Early Approaches: Humanistic Geography

Early Approaches: Humanistic Geography
What is humanistic geography ? Lines of development Rediscovery of humanistic geographers The humanities Humanistic philosophy The next steps ...

What is humanistic geography?
In 1970s geographers such as Tuan (1974, 1976) began to use phrases such as 'humanist geography ' and 'humanistic geography' Terms connect to notions of: humanness' or 'humanity' - what constitutes being human the 'humanities' - fields of inquiry into the conditions of humans and being 'humane' - caring for humans Link to notions of humanism which emerged in the European Renaissance of the C14th-C16th People began to challenge existing modes of thought Focus was on human reason and human freedoms Human thought and actions were seen to be able to make a difference Humanism valued people Humanistic geography Whereas logical positivist geography had sought to put space at the centre of human geography, humanistic geography can be said to have sought to put people at the centre of geography. The term humanistic may be seen to relate to a number of closely related concepts, such as 'humanness' or 'humanity' (what constitutes being human), the 'humanities' (fields of inquiry into the conditions of humans) and being 'humane' (caring for humans). These terms, and the general notions of humanism, emerged in the fourteenth and fifteenth century European Renaissance when people began to challenge existing modes of religious and secular thought on the basis of whether or not these ideas fitted in with people's interests and capabilities. Rather than simply accepting things as the will of the sovereign king or of God, people began to ask question the validity of particular ideas on the grounds of human reasons and human freedom. Human thought and actions were seen to be able to make a difference, to change things, and hold the potential for making the world a better place for people to live in. Put simply, humanism valued people, seeing then as a central agency in creating the world and considering their interests to be paramount over everything else.

An approach which: Aims to put "man ... back together again with all the pieces in place, including a heart and even a soul, with feelings as well as thoughts, with some sense of secular and perhaps transcendental meaning" (Ley and Samuels, 1978) Distinguished by "the central and active role that it gives to human awareness and human agency, human consciousness and human creativity" (Gregory, 1994) Has as its "bottom line", "the objective of bringing human beings in all their complexity to centre-stage of human geography" (Cloke et al,1991) Humanistic geography can be seen as an attempt to connect doing geography to these human centred values: hence Cloke et al. (1991, p. 58]) claim that "the bottom line for humanistic geography lies in the objective of bringing human beings in all their complexity to the centre-stage of human geography", while Gregory (1994, p. 263]) defines humanistic geography as "an approach to human geography distinguished by the central and active that it gives to human awareness and human agency, human consciousness and human creativity". Lets begin with what is humanistic geography. A useful starting point is the definition of humanistic geography is provided in the book Humanistic geography by Ley and Samuals, which was itself very much a marker of the emergence of humanistic geography. In the introduction to this book Ley and Samuel's argue for a human geography which puts "man ... back together again with all the pieces in place, including a heart and even a soul, with feelings as well as thoughts, with some sense of secular and perhaps transcendental meaning" (Ley and Samuels, 1978, p. 2) Another useful definition is provided by Gregory (1994, p. 263) who states that humanistic geography is "An approach to human geography distinguished by the central and active that it gives to human awareness and human agency, human consciousness and human creativity" Finally, and perhaps most simply Cloke et al (1991, p. 58) suggest: "the bottom line for humanistic geography lies in the objective of bringing human beings in all their complexity to centre-stage of human geography"

People placed at the centre in 2 ways: Ontologically Peopling human geography Questioned the 'curiously 'peopleless character of ... 'human' geography' (Cloke et al., 1991, p. 58) 'landscapes are either deserted of people - think of all those geometric representations of settlements … that render them eerily still, silent and devoid of life - or are occupied by little armies of faceless, classless, sexless beings dutifully laying out Christaller's central place networks, doing exactly the right number of hours farmwork in each of Von Thunen's concentric rings, and basically obeying the great economic laws of minimising effort and cost in negotiating physical space' (Philo, 1992, p. 200)

People placed at the centre in 2 ways: Ontologically Peopling human geography Questioned the 'curiously 'peopleless character of ... 'human' geography' (Cloke et al., 1991, p. 58) Sought a more"credible model of humanity" (Ley, 1983) Humans had been 'objectified: ''whizzing about in space - travelling from place X to place Y; shopping at centre X rather than centre Y; selling produce at market X rather than in market Y - in a fashion little different from the 'behaviour' of stones on a slope, particles in a river or atoms in a gas' (Cloke et al., 1991, p. 69).

