Abstract
This article discusses the growth of and change in social geography since the 1960s—the period during which it emerged as a significant sub-discipline of geography. The article traces changes in social geography's content and definition. An early preoccupation with positivism and statistical description of the location of social groups gave way, first to a behavioral approach, and subsequently to a variety of ‘radical’ approaches. These all attempted to challenge the inequalities and injustices of contemporary society. They encompassed humanist, Weberian, and Marxist approaches, and by the mid-1980s had become part of mainstream human geography. The article examines the recent impact of feminist and postmodern ideas and the associated growth of cultural geography on social geography. It argues that by the 1990s the previous understanding of social geography as studying ‘social processes and spatial patterns’ had become untenable in the face of new conceptions of the relationship between society and space. The article concludes by suggesting that there is likely to be a future expansion of work by researchers drawn to the interconnection of issues currently addressed in social, cultural, and development geography. However, it argues that the heyday of ‘social geography’ as a distinct sub-discipline is over.
Published Version
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