Professional Geographers Research Articles

Geography then and now

Fifty years ago the number of professional geographers in Britain was small but the need to study the whole world and the local circumstances was well understood. In school education the subject was successful and primary field work, such as the Stamp Land Utilisation Survey, provided an excellent basis for the post- 1945 planning of Britain. Through the post-war university expansion the number of geographers multiplied and the range of specialisation increased. Concern with human problems and greater opportunities of handling statistical and other data stimulated research, and the general wish to provide a 'renewed reading of the human surface of the earth' made the debate on geographical methodology as fascinating as it was fifty years earlier.

WHAT CAN I DO WITH GEOGRAPHY?∗

As professional geographers we ask the above question in terms of problem solving, but undergraduate students ask it in regards to employment. To determine what exactly our recent majors have done, we prepared a questionnaire on careers, salary, and the utility of the major. Responses indicate they held a wide variety of employment opportunities and annual salaries from under $8,000 to well above $20,000 in 1981. Particularly useful courses include cartography, quantitative techniques and field course work. Special interest was shown in our new Internship Program.

Freedom of information and geographical practice

Professional geographers are reliant for much of their research on information made available by government agencies and private corporations. The principal argument here is that much crucial information is either confidential, grossly distorted or totally suppressed. This means that geographers cannot always adequately perform one of their major professional responsibilities which is to comment critically on various developments taking place around them in the ‘real world’. The international freedom of information movement has developed and grown in response to the secrecy which characterises most liberal democracies around the world. Freedom of information legislation is discussed, together with a number of case studies illustrating the suppression and distortion of information. It is argued that the ‘openness’ of the ‘information environment’ within which geographers live and work has a significant impact on the kinds of research topics that are tackled.

Academic Geography in Britain: 1918-1946

This is merely an essay based on one person's recollection. It is in no sense a comprehensive account. I am grateful to Dr R. E. Glasscock for his comments on the manuscript. Modern academic geography in Britain had its origin in 1887-8 when, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, lectureships were established at Oxford and Cambridge; and a new stage in its development began in 1918, after the First World War. During these intervening 30 years or so, the subject came to be taught in 14 universities and university colleges. We must not, however, think of such teaching in terms of our present-day departments with their honours schools, their substantial numbers of staff, and their research students. The early teaching was for certificates, diplomas and ordinary degrees, or it was supplementary to courses in other subjects such as commerce, geology and history. This was so even at University College London where L. W. Lyde had been appointed to a professorship in 1903, and where Capt. Alexander Maconochie, R.N., had been the first British professor of geography in 1833-6.1 Many people still continued to think of the subject as being concerned with capes and bays and with lists of imports and exports. The 'old' geography took a long time to die. The greatest single event which transformed this approach was the publication in 1905 of A. J. Herbertson's paper on 'The major natural regions'.2 When first read in the preceding year at the Royal Geographical Society it had evoked a chilly response, but it was not very long before many people came to believe that here was a logical and convenient way of describing the earth's surface by identifying areas each with 'a certain unity of configuration, climate and vegetation'. It was an idea that spread widely as the result of a variety of textbooks, many written by Herbertson himself. When he died in 1915 at the age of 50, he bequeathed a basis for the teaching of geography not only in schools but also in universities.3 Herbertson's classification was largely in terms of climatic regions, and it soon provoked debate about different methods of regional division. In 1916, for example, J. F. Unstead read a paper on another 'method of determining geographical regions'. It was followed by a discussion in which L. W. Lyde and P. M. Roxby took part, and this is well worth reading today because it indicates something of the ferment of these years, and shows how differences were developing even among the believers in the idea of the region.4 The War that was raging at the time generated an increasing interest in geography not as an academic discipline but as a subject of practical importance. In 1915 a Geographical Section was formed in the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty to write geographical handbooks on various parts of the world. About seventy writers were involved together with over a dozen draughtsmen, and they produced more than 50 handbooks and manuals and also some 130 short geographical reports. Topographical description loomed large in the content of these. The Director of the Section was H. N. Dickson who had taken a science degree at Edinburgh before Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. N.S. 8, 14-26 (1983) Printed in Great Britain This content downloaded from 157.55.39.144 on Mon, 25 Jul 2016 05:08:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Academic geography in Britain: 1918-46 15 lecturing in physical geography at Oxford (from 1899) and becoming a professor of geography at Reading in 1906. Most of the staff were not professional geographers, but there were a few from the small band of university geographers: R. N. Rudmose Brown (Sheffield), O. J. R. Howarth (Oxford), John Macfarlane (Aberdeen) and 0. H. T. Rishbeth (Southampton). During these years, chairs of geography were established in 1917 at Liverpool and at Aberystwyth, and with the end of the war in 1918, the first honours schools were instituted at these two universities and also at Cambridge and at London. Here was a new beginning in the development of academic geography in Britain.5

On egotism, amateurism, masochism, narcissism, sadism, masturbation and flagellation in African bibliography

It was very flattering to read Mr. Olden's article in African Research and Documentation 30 with so many references to myself. This is to acknowledge that my “ego is being served” (vide first line, p. 29). May I be allowed a few brief comments, if only to acknowledge how gratifying it has been to see that the amateur approach still survives (it hardly flourishes). In my two essays on the subject, and now in some of the ‘personal communications’ in Mr. Olden's essay there are various nuances and veiled sarcasms that a future commentator may find curious (or miss).One peculiarity about the amateur bibliographers listed in Olden's article is that three of us, Williams, Mortimer and myself, are all professional geographers. I suspect that all our methods of collection were “boy-scout operations” (Mortimer).

