Paul Vidal de la Blache

Paul Vidal de la Blache ( born January 22, 1845 in Pezenas, † April 5, 1918 in Tamaris -sur -Mer ) was a French geographer, historian and ethnologist. He was one of the founders of Human Geography.

Brief Biography

Paul Vidal de la Blache studied in Paris at the École Normale Supérieure, history and geography. He then taught for several years at a French school in Athens, and then perform a doctorate in Nancy. Some years later he returned to Paris, where he pursued his research and wrote several works. It was he who gave the geography of general reputation and brought this science discipline at the universities and schools.

Main theses, Culture Ecological Approach and concept of genre de vie and pays

After Dietrich Fliedner Paul Vidal de la Blache can be seen as the founder of human geography, as it has developed many approaches to human geography.

Mainly the " man himself as a social being " was the center of his analysis. He examined the relationship of man and of whole groups of people with their environment or with the physical conditions and said, unlike Ratzel, that the people of this interrelation the scene here by dwelling, management, etc.. However, Vidal de la Blache came here not about the opposition to the theory of environment Ratzel to geography but by history. And thus his approach. Thus man enters into a relationship with nature and converts this.

In the center of his considerations, the investigation of certain cultures and peoples, such as nomads, fellahin, builders cultures, mountain people was so characterize the different ways of living their environment and use their facilities on a case quite different. In this approach, one can already see that Vidal de la Blache not, as Ratzel, the Geodeterminismus, according to which human action is primarily determined by the natural conditions adhered. Rather, he saw that the forms of life which he described as genres de vie, free and active, adapting to each given physical and biotic environment that pays. With this approach, Vidal de la Blache created the so-called possibilism. Paul Vidal de la Blache said himself in his work Tableau de la Géographie de la France:

A geographical individuality does not result from simple geological and climatological considerations. This is not a pre -given nature thing. One has to start from the idea that a landscape is a reservoir where energy Napping, whose germ has sunk nature, but their use depends on the people. He brightens their individuality by having them deployed to his benefit. It establishes a connection between scattered traits ago; he replaced a systematic forces related disjointed effects of local circumstances. Then clarified and differentiated a landscape and will in the long run as an embossed with the portrait of a nation medal.

Regional bound genres de vie, so life forms were interpreted as events of a possibilistic adaptation to natural areas. It has been observed and evaluated, as well as smaller nations or communities that benefit offered by nature or may not be offered resources to respond to and deal with and developed through this. Thus, more sophisticated forms of cultures fit better into similar natural conditions as, for example, strains which have remained at low levels. The investigation of the above mentioned peoples with regard to the human-nature relationship was to perform well because these autochthonous, which means as much as regionally bound, were. Even on the edge of ecumenism as on the coasts or in the high mountains, the autochthony was given at the beginning of the 20th century, but as soon as the peoples spread on to a large room that Vidal's approach is no longer suitable.

Works

Paul Vidal de la Blache has a total of 17 books, 107 articles and about 240 recaps and reports written, only some of which have been translated. Here is an overview:

• Tableau de la Géographie de la France, (1905 ) In this work, Vidal de la Blache France considered in two directions. The first part, the Personalité Geographical location de la France is on 54 pages of the geological factors such as shape, structure, circulation, etc. The second part, on 320 pages, regional geography is dedicated. The result is that France has not become by its nature, but by its people. He brings other sciences into play to describe the human-nature relationship better, such as ethnography, social geography, geology and history.
• Annales de Géographie, (since 1891) Vidal de la Blache founded the annals of geography in collaboration with M. Dubois, where several of his essays on regions in France in connection with the investigation on the correlation of genres de vie and pays were published. The Annales de Géographie appear today.
• Vidal de la Blache has also written other seminal books. Among other things: La France de l' Est (1917 ), Atlas Général, (1894 ) and the Géographie Universelle.

Gerhard hard - his critics

Gerhard Hard was a critic of the cultural ecological approach of Vidal de la Blache. He said that with this approach, people would be considered only on their territorial and not of their social organization. Even in the days of Vidal de la Blache, the life forms of the Beauce or the Brie [ ... ] were no longer palpable. They [the life forms ] differentiated within a region of very strong and balanced each other, stronger inter-regional on.

Hardware comes in his book on three main weaknesses of the cultural ecological approach.

• The approach might suggest that one could plot the standards are not material, and can not scenic cultural elements in mind and that the relation group - enough milieu. So come, if at all, the Geopossibilisten only limited to the social and cultural background of the life form back, and so on relatively trivial and abstract economic explanations.
• Second, he adds that even though the geographical cultural ecologist tend to a vague determinism - a how Claval said douce nostalgia you déterminisme. For Possibilists determinist was a dirty word. Thus, the geo- possibilism based on light seen on the trivial observation that groups do not respond reliably and for a long time in the same way on natural conditions. Likewise, was, according to hardware, to detect an inconsistency in general and in detail in the literature of cultural ecologists.
• The third and decisive weakness is that cultural ecological problems as they investigated Vidal de la Blache and his successors, divided up in any sophisticated analysis in several approaches. In each issue you would find at least one scientific- ecological problem part and a problem of perception of the environment.

Conclusion

So you can say in conclusion that in no other nation's geography has been so strongly influenced by a man in France. Today's French social geography goes directly back to him. Similarly, though much later, the Utrecht school in Holland (eg Vuuren ) and various schools of anthropogeographical traditions in Germany ( Hettner, Bobek ) refers, in the United States of America and also in England for him. The human-nature relationship and the associated regional breakdown of very different areas is still referred to as la tradition vidalienne.