Zambezia I 1975-6), 4 (iiDE UTILITATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHIAE*D. HYWEL DAVIESDepartment of Geography, University of Rhodesia'DE UTILITATE et necessitate Geographiae (concerning the usefulness of, andneed for, Geography)': I borrow my title from the great seventeenth-centurygeographer, Bernard Varen, or Varenius, whose Geographia Generalis,incorporating the new theories of the universe of Copernicus, Kepler andGalileo, laid foundations on which Von Humboldt, Ritter and their successorsbuilt modern geography. Varen's book, the first English edition of whichwas edited at Cambridge by Newton, was widely accepted as a major con-tribution to European science.Today, three centuries later, academic geography has grown vastly infactual knowledge, in concepts and in numbers of practitioners. Recently inBritain I visited departments with around 500 undergraduate and 20 post-graduate students, up to 30 full-time teachers, impressive capital facilitiesand major research programmes funded from both the public and privatesectors. Despite the recession, I found virtually no unemployment of 1975graduates, among whom only a third became teachers. Comparable growthmay be seen elsewhere.Despite such manifestations of vigour and utility, the essential nature,purpose and methods of contemporary geography are widely misunderstood.To other academics it seems awkwardly straddled between faculties; neitherfish, fowl nor good red herring. To the man in the street the geographer seemsat best regarded as a walking gazetteer of useless information Š epitomisedperhaps by a classic student howler, 'The Amazon is rich in undiscoveredminerals' (quoted in the Institute of British Geographers, Annual Conference,1974, p.56) Š and his subject recalled as one hated at school Few laymenseem to regard it as particularly useful, except as general education, fewerstill as essential.In claiming these attributes for geography, I shall not itemise our pro-fessional employment outlets or range of practical activities (surprisingthough some might find these), for such inventories seem inappropriate toan essentially serious academic occasion. In a university subject, a claim forusefulness and 'essentialness' can be no less than the high claim for thestatus of academic discipline, whose value to the world at large must flowfrom worthiness of academic pursuit. We were once advised in my depart-ment to produce Š and I quote Š 'practical people, not people who think',but felt unable to agree.An inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Rhodesia on 20 May 1976,1DE UTILITATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHIAEIn this lecture I wish to present a personal and critical perspective ofcontemporary geography and then, briefly, to argue that this now extra-ordinarily rapidly-evolving discipline, and the earth's exponentially growingset of human and environmental problems are on convergent courses, aconvergence likely to assign to geography an increasingly central role inresearch as a basis for decision-making within the next two decades.Believing this to be self-evident, I shall not refer to the vital educational roleof the subject in providing a liberal education, and an understanding of ourfascinating but crowded and threatened planet.Let us look at the geographer.. The painting entitled 'The Geographer'by the seventeenth-century Flemish painter, Vermeer, is one version of him(Fig. 1). While appreciating the characteristic perception of light in thisportrait, I find the interpretation of the subject unappealing. We see himindoors in a stuffy room, seeing little of the real world through the closedwindows. Clearly, he is that despicable character, the armchair geographer.Note the pale face and scholarly stoop. Worse, he is a messy worker Š IFigure 1: THE GEOGRAPHERBy Johannes Vermeer (1632-75) (Staedel Institute, Frankfurt)t>. HYWEL DAVIES 3would not allow my students to carry out map analyses on crumpled table-cloths. Even though his dividers show that at least he measures things, Icannot take to him, for he is a layman's creation. On the other hand, acontemporary version (Fig. 2), shows the geographer as two-thirds a fieldman (and woman), essentially a quantifier, neatly bridging the natural andsocial sciences by conducting simultaneous physical and social surveys, andmaster of that trendy power tool, the computer. Professionally, if hardlyartistically, this is a much more pleasing representation Š except for thedisturbing feature that he is divided, like Gaul, into three parts. Is geography,then, no longer a unified discipline? I shall return to this point.Figure 2: THE GEOGRAPHER(From Area, 1975, by permission of the Institute of British Geographers)Turning to the geographer's object of study, by definition the earth, wenote the force of the common criticism that this is a formidably large andcomplex object which it is arrogant to claim to study scientifically, not-withstanding much support from other earth sciences. Indeed, any claimthat the earth was our academic oyster would be truly arrogant, but in factwe do not make it. Not only do we rely on the work of others for much ofour information, but we ourselves focus our attention on certain partsof the earth and certain aspects of its study. We can identify what we dostudy by pruning away that which does not centrally concern us.DE UTILITATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHIAEFirstly, we note that the earth, viewed as a planet, is on too small a scaleto interest us particularly, since we cannot readily identify its various