Suchergebnisse

The aim of the present volume is to review the effects of human activity on physical environment processes, and this is justified not only as a complement to the approach taken by G. P. Marsh his volume Man and Nature (1864), but also as a sequel to the work produced since 1864, with contributions since the mid-nineteenth century to the study of th

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- Notes on Editors and Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Part I: Introduction -- 1: Introducing Critical Physical Geography -- Barriers to Interdisciplinary1 Research -- Doing CPG Research: Structure and Methods -- Epistemology -- Relations to Cognate Fields -- Structure of this Handbook -- Conclusion -- References -- 2: Towards a Genealogy of Critical Physical Geography -- Introduction -- Early Academic Geography: From Integration to Schism -- Man (Sic) as a 'Unit Process' -- Systems and Integration -- Physical Geography and Engagements with Philosophy -- A Genealogy of a More Critical Physical Geography -- Towards a More Physical Critical Human Geography -- Conclusions -- References -- 3: In Defense of Crappy Landscapes (Core Tenet #1) -- Introduction -- The Age of Us -- Disturbance -- Crappy Landscapes -- Critical Theory and Crappy Landscapes: From Science to Intervention -- Conclusion -- References -- 4: A Framework for Understanding the Politics of Science (Core Tenet #2) -- Introduction -- Science, Facts, and Big-P Politics -- Scientific Choices and Their Consequences: A Small-p Politics of Science -- Theory -- Methodology and Data Availability -- Application-Driven Environmental Science: Why and for Whom? -- Institutions: Structuring Our Scientific Choices -- Conclusion -- References -- 5: The Impacts of Doing Environmental Research (Core Tenet #3) -- Introduction -- Fieldwork Impacts on Biophysical Environments -- Fieldwork Impacts on Social Relations -- Fieldwork Impacts on Socioecological Imaginaries -- The Impacts of Our Research Results -- Research in the Anthropocene -- Discussion and Future Directions -- References -- Part II: CPG in Practice -- 6: The Trouble with Savanna and Other Environmental Categories, Especially in Africa -- Geographic Philosophy and Society.

Students of physical geography do not commonly interrogate its nature and method, largely because they take the positivist approach for granted. Nor indeed has there been much consideration of how physical geography under the socio-economic, political and environmental circumstances of South Africa might influence its practice. This paper explores the identity and place of physical geography and compares the South African intellectual landscape with the situation globally. This is achieved through a brief analysis of publication patterns in The South African Geographical Journal in relation to the major international geography periodicals. It is concluded that physical geographers in South Africa, as is the case with their Anglo-American counterparts, have largely abandoned their identity as geographers per se. Instead, physical geographers increasingly present their work to a scientific audience where geographers are proportionally minor players. The hegemony of the international scientific publication industry has encouraged or even enforced the participation of physical geographers. Unlike in human geography, where there is a vibrant 'critical geography', physical geographers in South Africa have apparently failed to develop novel and fundamental theories and methods despite its remarkable, even unique, physical environmental circumstances. Nevertheless, a more integrated physical geography in South Africa has the opportunity to grapple with key environmental and socio-economic problems, including poverty, that have the potential to re-invigorate the discipline.

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record ; The world of late seems oversaturated with stories about drones. These suddenly pervasive machines straddle a divide in geography, being simultaneously an important tool for proximal sensing in physical geography and technology with military origins that human geographers have critically engaged. This paper, a collaboration between a physical and a human geographer, is an exploration of the epistemological nexus that a critical drone methodology offers the discipline, and which we suggest provides a new opportunity for collaborative human/physical geography. Drawing on our own research with drones and that of others, we demonstrate how recent scholarship on vertical geographies and longstanding remote-sensing frameworks are challenged by drone methodologies where social, environmental and technological concerns are entangled with the politics of access to proximal airspace and, in doing so, define a new conceptual atmospheric zone within the Earth's atmospheric boundary layer – the "Nephosphere" – where drone experimentation occurs. We argue that engagement with non-military uses of drones is crucial for the discipline, now that we are entering an uncertain aerial future that will be replete with flying robots, and suggest drones are reconfiguring geographic imaginations. In short, we call on geographers to participate actively in the shaping of new drone methodologies where the values and perils of the technology can be critically debated from the starting point of the experiential, rather than the speculative.