Learning As a Geographical Process

FOCUS: LEARNING AS A GEOGRAPHICAL PROCESS Introduction: Learning as a Geographical Process Dragos Simandan Brock University In this introduction to the Focus Section “Learning as a Geographical Process,” I provide a context for the four articles that follow, by means of (1) making explicit the threefold rationale for this initiative; (2) relating this initiative with previous geographical scholarship on the problematic of learning; (3) highlighting the significance of the self-referential character of our work; (4) providing a brief outline of the articles that follow; and (5) pointing out the important fact that both “learning” and “geographical process” constitute semantically rich categories and that relating the two involves a many-to-many type of logical mapping. Key Words: geographical process, learning, many-to-many mapping, self-reference. En esta introduccion´ al tema de “El aprendizaje como un proceso geografico”´ de la Seccion´ Focus contribuyo un contexto para los cuatro artıculos´ que siguen, mediante las siguientes acciones: (1) haciendo explıcita´ la triple racionalidad de esta iniciativa; (2) relacionando la iniciativa con la erudicion´ geografica´ precedente relacionada con la problematica´ del aprendizaje; (3) destacando la significacion´ del caracter´ auto-referencial de nuestro trabajo; (4) suministrando un breve esquema de los artıculos´ de la Seccion;´ y (5) senalando˜ el hecho notable de que tanto “aprendizaje” como “proceso geografico”´ constituyen unas categorıas´ sistematicamente´ ricas y que para relacionarlas entre sı´ se involucra una logica´ cartografica´ del tipo “muchos-a-muchos” [many-to-many]. Palabras clave: proceso geografico,´ aprendizaje, mapeo de muchos-a-muchos, auto-referencia. he rationale for this Focus Section is strumentalist and pluralistic flavor and espouse T threefold. First, by embracing an instru- the implicit belief that there is no one cor- mentalist epistemological viewpoint, we aim to rect way to think about learning. Instead, in explore the potential usefulness of learning as the spirit of pluralistic epistemology (Preston a geographical process as a way of thinking. 2005), we operate from the belief that the best Can we learn something new and interesting way to understand a given topic is to tackle about learning if we think of it as a geograph- it from a diversity of perspectives, each con- ical process? What problems is the learning as ceived as a constellation of epistemic gains and a geographical process perspective particularly losses. By not asking the question that a real- suited to address? Enlightened by looking at ist epistemologist would ask—is learning as a learning in geographical terms, what new phe- geographical process the correct way to think nomena might we get the chance to observe? about learning?—we cast our work as a use- Note that these questions share a distinctly in- ful application of geographical reasoning to the The Professional Geographer, 65(3) 2013, pages 363–368 Copyright C 2013 Crown copyright. Initial submission, June 2011; revised submissions, October and December 2011; final acceptance, December 2011. Published by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. 364 Volume 65, Number 3, August 2013 problematic of learning and not as an imperi- organized this Focus Section. Indeed, it seems alistic disciplinary attempt to turn the study of to me that much of the previous geographi- learning into exclusive geographical territory. cal work on learning shares two less desirable Second, by choosing to dwell on this par- properties: it engages the theme of learning ticular topic, we hope to attack from a new in implicit ways, more as a background for angle the problem of the excessive internal some other interest (for a recent exception see divisiveness and lack of communication among McFarlane 2011), and it usually discusses the the diverse subdisciplines that constitute con- learning of humans and their institutions with- temporary human geography. The work culmi- out pointing out that the very process of nating in this Focus Section started in Septem- learning can be thought of as quintessentially ber 2010, when I began to put together a panel geographical. for the annual meeting of the Association of An illustration of the first property is the American Geographers (AAG) in Seattle. From recent debate in human geography over the the very beginning, I aimed to select a num- centrality of representations (Anderson and ber of distinguished geographers from a variety Harrison 2010). Whereas the conventional of subdisciplinary backgrounds: cultural geog- view emphasizes that we learn by acquiring, raphy, economic geography, geographic infor- creating, and updating mental representations mation systems (GIS), urban geography, po- of the world out there, nonrepresentational litical geography, and so on. It seems to me theorists (Thrift 2008) have challenged this en- that learning is a topic that can play the role trenched perspective, suggesting instead that of connective tissue for the discipline of hu- the world is its own representation, that we get man geography, precisely because it is a