Perspectives in Human Geography
Perspectives in Human Geography
Perspectives in Human Geography
GEOGRAPHY
Perspectives in Human Geography
1. Division of the geographical area into a region based on the uniqueness and
homogeneity over the space
2. Finding the generic principle of geographical characteristics
3. Study of the region by using different parameter comparison with near
proximate
• Areal Differentiation emphasized the study of the region, but the boundaries of
the region are not static. The demarcation of boundaries is one problem.
• In the age of globalization, boundaries have less meaning, no real region
exists.
• Boundaries of language, beliefs, culture are changing over time.
• It is difficult to do women's empowerment, as each region has a different belief
in the woman.
• Schaefer criticized both AD and exceptionalism in geography. He argued that
AD has made geography a complex subject. He supported the system approach
of geography. Common Model should be developed so that it can be applied
everywhere.
2. Regional synthesis
In one line:
Regional Synthesis =study(spatial, temporal, human)
Some geographers emphasized the importance of the study of contemporary geography, as the
need of people has evolved, as geographers do not want to waste the energy and time to study
historical data.
Because of the following reasons, the study of contemporary geography is important:
Environment role
The human geography school of thought emphasized the role of humans, culture, language,
society, etc, in geography. Under this:
• Give more importance to man and environment relations. In physical geography,
humanly considered passive elements, but in human geography, man is active, passive,
or both. The same applied to the environment also, nature can be active, passive, or both.
• Under this, we study cultural geography, language, demographics, economic growth and
development, model theory related to industry and economic development, social study.
• Environmental Determinism
• Determinism in Human Geography
• Possibilism in Geography
4. Determinism
Determinism (वियवतिाद) in human geography
Determinism in human geography, I will say, is the first perspective in human geography. In
India, we say that our destiny is written by God, we cannot change it.
In the same line, Center idea of determinism are:
• Environments control the course of human action. Human action is not supreme, the
environment decides what people should do. Examples are:
o People flew a safer place after flood, drought, tsunami, etc.
o Climate change is also environmental control over human activities, and now
countries are changing development activities in a sustainable way.
• The difference in human behaviors can be explained by the difference in natural
environments. Examples are:
o Peoples eat rice in the hilly area as they need more energy to climb hill and rice
is easily available in the hilly region. Plain area peoples eat wheat as they need
low energy & wheat can be easily grown in the plains region.
o Tribal people do worship of plant, animal, river, etc, as their livelihood is
dependent on the forest.
Criticism :
Environmental Determinism:
As per Environmental Determinism, Surrounding Environment is the main
deciding factor of human behavior, and differences in human behavior can be
noticed by differences in the environment around the world.
As per an American geographer, Ms. Ellen Churchill Semple in her book "
Influences of Geographical Environment":
Criticism
• Man is not a passive animal, man can create and change the natural
environment. The following are the examples:
o Dam building
o River linking
o Artificial Raining
o Green Revolution
o Hydroculture, Soilless farming
o Greenhouse Agriculture
• There can be two ethnic/ race groups in the same location and the same
climate.
• The same Environment has a different meaning to different people, it is
up to people how they are using it. Examples:
o The locations & Climate of Israel & Jordan is the same, but Israel
is more developed due to innovation and people's attitude wheres
Jordan is lacking.
o Natural & mineral resources are lacking in Japan, however, they
are developed.
o Rich natural resource in Africa, however, they are poor.
7. Possibilism in Geography:
Possibilism(ससससससस ) in Geography
The concept of Possibilism came as a reaction to environmental determinism. In
environment determinism, the human was made as a passive element. Possibilism
theory says the world is full of possibilities, it is up to man how they are using it.
Examples,
• Despite the scarcity of basic natural resources such as water, they innovated
drip irrigation systems and now Israel considered a developed country.
• In India, we are doing rice cultivation in Rajashtan despite having desert
Mr. Febvre opposed the concept of determinism, and give his own concept of
possibilism theory in geography.
