Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Whither empiricism and evidence-based studies?
Aspects of a general debate
A distinguishing feature of human geography has always
been its strong empirical content, which is a feature of both
its research and its applications in the real world. The oldest
traditions such as exploration, discovery, and fi eldwork all
involved the careful collection of information and data. Much
of this was qualitative and descriptive and formed the bases of
expedition reports and regional studies; much was quantitative
and measurable such as the data inputs to cartography, charts,
and mapmaking. Spatial analysis and the 'quantitative revolution'
of the 1960s brought all of this to the fore and prompted human
geographers to make use of the many different data sources then
available. As satellite imagery and geographical information
systems have developed in their applications to human geography,
the range of data inputs and their analysis has once again
increased.
Against this continuing empirical tradition in human
geography and its expressions in evidence-based research
are two major tensions within the discipline that work in
contradictory directions. First, the concept of data and statistical
analysis is anathema to many adherents of the new cultural
geography. The 'quantitative revolution', or shift to a more
scientifi c and measurement approach, is regarded by them
as the 'dark ages', a 'diabolical science', and a low point in the
emergence of human geography. Their approach, founded on
abstract ideas and the qualitative search for meanings, often has
little time for data and certainly not for measurement. Second,
the grand theories or meta-narratives found in the various forms
of structuralism similarly had little time for empiricism and
case studies. During the 1990s, when qualitative case studies
of the real world became the dominant approach, there was a
strong reaction against what Marxist geographers labelled as the
'empirical turn'.