People placed at the centre in 2 ways: Ontologically Peopling human geography Questioned the 'curiously 'peopleless character of ... 'human' geography' (Cloke et al., 1991, p. 58) Sought a more"credible model of humanity" (Ley, 1983) Humans had been 'objectified: Are people different from stones/particles/atoms? People have feelings, perceptions and values People act with less regularity than 'objects' in the physical environment

People placed at the centre in 2 ways: Epistemologically 'recognising the humanity of the geographer' (Cloke et al, 1991, p. 58) Often described as recognising 'subjectivity' "all of the complex a priori assumptions,values, hopes and fears researchers themselves cannot avoid stirring into the study of human situations" (Cloke et al, 1991, p. 58).

What is humanistic geography ?
Three principal lines of development: Rediscovery of early and neglected humanistic geographers (e.g. Vidal de la Blache) Movement towards the practices of non-scientific disciplines (e.g. history and art) Reading the writings of philosophers (e.g. idealism, phenomenology, existentialism) Making this call was relatively easy, much less clear was how to do humanistic geography, that is to understand such things as human awareness, human agency, human consciousness and human creativity. To help in this task humanistic geographers turned to a variety of inspirations including: i) the practices of early and neglected 'humanistic geographers', perhaps notably Vidal de la Blache ii) the writings of a ranger of philosophers iii) the practices of non-scientific disciplines, such as history and art I want to explore the last of these features and outline its impact on the study of culture.

Rediscovery of early and neglected humanistic geographers
"the beginning of a humanist perspective may be found in the rich tradition of French human geography following the example of Paul Vidal de la Blache" (Ley and Samuels, 1978, p. 10) La geographie humaine - human geography - call "to develop a a truly personal type of knowledge, one that allows for emotion as well as thinking, passion as well as reason, and one that leads to an understanding of the self as well as to an understanding of the world (Buttimer, 1978, p. 74)

Rediscovery of early and neglected humanistic geographers
Wright (1925, 1947) - study of geographical knowledge or lores "the informal geography contained in non- scientific works - in books of travel, in magazines and newspapers, in many a page of fiction and poetry, and on many a canvas … [and] in the minds of countless ordinary folk" (Wright, 1947, p. 10)

Geography as a non-scientific discipline
Wright (1947) 'the prevalent attitude towards aesthetic imagining in geography is one of distrust … [which] too often causes us to repress them' (p. 7) "legitimate and desirable uses of the imagination in geography' (p. 11) "All science should be scholarly, but not all scholarship can be rigorously scientific. Scholarship … embraces not only the natural sciences but also the humanities … professors should be scholars in the humanistic sense - men [sic] widely read in the classics of geography and also in general literature and in literary criticism and history" (p. 15)

Geography as a non-scientific discipline
Read literature to learn how to write e.g. Meinig (1983) cf. Billinge (1983) Use literature and art as a source of information on sense of place (e.g. Pocock, 1978) Adopt interpretative/'hermeneutic' perspective rather than an explanatory one

Humanistic philosophies
Idealism: 'an attempt to discover the thought that lies behind actions' (see Guelke, 1974, 1983) Phenomenology: 'an attempt to discover how people feel, both consciously and unconsciously, about objects in the world' (see Cloke et al, 1991, p. 72) Existentialism: 'an attempt to discover the experiences people gain in the world' (see Cloke et al, 1991, p. 76) Humanistic philosophies Simplifying greatly, idealism can be said to be 'an attempt to discover the thought that lies behind actions' (see Guelke, 1974, 1983); phenomenology as 'an attempt to discover how people feel, both consciously and unconsciously, about objects in the world' (see Cloke et al, 1991, p. 72); and existentialism as 'an attempt to discover the experiences people gain in the world' (see Cloke et al, 1991, p. 76). These definition are my translations of what these humanistic approaches are about. Such translations are necessary because the emergence of humanistic geography was associated with quite considerable confusion in terms: people were using different labels to describe the same things. This was particularly true of phenomenology and existentialism: for some people they were quite distinct approaches, to others they were closely related, while to a third group of humanistic geographers they were interchangeable terms. Rather than become embroiled with this lengthy and very jargon laden debate, I think it better to give you an example of each of the approaches as I understand them and consider their impact on the notion of cultural geography.