surfacefeatures. Geographers work mainly at medium scientific scales (as shownin Fig. 3), from large world regions down to, say, a few city blocks. Scaleis a vital factor in geography, significantly influencing both the scope andmethods of our studies and controlling levels of abstraction.Next, we narrow our enquiries to that part of the earth where man andenvironment interact, generally disregarding outer space or inner earth core.For convenience, we divide this earth shell of interaction into atmosphere,lithosphere and hydrosphere, as modelled, for example, by Carol (Fig. 4).Overlapping these are the biosphere and pedosphere, plus those man-made103or1020 -1O10 I10°10"Ł1010light yearsŁ Diameter ofMilky WayŁNearest fixed starŁ 1 light year-Š-Distance of earthfrom sunŠ Equatorial circumferenceof the earthZone of geographers'interestHeight of adult maleŁ Wavelength ofvisible light1Olur1O910106 -10sŁ Atomic radiix raysNuclear radiiCosmic rays1O-2°L shortest measurable distanceEquatorialcircumferenceof the earthConterminousUnited StatesNew York State. Manhattan, N.Y.'// / / / /\7T,Ł/ŁŁŁŁ:'/Ł:Ł/.ŁŁ*:Ł/'Ł/Ł'.* v ŁŁ/.-/»Ł*#Ł *Š-Central Park,Ł'*:*:;A:-/.'x':.y/s. Manhattan*Ł,/, ->-y.::>Ł':>ŁŁŁŁ>.'Ł Football stadium<Š Baseball diamondManA BFigure 3: SCALE IN GEOGRAPHY (After Haggett, 1975)4 mD. HYWEL DAVIES6 DE UTIL1TATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHIAEor man-dominated areas collectively forming what is here termed the anthro-posphere, although there are other terms (Manshard, 1975, p. 148). Thesetogether make up what Hartshorne (1960, p.47) called the earth 'as the worldof man', and Carol calls the geosphere. Substantially less than the entire planet,this is the geographer's object of study. More significant to geography thansuch systematic divisions as atmosphere (which derive from the systematicsciences) are areal, or loosely 'regional' crosscuts of the geosphere intogeomers, because the essence of geographical study is man-environment inter-action in its real word complex totality. Synthesis, not analysis, is the endproduct of our discipline, although systematic divisions are convenient inpractice.Finally, in limiting our field of study we adapt a particular spatial view-point of our residual 'world of man'. Our interest in the geosphere rests onthe fact that it is not a uniform shell, but greatly varying from place to place:if the geosphere were uniform like the surface of a billiard ball there wouldbe no geography to study. It also rests on the belief that the complex ofdynamic spatial processes at work in the geosphere, and the patterns theyform and re-form, express an underlying, holistic order, and are amenableto human reason. In this sense geography is the science of spatial processesand patterns, not of phenomena that serve as elements making up thoseprocesses or patterns.Here, surely, lies the root cause of misunderstanding of academic geo-graphy. Whereas nearly all other sciences, natural and human, are systematicin that they focus centrally on phenomena Š the botanist, plants; the geo-logist, rocks; and so on ŠŁ geography is centrally concerned with thespatial attributes of all relevant phenomena, but not particularly with theirother attributes. To over-simplify, we might say that systematic science maystudy maps to explain phenomena, geography may study phenomena to ex-plain maps. The viewpoint of geography is thus distinctive and the trajectoryof our discipline tends to cut transversely across the systematic trajectories ofmost other sciences. As C. A. Fisher has neatly put it, 'Against the universalistlaws of the systematic sciences , . . geography [has] contraposed the variableof place' (Fisher, 1970, p.375). We are students of the variable of place.This fundamental point is widely regarded as having originated in ananalysis by Immanuel Kant (who for many years lectured on physical geo-graphy at Konigsberg University), an analysis subsequently developed byHettner and later by Hartshorne. Rather heroically summarised, his argumentwas that all knowledge is drawn either through pure reason or from experiencethrough our senses. Knowledge from experience may then be classified eitheraccording to concepts, giving the logical classification of the systematicsciences, or according to time and place where found, the physical classifica-tion of history and geography, respectively, as chronological and chorologicalsciences. In the former, classification Š the ordering process of science Šis based on similarity of form of phenomena; in the latter, on similaritiesof places or times where phenomena are found. Geography is therefore ex-ceptional (as is History) to the generally-accepted pattern of scientific ex-D. HYWEL DAVIESplanation. Although the 'exceptionalism' aspect of this argument has beencriticised recently, the thesis underpins the, to me, basic concept of a trans-verse trajectory of investigation across the systematic sciences. My diagramof this concept (Fig. 5) indicates an operationally essential overlap betweensystematic sciences and the chorological Š now called chorographic Šscience of geography. Systematic science makes significant and, in fact, in-creasing use of spatial perspectives, while geography draws on and contri-butes to phenomena-focused investigations to explain spatial processes. Infact, systematic investigations, derived from cognate sciences, provide thegeographer with a lower order or peripheral methodology to his central choro-graphic methodology in which, in Anuchin's words (1973, p.46), 'The subjectmatter of geography within the geosphere of the earth appears