The Specialist–Synthesis Approach to the Revival of Geography
The Case of Cultural Ecology
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8375778 |
|---|---|
| Authors | B L Turner (0000-0002-6507-521X, Clark University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 79 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 88-100 |
| Publication date | 1989-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Annals of the Association of American Geographers (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0004-5608 • E-ISSN: 1467-8306 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1989.tb00252.x |
| OpenAlex | W2125736125 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 35 |
| References cited | 45 |
Geography prospers within the major graduate and research institutions of the United States where and when it makes research contributions on par with the rest of the academy; other prescriptions for its revival will have little impact in this realm. Geography has been unable to maintain these contributions when it embarks upon disciplinary trajectories that emphasize synthesis without expertise or specialization within a theoretical domain unto itself. Geography has flourished within the academy by addressing major conceptual and applied themes shared within an interdisciplinary formal but by way of a specialist-synthesis fusion. This approach re quires both a topical expertise commensurate with the affiliated fields of study and geographic synthesis of multi-variable interactions either in place or among places. This approach has been honed in the cultural ecology subfield of geography, a subfield perhaps more noted at the interdisciplinary level than within its home discipline. The development of the specialist-synthesis approach in cultural ecology is briefly examined, and two examples of its use are provided to address conceptual themes of multidisciplinary significance. It is argued that this approach marks much of the very best research contributions in our discipline, regardless of subfield, and that only increased contributions of this kind will sustain geography within the research academy and, perhaps, resurrect the discipline in those elite institutions that do not now have it. Key Words: geographyresearchspecializationsynthesiscultural ecologynature–society
Archaeology · Conceptual framework · Critical geography · Cultural geography · Development geography · Discipline · Elite · Geography · Historical geography · Human geography · Multidisciplinary approach · Political science · Politics · Realm · Social science · Sociology · Time geography · Ecology · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond · Historical Geography and Geographical Thought · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Law
Revisiting Maine’s lobster commons
Reencountering Development
Geography and the Global Environment
Contested Identities
Information Synthesis
Once upon a time …' Interactions of German and American geography in a rapidly changing (academic) world
Common Themes in the Work of Gilbert White and John Dewey
Where are we heading? The example of generational change in British academic Geography
Walking the talk” in land management
Geography and education
Then we take Berlin
Network political ecology
Cultural ecology (and political ecology) in the ‘environmental borderlands
Cultural landscape and ecology 11
Crossing the qualitative-quantitative chasm I
Human Geography of the American Tropics
Géographie et anthropologie. Deux regards complémentaires pour l'étude des territoires des populations traditionnelles d'Amazonie brésilienne
Looking for the critical geographer, or why bodies and geographies matter to the emergence of critical geographies of Latin America
Amplifying the Archive
A new ‘New Guinea syndrome’ and the utility of geography
Sustainability’ in ecological economics, ecology and livelihoods
Landscape Science
Geographical Rhetoric
Prospects for Geography as an Interdisciplinary Discipline
Human Geography and the “New Ecology”
A Simulation of the Sixteenth-Century Population Collapse in the Basin of Mexico
Geography in the International Agricultural Research Centers
Retrospective on Nature–Society Geography
Humboldt's Nodes and Modes of Interdisciplinary Environmental Science in the Andean World
From Describing Problems to Solving Them
A Survey of Researcher Perceptions of Replication in Geography
For an Environmental Ethnography in Human and Physical Geography
Hyphenated Geographies
International NGOs and Land Use Change in a Southern Highland Region of Ecuador
Migration and Agricultural Change
Interpretations of calamity from the viewpoint of human ecology
Silent violence
Persistence and change
Swidden-fallow agroforestry in the Peruvian Amazon
Good farmers
Land Degradation and Society
Place and People
Intensification Revisited
Intensification and Disintensification in Pacific Agriculture
Aboriginal Drained-Field Cultivation in the Americas
Adaptation, Variation, and Cultural Geography∗
Land Degradation and Society
Early hydraulic civilization in Egypt
Between land and water
Pulltrouser Swamp
Food and Development in the Semi-Arid Zone of East Africa
Archaeology, Geography and Time
To Claim the High Ground
Epistemology and conceptions of people and nature in geography
Academic War Over the Field of Geography”
What Shall We Say? To Whom Shall We Speak? 1
On “Academic War over the Field of Geography”
On “Academic War over the Field of Geography,” The Elimination of Geography at Harvard, 1947–1951
Geography as Human Ecology
The Human Environment
Pre‐Hispanic Occupance in the Valley of Sonora, Mexico
The Use of Land and Water Resources in the Past and Present Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico
The Evolution of the Capacity for Culture
Persistence and change in the relationship between anthropology and human geography
Local Study and Comparative Method
Landscape and Culture
Ancient Ridged Fields of the San Jorge River Floodplain, Colombia
Order and Skepticism
Landscape and Culture
Peasants, Subsistence Ecology, and Development in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
Geography as Human Ecology
Once Beneath the Forest
Traces on the Rhodian Shore
Prehistoric Flood Management on the Peruvian Coast
| Unique citing works | 35 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,95 |
| Citation span | 1989 - 2025 (37) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 31 |