Niche Geography Topics and Possible Career Paths From Them 🌎

University courses Geography, Environment & History
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Geography is an incredibly diverse topic spanning from the tectonic plates beneath our feet to conceptual understandings to how the economy dictates human activity. Naturally, academics have explored these topics in depth, uncovering the intricacies of the world through a spatial lens. This has led to a multitude of studies into critical geographies, popularized by geographer David Harvey, which question the spatial relations in the world from connections and power dynamics of subjects like gender, plants, animals, objects, and wealth. Lots of these studies are highly conceptual and epistemological, but can be applied outside the academic world and inform many unique career paths.

Feminist Geography :women_s_room:

Feminist geography questions the gender constructions and inequalities of the patriarchal world. This critically addresses stereotypes against women. Largely that gendered traits were biological and naturally instilled which often acted as a justification for discrimination against women and a way to dismiss their contributions. Barbara Kruger’s photographic piece “We won’t play nature to your culture” brought feminist geography to the forefront of the 80s and addressed these very issues. In this case, “nature” referred to the stereotypes of women’s domesticity and men’s ability to create “culture” therefore implying that the contributions of men should hold greater impact value.

Career Paths:

  1. Women’s center - working with women to help them advocate for themselves
  2. Business consult for diversity, equity, and inclusion - working with a firm to help foster a more equitable environment in the workspace
  3. Foundation director - engaging in charitable work to uplift women and other disadvantaged communities

Queer Geography :rainbow_flag:

Similar to feminist geography, queer geographies questions the men/women, nature/culture, white/non-white binaries, but expands this to also include heterosexual-queer divides and largely break down binary barriers as a whole. In a very geographical sense, this can study how queer communities form, but also expands into an entirely new way of seeing that goes outside of heteronormativity. This deconstructs social norms and how many gender essentialists apply this view to humans as well as the nature around us. Academics can refer to “queering” topics and spaces which can apply to phenomena such as reevaluating how we classify the sex of plants and animals when many of them are capable of changing their sex.

Career Paths:

  1. Lawyer - this is a study that is very useful for providing expert knowledge to discrimination and human rights cases
  2. Journalism - any queer or feminist publications greatly benefit from the awareness of queer geographers
  3. Human rights advocate - working within LGBTQ+ communities to provide support and advocate for their rights outside of their community, in the law, and the environment

Urban Ecology :cityscape:

This is a type of ecology that is specific to built urban environments. This discipline explores subjects like pollution and waste management in cities, creating wildlife corridors through urban environments, and the unique adaptations that flora and fauna take in built environments. This study has been gaining popularity in hand with the focus on rewilding and reconciliation ecology. These are both subjects which focus on integrating the natural environment with the built environment. This is done by creating more environmentally friendly cities which accommodate for the plants and animals living within them, but also by making city residents more in touch with the environment which has a mutually beneficial effect.

Career Paths:

  1. Urban and town planner - promote sustainable designs in buildings and layouts or even create wildlife corridors like tree planting for birds, roads of flowers for bees, or animal highways that allow animals to migrate safely
  2. Planning and surveying consultant - similar to urban planning, but working with other companies to improve the environmental harmonies of their constructions
  3. Ecologist for Environmental Impact Assessments - be in charge of assessing whether or not constitutions can take place in areas with reasonably small negative environmental impact

Marxist Geography :money_with_wings:

This discipline focuses specifically on the manifestations of spatial inequalities of wealth. This looks into how wealth is distributed, inequalities are reproduced, income inequality occurs, and poverty is distributed. Like concepts of marxism, this explores how class divides rather than environmental factors cause inequalities and how the separation of people from the products and its resulting wealth reproduce these conditions. This can delve deeper into the economic underlyings of other societal issues like racism, famine, sexism, and colonialism. It mainly operates as a critique of capitalism and how economically motivated ventures often disadvantage and exploit certain communities.

Career Paths:

  1. Political risk analyst - using a global perspective of inequality to address social risks
  2. International aid - working on a supranational level to provide advice on governance and public policy addressing inequality
  3. Homeless shelter - working to uplift those who have been disadvantaged on account of income inequalities

Deep Ecology :deciduous_tree:

This is another type of ecology which greatly respects the environment. Its major ideas revolve around the intrinsic value of the environment and breaking down the divide between humans and nature. In this way, it takes on similar ideas from feminist and queer geographics but also includes human/non-human binaries. It aims to see the natural environment and human determination on an equally valuable playing field with neither interest taking priority over the other. This means that it takes on a biocentric or ecocentric lens to issues like human development and climate change where the lives of many species would get a voice in these arguments.

Career Paths:

  1. Zoologist - take a biophilic view and focus on working with animal to help them thrive in the human-dominated world
  2. Conservationist - manage sites to keep them from human influence
  3. Animal right activist - work with firms to provide a legal voice for animals
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