Geography
Human Geography
Human geography is the study of the spatial aspects of human activities and their relationship to the Earth's surface. It examines how people and their activities are distributed across the world, as well as the impact of human behavior on the environment. This field encompasses a wide range of topics, including population, migration, urbanization, cultural landscapes, and globalization.
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12 Key excerpts on "Human Geography"
eBook - PDF- David Fisher, Sandra Price, Terry Hanstock, David Fisher, Sandra Price, Terry Hanstock(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Saur(Publisher)
Human Geography Caedmon Staddon, Alan Terry, Krystyna Brown, Richard Spalding, Rosemary Burton • 10.1 NATURE AND SCOPE OF Human Geography Human Geography is a diverse and constantly changing discipline. Though its fundamental concern is with understanding spatial variation in human processes, such variation may appertain to economic, social, cultural, historical, political or other phenomena. Human geographers, for example, have specialized in topics as diverse as industrial plant location dynamics, ethnic relations at the urban scale, electoral geography and representa-tions of space and place in art. Thus it may sometimes seem that geographers are always practitioners of at least two disciplines: geography and political studies, geography and economics, etc. Such a duality in professional identity has long led some geographers to suggest that geog-raphy may be a common (if unsung) core to all social sciences (Cloke, Philo and Sadler, 1992; Fenneman, 1919). This diversity and heterogeneity does not however imply that Human Geography is somehow secondary to other disciplines. On the contrary, one can fairly wonder why most other social sciences have been slow to realize the very real difference that space makes to human affairs. In soci-ology, for example, this realization is of only recent provenance but it has played a vital role in the reconsideration of the discipline over the past 20 years (Giddens, 1984; Urry, 1988). Other disciplines, including economics, political science and cultural studies have recently argued that the 'geographical imagination' ought to be quite central to their areas of research and teaching. It is, therefore, possible to conclude that Human Geography main-tains a strong coherent identity forged around the study of what Doreen Massey (1984) has called 'the difference that space makes' in all types of human process and phenomena.
eBook - PDF- R. Knowles, J. Wareing(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Made Simple(Publisher)
PART ONE: THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER ONE MAN AND ENVIRONMENT Geography is currently going through an exciting period in its development as new problems are identified and new methods of analysis are formulated. It is not easy to say precisely what geography is about because geographers often hold different views of the subject, and these views change from time to time, but this is not surprising since geographers are interested in a very wide range of problems and rapid advances are being made in the subject, as they are in all branches of knowledge. Because geography involves such a wide range of knowledge, the subject has been divided into two major areas of study. The first of these is physical geography, which is concerned with the physical environment of landforms, weather and climate, soils, and plants and animals (see Physical Geography Made Simple). The second is Human Geography, which is concerned with man's activities over the surface of the earth. In many ways this is a false distinction since the activities of man take place within the physical environment, and the physical environment is considerably affected by these activities, but the divi-sion is a useful one and in this book the physical environment will only be considered in relation to man. Human Geography can be studied in two principal ways. First, the earth's surface can be studied part by part. This is the approach of regional geography, which seeks to understand the unique character of an area as produced by the interaction of human activity and the physical environment. Secondly, human activity over the earth's surface can be studied part by part. This is the approach of systematic geography, which isolates particular elements such as agriculture, industry or transport, and seeks to understand their spatial patterns and the processes which have produced them.
