Humanistic Geography Encyclopedia Entry
Humanistic Geography Encyclopedia Entry
Humanistic Geography Encyclopedia Entry
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Seamon, and Yi-Fu Tuan. Much of this construction arising from purposeful actions
work was grounded in phenomenology of people-in-place. Place was interpreted as a
and, for its place interpretations, drew negotiated reality via which people facilitated
on a wide range of descriptive sources places, which in turn facilitated the lives of
that included first-person experience, people associated with those places. In the 1980s
philosophical argument, archival reports, and 1990s, this social-constructionist approach
accounts from imaginative literature, and to place became one significant bridge to post-
experiential evidence from photography, structuralist thinking and the new cultural
film, and other artistic media. Typically, this geography (Adams, Hoelscher, and Till 2001;
work emphasized lived commonalities in Cloke, Philo, and Sadler 1991).
relation to environmental and place experi-
ence, though these humanistic researchers
also asked how those commonalities varied Humanistic geography, 19701978
in terms of individual and group differ-
ences. In the 1980s and 1990s, this work Though interest in humanistic geography still
would be criticized as essentialist claiming holds sway today, the most significant work was
generalizable, universal structures such as accomplished in the period 19701978. During
place and home and largely ignoring this time, humanistic geographers produced
lived variations grounded in social, cultural, important substantive research and explored
and historical factors (Cresswell 2013; see broader conceptual and methodological con-
criticisms below). cerns. Though humanistic research incorporated
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a wide range of philosophical traditions, phe-
The second research model for human- nomenology was most often used because it
istic geography interpretations of social emphasized the elucidation of everyday human
worlds was represented by the work of such experience and could be readily applied to
geographers as James Duncan, David Ley, Mar- taken-for-granted geographic phenomena such
wyn Samuels, Susan Smith, Graham Rowles, as place, home, lived space, and environmental
and John Western. This work incorporated a experience. The first explicit discussion of phe-
wider range of philosophical traditions than nomenology and geography was a 1970 article
experiential explication and included pragma- in the Canadian Geographer by Edward Relph,
tism, grounded theory, symbolic interactionism, who gave examples of how the phenomenolog-
poststructuralism, and Marxist perspectives. Typ- ical approach was appropriate for probing the
ically, this research was grounded empirically in relationships between human beings and their
a specific place or social situation for example, natural and fabricated environments. A year later
David Leys work on inner-city subcultures, in the same journal, Yi-Fu Tuan also considered
housing, and gentrification; John Westerns the geographical value of phenomenology and
documentation of the impact of apartheid on concluded that the perspective was potentially
Cape Town, South Africa; or Graham Rowless helpful because it considered neither the world
research on the everyday environmental and nor human beings in the abstract but, rather,
place experiences of American elderly popula- emphasized human-being-in-the-world as it
tions. These researchers interpreted place and incorporated environmental, geographical, and
related geographical phenomena as a social place aspects.
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The next productive year in humanistic In the same Annals issue, Yi-Fu Tuan (1976)
research was 1974, marked by four significant provided the first formal conceptualization of
works. First, David Ley published The Black Inner humanistic geography, which he described as
City as Frontier Outpost, an ethnographic study a branch of the discipline that leads to a more
examining an African American neighborhood thorough understanding of the human condition
in Philadelphia. Second, Anne Buttimer pub- in relation to environmental and geographic
lished Values in Geography, a work that considered concerns.
