Globalization: a Physical Geography perspective

Abstract

Although globalization is a term usually restricted to economics and the social sciences, there are aspects of the phenomenon that are intimately linked to the practice and purpose of the physical and environmental sciences and exemplified through Physical Geography. At a fundamental level, Physical Geography has always sought to describe and understand the multiple subsystems of the environment and their connections with human activity: it is global and globalizing at its very roots. Globalization may be seen historically in the global export of western science, including Physical Geography, that underpinned colonial resource exploitation, and which subsequently laid the foundations for the worldwide conservation movement, and for critiques of environment-development relations, such as Political Ecology. Globalization is evident today in the burgeoning productivity and increasing organization of science as well as in the growing accessibility of scientific information. It is also at work in setting contemporary scientific agendas that are focused on larger-scale issues of environment and development and environmental change, particularly in an emergent Earth System Science, and also in Sustainability Science. These global agendas are not simply shared with but also co-produced by the public, politicians and commercial interests, providing both opportunities and challenges for traditional disciplines and traditional disciplinary practices such as Physical Geography.