as a synthesisof all near-surface spheres into one interacting system', or, as Chorley(1973, p. 158) has put it, 'Geography concerns itself with the tangible, spatialmanifestations of the continuing intercourse between man and his habitableenvironment'. In this intercourse Gourou (quoted in Beaujeu-Garnier, 1976,p. 91) has suggested that 'physical factors exert an influence only as afunction of the civilizations which interpret them', thereby defininggeography as basically anthropocentric. Von Humboldt and Ritter used theterm, 'zusammenhang (a hanging together)', to describe this interactingsystem, while Bruhnes referred to 'connexite'. Geography is thus much mis-understood through being evaluated by the criteria of the systematic sciences,and consequently being found wanting. But one cannot legitimately criticisechalk for being tasteless cheese. Criticism of it as chalk, however, is another<ŠPRIMARILYPHYSICALSCIENCESMETATtviOPHEREHYDROLGEOL OCEAN-HEDRPEETC<^ GEOGRAPHYuuUuSYSTEMATIC (Phenomena)BIO-SCIENCESBOTzooETCB1OsHERBIO-ECOLOGYHUMAN (SOC)SCIENCESSOCIOLECON SCI ! ETCANTHpEREPRIMARILY CHOROLOGICAL (Space)uuu41i/-"" Spatial interests( of Systematic\ SciencesJ_=. _- Systematicinterestsof GeographersDHD/SGFigure 5: THE TRANSVERSE TRAJECTORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL INVESTIGATION8 DE UT1L1TATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHiAEmatter, and we must now glance at some aspects of the spatial concepts andmethodology of geography as a chorographic discipline.The geographer's methods of collecting data through field observationsand survey, map analysis, library investigation and by limited experimenta-tion, are well known and need no elaboration here. He has then tendedtraditionally to proceed from numerous case studies, through classificationto inductive generalization and, usually through analogy, to limited theoryconstruction and explanation. This 'Baconian' (Francis) research route, asHarvey (1969) calls it (Fig. 6), has reflected the fact that, since geographers1: THE 'BACONIAN* ROUTE2: AN ALTERNATIVEPERCEPTUALL;_JLt *FACTSDEFINITIONCLASSIFICATIONMEASUREMENTLAWS ANDTHEORYCONSTRUCTIONEXPLANATIONRoute 1unsuccessfulPERCEPTUALEXPERIENCESTTFTTIMAGE OFREAL WORLDSTRUCTUREA PRIORIMODEL(formal repres-entation of theimage)EXPERIMENTALDESIGN(definit ion,class if i cationmeasurement)VERIFICATIONPROCEDURESI statisticaltests, etc)successfulLAWS ANDTHEORYCONSTRUCTIONpositivefeedbackEXPLANATIONRoute 2Figure 6: ROUTES TO SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION(After Harvey, 1969)D. HYWEL DAV1ES 9concentrate on the real, as opposed to some idealised, geosphere, they mustrecognise that this ultimately comprises unique places, so that an idiographicand thence inductive approach is appropriate as far as it will take us. Con-sequently, we still use this route today in dealing with an increasing conven-tional workload arising from the steady spread of world mapping, aerialphotography, censuses and economic surveys, and from improved fieldmobility and increasing numbers of fieldworkers.I must emphasize, nevertheless, that within the last two decades, geo-graphy has experienced a revolution in concept and methodology, possiblymore far-reaching than any in its 2 000-year history as an identifiable subjector its more than a century as an emerging modern academic discipline. Dis-satisfaction with traditional methods with limited explanatory and minimalpredictive power has led to what has been described as 'the scientific dis-sonance that precedes scientific revolutions'. Although our revolution is stillin progress, we can begin to see something of what is happening.Firstly, there is an increasing sophisticated use of mathematical andstatistical techniques for data processing, for modelling and testing of hypo-theses, and for the construction of theory. This aspect of change, whichinitially went too far in attempting to raise the quantitative techniques froma means to an end Š confusing, as it were, the shiny new power tool withthe craftsman Š is now essentially achieved. With some initial excesses andrather splendid absurdities beginning to fall away, it is increasingly seen tohave conferred not merely greater precision and manipulative power togeographical research, but also improved capacity for logical reasoning andbetter communication with both natural and social scientists, opening upexciting possibilities for co-operation.Following directly from this process of quantitification, there has de-veloped recently a strengthened concept of geography as the science ratherthan merely the recorder of the geosphere. In their search for deeper insights,geographers are turning increasingly to a more deductive route to explanation,which proceeds from a priori universal premises to statements about particularsets of events as suggested by Route II on Harvey's diagram.A third important, and again related, trend is the shift of emphasis frominvestigating geographical patterns to an investigation of the spatial processesthat create those patterns. Thus, for example, we pay more attention tophysical processes that underlie landscape denudation, and also more to theflows of goods, services and information that create patterns of settlements.Increasingly, then, geography examines interactions in the geosphere betweentemporal process and spatial form. Berry (1973, p.10), has proposed thatthis new trend should be developed to become the major theme of geography,a new 'process metageography' (derived from process metaphysics), whichhe describes as follows:The fundamental idea of process