Human geography

Human geography is the branch of the social sciences that deals with the world, its people and their communities, cultures, economies and interaction with the environment by emphasizing their relations with and across space and place. As an intellectual discipline, geography is divided into the sub-fields of physical geography and human geography, the latter concentrating upon the study of human activities, by the application of qualitative and quantitative research methods.

History

Main article: History of geography

Geography was not recognised as a formal academic discipline until the 18th century, although many scholars had undertaken geographical scholarship for much longer, particularly through cartography.

The Royal Geographical Society was founded in England in 1830, although the United Kingdom did not get its first full Chair of geography until 1917. The first real geographical intellect to emerge in United Kingdom geography was Halford John Mackinder, appointed reader at Oxford University in 1887.

The National Geographic Society was founded in the USA in 1888 and began publication of the National Geographic magazine which became and continues to be a great populariser of geographic information. The society has long supported geographic research and education.

Original map by John Snow showing the clusters of cholera cases in the London epidemic of 1854

One of the first examples of geographic methods being used for purposes other than to describe and theorise the physical properties of the earth is John Snow's map of the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak. Though a physician and a pioneer of epidemiology, the map is probably one of the earliest examples of health geography.

The now fairly distinct differences between the subfields of physical and human geography developed at a later date. This connection between both physical and human properties of geography is most apparent in the theory of environmental determinism, made popular in the 19th century by Carl Ritter and others, and with close links to evolutionary biology of the time. Environmental determinism is the theory that a people's physical, mental and moral habits are directly due to the influence of their natural environment. However, by the mid-19th century, environmental determinism was under attack for lacking methodological rigour associated with modern science, and later as serving to justify racism and imperialism.

A similar concern with both human and physical aspects is apparent in the later regional geography, during the later 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The goal of regional geography, through regionalization, was to delineate space into regions and then understand and describe the unique characteristics of each region, in both human and physical aspects. With links to possibilism and cultural ecology, some of the same notions of causal effect of the environment on society and culture, as with environmental determinism remained.

By the 1960s, however, the quantitative revolution led to strong criticism of regional geography. Due to a perceived lack of scientific rigour in and overly descriptive nature of the discipline, and a continued separation of geography from geology and the two subfields of physical and human geography, geographers in the mid-20th century began to apply statistical and mathematical model methods to solving spatial problems. Much of the development during the quantitative revolution is now apparent in the use of geographic information systems; the use of statistics, spatial modelling and positivist approaches is still important to many branches of human geography. Well-known geographers from this period are Fred K. Schaefer, Waldo Tobler, William Garrison, Peter Haggett, Richard J. Chorley, William Bunge, and Torsten Hägerstrand.

From the 1970s, a number of critiques of the positivism now associated with geography emerged. Known under the term 'critical geography' this signalled another turning point in the discipline. Behavioural geography emerged for some time as a means to understand how people made perceived spaces and places, and made locational decisions. More influentially, 'radical geography' emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, drawing heavily on Marxist theory and techniques, and is associated with geographers such as David Harvey and Richard Peet. Seeking to say something 'meaningful' about the problems recognised through quantitative methods, to provide explanations rather than descriptions, to put forward alternatives and solutions and to be politically engaged, rather than the detachment associated with positivist methods. (The detachment and objectivity of the quantitative revolution was itself critiqued by radical geographers as being a tool of capital). Radical geography and the links to Marxism and related theories remain an important part of contemporary human geography (See: Antipode (Journal)) Critical geography also saw the introduction of 'humanistic geography', associated with the work of Yi-Fu Tuan, which, though similar to behavioural geography, pushed for a much more qualitative approach in methodology.

The changes under critical geography have led to contemporary approaches in the discipline such as feminist geography, new cultural geography, and the engagement with postmodern and post-structural theories and philosophies.

Fields

The main fields of study in human geography focus around the core fields of:

Animals

Animal geography is the examinations of the lifeworlds of animals themselves The field has emerged through geographers' concerns with the nonhuman and material world, sometimes dubbed as 'hybrid' or 'more-than-human' geography. Animal geographies are beginning to extend the domain and boundaries of 'human' geography.

Culture

Cultural geography is the study of cultural products and norms - their variation across spaces and places, as well as their relations. It focuses on describing and analysing the ways language, religion, economy, government, and other cultural phenomena vary or remain constant from one place to another and on explaining how humans function spatially.

• Subfields include: Children's geographies, Animal geographies, Language geography, Sexuality and Space and Religion geography

Development

Development Geography is the study of the Earth's geography with reference to the Standard of living and the Quality of life of its human inhabitants, study of the location, distribution and spatial organization of economic activities, across the Earth. The subject matter investigated is strongly influenced by the researcher's methodological approach.

Economic

Economic geography examines relationships between human economic systems, states, and other factors, and the biophysical environment.

• Subfields include Marketing geography and Transportation geography

Health

Health geography is the application of geographical information, perspectives, and methods to the study of health, disease, and health care.

Historical

Historical geography is the study of the human, physical, fictional, theoretical, and "real" geographies of the past. Historical geography studies a wide variety of issues and topics. A common theme is the study of the geographies of the past and how a place or region changes through time. Many historical geographers study geographical patterns through time, including how people have interacted with their environment, and created the cultural landscape.

