Approaches and Methods in Human Geography

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Approaches and Methods in Human Geography

• Geography 212

Source Claire Jantz
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Outline

• Types of fields in human geography
• Theoretical approaches to studying human
  geography
• Methodology approaches to studying human geography

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Types of fields in Human Geography

• Cultural (Demography, migration, acculturation,
  assimilation)
• Economic (employment, location theory,
  manufacturing, marketing, retailing, services,
  trade)
• Gender studies (feminisms)
• Rural (economy, planning, population and change)
• Industrial (location, organization, regional
  development, technological change)
• Medical (epidemiology)
• Urban (economy, housing, morphology, politics,
  population, renewal, retailing, sociology,
  theory, models, systems

• Political (electoral, geopolitics)
• Population (demography, change, migration)
• Recreational (leisure, sport, tourism)
• Historical (countryside, industry, population,
  towns)
• Social (ethnicity, theory, socio-economic status)
• Transport (rural/urban)
• (1993 listing of the Institute of British
  Geographers and the Association of American
  Geographers, in Kitchen and Tate 2000)

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Approaches

• What perspective is a phenomenon been observed?
• How should it be construed and represented?
• Three basic approaches
• empirical-analytical
• historical-hermeneutic
• critical

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I. Empirical-analytical science

• Empiricism (fact seeking)
• facts speak for themselves
• science should be observe phenomena in the real
  world
• value-free (non-bias)
• Descriptive analysis
• Positivism (scientific)
• Scientific statement (hypothesis)
  Scientific observation
• formation of theory Scientific law
  absolute truth
• human behavior can be derived and used for
  predictions
• value-free (non-bias)
• requires that hypotheses be presented and
  verified or falsified by repeatable observations
• quantitative methods and models

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II. Historical-hermeneutic science

• Hermeneutics (self-interpretation)
• The study of interpretation and meaning.
• - Ex. Biblical interpretation of clarification
  of the meaning of Gods word.
• - Is not used as frequent
• Behavioralism (spatial analysis)
• Emphasizes the role of cognitive and decision
  making variables as mediating the relationship
  between environment and spatial behaviour.
• model spatial behavior through peoples ability
  to remember, process and evaluate geographic
  information.
• empirical, quantitative, but measuring the
  intangible.

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• Idealism
• there is no real world reality is a
  construction of the mind
• explain patterns of behavior through an
  understanding of the thoughts behind them
• Does not need theories because is interested in
  the theories expressed by the human subjects
• Phenomenology
• rejects scientific, quantitative approaches
• Instead tries to understand the world instead of
  explaining it scientifically.
• reconstruct the worlds of individuals, their
  actions and the meanings of phenomena in those
  worlds to understand individual behavior without
  drawing upon a-priori theories.

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III. Critical science

• based on critical theory (truth, merit,
  motivations, meanings, symbols)
• Marxist approaches (alternative)
• society is structured to perpetuate the
  production of capital
• political and economic structures that underlie
  and reproduce capitalist modes of production and
  consumption
• ask how conditions might be under different
  social circumstances

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• Realism (origin)
• underlying mechanisms and structures of social
  relations, discovering the building blocks of
  reality
• studies underlying mechanisms of policy and
  practice, not interaction between individuals
• how something happens and how extensive the
  phenomena is
• what causes change, what allows or forces change
• Postmodernism (multiple perspective)
• all other approaches fail to account for
  differences within society
• there is no one answer, no one discourse is
  superior or dominant to another, and that all
  voices should be included in a dialogue
• there is no absolute truth, and no truth outside
  of interpretation
• readings (instead of observations),
  interpretations (rather than findings)

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• Poststructuralism
• relationship between society and culture is
  mediated through language
• the way we live our lives within society, the
  constraints and empowerment that operate, take
  effect in language
• deconstruct (tease apart) the multiple messages
  conveyed in language
• Feminism
• science is dominated by and reflects the position
  of men (white, wealthy, Western men)
• a need for re-negotiation of the role and
  structure of institutions and the production of
  knowledge
• a need for re-negotiation of power relations in
  society so that our knowledge of the world is
  more reflective of the people living in it

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Which approach is best?

• Naturalist or anti-naturalist
• Inductive or deductive
• Value-free or action-oriented
• Objective or situated
• Top down or bottom up
• Realism or anti-realism
• Structure or agency

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Types of data

• Qualitative data
• words, pictures, sounds
• humanistic, subjective, inductive, personal,
  idealistic, meaning and understanding, specific
• inquiry from the inside

• Quantitative data
• Numbers, statistics, or empirical facts
• scientific, objective, numerical, deductive,
  realistic, explanation and predictive,
  populations, generalizations, society
• numeric/statistical techniques

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Quantitative analyses

• Primary data
• statistical surveys
• Secondary data
• data archives
• census data
• Statistical analysis
• descriptive statistics
• correlation, regression
• spatial statistics

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Geographic technologies

• Remote sensing
• provides information about the physical
  environment in which people live and how they may
  be interacting with it
• land use data, time series, historical analyses
• links to social, cultural and/or political
  activities
• GIS (Geographic Information Systems)
• data visualization
• reclassification of data, overlay analyses,
  measuring distances and connectivity,
  neighborhood analyses

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Qualitative analyses

• action research, case studies, conversational
  analysis, ethnography, focus group research, life
  history studies, oral history
• Primary data
• interview
• observation (participant observetion)
• ethnography, action research, case studies
• Secondary data
• diaries, letters, autobiographies, biographies
• literary sources and official documentation
• paintings, photographs, films and sound recordings

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Analyzing qualitative data

• Descriptions
• thin or thick
• context and process
• Classification
• interpretive analysis
• identifying coherent classes of data
• Connection
• relationships, associations, interactions between
  classes
• Quantitative techniques

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• Corroborating evidence
• Are there other alternatives that would explain
  the data?
• Why does your conclusion make sense?
• Have other researchers come up with similar
  results?
• Data quality
• How reliable is your data?
• Are your results biased?