metaphysics is that the universe shouldnot be regarded as made up of objects or things, but of a complexhierarchy of smaller and large flow patterns (i.e. processes) set withinsystems of even larger scales in which the 'things' are self-maintainingor self-repeating features of the flow with a certain invariance, eventoDE UT1LITATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHIAEthough matter, energy and information are continually flowing throughthem. The shape of a waterfall ... or the shape of clouds ,whieh havea certain constancy even though masses of moist air are flowing throughthem and continually condensing and evaporating, would be examples.Similarly, in urban geography, the neighbourhoods of a city retain theircharacteristics only because the same kind of people move in and out;such self-maintaining flows preserve the social geography of the city.... In such a flow picture, the steady state patterns or 'objects'... can onlybe understood in a holistic relationship to their 'environment', withfields of flow extending outward indefinitely to the next such stable con-centration of energy, and the next.The emphasis in Berry's metageography is thus not on static structuresbut on a flow hierarchy. Of course, such systems can undergo sudden trans-formations to new self-maintaining arrangements which will in turn bestable for a long time Š as when vortex patterns in a stream can be restruc-tured by moving a rock in the streambed. Both the analogy with physicsand the implications for decision-making in spatial or physical planningwill be apparent. Hagerstrand's work in Sweden in the early 1950s onspatial diffusion theory was a classic early study of process in geography,in which he charted the spread of several agricultural innovations, includingbovine tuberculosis controls and various subsidies to farmers, through theagricultural community through a process of gradual acceptance in space andtime. He and his followers have since worked on operational models of thisprocess. Their implications for the developing world are particularly interest-ing.This development of a more dynamic perspective depends directly onthe newer quantitative methods, particularly through modelling, so that thenew concepts and methods are interactive and in toto represent no less thanan emergent new paradigm for academic geography, largely a form of spatialsystems analysis, which should enable us more meaningfully to probe under-lying spatial order. In a complex world, as yet far from adequately describedeven in simple terms, however, we also retain our older idiographic, case-orientated studies as basic building blocks for higher studies of spatial systems.When the dust of our revolution has finally settled, I think we shall emergeagain in a characteristically pragmatic posture, selecting particular tools andmethods to cope with particular tasks as we become increasingly problem-orientated. As a direct consequence of this revolution, however, our newpracticality will rest on firmer conceptual and methodological bases.Our revolution has conferred another benefit. Previously, geography wasin some danger of coming apart at the seams, and of its vigorous specialistdivisions hiving off into the natural or social sciences on either hand. Basic-ally, this was because weak chorographic theory at the core emphasizedstronger systematic theory at the periphery, where it overlaps other fields.It is already apparent that new concepts are strengthening the core of ourdiscipline and linking afresh so-called 'physical' and 'human' geography.Before leaving this discussion of contemporary geography, I must brieflyrefer to three further trends, of perhaps wider interest. Firstly, in companyP. HYWEL DAVIES11with other earth sciences, we are gaining access to large increments of geo-graphical data at small scales through the complex of techniques ratherwhimsically named remote sensing. Specifically, multi-spectral satelliteimagery is now deluging the earth sciences with photography from spaceand with digitised information. For analysis and spatial synthesis this must becaptured within areal frameworks in the form of data banks, in the use ofwhich the geographer's particular role, as a member of a multi-disciplinaryteam, is to assist with natural resource inventory and to take a lead in in-vestigating direct man/land interactions as revealed in the imagery. It is per-haps fortunate for us that something of a time-lag has developed betweenthe production and the scientific consumption of this mass of imagery, forit has enabled us to go some way in putting our academic house in order,the better to cope with it. (The time-lag, incidentally, resulted in the Christ-mas card industry becoming a significant consumer of space photographyin the United States !)Secondly, we are interested in insights psychologists provide into en-vironmental perception, and we are adding mental maps to our stock-in-trade.P-PLANEC-FIELDEvents^Experience^ ° CONSTRUCTS[Los AngelSize CONCEPTSJ /- A- --Q Combust !onDefinitionRelationshipIndefinite boundary zone betweenconstructs and conceptsUniqueness and specificityGenerality and abstractionFigure 7: PERCEPTION: THE P-PLANE AND THE C-FIELD(After Margenau, 1961; and Abler, Adams and Gould, 1971)12 DE UTILJTATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHIAEAcademic study has been described as the process of imposing order on ex-perience. Abler, Adams and Gould's (1971, p. 13) extension of Margenau'smodel (1961) of the intellectual process involved shows the starting point tobe perception (Fig. 7). Certain events cross our