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Teaching a Contextual and Feminist History ofGeography through Role Play: Women's Membership ofthe Royal Geographical Society (1892–1893)Avril Maddrell aa Department of Geography , Oxford Brookes University , UKPublished online: 19 Oct 2007.

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Teaching a Contextual and Feminist Historyof Geography through Role Play: Women’sMembership of the Royal GeographicalSociety (1892–1893)

AVRIL MADDRELLDepartment of Geography, Oxford Brookes University, UK

ABSTRACT Focusing on the debate around women’s membership of the Royal GeographicalSociety (UK) 1892–1893, a role play was written using archive and secondary sources and isreproduced here as a resource. In the first instance the role play makes women visible in the latenineteenth-century geographical discourse. It also shows how institutional practices, grounded inprevailing views, excluded women from institutional recognition, but that this was both local andcontested. Although place and time specific, the example provided demonstrates the value of usingrole plays to tackle historical issues within geography. Largely qualitative analysis of student andcolleague feedback shows the importance of placing these historical issues, especially gender, inwider socioeconomic contexts and suggests that by taking this approach a time- and place-specificevent allows discussion of much wider issues on the nature and practice of geography, includingnotions of how geographical discursive practices have been validated, policed and challenged.The use of contextualized historical material appears to have negated ‘backlash’ responses toquestions of gender and female equality. The role play can be used to initiate discussion on thenature of geography, the gendering of geography and international comparison of the historicalpractices of geographical institutions.

KEY WORDS: Feminist history, contextual history, role play, gender, archive sources

Introduction

Role plays are a qualitative teaching tool, often involving elements of simulation and/or

problem-solving. There is evidence of role plays being used internationally at university

level across a wide range of courses, including environmental economics, environmental

engineering, history, financial markets, languages, astronomy and physics and Initial

Teacher Education (ITE). They are also used widely in professional training such as

healthcare, retailing and management and it has been suggested that the use of role plays

within a corporate training context has inspired some academics to use this active

approach to learning (see Francis & Byrne, 1999). Their value as an effective means of

teaching and learning within geography are well known (Cutler & Hay, 2000) and include

ISSN 0309-8265 Print/1466-1845 Online/07/030393-20 q 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/03098260601082305

Correspondence Address: Avril Maddrell, Department of Geography and Environment, University of West

England, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol B16 1QY, UK. Email: avril.maddrell@uwe.ac.uk

Journal of Geography in Higher Education,Vol. 31, No. 3, 393–412, September 2007

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empathy, awareness of the variety of points of view, participation by all and the

development of public speaking and presentation skills (see Walford, 1981; Gold et al.,

1991; Ley, 1992; Maddrell, 1994; Livingstone, 1999). Despite this wide range of positive

attributes, their use is relatively limited within higher education compared with school-

level geography (Gold et al., 1991). Publications on role plays within geography suggest

that they tend to be associated with teaching contemporary issues, which are often policy

or decision focused, as well as developing transferable skills. Examples include recent or

current planning decisions or topical discussions, such as the merits of free trade versus

fair trade, which are very amenable to a role-play scenario. However, role plays can be

applied equally successfully to historical issues (see Knight, 1979), and can be data-rich

where archive and other supporting material is available.

Empathy and engagement with alternative points of view are strong learning outcomes

attained through role plays (see Monk, 1978), and it is this aspect that helps scholars

understand and engage with historical issues within their wider socioeconomic, cultural,

intellectual and political contexts. For similar reasons role plays are used in sociocultural

approaches to teaching modern languages, which place vocabulary, syntax and grammar

within their wider context (see Kodatchigova, 2002). At its best, taking this contextual

approach (whether contemporary or historical) achieves what Monk (2000) described as a

combination of critical thinking and empathy, one of the “ways of teaching to strengthen how

and why the ‘Other’ might see and experience the world, and what the implications might be

for the self and the policies and practices of one’s own society” (Monk, 2000, p. 169).

Undergraduates are increasingly encouraged to study and engage with archive sources,

often local or in-house departmental records and past student work or publications (see

Philo, 1998; Lorimer & Spedding, 2002: Withers, 2002 for excellent ideas as well as

theoretical discussion of this largely textual or field-based work). Whilst archives are

inevitably partial in both senses of the word, they can also be created and used for different

political ends (Withers, 2002). The role play outlined here is based on archive sources and

has been designed to provide tutors and students with a student-centred resource-based

activity, to facilitate learning in the history and philosophy of geography. As Livingstone

(1992, pp. 28–29) has argued: “The task of geography’s historians, at least in part, is . . .

to ascertain how and why particular practices and procedures come to be accounted

geographically legitimate and hence normative at different moments in time and in

different settings.” Thus the history of geography and geographical ideas needs

theoretically to be situated in its social, economic, cultural, political and technological

context (Livingstone, 1992). The role play below is concerned with a specific debate in the

institutional history of the subject in Britain: the issue of women’s membership of the

Royal Geographical Society 1892–1893.

