Ontology of a United Geography

Throughout my short academic career in geography, I have been asked earnestly on many occasions, “What even is geography?” This is an unexpectedly difficult question to approach. Geography not only has a deeply rooted history in the Western world, but a wide-ranging set of research areas. I was drawn to geography because of its interdisciplinarity. Research in this discipline spans from urban form and racial justice to soil microfauna, from a human social science to the natural science of physical geography. Unfortunately, I have found that there is very little integration of the human and physical sides of the discipline in my experience at McGill. Does this indicate that these two subfields should be divided, or is there a way to unify geography? I will begin to answer this question by exploring the distinguishing features of human and physical geography including their ontology and historiography, applying the framework of science studies to physical geography, and introducing critical physical geography as a unifying research area between the two sects.

As a natural science, the discipline of physical geography relies on three fundamental assumptions: uniformity of nature, the perpetuity of substance, and the principle of causality (1). Research in the discipline must align with these assumptions which are shared across the physical sciences. According to the first and second assumptions, the fundamental media (e.g., mass or energy) that compose the physical world are neither created nor destroyed and do not vary spatially or temporally without reason. Space and time are simply containers in which processes can occur, and a difference in either variable is not individually sufficient to justify a difference in the properties of the fundamental media. The third assumption states that change occurs only due to a process acting upon the given material. These assumptions provide a theoretical framework for research in physical sciences. Fundamentally, these assumptions set the limit for scientifically justifiable conclusions made from observations. For instance, a study in hydrology which notes a decreasing water level in a lake cannot conclude that the water is disappearing or that the density of water is significantly changing (other than minimally by temperature or dissolved solutes) to cause the decline. Instead, they must investigate alternatives which fit the assumptions. This ensures that research is rigorous according to the agreed-upon principles of science. Research in human geography, as a social science, is not compelled to align as strongly with these assumptions; properties derived from human perception or emotion are not strictly governed by the laws of physics, unlike the properties of the physical world. For example, spatiality, in human geography, is used to describe the causal nature of space (1). This concept violates the assumption that the properties of the universe do not vary across space. These assumptions are not necessary to ensure scientific validity of research in human geography. This does not imply that the social sciences are not as rigorous as physical sciences, rather this is simply a point of difference which distinguishes the ontology of physical and human geography. The approach to these assumptions fundamentally sets human geography apart from physical geography.

Scientific rigor is supported both by agreement with the assumptions and adhering to well-defined methodologies and standards within the discipline, which are cemented through historiographical investigations. The development of human geography has been thoroughly studied in seminal works such as David Livingstone’s 1993 provisional history of geography, The Geographical Tradition (2). In this book, Livingstone situates the evolution of human geography within the cultural context. His introduction repeatedly returns to the idea of investigating the context of scientific discovery and un-privileging science as a way of knowing. Yet, he considers only the social science side of human geography, even where physical geography more aptly corresponds to the questions posed about the nature of physical sciences. The unexplained lack of physical geography in histories of the discipline is a common theme. This is perpetuated in introductory courses on geographical thought for undergraduate students in geography departments across the Anglosphere, including McGill’s own GEOG 381: Geographic Thought and Practice (3). At McGill, human geography students are only required to take one course in introductory physical geography during their degree. The hyperfocus on human geography is compounded by the differential popularity of the two programs at McGill. Throughout our education, young geographers are led to believe that physical geography is either unimportant or else a subfield of human geography.

The exclusion of physical geography in the historiography of geography cannot be blamed entirely on human geographers and historians. Physical geographers are a self-described pragmatic group (4). The extent of theorizing has mostly been in justification of geography as a useful scientific field. A thorough investigation of the philosophical underpinnings of the discipline has not been attempted or at least is very difficult to find. Academic physical geographers prefer to save discussions of the discipline for the bar and are less interested in the social and historical research, better suited to social scientists, needed to support a published historiography of their discipline (3). Only in the past several decades have physical geographers felt the need for such an investigation (1, 3). These physical scientists have called on experts to build their historiography.

The development of physical geography runs in parallel with human geography. A historical investigation of physical geography would need to evaluate the methodological development from categorization to process-based understanding (4). Environmental determinism — the school of thought that posits that physical factors are the most significant factor in the development of human societies — depended on physical geographers to understand and describe the biophysical world as context for human developments. Classification creates typologies which can be mapped, a primary component of the regional geography paradigm. As human geography experienced a transition to quantitative research in the 1960s and 1970s known as the quantitative revolution, physical geography applied the new framework to move beyond classification to describe and measure processes occurring in the biophysical world. Physical geography retained a measurement-based analysis that was mostly abandoned by the social sciences. The current revolution in physical geography and greater geoscience is from process-based to systems-based understandings (4). The study of global hydrology, climate, and plate tectonics within the Earth sciences have all accelerated toward a macro-scale, integrated approach.