how taken-for-granted personal and professional The most significant humanistic work in
understandings and values ground scholarly 1976 was Edward Relphs Place and Placeless-
knowledge, often in ways of which researchers ness (Relph 1976), a phenomenological study
were not self-consciously aware. Yi-Fu Tuan that interpreted place experience in terms of
published two notable works in 1974, the first insideness and outsidness. Relph argued that
of which was an article in Progress in Human the most intimate experience of place could
Geography in which Tuan described two different be described by existential insideness, the lived
modes of place: public symbols, places of promi- situation in which a place is experienced and
nence, like New York Citys Time Square, that understood without self-conscious awareness
yield their meaning to the eye; and fields of care, yet is permeated with cognitive, sensory, and
places like a well-liked tavern or neighborhood affective meaning usually unnoticed unless the
only known through prolonged experience place is changed in some way for example,
and typically undistinguished architecturally or ones home and neighborhood is destroyed by
k visually. Tuans second significant work in 1974 storm. Also in this work, Relph formulated k
was Topophilia (Tuan 1974), which delineated an the concept of placelessness, which he defined
outline for a phenomenology of environmental as the fragmentation and elimination of distinct
and place experience. This book became one of places in the world. Of all the 1970s work in
the best known humanistic-geographic works humanistic geography, Place and Placelessness
for researchers outside the discipline, partly perhaps had the most lasting impact because
because Tuan introduced the term topophilia, it provided a lucid, applicable presentation of
referring to attachment to and love of place. why places are important in human life, what
The year 1976 marked a number of signifi- their constitution is experientially, and how
cant advances in humanistic research, including they have been undermined in modernist and
an explicit formulation of the subfield and postmodernist times.
two penetrating works that further clarified The year 1978 marked the high point of
the relationship between humanistic geogra- humanistic research in that David Ley and
phy and phenomenology. In a special June Marwyn Samuels (1978) published Humanistic
issue of the Annals of the Association of Ameri- Geography: Prospects and Problems, an edited
can Geographers devoted to the philosophy of collection illustrating the broad conceptual and
geography, two important articles appeared, the thematic range that humanist perspectives could
first of which, by Anne Buttimer, examined provide geography. In their introduction, the
how the phenomenological concept of life- editors argued that the humanistic tradition was
world the taken-for-granted world of everyday important for geographers because it offered one
living might offer insights for research on conceptual and applied pathway for reconciling
place, social space, and timespace rhythms. such dualisms as objectivity and subjectivity;
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materialism and idealism; agency and structure; Most generally, however, the perspective of
and knowledge and wisdom. Chapters focused humanistic geography largely fell from sight or
on such diverse topics as existential geography, metamorphosed into the new cultural geog-
alternative cartographies, a humanized economic raphy molded from poststructuralist, feminist,
geography, links between imaginative literature and critical perspectives. In this regard, many
and geography, words for places, landscapes as human geographers shifted their attention to
experienced by tourists, and the phenomenolog- the cutting-edge work of philosophers Michel
ical studies of the natural world produced by the Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze,
eminent late eighteenth-century German poet Flix Guattari, Bruno Latour, and other post-
and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In structuralist, critical, and relationalist theorists
spite of their eclecticism, the 20 chapters of the (Cresswell 2013). One example of how human-
volume effectively contributed to the editors istic themes shifted in the new millennium is
main aim: to reconcile the science and art of Textures of Place (Adams, Hoelscher, and Till
geography (Ley and Samuels 1978, 10). 2001), an edited collection dedicated to Yi-Fu
After 1978 and into the 2000s, important Tuan and the humanistic tradition. Overall,
humanistic work continued to appear, including the volumes 27 chapters demonstrated how an
David Seamons A Geography of the Lifeworld engagement with critical social theory worked to
(1979); Anne Buttimer and David Seamons transform earlier humanistic understandings of
Human Experience of Space and Place (1980); place, environmental experience, and geograph-
Douglas C.D. Pococks Humanistic Geography ical meaning. The editors of the volume called
k and Literature (1981); Edward Relphs Rational for a reconsideration of humanistic geography k
Landscapes and Humanistic Geography (Relph in the context of revised assumptions about
1981); Yi-Fu Tuans Segmented Worlds and Self human subjectivity, the transparency of language,
(1982); David Seamon and Robert Mugerauers and the use of descriptive categories based upon
Dwelling, Place and Environment (1985); Edward Western traditions of understanding (Adams,
Relphs The Modern Urban Landscape (1987); Hoelscher, and Till 2001, xvii).
