Issues in Human Geography at the University of Oslo

This special issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography deals with a selection of themes that research and teaching focus on in human geography at the University of Oslo (UiO). Although environmental problems, especially industrial pollution, have been important topics for the staff and students of human geography since the late 2000s, societal consequences of climate change – a key concern for the future of mankind – have recently become one of the major themes in human geography also at UiO. Thus, the choice of climate change as the topic for the first annual Aadel Brun Tschudi Lecture in Human Geography was a natural one.

Introduction to the annual Aadel Brun Tschudi Lecture in Human Geography at the University of Oslo

The annual lecture in human geography at the University of Oslo was arranged for the first time in 2017, on occasion of the 100-years celebration of the Department of Human Geography and the Department of Physical Geography at UiO. Although geography (both human and physical) had been taught from the mid-1800s as part of other disciplines, such as history and mineralogy, and exams were held in the two geography disciplines as part of graduate studies in other disciplines from 1871, a department of geography was first formally established in 1917 (Hesselberg 2017). The university had a professor of physical geography for a short period from 1866 to 1876, and a professor of human geography from 1890 to 1902 (Hesselberg 2017). The first permanent long-term employment in human geography at UiO started in 1914 (and in physical geography in 1915) (Hesselberg 2017).

The staff at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography decided to name the lecture series after Aadel Brun Tschudi (1909–1980), a pioneer in modern human geography in Norway. This was for an obvious choice for the following four reasons, among others.

First, in her publications, Tschudi placed emphasis on explanations and reflections. This approach was not usual in human geography in Norway before the 1990s. Typically, work in the discipline at that time dealt with the description of spatial patterns and processes of ‘countries, communities and people’ (Tschudi 1935). Tschudi introduced problem-oriented research in 1934 and then again in the 1960s in the social science section of the Department of Geography, the section that belonged to the Faculty of Humanities (then called Det historisk-filosofiske fakultetet) (Tschudi 1935).

The second reason to honour Tschudi with an annual lecture is that she focused on people’s life conditions and their standard of living. She held the opinion that research and researchers should contribute more explicitly to ‘a better world’ (Tschudi 1935). This implied deducing the political and planning implications of own research.

The third reason to name the lecture series after Tschudi is that she covered a broad thematic and geographical field. For instance, she wrote about the depopulation of hill areas in the south of Norway, rural planning in Tanzania, cultivation of tomatoes on an island in a fjord in south-west Norway, the people’s communes in China, land use problems in an agricultural valley on the urban periphery of Oslo, life in Japan, and much more (Hesselberg 1982). Tschudi’s publications cover a wide range of topics both in research articles and more popular books. Most of the latter were about China and Japan. In sum, Tschudi’s academic work can be said to fall under the following headings: Norwegian agriculture, China’s political and social development, rural development in the South, and landscape geography.

The fourth and final reason for naming the lecture series after Aadel Brun Tschudi is that she initiated teaching in development geography in Norway. She was able to get her departmental colleagues to agree on establishing a half-year course on development in the South for second-year students in human geography, and was in charge of the course until she retired from the University of Oslo.

Tschudi wrote an interesting article titled ‘Worlds apart’ which was published in a book edited by Ann Buttimer (1983), in which Buttimer presents selected leading human geographers’ thoughts on their life experiences and their impact had on their research. In her article, Tschudi reflects on the influence that her upbringing in China, the fact that her grandparents were living in Northern Norway, and other life experiences had on her choice of her research topics, for the methods she applied and the views she held on the use of research results, as well as the role research ought to have regarding societal change.

Tschudi’s article published in Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift in the 1950s is worth reading even today (Tschudi 1935). It is based on her fieldwork in 1933 and 1934 in the southern part of Norway, and still has relevance for migration debates and livelihood prospects in remote areas. In that early academic work, Tschudi did not do as was then customary, which was to describe a place, community or region, but compared what she found in two places with how the issues she focused on were described and explained in other parts of Norway and in the world at large. This gave her work an unusual character and contributed to generalisation. Tschudi used several geographical levels in her study, thus pointing to different reasons behind depopulation depending on selected geographical levels and not only on the circumstances at a place. The description of the study places contains great richness of detail, and she used maps and tables. Today, her lack of presenting and discussing the methods used would be considered a weakness.

Tschudi’s discussion of possible explanations for and consequences of depopulation shows how place- and time-specific conditions and processes impact differently on individuals and groups with different characteristics (Tschudi 1935). An example that she used to discuss future development in her study places was new roads connecting small farms to the larger world. Improved communication is commonly regarded by scholars as positive for reducing outmigration, and in the case discussed by Tschudi, her argument is that improved road access would ensure new life for disused farms (Tschudi 1935). However, her observation was that as soon as a new road reached a remote place with marginal conditions for agriculture, people move away from that place. The situation was and still is the opposite for places closer to the world outside that have somewhat better physical conditions.

