Retrospective on Nature–Society Geography: Tracing Trajectories (1911–2010) and Reflecting on Translations

Abstract

This study uses an intellectual history approach to construct a retrospective on Annals nature–society geography during the past century (1911–2010). It begins by identifying six areas of topics and approaches that have emerged as primary clusters in the 1990s and 2000s: (1) environmental governance and political ecology; (2) environmental hazards, risk, and vulnerability science; (3) land use and cover change science; (4) human–environment interactions; (5) environmental landscape history and ideas; and (6) scientific concepts and environmental management. A combination of continuity and change involving the core areas of human–environmental scholarship is found to distinguish Annals publications during recent decades (1990–2010) vis-à-vis preceding periods (1911–1969, 1970–1989). The current plurality and partial intersection of core topics and approaches is mostly a contrast to previous predominance and distinctness of the Sauerian Berkeley School and the Chicago School of hazards research. Reflection on this intellectual history sheds light on issues of the timely role of nature–society within the geographic discipline and in relation to environmental interdisciplinarity and policy. Using the concept of translating across knowledge domains, Annals writings demonstrate the expanded, multistranded intellectual spaces of nature–society geography.

Este estudio se vale de un enfoque de la historia intelectual para construir una retrospectiva de la geografía de la naturaleza–sociedad durante el pasado siglo (1911–2010). Se empieza con la identificación de seis áreas de tópicos y enfoques que han aparecido como concentraciones primarias en los años 1990 y 2000: (1) administración ambiental y ecología política; (2) riesgos ambientales, catástrofes y ciencia de la vulnerabilidad; (3) uso del suelo y ciencias del cambio de coberturas; (4) interacciones humano–ambientales; (5) historia e ideas del paisaje ambiental; y (6) conceptos científicos y manejo ambiental. Se dispone de una combinación de continuidad y cambio que involucra los núcleos de áreas de erudición humano–ambiental para distinguir las publicaciones de Annals en décadas recientes (1990–2010) frente a los períodos precedentes 1911–1969, 1970–1989). La actual pluralidad e intersección parcial de tópicos y enfoques medulares es más que todo un contraste con el predominio y singularidad previos de la saueriana Escuela de Berkeley y la Escuela de Chicago de investigación azarosa. La reflexión sobre esta historia intelectual arroja luz sobre aspectos del papel histórico de la temática naturaleza–sociedad en la disciplina geográfica y en relación con la interdisciplinariedad y las políticas ambientales. Utilizando el concepto de traslación a través de los dominios del conocimiento, los escritos de Annals demuestran lo expandido y multitrajinado de los espacios intelectuales de la geografía naturaleza–sociedad.

Keywords:

• environmental interdisciplinarity
• environmental policy
• history of geography
• human–environment geography
• nature–society geography

关键词:

• 环境的交叉学科
• 环境政策
• 地理历史
• 人文环境地理
• 自然社会地理

Palabras clave:

• interdisciplinariedad ambiental
• política ambiental
• historia de la geografía
• geografía humano–ambiental
• geografía naturaleza–sociedad

Acknowledgments

In researching this article during the past couple years, in lead-up to the project, and especially in the final writing I am grateful for comments, suggestions, and ideas of Tom Bassett, Martha Bell, Trevor Birkenholtz, Judith Carney, Eric Carter, Bill Cronon, Bill Denevan, Bill Easterling, Nick Entrikin, Margaret Fitzsimmons, Dan Gade, George Henderson, Robin Leichenko, Diana Liverman, Kent Mathewson, James McCarthy, Marie Price, Paul Robbins, Dianne Rocheleau, Abdi Samatar, Laura Schneider, Bill Turner, Matt Turner, Petra Tschakert, Michael Watts, Brent Yarnal, Ken Young, reviewers, and seminar students (see note 2). It is dedicated to the memory of my graduate thesis adviser, Jim Parsons. Parts of the research were presented as colloquia in the Departments of Geography at Penn State University (2006, 2008) and Rutgers University (2008) and as the Ralph Brown Honorary Lecture in the Geography Department at the University of Minnesota (2009).

Notes

1. This study is engaged with an explicitly broad definition of the nature–society subfield of geography. General nature–society geography includes various approaches and areas of emphasis such as climate change adaptations and mitigation, conservation geography, cultural and human ecology, environmental geography, human dimensions of global change, land change science, natural hazards, political ecology, social-ecological resilience, sustainability science, and vulnerability science. The term nature–society geography has been used previously in Annals publications to refer to this broad view of the subfield (Wilbanks 1994; Hanson 1999). Other common designations in this subfield have included natural hazards and resource geography. The term nature–society geography is chosen for this study to correspond to the editorial designation of the Nature Society section within the editorial structure of the Annals. Although focused on Annals writings on nature–society, the study selectively incorporates as needed non-Annals publications in geography and in related fields.

2. The approach of intellectual history in geography (e.g., Bassin 1992) suggests the value of tracing backward the role of ideas in academic, scholarly, and policy-related discourses while taking care to counter the undesirable influence or assumption of historiographic presentism. Its chronological organization is also considered necessary given the essay's constraint of space.

