Overview

Since the 1980s, geography as an academic discipline has become more and more reflective, asking the key questions ""what are we doing?"" and ""why are we doing it?"" These questions have, so far, been more enthusiastically taken up by human geography rather than physical geography and this volume aims to redress that balance.;Written and edited by an international group of physical geographers, this text comprises a collection of the writers' thoughts which reveal personal motivations and look at tensions in the worlds of meaning in which physical geography is involved. How are the meanings of the physical environment derived? Is the future of physical geography one where the only, or at least the dominant, meanings are framed in the contexts of environmental issues? Covering a diverse and lively selection of topics, the contributors of this book offer guides to the contemporary debates in the philosophy of physical geography, and introduce the reader to its wider cultural significance.

Full Product Details

Author:   Andre Roy ,  Stephen Trudgill
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Hodder Arnold
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.70cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9780340806906

ISBN 10:   0340806907
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   27 June 2003
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Part I Setting the Scene. Previous actors and current influences: trends and fashions in physical geography Meaning, knowledge, constructs and autobiography in physical geography. Part II: Personal Meanings. Meaning through fieldwork Reflective on personal motivations Where did it happen for you? Wondering about geomorphology Goodbye to geographical reality. Part III: Research Meanings. Constructing biogeographies: on utopias, dystopias and heteropias Climatology and meaning The natural science of geomorphology Implications for an integrated geography What it means to be a pebble in a highly turbulent stream Self-organisation and complexity: a new perspective on landscape dynamics Intergrated environmental systems and ethics: a case study of river basin management Geomorhological knowledge and landscape knowledge in resource management. Part IV: Futures. 'The writing's on the walls': On style, substance and sellnig physical geography Conclusion: contemporary meaning in physical geography.

Reviews

This is a timely and provocative collection of essays. Their (the editors) great achievement is opening an immensely important debate and providing insights into why people do physical geography and why they worry about it's position within the academic world and beyond...the issues raised are relevant to all brands of physical geographer and the book deserves to be widely read by students, teachers and researchers. -- The Holocene This book will inspire, provoke and educate its readers at a fundamental level. From first to last, it challenges and explores the relationships that physical geographers have with the world and their discipline. -- Progress in Physical Geography

Author Information

Andre Roy

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