sensory frontiers through ourperception filters and became part of our experience, others remaining un-perceived by particular individuals. Within this frontier Š Margenau'sP-plane Š our mental constructs, our initial ideas about experience, imposea preliminary order upon them. Constructs are most specfic near the P-plane(a rose), but became more generalised away from it (a flower, a plant). Thus,our mental manipulations of primary experience (or perception) bring us viaincreasing ordering and generalisation processes into the domain of scientificmethod. Geographers must accept, therefore, that there is a perception filterbetween individuals and the real environment, controlling both the strengthwith which they perceive environmental features, and the values they mayattach to them. Some geographers are now formalising environmental per-ception into mental maps.Gould and White (1974), in particular, have recently provided us withuseful ideas on this subject. To illustrate the concept very simply, and notover-seriously, consider this home in Highlands, Salisbury, and how it mightnotionally be perceived by some of its occupants (Figs. 8-10). In this illustra-tion we are concerned solely with which parts of the property are stronglyperceived Š the shaded areas Š as opposed to the unshaded areas onlyfaintly perceived: we are not here concerned with favourable or unfavourableperceptions. The first map describes the property in conventional terms; themaps suggest perception variations among some occupants. The last figurealso combines these to indicate parts of the property strongly perceived byfive, four, three persons, and so on. Among other things, this poses the ques-tion of why the owner chooses to pay for an acre but really 'sees' only halfof it, whereas the person with the least stake in the property Š- the gardenerŠ perceives almost all of it.GENERAL PLAN OF PROPERTYq Servants. %Pumps Garage QuartersBUILDINGS HI POOL, POND Ł DRIVE. PATHS [jJ] TREES, BUSHES Ł LAWNSFigure 8: PERCEPTIONS OF PROPERTY (1)D. HYWEL DAVIES13FATHER3:SCHOOL CHILDFigure 9: PERCEPTIONS OF PROPERTY (2)In serious practice, however, mental maps are constructed on similarprinciples to conventional thematic maps and are calculated and measurable.For example, Gould and White describe a sample of 23 school-leaving classesfrom schools scattered through Britain, who had filled in a questionnaire onthe desirability of various areas in Britain to work and live in, other factorsbeing equal. On the basis of their replies, by means of constructing matrices14DE UTILITATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRA^HIAE4 : COOK / HOUSE - SERVANT5:GARDENERu. ^.-,t < \s«-\Number of Persons.XV ŁDHO/SGPERCEPTIONS OF PROPERTY (3)and calculating correlation co-efficients, scores were assigned to variouslocalities. These were portrayed as 'spot heights', and the equivalent of'contour lines' (isopercepts), drawn to link places of equal perceived environ-mental desiability. A resultant mental map for a school in Aberystwyth,Wales, shows the Principality and southern England to be generally attractiveD. HYWEL DAVIES15(the darker the shading the more attractive). Another example from Yorkshireagain shows preference for southern England, but is otherwise very different.The results from all 23 schools were then averaged to produce a national per-ception surface, portrayed both as a conventional map and as a three-dimensional computer printout. Analysis was carried a further stage by com-paring the values of localised surfaces with the national surface, which showedthat localised departures from the average increase progressively northward,so that northern Scottish school-leavers' notions of desirability appear mostat variance from those of Britain as a whole.Such an exercise is more than a mere intellectual game. It has distinctpractical possibilities in a world where technology increasingly makes bothpeople and their employment opportunities more footloose, more a matterfor human decision-making. Consider Gould's map of Tanzania as seen byTangaDar esSalaamppl Over 80Ł 40-80® Control PointsFigure 11: THE MENTAL MAP OF TANZANIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS(From Gould, 1969)16DE UTILITATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHIAEnew university graduates in that country (Fig. 11; Gould, 1969). Typically in adeveloping African country, professional people tend to prefer urban postings,but the aims of development planning call for the deployment of many inrural areas. Mental maps, plus some supplementary questions asked of therespondents, enable reasonable and quantifiable statements to be made con-cerning reasons for, and degree of, resistance to 'bush postings' and mayeven suggest appropriate levels of compensation in terms of such factors assalary and housing availability for perceived inferior localities. This surely hasrel.eva.nce for the deployment of scare professional staff in such countries.Mental maps have also been used as an aid in planning the developmentof tourism and in environmental conservation. The influence of perceptionis perhaps unavoidable in planning. Either the perceptions of the 'planned'are assessed as planning guides, or the professional and administratively-orientated value judgements of the planners themselves will be imposed,albeit unconsciously. Increasingly, man-environment interaction has manas the dominant partner, changing environment according to his decisions Šand his decisions, for good or ill, are informed by his perceptions. Ournotions of spatial order will increasingly be man's