Paul Vidal de la Blache

From Geography

Revision as of 12:47, 22 October 2010

Paul Vidal de la Blanche is a French geographer who was born in 1845 in Pezenas and died in 1918. He traveled a lot and was highly interested in the geographical situation of the Elzas and Lotharingen. His thorough knowledge about this specific region ensured that he published ‘La France de L’ Est’ in 1871. In 1898 Paul Vidal la Blanche was appointed professor at the University of Sorbonne where he lectured until his death.

Geographers at that time were occupied with the diverse forms of adaptations to the world. The focus of the geographers was mainly on issues of demography. Differences in environment didn’t answer question on why population numbers would vary from place to place. Next to differences in environment Paul Vidal de la Blanche introduced two other resource statements, the social factor and the mobility factor. Paul Vidal de la Blanche focused specifically on the social factor or better said the relation between people en environment.

The central concept that he used is genre de vie. This concept includes the set of techniques, traditions, social organization, values and standards necessary to acquire an existence in a given area. The social system created by a group of people are closely related to the methods that are developed to adapt and cultivate the environment.

Possibilism

Vidal de la Blanche spoke and reflected on the possibilities that environments offers. This implies that the physical environment is passive and the active agent is at liberty to choose between a wide range of possibilities. Choice is central.

Sources:

http://www.travel-university.org/general/geography/history/determinism-possibilism.html Retrieved October 20, 2010.

Paul Vidal de La Blache. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 20, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/627886/Paul-Vidal-de-la-Blache

Made by: Ingram Smit s4091841 & Henkjan van Maanen s (assigment 6)