Original mapping byJohn Snow showing theclusters ofcholera cases in the Londonepidemic of 1854, which is a classical case of using human geography
Human geography, also known asanthropogeography, is a branch ofgeography that studies how people interact with places. It focuses on the spatial relationships betweenhuman communities, cultures, economies, people, lifestyle and their environments. Examples include patterns likeurban sprawl andurban redevelopment.[1] It looks at how social interactions connect with the environment using bothqualitative (descriptive) andquantitative (numerical) methods.[2][3] This multidisciplinary field draws from sociology, anthropology, economics, and environmental science, helping build a more complete understanding of how human activity shapes the spaces we live in.[4]
TheNational Geographic Society was founded in the United States in 1888 and began publication of theNational Geographic magazine which became, and continues to be, a great popularizer of geographic information. The society has long supported geographic research and education on geographical topics.
The Association of American Geographers was founded in 1904 and was renamed theAmerican Association of Geographers in 2016 to better reflect the increasingly international character of its membership.
One of the first examples of geographic methods being used for purposes other than to describe and theorize the physical properties of the earth isJohn Snow's map of the1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak. Though Snow was primarily aphysician and a pioneer ofepidemiology rather than a geographer, his map is probably one of the earliest examples ofhealth geography.
The now fairly distinct differences between the subfields of physical and human geography developed at a later date. The connection between both physical and human properties of geography is most apparent in the theory ofenvironmental determinism, made popular in the 19th century byCarl Ritter and others, and has close links to the field ofevolutionary biology of the time. Environmental determinism is the theory that people's physical, mental and moral habits are directly due to the influence of their natural environment. However, by the mid-19th century, environmental determinism was under attack for lacking methodological rigor associated with modern science, and later as a means to justifyracism andimperialism.
A similar concern with both human and physical aspects is apparent during the later 19th and first half of the 20th centuries focused onregional geography. The goal of regional geography, through something known asregionalisation, was to delineate space into regions and then understand and describe the unique characteristics of each region through both human and physical aspects. With links topossibilism andcultural ecology some of the same notions of causal effect of the environment on society and culture remain with environmental determinism.
By the 1960s, however, thequantitative revolution led to strong criticism of regional geography. Due to a perceived lack of scientific rigor in an overly descriptive nature of the discipline, and a continued separation of geography from its two subfields of physical and human geography and fromgeology, geographers in the mid-20th century began to apply statistical and mathematical models in order to solve spatial problems.[1] Much of the development during the quantitative revolution is now apparent in the use ofgeographic information systems; the use of statistics, spatial modeling, and positivist approaches are still important to many branches of human geography. Well-known geographers from this period areFred K. Schaefer,Waldo Tobler,William Garrison,Peter Haggett,Richard J. Chorley,William Bunge, andTorsten Hägerstrand.
From the 1970s, a number of critiques of the positivism now associated with geography emerged. Known under the term 'critical geography,' these critiques signaled another turning point in the discipline.Behavioral geography emerged for some time as a means to understand how people made perceived spaces and places and made locational decisions. The more influential 'radical geography' emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. It draws heavily onMarxist theory and techniques and is associated with geographers such asDavid Harvey andRichard Peet. Radical geographers seek to say meaningful things about problems recognized through quantitative methods,[7] provide explanations rather than descriptions, put forward alternatives and solutions, and be politically engaged,[8] rather than using the detachment associated with positivists. (The detachment andobjectivity of the quantitative revolution was itself critiqued by radical geographers as being a tool of capital). Radical geography and the links to Marxism and related theories remain an important part of contemporary human geography (See:Antipode). Critical geography also saw the introduction of 'humanistic geography', associated with the work ofYi-Fu Tuan, which pushed for a much morequalitative approach in methodology.
Cultural geography is the study of cultural products and norms – their variation across spaces and places, as well as their relations. It focuses on describing and analyzing the ways language, religion, economy, government, and other cultural phenomena vary or remain constant from one place to another and on explaining how humans function spatially.[9]
Development geography is the study of the Earth's geography with reference to thestandard of living and thequality of life of its human inhabitants, study of the location, distribution and spatial organization of economic activities, across the Earth. The subject matter investigated is strongly influenced by the researcher's methodological approach.
Emotional geography is a subtopic within human geography, more specificallycultural geography, which applies psychological theories ofemotion. It is aninterdisciplinary field relating emotions,geographic places and their contextual environments. These subjective feelings can be applied to individual and social contexts. Emotional geography specifically focuses on how human emotions relate to, or affect, theenvironment around them.[10][11][12][13][14]
Firstly, there is a difference between emotional andaffectual geography and they have their respective geographical sub-fields. The former refers to theories of expressed feelings and the social constructs of expressed feelings which can be generalisable and understood globally. The latter refers to theories underlying inexpressible feelings that are independent, embodied, and hard to understand.[15]
Emotional geography approaches geographical concepts and research from an expressed and generalisable perspective. Historically, emotions have an ultimate adaptive significance by accentuating a non-verbal form of communication that is universal.[16] This dates back toDarwin's theory of emotion, which explains the evolutionary development of expressed emotion. This aids individual and societal relationships as there is the presence of emotional communication. For example, when studying social phenomena, individuals' emotions can connect and create a social emotion which can define the event happening.[17]
So, emotional geography applies emotional theory to places, emphasising the individual and social presence of it.
