Practising human geography PDF
Preview Practising human geography
CLOKE-PRELIMS.qxd 3/3/04 12:06 PM Page i PRACTISING HUMAN GEOGRAPHY CLOKE-PRELIMS.qxd 3/3/04 12:06 PM Page ii CLOKE-PRELIMS.qxd 3/3/04 12:06 PM Page iii P R A C T I S I N G H U M A N G E O G R A P H Y Paul Cloke Ian Cook Philip Crang Mark Goodwin Joe Painter Chris Philo SAGE Publications London •Thousand Oaks • New Delhi CLOKE-PRELIMS.qxd 3/3/04 12:06 PM Page iv © Paul Cloke, Ian Cook, Philip Crang, Mark Goodwin, Joe Painter, Chris Philo 2004 First Published 2004 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B-42, Panchsheel Enclave Post Box 4109 New Delhi 100 017 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7619 7325 7 ISBN 0 7619 7300 1 (pbk) Library of Congress Control Number 2003108066 Typeset by C&M Digitals (P) Ltd., Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press Ltd, Trowbridge, Wiltshire CLOKE-PRELIMS.qxd 3/3/04 12:06 PM Page v Summary of Contents 1 Changing practices of human geography: an introduction 1 PART I CONSTRUCTING GEOGRAPHICAL DATA 35 2 Official sources 41 3 Non-official sources 62 4 Imaginative sources 93 5 Talking to people 123 6 Observing, participating and ethnographies 169 PART II CONSTRUCTING GEOGRAPHICAL INTERPRETATIONS 207 7 Sifting and sorting 215 8 Enumerating 247 9 Explaining 285 10 Understanding 307 11 Representing human geographies 336 12 The politics of practising human geography 364 CLOKE-PRELIMS.qxd 3/3/04 12:06 PM Page vi CLOKE-PRELIMS.qxd 3/3/04 12:06 PM Page vii Contents Preface x Acknowledgements xvi 1 Changing practices of human geography: an introduction 1 Practising human geography? 1 A thumbnail history of practising human geography 7 Conclusion 31 Notes 32 PART I CONSTRUCTING GEOGRAPHICAL DATA 35 2 Official sources 41 Introduction 41 Types of official information 42 Information and state formation 43 The contemporary informational state 49 Understanding the construction of official information 53 Conclusion 61 Notes 61 3 Non-official sources 62 Introduction 62 Non-official sources in geographical research 63 Critical issues in the use of non-official data sources 68 Conclusion 91 Note 92 4 Imaginative sources 93 Introduction 93 Understanding the construction of imaginative sources 94 Imaginative sources in geographical research 104 Case studies 115 Conclusion 122 Notes CLOKE-PRELIMS.qxd 3/3/04 12:06 PM Page viii Contents 5 Talking to people 123 Introduction 123 The practices of talking to people 126 Questionnairing 130 Interviewing 148 Discussion groups 159 Ethics: an important end note 164 Notes 168 6 Observing, participating and ethnographies 169 Introduction: what is ethnography and how can it be geographical? 169 Geography’s humanistic ethnographies 171 The black inner city as Frontier outpost 173 Geography’s ‘new’ ethnographies 182 Top tips for prospective researchers 195 Conclusion: field-noting 196 Notes 204 PART II CONSTRUCTING GEOGRAPHICAL INTERPRETATIONS 207 7 Sifting and sorting 215 Sitting down with your data 215 What happens when we put things into boxes and make lists 223 A geographical detour into set theory 227 Alternatives and recommendations 240 Notes 245 8 Enumerating 247 Enumeration and human geography 247 Describing, exploring, inferring 253 Modelling spatial processes 264 Geocomputation 271 GIS and spatial analysis 272 The authority of numbers? 277 Notes 284 9 Explaining 285 The complexity of explanation 285 Explanation through laws: geography as spatial science 286 Explanation as causation 288 Intensive and extensive research 289 The search for a revolution in geographical explanation 290 Explanation through abstraction 291 Explanation and subjectivity 295 Explanation and practice 299 Concluding comments: from the explanation of geography to the geographies within explanation 305 Note 306 viii CLOKE-PRELIMS.qxd 3/3/04 12:06 PM Page ix CONTENTS 10 Understanding 307 Introduction 307 Seven modes of understanding 310 Conclusion: between understanding and explanation 335 Notes 335 11 Representing human geographies 336 Introduction 336 The work of writing 337 Presenting research 342 Representation and rhetoric 347 Representation in practice 358 Beyond the book 362 Conclusion 363 Notes 363 12 The politics of practising human geography 364 The ‘personal’ politics of geographical practice 364 The politics of research practice 367 The politics of the academy 370 Ethics, morality and geographical research 374 Notes 375 References 376 Index 409 ix
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