Population Geography

Population Geography: Social Justice for a Sustainable World surveys the ways in which geographic approaches may be applied to population issues, exploring how human populations are embedded in natural and social environments.

It encourages students to evaluate population issues critically, given that population topics are at the heart of many of today’s most contentious subjects. Through introducing students to different lenses of analysis (ecological, economic, and social equity), the authors ask students to consider how different perspectives can lead to different conclusions on the same issue. Identifying and tackling today’s population problems therefore requires an understanding of these diverging, and sometimes conflicting, perspectives. The text covers all the key background information critical to any book on population geography (population size, distribution, and composition; fertility, mortality, and migration; population and resources) but also pushes students to think critically about the materials they have covered using the perspectives of sustainability and social justice. In this way, students move beyond simple fact learning toward higher-level skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of materials.

This textbook will be a valuable resource for students of human geography, population geography, demography, and diaspora studies.

Helen D. Hazen is a teaching professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Denver, Colorado, USA.

Heike C. Alberts is a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA.

Kazimierz J. Zaniewski is an emeritus professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA.