Constructionism

From Geography

Constructionism is a postmodern method. The basic assumption of construtionism is that there's nothing like the objective truth. Human observe with a subjective view. 'All elements of the taken-for-real worlds are constituted on the basis of intersubjective constituting processes'(Werlen, 1981). This means that every part of the social product is created by human practices, who make use of their meaningful constituting processes.

Constructionists see the reality as a social product. We built social reality with social actions and give meaning to that. Humans are acting in a framework. An import one is language. With language the world around is been described and make constructions of the thruth.

The realization that reality is a social product made by subjects, encouraged the process of deconstruction of social products. Deconstructing is to subdivide the social reality in categories. The second step is for example to categories an author in terms of a class, culture, race and gender. (Johnston, Gregory, Pratt and Watts, 2000)

Sources

• Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D., Pratt, G. Watts, M., The dictionary of Human Geography, ( Blackwell Publishing, Oxford 4th edition 2000)

• Werlen, B., Everyday Regionalizations, (Rriedrich-Schiller University, Elsevier 1981)