Humanistic Approach
Imagine if geography stopped treating places like dots on a map, and instead started asking:
🌟 “How do people feel about those places?” 🌟
This is what Humanistic Geography does.
It emphasizes:
- Subjective experiences,
- Emotions,
- Personal meanings that people attach to places.
Key Idea:
Space is not just an abstract geometric entity.
Space is lived, felt, and experienced by human beings.
Humanistic Geography emerged in the 1970s as a reaction against the cold, number-heavy methods of Positivist Geography
Background and Evolution: Philosophical Roots
The foundation of Humanistic Geography lies in Humanism, Phenomenology, and Existentialism.
Key Philosophical Inspirations:
- Edmund Husserl (Phenomenology): Focused on how we experience the world through consciousness.
- Martin Heidegger (Being and Place): Emphasized the deep connection between human existence and place.
- Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism): Asserted that existence precedes essence — meaning we define ourselves through living.
Thus, humanistic geographers argued:
👉 “You cannot understand places only by measuring distances and areas.
👉 You must also understand human experiences, imaginations, and emotions attached to those places.”
Simple Analogy:
Measuring a city’s area tells you its size;
Measuring people’s memories of that city tells you its soul.
Key Thinkers and Their Contributions
| Thinker | Contribution |
|---|---|
| Yi-Fu Tuan | Introduced the idea of Topophilia — love for place. Studied emotional bonds with locations. |
| Edward Relph | Wrote Place and Placelessness (1976) — talked about authentic vs inauthentic experiences of places. |
| Anne Buttimer | Stressed on human experience and time in understanding geographies. |
| David Seamon | Developed concepts like place ballet — the habitual, everyday interactions humans have with places. |
These scholars collectively shifted geography’s focus from maps to minds.
Key Concepts in Humanistic Geography
i) Place and Sense of Place
- A place is not just a physical site.
- It holds emotions, memories, and identities.
- For example, your childhood home is not just a building — it’s a repository of memories.
ii) Phenomenology
- Studies how individuals experience the world through their consciousness.
- Two people standing in the same park might “feel” very differently about it.
iii) Existential Space
- Space is personal.
- How you experience space depends on your life situation, culture, and emotions.
iv) Subjectivity
- Rejects the idea that there is an objective world fully knowable by measurements.
- Emphasizes that each individual’s perception of the world is unique.
Important Message:
In Humanistic Geography, the mind’s map matters more than the cartographer’s map.
Methodology: How is Research Done?
Humanistic geography uses qualitative methods — because feelings and emotions cannot be captured by numbers.
Methods include:
- Narratives (life stories),
- Interviews,
- Participant observations,
- Case studies.
👉 Instead of measuring “how many” — humanistic geographers ask “how” and “why” people feel about spaces.
They prefer interpretation over statistical generalization.
Applications of Humanistic Geography
Humanistic insights have been applied across several fields:
| Field | Application |
|---|---|
| Migration Studies | Studies emotional reasons for migration like family ties, not just economic reasons. |
| Urban Geography | Explains feelings of alienation in big modern cities. |
| Tourism Geography | Studies tourists’ emotional connections to destinations. |
| Environmental Perception | Shows how cultural groups perceive the same environment differently. |
| Refugee Studies | Analyzes trauma, nostalgia, and the deep emotional attachment to lost homelands. |
Criticism of Humanistic Geography
While enriching, Humanistic Geography also faced criticisms:
| Criticism | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Excessive Subjectivity | Findings are too personal, difficult to generalize across populations. |
| Lack of Scientific Rigor | No clear, testable hypotheses. Hard to predict outcomes. |
| Limited Applicability | Hard to apply at large scales (like city or regional planning). |
| Neglect of Structural Factors | Ignores larger economic, social, and political structures — which Radical Geographers heavily criticize. |
Simple Analogy:
If Positivist Geography treated humans like cogs in a machine, Humanistic Geography treats them like poets lost in thought.
Both extremes miss something important.
Conclusion: Importance of Humanistic Geography
Despite criticisms, Humanistic Geography revolutionized the discipline by:
- Bringing back human emotions and values into the study of space,
- Complementing Behavioural Geography by deepening the understanding of human-environment interaction,
- Providing tools to study modern issues like place identity, sense of belonging, and emotional geographies.
✨ Insightful Lines:
“If quantitative geographers measured space with rulers, humanistic geographers measured it with the human heart.”
🌟 Thus, in today’s complex world, Humanistic Geography continues to be deeply relevant and insightful.
🔥 Quick Snapshot
| Aspect | Summary |
| Emergence | Reaction against positivism in 1970s |
| Focus | Subjective experience of space and place |
| Methods | Qualitative: narratives, interviews |
| Thinkers | Yi-Fu Tuan, Edward Relph, Anne Buttimer |
| Concepts | Place attachment, existential space, phenomenology |
| Criticism | Subjectivity, lack of generalization |