eBook - PDF- Amrita Pandey(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Delve Publishing(Publisher)
The information on geographic facts thus collected were examined, classified and organized by the professional geographers on scientific lines. 5.1. INTRODUCTION The word geography is derived from Greek word “Geographia” literally meaning earth description. It is a social science. It can be defined as the study of the physical properties of the earth, including how humans affect and are affected by them. It is also known as the bridge between the human and physical sciences. So, geography is also known as the bridge between human and physical sciences. Human Geography is a major sub discipline within the wider subject field of geography. Traditionally, geography is considered the study of the Earth’s environments and peoples, and the interactions between them. ‘Geography’ comes from ancient Greek origins (Eratosthenes was the first to use it), literally translating as ‘to write or describe the world.’ In classical and Enlightenment geography, humans and the ‘natural’ world were usually described in conjunction, often in a regional fashion, as Europeans encountered unfamiliar places in exploration and empire. Since the late nineteenth century, this conjoint understanding of geography – as describing the natural and human world, region by region – has gradually been augmented by more precise subdisciplinary pursuits and identities. The most basic of these describes geography as consisting two fundamental halves: physical and Human Geography. Physical geography generally metans the science of the Earth’s surface, while Human Geography usually refers to the study of its peoples, and geographical interpretations of economies, cultural identities, political territories, and societies. Physical geographers classify and analyze landforms and ecosystems, explain hydrological, geomorphological, and coastal processes, and examine problems such as erosion, pollution, and climatic variability. Human
eBook - ePub- Cynthia Metcalf, Rhonda Atkinson(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Research & Education Association(Publisher)
CHAPTER 1 Geography Geography is the study of the Earth’s surface, including such aspects as its climate, topography, vegetation, and population.Geography is much more than just memorizing names and places and studying the physical features of the Earth. While geography requires an understanding of the Earth’s surface, it also is concerned with the distribution of living things and Earth’s features around the Earth. Geography focuses on three questions: Where? Why there? What are the consequences of it being there? Geographers look at the Earth’s physical space and investigate patterns. For example, a geographer might look at the space of your bedroom and ask several questions: How are things distributed? Why are they where they are? What processes operate in that space? How does this space relate to other nearby spaces? Geographers call this way of identifying, explaining, and predicting human and physical patterns in space and the interconnectedness of various spaces the spatial perspective . Geography views the Earth through a lens of location and space and seeks to find patterns of place or interactions between places and people. Thus, geography is the science of space and place.Branches of Geography Generally, geography can be divided into four main branches:Human Geography focuses on humans and the cultures they create relative to their space. It encompasses population geography, economics, and political geography and looks at how people’s activities relate to the environment politically, culturally, historically, and socially.Physical Geography addresses Earth’s physical environment: water (hydrosphere ), air (atmosphere ), plants and animals (biosphere ), and land (lithosphere ). Physical geographers study land formation, water, weather, and climate
eBook - PDFGeographies of Love
The Cultural Spaces of Romance in Chick- and Ladlit
- Christian Lenz(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- transcript Verlag(Publisher)
Cultural Geographies Space is to place as eternity is to time. J OSEPH J OUBERT T HE W ORLD A CCORDING TO G EOGRAPHERS The relationship between people and their (created) surrounding(s) is looked at closely in geography and, more precisely, Human Geography which aims “to explain the spatial patterns and processes that enable and constrain the structures and actions of everyday life.” (Dear and Flusty 2002: 2) Human Geography is one of the two great strands of geography, the other being physical geography, which includes for example geomorphology or biogeography (cf. Kirk 1963: 359, 361). In their Introductory Reader in Human Geography , William Moseley, David Lanegran and Kavita Pandit characterise Human Geography as focusing on “the patterns and dynamics of human activity on the landscape.” (2007a: 3) However, depending on the focus geographers want to apply, they would either narrow the focus on the human activity or stress the “human-environment dynamics (or the nature-society tradition).” (Ibid.) Whereas the latter deals with diverse topics such as political ecology or agricultural geography, the former aspect of Human Geography addresses issues such as urban geography, economic or political geography and cultural geo-graphy (cf. ibid.: 4). Especially cultural geography “concentrates upon the ways in which space, place and the environment participate in an unfolding dialogue of meaning. 1 ” (Shurmer-Smith 2002: 3) Cultural geography “includes thinking about how geographical phenomena are shaped, worked and apportioned according to ideology; how they are used when people form and express their relationships and ideas, including their sense of who they are.” (Shurmer-Smith 2002: 3) This con-firms what Peter Jackson anticipated in his famous Maps of Meaning twenty years 1 See also Knox and Marston: “Cultural geography focuses on the way in which space, place, and landscape shape culture at the same time that culture shapes space, place, and landscape.” (1998: 191)
eBook - PDFThe World Today
Its People and Places
- Linda Connor, William Norton, Michele Visser-Wikkerink(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Portage & Main Press(Publisher)
questions might also make you wonder where those people live, what their world is like, and how they are treated by others. Human Geography and history together make up social studies. Social studies looks at humans in their physical, social, and cultural worlds, and examines the past and present while looking to the future. Social studies helps you acquire the skills, knowledge, and values necessary to become an active citizen and a contributing and responsible member of your local, national, and global communities. Human Geography The study of peoples and places on the surface of the earth. social studies The study of people in relation to each other and to the world in which they live. 2 Introduction How to Use this Book Besides the introduction and conclusion, there are 20 chapters in this textbook, which are organized into four sections. Section I describes the earth as a very special planet. If space engineers ever did come up with affordable civilian space travel, what would a trip around the world be like, from a perspective beyond the atmosphere? What would you notice? What would the important characteristics of the earth be, and how would we describe them? FIGURE 0.2. “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small” (Neil Armstrong, United States astronaut and the first person to walk on the moon, in July 1969). Section II describes the earth as a village. Because all peoples and places are connected, living on earth is like living in a village. In different parts of this village, people experience life differently. Some people are rich, while others are poor. Some come from homes where they are safe and well-treated. Others experience hurt and abuse. We will investigate reasons for and details of these inequalities, and also discuss what it might mean for our world, our village, to function fairly.
