Nature - autonomous learning

the dis/unity of geography 219these should not be exaggerated or misrepresented. For instance, the humangeographers whose work I discussed in Chapter 3 are all realists in theobvious sense that their claims about what we call nature are, in their view,not just made up. Similarly, we’ve seen in this chapter that, while they makeuse of a different language to most human geographers (that of ‘science’),physical geographers do not have a simple-minded belief that theenvironment can ‘speak for itself’ if studied in the ‘correct’ way. In light ofthis, see if you can answer the following Activity question.ACTIVITY 4.4Think carefully about what you’ve learnt in this and the preceding chapter.What, in your view, are the main points of difference between human andphysical geographers vis-à-vis ‘nature’?The answer to this question seems to me to be threefold. First, as mentionedearlier, human geographers are preoccupied with societal representationsof nature (including the human mind and body), as well as the processeswhereby nature is rendered materially ‘unnatural’. Physical geographers,meanwhile, are preoccupied with specifying the biophysical propertiesof the non-human world, whether it be humanly modified or not. Second,human geographers – despite the epistemologically and ontologically realistpretensions of their own ‘nature-sceptical’ claims – take a broadly constructionistapproach to nature in both the epistemological and ontologicalsense. Physical geographers, by contrast, ultimately hold on to the idea thatthe environmental knowledge they produce is, however provisionally,the best and most accurate account we have of the biophysical world ‘outthere’.Third, and finally, physical geographers produce cognitive knowledgeof the environment for the most part. In keeping with their self-identityas ‘scientists’, they normally separate questions of ‘fact’ from questionsof value. 13 The critical human geographers I discussed in Chapter 3, bycontrast, routinely pass judgement on the way those things we call ‘natural’are either categorised or physically used/changed.The de-naturalising thrustof their research is intended to call into question certain societal representations,processes and practices.