A welcome from the CUGS President…

It is my pleasure to welcome all students to the Cambridge University Geography Society. Geography is the bridge between the natural sciences and humanities, it keeps abstract sociology, politics, and economics real. It resists the tech broligarchs who desire to map, quantify and digitalise everything into commodities for profit. Geography should be thought of in the way that Borges does in his short story ‘On Exactitude in Science’. He envisions an empire where the discipline of geography has attained such perfection, that its cartographers are able to craft a map of its colonies that is life-sized; to the scale of a mile to the mile! The issue is that the map is so completely accurate, that it becomes useless – it covers the entire empire, shutting out the sun, and so eventually only its tattered ruins remain. Contemporary geography has moved on from this colonial framework of the past. Instead, the modern-day geographer emerges as someone who uses the country itself as its own map, in defiance of today’s trend in science to map and quantify everything.

CUGS has much to offer in terms of intellectual enrichment and social exchanges, this is expressed through our regular socials, speaker events and panels. 

— Ruben Francis: President 2025

Please feel free to contact our executive committee via email:

• rf494@cam.ac.uk – Ruben Francis: President
• mrc90@cam.ac.uk – Martha Currie: Vice-President
• ed663@cam.ac.uk – Edward de Ferrars Green: Treasurer