The early 20th century brought about profound political, social, and economic changes in Europe. These transformations not only constituted an important object for geographical research but also had massive impacts on the academic, school, and professional practices of geography and the lives of geographers, be they university professors, schoolteachers, politicians, or representatives in the business domain.

Our session focuses on how epistemic communities in geography evolved from the fin-de-siècle years to the mid-1940s in times of peace and war, the collapse of empires and the forging of new nation-states, the emergence of new democracies and authoritarian regimes, and subsequent periods of economic booms and crises. Taking a transnational and multidisciplinary approach, the session scrutinizes ruptures and continuities in the personnel, institutional framework, and funding scheme of geography as a discipline, along with its discourses, methods, and narratives.

Papers on local and national case studies embedded into a broader transnational context and comparative studies based on a transnational approach are welcome. The floor will be open to both the stories of influential scholars and institutions, as well as investigations into marginalized and precarious members of the geographical community—such as female geographers, assistants, and geographers from minority groups—along with the institutions, places, and discourses they were attached to.