Health geographies I

This progress report – the first in a series of three – examines the places and versions of hope in health geography. It pays attention to scholars’ hopes that arise within the research process, and also to those held by the subjects of studies themselves in their diverse health circumstances and contexts (and how scholars’ hopes parallel and expose these). Its take-home message is that although hope might at first seem a little too vague and general as a concept to provide useful insights – and is certainly rarely an explicit topic of academic conversation and debate – it is nonetheless ever-present across health geography: something that binds and motivates the sub-discipline from behind the scenes, keeping scholars plugging away both as individuals and collectively, pulling them towards specific goals. This report exposes hopes, but also the need to think critically about them.