The following citation describes Tschudi as a lecturer:

Aadel Brun Tschudi had the gift, rare nowadays, of stirring enthusiasm in her students. She was able to create a feeling of insight and reflections among students. Not that she used many words to create such a feeling, a short remark or two sufficed to put the text of the day in a broader and meaningful perspective. Such remarks did not belong to a particular political ideology or to a fashion of the day. They went far beyond. (Hesselberg 1983, 42)

A short overview of Tschudi’s life

Aadel Marie Brun was born in China in 1909 and she spent her childhood until the age of 14 years in the same country.¹ Her parents were missionaries. Aadel Marie Brun married Stephan Tschudi (MPhil in theology) in 1933. Before marrying she was a student at the University of Oslo, and prior to choosing geography as her major discipline, she studied English and Norwegian language and history. After marrying, Tschudi stayed at home for 14 years to take care of the couple’s three children. During that period she participated in voluntary organisations and worked as a book translator. In 1945 Tschudi became head of the Oslo chapter of Norway’s Female Academicians Association (Norges Kvinnelige Akademikeres Landsforbund).

After World War II, Tschudi continued her studies at the University of Oslo. She was awarded an MPhil in geography in 1951, with the highest grade ever achieved in the discipline until that time. Her thesis on agriculture, migration and depopulation in the southern part of Norway included a historical perspective of the outmigration to the USA and several references to physical aspects of the study area that were relevant for understanding the livelihood challenges of the small-scale farmers. The thesis was published in Norsk Geografisk Tisskrift in 1935, when she was only 24 years old (Tschudi 1935). Hallstein Myklebost (1982, 3) wrote in his obituary on Tschudi with reference to the thesis that ‘her work was a pioneer achievement’.

Tschudi studied the Chinese language at Harvard University, USA, in 1951 and 1952. Already from 1948 and during the following 15 years she both wrote and read feature stories for the national broadcasting company (NRK), dealing with societal issues in East Asia, especially China. Her feature stories were always based on solid historical and geographical knowledge, which made her known throughout Norway. In 1960, Tschudi was appointed as a university lecturer in human geography at the University of Oslo. During the period 1970–1972 she was a lecturer in Chinese studies (Sinology) at the Department of East Asia at the same university. In 1973 she returned to the Department of Geography in the Faculty of Humanities, where she was a Reader. Tschudi was the only permanent female employee in geography from the time when the department was officially established in 1917 until the 1990s.

In the 1970s, the study of the reasons for the persistence of poverty and other aspect of low levels of living in developing countries (the Third World or the South – today the Global South) soon became popular in human geography. During the following decades more than half of the graduate students in the discipline wrote their theses based on fieldwork in a country in the South. Several of the students became research fellows under Tschudi’s guidance, when she was participating in the development of research projects in Botswana and Sri Lanka. However, her own research continued to be mainly focused on China and Norwegian agriculture. She made several field trips to China, and her research on the people’s communes deserves special mention. In the second half of the 1970s Tschudi managed, despite having cancer, to visit the research fellows doing fieldwork in China and Norway.

Tschudi was editor of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift from 1967 to 1973. In 1977 she was invited to become a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi). She retired from the University of Oslo in 1979, and died from cancer in 1980.

Overview of the articles included in this special issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography

Mark Pelling bases his short article about efficiency and equity in development geography on the Aadel Brun Tschudi Lecture in Human Geography, which he delivered in 2017. The second annual lecture in 2018 was on economic geography, another of the focal themes at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo (UiO) (Hesselberg 2017).

The second article, by Lars Coenen and Kevin Morgan, is based on the annual Aadel Brun Tschudi Lecture in Human Geography in 2018, which was delivered by Lars Coenen. The third article, which is by Bjørn Terje Asheim, is on economic geography at UiO. His contribution stems from his involvement in one of human geography’s 100-years celebrations at the university. Asheim was for many years employed at UiO and in charge of the subdiscipline economic geography. In the fourth article, Elisabeth Gulløy, a doctoral student at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, discusses the role that young teenagers’ participation in organized leisure activities plays in their emotional place relations. Her article is based on quantitative surveys conducted by the Norwegian Social Research Institute (NOVA) in an industrial area of southern Norway. Lastly, the article by Kirsten Ulsrud in this special issue on issues in human geography at the University of Oslo is about her research on and experiences of solar power. She is the main author of a book on solar power in Africa, mainly in Senegal, and was in charge of a group of scholars from Africa and Asia who researched the challenges and opportunities relating to using solar power as an energy source for mini-grids in remote rural areas.

This special issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography also includes two reviews of doctoral theses by students of human geography at UiO. First, Ingvild Jøranli’s thesis, reviewed by Arne Isaksen, Brita Hermelin and Hege Merete Knutsen, is about labour markets and how firms learn. Second, Karina Standal’s thesis, reviewed by Bjørnar Sæther, deals with the consequences of the introduction of solar power in rural India.

In addition, this special issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography contains my reviews of four books written or edited by staff at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at UiO. The books include a co-authored textbook by Karen O’Brien on climate change, which will for many years to come be extremely valued as the main student text on both the physical and the societal part of the subject. The textbook on sustainability and sustainable development, edited by Andrea J. Nightingale, should be perfect for students’ learning and debates. Eric Hiariej and Kristian Stokke’s co-edited book on citizenship in Indonesia is a good case study of political geography and a very useful and interesting book.

It should be noted that this special issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography on human geography at the University of Oslo does not cover current research and teaching on other themes. The two main fields, in addition to environment and climate change consequences, and economic geography and labour, are urban geography with a focus in research on Norway, especially Oslo, and political and development geography, which mainly deals with the Global South.

Notes

1 The information relating to Tschudi in this section was gained from guest editor’s personal communication with her in the period 1973–1980.