Questions, tools or paradigms: scientific geography in the 1980s.

M. F. Goodchild

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Contemporary geography seems condemned to ever-increasing proliferation of methdologies, techniques and subfields. This is due ultimately to the dominance of the paradigm of explanation. Frustrated with their apparent inability to develop theories of the landscape itself, geographers have been driven increasingly to the study of the processes which affect landscape, and therefore into the domains of other disciplines. There is no difficulty in defining the subject matter of geography, but the existence of subject matter is not sufficient for the survival of a discipline. Survival will ultimately be determined by application, which is the unacknowledged paradigm of the majority of current activity, and which leads to a definable and limited set of tools and methodologies.-Author

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)3-14
Number of pages12
JournalOntario Geography
Volume25
StatePublished - Jan 1 1985
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Environmental Science
  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

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