Approaches and Methods in Human Geography

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Approaches and Methods in Human Geography

• Geography 212

Source Claire Jantz Revised by Greg Bryan
02/11/05
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Outline

• Types of fields in human geography
• Theoretical approaches to studying human
  geography
• Methodology approaches to studying human geography

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Types of fields in Human Geography

• Cultural (Demography, migration, acculturation,
  assimilation)
• Economic (employment, location theory,
  manufacturing, marketing, retailing, services,
  trade)
• Gender studies (feminisms)
• Rural (economy, planning, population and change)
• Industrial (location, organization, regional
  development, technological change)
• Medical (epidemiology)
• Urban (economy, housing, morphology, politics,
  population, renewal, retailing, sociology,
  theory, models, systems

• Political (electoral, geopolitics)
• Population (demography, change, migration)
• Recreational (leisure, sport, tourism)
• Historical (countryside, industry, population,
  towns)
• Social (ethnicity, theory, socio-economic status)
• Transport (rural/urban)
• (1993 listing of the Institute of British
  Geographers and the Association of American
  Geographers, in Kitchen and Tate 2000)

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Approaches

• What perspective do you use to observe a
  phenomenon?
• How should it be construed and represented?
• Three basic approaches
• empirical-analytical
• historical-hermeneutic
• critical

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I. Empirical-analytical science

• Empiricism (fact seeking)
• facts speak for themselves
• science should be observe phenomena in the real
  world
• value-free (non-bias)
• Descriptive analysis
• Positivism (scientific)
• Scientific statement (hypothesis)
  Scientific observation
• formation of theory Scientific law
  absolute truth
• human behavior can be derived and used for
  predictions
• value-free (non-bias)
• requires that hypotheses be presented and
  verified or falsified by repeatable observations
• quantitative methods and models

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What do you think is the variable displayed in
this map? What does it tell us about America?
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II. Historical-hermeneutic science

• Hermeneutics (self-interpretation)
• The study of interpretation and meaning.
• - Ex. Biblical interpretation of clarification
  of the meaning of Gods word.
• - Is not used as frequent
• Behavioralism (spatial analysis)
• Emphasizes the role of cognitive and decision
  making variables as mediating the relationship
  between environment and spatial behavior.
• model spatial behavior through peoples ability
  to remember, process and evaluate geographic
  information.
• empirical, quantitative, but measuring the
  intangible.

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Idealism there is no real world reality is a
construction of the mind explain patterns of
behavior through an understanding of the thoughts
behind them Does not need theories because it is
interested in the theories expressed by the human
subjects Phenomenology rejects scientific,
quantitative approaches Instead tries to
understand the world instead of explaining it
scientifically. reconstruct the worlds of
individuals, their actions and the meanings of
phenomena in those worlds to understand
individual behavior without drawing upon a-priori
theories.
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III. Critical science

• based on critical theory (truth, merit,
  motivations, meanings, symbols)
• Marxist approaches (alternative)
• society is structured to perpetuate the
  production of capital
• political and economic structures that underlie
  and reproduce capitalist modes of production and
  consumption
• ask how conditions might be under different
  social circumstances

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Realism (origin) underlying mechanisms and
structures of social relations, discovering the
building blocks of reality studies underlying
mechanisms of policy and practice, not
interaction between individuals how something
happens and how extensive the phenomena is what
causes change, what allows or forces
change Postmodernism (multiple perspective) all
other approaches fail to account for differences
within society there is no one answer, no one
discourse is superior or dominant to another, and
that all voices should be included in a
dialogue there is no absolute truth, and no truth
outside of interpretation readings (instead of
observations), interpretations (rather than
findings)
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Poststructuralism relationship between society
and culture is mediated through language the way
we live our lives within society, the constraints
and empowerment that operate, take effect in
language deconstruct (tease apart) the multiple
messages conveyed in language Feminism science is
dominated by and reflects the position of men
(white, wealthy, Western men) a need for
re-negotiation of the role and structure of
institutions and the production of knowledge a
need for re-negotiation of power relations in
society so that our knowledge of the world is
more reflective of the people living in it
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My digression