As per Febvre 's possibilism concept:
• There are no necessities but everywhere possibilities
• Nature provides many possibilities, and possibilities can be increased through
knowledge, innovation, and technological advancement
• Man is not a passive element, man is the active agent. Man can create, alter,
destroy the environment
• Man is the not product of the environment, man is the product of culture and
the environment
Support of possibilism:
Please refer to the critic section of determinism on the below page:
• Environmental Determinism
• Determinism in Human Geography
Criticism of Possibilism:
• Possibilism has overemphasized the role of culture and civilization. The role of
the environment is neglected, it may lead to environmental loss.
• Will be environmental problems if we act against nature. Examples,
o Climate change due to pollution, Greenhouse gas emission
o Landslide, earthquake due to dam building in a hazardous prone area
o Flood due to silting of the river that is due to mining, deforestation
o Dengue outrage in part of Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana due to
waterlogging around the canal.
• There are not unlimited possibilities in all-region. Possibilities vary from region
to region.
• Possibilities are not economically viable against the environment. For
example, rice cultivation in the rainfed area is possible but not economically
viable
Positivism thought was developed by Auguste Comte. As per Auguste Comte, the
development of social or individual thought happened in three phases:
• Phase 1:
o it is believed that each event is done by God.
• Phase 2:
o Usage of historical fact, Karma philosophy, etc, to validate the event
o Indian believe that because of his/her previous life karma, they suffered
or gained
• Phase 3:
o Research is being done on the finding of event cause.
o The scientific method used such as :
▪ Experience
▪ Inspection
▪ Test
▪ Classification
o To validate the events like:
▪ Day-night
▪ Seasonal changes
▪ Rainfall
▪ Solar and Lunar eclipse
▪ Tsunami, tides, earthquake
Criticism :
The major contribution to the spatial and locational analysis is done by Peter
Haggett. He suggested five-component initially and later added the sixth
component on locational analysis. The following logical sequence
should be while analysis of the region:
Because of the above reasons, Use of the abstract model using the statistical and
mathematical technique in geography to make the subject more objective is
collectively known as the " Quantitative Revolution" in geography.
Quantitative tool
Basic Assumptions in the Quantitative Revolution Model:
• Man is considered a rational element who always tries to maximize the profit
• Man has infinite knowledge
• Space as an isotropic surface
• Exclusion of culture, belief, custom, attitude, traditions, choice, religious
values, social values
• Positivism
• Functionalism
• Schaefer views
• Christaller model
• Weber industrial location theory
• Won Thunen crop intensity model
• Rank size rule
• Migration model gravity
• Central place theory
Limitations of QR
By using these components, we can get the whole picture of migration, we can
see the migration changing pattern by changing the components because each
component of interlinked,
for example:
• Model for city development is not fitted for hill area development and vice versa
• Singapore model of education is not fitted in the Indian education model
• Chinese child policy is not suitable for Europe.
• Chinese development model can not be replicated in India
Schaefer views
Schaefer published an " Exceptionalism in geography: A Methodological Examination ".
In his article:
Mental Map:
• Each person has their own perception of the environment and the same is
dependent on his moral, pre-knowledge, cultural, social, and economic
background, an environmental image is created in the human mind of each
individual, which is also called a Mental Map. Each people have their
own Mental Map, for example,
o Each people have a route map from home to office and that will vary
from person to person
o Work planning and prioritizing for the day is also a mental map.
• There is high bonding on a mental map and actual decision-making. People
make decisions based on their mental map, for example, route selection from
office to home vary person to person, the selection is based on his mental
map.
Basic Concept in Behaviouralism:
The following diagram shows the basic concept of behaviouralism:
• Preknowleged
• Morality, ethics
• Culture, religion
• Time or situation
• Economic need
Some people give more importance to time than money, for example:
Some people take a costly flight to save time, and some people travel by passenger
train to save money.
Interdisciplinary Subject
In behavioralism, geography subject is considered as an interdisciplinary subject,
Geography= Psychology + Sociology + Science
Support of Behavioralism
• On the support of the behavioral approach, Kirk asserted that:
o In a similar geographical environment, the meaning of the same
information would be different for people of a different culture, ethnic,
race, and economic background people.
o Each society perceived differently and act differently to the same piece
of information about the resource, space, and environment.