Idealism Leading exponent in geography = Guelke
His approach has very clear connections to the work of Carl Sauer in that his focus is on observable landscapes and the role of 'the cultural' in the formation of that landscape. Where Guelke's idealism differs from the work of Sauer is its emphasis on the individual and their role in both action and the formation of culture. Guelke argues for example that, the focus of Sauer's cultural geography was on "the geographical expression of culture, not culture itself" and "Exactly why cultures stagnated or changed often seemed less important than measuring their geographical expression" (Guelke, 1982, p. 9). More particularly Guelke argued that to understand cultural landscape's one had to understand the thoughts that went behind people's actions Argued that understanding human actions required 'uncovering the thought that lies behind them' Turned to the idealist historian R.G. Collingwood (1947) who argued that 'all history is the history of human thought' (cf. Marx & Engels - 'history of all hitherto existing socities is the history of class struggle') Focus was on the 'recovery' of rationality and intentionality of human behaviour Close parallels with behavioural geography

Phenomenology Humanistic geographers used term as outlined by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl Argued against the use of scientific methods to study of culture and society Argued for the 'bracketing out' of preconceptions Saw all objects as having an 'essence' formed by how people relate to these object Recovery of 'essences' achieved by 'bracketing out' pre-conceptions Phenomenology We have mentioned the term phenomenology last week. Can you remember in what context? This term phenomenology was used by Sauer to refer to the 'scientific' organisation of knowledge. By contrast humanistic geographers turned to the use of the term made by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl who argued against the use of scientific to the study of culture and society. Husserl took a largely negative view of science and argued that there was a need for people to forget, or 'bracket out' their preconceptions, including those established through scientific methods, when studying phenomena. Husserl went onto suggest people understand the world in which they live note through thought or rationalising it, but through inter-relating with their world. All objects had an 'essence' or an an essential meaning formed by how people relate to these object. The purpose of science was therefore to recover this essence which was to be achieved by forgetting or 'bracketing out' all existing ideas about an object and letting the primordial 'pure relation' be revealed. These are quite complex and perhaps seemingly rather strange arguments, but they can be seen to have quite a direct relevance to geography.

Phenomenology Geographers such as Tuan, Relph and Pickles suggested that scientific approaches obscure the 'true meanings' of geography 'sense of wonder about the earth and its places' (Relph, 1985, p. 16). Academic geographers should reconnect their studies to their original sense of geography One route to do this is for geographers to explore peoples' sense of place The humanistic geographers Yi-Fu Tuan, Relph and Pickles, for example, have drew on these arguments to suggest that scientific approaches to geography may obscure are the 'true meanings' of geography. Tuan and Relph, for example, argued that an 'emotional attachment to place' such as that a "sense of wonder about the earth and its places" (Relph, 1985, p. 16) is a key motivater of peoples' initial interest in geography and that this essential aspect of geography tends to becomes lost in academic and scientific geographies. They suggest that academic and academic geographers need to reconnect themselves through their original sense of wonder about the earth and its places, and that one route to do this is for geographers to explore peoples' sense of place

E.g. Yi-Fu Tuan on 'Topophilia' and 'Topophobia'
Phenomenology E.g. Yi-Fu Tuan on 'Topophilia' and 'Topophobia' Rational summarised in his article entitled 'Humanistic geography': 'Humanistic geography has as one of its tasks, the study of geographical knowledge ... Broadly conceived, knowledge of geography is necessary to biological survival. All animals must have it ... Knowledge of geography in this sense is a animal instinct ... In contrast, the geographical lore promoted within the culture of academic departments is highly conscious and specialised. Between these extremes lies a broad range of ideas regarding space, location, place and resource. ... Although we may know much about the specialised geographical knowledge of academic geographers we fail to place it in the total spectrum of geographical awareness. This spectrum extends from the 'mental maps' of migrating birds to our own 'mental maps' as we drive in a state of trance, from implicit knowing to explicit knowledge ..., from simple ideas on the structure of space to the intricately spatial hierarchies (Tuan, 1976, p. 268) One of the clearest expressions of this approach was the work of Yi-Fu Tuan on 'Topophilia', and somewhat later 'Topophobia'. The first term referred to 'the love of places', whilst the latter referred to the 'fear of places'. In a series of publications, Tuan has sought to recover peoples' sense of place. His rational is nicely summarised in his article entitled 'Humanistic geography' where he writes: "Humanistic geography has as one of its tasks, the study of geographical knowledge ... Broadly conceived, knowledge of geography is necessary to biological survival. All animals must have it ... Knowledge of geography in this sense is a animal instinct ... In contrast, the geographical lore promoted within the culture of academic departments is highly conscious and specialised. Between these extremes lies a broad range of ideas regarding space, location, place and resource ... Although we may know much about the specialised geographical knowledge of academic geographers we fail to place it in the total spectrum of geographical awareness. This spectrum extends from the 'mental maps' of migrating birds to our own 'mental maps' as we drive in a state of trance, from implicit knowing to explicit knowledge ..., from simple ideas on the structure of space to the intricately spatial hierarchies" [Tuan, 1976, p. 268]. Tuan's exploration of peoples' senses of space spans, as one might sense from this quote, a whole range of social situations including: children's fears, fear of nature, fear of diseases, fear of witches and ghosts, fear of the countryside, fear of the city, fears of humiliation, excile, confinement and execution for some such studies may appear as a set of random musings: it certainly appears distant from Sauer's insistence on reducing culture down to that which can be approached 'sysematically' and through clear 'observation'.