Any student reading mainstream histories of British geography would be forgiven for

thinking that women had almost no part within the geographical community in nineteenth-

and even early twentieth-century Britain. As Rose (1995, p. 414) has written of reading

histories of geographical knowledges, the appearance is that “geography, whatever it was,

was almost always done by men”. However, despite appearances (or in this case lack of

appearances) a surprisingly large number of women were producers and disseminators of

geographical knowledge in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain (Maddrell,

2004). One of the ways in which feminist approaches to teaching and researching

geography have sought to challenge existing approaches is to “abolish the invisibility of

women” (McDowell & Bowlby, 1983). Given the relative invisibility of women in many

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histories of the subject, there is a strategic need to assert gendered subjectivity in order

to focus on women as a group to understand their absence, whether by omission or

commission (Domosh, 1991). The erasure of women from histories of geography caused

Rose (1995, p. 415) to ask “How can feminists place women in relation to this paternal

geographical tradition?” and part of her answer is to focus on boundaries at which

difference is constituted: some are included, others excluded. The debate concerning

women’s membership of the RGS was one such boundary and using this role play

integrates the debate into teaching the history of the British geographical tradition, thereby

making that boundary and the processes which constructed it transparent—as well as

showing how that boundary was contested. As a boundary at which geographical

knowledge and practices were defined, this case study also provides a particular snapshot

that allows comparison with the practices of other geographical societies in Britain and

internationally. The role play counters the invisibility of women in bringing to the fore

debates around women’s access to the institution of the RGS and the validation such

membership would bring to their work at a time which was 25 years prior to the first

degrees in geography in Britain. Although strategically focusing on women, it allows each

woman and man her/his individual voice and positionality and places these views within

wider intellectual, socioeconomic and political contexts.

Contextual material is vital when considering the place of women in the historiography

of geography but contextual history is theoretically insufficient for interrogating the

complexities of their place(s):

It is necessary to focus on these women as women, in order to constitute an

inclusionary historiography, but at the same time in analysing the place or location

of those women, it is necessary to combine feminist with materialist, postmodern

and post-colonial forms of analysis in order to begin to understand the complexity of

their individual differentiated location/s and the character of the work they

produced. (Maddrell, 2004, p. 86)

This is very much the case here as the male and female characters in the role play,

reflecting the variety of opinions of the day, both support and oppose women’s admission

to the RGS—there is no clear cut gendered response to the issue, and the outcome of the

in-role vote at the end of the role play depends on the strength of arguments made by

participants, particularly how the ‘floating voter(s)’ are influenced.

Slater (1993, 1994) has argued for a pedagogy grounded in contextualized and

embedded learning, to explore geographical processes, issues and outcomes, and for

students to reflect on their decisions when participating in simulations of these (including

in role plays) (cited by Monk, 2000). Although the role play here appears to be about an

event in the institutional history of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in Britain, its

learning outcomes are focused on the issues underlying the event. These include the

construction and maintenance of hegemonic discourses of geographical knowledge, the

power relations of vested interest groups, institutional gate-keeping and how discourses of

gender intersected with each of these in the historical context of late nineteenth-century

Britain. By ‘embodying’ the voice of a historical character in the role play students are

given the opportunity to see geography through the lens of their character’s views and to

reflect on the relationship between that view and the practice of geographical discourses

past and present, as well as the impact of the outcome of the debate in 1892–1893.

Teaching a Contextual and Feminist History of Geography through Role Play 395

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The role play procedure will be discussed below, followed by an outline of some key

contextual historical information pertinent to the debate and a brief summary of the final

outcome of the women’s membership debate. This is followed by analysis of student and

colleague feedback after using the role play, and conclusions drawn from this.

Role Play Procedure

The role play provides a detailed exploration of the construction of the geographical

discourse within the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in 1890s Britain, with particular

reference to the issues arising from the proposed membership of women as Fellows of the

Society. The role play has been used to introduce issues concerning gender and the social

construction of geographical knowledge with first- and final-year degree students and can

be combined with text-based round-table seminars, lectures and students’ in-depth

presentations as appropriate. Students can use the role briefing sheets free-standing, or can

use them as the starting point for further research to develop their roles. Frederick Smith

Esq., the only fictional character, is designed to fulfil a generic role, representing a

‘typical’ member of the RGS. This role also represents a ‘floating voter’ and can be

replicated within each group to allow for uneven numbers or students who may have been

absent when the activity was set up—indeed the greater the number of students playing

this role, the more unpredictable the outcome might be. The other roles are all actual

people involved with the 1892–1893 debate, their viewpoints based on actual published

minutes of RGS meetings and correspondence held in the RGS archives (principally the

Women’s Membership file and individual correspondence files). Some historical liberty

has been taken as no women actually spoke at the special general meeting and neither

Isabella Bird nor Mary Kingsley was in fact present (Mary Kingsley completed an

independent journey in West Africa in 1893). They are included here in order to allow

their voices to be heard in the debate on the issue in retrospect and their viewpoints are

taken from their archived correspondence with the RGS (Bird with Sir Douglas Freshfield

and Kingsley with J. S. Keltie).

Students should be divided into groups of seven, with each student allocated a role (any

extra students could duplicate Smith’s role or share a role). Freshfield, as secretary to the

RGS, council chairs the small-group discussion, bringing the group to vote (in role) on the

council’s proposed changes, suggesting amendments where appropriate. I have always

allocated roles randomly (with the occasional exception of Freshfield), to facilitate the

possibility of students experiencing challenging roles without the artificial orchestration of

giving specific individuals particular roles—although there can be advantages to this,

notably challenging known views. Tutors can make their own decisions on role allocation

in the light of a given class. Colour coding the role sheets can be helpful for the tutor to see

at a glance who is performing which role, especially when multiple groups are involved.

The full role play, background notes and suggestions for procedure are provided in the

Appendix. A summary of the final outcome of the debate and details of women’s final full

admission to the RGS in 1913 are provided below.