• Wolpert gives two concepts on the support of behaviouralism
o The satisficers concept, as we already discussed in the first paragraph
of this post.
o Criticism views the gravitation migration principle, he asserted
migration largely depends on personal choice, women rarely want to
migrate, and a parent whose children are in school does not want to
migrate, despite economic opportunities.
• Glibber White, in his flood study, asserted that people mark the boundary of
the river flood, they believed that flood will not cross this boundary. Because
of this pre-knowledge and overconfidence, the flood does more destruction
than aspected.
Criticism
Kirk was the first to give the humanist view in geography and later Chinese American geographer,
Mr. Y.F. Tuan gave more weight to this approach.
• It is against the quantitative, positivism, and locational analysis approach, as they neglected the
role of religion, ethics, values, personal knowledge, etc.
• Human feeling, values, culture, etc can not be codified in the statistical tool such as map, lines,
graph, etc
• Humanism does not consider man as an economic person
• Human is not a machine, they can improve their life by participatory observation,
discussions, thinking & acting.
• It considers geography as the study of the earth as the home of the human being, the main
focus should be the study of peoples' reactions to the environment rather than study to the
earth.
• Human awareness, humans are aware of their environment, they know the weather, climate,
soil, water availability, and other local phenomena. The perfection of awareness of the
environment may vary from person to person, but more or less they aware of the environment.
• Human work as agency:
o The human takes a prudent decision base on his knowledge.
• Human consciousness:
o For example, human sentiment towards motherland or family is on types of
consciousness.
o It is very helpful to understand the feeling of people, human consciousness also varies
from human to human.
o It drives towards the actual meaning of humanities,
• Human has creativity, they can change the environment through innovation, and it is also
supported by possibilism, for the example,
o Dubai city is developed in the desert.
o Agriculture in a rainfed and deserted area
Humans and environments have a very complex relationship. Tuan tried to explain this complex
relation by using five themes.
Tuan gives five themes and these are shown in the following diagrams.
Tuan five themes
• Geographical knowledge:
o Each people and animal have their own mental map of the environment based on
geographical knowledge of the particular location. Examples,
▪ Mental map of tribal people, they know the location of herbs, trees, water
storage, etc.
▪ Animals in the forest have a mental map, they returned home after day-long
grazing.
▪ Animal know where to hide while raining
▪ Animal or men fear to go some particular place as they know it dangerous to go.
▪ Migratory bird such as Siberian cranes has a mental map which helps them to
find the route to migrate.
• Territory and place:
o Some animals like dogs, tiger defend their territory.
o Some animal such as man becomes sentimental to his birthplace( we all do), people are
attached to his/her birthplace not because of economic reason because of the
sentiment.
• Crowding and privacy:
o Some people feel more secure in a crowded area, for example, recently in Hong
Kong, large crowded protesters protested in the airport of Hong Kong as they fear
suppression from the Chinese government, they feel more secure to protest on CCTV
areas in the airport.
o Crowding creates more tension in the geographical region.
o Privacy also affects the thinking process, alone and stress-free people are more
innovative than stress full people
• Livelihood and economics:
o The main purpose of human activities is for livelihood and social prospects.
o Humanism geography differentiates the difference between livelihood and destroyed,
for example, the liquor ban in Bihar
• Religion:
o Religion is the way to bind people strongly by belief, faith, religious activities.
o In India,
▪ the meat business is done by generally Muslim
▪ Jains are generally traders
Criticism
• As positivism, Schaefer's view, and the quantitative approach supported rational-based thinking
and made humans profit-making. As the result, merit-based development happened in a specific
location, as results, inequality, regional disparity, gender, and racial discrimination increased
• During 1960, the Vietnam war, and discrimination against black people in the USA are the hot
reason for radicalism in geography.
• The socio-economic disparity in capitalist countries resulted in the rise of the radicalism
approach in geography.
