Human Geography

Human Geography C. Gibson, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia & 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Human geography is a major subdiscipline within the wider subject field of geography. Traditionally, geography Literally, human geography could be interpreted as the is considered the study of the Earth’s environments and study of the geography of humans: when, where, and how peoples, and the interactions between them. ‘Geography’ humans evolved, developed strategies for survival, and comes from ancient Greek origins (Eratosthenes was the dispersed to other parts of the world. Some within first to use it), literally translating as ‘to write or describe geography would indeed consider such themes important the world’. In classical and Enlightenment geography, to geography. They invite analysis of how humans in- humans and the ‘natural’ world were usually described in habited and related to physical environments, how conjunction, often in a regional fashion, as Europeans humans used (and abused) resources, adapted to different encountered unfamiliar places in exploration and empire. climates, and developed distinct regional cultures. Since the late nineteenth century, this conjoint under- When prominent geographer Halfred Mackinder pre- standing of geography – as describing the natural and sented his ideas on the scope and purpose of geography human world, region by region – has gradually been to the Royal Geographical Society in 1887, this idea of augmented by more precise subdisciplinary pursuits and geography as ‘‘trac[ing] the interaction of man [sic] in identities. The most basic of these describes geography as society and so much of his environment as varies locally’’ consisting two fundamental halves: physical and human proved immensely popular and would shape future in- geography. Physical geography generally means the sci- terpretations. However, for most human geographers in ence of the Earth’s surface, while human geography the current era such questions have fallen from favor usually refers to the study of its peoples, and geo- because of ethical and intellectual concerns (see dis- graphical interpretations of economies, cultural iden- cussion below), while more contemporaneous themes tities, political territories, and societies. Physical have grown popular, firmly on the human side of geog- geographers classify and analyze landforms and eco- raphy. The science of human evolution and geographical systems, explain hydrological, geomorphological, and dispersal has instead become the purview of other dis- coastal processes, and examine problems such as erosion, ciplines such as archeology, paleontology, and pollution, and climatic variability. Human geographers anthropology. analyze population trends, theorize social and cultural Most contemporary academic geographers hold some change, interpret geopolitical conflict, and seek to explain nominal allegiance to either of geography’s ‘halves’ the geography of human economic activities around the (human or physical), although for important intellectual world. How exactly this division of labor came to be is a and philosophical reasons (discussed below) some do most pivotal story of contemporary geography. It is a resist this division and instead prefer to regard geography story about twentieth-century scientific fragmentation, as a disciplinary whole, or insist on troubling the con- and about different theories on the status of humans vis- ceptual distinction between ‘the human’ and ‘nonhuman’ a`-vis nonhuman nature. It is also a more slippery and parts of the world. Some commentators have criticized a difficult story about how academic knowledges are pro- perceived widening of the gulf between geography’s two duced, mutate, and travel (and how this happens in halves. Others see human geography as merely a con- particular places), how knowledges find popularity, fade venient badge for its diverse contents, while still adhering away, or are challenged in time and across space. The to the principle of a wider, umbrella discipline of geog- central division of labor in geography – produced by raphy (including physical geography). Regardless, con- these means over more than a hundred years – has es- temporary human geography has taken on a particular tablished and defined the space within which most character. Human geographers tend to explore social, human geographical practice now occurs. This article is economic, cultural, political, and demographic dimen- an introductory overview of contemporary human sions of human existence, and situate analysis in geo- geography and the stories underlying it. graphical space (conceptualized across and between An outsider could be forgiven for thinking that human scales from the body to the city, nation, and globe). While geography was the study of the existence and distribution diversity defines contemporary human geography, there of humans on Earth – of Homo sapiens as a distinct species. are common questions of geographical scale, causality, 1 2 Human Geography agency and structure, interrelationships and networks, in tens, if not over a hundred, different countries and place and movements. Human geographers are con- languages, with diverse meanings and contexts. Only a cerned with observed distributions and analytical ex- fraction of those stories have been properly documented. planation. They invariably focus on the spatial and, Instead, the reader is recommended to treat this article as whether implicit or explicit, have a great deal to say an entry point, and to explore the subdiscipline’s various about the moral and political dimensions of human trails from it. The author hopes it will become apparent activity. as the reader progresses that the development and dif- This article is structured in anticipation of the more fusion of human geography has been dynamic and con- pertinent questions an outsider might ask of a human text dependent – and amidst significant advances, has geographer: ‘what is human geography?’; ‘when did often been far from straightforward. human geography emerge as a discipline and how has it changed over time?’; ‘what is the character of contemporary human geographical practice?’; and ‘how is it What Is ‘Human Geography’? practiced in different places?’. At the outset it is worth clarifying the approach taken here. Reflecting current Defining human geography is especially difficult because thinking, a single, linear story about canonical develop- of complicating factors like the relationship between ment of ideas in human geography is sought to be human geography and geography (the former to many avoided. Such stories only reinforce the dominant nar- considered a mere subdiscipline of the latter); the rather rative at the expense of less powerful ones, and are in- late professionalization of the discipline; variations in variably Eurocentric. This article also tries, where human geography written in different languages; and the possible, to show that geographical knowledges are pro- difficulty (indeed, sheer dubiousness) of being able to duced by a range of actors in different ways and for identify definitive research questions, sequential para- different audiences. digms, or key thinkers. It is tempting to define a common However, the manner in which such knowledges are ground for human geography’s intellectual core (as produced, and what those knowledges mean, is contin- Hartshorne attempted), and wish to enforce this. Such a gent on the degree of formal academic practice, on the common ground might provide human geography with a political, institutional, and cultural circumstances whence sense of unity. But the reality of how human geography is they came, and on the perspective of the onlooker or practiced simply cannot sustain this. As David Living- interpreter. Certain actors and institutions benefited stone so powerfully put it in The Geographical Tradition (sometimes enormously) from the production of par- (1992: 28), ‘‘The idea that there is some eternal meta- ticular kinds of human geographical knowledges, while physical core to geography independent of historical others suffered. In this article, the author hopes to give circumstances will simply have to go.’’ some sense of the ‘effect’ of human geographical know- Indeed, human geography has not had a linear tra- ledges for people, institutions, and places. jectory of intellectual advances accompanied by more or In short, this article tries to situate human geography less parallel diffusions as the subject was established and in the times and places in which it has been produced. pursued around the world. Human geography has been The author is cognizant that this is one academic’s per- energized and replenished in a more decentered manner spective. This article seeks not to define core agendas, but by multiple authors asking very different questions to provide explanation and context. It necessarily cannot within the same subdisciplinary space. Some, like Alex- do adequate justice to all subthemes, topics, and per- ander Von Humboldt, are seen as forbearers, but others, spectives. Part of the problem is that most of the dis- such as Friedrich Ratzel and Ellsworth Huntingdon are ciplinary histories written in English have come from remembered more for how subsequent geographers dis- Britain and America. This has subsequently given the owned their ideas. Somewhat an exception to this is Paul impression of an Anglo-American axis of academics Vidal de la Blache, who took up the chair of geography at ‘creating’ the history of the discipline

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