E.g. Yi-Fu Tuan on 'Topophilia' and 'Topophobia'
Phenomenology E.g. Yi-Fu Tuan on 'Topophilia' and 'Topophobia' Rational summarised in his article entitled 'Humanistic geography': 'Humanistic geography has as one of its tasks, the study of geographical knowledge ... Broadly conceived, knowledge of geography is necessary to biological survival. All animals must have it ... Knowledge of geography in this sense is a animal instinct ... In contrast, the geographical lore promoted within the culture of academic departments is highly conscious and specialised. Between these extremes lies a broad range of ideas regarding space, location, place and resource. ... Although we may know much about the specialised geographical knowledge of academic geographers we fail to place it in the total spectrum of geographical awareness. This spectrum extends from the 'mental maps' of migrating birds to our own 'mental maps' as we drive in a state of trance, from implicit knowing to explicit knowledge ..., from simple ideas on the structure of space to the intricately spatial hierarchies (Tuan, 1976, p. 268)

Phenomenology Series of studies of relations to place
Tuan – topophobia and topophilia Relph – senses of dwelling Other geographical objects Space (Seamon, 1979, 1980, Tuan 1974) Nature (Tuan, 1971) Often seen to focus on the individual, but … "tease out the 'transcendental' (universal, timeless, placeless) essences supposedly embodied in how all people experience space, place and environment". (Cloke et al, 1991, p. 81)

Existentialism Defined broadly as concerned with "the experiences people gain in the world' Less romantic view of people's relationship with place Phenomenological view: feelings of 'dwelling', 'belonging' and 'insiderness' are 'authentic' human sense of place (Relph, 1976) Existential view: "the sine qua non of human existence is objectivity (i.e., detachment or estrangement), which is nothing other than the act of making things (the world) distant from one-self ... [A]ll men are conditioned by distance and are - by definition - alienated ... All men, insofar as they are human ... are ontologically alienated. The differences among men (culturally and historically), in this regard, are a function of their success in overcoming, reinforcing or revolting against their alienation" (Samuels 1978, pp ) Existentialism and cultural geography As defined earlier, an existential approach is one which sees to outline "the experiences people gain in the world' (see Cloke et al, 1991, p. 76). In many respects this is equivalent to the phenomenological geographers search for 'senses of place', indeed for many humanistic geographers the terms phenomenology and existentialism were used interchangeably. There were however three important differences which the adoption of a existential philosophy might make to the study of cultural geography. First, existential philosophers often took a much less romantic view of people's relationship with place. Much of the phenomenologically inspired work in geography tended to talk in terms of positive attachments and feelings towards place a point highlighted in Tuan's term 'Topophila'. As mentioned Tuan, also recognised albeit slightly later the notion of 'topophobia', fear of places, but much of humanistic geography either ignored such relations or sought to emphasise the former, positive relations. Indeed, for people such as Relph the positive relation to place was seen to be the essential geographical relationship. Relph argued that the feeling of 'dwelling', of 'belonging' and 'insiderness' was the 'authentic' human sense of place and was produced by, "a direct and genuine experience of the entire complex of the identity of places - not mediated or distorted through a series of quite arbitrary social conventions about how that experience should be" (Relph, 1976, p. 14) For the existentialist influenced Samuels, by contrast, the essential human experience was one of alienation from place: "the sine qua non of human existence is objectivity (i.e., detachment or estrangement), which is nothing other than the act of making things (the world) distant from one-self ... [A]ll men are conditioned by distance and are - by definition - alienated ... All men, insofar as they are human ... are ontologically alienated. The differences among men (culturally and historically), in this regard, are a function of their success in overcoming, reinforcing or revolting against their alienation" (Samuels in Ley and Samuels, 1978) Second, a number of humanistic and other geographers became rather sceptical of the methodology of 'bracketing out presuppositions. It was argued by people such as (Billinge, 1977) that this was neither possible nor desirable.