In 1969, professor Peet in his magazine, written many articles of the support of radicalism in geography.
• Supported the Labour values and against the free and merit-based approach.
• It believed only in economic class, the importance of religion, morals, culture, personal choice is
not given.
• Equal opportunity and treatment of women in the home, workplace, religious place, and
political system.
• Support women participation in geography
• Opposed colonialism and the quantitative revolution
• Supported welfare and humanism geography
• Opposed profit motive development
• Women geography
• Discussion about women working conditions, negligence, patriarchal society,
• Against capitalist and supported socialism against nationalism, America for American against
white supremacy disclosure of European loot in a poor country
• Rejected the racial and climatic supremacy theory, such as northeast America and western
Europe are the best climate region for the best brain.
Criticism
The welfare approach in geography was developed against quantitative and locational analysis. As
quantitative and location analysis is similar to the capitalist policy, it created many social and economic
problems, and welfare approach is developed to make positive changes of common men, and it deals
with social and economic justice such as:
• Inequality
• Poverty
• Gender discrimination
• Women inferiority
• Crime
• Education and health care facilities.
• Welfare for all
• Environment control & Sustainable planning
For example, the main victim of inflation would be poor people, development should be focus to reduce
inflation at an optimum level.
• Descriptive approach
• Process-oriented approach
Descriptive approach:
The descriptive approach is used to identify injustice & inequality in a particular population in a
particular area. For example, identifying the beneficiary of toilet construction, fertilizer subsidy.
The descriptive approach is based on the following principles, it is shown in the diagram.
Welfare approaches
• Who?
o Identifying the subgroup of the population to whom should give preferential treatment
or give overburden, for example, for the welfare of the society, the poor should get the
subsidy and the rich should pay tax.
• What?
o Who gets what, what should be given to the targeted population? it can be:
▪ Cloth, Food grains, House
▪ Water, roads, LPG
▪ Education, health, social justice, etc
• Where?
o Who gets where it deals with identifying the region of the target and welfare should be
based on the region-specific. Livelihood and requirement of the different region are
different, for example,
▪ city planning model cant be implemented in the village
▪ Plain area development not suited in the hilly area
▪ Designing houses in the city is not fitted for the village.
• How?
o Who gets how it deals with the process involved in welfare geography, such as
▪ Top-down approach
▪ Bottom to Up approach
▪ what cost they are going to pay to get a particular service
▪ How much they are working to get basic service.
Process-oriented approach:
• Pareto Optimality:
o Poor people can not be sustained or get better without at expense of
rich people. Someone must be compromised for the better of others.
o Pareto supported the special treatment of poor people for welfare, for
example, a subsidies scheme for the poor.
• Smith & Knox :
o Smith was the first geographer who coined welfare geography, and he
has written a book "welfare geography". He stated that:
o A quantitative tool such as GDP & GNP is not necessarily a direct
measurement of quality of life.
o There should be a qualitative tool such as the happiness index, HDI
(both later developed) to measure the welfare of society
o The main focus in geography should be the focus on the welfare of
people.
Dialect:
Religion
Communities of the same supernatural belief and moral values that bind people
together are religious.
Diffusion of religion
The Major religion of the world was originated in a small area but spread to a large
part of the world by:
Secularization
Secularization is the process to make :
• People logical
• Improve a scientific study
• Remove the dominance of religious institutions and symbols from society.
• To separate religion from state.
• Cultural shifts in society and make the society free from superstition
• Communal harmony
• The Latin language was originated from the italic tribals group in Latium areas
of Italy. At present, many languages derived from the Latin language such as
French, Spanish, Italian, Portugues, German are diffused all over the world.
• Apart from India, the Hindi Language is also spoken in Nepal, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, Fiji, Singapore, South Africa. It is due to the diffusion of the Hindi
language through the migration of Hindi speakers.
Today language can have many languages tomorrow. In Medieval times, the
Hindustani language gets converted to Hindi and Urdu. In ancient times, the Sanskrit
language gets converted into many languages such as Hindi, Rajasthani, Marathi,
Maithili, Braj, Odiya, Bengali, Bhojpuri, etc.
