중국에서 문화지리학의 태동과 발전

Abstract

Examining the emergence and development of cultural geography in China, this study aims to identify major researchers and research trends by generation and to identify major research bases and characteristics by region as well. For these purposes, we tracked the master-apprentice relationship of scholars who published cultural geographical studies in major geographical journals in China. According to the generation classification, scholars could be divided into five generations in this study. Geographical study of culture started in the Huadong region centered on Nanjing University was found to be divided into two bases: Beijing and Guangzhou. Although it is nearly 100 years since geographical study of culture emerged in China, cultural geography was firstly introduced to universities as a course by the third generation scholars in the mid-1980s, shortly after the Chinese economic reform. Leading the research from the late 1990s to the late 2010s, the fourth generation had contributed to the transition from ‘historical and cultural geography’ that inherited from earlier generations to ‘social and cultural geography’. The fifth generation, who began academic activities in the 2010s, has switched to ‘social and cultural geography.’ We argue that ‘institutional sustainability’ and ‘critical mind on issues in China’ are the tasks of Chinese cultural geography.