Limited by imagination alone: research methods in cultural geographies

Abstract

These are exciting times for cultural geography(ies),1 especially in the often-under-sung realm of methods: spurred by rapidly developing theoretical engagements and pursuit of creative opportunities, our research methods are now as varied as imaginations allow. Through challenges and innovations in methods, cultural geographies have flourished – cultural geographers have embraced not only a proliferation of tools and techniques, but profoundly also an active encouragement of diversity in the very ways we carry out our research, and an articulacy in how we talk and write about our research methods. From the early 20th century, cultural geography built a rich field-based tradition, but also a ‘just do it’ approach to research, where methods were seldom described, discussed, or interrogated. Some 25 years ago, it was still possible for novitiates to be introduced to landscape analysis with a slide of the famous proponent of (old) cultural geography, Carl O. Sauer, pipe in mouth and knapsack beside him, and the quote ‘The mode of locomotion should be slow, the slower the better, and be often interrupted by leisurely halts to sit on vantage points and stop at question marks’.2 At mid-century, while human geography as a whole was captivated by the quantitative revolution and the new methods it unleashed, cultural geography, lacking a well-developed tradition of discussing and engaging methods, stood on the sidelines of the discipline. But it was through reactions to the quantitative revolution that cultural geographies emerged anew, developing richer and more articulate approaches to methods. In so many ways, these arose most significantly from feminist geographies. Feminist geographers had found women’s voices and experiences missing in aggregated statistics, but also in field-based research where women were too-often overlooked; they responded with articulate critique that focused not just on women, but often more broadly on methods.3 Then came the maelstrom of the cultural turn,4 which challenged previous notions of theory-building and 572302 CGJ0010.1177/1474474015572302cultural geographiesShaw et al. research-article2015