Human Geo, Nature, Scope, Determinism, Possiblism & Neo-Determinism Flashcards
What is Human Geography ?
According to F.Ratzel, “Human geography is the synthetic study of relationships between human societies and the earth surface”.
Human geography is science which studies the pattern of spatial distribution of humans on the earth’s surface. It is the study of functional relatioship between human groups and their enviroment on regional basis.
Scope of human geography ?
1] Studies the relationship between the man and nature.
2] It studies the impact of nature on the religion, culture, societies, etc on the humans
3] Impact of man on the nature
Theory of Determinism.
The “Theory of Determinism” AKA The “Theory of Enviromentalism”.
The theory of determinism developed in the ancient times, the pioneers of this theory are Strabo, Aristotle,etc.
The theory of Determinism tells the relationship between the man and enviroment. It treats man as an passive agent and enviroment as active agent.
According to the theory of determinism,” A man is an passive agent and enviroment is the active agent which controls and determines the action and decision making of the humans”.
This theory is based upon the interaction of primitive society and the strong forces of nature. It persisted until the WW1.
Theory of Possibilism
The “Theory of Possibilism” developed as an reaction to the “Theory of Determinism”.
According to the Theory of Possibilism, “ Nature provides possibilities and man utilizes these possibilities according to its culture and level of socio-economic development”.
It opposes the idea that nature is the binding force, rather it says that, nature do set some constraints but culture and society is determined by the social conditions.
Theory of Neo-Determinism
The thoery of Neo-Determinism developed as a reaction to the theories of Determinism and possibilism.
Not all human activity is completely controlled by the environment as environmental determinism believes, nor is all human activity completely free from the laws of the environment as possibilism believes. This is the [middle way] concept between determinism and the possibilism concept, which is known as “Neo-Determinism”.
Human beings can change the environment through various innovations and activities or can do all those things which are not naturally possible in the environment.For example:
Today, by providing the facility of human irrigation and fertilizer, man is cultivating in barren land and even in summer.
According to the theory of Neo-Determinism, Man should work in harmony of nature.