rather than nature's in thisciowding planet and consequently we must seek to understand their bases.Finally, on concepts and methods, mental maps serve to introduce acurrent preoccupation we have with the problems of map transformation,which I can only touch on. Traditionally, geography investigates the geospherein terms of Euclidian space, with distances and directions objectivelymeasured. Given common notations and accuracy, they can be measured ahundred times by different observers and will give the same answers Š a kilo-metre is always a kilometre. Although we have had problems in trans-forming space on the spherical surface of the earth to its expression on theplane of the map, in practical terms this has essentially been solved throughmap projections, and no longer greatly interests most geographers.However, our perceived environment, in its physical and cultural mani-festations, and the vital decisions that our dominant human species make,for good or ill, to modify that environment, are basen on relative space.Thus in everyday life we commonly regard distance as time, cost or effort.How many people, asked how far it is from A to B, reply 'about twentyminutes'? To how many drivers is the perceived best route not the straightroad directly connecting C and D, but a longer route with less traffic?Although we would not actually say that the distance from, say, Salis-bury to London is x dollars, cost is likely, in fact, to be the measure thatprimarily determines the decision whether or not to travel, for transporttechnology is progressively relegating distance and also time to subsidiarystatus. Our decisions are also informed by our notions of social distance Šsome neighbourhoods are less 'nice' than others; turned into cartographic terms(necessary for charting the spatial implications of decision-making processes),this could mean that the two kilometres from Snob Hill to the wrongside of the tracks is perceived as much farther than 10 kilometres alonga ridge of high-class suburbs extending in another direction. Apart fromD. HYWEL DAVIES17upsetting our traditional measures of distance and direction, this also meansthat whereas all observers measuring absolute distance should obtain thesame result, the perception of relative distance varies ultimately betweenindividuals and theoretically can be described only in idiographic terms asaggregations of unique cases, which means that no laws can be derived fromthem to inform planning processes. Fortunately, at operational levels signific-ant classes of response can be identified and probability theory harnessedto aid us.From the geographers standpoint, the particular problem is that theEuclidian space of our basemaps is unlikely to be isomorphic with the re-lative space that expresses much of the reality of man-environment inter-action. This presents us with the problem of transforming maps from onemode to the other and explains the curious distortions Š or apparent dis-tortions Š found on some maps, in which countries are portrayed on scalesproportional with their populations (e.g. Fig 12). Similarly, a map of theUnited States with states drawn to scale with their total retail turnover perannum may be of more immediate practical use to a salesman than the con-ventional variety. From here, we are led to the problem of modelling relativespace to express process through time.While I have not attempted to touch on all new developments in geo-graphy, it will now be apparent, I hope, that our emergent new paradigm,which has entailed intense self-criticism, experimentation and a careful lookat cognate disciplines in search of guidance, has already left us far strongeras a discipline than previously Š- seeming to most almost as far removedfrom the geography of the pre-1950s as that was from the 'here be dragons'variety of the Hereford World Map. Has this been sufficient to claim for us,after a century of uneven progress, the title of academic discipline?I believe that the balance sheet is now in our favour. I can say no moreon the credit side, but the debit column needs scrutiny by the hard-eyedaccountants of the hard sciences. Let me assist them. Although we seem tobe paying a high price for more rigour by importing some 'barbarous jargon'fiom other sciences (to borrow Samuel Johnson's fourth meaning of Cant)some of our methods still lack sufficient rigour. Yet this must somehow beattained without abandoning intuitive insights into the real world, for wemust not lose the sensitivity to place of a Hardy or a Bennett for modelsof splendid rigour but grossly naive perceptions; and beyond a certain pointwe may agree with Emerson that * a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin oflittle men' (quoted by Berry, 1973, p.8). We still have to harmonise rigorousdeductive methods, now in the ascendant, with idiographic or case- orientatedinvestigations.Whereas I view their side-by-side existence as different toolsin the same toolbox as pragmatism appropriate to our calling, philosophers ofscience will shake their heads. Yet how often, in sweaty practice in laboratorysciences, is research a quest and a proceedure of Galahad-like purity? Ingeography, it is more important, as Anuchin (1973, p.57) has said, 'to statethe problem correctly and fully than in a simpler manner which is amenableto mathematical treatment'. It is also true that, in common with some social00SGFigure 12: CONTINENTS AND SELECTED COUNTRIES ON THE SCALE OF THEIR POPULATIONS(After Bunge, 1962)D. HYWEL DAVIES19sciences, our attempts at prediction have to date lacked success simply be-cause man is such an exasperating variable to manipulate Š and long may heso continue. Some claims made for prediction remind me of Glendower'sboast in Henry IV, 'I can call spirits from the vasty deep', and Hotspur's dryreply, ''Why, so can I and so can any man, but do they come when you docall them?'