Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Second, in each of the geographical sub-areas of research discussed here, an
increasingly holistic, integrative and ecological approach to health and environment
is becoming a dominant paradigm. All but the health and place agenda incorporate
an ecological framework for studying the human-environment-health nexus that
embeds human beings within ecosystems, and recognises the central importance of
many human-induced ecological perturbations for the health both of the system as
a whole and of the entities within it (vulnerable populations, human and otherwise).
An ecological lens also offers a way for geographers to refresh their thinking on
how different places and regions are linked. It blurs city and country, emphasising
that both urban and rural areas are parts of a greater whole, and that they have
functionality in relation to one another. An ecological perspective further under-
scores the limitations of focusing exclusively on any one site or at any one geo-
graphic scale in the effort to tease out relations within the human-environment-health
nexus. It reminds us that even while research on human-centred factors in uneven
environment and health conditions becomes more complex, we must not lose sight
of ecological processes. The natural environment, too, has agency, or in the language
of critical realism, has causal properties.
Third, each of the areas of research takes on the problem of geographic scale to
a greater or lesser degree. Introducing a goal such as 'sustainability' or a measure
such as 'health' raises the question of a geographic scale at which the phenomenon
is to be measured and evaluated. Increasing recognition of the multi-scalar nature
of ecological processes and their direct and indirect implications for human health
has led to multi-scalar research designs that can investigate processes and dynamics
between and across geographic scales. In each of the research areas discussed, it is
clear that local actions have broad-reaching, even global impacts, and also that
local, national, and international policies have impacts on environmental quality.
The geographic scale at which a problem of environmental injustice can be demon-
strated is a central problem in EJ research and activism, and EJ scholarship explores
both how structural actors operating at a range of scales foster environmental
inequalities (Harvey, 1996; Pellow, 2000) as well as how EJ activists create possi-
bilities for solutions to environmental injustice at various geographic scales (Towers,
2000; Kurtz, 2003). Health and place research focuses on environmental factors
impinging on human health and well-being at the relatively micro-scale of the
(urban) neighbourhood and tends to focus on built and social environments rather
than natural environment. In the political ecology of disease, geographic scale is
extended from a localised set of circumstances, with the researcher working out in
concentric circles to identify increasingly macro-factors contributing to poor land
management. Similarly, nested scales are central to vulnerability analyses in terms
of hazard risk, exposure, sensitivity and resilience.
The Future: Possibilities for Dialogue
The human-environment-health nexus comprises a complex, challenging and cru-
cially important set of issues for geographic and interdisciplinary research. Geogra-
phy offers sophistication, nuance, and analytical power in three key areas of interest
in human-environment-health scholarship. First, geography as a discipline offers a
long history of developing different ideas, defi nitions and operationalisations of
'where we live, work and play' - as place, environment, locale, location, to name
just a few terms in use. As environment and health researchers grapple with the