eBook - ePub- Tim Unwin(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
HAPTER 8The place of geographySince antiquity geographers have explored and analysed the earth's surface from two related perspectives: that of the spatial differentiation and associa tion of phenomena with an emphasis on the meaning of space, spatial relations and place; and that of the relationship between man and his physical environment. The two are closely related because the meanings of space and place depend on the interrelationships among physical and human activities located in space, and man's relationships to the environment occur in the context of space and place.(Sack, 1980: 3)One of the most salient characteristics of geographical practice in the last twenty years is that geographers have increasingly accepted the inherent diversity of the discipline and have in general ceased trying to identify a single core to the discipline. Rarely are arguments today promulgated to suggest that the central aim of geographical enquiry is, for example, to create a spatial science, or that systems analysis forms a unifying methodology for the discipline. Some, moreover, have argued that 'there is no need for geography and the other presently constituted fragments of social science, since they must be rejected' (Eliot Hurst, 1985: 60). In particular, this period has been characterized by an increasing division between the human and physical sides of the discipline. Stoddart (1987a: 330) has eloquently described this situation as follows:The result is clear enough. Across geography we speak separate languages, do very different things. Many have abandoned the possibility of communicating with colleagues working not only in the same titular discipline but also in the same department. The human geographers think their physical colleagues philosophically naive; the physical geographers think the human geographers lacking in rigour. Geography - Forster's, Humboldt's, Mackinder's - is abandoned and forgotten. And inevitably we teach our students likewise. Small wonder that the world at large wonders what we are about.
eBook - ePubHuman Geography
An Essential Introduction
- Mark Boyle(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
The story of the history of Human Geography is of more than mere historical curiosity and antiquity. In their efforts to describe and explain variations from place to place in the ways in which human beings have inhabited the surface of the earth, human geographers have conspired to create a variety of approaches to description and explanation. It is essential that you understand something about these various human geographical traditions and schools of thought. Some have long since been recognized as flawed and have been rendered obsolete and junked. Still, these discarded perspectives remain worthy of scrutiny lest mistakes made in the past be repeated. But others remain insightful and continue to serve a useful purpose. They intrude on the present even if they are no longer as fashionable as they once were. Human Geography, then, exists today as a plural and contested subject, mobilizing older geographical traditions that remain (at least to some) persuasive and innovating and experimenting with fresh schools of thought. To discriminate between the rival merits of different approaches in Human Geography – and perhaps even to develop a preference for any one – you must first gain an appreciation of the origins and development of these approaches.But there exists a further reason why it is essential that we study Human Geography's past. We need to understand the history of geography so that we can appreciate more fully the fact that the geography of Human Geography matters.Geography, it turns out, has more parochial roots than we might care to admit. Reflecting the overarching framework that guides this book, the provocation underpinning this chapter is that the birth of geography and the many trials and tribulations it has faced over the course of its history have been inextricably wound up with the rise, reign, and faltering of the West from the fifteenth century. This chapter will attempt to show you the ways in which both developments necessarily unfolded together. Human Geography is a child of Western civilization and continues to this day to exist as a quintessential Western academic subject. Equally, the West's climb to the summit of world history would be unthinkable without geographical knowledge, much of which was produced by the formal academic discipline of geography.If it is to prosper in the twenty‐first century, Human Geography will need to face up to the virtues and vices of its European and Anglo‐American parentage and become more self‐aware of the strengths and limitations of the powerful but also largely Western collection of theories, concepts, analytical tools, and methodologies it uses to make sense of the world.Telling the Story of the History of Human Geography
It is common to speak today of physical geography and Human Geography as two distinctive specialisms. But it has to be remembered that both physical geography and Human Geography have their origins in the unified discipline of geography. The date at which it was deemed necessary to break geography into two streams, physical and human, remains the subject of debate. For some, the divorce was never that clear cut, and it is still meaningful to speak of the existence of an overarching subject called geography that bridges both. For others, physical and Human Geography are now on such different paths that never the twain shall again meet. Either way, it is impossible to tell the story of the history of Human Geography without spilling over into the wider history of the discipline of geography.
