Difference and the Politics of Difference

Geographers have shown that space and place are active in the production of difference and have challenged the forms of discrimination that often accompany the production of difference. They are engaged in analyzing the roles that spatial segregation and exclusion play in the classification and hierarchization of difference. Studying the politics of difference has meant an increasingly nuanced tracking of the unpredictable and creative emergence of difference in a range of places; however, interdisciplinary concepts of difference can pose fundamental challenges to conventional knowledge formation because geography is a discipline that still needs to be “decolonized.” As geographers engage with interdisciplinary discussions about difference, we will need to be prepared to engage with the radical demands within concepts as we adapt them.