Figure 1 provides a suggested timetable for a one-and-a-half to two-hour session (using

the role briefing sheets free-standing without further research preparation), but this could

be modified as appropriate and completion in one hour only would require prior

introduction, reading or preparation and strict time-keeping. Time is allowed for

debriefing after the debate, which is crucial for allowing the tutor and students, as a whole

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group, to explore the underlying debates on the nature and purposes of geographical

knowledge as constructed by the different interest groups in the role play. The tutor can

facilitate discussion of the students’ individual responses to their roles and the arguments

made by others. It can also be helpful in taking the students out of role, depersonalising the

debate and, at the same time, drawing out those learning experiences that might be

developed in follow-up written work (Maddrell, 1994). Questions could include: Did you

agree with the position held by your role character? Did you understand the basis of their

argument? How did you respond to representing the arguments of your character? Did you

think any of the arguments still apply today or were any ‘justified’ in 1892 but ‘not

appropriate’ in the 2000s? What have you learned about the nature and practice of

geography in the 1890s? How might each character have defined ‘geography’ and how

Figure 1. Role-play participants and suggested timings.

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it was practised? What were the main interest groups wishing to ‘define’ geography? What

power relations were at play? Do you think geography is different today? How would you

define ‘geography’ and ‘geographer’?

Women’s Membership of the Royal Geographical Society (1892–1893): Historical

Context of the Debate

Exploration, Empire and Science: An Introduction to the Royal Geographical Society

in the Nineteenth Century

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was a period of growth for voluntary

societies with scientific, literary and philosophical societies being established across

Europe. Geographical societies were founded in Paris and Berlin in 1821 and after a period

of staggering growth this number had grown to 90 by 1883 (over half in France and

Germany) (Stoddart, 1986). The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) was founded in

London in 1830. John Barrow of the Admiralty chaired the first meeting and was able to

announce royal patronage and the support of leading government figures such as Peel, the

Home Secretary, and Goderich, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Barrow

argued that the success of the Society would depend not on the council alone, but on the

“many individuals eminent in the Arts, Sciences, and Literature, and from the

distinguished officers of the Army and Navy, whose names appear on the list of members”

(MSS Barrow, RGS Additional Papers 2). In many ways this reflects the society’s early

membership: in 1830 almost all of the 460 members were men of high social standing

(Keltie, 1917).

Figure 2. Session objectives.

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The RGS in the nineteenth century has been described as “a club for travellers and

explorers, supported by gentlemen and made intellectually respectable by the scientists”

such as Hooker, Everest, Murchison, Sedgwick, Darwin and Wallace (Stoddart, 1986).

The armed services represented a consistently high percentage of RGS membership

(17–19 per cent 1830–1900 (Stoddart, 1986)). Whilst some members sought to combine

geographical knowledge with other scientific or cultural knowledge, or to promote the

subject within the universities, these were not necessarily distinct from more applied

motives and the majority of members were men who wanted to belong to a club that

focused on travel, ‘discovery’ and the interests of Empire. In his presidential address to the

RGS in 1885 Lord Aberdare identified the 1880s as a period of unprecedented geographical

activity, including the ‘Scramble for Africa’ embodied in the European territorial

annexation in the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference. This sometimes subtle and complex but

nonetheless strong link between Empire and British geography and geographical

institutions such as the RGS has been widely acknowledged (e.g. Hudson, 1977;

Godlewska & Smith, 1994; Bell et al., 1995; Driver, 2001; Sidaway & Johnston, 2007) and

whilst it is not possible to explore this relationship in detail here, it is vital to understanding

the prevailing ethos within the RGS in the last decade of the nineteenth century.

In the 1880s and 1890s there was also a strong push by the educational faction in the

RGS to establish geography as a university subject, which depended on establishing the

academic merits of the subject. After an early success with the appointment of Alexander

Machonochie (secretary of the RGS) at University College London (1833–1836), the RGS

had to wait another 50 years before sponsoring two further geography lecturers (at Oxford

1887 and Cambridge 1888). Other appointments were to follow, but the first formal

university qualifications in geography did not appear until the twentieth century (the first

being the Diploma in Geography at Oxford (first awarded 1902)), followed by the first

degrees being awarded in Aberystwyth (1917), Liverpool (1917) and Cambridge (1921)).

By 1892 suitably educated (usually middle- and upper-class) women were allowed access

to most university lectures, but were only able to take degrees in a few institutions such as

London University and Aberystwyth University College (where students were awarded

London University external degrees).

In the 1890s women seriously pursuing university education were considered to be

‘bluestockings’, and whilst there were some ‘academic’ schools for girls, most middle-

and upper-class women’s education was more concerned with the ‘feminine’ disciplines of

art, music and household management. There was also debate at this time as to whether

serious study would damage women’s health, including their reproductive capabilities

(see Maddrell, 1997). Legal reforms improving women’s rights were relatively recent,

such as the 1870 Married Women’s Property Act and 1886 Infants Act, which respectively

entitled married women to own property in their own name and to be guardians of their

own children if widowed, but a movement for further women’s rights was growing in

Britain at this time. This included the suffrage campaign, but so-called independent ‘New

Women’ were generally considered to be brash, manly and/or sexually promiscuous (all of

which were considered reprehensible according to the prevailing social mores of the day)

(Showalter, 1992).