Thegeography of food is a field of human geography. It focuses on patterns offood production andconsumption on the local to global scale. Tracing these complex patterns helps geographers understand the unequal relationships between developed anddeveloping countries in relation to the innovation, production, transportation, retail and consumption of food. It is also a topic that is becoming increasingly charged in the public eye. The movement to reconnect the 'space' and 'place' in thefood system is growing, spearheaded by the research of geographers.
Medical orhealth geography is the application of geographical information, perspectives, and methods to the study ofhealth,disease, andhealth care. Health geography deals with the spatial relations and patterns between people and the environment. This is a sub-discipline of human geography, researching how and why diseases are spread and contained.[18]
Historical geography is the study of the human, physical, fictional, theoretical, and "real" geographies of the past. Historical geography studies a wide variety of issues and topics. A common theme is the study of the geographies of the past and how a place or region changes through time. Many historical geographers study geographical patterns through time, including how people have interacted with their environment, and created the cultural landscape.
Population geography is the study of ways in which spatial variations in the distribution, composition, migration, and growth of populations are related to their environment or location.
Urban geography is the study of cities, towns, and other areas of relatively dense settlement. Two main interests are site (how a settlement is positioned relative to the physical environment) and situation (how a settlement is positioned relative to other settlements). Another area of interest is the internal organization of urban areas with regard to different demographic groups and the layout of infrastructure. This subdiscipline also draws on ideas from other branches of Human Geography to see their involvement in the processes and patterns evident in anurban area.[19][20]Subfields include:Economic geography,Population geography, andSettlement geography. These are clearly not the only subfields that could be used to assist in the study ofUrban geography, but they are some major players.[19]
Within each of the subfields, various philosophical approaches can be used in research; therefore, an urban geographer could be a Feminist or Marxist geographer, etc.
^abJohnston, Ron (2000). "Human Geography". In Johnston, Ron; Gregory, Derek; Pratt, Geraldine; et al. (eds.).The Dictionary of Human Geography. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 353–360.
^Russel, Polly."Human Geography".British Library. Archived fromthe original on 26 February 2017. Retrieved26 February 2017.
^Reinhold, Dennie (7 February 2017)."Human Geography".www.geog.uni-heidelberg.de.Archived from the original on 23 September 2024. Retrieved23 February 2017.
^Rubenstein, James M. (2020).Cultural Landscape, The: An Introduction to Human Geography (13th ed.). Pearson.ISBN9780135729625.
^Royal Geographical Society."History".Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved9 March 2011.
^Jordan-Bychkov, Terry G.; Domosh, Mona; Rowntree, Lester (1994).The human mosaic: a thematic introduction to cultural geography. New York: HarperCollinsCollegePublishers.ISBN978-0-06-500731-2.
^Kearney, Amanda (March 2009). "Homeland Emotion: An Emotional Geography of Heritage and Homeland".International Journal of Heritage Studies.15 (2–3):209–222.doi:10.1080/13527250902890746.
^Bradley, John J.; Kearney, Amanda (2009). "Manankurra: What's in a name? Placenames and emotional geographies". In Koch, Harold; Hercus, Luise (eds.).Aboriginal Placenames. Naming and re-naming the Australian landscape. pp. 463–480.doi:10.22459/AP.10.2009.19.ISBN978-1-921666-08-7.
Daniels, Peter; Bradshaw, Michael; Shaw, Denis J.B.; Sidaway, James D. (2004).An Introduction to Human Geography: issues for the 21st century (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall.ISBN978-0-13-121766-9.
Flowerdew, Robin; Martin, David (2005).Methods in human geography: a guide for students doing a research project (2nd ed.). Harlow: Prentice Hall.ISBN978-0-582-47321-8.
Gregory, Derek; Martin, Ron G.; Smith, Graham (1994).Human geography: society, space and social science. Basingstoke: Macmillan.ISBN978-0-333-45251-6.
Johnston, R.J. (1979).Geography and Geographers. Anglo-American Human Geography since 1945. Edward Arnold, London.
Johnston, R.J. (2009).The Dictionary of Human Geography (5th ed.). Blackwell Publishers, London.
Johnston, R.J (2002).Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World. Blackwell Publishers, London.
Moseley, William W.; Lanegran, David A.; Pandit, Kavita (2007).The Introductory Reader in Human Geography: Contemporary Debates and Classic Writings. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Limited.ISBN978-1-4051-4922-8.
Soja, Edward W. (1989).Postmodern geographies : the reassertion of space in critical social theory. London: Verso.ISBN0-86091-225-6.OCLC18190662.