3. These publicationsconsist of approximately 175 and 150 that were published in the 1990–2010 and 1911–1989 periods, respectively. Most of these publications are referred to in the article, which also makes uses of a few dozen non-Annals writings. The editorial charge necessitate staying primarily within the pages of the Annals. These guidelines do not mean to downplay the significance to intellectual history of social contextualization and the role of broader forces (e.g., imperialism, colonialism, etc.). The majority of research for this article was conducted between July 2008 and July 2010, while some of the readings were parts of research and teaching dating to my ongoing studies of environmental geography and political and cultural ecology. I am grateful to undergraduate and graduate students in geography and related majors and graduate programs who participated in classes and seminars involved in reading significant portions of the Annals writings on nature–society geography. Special thanks to graduate students in the seminar on Human–Environment Geography (Geography 507/530) in the Geography Departments at Pennsylvania State University in Fall 2009, and the seminar on Nature Society Geography (Geography 930) taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Fall 2006.

4. Translation is a potent and abiding trope in research scholarship and the history of ideas (Geertz 1983). It refers generally to “expression or rendering of something in another medium or form” (Oxford English Dictionary 1973, 2347).

5. The concept of translation within nature–society geography offers an addition, rather than counter, to views of this intellectual history through the principal lexicon of contestation (e.g., Butzer 2002a; B. L. Turner 2002a, 2002b; see also Hanson 1999).

6. These Annals contributions demonstrate the differentiated and historically situated social-environmental power of institutions ranging from states to local social groups, along with the importance of individual agency. Note that this study adopts a broad definition of environmental governance as “interventions aiming at changes in environment-related incentives, knowledge, institutions, decision making, and behaviors” (Agrawal and Lemos 2006, 298).

7. Understanding the social dynamics of governance landscapes has benefited through continued engagement and advance of feminist perspectives in environmental geography generally (Momsen 2000; Reed and Christie 2009) and specifically in the approach of feminist political ecology (Carney 1993;Rocheleau 1995; Rocheleau and Thomas-Slayter 1996; Rocheleau and Edmunds 1997; Nightingale 2003; O'Reilly 2006).

8. The latter owes to the influence of well-designed interdisciplinary funding programs on human–environment interaction at the National Science Foundation(Baerwald 2010). See also Zimmerer (2007) and B. L. Turner and Robbins (2008).

9. Framing environmental knowledge systems as entwined and engaged with relations of social power is one of several examples of a critical geographic perspective being integrated into nature–society geography during this time period (1990–2010).

10. These offshoots included a large number of individuals who adopted and furthered the historic Berkeley and Chicago approaches to nature–society geography in diverse institutions that ranged across academia in the United States and abroad, as well as broadly defined circles of environmental planning and management.

11. Examples of pioneering nature–society works not published in the Annals included Nietschmann (1972) and Watts (1983). These highly influential works in human ecological and political economy perspectives, respectively, exerted widespread influence that included Annals writings and extended well beyond to interdisciplinary networks in anthropology, sociology, history, ecology, and development studies (Zimmerer 1996).

12. Although the studies cited are amply situated in their intellectual historical contexts, respectively, they show the absence of specific traces, such as bibliographic citation, to the earlier “schools.”

13. Current four-field geography differs significantly from a previous well-known depiction of the quadripartite organization of knowledge in the discipline (Pattison 1964).

14. Alternative views omit nature–society as a geographic subfield in approaches that are principally two-field (human and physical geography; Thrift 2002; Johnston 2003; Castree, Demeritt, and Liverman 2009) or three-field (human and physical geography with GIScience; Marston 2008).

15. The importance of characterizing this coexistence includes the increased need for identifying the cohesiveness and integrity of nature–society geography as asubfield (Yarnal and Neff 2004). Distinctness is also valuable in determining competencies and concentrating important advances, ranging from concepts and theory to methods and practice, within themes. Notwithstanding the focus here on coexisting intellectual spaces, the role of contention through disagreement and debate is vitally important to any description of these twin epistemic centers. Still, the coexistence described in this study runs contrary to influential narratives that suggest a winner-take-all struggle, with inferences of dynastic-style succession, to determine hegemonic influence over the nature–society area (e.g., political ecology vs. human–environment approaches). One important argument for coexistence along a continuum of epistemic orientations is based on recognition of the combined roles of a priori theoretical framing and responding to the need of the specific research question and its empirical focus (M. D. Turner 2009).

16. Another nonbinary characterization of this coexistence regards the role of theory. In this regard, Annals writings have traversed the spectrum from a priori framing of research based on comprehensive theorization (e.g., Willems-Braun 1997; Prudham 2003) to theoretical orientations and frameworks developed in conjunction with fieldwork and empirical historical analysis (e.g., Walters and Vayda 2009). They do not, however, correspond to a simple binary distinction between human–environment interactions and nature–society geography. The interpretation of this study is meant to offer a comparison to that of B. L. Turner and Robbins (2008), who identified and differentiated a similar pair of fields as discrete and bounded through divergent definitions. Their interpretation holds that environmental services, along with landscapes and meso- and global-scale framing, belong to the human–environment approach of land cover science (LCS), whereas, in contrast, local-scale impact on social units and groups is described as the terrain of political ecology. On nonbinary interpretation of the intellectual spaces and history of human geography, see Warf (2007).

17. For example, the representation of twin centers, as exclusive nuclei, neither demarcates discretely partitioned intellectual spaces nor constructs a comprehensive map of nature–society geography in the Annals. On overlapping human–environment and nature–society views of vulnerabilities in climate change, see O'Brien et al. (2007).

18. On the restructuring academy, see also Gregory, Gurnell, and Petts (2002). On the example of interdisciplinary urban ecology, see Petts, Owens, and Bulkeley (2008).

19. On the home-travel metaphor and interdisciplinarity, see Friedman (2001).

20. On this “normative turn” in the discipline, see Staeheli and Mitchell (2005).