Human Geography: Nature and Scope- NCERT Notes UPSC

Nomenclature Used in Human Geography

• Regions, villages, towns have been described as ‘organisms’. 
• German geographers describe the ‘state/country’ as a ‘living organism’. 
• Networks of road, railways and water ways have often been described as “arteries of circulation”.

Nature of Human Geography

• Nature of Human Geography studies the inter-relationship between the physical environment and socio-cultural environment created by human beings through mutual interaction with each other.
• Houses, villages, cities, road-rail networks, industries, farms, ports, items of our daily use and all other elements of material culture have been created by human beings using the resources provided by the physical environment.

Here's our faculty for Geography, Himanshu Sharma Sir explaining Orientation of Geography in this detailed video lecture:

Naturalisation of Humans and Humanisation of Nature

• Human beings interact with their physical environment with the help of technology. It is not important what human beings produce and create but it is extremely important ‘with the help of what tools and techniques do they produce and create’.
• Human beings were able to develop technology after they developed better understanding of natural laws. 
• Technology indicates the level of cultural development of society. For example, the understanding of concepts of friction and heat helped Human beings discover fire. 
• Knowledge about Nature is extremely important to develop technology and technology loosens the shackles of environment on human beings. In the early stages of humans, interactions with their natural environment were greatly influenced by it. They adapted to dictates of nature because the level of technology was very low, and the stage of human social development was also primitive. This type of interaction between primitive human society and strong forces of nature was termed as environmental determinism. 
• In primitive human society nature is considered powerful force, worshipped, reversed and conserved. There is direct dependence of human beings on nature for resources which sustain them. The physical environment for such societies becomes the “Mother Nature”.
• With social and cultural development, humans develop better and more efficient technology. They move from a state of necessity to a state of freedom.
• The imprints of human activities are created everywhere; health resorts on highlands, huge urban sprawls, fields, orchards and pastures in plains and rolling hills, ports on the coasts, oceanic routes on the oceanic surface and satellites in the space. The earlier scholars termed this as possibilism.
• Nature provides opportunities and human being make use of these and slowly nature gets humanised and starts bearing the imprints of human endeavour.
• A geographer, Griffith Taylor introduced another concept which reflects a middle path (Madhya Marg) between the two ideas of environmental determinism and possibilism. He termed it as
  Neo-determinism or stop and go determinism.
  • The concept shows that neither is there a situation of absolute necessity (environmental determinism) nor is there a condition of absolute freedom (possibilism). It means that human beings can conquer nature by obeying it.
  • They have to respond to the red signals and can proceed in their pursuits of development when nature permits the modifications. It means that possibilities can be created within the limits which do not damage the environment.
  • There is no free run without accidents. The free run which the developed economies attempted to take has already resulted in the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, global warming, receding glaciers and degrading lands.
  • The neo-determinism conceptually attempts to bring a balance nullifying the ‘either’ ‘or’ dichotomy.

Important links for IAS preparation:

Evolution and Nature of Human Geography

The process of adaptation, adjustment with and modification of the environment started with the appearance of human beings over the surface of the earth in different ecological niches.

Broad Stages and Thrust of Human Geography

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Fields and Sub Fields of Human Geography

• Human geography attempts to explain the relationship between all elements of human life and the space they occur over. 
• Thus, human geography assumes a highly inter-disciplinary nature. 
• It develops close interface with other sister disciplines in social sciences in order to understand and explain human elements on the surface of the earth. 

Also Read: Natural Vegetation in India

Land Resources and Agriculture of India

Tips and Tricks to Prepare for Geography

Interesting Points

• Various Definitions of the Human Geography:
  • “Human geography is the synthetic study of relationship between human societies and earth’s surface” – Ratzel.
  • “Human geography is the study of “the changing relationship between the unresting man and the unstable earth.” - Ellen C. Semple.

• Welfare or humanistic School of thought: In human geography, it was mainly concerned with the different aspects of social well-being of the people. These included aspects such as housing, health and education.
• Radical School of thought: It employed Marxian theory to explain the basic cause of poverty, deprivation and social inequality. Contemporary social problems were related to the development of capitalism.
• Behavioural School of thought: It laid great emphasis on lived experience and also on the perception of space by social categories based on ethnicity, race and religion, etc.

Also watch a detailed video on Concept of Humidity and Absolute Humidity for Geography by Himanshu Sharma Sir:

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FAQ's about Nature and Scope of Human Geography

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