Approaches to Human Geography

Approaches to Human Geography is the essential student primer on theory and practice in Human Geography. It is a systematic review of the key ideas and debates informing post-war geography, explaining how those ideas work in practice.

is the essential student primer on theory and practice in Human Geography. It is a systematic review of the key ideas and debates informing post-war geography, explaining how those ideas work in practice.

In three sections, the text provides:

• A comprehensive contextualizing essay: Introducing Philosophies, People and Practices
• Philosophies: Written by the principal proponents, easily comprehensible accounts of: Positivistic Geographies, Humanism, Feminist Geographies, Marxism, Structuration Theory, Behavioral Geography, Realism, Post Structuralist Theories, Actor-Network Theory, and Post Colonialism
• People: Prominent geographers explain events that formed their ways of knowing the section offers situated accounts of theory and practice by, for example David Ley, Linda McDowell, and David Harvey
• Practices: Applied accounts of Quantification, Evidence and Positivism; Geographic Information Systems; Humanism; Geography, Political Activism, and Marxism; the Production of Feminist Geographies; Poststructuralist Theory; Environmental Inquiry in a Postcolonial World; Contested Geographies
• Student Exercises and Glossary

Avoiding jargon - while attentive to the rigor and complexity of the ideas that underlie geographic knowledge - the text is written for students who have not met philosophical or theoretical approaches before. This is a beginning guide to geographic research and practice.

Comprehensive and accessible, it will be the core text for courses on Approaches to Human Geography; Philosophy and Geography; and the History of Geography; and a key resource for students beginning research projects.

Dr. Stuart C. Aitken is Professor of Geography and June Burnett Chair at SDSU. He directs the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Young People and Space (ISYS). Stuart’s research interests include critical social theory, qualitative methods, children, families and communities. His recent books include The Ethnopoetics of Space and Transformation (Ashgate 2014), The Fight to Stay Put (Verlag 2013), Young People. Border Spaces and Revolutionary Imaginations (Routledge 2011), Qualitative Geographies (Sage 2010) and The Awkward Spaces of Fathering (Ashgate 2009). Stuart has published over 200 papers in academic journals and edited book collections.

Professor Valentine has held prestigious international visiting fellowships at the Universities of Sydney, Australia and Otago, New Zealand and has visited and given keynote addresses at a range of prestigious international conferences. She was co-founder and co-editor of the international journal Social and Cultural Geography, and co-edited Gender, Place and Culture. She has undertaken international research in Europe, Africa and the USA and is committed to developing the University of Sheffield′s international strategy within the Faculty of Social Sciences.