Ethnogeomorphology and landscape-as-place: bridging physical, human, and GIS geographies in higher education

Abstract

Separation between human, physical, and GIS geographies is risky to geography’s disciplinary survival. How can they be bridged through teaching in higher education? I dwell first upon the separation as rooted in the emergence of modern science and geography, the culture-nature binary, Kant’s classification of knowledge, and positivistic science. Shortcomings in substance and method of recent attempts at bridging the geographies are then critically reviewed. This is followed by suggesting common denominators of subdisciplinary internal critical processes as an infrastructure for a bridge. I then propose the concept of place as core to geography and a conceptual gate for bridging the geographies into which nature and culture converge relationally. It is rooted in the concepts of “ethnogeomorphology” and sentient “landscape-as-place” proposed by human and physical geographers studying Australian and Aotearoa New Zealander Aborigines and Maori peoples. Based on these concepts and the above-reviewed processes in geography, principles for building an undergraduate bridging course are then proposed. Challenges to geography as a discipline and geographers as humans related to the proposed approach and how it may contribute to strengthening geography’s disciplinary status in science conclude this article.