability criteria used by WP need to be clarified for academics, then perhaps you could apply the standards used by citation indices. These are widely used, though of course have their own problems. This could be an interesting contribution to the debate - look up the figures for all of the academics who are on WP and then compare it to all of those who you happen to think should be on WP and then we can all have a more meaningful discussion, while also advancing the debate.
 * 2. My ignorance of this alleged 'promotional campaign' is irrelevant - the terms of the debate as I see them, are those contained in item 1.
 * 3. If you can provide properly cited (and wiki-linked) evidence about the lineage of various ideas, then those would be excellent contributions to make to improve articles on WP. Many articles contain such descriptions of this kind, and it is part of what makes a wiki-based encyclopedia a 'good thing' - being able to follow the links in the text. In any event, within the discipline of geography (as I understand it), Massey has been cited as one who has been an effective proponent of certain idas which have shifted discourse, which may be old hat to the rest of the 'social sciences', but is a notable achievement for Geography.
 * 4. While the strange idiom 'gottle-o-geer' is lost on me, this accusation of a subscriotion to 'inane fandom' does not become the level of intellectual engagement with which you seem to desire your arguments be taken. Just because an article exists on WP doesn't mean that the subject is a celebrity - that's your reading of it. In any event, in your final remarks it does seem that your 'issue' here is borne of a seriously unexamined projection on your part - you accuse others of doing the very thing you seem to want to disavow in yourself.
 * At present, your criticisms about the inclusion of an article on Massey are based on assertions which neither help improve the article, nor effect its removal. I strongly urge you, for the sake of your credibility, to move away from this tiresome personal slanging match and do one or the other and make a meaningful intervention in terms of the values you claim to espouse and the knowledge you claim to posses. Either edit the article to improve it, or call for its deletion! Eyedubya (talk) 02:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Your ‘reply’ underlines as clearly as need be what is wrong with these kinds of wikipedia entry. Again, let us go over the points, very slowly. 1. Most touching – someone who still believes that academic ‘recognition’ is a value-free process, somehow unconnected to the fact that a senior academic seeking precisely such ‘recognition’ is able to mobilize subordinates and/or clients in pursuit of this. Contrary to what you assert, the wikipedia criterion for an entry under the rubric of ‘notability’ is actually based on a value judgment. Since you obviously missed this first time round, let us repeat what wikipedia states: in the case of academics, the central criterion for ‘notability’ is that the subject of an entry ‘is known for originating a significant new concept, theory or technique’. To repeat also the conclusion: None of the ‘famous’ geography professors who merely recycle ideas developed in other areas of the social sciences meets this condition. 2. Your ignorance of a promotional campaign is precisely the point, since only someone who naively subscribes to a concept of academic ‘recognition’ unconnected to the activity of subordinates and/or clients would overlook the existence of such a process, in terms of the former as an effect of the latter. 3. Again, you’ve missed the point. Who – other than subordinates and/or clients – could possibly imagine that ‘places do not have single identities but multiple ones’, that ‘places are not frozen in time, they are processes’, and that ‘places are not enclosures with a clear inside and outside’ are all ideas first ‘discovered’ by the subject of this entry. Those tasked with spreading the fame of senior colleagues do so by, among other things, attributing to their generalship victories that were in fact won by others. Geographers who don’t bother to check the lineage of a discussion as conducted by non-geographers are always going to fall into this kind of trap – thinking that it was someone in their own subject who ‘discovered’ an issue and/or initiated the debate about it. Of additional significance is the fact that the subjects of these entries have not noticeably come forward to distance themselves from the fawning nature of what is written about them. Moreover, the details contained in the entries themselves, plus the occasional correction made to them, does suggest the existence of a link between the writer of the entry and its subject. 4. The claim that my comments are not designed to ‘help improve the article’ similarly misses the point. You might start by asking what the purpose of these fawning wikipedia entries is. Alternatively, you could question the epistemology that underwrites them. Rather than focusing on a person, which immediately takes the entry into the territory of celebrity, in the process reproducing academic hierarchy, there could be a focus instead on ideas, where an individual is identified as one among many who have contributed to a process of intellectual formation. Such an approach has the additional advantage of moving away from the pervasive concept of academic-as-hero (carving ideas out of the ether) that informs these kinds of sycophantic presentation. Intellectual formation is never simply a case of one individual contribution, but a synthesis of knowledge generated by many. Recognition of this fact would also be a useful beginning. 4 February 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.4.64 (talk) 18:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Clearly, you have a very, very big agenda there. I'm wondering how you find the time to do this on all the other WP pages to which your comments would apply - there would be hundreds, if not thousands - or do you have a particular bee i your bonnett about Massey? In any event, I charge you with the heinous crime of imputing subjectivity. If you don't know what this means, look it up - you'll soon realise that this common error is at the heart of your approach and that with each response, you only dig the hole you've created that much deeper.  