These developments have not occurred in a vacuum. The cultural context and political objectives of the period significantly influence the evolution of academic fields. For instance, the quantitative revolution in physical geography could not have occurred without the advancements in technology needed to measure the properties of the physical world. Science and Technology Studies is a field of inquiry capable of discussing these points of connection throughout the history of physical geographies. The burgeoning field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has much to offer physical geography in partnership with researchers in the discipline. STS is an interdisciplinary research field principally concerned with the “making of science” and the “co-production of science and society” (3). Scholars have already begun an examination of theories in human geography within STS. For instance, Trevor Barnes (5) critically examined the cultural and personal context of Waldo Tobler’s proclamation of the first law of geography. Barnes’ main objection to the invocation was not the use of laws to describe human behavior, rather the declaration of natural laws in any realm of science, presumably including physical geography. He argues that scientific discoveries intended to apply universally, are better described as local knowledge. These laws are developed through analyzing a set of data observed with a distinct set of tools—both are context and location specific. Barnes provides the local origin of Tobler’s law from his educational background and through the greater geographical context of the quantitative revolution. The framework of science studies has a straightforward application to laws intending to define invariable behavior of a system but may be more complex to apply to process based understandings which are common in modern physical geography.

Physical geographers can meet the exacting expectations of STS in their future works by providing a thorough investigation of the social and cultural context contributing to their discoveries. Geographers can include a positionality-like statement in the introduction to explain the background of each author and how they came to be part of the research. This section can also include a thorough examination of the assumptions of their work and the intended applications of their findings. The goal of a positionality statement is to directly acknowledge the influence of the author’s social context on the presented work. This practice may also reduce the occurrence of results being taken from their original intended purpose. This type of statement is already found in select human geography works (see 6, Box 1&2), and has the added benefit of reducing the need for an independent ontological review of the discipline. Research at the intersection between human and physical geography can further unify the discipline. Some areas of research are already growing within this intersection.

Critical physical geography (CPG) is an interdisciplinary research area aimed at analytically investigating the intersection between human and physical geography. This field is interested in the role of human power relations on physical landscapes and earnestly recognizes that a purely physical science study of the biophysical world is incomplete. CPG scholars understand that the interplay between humans and the environment implies that an understanding of the human social and political context is required when investigating biophysical processes (7). Together, human and physical geographers can study the effect of human actions on the biophysical world and the culturally-derived motivations for these actions. CPG can provide the bridge needed to keep geography united. Already, many universities have separated human and physical geographers into separate departments. Collaborative research between social and natural scientists through CPG and similar interdisciplinary fields, will reinforce the connections between these fields and the need for them to co-inhabit geography departments.

The future of physical geography within a united geography will depend on an investigation of not only the utility of the discipline, but also the philosophical backing and assumptions supporting it. Although work in this area may be outside the scope of research typically performed in geoscience, it is necessary for geographers to evaluate the growth and change occurring within their discipline. At the undergraduate level, students from both sects should be exposed to the history and ontology of physical and human geography. Future research will require scholars well versed in both domains to appropriately tackle the interdisciplinary issues facing our world. A unification of geography can increase the explanatory strength of the discipline and sets geography apart from other fields in social science and geoscience.

References

(6) Argent, N.M., and D.J. Walmsley. 2009. “From the Inside Looking out and the Outside Looking in: Whatever Happened to ‘Behavioural Geography’?” Geographical Research 47 (2): 192–203. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-5871.2009.00571.x.

(4) Aspinall, Richard. 2010. “A Century of Physical Geography Research in the Annals.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 100 (5): 1049–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.20 10.523338.

(5) Barnes, Trevor J. 2004. “A Paper Related to Everything but More Related to Local Things.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94 (2): 278–83. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14678306.2004.09402004.x

(7) Lave, Rebecca. 2015. “Introduction to Special Issue on Critical Physical Geography.” Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment 39 (5): 571–75. https://doi. org/10.1177/0309133315608006.

(2) Livingstone, David N. 1993. “Should the History of Geography Be X-Rated? Telling Geography’s Story.” In The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the History of a Contested Enterprise, 1–31. Oxford, UK ; Cambridge, USA: Blackwell.

(1) Rhoads, Bruce L. 1999. “Beyond Pragmatism: The Value of Philosophical Discourse for Physical Geography.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 89 (4): 760–71. https:// doi.org/10.1111/0004-5608.00176

(3) Wainwright, Steven P. 2012. “Science Studies in Physical Geography: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?” Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment 36 (6): 786–812. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0309133312450997.