.At the chorographic heart of geography, too, we still lack a generalspatial field theory to explain adequately the workings of the man-environment interface, especially as this is impelled through time at increasingpace. Yet already great strides have been made in our methods, which arefinding increasing application in regional planning and elsewhere. I believethat our emergent paradigm will substantially solve some basic problemswithin the next decade.Most of our debit entries relate to what I regard as the particular demonof geography Š its position between, and partly cutting across, the naturaland human sciences. Geography has fairly consistently claimed to be, asJ A ENVIRONf 'Ł! SCIEK ;err:A Structural(static);hasm JŁŁŁridgedt 5B Interaction(dynamic)C ChasmUnbridgeableFigure 13: THE BRIDGE CONCEPT (After MacKinder et al.)20DE. UTILJTATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHIAEMackinder first called it, a 'bridging discipline': something few would denya need for. That bridge is as effective as the chorographic core of geographyis credible (Fig, 13). When that core was weak, geography was dominated bythe systematic sciences that overlap its periphery. Only when strong choro-graphically can it bridge the gap and serve as a means of linking the environ-mental and human insights and perspectives of other sciences. Geographersthemselves disagree on that bridging role, which presupposes unity within thesubject itself. Thus, Academician Gerasimov, doyen of Soviet geographers,has written, 'the former single subject of geography is being replaced by asystem of science, and the encyclopaedist scholar by the collective labourof many specialist geographers, organised on a uniform plan'. But whomakes the plan? And has not the camel been described as a horse designedby a committee? Gerasimov's views appear to conform to Marxist doctrineon the division of the natural from the social sciences. On the other hand,his compatriot Anuchin (writing after Stalin's death in 1953), proclaimed theessential unity of the subject and pleaded eloquently for 'A geography with-out adjectives' (1973, p.62). To my thinking, Anuchin's viewpoint bids fairto prevail, because of developments I have attempted to outline, and geo-graphy is now emerging again as a unified discipline able to provide thebridge.In this, it receives substantial and increasing support. In the naturalsciences ecology provides a focus for spatial perspectives and at least re-cognises the role of man as part of the volume of biomass and as an inter-ferer with the biosphere. Across the chasm, through regional science, econo-mists have contributed strongly to pure spatial theory. Systems theory,derived from engineering, provides the most promising link at a methodo-logical level. It is also worth noting the blurring of the conceptual boundariesbetween the natural and human sciences. Physicists have long used statistics,while behavioural psychologists and econometricians operate rigorousscientific procedures. Even some historians, writers of 'grand history' likeToynbeen and Spengler seek to formulate laws, whereas some scientists ŠSimpson in Geoiogy, and Smart in Biology Š have argued that the so-calledscientific method is actually that of Physics and not necessarily well suitedto their needs. And even Quantum Physics has been confronted with chancevariations since Fleisenberg enunciated Ms uncertainty principle in 1927.My diagram (Fig. 14) suggests, however, that only geography totallybridges the gap, other disciplines having supporting roles. I argue this onthe grounds that no other subject places man and environment onequal levels. To the ecologists, when they nod in the direction of so-called'human ecology', man is essentially operating within the relatively simplesystem of the biosphere with its negative feedback mechanisms to regulatehis excesses. Such a view of man operating 'within nature's laws' seems akinto Rousseau's 'natural man', and has surely been increasingly unreal sincethe Industrial Revolution provided man with the physical power and thetechnology to bend nature to his will, seemingly regardless of the cost. It is aview of 'human ecology' castigated by Chorley (1973, pp. 156-7) 'as an attemptD. HYWEL DAVIES21NATURALSCIENCESHUMANSCIENCESDHD/SGFigure 14: THE BRIDGE CONCEPTto confront current environmental problems with the visions of Wordsworthand Emerson . , , and with a maxim for Edwardian boy scouts'. The ideathat 'flows of capital investment, population, technical information, generatedenergy and the like, together with such constraints as interest politics andthe mechanisms of group decision-making can be reduced to comparableunits so as to be structured into energy systems similar to those of ecosystemsis dearly an illusion*. Even the Garden of Eden, says Chorley, 'had its entre-preneur.Similarly, economists are, for all their methodological insights, pre-cluded from wholly bridging the gap themselves by their abstraction of man,for their purposes, into that unnaturally rational creature, 'economic man',and particularly of his environment into uniform or statistically smoothedsurfaces. Finally, despite the transferable scientific logic and methodologyof the engineers through systems theory, method alone cannot link disciplines;only concepts can do so, and