• It is important to understand not only the
  theoretical background that you are working
  under, but also that of the people who write the
  books and articles you are reading

• A brief history of social-geographical thought
• Immanuel Kant
• Space and time exist only as perceptions of them
• Thomas Malthus
• Direct and economic relationship between humans
  and environment, predicted an agricultural crisis
• Hegel
• Dialectic - Thesis, anithesis and sythesis

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Geographic Thought

• Marx
• Probably most influential thinker of modern era
• Tied hegelian dialectic to social and economic
  forces
• Historical materialism we are shaped by the
  physical realities of the world and historic
  relationships

• Marx
• Labor and capital are a dialectic the synthesis,
  he believed would be communism
• Mode of production determines the character of
  society
• MOP everything that goes into producing
  necessities of life - raw materials, labor and
  capital and the relationships that exist in the
  stucture of the system

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Geographic Thought

• Marx
• Structuralism people are basically pawns set in
  a class structure
• Geographic marxists see the physical world as a
  direct result of the stuctures of capitalism
• In otherwords Paris looks like Paris because of
  the economic situation in which it developed,
  Rte. 1 looks like Rte. 1 because of 20th century
  capitalism
• Marxian vs. Marxist

• Mill and Smith
• Polar opposite of Marx
• Adam Smith production is and should be the
  result of self-interest
• Individual liberty to make decisions
• Utilitarianism greatest good for the greatest
  number of people

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Geographic thought

• Modernism
• Recognition that the the world changed radically
  with the Industrial Revolution
• Centralization, big meaning, big production, big
  governments, functionality the key
• Often Marxist

• Postmodernism
• The pendulum swing
• A return to the individual
• Small plans, projects and studies
• Feminism, identity politics
• Nothing is true, everyone has their own
  interpretation, at the very least you can never
  say anything with any kind of certainty

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Geographic Thought

• Giddens and Structuration
• Giddens united sociology and geographic theory in
  the early 80s
• 2 Major points
• Structures and individuals have a recursive
  relationship
• Society is created both over space and time

• Political Ecology
• Also in the 80s Piers Blakey
• Ecology is the result of political economy
• Scale of these forces varies from the global
  market to the household
• Both of these thinkers are chiefly concerned with
  globalization

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How would a Marxist interpret this map? How about
a Post-modernist?
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Which approach is best?

• Naturalist or anti-naturalist
• Inductive or deductive
• Value-free or action-oriented
• Objective or situated
• Top down or bottom up
• Realism or anti-realism
• Structure or agency

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Types of data

• Qualitative data
• words, pictures, sounds
• humanistic, subjective, inductive, personal,
  idealistic, meaning and understanding, specific
• inquiry from the inside

• Quantitative data
• Numbers, statistics, or empirical facts
• scientific, objective, numerical, deductive,
  realistic, explanation and predictive,
  populations, generalizations, society
• numeric/statistical techniques

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Quantitative analyses

• Primary data
• statistical surveys
• Secondary data
• data archives
• census data
• Statistical analysis
• descriptive statistics
• correlation, regression
• spatial statistics

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Geographic technologies

• Remote sensing
• provides information about the physical
  environment in which people live and how they may
  be interacting with it
• land use data, time series, historical analyses
• links to social, cultural and/or political
  activities
• GIS (Geographic Information Systems)
• data visualization
• reclassification of data, overlay analyses,
  measuring distances and connectivity,
  neighborhood analyses

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Qualitative analyses

• action research, case studies, conversational
  analysis, ethnography, focus group research, life
  history studies, oral history
• Primary data
• interview
• observation (participant observation)
• ethnography, action research, case studies
• Secondary data
• diaries, letters, autobiographies, biographies
• literary sources and official documentation
• paintings, photographs, films and sound recordings

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Analyzing qualitative data

• Descriptions
• thin or thick
• context and process
• Classification
• interpretive analysis
• identifying coherent classes of data
• Connection
• relationships, associations, interactions between
  classes
• Quantitative techniques

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Corroborating evidence Are there other
alternatives that would explain the data? Why
does your conclusion make sense? Have other
researchers come up with similar results? Data
quality How reliable is your data? Are your
results biased?