At the time of the debate about women’s membership of the RGS, Queen Victoria, as

monarch, was the Patron of the Society. The RGS had also previously awarded medals to

Lady Jane Franklin (1860) and Mary Somerville (1869) for their contributions to

geographical knowledge, but they were never proposed as Fellows of the society. The five

Teaching a Contextual and Feminist History of Geography through Role Play 399

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search parties commissioned by Lady Franklin to find her husband made significant

contributions to polar research and Mary Somerville, known as the ‘Queen of Science’,

wrote an influential book Physical Geography in 1848. Other British geographical

societies were founded around Britain from the 1880s including the (Royal) Scottish

Geographical Society (1884), Manchester (1884), Tyneside (1887), Liverpool (1891),

Southampton (1897) and Hull (1910) geographical societies. The Royal Scottish

Geographical Society also opened a London branch in 1892 (see MacKenzie (1990, 1995)

for further details on non-metropolitan geographical societies). All of these non-

metropolitan societies admitted women from the outset, in keeping with many other

learned societies that extended their membership to women in the second half of the

nineteenth century. For example, the British Association for the Advancement of Science

admitted women from 1853 (Stafford, 1989).

The question of women’s membership of the RGS had been raised as early as 1847 and

the Council had in 1887 both “given its approval in principle and agreed to reconsider the

matter when there was evidence of a demand” (Bell & McEwan, 1996, p. 296). In July

1892 the RGS Council made an executive decision to open the membership of the society

to women on the basis that:

The increasing number of ladies, eminent as travellers and contributors to the stock

of geographical knowledge . . . were, in the opinion of the Council, sufficient reason

for at once making the proposed extension, which will it is believed, be to the

advantage of the Society. (PRGS, 1892, p. 553)

This announcement in the Proceedings mentions the expectation of approval in the

membership; this could be seen as naive, misled or hopeful of forestalling criticism.

According to Mill (1930) the hope on the part of the Council seems to have been well

founded and only undermined by a small group of influential reactionaries. In the event,

the furore that erupted was to spread over two years and continue in a lower key for two

decades (see Bell & McEwan, 1996). The role play outlined and discussed below

re-creates the debate over women’s membership of the RGS 1892–1893.

Outcome of the 1892–1893 Debate

In 1892 the special meeting of the RGS voted not to allow the admission of women by 147

votes to 105. A later postal vote of members, which overwhelmingly supported women’s

membership (by 1165 votes to 465 against), was not allowed because it was not RGS

Council sanctioned. At the Annual General Meeting of the RGS in May 1893 a compromise

was agreed: the already admitted 22 women Fellows were allowed to stay but no others

would be admitted. The annual subscription of the RGS had to be increased in 1893 (RGS

Council Minute Book 1893). Somewhat ironically, it was Curzon, then president of the

RGS, who oversaw the admission of women as Fellows of the RGS in 1913. (See Bell &

McEwan (1996) for further details on the admission of women as Fellows of the RGS—this

is a particularly useful source for detailed follow up reading or written work; also see

Women & Geography Study Group (1997) on the invisibility of women in British

geography and Maddrell (2004) on nineteenth- and twentieth-century women geographers

and the history of geography.) Jan Monk (2004) has also shown that there are rich archives

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to be mined in the case of American women geographers and on the different experiences of

different groups of women within different geographical institutions.

Student and Colleague Evaluation of the Role Play

The role play has been used to introduce discussions of gender and geographical

knowledge with three successive groups of third-year undergraduates, as part of a course

on the History and Philosophy of Geography and two successive first-year groups

2004–2005 (as part of History of Nature and Geography in Practice modules), from whom

the following responses were collected. A total of 102 questionnaires were returned,

25 from a smaller group of first years in 2004, and 77 from a larger group of first years in

2005. Two of the 2005 responses were spoiled, resulting in a total of 100 student

responses. The two groups’ responses were logged separately and then combined. The first

group was more gender balanced but the only significant differences in responses related

to the 2004 group’s prior experience of role plays at university level and the 2005 group’s

comments about noise levels etc. in a large group (see below). Of the combined group,

44 per cent were female and 56 per cent male; 94 per cent had taken part in a role play

before. Some quantitative data are provided below but this is principally used to frame a

more qualitative analysis of students’ learning experiences and outcomes.

Whilst prior experience of role plays was widespread, only 34 per cent had taken part in

a role play regarding a historical subject before, overwhelmingly in the context of GCSE

and/or ‘A’ level courses in secondary school.

When asked in an open question, “What have you learned about geography and its

history in today’s session?”, students’ responses could be aggregated under five main

headings (see Table 1). Whilst a number of students gave more than one response, the most

common response (54 per cent) was a greater understanding of the history of geography in

Britain, including reference to the role of Empire and the role of the Royal Geographical

Society in representing and promoting geography (what Driver (2001) refers to as the

“culture of exploration and Empire”):

The RGS and relation to Empire; women and society; European geography was a

science at the end of the nineteenth century. (Student B49 male)

How geography relates to Empire and how it links to educational contexts; how the

subject developed and has grown in importance. (Student A20 female)

Table 1. Students’ learning outcomes

Learning outcome %

History of geography (including Empire, founding of RGS etc.) 54Gender and geography 38Gender and society 20Changing/contested views of knowledge 8The significance of power relations in society 6Importance of historical context 1

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Thirty-eight per cent specifically mentioned an understanding of the way in which gender

was a significant issue in the historical development of geography in nineteenth-century