In any event, if you took the time to keep up to date with article, rather than spending time projecting onto other editors, you'd see that one small, recent edit has rendered Massey as only one of a number of people espousing similar views - if such were needed, since, as you repeatedly assert, Massey's ideas, like those of any academic, circulate independently of her anyway, and well, most intelligent people already know this. Once you've done that, you'll see that all that's needed is for you to add some detail to the section on Massey's ideas, stating where she has drawn them from, and it will be clear that Massey, like other academics of any calibre, draw on the work of others for their own productions. Either that - or (and I note that you have carefully avoided this part of my challenge to you) - nominate the article for deletion. If you genuinely think it is so bad, then surely this is the only honest course of action for you as a WP editor. Doing this will flush out other editors, some of whom will agree with your complaint, and others who are committed to improving wikipedia. And you never know, Massey's entry may disappear. But then - your position about the state of academia and the values that support it, the entrenched ideologies and the suspicious activities of clients and subordiates would kind of fall in a heap if such were to occur. And then what you write about? Eyedubya (talk) 02:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Now, now, you are in danger of reacting like a spoilt child whose toy is about to be confiscated (‘what will I have to play with, if I can’t build a shrine to my heroes?). As you have finally recognized, what I’m questioning is the very logic of the activity you – and others – appear to delight in, and find largely unproblematic: namely contributing to the construction of a personality cult by boosting the image of those who are actually very ordinary academics. Although – very gradually – you are becoming aware of the problem, you still refuse to face up to its implications. Consequently, your current position is riven by contradiction: having – at last – understood that intellectual formation does not entail an heroic individual plucking new ideas from the ether, you then state that Massey’s ideas are in fact her own. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. If you accept that intellectual formation is indeed a social process, extending beyond the confines of the individual, then – whether you like it or not – the reason for composing a wikipedia entry like this one, for someone who is no more than a conduit for the ideas concerned, vanishes. This is compounded by the fact that as long as the subject of a wikipedia entry is a living academic, and one holding a position of institutional (not intellectual) authority, then the taint of ‘puffery’ – either by the self or by clients/subordinates hoping to find favour with a senior person in the same discipline/subject area/academic institution – will continue. And this in turn has serious intellectual consequences. When entries composed by subordinates/clients also involve inaccurate claims that a geographer was responsible for ideas generated outside geography by non-geographers, then Wikipedia is on very dangerous ground indeed. The difficulty is a familiar one. Because wikipedia entries are not refereed, anyone can concoct such inaccuracies, and make wrong claims on behalf of themselves or others. The whole point is that, as long as wikipedia goes in for this kind of thing – the construction of academic ‘celebrity’ – it cannot by definition be ‘improved’. By all means, construct entries detailing the ideas themselves, including there something about those who not just formulated but also subsequently advocated them. However, to permit entries about ordinary academics still occupying senior institutional positions is simply to encourage clients or students to post inaccurate and/or overblown claims about the person in question. Classifying the latter erroneously as a ‘prominent intellectual figure’ cannot but result in Wikipedia being regarded as no more than a vehicle for advertising and PR. 5 February 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.4.64 (talk) 10:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * And you are in danger of sounding like a very ordinary academic, embittered and twisted because your ideas have never had the acclaim you think they deserve, resorting to the crutch of social production to salve your wounded pride and attack the reputations or actions of anyone who dares stick their neck out and say something with their name attached to it ... you can't even muster the nerve to nominate the article for deletion! And that old saw about the 'refereeing' process - where the double-blind process can also be a cover for ideology, patronage and favoritism to hide its workings - no-wonder you have yet to sign up with a WP username! Are you one of them, the 'anonymous' gatekeepers of academia, fearlessly policing the borders of ideological rectitude and tradition! Keep that island pure! Keep out the infidels! Protect the Canon against the interlopers, the pretenders and the plagiarisers! ... the opportunity for you to perform your beloved refereeing exists on WP, but you just have to be prepared to engage a bit more than you might in the rarified world of academia ... go on, try it, just try a little edit, a suggestion for a change here and there, see what it feels like to actually make a contribution rather than just attacking those who are willing to do what you seem so unwilling engage with, those who have to put up with your carping without your actual engagement .... Eyedubya (talk) 10:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * And ... really, really all that puffery about one little phrase ... as if there is only one meaning of the phrase 'Massey's ideas', the limited one that you infer ... the phrase 'Massey's ideas' may also mean 'ideas associated by some with Massey' as opposed to 'ideas originating from Massey, after she plucked them from the ether' ... so, there are is bunch of people who may only associate those ideas with Massey, and there is another more widely-read bunch who will associate those ideas with Massey and a number of other people, and then yet another bunch of people (less well-read) who may associate those ideas with people other than Massey ... Eyedubya (talk) 11:06, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

