J. Agnew – The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Human Geography

Описание

Contemporary human geography in the English – speaking world is amazingly pluralistic
in terms of its objectives, subject matter, theories, and methods. This is
judged by some as a negative: the fi eld is “ a doughnut with a hole in the middle ”
because there is no agreement about some central theory or method, usually that
preferred by the critic in question. A tendency to laud the most recent and fashionable
ideas is similarly put in a dim light. On a more positive note, it is the very
absence of a disciplining orthodoxy and the openness to fresh thinking that now
makes the fi eld so interesting to a broader audience. Indeed, the fl ow of infl uence
of the fi eld on others has increased as it has developed its own heterodox ideas
about landscape, environment, space, and place rather than engaged in imitating
biology, economics, or whatever other fi eld by adopting their current orthodoxies.
In our view, the reason for this is not hard to fathom. What seems undeniable is
that we all live in a world in which geographic space has been subject to considerable
social, economic, and political reformulation and as a consequence how we
think about it must also change. If Michel Lussault ’ s (2009) adage of De la lutte
des classes à la lutte des places (perhaps best translated as “ from class struggle to
the struggle of how one fi ts into the new global spatiality of places ” ) probably
overstates the increased importance of place – to – place differences in a globalizing
world and the degree to which the basis to many old confl icts has been transcended,
it nevertheless captures the sense that old theoretical frameworks are not necessarily
up to the task of dealing with new “ realities. ” This is the paramount reason for the
growth of new ways of thinking in human geography that also appeal to those in
fi elds like literary studies, sociology, economics, international relations, and cultural
anthropology. But some conventional approaches are also in crisis because collectively
we have become aware of the degree to which established methods of mapping
the world and theorizing about it refl ect political – economic and technological eras that are passing away. There is much discussion, for example, of the “ crisis of cartographic
reason ” (e.g. Harley 1987 ; Farinelli 2009 ) and the unreliability of geographical
fi eldwork (e.g. Gerber and Goh 2000 ; Driver 2000 ). Human Geography
has gone through a veritable renaissance over the past twenty years because its
pluralization signifi es the advent of new ways of thinking about environment, space,
and place that help us “ read ” and engage with the changing world around us and
engage with critiques of previously dominant practice (L é vy 1999 ).
The purpose of this volume is to survey the history and contemporary character
of the fi eld of human geography in the English – speaking world over a fairly long
time period but with a defi nite emphasis on the contemporary. From the outset, we
make no pretense to cover physical geography or contemporary non – English language
human geography, except insofar as they have had direct impacts in this
world. The book is designed to supplement rather than compete with the other
Blackwell Companions addressing such sub – fi elds of human geography as economic,
political, and cultural geography by surveying theoretical trends and substantive
emphases that have infl uenced and shaped all of them. Given this focus, the volume
will give considerable attention to historical context as well as to contemporary
themes. Much of the concentration on “ key concepts, ” “ key thinkers ” and “ key
trends ” in recent publications about the fi eld is missing much if any sense of historical
context by which to judge how the present differs from the past. Indeed, a
celebratory “ presentism ” often prevails in which the “ new ” is valued independently
of either how much it contributes to the collective enterprise or how it fi ts into
longer – term trends. But we also want to avoid merely duplicating within one volume
the sub – fi eld divisions of other Companions and other recent surveys (e.g. Benko
and Strohmayer 2004 ). Thus, beyond chapters that assay the historical legacies of
the fi eld, we provide chapters that have a thematic rather than a sub – fi eld
orientation.
In both nominalist and more substantive registers, present – day human geography
is still worth situating in relation to past efforts at organizing a fi eld as such.
There is still such a thing as the “ geographical tradition ” (Livingstone 1992 ). Much
of what goes for geographic research even now involves some situating or positioning
in relation to forebears or intellectual ancestors, if only to show how much they
have been “ left behind. ” In counterpoint to the tendency to dismiss the past as
irrelevant to current concerns this volume will try to situate present debates and
differences in relation to past ones. Consequently, the book will be divided into
three sections: Foundations , tracing the history of human geography (as defi ned
today) in terms of pre – professional ideas and infl uences from the ancient Greeks
down until the late nineteenth century; The Classics , surveying the signifi cant
German and French as well as British, US, and other “ roots ” of later human geography
and then emphasizing the creation of an academic discipline in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries and the attempts at providing an intellectual
rationale for this initiative; and Contemporary Approaches , highlighting the ways
in which the fi eld is subdivided and how human geography is practiced today by
examining a selection of themes with two different perspectives on each, and the
operations of its practitioners in education and the larger world. In this fi nal section
we do not aim to have authors confront one another but simply offer their own
perspectives on the same theme. The purpose is to emphasize divergent interpretations against the tendency to offer interpretations that suggest a general consensus of
opinion or a uniform account of what has been happening over the past twenty
years or so. We want to show the pluralism of the fi eld at the same time we illustrate
the degree to which recent trends draw on and legitimize themselves by reference
to historic precursors.