Britain, with a further 20 per cent commenting on greater understanding of general ways in

which gender (notably gender inequalities) was a social issue in nineteenth- and twentieth-

century Britain. “That it was difficult for women to have a say in geography and that their

findings/views were not valued” (Student B62 female); “Attitudes of times, not all women

were in favour” (Student B67 male). There was no significant difference in the proportion

of male and female students identifying understanding of gender-related issues as a

learning outcome from the role play but some of their comments are illuminating on

present-day perceptions of both geography and gender in the past. Some were impressed

by the fact of women’s active engagement with geography in the 1890s: “How women

were geographers and travellers in the nineteenth century how they were highly respected

by some Fellows [of the RGS]” (Student B21 female); others identified the structural

institutional constraints of the RGS: “The hierarchal system was sexist and arcane”

(Student B71 male). Others were surprised that women were discriminated against

‘recently’: “That women were inferior in the nineteenth century” (Student B57 female);

“The oppression of women was only a few years ago” (Student A11 male); “I didn’t realise

how insignificant women were until the 1900s . . . ” (Student B23 female), which suggests

they belong to a ‘post-feminist’ generation in which gender discrimination is not perceived

as a current issue. As one student reflected: “I would not have done well with the women as

second class view” (Student B77 female).

Eight per cent of students identified the ways in which knowledge changed over time

and was contested: “That it was a more complex development . . . and hasn’t always been

about the way we see it [geography] today” (Student B30 female); “Historical context is

important; [the] view of geography changed over time” (Student A8 female). A further

6 per cent commented on gaining an insight to the way in which power relations operate

within society, particularly the influence of powerful individuals or sub-groups: e.g.

“Prejudices evident, unfairness of society—RGS controlled votes, the opinions of the most

eminent mattered” (Student B55 male). Clearly, whilst issues around gender were a focus

of students’ learning, this was matched by an increased knowledge and understanding of

the general history of geography’s development, reflecting both the approach to the role

play and the wider context within which it was presented.

When asked “Are there any advantages of using a role play to explore today’s topic?”,

94 per cent of students identified advantages to this approach, principally in relation to

valuing hearing a range of points of view (26 per cent), active participation and

involvement in the class (22 per cent), making the class more interesting/less boring

(15 per cent), increasing understanding of the issue (10 per cent), increased depth of

knowledge/understanding (9 per cent) and being ‘made to think’ (7 per cent): “Forced to

think and learn—engaging” (Student B2 male); “You get more involved and get to

understand in more depth what they actually went through” (Student A9 female).

See Table 2 for a full list of advantages.

When asked “Are there any disadvantages of using a role play to explore today’s

topic?”, 38 per cent identified actual or potential disadvantages to use of a role play,

principally being concerned with the lack of full or appropriate participation by others

(15 per cent): “It depends on who you have in your group and how they make it [the

activity] real” (Student B61 male), the time taken (10 per cent) and the difficulties of

representing a view different from/opposing one’s own (7 per cent) (Table 3).

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The final question on the questionnaire invited students to provide further comment on

their experience of this role play, including suggestions on how it might be improved in

terms of content and organization. Not all students provided a response but those who did

gave wide-ranging comments, including enjoyment of and heightened learning from the

role play (10 per cent in total of the total group). Suggestions for improving the

organization or content included: a better room (8 per cent) (these were all from the large

2005 class for whom conditions were a little cramped), more preparation/research time

(7 per cent), more detail/background to roles (6 per cent) and to present the role play in

front of the whole class to encourage motivation (6 per cent). Three per cent said they

would prefer an alternative format for the discussion, e.g. a debate in seminar groups.

A significant number of students would have welcomed an opportunity to put more

effort or time into the role play as well as wanting others to be made to take it more

seriously. The role play might be more successful in smaller groups or spread over

more than one room with a colleague to help supervise. Equally, students might be more

motivated if assessment were to be attached to the role play, increasing full participation

Table 3. Disadvantages of using a role play to explore this topic

Identified disadvantage %

Lack of participation by others 15Difficulties of representing view contrary to own 7Class too big 5Need more preparation/background 3Don’t like role plays 3Lack of confidence/nerves 3Difficulties with portraying views of character 2Some people overpowering 1Role plays can get repetitive 1‘Too much of a laugh’ 1

Table 2. Student-identified advantages of role play to explore this topic

Identified advantage %

Value of hearing different points of view 26More active participation/involvement 22Makes it more interesting/less boring 15Increases empathy/understanding of issue 10Gives more depth 9Gain insight/‘makes you think’ 7Gives more breadth to topic 5Breaks lecture up 4Remember more information 4Interacting/learning from others 4Helps to get in right mindset 3Better understanding of historical context 3Improving speaking skills 2Increased knowledge of history 1Avoid presentism 1Quick and effective learning 1

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and contribution. This could be achieved through assessment of participation in the role

play (only feasible in a small group or with self- or peer assessment) or of written

summary/speech for character role, or written work relating to their role character’s views

of the general issues. Assessment can also be a useful means of gauging students’

understanding of the knowledge and issues in a role play (Fox & Rowntree, 2004).

I also ran this role play as part of a workshop on teaching feminist geography organised

by the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers Women and

Geography Study Group at University College London in May 2005. This was a self-

selecting group of 13 lecturers and postgraduate students and whilst theoretically

predisposed to discussions of gender and geography, they had no experience of using role

plays and, excepting one, were not specialists in the history of geography/geographical

ideas. They were therefore able to provide useful feedback on the role play from an

‘interested but slightly wary’ perspective and I summarise this here. The nine respondents

from this group were all currently teaching geography at undergraduate level. None had

ever used role plays before in teaching but several indicated they had “thought about it” or

“wanted to, but not sure how to go about it”, reflecting earlier observations regarding

tutors’ interest but lack of experience or confidence in using role plays as a teaching

method (Maddrell, 1994). All nine indicated that they would use this particular role play

and that it could be used in a range of different classes ranging from first-year tutorials to

specialist seminars and lectures on the History of Geography, Geographical Thought,

Critical Geography, Histories of Geography and Empire, Cultural Historical Geographies

and Gender at Work.

