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SOME CULTURAL TENDENCIES BEHIND CONTEMPORARY GEOGRAPHICAL THINKING
2006-07-19T12:39:08Z
Editor(s)
Claval, Paul
Pagnini, Maria Paola
Scaini, Maurizio
Abstract
In the case of geography the cultural turn can be understood in three ways and we will
define it in terms of three types of cases:
1. Varying emphases in the research and study of cultural geographical subjects.
2. A new general trend affecting not only cultural geography but also geographical
thinking as a whole and
3. A change in the overall intellectual attitude of geographers.
In this paper we shall limit ourselves to analyzing certain tendencies in geographical
thinking that are a part of the cultural turn, highlighting - in the second case - what is
happening today. This turn can be understood as described by Bergson in “L’Evolution
Créatrice” (Bergson, 1907; Wright, 1947) when the attributed the idea of “becoming” to
qualitative, evolutionary or extensive movement. The revaluation of what is qualitative would
be a welcome alternative to the unbridled cult of the quantitative that has governed the last
decades. Or, as Sorokin called it, to the “quantophrenia” to which geography has been no
exception ( Sorokin, 1964).
The evolutionary movement is to be noted when we contrast the normal interest that has
always been manifested in the diverse processes of change on the face of the Earth with the
accent now laid on the idea of ecological catastrophe. And finally the extensive movement
might be considered as a more interactive and global vision of the Earth, going beyond the
limits of traditional geography. Cultural tendencies are those that affect what is geographical
in toto, in all its branches. These include geosophy, the purely sociological approach, an
ideological approach and globalization - that we shall now proceed to analyze one by one.
Journal
Proceedings of the Conference THE CULTURAL TURN IN GEOGRAPHY, 18-20th of September 2003 - Gorizia Campus
Part I: Cultural Geography: the Theoretical Approach
Languages
en
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