Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
• The growth of systematic studies and adoption of a scientific method, where methods of
investigation are developed.
• The development of a new focus around the spatial variable and the analysis of spatial
systems in the 1960s and 1970s where spatial analytical techniques were developed
and systems theory was introduced.
• The development of behavioural geography as a response to the spatial science
approaches, recognising that human behaviour cannot easily be explained using
logical positivist models. Behavioural geography focuses on the processes which
underlie human decision-making and spatial behaviour rather than the outcomes which
are the focus of much conventional spatial analysis (J.Gold 1980).
• The rise of humanistic geography with its emphasis on the individual as a decision-
maker. The behavioural approach tended to view people as responses to stimuli to
show how individuals do not correspond to models built to predict possible human
outcomes. In contrast, humanistic geography treats the individual as someone
constantly interacting with the environment that changes both self and milieu (R.J.
Johnston 1991). It does not use any scientifically defined model of behaviour, with
each paradigm recognising appropriate contexts where the respective approaches are
valid.
• Applied geography, which refers to 'the application of geographical knowledge and
skills to the solution of economic and social problems' (Johnston 1986:17).
• Radical approaches to geography, often with a neo-Marxist base (Peet 1977a, 1977b),
but which have broadened in the 1980s and 1990s to consider issues of gender,
globalisation, localisation, identity, postcolonialism, post-modernism and the role of
space in critical social theory (e.g. Harvey 1987, 1988, 1989a, 1989b, 1990, 1993;
Soja 1989; Benko and Strohmmayer 1997; Crouch 1999b; Blom 2000).
All of the above approaches to geography have relevance to the study of tourism and
recreation. However, their application has been highly variable with the greatest degree
of research being conducted in the areas of spatial analysis and applied geography (Table
1.2). It is useful to note that two of the most influential topics on the geography of
tourism and recreation—Pearce (1987a, 1995a) on tourism and S.L.J.Smith (1983a) on
recreation—primarily approach their subjects from a spatial perspective although both
give an acknowledgement to the role of behavioural research. In contrast, the text on
geographical perspectives on tourism by Shaw and Williams (1994) provides a far more
critical approach to the study of tourism with acknowledgement of the crucial role that
political economy, production, consumption, globalisation and commodification play in
the changing nature of tourism. In one sense, Pearce (1995a) and Shaw and Williams
(1994, 2002, 2004) are representative of the two most significant strands in present-day
tourism and recreation geography. The former, dominant approach represents a more
'traditional' form of spatial analysis and 'applied' geography (in the sense that it may be
immediately useful to some public sector and commercial interests). The latter, emerging
approach represents more discursive and reflexive forms of analysis with a broader
perspective on what the appropriate focus for the study of tourism and recreation should
be. Although arguably Crouch (1999b) represents another reflexive form of analysis that
has taken a different direction through its focus on identities, encounters and people as
socialised and embodied subjects, but which may act as a bridge for greater
communication between tourism and cultural geography. Undoubtedly, leisure and