The advantages identified by lecturers were very similar to those student respondents

had listed, including student engagement and participation and dealing with a wide range

of views, although lecturers were more conscious of learning outcomes.

Really brings history of geography alive. Good to have to think about arguments and

ideas within a role or context; challenges preconceptions because views don’t

necessarily go with gender; is a really creative way of getting students to think about

what geography is for/about. (Lecturer 1).

Making individual students think about the arguments that would have been made at

the time—putting themselves (and the argument) into historical context. The role

play involves every student—really important! Allows students to learn quickly

about the issues. (Lecturer 5)

The lecturers also identified a number of actual or potential weaknesses of this role play,

which included the following organizational and content issues. The challenge of

organizing and managing multiple groups in a large class was noted by one lecturer and

two felt the second resolution in the role play (in the original wording) could be confusing.

In terms of content, one raised concern that the subject matter might be seen as

anachronistic, another that more awareness of class as an issue was needed and a third that

the roles might seem too prescribed or pre-determined. There was also a common concern

that as lecturers they might lack sufficient knowledge of the wider context of the debate to

feel confident about using the role play.

In response to feedback from colleagues, a summary of contextual material (with

references) relating to the debate in the role play has been provided here (see above),

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to assist colleagues who are not specialists in geographical thought. The introductory notes

to the role play stress that the fee for members of the RGS implicitly limits the social class

of RGS Fellows. Tutors’ concern regarding the wording of the second proposal made by

the RGS and used in the role-play debate has been addressed by a clarificatory comment

after the original wording (see role sheets below). Tutors can opt for the most appropriate

setting for using the role play, including class size, associated assessment and giving

students the opportunity to prepare and research roles out of class. On reflection, although

it has worked well as a form of ‘impact start’ within a single class, I think in future I will

allow students more preparation time and relate the role play explicitly to an assessment.

Conclusions

The overwhelming view of both students and lecturers was that there were many benefits

to using a role play to address the issue of Women’s Membership of the RGS in

1892–1893. The topic, with its contentious debate and colourful characters, makes it

particularly suited to this treatment (although the materials could also be used to support a

debate rather than role play), but there is a danger that some of the strong views might

seem like caricatures to today’s students. However, student feedback suggests that

undertaking this role play in the context of a wider discussion of the origins and

development of British geography allows gender to be seen within the context of the

social mores of the late nineteenth century. Throughout the role play students were

obliged to adopt or confront the view of the Other, in terms of age, gender, occupation

and viewpoint. Through the process of exploring the contextualized reasoning behind a

variety of positions (e.g. women were not scientifically educated/physically capable of

exploration) held by the different role characters, they avoided the worst pitfalls of

simplistic presentist judgements (“it’s obvious isn’t it?”), particularly those relating to

gender, and avoided feeling there was only one argument to be made/accepted. Whilst the

use of archive materials resulted in quite strongly structured roles, the data also added a

sense of veracity to what might appear as caricature viewpoints today, as well as an

awareness of the variety and complexity of positions held in the debate, including those

of social class, the social and intellectual hegemonies at play, and the ways in which

arguments were not made on a clear-cut gender divide. As awareness of the social

construction of geographical knowledge becomes increasingly nuanced, role plays are a

particularly useful tool for teaching those subtleties. In turn, role plays are themselves

becoming more varied, moving from use in face-to-face teaching to web-based activities

(see Freeman & Capper (1998) on anonymous asynchronous web-based role play), which

can allow even greater access to historical materials as an increasing amount of archive

data is available online.

Role plays are widely used to engage with gender issues in numerous professional fields

such as education and healthcare. This role play is an example of how they can be used

within teaching geography to explore not only gender but also how gender intersects with

other social relations and power structures, including the definition of geographical

knowledge. The detail provided by archive sources allows controversial issues to be

addressed within a complex argument that avoids assumed ‘battle lines’, helping to keep

the subject of debate open, which is vital for true engagement on the part of the students

who would probably resist an activity with a pre-determined answer (Maddrell, 1994;

Cutler & Hay, 2000). The positive comments regarding learning outcomes from this

Teaching a Contextual and Feminist History of Geography through Role Play 405

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activity from both male and female students suggest this approach was successful in

facilitating a contextually sensitive discussion on a past controversy within geography and

what could be learned about geographical discourses and practices at that time, as well as

making women visible within the history of geography. It also suggests role plays can

increase levels of participation and critical engagement in an area of a degree course that

some students find difficult to relate to.

Placing both the institutionalization of geography and the intersection of gender and

geography within wider intellectual and social contexts allowed students to focus on what

was being learned about geography rather than purely on gender assumptions and

prejudices—important as those are. This helped avoid real and staged arguments between

students along gender lines—not least because, as the roles show, views of women’s

membership of the RGS were not predetermined by gender—a point lecturers trialling the

role play thought particularly useful: “Seeing not only the issues around gender but also

seeing there are differences between women (Kingsley and Bird) and between men too”

(Lecturer 4). Some 9 per cent of students commented that one of the most important things

they learned was that they had not realised gender was a divisive issue “so recently”,

perhaps indicative of the ‘post-feminist’ views of the current generation of students.