Diffusion of language:
Diffusion of language happens in the following ways:
• Migration
• Government Policy
• Language shift
Migration:
The language also spread with the Migration of people. For example, during colonial
times, a large number of Indian labor is migrated to Maldive and Fiji and as of now,
Hindi has a widely spoken language in these countries.
Government Policy:
Government policy to promote a particular language will enhance the diffusion
process of language. For example,
• During the Mughal era Farsi, the Arabic language spread in India.
• English was introduced during the colonial period in many countries during
colonial times resulted in the diffusion of the English language.
Language Shift:
• Indo European
o 450 languages, largest speakers
o Europe, Russia, central Asia, northern Indian subcontinent, north, and
South America.
• Afro Asiatic :
o Nearly 400 languages
o West Asia and Northern Africa
• Niger-Congo:
o largest genetic variation having more than 1500 language family
o A large part of Africa in the central and eastern parts.
• Sino Tibetan :
o More than 455 languages
o Areas: Himalayan region of India, Burma, and China
• Austronesian :
o more than 1200 language family
o Areas: from Madagaskar to East Pacific Ocean comprises of southeast
Asian nations, Newzeland.
• Trans New Guineas:
o More than 500 language family
o New Guinea and neighboring islands located in the north of Australia.
Language Hotspots:
The language hotspot concept was developed by Dr. Anderson and David Harrison. It
is areas where:
• Very High level of linguistic diversity both in the number of language family
and genetic diversity( within language family).
• Average high level of endangered
• Low level of prior documentation
• Roman language family has a high level of genetic diversity: that includes
French, Spanish, Italian, Portugues, German.
• The language will be endangered if only elderly speakers are left that they do
not pass on to the younger generation.
Extinction of language:
• More than 3500 languages in the world and more than 40 languages in India are
heading to extinction as only a few thousand speakers are left.
• When a language dies, a way of life dies, a way of thinking disappears, culture
also disappears. The death of the last speaker means the loss of the cultural
biosphere.
• A famous Kannada person rightly said India is a country where illiterate
workers speak five to seven languages and literate persons only speak one.
• There is an immense knowledge gap, indigenous people know more about local
life forms than society. For example, most tribal societies are oral societies.
Language is the heart of culture and without language culture transmission
from generation to generation could not possible. As per UNESCO, by the end
of 21 century, 90% of the world languages will disappear due to the expansion
of majoritarian languages. Language shift causes the extinction of a language,
language shift means people are leaving their own language and learning the
• preference to the English language over the local language.
• The spread of the dominant language and retreat of a minority language is the
major cause of language extinction.
• Schools generally teach in the majority tongue. For example, most of the
teaching in India is in Hindi and English.
• India has many oral societies and they do not have written text and they used to
transfer custom, the ritual to the next-generation orally.
Culture type
Folk culture :
It changes region to region, for example, Indian culture is different from European or
Latin culture.
Popular culture:
It is spread across the world, for example, as of now wearing jeans is popular culture.
Each culture has some geographical area of influence and this area is called the
realms of that culture. The following are the major cultural realms of the world:
• North America
• Latin America
• European Realm
• Soviet Russia
• Arab Realm
• Black Africa
• South Asia or the Indian realm
• Japan
It was developed by Pakistani economics Mr. Mahbub ul Haq and later Indian economics Mr. Amartya
Sen work on the capabilities and functioning of the HDI.
The human development index is the geometric mean of the three normalized indices.
HDI =geometric mean of ( Life expectancy index, education index, income index)
As of now, HDI is being published by the UNDP ( United Nations Development Programme). In 2018, HDI
Ranking are:
• 1st: Norway
• 2nd: Switzerland
• 3rd: Australia
• 130: India, HDI values: 0.640
• Kerala ranks first in the Indian state having 0.784 HDI values which are higher than Mexican HDI
values.
• Bihar rank last in the Indian state having 0.566 which is equivalent to Pakistani HDI values.
Limitation of HDI