Giambattista Vico as a Philosopher of Place: Comments on the Recent Article by Mills

William J. Mills' scholarly and provocative article, 'Positivism reversed: the relevance of Giambattista Vico' (Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. N. S. 7: 1-13) has cancelled a debt which has slowly been accruing to geographers during the recent resurgence of interest among philosophers and social scientists in general in the life and work of this original eighteenth century Neapolitan thinker. Three international conferences, a flurry of publications, an increasingly frequent mention of Vico by prominent scholars, and the founding of a new journal devoted exclusively to his work and influence have all occurred within the last fifteen years with little recognition from geographers.' Mills, within the limitations of a journal article, has presented the essential flavour and significance of this difficult thinker, and at the same time has suggested an initial means of extending Vico's philosophy of culture to the study of landscape. The reason for Vico's relative anonymity among geographers is not hard to explain, for Vico's originality and difficult style has put him at some distance from the modern tradition, which still exemplifies in many ways the Cartesianism which Vico opposed in his own day.2 For professional geographers, who have a natural association with the physical sciences and are pragmatic rather than theoretical in their general outlook, the difficulties of understanding Vico are multiplied. It is as though the discipline, in dividing its interests between 'objectivity' as a model of scientific procedure and 'subjectivity' as a humanistic concern for questions of value and meaning, has totally missed Vico's argument for a viewpoint which subsumes both subject and object in a theory of history and culture. As Mills has written, 'the very distinction between subject and object becomes transcended, with each observer being his own observed'.3 And, as Mills has emphasized, this transcendence is made possible by Vico's original and positive approach to the knowledge of culture, the principle of verum ipsum factum, 'one may know that which one has made'.4 Mills has introduced Vico by setting off the verum-factum principle against the positivistic tendency to subordinate the human sciences to the physical sciences. Where knowledge is defined as 'a knowledge of causes', positivists have argued that one can presume to have some access to objects which have no mind of their own, objects which are the same for any observer and can thus be subjected to experiment, manipulation, and constraint. Human thought and intention, which appear as 'black boxes' to this way of thinking, are regarded today in much the same way as they were in Vico's time: that is, given to caprice and illusion and in no way subject to laws except, perhaps, those which are beyond or hidden from consciousness. Vico's singular contribution to the study of culture is to see the uncertainty of the human condition

大会シンポシウムその2

大会シンポシウムその2

昭和55年度研究発表大会記録・発表要旨 (その1)

昭和55年度研究発表大会記録・発表要旨 (その1)

BASEBALL AND GEOGRAPHY: THE HIDDEN CONNECTION

A growing number of geographers are becoming aware of the relationship between baseball and geography. As early as 1963 Shaw published an exhaustive account of this relationship, but professional geographers dropped the ball and failed to follow through [ I ] . During the years since Shaw’s landmark article, two geographers have entered the major leagues (Bil l Lee and Denny Doyle, Boston Red Sox) and at least one undergraduate (Steve Ruling of the Milwaukee Brewers’ AAA Spokane affiliate) i s preparing to graduate from geography and into the American League in the very near future. Anyone proficient in quantitative analysis can demonstrate the statistical significance of a growth rate from zero baseball-geographers to two (and, someday, three) in less than a decade. There is, then, clear statistical evidence that the growing number of geographers in major league baseball points toward the time when they will some day control the sport. Interconnected with this trend toward geography’s capture of America‘s favorite pastime i s an almost-hidden corollary: baseball may someday dominate geography! The takeover will be gradual, subtle, and deceptively smooth. As a matter of littleknown fact, the movement has already begun, and has been verified by extensive research carried out by the authors in the lobby and adjacent facilities of the Hyatl Regency Knoxville during the SEAAG meeting in November 1977. The first hint of baseball’s influence on our discipline came when the chairman of one major league institution (one that offers the Ph.D.) was overheard to tell another, “I’ll trade you two cultural geographers with a few more good years left in them for one young cartographer and a draft choice to be named later.” The comment might well have gone unnoticed had not your authors been alertmen who have learned from vast and past experiences to seize research topics whenever they materialize, men who have mastered the art of eaves-dropping. Aural research has its merits, for the name of the sought-after cartographer was ascertained. When the young mapmaker was located and questioned, he was indignant. In no uncertain terms he informed your authors that he was going to work out his option and attend the New Orleans meeting as a free agent. A trade was out, and his attorney would handle matters at the free-agent session in the Crescent City. This incident revealed, for the first time, that there would be a free-agent session among the 21 concurrent sessions at the national meeting. After conducting an intensive personal interview with the major league chairman, it was learned that the free-agent concept was not new to the AAG’s annual meeting, only that it had never been formalized before. Further, additional queries (which precisely followed established interview techniques) disclosed that some institutions in the major leagues

