HUMAN GEOGRAPHY NATURE AND SCOPE 

Geography as a Discipline : The core concern of geography as a discipline is to understand the earth as home of human beings and to study all those elements which have sustained them. Thus, emphasis is on study of nature and human beings.

Components of Geography

• Geography is a field of study is integrative, empirical and practical.
• It studies each and every event on the earth over space and time. Life forms and physical forms – physical and human geography 
• Human geography studies the relationship between man and nature.
• Geography can be studied through law making or descriptive.
• Approaches to geography: There are two approaches to geography. They are systematic and regional.

Human Geography

• According to Ratzel “Human geography is the synthetic study of the relationship between human societies and earth’s surface”.
• According to Paul “Conception resulting from a more synthetic knowledge of the physical laws governing our earth and of the relations between the living beings which inhabit it”.
• Human geography offers a new conception of the interrelationships between earth and human beings.
• Nature of Human Geography
• Human Geography studies the inter-relationship between the physical environment and socio-cultural environment created by human beings through mutual interaction with each other.
• The elements like villages, cities, road-rail networks, etc and all other elements of material culture have been created by human beings using the resources provided by the physical environment. Thus, In the saying of Ellen Semple “Human geography is a study of the changing relationship between unresting man and unstable earth”.

Naturalisation of Humans and Humanisation of Nature

• Human beings interact with their physical environment with the help of technology. It is not important what human beings produce and create but it is extremely important ‘with the help of what tools and techniques do they produce and create’. Technology indicates the level of cultural development of society.
• Human beings were able to develop technology after they developed better understanding of natural laws. E.g, the understanding of concepts of friction and heat helped us discover fire. Similarly, understanding of the secrets of DNA and genetics enabled us to conquer many diseases.
• Naturalisation of Humans: Nature is extremely important to develop technology and technology loosen the shackles of the environment on human beings. 
• This type of interaction between primitive human society and strong forces of nature was termed as environmental determinism. At that stage of very low technological development we can imagine the presence of a naturalized human, who listened to Nature, was afraid of its fury and worshipped it. The physical environment for such societies becomes the “Mother Nature”.
• Humanisation of Nature: With social and cultural development, humans develop better and more efficient technology. They move from a state of necessity to a state of freedom. They create possibilities with the resources obtained from the environment. The earlier scholars termed this as possibilism.
• Nature provides opportunities and human beings make use of these and slowly nature gets humanised and starts bearing the imprints of human endeavour.

Neo Determinism

• Griffith Taylor introduced another concept which reflects a middle path (Madhyam Marg) between the two ideas of environmental determinism and possibilism. He termed it as Neo Determinism or stop and go determinism. 
• The concept shows that neither is there a situation of absolute necessity (environmental determinism) nor is there a condition of absolute freedom (possibilism). It means that possibilities can be created within the limits which do not damage the environment and there is no free run without accidents.
• The free run which the developed economies attempted to take has already resulted in the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, global warming, receding glaciers and degrading lands. The neo-determinism conceptually attempts to bring a balance nullifying the ‘either’ ‘or’ dichotomy.

Human Geography Through The Corridors Of Time

• The emergence of human geography started with the interaction, adaptation, adjustment and modification between the humans and the environment.
• Before the age of discovery, there was very little interaction between different societies but in the late 15th Century information about the unknown societies were made available now. Exploration by travellers expanded the area of human geography and interacted with different societies.
• With this, new approaches can come across like welfare or humanistic school of thought, radical school of thought and behavioural school of thought.

Other school thoughts:

• Welfare or humanistic school of thought in human geography was mainly concerned with the different aspects of social well-being of the people. These included aspects such as housing, health and education.
• Radical school of thought employed Marxian theory to explain the basic cause of poverty, deprivation and social inequality. Contemporary social problems were related to the development of capitalism.
• Behavioural school of thought laid great emphasis on lived experience and also on the perception of space by social categories based on ethnicity, race and religion, etc.

Field and Subfields of Human Geography

• Human geography is interdisciplinary in nature and develops vast linkages with other sister disciplines in social sciences. 
• The fields and subfields of human geography explains every aspect of all elements of human life on the surface of the earth. 

Fields of Human Geography || Subfields || Interface with disciplines of Social Science

Social Geography

1. ------ 2. Behavioural Geography 3. Geography of Social Welfare Well-being 4. Geography of Leisure 5. Cultural Geography 6. Gender Geography 7. Historical Geography 8. Medical Geography 

1. Social science- sociology 2. Psychology 3. Welfare economics 4. Sociology 5. Anthropology 6. Sociology, Anthropology, women's studies. 7. History 8. Epidemiology 

Urban Geography -------- Urban Studies And Planning

Political Geography

1. --------- 2. Electoral geography 3. Military geography

1. Political science 2. Psephology 3. Military science

Population Geography 

---------  Demography

Settlement Geography

---------- Urban/Rural planning

Economic Geography

1. ---------- 2. Geography of resources 3. Geography of agriculture 4. Geography of industries 5. Geography of marketing 6. Geography of tourism 7. Geography of international trade

1. Economics 2. Resources economics 3. Agriculture sciences 4. Industrial economics 5. Business studies, economics, commerce 6. Tourism and travel management 7. International trade. 

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