'Nothing Can Ever Be the Case of "Us" and "Them" Again': exploring the politics of difference through border pedagogy and student journal writing

Linda McDowell (1994) has called for styles of teaching which put into prac tice arguments about the 'politics of a difference', which has become an in creasingly central part of human geographical research. This paper draws on a number of years experience of teaching an undergraduate course on multic ultural historical geography, irt which this was attempted. Here students w ere encouraged to get more involved in these debates, to rake them more per sonally, and to develop 'situated knowledges' about the UK as a multicultur al society. The approach to reaching, learning and assessment which made th is possible was based on the principles of 'border pedagogy' and on student s writing journals throughout the course which charted the development of t heir understandings of the materials they encountered.