- Roger E. Backhouse, Philippe Fontaine(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
From the 1950s on, their specialist interests – notably in geomorphology (the study of landforms and landforming processes), but also in biogeography and climatology – came to predominate. As a result, and as human geographers too deserted the regional focus, the two ‘halves’ of geography have become more separate activities, with distinct sets of research practices. Nevertheless, for political reasons at least, the two have remained together institutionally, offering stu- dents courses in both social and natural science approaches to the discipline (with most degree schemes allowing specialisation in one or the other dur- ing the later years of their degree). The consequences of this togetherness for the development of each are difficult to unravel (given the absence of a substantial counterfactual case), but there can be little doubt that it was cru- cial in the 1960s to 1970s in the development of quantitative methodologies for spatial analysis and has sustained work on society–nature interactions. This physical–human symbiosis was less apparent in U.S. universities, especially during the period when areal differentiation held sway as the discipline’s raison d’être; many adopted the stance advanced by Hartshorne (1939) that, while this called for descriptive accounts of the physical environment, research into, for example, landform creation was not needed [see also some of the essays in James and Jones (1954)]. As a result, geog- raphy departments rarely encouraged research in physical geography and 4 He was also president of the American Geological Society. Human Geography 161 some excluded it (the University of Washington still does); a commemorative volume for the AAG’s seventy-fifth anniversary had no specific physical geography contributions (Marcus 1979). From the 1980s on, this rift was healed, in part responding to increasing concern over human–nature inter- actions, and most U.S.
eBook - PDF- Jay Coakley, Eric Dunning, Jay Coakley, Eric Dunning(Authors)
- 2000(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
10 Human Geography AND THE STUDY OF SPORT John Bale A number of academic disciplines, for example sociology, philosophy, psychology and history, each have their sport-related subdiscipline with its academic journals, regular conferences and academic associations. The same cannot be said of geography. 1 Yet it would be difficult to deny that a geography of sport exists and that it constitutes a corpus of scholarship that focuses, in particular, on regional, spatial and landscape aspects of sports. Inevitably there is an overlap between the work of geographers qua geographers and those undertaking work of a geographical nature in cognate disciplines; and as disciplinary boundaries begin to col-lapse, this tendency is likely to continue. This chapter will concentrate mainly – but not entirely – on the work of professional geo-graphers and their approaches to the study of achievement sport. The considerable geo-graphical coverage afforded recreation and leisure cannot be included in the space avail-able here, even if it is accepted that the distinc-tion between sport and recreation is, at times, somewhat blurred. (Patmore, 1970, 1983) The contributions made by geographers to interdisciplinary studies of sport during the past several decades are relatively easy to see. For example, in the United States Rooney (1975) contributed to the collection of essays in Ball and Loy’s sociological overview of sports; Bale (1991a, 1991b, 1992a, 1993a, 1998) has con-tributed to various collections of essays on European soccer; in France Matthieu (1991), Praicheux (1991) and Augustin (1995) have vigorously supported various interdisciplinary initiatives; and in Sweden Moen (1993) and Aldskogius (1993a) have ensured the inclusion of sport in the Swedish National Atlas . These writers are but the tip of a large pyramid of geographers involved in contributing to sports studies.