in the handling of mankind as a variable thesystems analysts have proved naive, as shown in the Limits to Growth debateon world population and economic growth (Meadows et ah, 1972; Mesarovicand Pestel, 1975).It seems to me that academic geography is left, almost by elimination,to throw a span right across the gap. As its academic placement in universityfaculty structures indicates, it has always had a foot on each side Š whatother university departments have natural and social scientists in equalnumbers around the same table in their daily work? Its spatial viewpoint isequally applicable on both sides, and increasingly so. Although a bridge basedon a spatial perspective provides only a slender link in itself, it can bestrengthened by further ecumenical activity which seems to be developing2ZDE UTILITATE ET NECESSITATE GEOGRAPHIAEagain in the academic world. This is heartening for, in the final analysis, asRoger Bacon wrote in the thirteenth century, 'all sciences are connected, theylend each other material aids as parts of one whole . . . none can attain itsproper results separately since all are parts of one and the same wisdom,'(quoted by House, 1965). In our shrinking world it is essential that we extendthat view further than Bacon could, to embrace the human sciences.From this brief look at contemporary geography I conclude that it is notonly useful but ecumenically necessary. Finally, I argue that it is also essentialin the context of many critical world problems that now confront us, with1984 just eight years away. I believe that this is so because the comprehensivere-tooling task in which geography has been engaging, together with thedirectional shift in its research towards the understanding of complex dynamicgeo-processes and a nomothetic or law-seeking goal, supported by new massesof data and the means for processing them, are combining to bring our centralresearch thrust onto a converging course with the juggernaut course of thoseworld growth problems that now threaten us.Why should geography's course bring it into the central arena of worldproblems? I argue this in terms of a third convergence in time. Some day itmay be realistic to model our planet's plight, as systems analysts haveattempted, in terms of a closed system, a uniform world in which worldtotals and world averages of human population, resource depletion and pollu-tion are meaningful. On such a uniform or billiard ball earth, geography will,be fit only for the automata which by then, no doubt, the engineers orperhaps the politicians will have created to occupy it.In the immediate future, however, such a model is highly unrealistic,an example of the current fashion for grossly oversimplyifying reality to makeit more amenable to mathematical analysis. And in this immediate future,when problems must begin to be solved, we are still dealing with planet earthŠ infinitely varied, with its peoples, its resources and its environmental andcultural constraints most unequally and, in some respects, inequitably dis-tributed upon its surface. With respect to human population it is, in fact,becoming increasingly unequally distributed, as mankind swarms into greatcities and withdraws from some marginal rural land.Thus time sequence has determined that we shall grapple with earth'sproblems in terms of the complex real world, in which problems expressthemselves spatially and in dynamically changing terms, as population ex-plodes through medical science and its environment implodes through trans-portation and communications technology, with earth space itself increasinglybecoming a resource Š 'budget space', as Hagerstrand calls it (1973, p.79).That scenario is marginal to the interests of most other sciences, except per-haps the other chorographic sciences of ecology and oceanography: it is atthe heart of geography and made to measure for its craft in its new strength-ened form. So much so that the recent popular awakening to the so-calledecological crisis has placed the geographer in a position analagous to that ofMoliere's M. Jourdain, who found, to his surprise, that he had been speakingprose all his life.D. HYWEL DAVIES23While we shall all of us have to co-operate to tackle our urgent planetaryproblems, I believe that after long practice and some recent stiff correctiveelocution lessons, geography speaks that particular prose better than anyoneelse. Consequently, I take no modest view of our role in the coming decades,believing it inevitable Š provided only that we ourselves do not set our sightstoo low Š to be a central one. While I do not adopt the lofty viewpointattributed to a nineteenth-century Regius Professor of Greek in the Universityof Oxford who stated, in a public lecture, that his subject enabled him to lookdown with contempt on those who had not shared its benefit, I am happyto acknowledge gracefully the point of Charles Darwin's reference, in aletter to J. D. Hooker (quoted by Ackerman, 1963 p.440), to 'that great sub-ject, that almost keystone of the laws of creation, GEOGRAPHICALDISTRIBUTION'. Cometh the hour, cometh the discipline? We have re-cently had to learn some new lines, and the stage is well suited to ouracting style (alarming though the scenery is). In this scenario I see geographyvery near the centre of the stage, and I have no hesitation in professing it,not merely useful, but necessary.ReferencesABLER, R., ADAMS, J. S. and GOULD, P. 1971 Spatial Organization: TheGeographer's View of the World (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall.)ACKERMAN, E. 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