Existentialism Defined broadly as concerned with "the experiences people gain in the world' Less romantic view of people's relationship with place Existentialism and cultural geography As defined earlier, an existential approach is one which sees to outline "the experiences people gain in the world' (see Cloke et al, 1991, p. 76). In many respects this is equivalent to the phenomenological geographers search for 'senses of place', indeed for many humanistic geographers the terms phenomenology and existentialism were used interchangeably. There were however three important differences which the adoption of a existential philosophy might make to the study of cultural geography. First, existential philosophers often took a much less romantic view of people's relationship with place. Much of the phenomenologically inspired work in geography tended to talk in terms of positive attachments and feelings towards place a point highlighted in Tuan's term 'Topophila'. As mentioned Tuan, also recognised albeit slightly later the notion of 'topophobia', fear of places, but much of humanistic geography either ignored such relations or sought to emphasise the former, positive relations. Indeed, for people such as Relph the positive relation to place was seen to be the essential geographical relationship. Relph argued that the feeling of 'dwelling', of 'belonging' and 'insiderness' was the 'authentic' human sense of place and was produced by, "a direct and genuine experience of the entire complex of the identity of places - not mediated or distorted through a series of quite arbitrary social conventions about how that experience should be" (Relph, 1976, p. 14) For the existentialist influenced Samuels, by contrast, the essential human experience was one of alienation from place: "the sine qua non of human existence is objectivity (i.e., detachment or estrangement), which is nothing other than the act of making things (the world) distant from one-self ... [A]ll men are conditioned by distance and are - by definition - alienated ... All men, insofar as they are human ... are ontologically alienated. The differences among men (culturally and historically), in this regard, are a function of their success in overcoming, reinforcing or revolting against their alienation" (Samuels in Ley and Samuels, 1978) Second, a number of humanistic and other geographers became rather sceptical of the methodology of 'bracketing out presuppositions. It was argued by people such as (Billinge, 1977) that this was neither possible nor desirable. Existential philosophy with its focus on experience rather than deep seated 'phenomenal' relations seemed to be rather more consistent with the practices of humanistic geography. This last point was connected with a third implication of the adoption of existential philosophy in that, at least to some humanistic geographers, it signal a break was the search for universal relations between people and places, that is relations which exist everywhere and through all time. For several humanistic geographers the implication of phenomenology was that there was one or more 'essential' objects of geographical study. People were seen to be universally linked to such 'geographical object's as 'place' and space'. For humanistic geographers such as Tuan this meant that geographers should be seeking to lay bear the universal attachments people have to such geographical objects as 'place' and space' or as Cloke et al. (1991) put it, "to tease out the 'transcendental' (universal, timeless, placeless) essences supposedly embodied in how all people experience space, place and environment". As mentioned about the 'transcendental relationship' was generally seen to be positive in form, although there were some exceptions such as Samuels' 'existential' focus on alienation. Cloke et al, add, however, that "what has also surfaced on occasions [and particularly in existential studies] is a concern for the more 'everyday geographies' of the places in which we live and labour" (Cloke et al., 1991, p. 81). For Cloke et al this change in emphasis signalled the most productive work in humanistic geography: "humanistic geography has probably made its most significant contribution to human geography ... not in directing the attention of a few researchers to the deepest phenomenological and existential concerns that people have with their places, but in sensitising numerous researchers ... to the everyday and yet often quite intimate attachments all sorts of people .... have to the places that encircle them" [Cloke, 1991 #35, p. 81 Examples of this existentially influenced work include the study of the experience of ageing by Rowles *********** EXPAN DWITH REFS ******. Sceptical about possibility and desirability of 'bracketing out presuppositions Moved away from notion that there were universal geographical objects of as 'place' and space' "concern for the more 'everyday geographies' of the places in which we live and labour: for the houses, streets, factories, offices, schools, fields, parks, cinemas and so on where we spend most of our day, and about which we unavoidable develop a sense of place – a rudimentary understanding of how this place 'works' and a nagging feeling towards this place of liking, disliking, loving, hating, aceepting or rejecting" (Cloke et al, 1991, p. 81)

Next steps Lectures have provided you with starting points
You will explore the approaches further in seminars and in coursework essays Group Power Point Presentations Introduction to PowerPoint – Bennett LG5

Early Approaches: Humanistic Geography

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