In January 2010, the New Zealand Geographical Society (NZGS) sponsored a conference on the theme of Positioning Geography at the University of Waikato. The conference brought local, regional and national teachers of Geography together with three International Geographical Union (IGU) Commissions (Gender and Geography, Geographical Education, Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change) to discuss issues of importance to the discipline in this place (the Pacific region) and time (an era of repositioning in the discipline). The Department of Geography, Environmental Planning and Tourism hosted the conference at the University of Waikato with the Conference Organising Committee made up of Waikato branch members of the NZGS and staff at the University. There were several strong themes in the Conference, with teaching and learning about the “Other” being notable for the challenges it provided the discipline at both secondary and tertiary levels. In this introduction to the focused conference papers that follow, we provide a commentary on the theme, we relate this to the mechanisms for delivering Geography in the contemporary secondary and tertiary sectors and we introduce the three papers and authors.