Human Geography: Political Geography: Geopolitik

Human Geography: Political Geography
A subdiscipline concerned with the study of the spatial dimensions of politics. Although sharing
many of the theories, methods, and interests as human geography in general, it has a particular
interest in territory, the state, power, and boundaries (including borders), across a range of scales
from the body to the planet. ‘Politics’ refers not simply to the formal organization of political life
through government, elections, parties, etc., but all aspects of social life involving governance or
where some degree of contentiousness or conflict may arise. Interpreted more broadly, therefore,
political geography can encompass all those ideas about the relationships between geography and
politics extending beyond academic contexts (see anti-politics).
Political geography has meant and studied different things in different contexts. In the late 19th
century it was partly synonymous with human geography as a whole. Friedrich Ratzel is credited
with the first use of the term in his book Politische Geographie, in which he aligned non-
physical geography with the study of the state in space. Mackinder similarly distinguished
political and physical geography. The work of geographers in France, Germany, Britain, and the
USA in exploring the geographical foundations of state power is now more commonly classified
as geopolitics. Anxious to distance themselves from the German school of geopolitik because of
its close links to the Nazi regime, prominent US geographers such as Isaiah
Bowman and Richard Hartshorne described their work as ‘political geography’. But, actual
empirical research in the field dried up, perhaps because of the taint of geopolitics, and
theoretical advance halted. The main exception was work on boundaries and boundary disputes,
which was a preoccupation of French and German geographers before the Second World
War and of interest to British geographers in the subsequent phase of decolonization. In terms of
theory, a notable exception was the work of French geographer Jean Gottmann who, like
Hartshorne, tried to understand the relations between the modern state, territory, and identity. His
recognition of the significance of iconography and the state idea prefigured later contributions.
In the 1960s, political geography was reframed in terms of political studies from spatial
perspectives, with elections, boundaries, and subnational administrative organization among its
subject matter (see electoral geography; spatial science). A core problem for example, was the
effect of international boundaries on spatial interaction. The impact of the cultural and political
upheavals across the world in the late 1960s was twofold. On the one hand, impelled by radical
geography and informed by Marxism, feminism, and socialism, swathes of human geography
became politicized, i.e. were more attentive to conflict and difference and prepared to challenge
the existing order. In one sense, most if not all, human geography could be described thereafter
as political. The specific area of a self-described political geography itself enjoyed a revival. The
former focus on the state gave way to an interest in the world scale; for example, in Peter
Taylor’s development of the world-systems approach, as well as the urban scale, in the work
of Kevin Cox, Ron Johnston, David Harvey, and others. Issues of class, and later race, gender,
and sexuality came to the fore. In France, Yves Lacoste founded the journal Hérodote (1976) to
introduce French geographers to some of the radical ideas of the country’s new generation of
social and political theorists. The leading journal Political Geography Quarterly (later
renamed Political Geography) was founded in 1982, marking the recovery of the field.
Thereafter, political geography generated and responded to the same currents as human
geography in general, including postmodernism, post-structuralism, and post-
colonialism (see critical geopolitics). To the long-standing interests in the state, power and
boundaries, modern courses and texts in the field include sexual politics, citizenship, social
movements, civil society, globalization, and environment. Indeed, globalization has reopened
older debates about the relations between territory, identity, and boundaries. Wars in the
Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and the related ‘war on terror’ have prompted a greater interest
in violence, both state and non-state (see terrorism; war). Political ecology marks the overlap
between political geography and a concern for nature, resources, and the environment. Given the
significance of climate change, food security, and oil resources, political geographers have in
some ways revived the preoccupations of their 19th-century predecessors for the physical
environment, although without the trappings of environmental determinism.
Human Geography: Defining Human Geography
A SHORT DEFINITION FOR HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

