Possibilism in
cultural geography
Cultural geography is a subfield within human geography. Though the first traces of the study of different nations and cultures on Earth can be dated back to ancient geographers such as Ptolemy or Strabo, cultural geography as academic study first ...
is the theory that the environment sets certain constraints or limitations, but culture is otherwise determined by social conditions.
[{{cite book, last1=Stadler, first1=Reuel R. Hanks , title=Encyclopedia of geography terms, themes, and concepts, date=2011, publisher=ABC-CLIO, location=Santa Barbara, Calif., isbn=9781598842951, pages=262–263, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5FztJ3mKnPIC&dq=possibilism+geography, accessdate=5 May 2016]
In
cultural ecology
Cultural ecology is the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments. Human adaptation refers to both biological and cultural processes that enable a population to survive and reproduce within a given or changing environment. Thi ...
,
Marshall Sahlins
Marshall David Sahlins ( ; December 27, 1930April 5, 2021) was an American cultural anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory. He was the Charles F. Grey Distinguishe ...
used this concept in order to develop alternative approaches to the
environmental determinism
Environmental determinism (also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism) is the study of how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular development trajectories. Jared Diamond, Jeffrey Herbst ...
dominant at that time in ecological studies.
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...
posited in 64 BC that humans can make things happen by their own intelligence over time. Strabo cautioned against the assumption that nature and actions of humans were determined by the physical environment they inhabited. He observed that humans were the active elements in a human-environmental partnership and partnering.
The controversy between geographical ''possibilism'' and ''determinism'' might be considered one of (at least) three dominant
epistemologic
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
controversies of contemporary geography. The other two controversies are:
1) the "debate between neopositivists and neokantians about the "exceptionalism" or the specificity of geography as a science.
2) the contention between
Mackinder and
Kropotkin
Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (; russian: link=no, Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин ; 9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, historian, scientist, philosopher, and activist ...
about what is—or should be—geography".
José William Vesentini
José William Vesentini (born in 1950 in Presidente Bernardes) is a Brazilian human geographer. He teaches geography and areas of political geography and geopolitics, and is regarded as a pioneer of critical geography.
Life
Vesentini is a g ...
''Controvérsias geográficas: epistemologia e política''
Confins (magazine)
Confins is a Brazilian municipality located in the state of Minas Gerais. Its population as of 2020 is estimated to be 6,800 people. The area of the municipality is 42.008 km². The city belongs to the mesoregion Metropolitana de Belo Horizon ...
- Revue Franco-Brésilienne de Géographie
''Possibilism'' in geography is, thus, considered a distinct approach to geographical knowledge, directly opposed to geographical ''determinism''.
References
External links
University of Washington lecture
Cultural geography
History of geography