昭和52年度研究発表大会記録その2 シンポジウム・巡検

昭和52年度研究発表大会記録その2 シンポジウム・巡検

昭和52年度研究発表大会記録その1 発表要旨その1

昭和52年度研究発表大会記録その1 発表要旨その1

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昭和52年度研究発表大会記録その1 発表要旨その3

昭和52年度研究発表大会記録その1 発表要旨その2

昭和52年度研究発表大会記録その1 発表要旨その2

A New Look at the Four Traditions of Geography

Abstract In the May 1964 issue of the JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY, William D. Pattison presented a brief and excellent statement concerning the main themes in geography.' His four traditions article has been quoted widely since then, and it has helped to reduce the problem of defining the broad scope of the discipline in one or two sentences which would be acceptable to and understood by the public, teachers, and professional geographers. An obvious difficulty of any brief definition is what is omitted by a summary statement. Instead of trying to produce a definition which would receive general agreement, Pattison suggested that we should consolidate the concepts and themes of geography into those few which have been persistent throughout the development of the discipline in the past century. Thus he identified geography's four traditions: spatial, area studies, man-land, and earth science. Many other people and numerous curriculum committees have listed the major concepts and principles of geography; each geogr...

昭和51年度研究発表大会記録・発表要旨・シンポジウム・巡検その2

昭和51年度研究発表大会記録・発表要旨・シンポジウム・巡検その2

昭和51年度研究発表大会記録・発表要旨・シンポジウム・巡検その1

昭和51年度研究発表大会記録・発表要旨・シンポジウム・巡検その1

The Study of Delinquency Areas: A Social Geographical Approach

Geographical interest in forms of social deviance is of comparatively recent origin, despite the fact that the relevance of spatial qualities has long been recognized. The concept of delinquency area remains a viable part of the literature and deserves closer attention by social geographers. Although analyses at the aggregate scale, based upon published statistics, remain valid and have considerable potential, there is a need to form new research strategies which both conduct analyses at the individual scale and improve the quality of data. Such a research strategy has been developed in a study of Cardiff and a set of research hypotheses relating to area differences, primarily in terms of attitudes and forms of behaviour, are tested. Results suggest that area differences exist and that the social geographical perspective is highly relevant to research in this field. A RESEARCH interest by professional geographers in the field of deviance studies is of comparatively recent origin,1 despite the fact that other disciplines have often recognized the relevance of spatial factors. Definitions of social deviance refer to normative rules for behaviour which in some ways have been infringed.2 Whilst social deviance is a generic term and there is little case for ignoring its typologies, there are grounds for recognizing broad bases of similarity and the fact that specific forms of deviance are subsets of the whole to which common methodologies and conceptual frameworks may apply. Juvenile delinquency is a particular form of social deviance which involves the transgression of societal laws by young offenders;3 it is itself capable of further differentiation by parameters such as degree of seriousness of the offence. Most analyses of crime and delinquency rest upon official sources of data, the reliability and comprehensiveness of which have been the subject of considerable debate.4 Whatever their merits, these data sets provide the only sources of statistics and have to form the bases of much research. A recent research project in Cardiff has considered the spatial qualities of delinquent behaviour on several fronts.s Access to data from several official sources allowed the calculation of delinquency rates for small areas of the city and these have formed a basis for study of areal and ecological characteristics. The emphasis in this particular paper is upon that part of the overall project in which an attempt was made to advance beyond the established strategies of quantitative analyses of aggregate statistics in order to demonstrate how attitudes and forms of behaviour could be studied in the context of social geographical research. This has involved the establishment of an area sampling framework from which survey areas were selected for detailed investigation.6 Whilst the procedure is not novel and is soundly based in geographical literature,7 its application in this context has innovative qualities. The paper considers the ecological tradition in crimihology, discusses the possibilities of a behavioural approach, develops the particular research strategy employed with the related research hypotheses, and evaluates the results from the survey of selected areas in Cardiff. THE ECOLOGICAL TRADITION IN CRIMINOLOGY The fact that crime and delinquency display marked areal and ecological characteristics, in common with many other forms of social deviance, has been recognized for some considerable

Computer Cartography And Professional Geographers

Computer Cartography And Professional Geographers

How many new professional Geographers?

How many new professional Geographers?

Some concerns of regional geography: With illustrations from Northern Ireland

Abstract Paradoxically the recent tendencies in geographical research and teaching have assured the decline of regional geography, at a time when the need for this branch of the subject was never greater. Many of the difficulties and problems that arise in regional enquiry are first discussed, in the light of the author's experiences in the field and in the classroom. Some general observations upon information‐gathering are then provided, since professional geographers continue to avoid discussions of the proven ways and means by which they gather information. The final part of the paper seeks to demonstrate how a geographer's viewpoint on Northern Ireland can offer a sane check to TV sensationalism or tribal group emotionalism, as well as a constructive basis for thoughts on future development.