Social geography
The social geography, and social geography, is a branch of geography.
Main questions
Traditional core issue of social geography is the relationship between society and the object of study space. The German social geography is thus similar in its beginnings the traditional geographic research Anglo- American model. Overall, there are three main questions:
History of the discipline
The origins of social geography can be found in France in the second half of the 19th century and go back to the Le Play school (Pierre Guilleaume Frederic Le Play ) and the geographer Elisée Reclus. The concept of géographie sociale was first used at a meeting of Reclus first volume of the Nouvelle géographie universal (1911 ) by Paul de Rousiers, a member of the Le Play school. Reclus took over this term.
The advent of social geography was substantially supported by the industrial revolution. With the consequent urbanization process, there was a spatial concentration of the population. With the consequent change of occupation from agriculture to industrial occupations within a factory, there is a social concentration.
The German social geography has long been - characterized by geode deterministic ideas - such as the geography in general. The natural area thus became the determinant factor and social action. As an important representative of Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) must be called, which firmly established the Naturdeterminismus in social geography. This became the foundation for the " blood and soil " Nazi Ideology: For a floor, it may also be the only one people.
After the Second World War, the traditional landscape or geography specific Human Geography. During this time, Hans Bobek and Wolfgang Hartke laid the foundation for the social geographical cultural landscape research.
With the input of functional thinking in the social geography, the emphasis of function spaces (eg commuter catchment areas ) experienced stronger updraft and led to the development of an even more social science oriented part of social geography. The strongest phase of this social geography in Germany was from the 60s to the 80s of the 20th century, coupled with the emergence of numerous geographical disciplines at the universities (including space and spatial planning) and influencing the content in schools. This was especially the Munich school of social geography with Jörg Maier, Karl Ruppert, Reinhard Paesler and Schaffer, as their main representative, of. The focus of her research focuses on the existence of seven basic functions: society, housing, work, Furnishing, relax, making and participate in traffic. Using these functions allows all patterns of human mobility trace. Nor can many geographic disciplines assign them directly.
Recent Discussions
Despite the great innovative power of social geography, it did not come to a complete re-orientation of human geography. With one of the reasons for the difficult comprehensible methods of social geography and the difficulty is to get to actionable data. So it is difficult to measure social space efficiency. The necessity and importance of a social geographical perspective is acknowledged. As a result, shows the coexistence of different socio- geographical approaches in the present - of the social geography cultural landscape research on space science and functional ( spatial turn ) to constructivist approaches. This paradigm pluralism thus corresponds to the concept of a postmodern science.
The social relations of individuals, interpersonal interaction, the individual spatial perception and assessment, as well as the corresponding behavior of a large group of people have a variety of relationships to space. Space in a geographical sense can help to explain certain human behaviors (eg, mobility), is the same but even through human behavior changed ( use, buildings ) or distorted ( mass transport).
With the deductible from the individual perception and interaction relationship between society and space, and the spatial organization of human society, the social geography is concerned. Major areas of interest include
- Absolute space and relative space in the perception of the environment
- Aspects of globalization and regionalization
- Consequences of spatial development (see Socio-spatial structure)
More recently, the social geography has been extended by action-theoretical approaches. Benno Werlen transferred the structuration of the sociologist Anthony Giddens on the social geography. In this context, it calls for the rejection of an " action-oriented space science " and the operation of a " space- oriented action science" ( Werlen 2000: 310).