J. Douglas Porteouss Planned to Death (1989);
J. Nicholas Entrikins The Betweenness of Place
(1991); Robert David Sacks Place, Consumption Criticisms of humanistic geography
and Modernity (1992); Anne Buttimers Geography
and the Human Spirit (1993); David Seamons Beginning in the 1980s, humanistic research
Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing (1993); Paul faced increasing criticism from quantitative-
Rodaways Sensuous Geographies (1994); Yi-Fu analytic geographers, on the one hand, and
Tuans Cosmos and Hearth (1996); Robert David Marxist, feminist, and poststructural geogra-
Sacks Homo Geographicus (1997); David Seamon phers, on the other hand (Cloke, Philo, and
and Arthur Zajoncs Goethes Way of Science Sadler 1991; Cresswell 2013). Quantitative
(1998); Anne Buttimers Sustainable Landscapes geographers largely criticized humanistic work
and Lifeways (2001); Robert David Sacks A Geo- in relation to research method: In turning away
graphical Guide to the Real and the Good (2003); from deductive theory, predefined concepts, and
Edmunds Bunkses Geography and the Art of Life measurable validation, how could humanistic
(2004); and Yi-Fu Tuans Humanist Geography geographers be certain that their interpretive
(2012). conclusions were accurate, comprehensive, and
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of places and social worlds directly but gave Humanistic geographers responded to these
equal weight to human agents being aware poststructural criticisms by suggesting that, even
of and being able to change their lifeways as globalization eroded some places, it strength-
in relation to limiting social and economic ened other places and contributed to new kinds
structures. of places. Humanistic geographers pointed out
Poststructural geographers questioned human- that, even with the growing importance of digital
istic work in yet other ways. Some poststructural communication, hyperspace, and virtual reali-
critics claimed that humanistic geographers ties, real places retain their importance because
ethically favored place, insideness, and rooted- people are bodily beings who always unavoidably
ness over non-place, outsideness, and mobility; live a life in some physical place. This inescapable
place itself was assumed to be centered, static, embodiment-in-place was often ignored by the
bounded, and exclusionary. Instead, poststruc- poststructural critics who aimed for a more pro-
tural critics spoke of a progressive sense of gressive sense of place grounded in a dynamic,
place and focused on how places relate and ever-shifting network of intertwined, porous
respond to their wider social and environ- places. Humanistic geographers contended that a
mental contexts. For these critics, places held good portion of such dynamic exchange remains
their importance geographically, but the crucial grounded in the habitual regularity of emplaced
theoretical and practical aim was finding ways bodies. Humanistic geographers also emphasized
whereby places could better incorporate diver- that any dynamic interchange among places pre-
sity and partake in constructive interconnections supposes a robust integrity of each place itself;
k and exchanges with other places. Another group this robust integrity is at least partly founded in k
of poststructural critics questioned whether the habitual regularity of lived bodies inescapably
place even existed in the postmodern world, bound to physical place (Seamon 2013).
claiming that real-world places were becoming
marginal and obsolete because of trends toward
globalization, non-places, and hyperspace. Some Humanistic geography today
poststructural critics went so far as to suggest
that, in our proliferating hyper-real world of Though humanistic geography as an explicit
digital environments and virtual realities, the subfield largely disappeared by the early 1990s,
lived distinctions between real and imagined interest in humanistic themes continued inside
places should be critically called into question. and outside the discipline, particularly on the part
These critics challenged the rigid, unchanging of phenomenological philosophers concerned
stasis of physical places and environments that with the phenomenon of place. Humanistic
they claimed humanistic accounts encompassed. geographers interpretations of place in the
These critics spoke instead of provisional, shift- 1970s were largely subjectivist in that place was
ing connections and flows among people, spaces, understood as a cognitive or affective represen-
places, nation-states, information, worldviews, tation inside the human being and ontologically
and digital representations. Key themes were separate from the objective environment outside.
