Activism for medical geographers : American, British and Canadian viewpoints

This paper describes some of our personal efforts to launch research projects that address public health issues of interest to geographers in the United States, Canada and Britain. In pressing these agendas we have found through our experiences that there are personal and disciplinary costs associated with activism. We describe the loss of identity with geography; the frustration of trying to persuade bench scientists, corporate representatives, and government officials of the importance of our work; the loss of research time and contact with both our academic colleagues and students.