Where are you from?

Where are you from?

Rachel Franklin asks this question in this engaging piece which starts by saying:

I might be a bad geographer. The possibility has become more apparent since my move to the United Kingdom; potential place pitfalls abound. The first time I took the train to Liverpool, I boarded the “trans-Pennine express,” only belatedly recognizing the implied existence of a landscape feature called the Pennines. Another time I was halfway to Bristol before I discovered that city’s actual location, which, it turns out, is not on the southern coast of England.

and continues

Or maybe I’m a good geographer. After all, when I saw that my Bristol train listed Penzance as its final destination, I was sorely tempted to stay on until the end, just so I could say I’d been there. That is quintessential geographer behavior.
I also have a good geographer instinct for the importance of context, attachment to place, and identity.

She goes on to unpick the unfortunate connotations of that question for some groups of people, and also confusions over identify and how that is created.

This is as interesting question that I will explore with students as part of my new KS2 work.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license