Geography · Ch 1 — Human Geography: Nature and Scope
Introduction
Introduction
The opening chapter of Fundamentals of Physical Geography (NCERT, 2006) introduced you to geography as a discipline — its nature, its integrative and empirical character, and the major branches that stem from it. That foundation is essential here because human geography is not a separate subject; it is one of the two great divisions of geography itself. Geography, as you already know, studies everything that varies over space and time. Its reach is vast, and any event or phenomenon that has a spatial dimension can be examined geographically.
Now, look at the earth’s surface. What do you see? The earth is made of two major components: the physical environment (nature) and life forms — including human beings. Make a quick mental list of the physical and human elements in your own surroundings. Physical geography studies the physical environment. Human geography, on the other hand, studies the relationship between the physical/natural world and the human world. It examines the spatial distributions of human phenomena, how those distributions come about, and the social and economic differences between different parts of the world.
The core concern of geography as a whole is to understand the earth as the home of human beings and to study all those elements that have sustained human life. The emphasis, therefore, is on the study of both nature and human beings together.
The Great Debates in Geography
Over time, geography became subject to dualism — a series of debates about what the discipline should really be doing.
- Should geography be nomothetic (law-making, theorising) or idiographic (descriptive, focused on unique cases)?
- Should its subject matter be organised and studied regionally or systematically?
- Should geographical phenomena be interpreted theoretically or through a historic-institutional approach?
These were serious intellectual exercises. But in the end, you will appreciate that the dichotomy between physical and human is not a very valid one. Nature and human beings are inseparable elements and should be seen holistically.
A Striking Metaphor
It is interesting to note that both physical and human phenomena are often described using metaphors drawn from the human anatomy. We speak of the ‘face’ of the earth, the ‘eye’ of the storm, the ‘mouth’ of the river, the ‘snout’ (nose) of the glacier, the ‘neck’ of an isthmus, and the ‘profile’ of the soil. Similarly, regions, villages, and towns have been described as ‘organisms’. German geographers describe the state or country as a ‘living organism’. Networks of roads, railways, and waterways are often called ‘arteries of circulation’. Can you collect such terms and expressions from your own language?
The basic question that arises is this: can we separate nature and human beings when they are so intricately intertwined?
Human Geography Defined
Three classic definitions capture the essence of the field.
Ratzel: “Human geography is the synthetic study of relationship between human societies and earth’s surface.”
The keyword here is synthesis — the bringing together of different elements into a coherent whole.
Ellen C. Semple: “Human geography is the study of the changing relationship between the unresting man and the unstable earth.”
The keyword here is dynamism — the relationship is not static; both humans and the earth are constantly changing.
Paul Vidal de la Blache: “Conception resulting from a more synthetic knowledge of the physical laws governing our earth and of the relations between the living beings which inhabit it.”
For Vidal de la Blache, human geography offers a new conception of the interrelationships between earth and human beings — one that is built on a synthetic understanding of physical laws and the relations among all living beings.