Cultural geography’s philosophy is the belief that humans are not merely products of their surrounding environments but, rather that nature provides possibilities and humans would use them according to their traditions, culture and stage of development. This paper explores the cultural geography view of Sauer (1925) in conjunction with articles of Kniffen (1935), Trewartha (1932), Brown (1933) and MacDougal (1912) to explain the relationship between humans and their environment with approach other than environmental determinism.
In Saucer’s (1925) article “The morphology of landscape” he discussed various aspects of geography, mentioning three distinct fields, namely “study of the earth as the medium of physical processes”, tropisms studies and the study of various life-forms and their spatial distribution. He suggests that geography took on the role of investigating landscapes because there …show more content…
Where environmental determinism as reviewed in the past few weeks ideology is based on aspects of physical geography influencing humans and in turn defining the behaviour and culture of the society. Cultural geography opposes this theory, is based upon the assumption that the environment may set constraints but ultimately culture is dependent on social conditions. It is evident in the reviewed papers that similar regions, through the changes in value of their elements, have varied cultures. In my understanding, the difference between environmental determinism and cultural geography has to with how the analysis of societies in various environments began, if the researcher investigated the environment and its’ effect on society (environmental determinism), however, if the researcher investigated how people use resources to create their surroundings and mitigate its effects (cultural
In Saucer’s (1925) article “The morphology of landscape” he discussed various aspects of geography, mentioning three distinct fields, namely “study of the earth as the medium of physical processes”, tropisms studies and the study of various life-forms and their spatial distribution. He suggests that geography took on the role of investigating landscapes because there …show more content…
Where environmental determinism as reviewed in the past few weeks ideology is based on aspects of physical geography influencing humans and in turn defining the behaviour and culture of the society. Cultural geography opposes this theory, is based upon the assumption that the environment may set constraints but ultimately culture is dependent on social conditions. It is evident in the reviewed papers that similar regions, through the changes in value of their elements, have varied cultures. In my understanding, the difference between environmental determinism and cultural geography has to with how the analysis of societies in various environments began, if the researcher investigated the environment and its’ effect on society (environmental determinism), however, if the researcher investigated how people use resources to create their surroundings and mitigate its effects (cultural