Practising Human Geography provides a critical introduction to recent disciplinary debates about the practise of human geography, examining those methods and practices which are integral to 'doing' geography. Paul Cloke introduces the core issues that inform research design and practise in the discipline in this systematic, comprehensive and pedagogic volume. The book, organized into two main sections, offers a theoretically-informed reflection on the construction and interpretation of geographical data. It is framed by an historical overview of how ideas of practising human geography have changed. Section one examines pre-constructed data from official and non-official sources and constructed data from fieldwork. Section two reviews four interpretive strategies: ordering and sorting; enumeration and the use of numerical methods; 'scientific' explanation and analysis; understanding - informed by thinking in the humanities and cultural studies; Illustrated with approximately 35 tables and figures, the text is punctuated by bibliographically referenced text boxes offering definitions of key terms.
Ian Cook et al is Professor of Cultural Geography at the University of Exeter in the UK. As an undergraduate student at University College London in the 1980s, he stumbled across the tiny tradition of experiential geography in a module taught by Jacqui Burgess and Peter Jackson and went to the University of Kentucky as a master's student to learn how this was done from its main advocate Graham Rowles. Returning to the UK in the early 1990s to undertake a multisited ethnographic "follow the thing" PhD at the University of Bristol, he and fellow PhD student Mike Crang wrote a "how to" "Doing ethnographies" (1995) booklet for the Institute of British Geographers' Concepts and Techniques in Modern Geography (CATMOG) series. Scanned and posted online, a scribbled-on version was read and referred to in a surprising variety of publications as geography took its cultural (and ethnographic) turn. After SAGE bought the CATMOG series in the early 2000s, Mike and Ian were able to finish and publish it as a book in 2007. Professor Joe Painter focuses mainly on the prosaic geographies of the state. Chris Philo is a professor of geography at the University of Glasgow. His specialist interest is the historical geography of "spaces reserved for insanity," meaning people with mental health problems, across many centuries in Britain. He is fascinated by the history and theory of geography, as both academic subject and wider way of engaging with the world. He has undertaken critical-scholarly research on the geographies of "outsider" human groupings, including children and people with learning disabilities, as well as on the geographies of human-animal relations, rural geographies, and a range of health geographies. He has long been concerned with what psychoanalytic and psychological approaches can bring to geographical studies.
Changing Practices of Human Geography An Introduction PART ONE: CONSTRUCTING GEOGRAPHICAL DATA Official Sources Non-official Sources Imaginative Sources Talking to People Observing, Participating and Ethnographies PART TWO: CONSTRUCTING GEOGRAPHICAL INTERPRETATIONS Sifting and Sorting Enumerating Explaining Understanding Representing Human Geographies The Politics of Practising Human Geography
`Practising Human Geography is a god-send for students. Written in an accessible and engaging style, the book demystifies the study of geographical methodology, offering a wealth of practical advice from the authors' own research experience. This is not a manual of approved geographical techniques. It is a reflexive, critical and highly personal account, combining historical depth with up-to-the-minute examples of research in practice. Practising Human Geography is a comprehensive and theoretically informed introduction to the practices of fieldwork, data collection, interpretation and writing, enabling students to make sense of their own data and to develop a critical perspective on the existing literature. The book makes complicated ideas approachable through the effective use of case studies and a firm grasp of contemporary debates' - Peter Jackson, Professor of Human Geography, University of Sheffield