So predictable – having lost the argument, you descend into incoherent vituperation. I feel sorry for you – I thought you were a serious person, with something to say, but clearly I was wrong to think so. Go and worship at the shrine of your academic heroes, make them ‘famous’, if that is what gives you pleasure. 5 February 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.4.64 (talk) 11:17, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, the last resort of a pompous scoundrel - feigned pity. In your view, how could any of us (us=editors, people who edit articles, rather than just snipe anonymously on talk-pages) be anything other than not-serious people, not-people with something to say, not-worthy of your reflective consideration? For we are less than fully-human, are we not? We are merely pawns of our 'big Other', perverts doing the will of Big Academia ('its a dirty job, someone's gotta do it', being our catchcry) Whatever we say and do, your intellectual framework overdetermines the outcome - by the definitions you use, anyone who edits articles about academics on WP is suspect as a 'client'/'subordinate' of the subject about which they write, and must inevitably be in thrall to the 'ideology of celebrity' - that is how that theory works, it is self-fulfilling, it needs no empirical test, only your assertions. That you see the above as 'incoherent vituperation' is an indication of a depressing, and over-earnest witlessness on your part - whatever happened to irony? Parody? Satire? And if you think the above 'incoherent', have you considered the possibility that you haven't understood what its saying? There was no 'argument' here to lose - you are not making an argument, you are asserting that anyone who edits on WP is suspect in your terms. I have merely advised you that I'm not interested in your theory, and that in my view, the best way to deal with substantive issues that you raise regarding content on WP is actually do something to the articles that bother you so much, including nominating them for deletion. This is perfectly in line with your professed hierarchy of values that suggests only a very limited number of academics warrant pages on WP - so test it, you may well be right. But then, if you were to be successful in doing so, what then would happen to your beloved 'ideology of celebrity'? The status of the few remaining academics (your faves) would be significantly elevated, would it not? You would have helped bring about the very hierarchy you profess to disavow, the very ideology that makes 'us' so suspect. You have so far failed to respond to this request/advice/challenge and have continued to snipe from the cover of anonymity. And yet, there is another response to your 'problem' - and that is to include as many academics as possible on WP so that the 'heirarchy' and 'celebrity' is so diluted and widespread that it means nothing. But then, if that were to pass, what then can be said for your 'theory' about 'our' motivations, our 'fawning' to these 'heroes'? When everyone is a hero, then no-one is a hero, they're just an other academic, and no-one's the worse for that (except, those academics who are in fact bitter and twisted and feel underappreciated and plagiarised ... of which, it seems there are many). Spare us all your pity, feigned or sincere - just sign in and do some editing, willya? Or get a life. Eyedubya (talk) 00:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The assertion that there was no argument to lose is not merely wrong but underlines the extent to which what is being said goes straight over your head. Making allowances, most charitably, for your muddled ‘statements’ – one can’t in all honesty call them arguments, and it would help if you could spell ('heirarchy' – sic) – your position has been and remains that entries such as this have merit and are useful. Hence the continuous exhortation to ‘do some editing’, which assumes that what is wrong with these entries can be rectified, and the entries themselves ‘rescued’ thereby. Mine, by contrast, is that since their main function is to generate/reproduce the cult of academic ‘celebrity’, they are devoid of merit. Not only are they a form of advertising, therefore, but the inaccurate claims advanced on behalf of their subject (‘product’) are – like adverts – a form of special pleading designed to boost the image of the product. Those who point this out (‘sniping’) unsurprisingly attract the ire of those – like you – who curate these mini-fanzines. Which brings me to a related issue: there may actually be a fanzine logic at work here. Digging out photos of the subject of this entry (see top of the discussion page)? Now I see what this is all about: the man’s in love! If you ask nicely, no doubt Massey will autograph the photo for you in time for Valentine’s day. It’s clear from the comments on your webpage that editing wikipedia entries is for you a proxy life (‘us=editors, people who edit articles’), conjuring up images of a lonely, thirty-something male with ‘famous’ academics as imaginary ‘friends’ whom he ‘visits’ periodically in order to ensure that their egos remain stroked and their reputations are still intact. This is as accurate a definition as one can get of a sad person. My pity is not feigned: I really do feel sorry for you. 7 February 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.4.64 (talk) 10:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh for heaven's sake! now you've stooped to picking on spelling. That's it. Here - you can have the last word, I'm over this. Eyedubya (talk) 11:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Photo
NOTE: There is a photo on Massey's profile at the Open University, which is linked at the bottom of the article. Eyedubya (talk) 11:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Announcement of death
on the Open University, OpenSpace Research Centre website, if someone would like to incorporate/reference etc: http://www.open.ac.uk/researchcentres/osrc/news/doreen-massey-1944-2016

Obituries may appear in due course as she only died on the 11th March 2016 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.90.142.186 (talk) 08:44, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The Guardian's obituary
Added this to the links section. It may have some useful information that could be added to the profile. "Radical geographer, feminist, theorist and political activist admired worldwide for her work on space, place and power", http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/27/doreen-massey-obituary

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