mobility, flux, hybridity, relativity, relation- As phenomenological philosophers Edward
ality, discontinuities, rhizomes, assemblages, Casey (2009) and Jeff Malpas (1999) probed
hyper-worlds, virtual places, and smooth and the topic in the 1990s and 2000s, they argued
striated spaces. that place is a primary ontological structure
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that encompasses both human experience and of how place and lived emplacement provide a
the physical world in which that experience foothold for grounding environmental respon-
unfolds. This argument that human being is sibilities and actions in relation to particular
always human-being-in-place highlighted an individuals, groups, and localities. A second
important new way of geographical thinking example is the research of literary scholar Anna
because it claimed that place is necessarily an Westersthl Stenport (2004), who drew largely
integral, inescapable contributor to human on Swedish writer August Strindbergs works
existence and life. This understanding meant relating to Paris and Stockholm to examine how
that places are not material environments the nineteenth-century city shaped imagina-
existentially apart from the people associated tive literature and how, in turn, that literature
with them but, rather, the holistic unit of shaped perceptions of the nineteenth-century
human-beings-experiencing-place. Sometimes city. A third example is ethnographer Urzula
called lived emplacement or embodied place, this Wozniaks examination (2009) of at-homeness
phenomenon was understood to be complex and placelessness in the context of current global
and dynamic, and to incorporate generative migration. Drawing on Ukrainian, Turkish,
processes via which a place and its experiences and Vietnamese examples, she used the con-
and meanings shift or remain the same (Seamon cept of community attachment to understand
2013). the contrasting degree of identification that
Partly because of Casey and Malpass writings, different immigrant groups feel for their place
researchers inside and outside geography brought of relocation; she demonstrated how mental
renewed scholarly attention to the lived qualities associations with immigrants original home
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of place and to other topics associated with the place play a significant role in their understand-
humanistic tradition. For example, geographers ing of and feelings toward their new place of
Soren Larsen and Jay Johnson (2012) worked residence.
to link a place-grounded ontology with affinity These studies and others exemplify a new
politics, and geographer Sara Johansson (2013) generation of researchers who continue to
developed a method of rhythm analysis to be interested in such humanistic topics as
understand how the lived body encompasses place experience, at-homeness, community
and is encompassed by the urban environment involvement and identity, out-of-placeness,
as experienced. Echoing earlier claims on lived environmental personhood, lived emplacement,
embodiment by French phenomenologist Mau- mobility and place, supportive or undermining
rice Merleau-Ponty, Johansson argued that the processes shaping place, and the lived similarities
bodily dimensions of environmental experience and differences between real places and virtual
are as meaningful and as important in under- places (Seamon 2013). All of this work remains
standing place as environmental cognition and grounded in a central humanistic aim: to bring
intellectual geographic knowledge. human beings in all of their complexity to
In research by non-geographers, one also the centre-stage of human geography (Cloke,
finds a continuing body of work involving a Philo, and Sadler 1991, 58).
humanistic approach to geographical and envi- Wbieg1010
ronmental topics. One example is philosopher SEE ALSO: Bodies; Cognition and spatial Wbieg0498
Ingrid Stefanovics efforts (2000) toward a phe- behavior; Emotional geographies; Feminist Wbieg1088
nomenology of sustainability via an examination political ecology; Home; Marxist geography; Wbieg0804
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Nature, art and aesthetics; Phenomenology; Malpas, Jeff. 1999. Place and Experience. Cambridge:
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Place; Space Cambridge University Press.
Wbieg0786
Relph, Edward. 1976. Place and Placelessness. London:
Pion.
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nomenology: Implications for Human Rights and
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.2013.02.02.
Casey, Edward S. 2009. Getting Back into Place, 2nd
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Common Future: Rethinking Sustainable Development.
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Approaching Human Geography: An Introduction to
Stenport, Anna Westersthl. 2004. Making Space:
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and His Contemporaries. Berkeley: University of
Cresswell, Tim. 2013. Geographic Thought: A Critical
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Please note that the abstract and keywords will not be included in the printed book, but
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Abstract: First formalized by geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in 1976, humanistic geography refers to a
wide-ranging body of research emphasizing the importance of human experience and meaning in
understanding peoples relationship with places and geographical environments. Recognizing that
human involvement with the geographical world is complex and multidimensional, humanistic geog-
raphers interpret human action and awareness as they both sustain and are sustained by such geographic
phenomena as space, place, home, mobility, landscape, region, nature, and human-made environments.
Humanistic geography was most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. Over time, it was largely super-
seded by more focused conceptual approaches, including phenomenological geography, existential
geography, feminist geography, poststructural geography, critical geography, and relationalist geogra-
phy. Today, there is a renewed interest in a humanistic approach to geographical topics, though much of
k this momentum arises from outside geography via phenomenological research that emphasizes lived k
emplacement.