Responsibilities of geographers: Are we role models or hypocrites?

Abstract

It is no longer enough, if it ever was, for geographers to publish research with no mind to practising it in their daily lives. This essay is quasi-polemical, calling for us to consider both our responsibilities as geographers and our futures outside of research and to more consciously think about how to be role models of our discipline in both our professional and private lives. Such labours include asking how we can act sustainably in hosting, travelling to, and catering for conferences and how we can address our need to help build community and accommodate diversity, which are often present in calls to action in our research. Acknowledging the potential for hypocrisy also means being engaged citizen scientists and Anthropoceneans. Let us start a conversation: are we only communicators, or can we be role models, too?