The study of the interrelationships between people, place, and environment, and how these vary
spatially and temporally across and between locations. Whereas physical geography concentrates
on spatial and environmental processes that shape the natural world and tends to draw on the
natural and physical sciences for its scientific underpinnings and methods of investigation,
human geography concentrates on the spatial organization and processes shaping the lives and
activities of people, and their interactions with places and nature. Human geography is more
allied with the social sciences and humanities, sharing their philosophical approaches and
methods (see physical geography for a discussion on the relationship between human and
physical geography; environmental geography).
Human geography consists of a number of sub-disciplinary fields that focus on different
elements of human activity and organization, for example, cultural geography, economic
geography, health geography, historical geography, political geography, population
geography, rural geography, social geography, transport geography, and urban geography. What
distinguishes human geography from other related disciplines, such as development, economics,
politics, and sociology, are the application of a set of core geographical concepts to the
phenomena under investigation, including space, place, scale, landscape, mobility, and nature.
These concepts foreground the notion that the world operates spatially and temporally, and that
social relations do not operate independently of place and environment, but are thoroughly
grounded in and through them.
With respect to methods, human geography uses the full sweep
of quantitative and qualitative methods from across the social sciences and humanities, mindful
of using them to provide a thorough geographic analysis. It also places emphasis
on fieldwork and mapping (see cartography), and has made a number of contributions to
developing new methods and techniques, notably in the areas of spatial analysis, spatial statistics,
and GIScience.
The long-term development of human geography has progressed in tandem with that of the
discipline more generally (see geography). Since the Quantitative Revolution in the 1950s and
1960s, the philosophy underpinning human geography research has diversified enormously. The
1970s saw the introduction of behavioural geography, radical geography, and humanistic
geography. These were followed in the 1980s by a turn to political economy, the development
of feminist geography, and the introduction of critical social theory underpinning the cultural
turn. Together these approaches formed the basis for the growth of critical geography, and the
introduction of postmodern and post-structural thinking into the discipline in the 1990s. These
various developments did not fully replace the theoretical approaches developed in earlier
periods, but rather led to further diversification of geographic thought. For example, quantitative
geography continues to be a vibrant area of geographical scholarship, especially through the
growth of GIScience. The result is that geographical thinking is presently highly pluralist in
nature, with no one approach dominating.
Castree, N., Kitchin, R., & Rogers, A. (2013). "Human geography." In A Dictionary of Human
Geography. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 14 Mar. 2017
Pages under the Human Geography guide include: Cultural geography; Economic
geography; Feminist geography; Geopolitics; Migration studies; Political
geography; Population studies; Travel & Tourism; and Urban geography.
Human geography is the branch of geography concerned with understanding the

world's culture and how it relates to geographic space. Political geography is the
further offshoot that studies the spatial distribution of political processes and
how these processes are impacted by one's geographic location.
It often studies local and national elections, international relationships and the
political structure of different areas based on geography.
Heartland Theory
Halford Mackinder's Heartland Theory was another early theory in political
geography.
In 1904, Mackinder, a British geographer, developed this theory in his article,

"The Geographical Pivot of History." Mackinder said the world would be divided
into a Heartland consisting of Eastern Europe, a World Island made up of
Eurasia and Africa, Peripheral Islands, and the New World. His theory said that
the age of seapower was ending and that whoever controlled the heartland would
control the world.
Both Ratzel and Mackinder's theories remained important before and during
World War II. The Heartland Theory, for instance, influenced the creation of
buffer states between the Soviet Union and Germany at the end of the war.
By the time of the Cold War, their theories and the importance of political
geography began to decline and other fields within human geography began to
develop.
In the late 1970s however, political geography again began to grow. Today,
political geography is considered one of the most important branches of human
geography and many geographers study a variety of fields concerned with
political processes and geography.
Fields Within Political Geography

Some of the fields within today's political geography include, but are not limited
to:
 The mapping and study of elections and their results

 The relationship between the government at the federal, state and local
level and its people
 The marking of political boundaries
 The relationships between nations involved in international supranational
political groupings such as the European Union
Modern political trends also have an impact on political geography, and in recent
years sub-topics focused on these trends have developed within political
geography. This is known as critical political geography and includes political
geography focused on ideas related to feminist groups and gay and lesbian issues
as well as youth communities.
Examples of Research
Some of the most famous geographers to study political geography were John A.
Agnew, Richard Hartshorne, Halford Mackinder, Friedrich Ratzel and Ellen
Churchill Semple.
Today, political geography is also a specialty group within the Association of
American Geographers and there is an academic journal called Political
Geography. Some titles from articles in this journal include "Redistricting and
the Elusive Ideals of Representation," "Climate Triggers: Rainfall Anomalies,
Vulnerability and Communal Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa," and "Normative
Goals and Demographic Realities."
Sources
 “Human Geography: Political Geography.” Research Guides.

 “Richard Muir.” SpringerLink.

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Human Geography: Political Geography

Human Geography: Defining Human Geography

A SHORT DEFINITION FOR HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

Human geography is the branch of geography concerned with understanding the

In 1904, Mackinder, a British geographer, developed this theory in his article,

Fields Within Political Geography

 The mapping and study of elections and their results

 “Human Geography: Political Geography.” Research Guides.

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