Human Geography

Writing the Earth (Society-nature relations)

Asks the question how do humans inhabit and modify the Earth?

Writing the World (Society-Space relations) aka Spatiality

How is space socially produced (made by people)?

Geography

Study of places and relationships between people and their environment

Geopolitics

Looks at the way in which international affairs can be understood through geographical factors

Space

Space is made up of location and place and its meaning attached to people and sometimes power

Representation

Something that stands for something else

Lived Region

Used to indicate a region that is bound together through the ongoing shared practices, cultures, relations, politics, materialities and identities of the people within them

Cultural Region

Places associated with cultural values and practises that distinguish them from other places

Bioregions

Held together and delineate by biophysical characteristics (for example and island or a desert)

Materiality

Larsens definition which is the built environment, architecture and infrastructure of a place

Practise

Larsen’s definition on how a place is used

Sense of Place

Larsen’s definition, what is the meaning behind the place

Imaginative Geographies

Stereotypical ideas about places (for example: expectations and assumptions)

Commodification

Conversion of a thing, idea, or person into a commodity (For example: tourism can be turned into a commodity)

Topos (topography)

Charting the Earth mathematically

Chora

Histographic interest and descriptions of regions and inhabitants.

Who is Alexander Van Humboldt

A proto-environmentalist, travelled with Aime Bonplant and did field research. Connected ecological degradation to exploitation

Who is Carl Ritter

A desk researcher from Germany, he wanted geography to be a science that compares different regions to find general rules. Read and applied his theories.

Colonialism

Physical occupation/settlement. Direct political and military control over a subordinated place

Imperialism

Can be indirect. Political, economic or cultural domination. Doesnt always require military rule

Environmental Determinism

The idea that climate and environment determine human culture, intelligence and civilization.

Orientalism

West’s way of representing, imagining and stereotyping “the east” as exotic, backward, and/or etc to justify dominating it. A form of imaginative geographies

Who is Ellen Churchill Semple

An American geographer and environmental determinist. Made racist claims about tropical people

Who is Elsworth Huntington

An environmental determinist and yale professor who linked climate to idleness, dishonesty and immorality.

Who is Friedrich Ratzel

The 1st German professor of Geography. Social darwinist (only the strong survive) and influenced future nazi geopolitics.

Colonial Hangover

Old ideas still shape the present

Neo-Colonial Relations

Indirect domination continues

Spatial Science

1950-1960s. Geography was aligned with positivist natural sciences. Universal and done through models, classification and quantification.

Humanistic Geography

1970s and onwards. Geography aligned with interpretivist humanities. Critical of spatial science as “dehumanising” and treating human experience as subjective.

Feminist Geographies

Created in 1970s-1980s. Asked who is producing knowledge, and the answer was that geography was dominated by men, and how women were being marginalised.

Marxist geography

1970s onwards. Critical of humanistic geography (too romanticised) and spatial science(treated space as neutral or abstract). Is the study of how capitalism shapes space and how space shapes capitalism.

Who is Neil Smith.

British-American geographer and one of the most influential Marxist geographers. Stated that capitalism produces space, and it does so unevenly, creating winners and losers across geography.

Historical materialism?

The idea that social existence determines consciousness — our thoughts and dispositions are shaped by our economic position.

Commodity fetishism?

The way capitalism gives commodities a mystique that hides the labour and exploitation behind them.

Spatial fix

Capital spreading out across space to overcome crises, then intensifying in specific sites.

Dead labour

Labour hidden into a commodity — the hidden labour in a strawberry or a pair of trainers.

Diverse economies

Non-capitalist practices (barter, volunteering, gift-giving) that expand our economic imaginaries.

Imperial durabilities

The power of imperial legacies to shape contemporary politics and society — colonisation as a structure, not just an event.

Environmental racism

Policies or practices that disproportionately disadvantage communities of colour — e.g., living near toxic waste, facing higher risks in natural disasters

Acclimatisation

The debated possibility of white races adapting to tropical climates. Environmental determinists used it to justify segregation and pay inequality.

Landscape

The world we live in, the world we’re immersed in through our senses

Frequent Question asked about Landscapes

1. Power - Who controls and owns the landscape?

2. Performance- The everyday actions and artistic performances in the landscape

Heteronormativity

Assumption that heterosexuality is the normal, natural and default way to be