Geographia Polonica Vol. 93 No. 4 (2020), Challenges and Opportunities for Human Geography: a Few Remarks
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Geographia Polonica 2020, Volume 93, Issue 4, pp. 525-537 https://doi.org/10.7163/GPol.0184 INSTITUTE OF GEOGRAPHY AND SPATIAL ORGANIZATION POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES www.igipz.pan.pl www.geographiapolonica.pl CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR HUMAN GEOGRAPHY: A FEW REMARKS* Vladimír Ira1,2 • René Matlovič1 1 Institute of Geography Slovak Academy of Sciences Štefánikova 49, 814 73 Bratislava: Slovakia e-mails: [email protected] • [email protected] 2 Department of Geography, Faculty of Education University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice Jeronýmova 10, 371 15 České Budějovice: Czechia e-mail: [email protected] Abstract In the long-term development of human geography we can observe a tendency to combine ideas from an intra- disciplinary debate and those imported from outside the discipline. It is profoundly influenced by a number of impulses from the rapidly changing world. This paper provides a brief survey of challenges for human geography setting them within the context of paradigmatic development and economic, social, cultural, envi- ronmental, political, and technological changes. It briefly focuses on the debates of human geographers what their discipline could or should study in the near future and how it could be done. Part of the paper is devoted to a few reflections of authors from the Visegrad Four countries concentrating attention to further direction of human geography. Human geography is unlikely to be characterised by a mono-paradigm dominance in the next few decades, but a discussion on how to find a common base for the integration of paradigms in ge- ography is likely to continue. Changing hierarchical structures, significant modernization processes, as well as local, regional and global changes influencing space-time behavioural patterns of humans can be expected among the main sources of inspiration for the human geographic research. Key words human geography • challenges • future directions • geographical thought • integration of para- digms • Visegrad Four countries Introduction demarcations are blurred. We have been witnessing many ambivalent tendencies. The contemporary world faces many challeng- The acceleration of technological progress es. It is characterized by the increasing com- * This article is a modified version of the Polish text, which plexity, connectivity and fluidity. Traditional appeared in Przegląd Geograficzny (Ira & Matlovič, 2019). 526 Vladimír Ira • René Matlovič tends to the emergence of the evolutionary identity and autonomy. Geography has been successor of today’s man. Human geography, struggling with this problem since its academ- as a scientific discipline with an ambition ic institutionalization (Matlovič, Matlovičová, to contribute to understanding the current & Nemethyová, 2012). Geography is one evolution of the world, will have to reflect of the sciences with open and permeable these facts. boundaries in relation to other scientific dis- A combination of internalist and externalist ciplines and its position is at the intersection approaches can be applied in assessing the of the defined categories within different greatest challenges that will determine the science classification systems. Geography’s evolution of human geography in the coming mission is to synthesize efforts to converge decades (Maddrell, 2009). The first approach or bridge science, social science and humani- emphasizes the internal aspects of scientific ties. Geography has the ambition to elucidate research and focuses on exploring paradigms, the mechanisms and effects of interdepend- ideas, concepts, methodological procedures ent natural, technical and social processes and rules for validating the results of scientific structuring space-time, as well as to under- research. It therefore responds to the chal- stand the nature of the identity and individu- lenges reflecting on the internal needs of the ality of places at different taxonomic (scale) development of scientific discipline. The sec- levels of a local-global continuum (Matlovič ond approach accentuates the influence & Matlovičová, 2015). of external factors (natural, environmental, This mission represents an extremely com- social, economic, cultural, political, and tech- plicated challenge, as there are ambivalent nological), thus considering science a part integration-disintegration tendencies within of social life (Špelda, 2009). In this sense, the geography. The integration tendency is relat- condition of maintaining the vitality of scientif- ed to the effort of geography to authentically ic discipline is to be able to demonstrate social fulfil its mission of a synthesizing discipline. It is relevance in the context of its heuristic, appli- represented by the search for an integration cation, educational, and moral dimensions platform, dimming concepts or themes. The (Matlovič & Matlovičová, 2012 and 2015). disintegration tendency reflects on the onto- Starting from the outlined conceptual logical and epistemological context. The onto- framework, we will discuss the challenges logical context is represented by the hybrid facing human geography on two levels: the nature of the geography research object, reflection level of internal challenges and the consisting of both material and intangible reflection level of external challenges. This geospheres of inorganic, organic and anthro- categorization has a dichotomous tinge, but pogenic nature. As a result, the specialization at this point we emphasize that in fact, there of geographic research is deepening, resulting is interference from the stimuli of internal in a number of partial subdisciplines (Matlovič, and external provenance. Part of the paper 2006 and 2007). The epistemological context will be devoted to some reflections of authors is represented by a plurality of exploratory from the Visegrad Four countries concen- views that seek to grasp the complex and traiting attention to directions of human hybrid reality, which has led to the creation geographic research. of the multi-paradigmatic nature of geogra- phy (Graves, 1981). Each paradigm makes Challenges affected it possible to explore and analyze only a lim- by the internal development ited range of phenomena, or a limited set of human geography of aspects of reality at the expense of others that it ignores (Drulák, 2009). The greatest challenge not only for human However, the plurality of paradigms raises geography, but also for geography as such the problem of the comparability of the explor- will be to preserve its disciplinary integrity, atory views that are applied in geography. Geographia Polonica 2020, 93, 4, pp. 525-537 Challenges and opportunities for human geography: A few remarks 527 This is because the humanistic methodologi- approaches, and the need to use statistical cal model is infiltrated with values, which methods in critical geography as well (Nayak makes it impossible to apply the principle & Jeffrey, 2011). New impulses were brought of neutrality and objectivity of the researcher by the “big data” phenomenon connected who is backed by proponents of nomothetic with a revolution in social media and mobile geography tending to neopositivism, ana- information and communication technolo- lytic philosophy and philosophy of science. gies. According to Mayer-Schönberger and They promote methodological unification Cukier (2014), this process can be called of geography based on a naturalistic meth- datafication, i.e. the collection of information odological model. On the other hand, geogra- about everything that is happening in the phers inspired by anti-positivist philosophies world. These data represent a great oppor- reject the unrealistic demands for the neutral- tunity for the use in geographic research. ity and objectivity of the researcher and point At the same time, however, they represent to the fundamental limitations of naturalistic a huge challenge with regard to their meth- methodology. Thus, geography, especially ods of processing and the ethics of research. human geography, is represented by coexist- The complexity and comprehensiveness ing and often competing paradigmatic com- of reality examined by geography and the munities. Their members share a conceptual pursuit of its fullest knowledge raises the or taxonomic structure (lexical taxonomy) that question of the compatibility of the differ- keeps their scientific community together ent paradigmatic perspectives, because this while isolating it from other communities effort requires their interconnection (combi- of paradigmatic nature (Kuhn, 1997). In this nation), which results from the idea of para- context, the metageographic discourse in the digmatic complementarism. The challenge late 1980s introduced a plurality of ‘geog- for (human) geography is therefore to find raphies’ instead of the singular ‘geography’, a diminishing epistemology in which several arguing that capturing the complexity of the scientific optics could be productively com- world under study requires many geogra- bined. The main task is to deal with the prob- phies (Hubbard, Kitchin, Bartley, & Fuller, lem of the commensurability of paradigms. 2002). This strategy brings certain risks Paradigmatic complementarism is a compro- because it significantly reinforces the disinte- mise position between the incommensurabil- gration tendencies within the discipline, which ity of paradigms (preferring logical coherence in extreme cases may result in its dissolution. – consistency) on the one hand and eclecti- The present multiparadigmatic character cism (maximizing empirical coverage) on the