• Subfields include Time geography

Political

Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures.

• Subfields include Electoral geography, Geopolitics, Strategic geography and Military geography

Population

Population geography is the study of the ways in which spatial variations in the distribution, composition, migration, and growth of populations are related to the nature of places.

Settlement

Settlement geography, including urban geography, is the study of urban and rural areas with specific regards to spatial, relational and theoretical aspects of settlement. That is the study of areas which have a concentration of buildings and infrastructure. These are areas where the majority of economic activities are in the secondary sector and tertiary sectors. In case of urban settlement, they probably have a high population density.

Philosophical and theoretical approaches

Within each of the subfields, various philosophical approaches can be used in research; therefore, an urban geographer could be a Feminist or Marxist geographer, etc.

Such approaches are:

• Animal geographies
• Behavioral geography
• Cognitive geography
• Critical geography
• Feminist geography
• Marxist geography
• Non-representational theory
• Positivism
• Postcolonialism
• Poststructuralist geography
• Psychoanalytic geography
• Psychogeography
• Spatial analysis

List of notable human geographers

Carl Ritter - considered to be one of the founders of modern geography

• Carl Ritter (1779–1859), considered to be one of the founders of modern geography and first chair in geography at the Humboldt University of Berlin, also noted for his use of organic analogy in his works.
• Xavier Hommaire de Hell (1812–1848), research in Turkey, southern Russia and Persia
• Élisée Reclus (1830–1905), known for his monumental 19 volume The Earth and Its Inhabitants, he coined the term social geography and his thinking anticipated the social ecology and animal rights movements, where he advocated anarchism and veganism as part of an ethical life.
• Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921), one of the first radical geographers, he was a proponent of anarchism and notable for his introduction of the concept of mutual aid.
• Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904), environmental determinist, invented the term Lebensraum
• Paul Vidal de la Blache (1845–1918), founder of the French School of geopolitics and possibilism.
• Sir Halford John Mackinder (1861–1947), author of The Geographical Pivot of History, co-founder of the London School of Economics, along with the Geographical Association.
• Jovan Cvijić (1865–1927), a Serbian geographer and a world-renowned scientist. He started his scientific career as a geographer and geologist, and continued his activity as an anthropogeographer and sociologist.
• Carl O. Sauer (1889–1975), critic of environmental determinism and proponent of cultural ecology.
• Walter Christaller (1893–1969), economic geographer and developer of the central place theory.
• Richard Hartshorne (1899–1992), scholar of the history and philosophy of geography.
• Torsten Hägerstrand (1916–2004), critic of the quantitative revolution and regional science, noted figure in critical geography.
• Milton Santos (1926–2001) winner of the Vautrin Lud prize in 1994, one of the most important geographers in South America.* Waldo R. Tobler (born 1930), developer of the First law of geography.
• Gamal Hamdan (born 1928), an Egyptian thinker, intellect and professor of geography. Best known for The Character of Egypt, Studies of the Arab World, and The Contemporary Islamic World Geography, which form a trilogy on Egypt's natural, economic, political and cultural character and its position in the world.
• Yi-Fu Tuan (born 1930) A Chinese-American geographer.
• David Harvey (born 1935), world's most cited academic geographer and winner of the Lauréat Prix International de Géographie Vautrin Lud, also noted for his work in critical geography and critique of global capitalism.
• Evelyn Stokes (1936–2005). Professor of geography at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Known for recognizing inequality with marginalised groups including women and Māori using geography.
• Allen J. Scott (born 1938), winner of Vautrin Lud Prize in 2003 and the Anders Retzius Gold medal 2009; author of numerous books and papers on economic and urban geography, known for his work on regional development, new industrial spaces, agglomeration theory, global city-regions and the cultural economy.
• Edward Soja (born 1941), noted for his work on regional development, planning and governance, along with coining the terms synekism and postmetropolis.
• Doreen Massey (born 1944), key scholar in the space and places of globalization and its pluralities, winner of the Vautrin Lud Prize.
• Michael Watts, Class of 1963 Professor of Geography and Development Studies, University of California, Berkeley
• Nigel Thrift (born 1949), developer of non-representational theory.
• Derek Gregory (born 1951), famous for writing on the Israeli, U.S. and UK actions in the Middle East after 9/11, influenced by Edward Said and has contributed work on imagined geographies.
• Cindi Katz (born 1954), who writes on social reproduction and the production of space. Writing on children's geographies, place and nature, everyday life and security.
• Gillian Rose (born 1962), most famous for her critique: Feminism & Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge (1993), which was one of the first moves towards a development of feminist geography.

Journals

As with all social sciences, human geographers publish research and other written work in a variety of academic journals. Whilst human geography is interdisciplinary, there are a number of journals with as human geography focus.

These include:

• ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies
• Antipode
• Area
• Economic geography
• Environment and Planning
• Geografiska Annaler
• Global Environmental Change|Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions
• Migration Letters
• Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
• Geoforum
• Progress in Human Geography

See also

• Geography of food
• Integrated geography
• Political ecology

External links

• Worldmapper - Mapping project using social data sets
• Online Human Geography Resource - Help and advice on human geography matters
• Online AP Human Geography Resource - Human Geography vocabulary and map database