‘Backlash’ or male resentment of and resistance to a focus on women can be an issue when

taking a feminist perspective in teaching and research and Nast (1999) described including

feminism (or lesbianism or black/white racism) as a ‘kiss of death’ to student course

evaluations outside courses specifically relating to these themes. Of the 100 student

evaluations of this role play, only one male student made what might be considered to be a

‘backlash’ comment demonstrating resentment of the focus on gender/women, stating

“Women always want everything” (Student B36 male). However, the fact that the two

spoilt response forms were (partially) completed by female students and included

comments along the lines of “who cares abut this stuff anyway” could suggest a pocket of

post-feminist female resistance to/‘backlash’ against a focus on women’s inequalities.

On the whole, the overwhelmingly positive student feedback for this contextual discussion

of gendered exclusion from the RGS in the role play discussed here contrasts markedly

with that reported by Nast.

The issue of women’s membership of the RGS started as an issue of equal access and

became a debate regarding equal rights and abilities to undertake geographical work: it

was by definition a feminist issue, though few, if any, of the proponents would have

described themselves and the issue in that way. Returning to the debate can be seen as part

of an explicit feminist agenda within contemporary geography, or a more general

recognition of the significance of gender as a social and cultural phenomenon within the

history of the discipline.

By combining feminist theory and pedagogy with a contextual history approach to the

history of geography, including the use of archive sources, this role play has ‘given voice’

to some of the women who were at the centre of the debate on women’s membership of the

RGS in the late nineteenth century. Whilst much of this information is available in other

textual sources (such as Bell & McEwan, 1996), using the mechanism of a role play has

been particularly effective in not only giving women a (greater) presence in teaching the

history of geographical ideas and practices, and going some way to both problematize and

explain why nineteenth-century geography appeared to be a male preserve, but in

addressing these issues in such a way that students actively engage with a complex and

nuanced history of the discipline, reaping the familiar benefits of learning through role

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play in what some might consider the unlikely setting of the history of geography and

geographical ideas.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers archive staff

and all the students at Oxford Brookes University and colleagues at the RGS/IBG Women and Geography Study

Group workshop (May 2005) who took part in the role play and provided such useful feedback. She would also

like to express her thanks to Martin Haigh for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, as well as Rachel

Spronken-Smith and the other anonymous referees for the Journal of Geography in Higher Education for their

constructive feedback.

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Appendix: Women’s Membership of the RGS: The ‘Great Debate’ 1892–1893—

Introductory Background and Instructions to the Role Play for All Roles

The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) was founded in 1830 for the ‘promotion and

diffusion of that most important and entertaining branch of knowledge, GEOGRAPHY’.

Geography is considered to unite and serve the interests of statesman, scholar and merchant.

The normal procedure for election to fellowship of the RGS is for a candidate to be proposed

and seconded by existing members, with a brief explanation of geographical interests. The

application is then approved or rejected by the RGS Council. An annual fee is then payable

(the fee is only affordable for professionals or those of independent means).

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In 1892 the RGS Council decided unanimously to admit women to the society;

22 women were elected as fellows between November 1892 and April 1893. This decision

has been contended by some and the issue has become a matter of public debate, with

letters appearing in The Times and jokes in Punch.

It is April 1893 and a special general meeting is to be held to discuss this decision by the

RGS council to admit women as Fellows of the society. The Council is proposing two new

regulations: ‘1. Ladies may be elected as Ordinary Fellows, but shall not be eligible to

serve on the Council or in any Offices of the society. 2. Wherever required in these

Regulations or the Appendix thereto, words importing the masculine gender only shall

include the feminine gender’ [i.e. include ‘she’ as well as ‘he’].

Activity

Contribute to the discussion at the special general meeting of the RGS in the character of

your role brief below. You may find it helpful to write a short speech, or you may prefer to

speak from your notes, either way write down 3–5 key points to be made by your

character, with supporting information where appropriate.

Role 1: Admiral Cave

You, with the support of five other military men and one civilian, wrote to the RGS

Council to complain about the admission of women as Fellows because the decision had

been made unconstitutionally. Your letter was not referred to when the 22 women were

elected as Fellows. You feel this to be a gross slight.

You are also concerned that women will get control of the society and that they will use

their status as fellows as a certificate of geographical competence. You do not want to see

this ancient society run by ladies. You agree with your colleague Admiral McClintock,

who argued that the people the RGS should attract are ‘explorers, geographers, men

employed in trade and commerce and missionaries who seek for geographical

knowledge’—in your view admitting lots of women will not add to the society’s

usefulness to the country. Geography is about exploring and surveying the world in order

to serve national security and other state interests.

You have a compromise to suggest: women should be admitted as honorary fellows and

the number of honorary fellows should be increased from 40 to100. Honorary Fellows

cannot vote on the society’s matters, propose other members or serve on the council.

Role 2: George Nathaniel Curzon

You have returned from travelling in Asia and discover you were the only RGS council

member absent when the council decided to admit women to the society. You are not

happy with the decision and have a great deal of social and political influence (Curzon

went on to become Viceroy of India, Foreign Secretary, acting Prime Minister and

Chancellor of Oxford University).

