Sauer's Berkeley School Legacy: Foundation for an Emergent Environmental Geography?

Sauer’s Berkeley School Legacy 51 Sauer’s Berkeley School Legacy: Foundation for an Emergent Environmental Geography? Kent Mathewson Introduction Over the past decade the term “environmental geography” has begun to ap- pear as non-specific indicator and descriptor of differing demands and con- ditions in current disciplinary geography. Perhaps most significantly, it is being used to refer to the site or arena wherein human and physical geography can be conjoined, or ideally, integrated. In turn, this emergent field or sub-disciplinary focus is being both propelled and promoted by a range of factors. At one end of a continuum, there are the ongoing and accelerating series of global physical environmental crises that call attention to geography’s potential utility in addressing these problems in practical ways. At the other end, post-positivist and post-structuralist ways of thinking about geography’s relations to environmental issues and questions has opened up multiple micro-sites of theoretical and practical engagement that question the traditional human-physical geographic dichotomies on both epistemo- logical and ontological grounds. Between these differing incubators, there is the middle range where one might expect an emergent environmental ge- Louisiana State University. Department of Geography and Anthropology. 51 52 Pensando la Geografía ambiental ography to take form. So far, however, neither the shape nor the content are very evident, though a partial outline can be projected. Recently, Bocco (n.d.) has undertaken an extensive review of the literature to map this emergence. What he found after searching literally hundreds of sources in doz- ens of publications, both in and outside of geography, was that there has been only sporadic reference to environmental geography to date, though several authors viewed it as a potential unifying coverlet or descriptor for overlapping sectors of human and physical geography, and a few wrote as if it were an already established subfield of geography. In this paper I will explore several questions or aspects of environmental geography’s (henceforth EG) emergence. First, I will attempt to sketch the contours of current use of the term “environmental geography.” The purpose of this will be to identify nodes of interest and activity that can be ex- cavated to plot prior trajectories within geography’s disciplinary history. I realize that part of the current emphases on, and interest in, an EG draws on sources and impetuses outside of geography. But, to keep this study within manageable bounds, the confines of disciplinary geography provides a use- ful perimeter. Thus, I’m more interested in tracing EG’s paths of emergence, rather than pointing to future directions or destinations. Second, I will focus in detail on what I consider to be EG’s principle prior pathway – the so-called “man-land” tradition in human geography. Over the past century, Carl Sauer and his Berkeley school associates represents the largest and perhaps most influential component of this tradition. In turn, I argue that their collective work, the majority of which was done in Latin America, constitutes a coher- ent exemplar of one variety of EG, though for particular reasons discussed below, assiduously avoiding the term “environmental.” Third, I look at some contemporary work in human-environment geography that has groundings in the older Berkeley work, but reflects engagement with current issues and theoretical directions, and presents possible examples of an already emergent EG. Finally, I call attention to some of the deeper roots of an emergent EG, ones that contemporary environmental geographers should take into ac- count, and perhaps explore. Sauer’s Berkeley School Legacy 53 Environmental Geography’s Current Terrain Until very recently, the term “environmental geography” has appeared spo- radically in the geographical literature (Bocco & Urquijo, 2010), but without solid groundings or clear contours. In a sense it is like a will-o-the-wisp or fuego fatuo, the mysteriously ignitable concentrations of swamp gases that in folklore are often said to both illuminate and misdirect travelers moving through wetland terrains. Compounding the elusive quality of the term, is the recognition for most geographers that “environmental geography” bor- ders on redundancy. While not all geographers agree that either the “natural environment,” or the “human environment,” or increasingly a hybrid of the two, constitutes the core subject of the discipline, many would agree that a “non-environmental” geography is an oxymoron. Moreover, it is my impres- sion that nearly all physical geographers put “the environment” at the core of their concerns, and an increasing number of human geographers do as well. With the eclipse, if not complete collapse of the quantitative revolution and the passing of the generation that believed in geography as the science of space and spatial relations, new space has opened up for geography’s environmental perspectives and approaches. But the monism and parsimony that guided the spatial analysts’ search for methodological unity and sim- plicity is in marked contrast to the pluralistic flowering of multiple stand- points and theoretical approaches that oversee this new land rush. This is made abundantly clear in the recent collection of edited essays entitled A Companion to Environmental Geography (Castree et al. 2009). This collection offers by far the most complete treatment and discussion of EG as con- cept and as a covering term for a major domain of geography that I am aware of. As such it is likely to stand out, and to stand as the benchmark reference for the foreseeable future. This is not to say that this disparate collection of essays is complete or even comprehensive, or that it could or should serve as a normative guide for charting a course for EG. It does, however, cover a lot of ground, and provides perhaps a first approximation of the “shape of things to come” as regards EG. It also provides a foil or field from which alternative or additional directions can be proposed and charted. A Companion to Environmental Geography is part of Blackwell’s Com- panion to Geography series, and features thirty-three essays by a range of 54 Pensando la Geografía ambiental geographers. Seven are primarily physical geographers, the rest are human geographers with a wide range of interests and approaches, though most engage various currents of social and critical theory. Two of editors (Noel Castree and David Demeritt) are critical human geographers, one (Diane Liverman) works at the intersections of climate and society, and one (Bruce Rhoads) is a fluvial geomorphologist. Castree, Demeritt, and Liverman are based in the UK, and Rhoads in the US. Seventeen contributors are based in North America, the other twenty in Europe (mostly England) and the An- tipodes. There is no direct Latin American representation, but five of the human geographers are (or have been in the past) primarily Latin American- ists. They draw on their own Latin American research interests to vary- ing degrees in addressing their particular topics. The chapters are divided into four sections: concepts, approaches, practices, and topics, and prefaced with an introductory essay by the four editors. The introductory essay is far from exhaustive. It leaves plenty of room for others to say what EG cur- rently encompasses, and to cast their visions and prescriptions for where EG might be headed. The introductory chapter’s sub-sections deal with three topics: “defining environmental geography,” “environmental geography: unity and difference,” and “environmental geography in the ‘knowledge society’.” The editors’ (Castree et al. 2009: 6) provisional definition of EG is: “any form of geographical inquiry which considers formally some element of society or nature relative to each other.” This is, they admit, an open- ended definition. By design it goes well beyond the notion that EG is simply the interdigitated and overlapping spaces of physical and human geography’s interactions. They see six areas where environmental geographers can claim unity or commonality (Castree et al. 2009: 7-8). First, and foremost “they all study some aspect of society or nature in relation to one another rather than alone.” Second, “they are engaged in discussion about the character, purpose, meaning and proper management of these socio-natural relations.” Third, “the specific knowledge claims are produced largely by professionals who regard it as their job.” Fourth, “this knowledge has the specific qualities of all academic discourse: namely it is derived from disciplined thought and inquiry…[it] is not colloquial, tacit, or everyday.” Fifth, “the claims of environmental geographers are intended to tell us something about the actu- alities of human-environment relations.” Sixth, “environmental geographers Sauer’s Berkeley School Legacy 55 of all stripes are outward-looking. They draw upon (and seek to contribute to) debates in cognate fields in both the social and biophysical sciences, as well as in the humanities.” The introductory chapter’s third section takes up the challenges posed by the shifting roles of today’s universities. His- torically, the post-medieval university in the North Atlantic world fit one of three models: the English, whose aim was to (in)form the “whole person”; the German, geared to pursue pure understanding; and the French, designed serve the national interest. The editors suggest that like its parent discipline,

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