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Geographical Research, 2017
The physical-human dichotomy in geography is long standing, revolving around the topics studied and outlooks adopted by the two groups of geographers. Three reasons are identified for its continuation—the present structure of academic geography , constrained interactions between physical and human geographers, and their publication strategies. Critics suggest that physical and human geography have become divergent strains because the physical environment has been accorded little relevance in human geographic studies, also putting forward the failure of physical geographers to integrate the human influence on physical processes and neglecting space in their studies. Citing examples, this paper argues that physical and human geography influence each other. It also demonstrates that physical geographers have sufficiently considered both space and time, and even space-time, through the concepts of scale and ergodicity. Some measures have been proposed to resuscitate the links between these two branches. These are reconnecting university and school geography, merging departments, teaching courses on geographical philosophies and theory building, engaging in integrative discourses, innovative classroom strategies , joint fieldwork, using geoinformatics, and conducting collaborative research. The paper concludes that physical and human geographers must communicate with each other more and engage in cross-disciplinary studies. Otherwise, they might undermine their responsibilities as geographers and spatial thinkers/analysts.
Publications in the field of history and philosophy of geography have shown increasing vibrancy and consistent alignments around some key foci. These are, first, a renewed engagement with biographies and autobiographies , which is part of wider rediscoveries of individuals as concrete actors in the construction of knowledge. Second, a draw towards interdisciplinarity in reassessing practices such as exploration, mapping and publishing, in connection with broader trends in intellectual history. Third, a continuing interest in topics coming from the 'margins' of mainstream Anglophone scholarship.
GeoJournal
This article introduces the commentaries and rejoinders collated in this collection about the longevity and contemporary relevance of two landmark textbooks in human geography: Geography and Geographers and Political Geography. After putting the emergence of both books in their historical context we discuss their meandering route through the development of geographical thought since. Reflecting on the commentaries and the rejoinders, the impossibility of writing a contemporary textbook with even a veneer of comprehensiveness takes centre stage. Resultanly we debate the future of the geography textbook and what strategies can be surmised to brigde the increasingly self-referential siloes in geographical thought. First appearing within 6 years of each other, both Geography and Geographers: Anglo-American Human Geography since 1945 (1979) and Political Geography: World-Economy, Nation-State and Locality (1985) have each since gained a co-author and each are now in a seventh edition. The trajectories of both books trace, reflect and sometimes collide with the changing tides of the social world and the way that world is represented in geographical scholarship. Making these traces, reflections and collusions visible says much more than an assessment of the continued value of two well-established textbooks. It likely reveals features of the wider state of contemporary geography. Both books first appeared when there were relatively few competing titles, so they quickly found niches. There have since been many more alternative textbooks, edited collections, dictionaries, enclyclopedia's that guide readers to the domains of political geography and the history of geography. In subsequent edtions, Political Geography and Geography and Geographers came to represent one possible flavour among peers. The essays that follow arise from a panel held on 29 August 2019, at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) in London. We took advantage of the fact that both Ron Johnston and Peter Taylor were able to attend the conference to stage a discussion about the trajectory (past, present and future) of their two landmark textbooks. The panellists and the essays they wrote embody a range of backgrounds, career
This introduction to the special issue Reflections on Histories and Philosophies of Geography discusses the context and content of nineteen articles written to mark the fortieth anniversary of the History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group (HPGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGSIBG). The group was founded in 1981, two years after the early career researchers who set up the group, Richard T. Harrison and David N. Livingstone, published jointly their first critical interventions in support of human geography's paradigmatic shift away from positivism, based on an early form of social constructivist argumentation. We argue that the subsequent proliferation of epistemic pluralism, which is discussed in the contributions to this special issue and has characterised the activities organised by the HPGRG, exemplifies the considerable value of three historiographical practices: first, engaging with the history and philosophy of geography collectively in one research group; second, situating methodologies within the history and philosophy of geography; and third, critically interrogating the discipline's evolving geographical knowledges, professional practices, and material cultures from different authorial positionalities.
Geography's Contested Stories: Changing States-of-the-Art
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 1998
Geography lies at the heart of scholarly traditions in many world civilisations, inviting enquiry into the nature of the universe and the dynamics of the earth, prompting exploration and adventure, the naming and claiming of territory, and theories about relationships between human societies and their environments. As an academic discipline and a formal course in universities and schools, geography has acquired other histories, few uncontested. During its disciplinary period, geography has continued to mirror the¯uctuating fortunes of nations and empires,`®tting' itself within nationally de®ned structures of pedagogy and research, while remaining attuned to changing international trends of scienti®c thought and practice. The IGU Commission on the History of Geographical Thought has in recent years explored a variety of geographical knowledges ± academic (scienti®c), of®cial (applied), and popular (folk) ± probing their origins, modes of articulation, and implications for the construction of images: of self and the other, of home place and other's space, and of nature, gender, culture and environmental concern. It has also opened enquiry to a wide cross-cultural range of voices, thereby promoting better communication and mutual understanding among geographers throughout the world