Human Geography: Nature and Scope

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering the key terms, definitions, historical approaches, and schools of thought in Human Geography based on the lecture notes.

Geography (as an academic field)

A field of study that is integrative, empirical, and practical, covering phenomena that vary over space and time.

Human Geography

The study of the relationship between the physical/natural and the human worlds, spatial distributions of human phenomena, and social and economic differences between parts of the world.

Nomothetic

In the context of geographical debates, an approach focused on law making or theorising.

Idiographic

In the context of geographical debates, an approach that is descriptive in nature.

Living organism

A metaphor used by German geographers to describe the 'state/country'.

Arteries of circulation

A metaphor used to describe networks of roads, railways, and water ways.

Human geography (Ratzel definition)

The synthetic study of relationship between human societies and earth’s surface.

Human geography (Ellen C. Semple definition)

The study of the changing relationship between the unresting man and the unstable earth.

Human geography (Paul Vidal de la Blache definition)

Conception resulting from a more synthetic knowledge of the physical laws governing our earth and of the relations between the living beings which inhabit it.

Environmental determinism

A type of interaction between primitive human society and strong forces of nature where humans adapted to the dictates of Nature due to low technological development.

Naturalised human

A human in early stages of development who listened to Nature, feared its fury, and worshipped it.

Penda

A term for forest used in the Abujh Maad area of central India where tribes practice shifting cultivation.

Cultural landscape

The imprints of human activities created on the environment, such as health resorts, urban sprawls, fields, ports, and oceanic routes.

Possibilism

A view where nature provides opportunities and human beings make use of these, leading to the humanisation of nature.

Neodeterminism (Stop and Go Determinism)

A concept introduced by Griffith Taylor that reflects a middle path between environmental determinism and possibilism, suggesting humans can conquer nature by obeying it.

Exploration and description

An approach during the Early Colonial period prompted by imperial and trade interests to discover and describe new areas.

Regional analysis

An approach during the Later Colonial period focusing on elaborate descriptions of all aspects of a region to understand the whole earth.

Areal differentiation

An approach prevalent in the $1930s$ through the inter-War period focused on identifying the uniqueness of a region.

Spatial organisation

An approach from the late $1950s$ to late $1960s$ marked by the use of computers, statistical tools, and the 'quantitative revolution'.

Welfare (Humanistic) school of thought

A school of thought emerging in the $1970s$ concerned with aspects of social well-being such as housing, health, and education.

Radical school of thought

A school of thought that employed Marxian theory to explain poverty, deprivation, and social inequality as related to the development of capitalism.

Behavioural school of thought

A school of thought emphasizing lived experience and the perception of space based on ethnicity, race, and religion.

Post-modernism in geography

A period in the $1990s$ that questioned grand generalisations and emphasised understanding each local context in its own right.

Psephology

A sister discipline of social science linked to the sub-field of Electoral Geography.

Demography

The sister discipline of social science that interfaces with Population Geography.