Humanistic Geography
From Geography
This theory was initially formed part of Behavioural Geography but fundamentally disagreed with the use of quantitative methods in assessing human behaviour and thoughts in favour of qualitative analysis. Instead of the quantitative approach to human geography, the objective of the humanistic approach is 'bringing human being in all of their complexity to the centre-stage of human geography'. In other words, the humanistic approach is tries to 'people' the human geography by putting the human agency in the centre of its research. (Cloke, Philo & Sadler, 1991 Derek Gregory offers us the following difinition:
An approach in human geography distinguished by the central and active role it gives to human awareness and human agency, human consciousness and creativity; at once an attempt at understanding meaning, value and human significance of life event ( Anne Buttimer, 1979) and an expansive view of what the human person is and can do (Yi-Fu Tuan, 1976).
Peter R. Gould was one of the geographers who criticized the individual approach of Human Geography. Gould addressed in the sentence below that the focus on human actions in this discipline was increasingly on individuals rather than on aggregates. At that time (1976) His question was a form of critique which points at the difficulty to analyse individuals. Geographers were mainly focus on groups of many people instead of individuals.
Contributors
- page created by Paul van den Hogen --PaulHogen 15:39, 24 September 2012
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