central by through being immersed in the world and attribute of what makes us human. By high- dwelling in the middle of things. Put differ- lighting the spatiality of a process that all hu- ently, if a representationalist would argue, like mans engage in—learning—we foreground a Simon (1996), that memory is the environment unifying concern for all human geographers, of thought, a nonrepresentationalist would flip regardless of the particular subdiscipline with things around to claim that the environment which they identify themselves. is the memory of our thought. Even though These last observations bring me to the third I worded this debate to show that it really is rationale for this Focus Section, namely, the de- about how we learn, the fact of the matter is sire to make the problematic of learning truly that the organizing label for it has been repre- central to the concerns of human geographers. sentation(s) or lack thereof and that this explicit The history behind this rationale consists, in focus has obfuscated the underlying theme of my detection, of a discrepancy between the fun- learning. damental role ascribed to learning in the hu- Two illustrations of the second property are man species by philosophers, psychologists, and (1) the earlier scholarship undertaken within comparative biologists and the relatively pe- behavioral geography (including cognitive ge- ripheral place it has occupied on the agenda of ography; for historical overviews of these fields human geographers. One of the chief concerns see Johnston and Sidaway [2004, 139–63]; Gold of the former group of scholars has been with [2009]; and Montello [2009]), and (2) the trying to single out those attributes that most surge of interest about the learning of eco- distinguish our species from the rest (Adler and nomic agents in economic geography (Hudson Rips 2008). Although the debate is far from be- 1999; Bathelt, Malmberg, and Maskell 2004). ing concluded, one of the key ideas springing Behavioral geography is a label used to de- from it is that humans have an ability to learn note, first, a broader intellectual movement that is unprecedented in any other species and highly influential in geography between 1965 that the success of the human race in achieving and 1980 and concerned with the role of ecological dominance can be traced back to that cognitive processes in spatial decision mak- ability. If learning carries such a significant ex- ing and, second, a distinct subdiscipline of planatory power for the human saga, it stands to human geography, incorporating cognitive ge- reason that human geographers should system- ography as one of its foci. Although behav- atically consider it in their research and schol- ioral geography has generated useful research arship. Had this been the case, I would not have on topics such as the learning of geographical Introduction: Learning as a Geographical Process 365 knowledge (Golledge and Stimpson 1997), the The Problem of Self-Reference role of cognitive processes in spatial decision making (Wolpert 1964; Kitchin and Blades That it is hard work to explicitly think of learn- 2002), cognitive maps (Gould and White ing as a geographical process became apparent 1974; Portugali 1996), human perceptions of to me in an ironic kind of way at the AAG natural hazards (Burton, Kates, and White meeting in Seattle. Even though I had been re- 1978), and the relation among geography, flecting on the topic for months, it was only the experience, and imagination (Lowenthal 1961), immediate pressure of finding something intel- it has come under the attack of both humanis- ligent to say in the introduction to the panel tic and radical geographical approaches, which that made me realize in the evening before the has resulted in its “increasing peripherality and panel debate that our discussion bears the in- remnant status” (Gold 2009, 283) and its being teresting characteristic of being self-referential. perceived as a “limited extension of spatial sci- Self-referentiality has long been identified as ence” (Gold 2009, 282). From the standpoint of the most perplexing attribute with which lo- this Focus Section, my main criticism of behav- gicians have had to wrestle and refers to the ioral geography is that it left the processes of curious worlds of thought that open up when learning themselves undertheorized and failed a set of statements refers to itself (Hofstadter to think of them as geographical through and 1980; Adler and Rips 2008). Metaphorically, through. It is one thing to study the learning the image of a dog vainly chasing its own tail is of geographical knowledge (e.g., mental maps, apt to elicit the same kind of intellectual dizzi- navigation, way-finding); it is quite another to ness that accompanies any and every attempt analyze how the process of learning itself is ge- at self-referential reasoning. It occurred to me ographical. Not surprisingly, even some of the that there are two loops of self-referentiality key proponents of the field were led to admit in our discussion of learning as a geographical in retrospect “the conceptual weakness that be- process.

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