Much of the debate concerning women’s rights to be Fellows of the society is centred on

the claims of women travellers. As a serious traveller, as far as you are concerned, the

majority of these women are a curse of “female globetrotters . . . one of the horrors of the

latter end of the nineteenth century”—at best tourists and certainly not geographical

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explorers. With a few exceptions (such as Isabella Bird perhaps), women are incapable of

contributing to scientific knowledge, because (as you will write in The Times of 31 May

1893, p. 11) ‘their sex and training makes them unfit for exploration’. You are concerned

that the social and intellectual standing of the RGS is declining and that the ‘market value’

or credibility of membership of the society is falling (this will not be helped by flooding

the society with women school teachers).

Role 3: Robert Needham Cust

You are Vice-President of the Royal Anthropological Institute. You have recommended

your daughter Maria for membership of the RGS and she was elected as a Fellow in

November. She is highly educated and is a member of the Anthropological Institute and

the Linnaen (biological science) Society. Prior to her own election you could only bring

her as a guest to evening lectures and borrow books from the library on her behalf.

Women have been members of other learned societies for some time, e.g. the British

Association for the Advancement of Science (1853), the Royal Statistical Society (1858),

the Geologists’ Association (1858), the Royal Anthropological Institute (1858) and more

recently the Linnaen Society. At a time when women are being trained as doctors it seems

illogical to suggest they are not intellectually competent to be geographers. As far as you

are concerned, when the RGS awarded Mary Somerville a medal in 1869 for her book

Physical Geography (1848), it accepted that women could produce important

geographical work. It should also be noted that Queen Victoria, as monarch, is patron

of the society.

Role 4: Sir Douglas Freshfield

A man of independent means, you are a keen mountaineer. You are secretary of the RGS

Council and an ardent supporter of establishing geography as an academic discipline in the

universities. You consider the whole tone of the current debate is indicated by those

opposing women’s admission taking legal advice as to whether it would be permissible for

women to knit at a Council meeting!

Women’s membership was first proposed in 1847; you raised the issue with the

council after inviting the traveller Isabella Bird to speak to the society on her recent

travels in Persia. She was unable to attend, but had pointed out the irony that she was

being invited to address a society to which she was not considered qualified to belong.

All the non-metropolitan geographical societies in Britain admit women as full members.

The Royal Scottish Geographical Society has just opened a London branch and Bird

spoke at the first meeting. You are concerned that the RGS may lose members to this

alternative. Reciprocal membership of different geographical societies would be a

sensible way forward but that requires admitting women members of the other societies

to the RGS. You have composed the following couplet in response to those against

women Fellows:

‘The question our dissentients bellow

is “Can a lady be a fellow”,

that, Sirs, will be no question when

Our fellows are all gentlemen.’

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Role 5: Isabella Bird

You are an independent traveller and travel writer. You have travelled in the Pacific, the

Rockies and Persia and will go to China and Korea in the future. You have published

books on each of your journeys discussing your experiences of the places and people,

including botany, climate, topography, trade, culture, social conditions and politics. You

do not have any access to the RGS in your own right, but you have been able to get your

publisher John Murray, who is a Fellow, to borrow library books for you and to take you to

some meetings as his guest.

Douglas Freshfield, Secretary of the RGS Council, wrote to invite you to speak at the

RGS but you were unable to accept the invitation as you were unwell. However, you did

take the liberty of pointing out that there was some contradiction in being invited to speak

to a society of which you, as a woman, could not yourself be a member.

You have been made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society

(‘honorary’ in this case meaning an honour rather than limited membership) and have

recently spoken at the first meeting of their London branch. In your view there are

numerous women travellers who could contribute to filling in the blanks on maps—

particularly if they had full access to the resources of the society, including field skills

training sessions offered to travellers. You helped Major Sawyer of the Indian Army

undertake clandestine surveying in Persia and consider women’s contributions to

geographical knowledge are generally either ignored or devalued by the RGS.

Role 6: Mary Kingsley

You have completed one independent journey in West Africa and are about to set out on

another longer journey in the same region, across uncharted territory. You plan to climb

Mount Cameroon by a route not previously taken by Europeans. You have been

disconcerted to see your name used in association with arguments for women’s

membership of the RGS (as well as the Linnaean Society). You repudiate any association

with these intrigues. This is nothing to do with you. You do not want to be thought of as a

‘New Woman’; they are decadent, pushy and don’t know their place in society.

You did not wear trousers during your explorations, despite what the papers say, and are

not trying to prove anything about women in general. You are merely doing what interests

you under the guidance of qualified men, e.g. collecting natural history samples for

Dr Gunther at the British Museum for him to investigate, just as you assisted your father

with his work before he died. You oppose women’s suffrage and do not think women

should interfere with politics and the like.

Role 7: Frederick Smith Esq.

You are a Fellow of the RGS, an ordinary member of the society with no desire to serve on

the council. You live in Kensington near the RGS rooms and have an interest in the society

because you have a brother who is a diplomat overseas and are yourself engaged in

importing rare artefacts and textiles from the Indies and Far East.

The RGS is a convenient club for you and you enjoy the, often spectacular, travellers’

tales recounted at the evening meetings. Some papers are of use to you professionally but

Teaching a Contextual and Feminist History of Geography through Role Play 411

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by and large you gain most from the contacts you have made through the society—after

all, the membership includes aristocrats, businessmen, MPs and other influential people.

In the past you have had no objection to women attending meetings as guests of Fellows,

but you are undecided about whether it is appropriate to admit women as full Fellows with

all the attendant rights and change of atmosphere that will involve. However, you had

heard the society was a bit strapped for cash and women members’ membership fees

would represent welcome extra income.

412 A. Maddrell

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