Approaches to researching and teaching military geography

Abstract

Military geography has a long, yet controversial status as a subfield within the discipline. Practitioners of the traditional military geography approach have largely led the field in both teaching and research. This approach, however, has prompted critiques from a more critical approach to military geography. This chapter examines the evolution of military geography by focusing on the major defining works that set the course for a traditional approach that continues to this day. By focusing on the authors and their intended purposes, primarily from an American perspective, this examination explains the origins and approaches of this more traditional military geography scholarship in order to place current critiques in context. It demonstrates not only that research and teaching in traditional military geography are inextricability linked, but also that this approach will likely continue for the foreseeable future. This discussion makes clear that there is, and likely will be, an ever-expanding range of topics and research agendas for military geographers, regardless of approach.