Human Geography - Nature and Scope Flashcards
(18 cards)
“Geography as a field of study is integrative, empirical and practical”. Justify.
- Geography as a field of study is integrative, empirical and pratical.
- Geography is considered integrative because it combines knowledge from both natural sciences (such as climatology, geology, and biology) and social sciences (such as sociology, economics, and political science) to understand complex human–environment relationships.
- For example, the study of settlements, involves understanding both physical factors like terrain and climate, and human factors such as population, culture, and economy.
- Geography is considered empirical because it relies on real-world observations, field studies, and data to understand spatial patterns.
- Tools like maps, census data, and field surveys are used to analyze real-life patterns like population growth, migration, or land use.
- Geography is also considered practical because it applies theoretical understanding to solve real-world problems such as planning settlements, managing disasters, or developing transport networks.
What are the 2 major components of the Earth?
The two major components of the Earth are
- Nature
- Life forms
What is the core concern of Geography?
The core concern of Geography as a discipline is to understand the earth as a home of human beings and to study all those elements which sustain them.
What is nomothetic and idiographic?
Nomothetic : law making/theorising
idiographic : descriptive
Why is the dichotomy between physical and human not a valid one?
Because nature and human are inseperable elements and should be seen holistically.
Give the definitions of Human Geography by
Ratzel
Ellen C. Semple
Paul Vidal de la blache.
- Ratzel : Human geography is the synthetic study of relationship between human societies and earth’s surface.
(synthesis has been emphasisd) - Ellen C. Semple : Human geography is the study of the changing relationship between the unresting man and the unstable earth.
(dynamism in the relationship is the keyword) - Paul Vidal de la Blache : Conception resulting from a more synthetic knowledge of the physicla laws governing our earth and of the relations between the living beings which inhabit it.
(human geography offers a new conception of the interrelationships between earth and human beings.)
What does human geography study?
Human geography studies the inter relationship between the physical environment and the socio cultural enviornment created by human beings through mutual interaction with each other.
What are the elements of the physical environment?
Landforms, soils, climate, water, natural vegetation and diverse flora and fauna.
Explain environmental determinism.
- In the early states of their interactions with their natural environment, human beings were greatly infleunced by it.
- They adapted to the dictates of nature.
- This is so because the level of technology was very low and the stage of human social development was also primitive.
- This type of interaction between primitive human society and strong forces of nature was termed as environmental determinism. - In all these primitive societies, nature was a powerful force, worshipped, revered and conserved.
- There is a direct dependence of human beings on nature for resources which sustain them.
- The physical environement for such societies becomes the ‘Mother Nature’.
What does technology indicate?
- Technology indicates the level of cultural development of society.
- Human beings were able to develop technology after they developed better understanding of natural laws.
- For example, the understanding of concepts of friction and heat helped us discover fire. Understanding of the secrets of DNA and genetics enabled us to conquer many diseases. We use laws of aerodynamics to develop faster planes.
What is possibilism?
- With social and cultural development, humans develop better and more efficient technology.
- They move from a state of necessity to a state of freedom.
- They create possibilities with the resources obtained from the environment.
- The human activities create cultural landscape.
-The imprints of human activities are created everywhere: health resorts on highlands, huge urban sprawls, fields, orchards and pastures in plains and rolling hills, port on the coasts, oceanic routes and satellites in the space. - Nature provides opportunities and human being makes use of these and slowly nature gets humanised and starts bearing the imprints of human endeavour.
- Early scholars termed this as possibilism.
What is Neodeterminism? Explain using traffic light as example. Who introduced it and what is the hindi name for it?
- A geographer, Griffith Taylor introduced a concept which reflects a middle path (Madhyam Marg) between the two ideas of environmental determinism and possibilism.
- He termed it as Neodeterminism or stop and go determinism.
- Taking the concept of traffic lights, which are used to regulate traffic on the cross roads. Red light means ‘stop’, amber light provides a gap between red and green lights ‘to get set’ and green light means ‘go’.
- The concept shows that neither is there a situation of absolute necessity (environmental determinism) nor is there a situation of absolute freedom (possibilism).
- It means that humans can conquer nature by obeying it.
- They have to respond to the red signals and can proceed in their pursuits when nature permits the modifications.
- Possibilities can be created within the limits which do not damage the environment and there is no free run without accidents.
- The free run which the developed economies attempted to take has already resulted in the green house effect, ozone layer depletion, global warming, receding glaciers and degrading lands. The neo-determinism conceptually attempts to bring a balance nullifying the ‘either’ ‘or’ dichotomy.
What is welfare school of thought?
- Welfare or humanistic school of thought in human geogrpahy was mainly concerned with the different aspects of social well-being of the people.
- These included aspects such as housing, health and education.
What is radical school of thought?
- Radical school of thought employed Marxian theory to explain the basic cause of poverty, deprivation and social inequality.
- Contemporary social problems were related to the development of capitalism.
What is behavioural school of thought?
- Behavioural school of thought laid great emphasis on lived experience and also on the perception of space by social categories based on ethnicity, race and religion, etc.
There will be certain time periods provided. Provide the apraoch as well as the broad features for each of these time periods.
1. Early Colonial Period
2. Later Colonial Period
3. 1930s though the inter-war period
- Early Colonial period.
Approach : Exploration and description.
Broad features : Imperial and trade interests prompted the discovery and exploration of new areas. An encyclopaedic description and the area formed an important aspect of the geographer’s account. - Later Colonial period.
Approach : Regional analysis.
Broad features : Elaborate description of all aspects of a region were undertaken. The idea was that all the regions were part of a whole i.e., the earth, so understanding the parts in totality would lead to an understanding of the whole. - 1930s through the inter-war period
Approach : Areal differentiation
Broad features : The focus was on identifying the uniqueness of any regions and understanding how and why it was different from others.
There will be certain time periods provided. Provide the apraoch as well as the broad features for each of these time periods.
1. Late 1950s to the late 1960s
2. 1970s
8. 1990s
- Late 1950s to the late 1960s
Approach : Spatial organisation
Broad features : Marked by the use of computers and sophisticated statistical tools. Laws of physics were often applied to map and analyse human phenomena. This ohase was called quantitative reovolution. The main objective was too identify mappable patterns for different human activities. - 1970s
Approach : Emergence of humanistic, radical and behavioural schools.
Broad features : Discontentment with the quantitative revolution and its dehumanised manner of doing geography led to the emergence of 3 new schools of thought og human geography in the 1970s. Human geography was made more relevant to the socio-political reality by the emergence of these schools of thought. Consult the boc below to know a little bit more about these schools of thought. - 1990s
Approach : Post-modernism in geography
Broad features : The grand generalisations and the applicability of universal theories to explain the human conditions was questioned, The importance of understanding each local context in its own right was emphasised.
What was quantitative revolution?
The phase from the late 1950s till the late 1960s which was marked by the use of computers and sophisticated statistical tools, where laws of physics were often applied to map and analyse human phenomena was called the quantitative revolution.
