Peopling human geography

From Geography

In the humanistic approach of geography, humans and all their complexity are seen as the centre stage of human geography. Many approaches before the humanistic geography had much more a ‘peopleless’ character. According to humanists the world is nothing but the sum of human experiences. We have no access to this world by any other way than the resources of our minds. One could distinguish two components of this ‘peopling’ of human geography. The first one is the recognizing of the humanity of the geographer himself: he has to be aware of the face that he is part of his own research field. The second component is the recognizing of the humanity of people that is studied by the geographer, so different people or communities in the ‘real world’. We are interpreting ánd shaping our environment and therefore human geography. New questions appear parallel with this new approach, such as how we come to know or why we act the way we do. Central is how people relate to their environment, to specific ‘places’. We can relate ourselves to places in an, for example, emotional, political or practical way. The geographer can’t have access to the truth behind peoples lives and their relation to their environment. He can only give a describtion of their lives with as much details as possible, but these discribtions still are only fictions.

References

Cloke, P., Philo, C. & Sadler, D. (1991). Approaching human geography: an introduction to contemporary theoretical debates [Electronic version]. Accessed on 20 October 2012.

Page created by Rosalie Koen on 25 October 2012.