Approaches in human geography
How the relationship between people and environment has been studied.
The essentials
The way geographers have understood the people–environment relationship has changed over time. In early stages, when technology was simple, human societies depended heavily on nature and followed its dictates. This view, in which the physical environment controls human life, is called environmental determinism, and the process is called the naturalisation of humans.
As people developed better technology, they began to modify nature and create a cultural landscape. Fields, cities, roads and industries became the imprints of human activity. This view, that nature offers opportunities and humans choose among them, is called possibilism, and the process is the humanisation of nature.
Griffith Taylor proposed neo-determinism, also called "stop and go determinism". Like traffic lights, nature allows development in some directions and signals a halt in others. Humans can modify nature, but only within limits, and ignoring these limits leads to problems such as pollution and climate change.
Key points
- Early colonial period: exploration and description; imperial and trade interests encouraged travel accounts and descriptions of new lands.
- Later colonial period: regional analysis, describing all aspects of a region in detail.
- Inter-war period (1930s): areal differentiation, explaining how and why one region differs from another.
- Late 1950s to late 1960s: spatial organisation, using computers and statistical tools (quantitative revolution).
- 1970s: humanistic school (role of human awareness and agency), radical school (Marxian ideas, causes of poverty and inequality) and behavioural school (lived experience and perception).
- 1990s: post-modernism, questioning grand generalisations and stressing local context.
Exam tips
Match each approach with its time period and thinker. Possibilism is associated with Vidal de la Blache; neo-determinism with Griffith Taylor.
Common mistakes
Do not confuse the radical school (Marxian, focused on inequality) with the behavioural school (focused on perception and lived experience).