- Rebecca Lave, Christine Biermann, Stuart N. Lane, Rebecca Lave, Christine Biermann, Stuart N. Lane(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
2010 ) has argued happened around climate science and policy, does not serve either humans or the crappy landscapes of which they are an active part. As Law (this volume) shows, our growing concern with the Anthropocene reinforces the need for physical geographers, as well as human geographers, to give traction to rethinking the relationship between the researcher and the researched.Towards a More Physical Critical Human Geography
If much of the above had advocated a more ‘critical’ turn in Physical Geography, then there is a second critical perspective of equal importance: the need for a more physical turn in Critical Human Geography. Since the 1970s, not only has Human Geography distanced itself from the kind of scientific method advocated by Harvey (1969 ), even the use of evidence from the natural sciences has become increasingly rare in Human Geography. The expansion of human-environment Geography seemed like it might reverse this trend but, as we note above (Johnston 1983 , 1986 ), research that truly combines Physical and Human Geography is uncommon. This is particularly the case for research that integrates physical science with the theory-laden critiques of Critical Human Geography. The field of political ecology illustrates this well.Political ecology was built on a combination of critical social and physical science evidence. Early work in the field (Watts 1983 ; Blaikie 1985 ; Hecht 1985 ) paired strong critiques of environmental injustice with more sober presentations of physical evidence and built quantitative social science data into clear exposés of the politics of environmental science. Social science was clearly dominant, physical science providing simply the material setting or the template upon which politics was played out. For instance, of political ecology’s pioneers, only Hecht conducted physical science research. Given how peripheral natural science (and even quantitative social science) are today in political ecology, it is striking how integral environmental data was in the formative work in the field. Early political ecology was deeply focused on disproving dominant explanatory frameworks for environmental degradation, particularly Malthusian, Tragedy of the Commons, and ignorant peasant explanations, all of which blame land managers for their own predicaments. By contrast, political ecology’s pioneers argued that, “… environmental problems in the Third World, …, are less a problem of poor management, overpopulation, or ignorance, as of social action and political economic constraints, … [Analysis should thus concentrate on] market integration, commercialization, and the dislocation of customary forms of resource management.” (Peet and Watts 1996
eBook - ePubGeography and Geographers
Anglo-American human geography since 1945
- Ron Johnston, James D. Sidaway(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
The journal Environment and Behavior was launched in 1969 to cater for this interdisciplinary market, but despite some interest (e.g. Tuan, 1975a; Downs and Stea, 1977; Pocock and Hudson, 1978; Porteous, 1977), the general field has not made a major impact within Human Geography. Gold (1992) argued that although a small number of scholars have continued working in this area, the challenges from other types of work (see Chapters 5 – 7 below) meant not only that it failed to develop into a large component of the discipline, but also that it was marginalised, as both passé and tainted with the generally perceived problems of positivism. Gold quotes Cloke et al. (1991) as presenting cognitive-behavioural geography as forming ‘something of a “bridge” leading from the “peopleless” landscapes of spatial science through to the “peopled” landscapes of humanistic geography’ (Gold, 1992, p. 242). The impression he gives is of a small specialism ‘retaining a precarious autonomy on the fringes of Human Geography’ (p. 246). The concept of ‘mental map’ and the associated process of ‘cognitive mapping’ – which ‘seems to imply the evocation of visual images which possess the kinds of structural properties that we are familiar with in “real” cartographic maps’ (Boyle and Robinson, 1979, p. 60) – became the centre of considerable debate both among behavioural geographers and between them and outside critics. Gould’s initial work, and that which it stimulated, was criticised as the study of space preferences only (Golledge, 1981a; see also Golledge, 1980, 1981b; Guelke, 1981a; Robinson, 1982). But, as Downs and Meyer (1978, p. 60) made clear, ‘perceptual geography’ – ‘the belief that human behaviour is, in large part, a function of the perceived world’ – extends much further than the elicitation and mapping of space preferences. The basic arguments of behavioural geography are that: people have environmental images; those images can be identified accurately (i.e
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