Problems of General Economic Regionalization at the Present Stage

Professor Ryabchikov, Dean of the Geography Faculty of Moscow University, finds that Soviet teachers colleges are adequate to supply geography teachers to the middle schools, especially in view of a gradual reduction of the number of class hours devoted to geography in those schools. He sees the primary function of university geography as the training of specialized geographers for industry, agriculture and other segments of the national economy. Universities are therefore urged to reorganize their curricula from the present somewhat academic approach to a greater practical and applied content that would benefit graduates in their new jobs. The author calls on universities to strengthen their ties with industry by taking advantage of the Soviet system of contractual research for production organizations.     

On the Significance of Lenin's Ideas for Soviet Geography

The president of the Geographical Society USSR reviews the present state of Soviet geographic theory in the light of Leninist philosophy. The objective existence of natural regions with definite boundaries is affirmed. The approach of “social physics,” applying natural laws to social phenomena, is rejected. The use of mathematical techniques is welcomed, but not to the extent of giving rise to a separate discipline of “theoretical geography” that would deal with whatever is common to both physical and economic geography. The geographical environment is defined as that part of the earth's natural environment in which nature and society are in direct interaction. Both geographical determinism and social determinism (geographical nihilism) are rejected. The definition of geography as a system of scientific disciplines is affirmed, and a proposed redefinition of geography as dealing with the evolution and control of dynamic spatial systems is rejected.     

地理学史几个问题的探讨

本文论述地理学基本研究传统与地理学现代化进程的关系;从历史的角度,审视地理学发展迟缓的原因;认为地理学改变落后状态的希望在于地理学的综合发展方向。本文着重讨论了钱学森教授有关地理综合的理论和方法。     

The Teaching of Ethnography in Higher Schools and of Elements of Ethnography in Middle Schools

Apparently encouraged by Il'yichev's speech, Anuchin uses the forum of a philosophy journal to urge more work on synthesis in geography. He visualizes the geography of the future as a science that would seek to uncover what he calls the “parameters” of the geographic environment and would seek to establish the precise limits within which man might alter the environment without causing undesirable after-effects.     

Basic Problems of Middle-School Geography Education in the USSR

The author finds geography education neglected because educators lack a proper understanding of the role that can be played by geographic knowledge. He criticizes the present structure of geography courses as being excessively factual and encyclopedic, ignoring general concepts and failing to instill in students an ability to think for themselves in geographic terms. A new sequence of geography courses with improved content and methodology is proposed.     

Straddling the Boundaries Between Sciences

The author reverts to the theme that, in addition to the particular disciplines in physical geography and in economic geography, there is a genuine need for a general geographic approach to study of the geographical environment and of the man-nature relationship. As a result of the growing social impact on the environment, the operation of natural laws and social laws becomes so closely intertwined that no single discipline operating with one particular set of laws is capable of understanding the complex processes and phenomena in the interplay between nature and society. The growing specialized differentiation of geography as a science does not eliminate it as a distinct field of human knowledge with a common object of study. However there is a danger that the process of differentiation may be going too far, with an increasing number of scholars from adjacent disciplines coming into geography. The trend is said to be evident in the advanced training of geographers in universities, where geography facilities are turning into collections of departments turning out, say, meteorologists with little general geographic background. And yet there is a growing need for broadly trained geographers, particularly in the entire field of long-range planning and pre-planning research, in which the author is engaged.     

Teaching critical open GIS

Higher-education geographic information system (GIS) curricula largely marginalize and separate instruction of critical GIS and open GIS, paralleling a divide between GIS and non-GIS in geography. GIS is typically represented as a singular, infallibly objective, and universally applicable technology. GIS generally dismisses the critiques from human geography, while critical human geography dismisses GIS for its association with positivism and unethical applications. Teaching critical open GIS may bridge this divide, creating a transformative pedagogical space for human geography to affectively and effectively engage with open GIS technology at the level of code. Critical open GIS students practice and critique GIS as conflicted insiders, bridging the divide between GIS and non-GIS in their geography education. Reviews of GIS curricula find support for teaching critical and open GIS, but reviews of texts and syllabi confirm their marginalization and separation. A new critical open GIS course is introduced, using GIS in development and political ecology as integrative frameworks.     

论地理策划本质及实施要点

地理学和地理教育需要顺应国家经济发展的形式,在理论与实践层面不断创新,尤其是在应用层面将人文与自然要素结合起来,建立一个符合市场运作需求的综合理论体系。地理策划是策划人通过创新性思维和理念,发现、发掘、提升和实现地理系统要素价值的过程,是地理研究成果转化成价值的关键环节。它不仅包括区域性课题,还包括广泛的地理要素和地理事件的价值发现与创造过程。通过对地理策划关键问题的梳理,构建了地理策划的基本理论框架,以使地理学更直接地面向市场。     

On the Unity of Geography

A Leningrad University physical geographer criticizes attempts to affirm the unity of geography through the creation of new disciplines like “general geography,” which would focus on study of the man-nature relationship. He contends that such a general geography, which would seek to identify general geographic laws, is advocated primarily by economic geographers who would emphasize the role of man at the expense of physical geography. Isachenko takes issue with the view that what makes any research “geographical” is its relationship to man. He contends that the criterion of whether any investigation is “geographical” is its relationship to the geosystem, defined as any natural complex, ranging from the global to the local scale. In his opinion, the unity of geography should be furthered not through the establishment of new supradisciplines, such as general geography, but through closer ties, both in methodology and in organizational terms, between the two main groups of geographical disciplines—physical geography and economic geography.     

《战争论》中的军事地理思想初探

克劳塞维茨的《战争论》是资产阶级军事理论的经典著作。本文从《战争论》一书有关战争活动与地理因素之间关系的论述入手,考察了作者的军事地理思想。     

The Scientific Basis for Presentation of the General Geographical Relations of the Landscape Sphere in an Exhibit of the Museum of Earth Science

The author, a curator of the Earth Science Museum of Moscow University and an advocate of a general geography, reviews the methodological dispute in Soviet geography. He urges official status in education and research for a general geography that would be concerned with establishing the general geographic laws of the man-nature relationship and would delimit natural-social regions and zones. Such a general geography, in the author's view, would not supersede or dominate the other branches of geography, but would function side by side with the particular disciplines. Proposals made by I. P. Gerasimov in 1966 to restructure geography into basic problem areas instead of the traditional subdivisions are said to be in line with the efforts of those advocating a general geography.     

The Place of Regional Economic Geography in the System of Geographical Sciences

The author holds that regional geography cannot be regarded as an independent geographic discipline because it lacks its own system of laws, such as the natural laws that operate in physical geography and the social laws that operate in economic geography. He agrees with the view that both physical and economic geography fall into theoretical and regional departments, and that regional studies test the localized application of the general laws formulated by the theoretical departments of the two great divisions of geography.     

Economic Geography as Dissenting Institutionalism: The Embeddedness, Evolution and Differentiation of Regions

This paper endorses recent pleas for an ‘institutional turn’ within economic geography. In particular, it reveals and connects the coherence and distinctiveness of dissenting institutional economics as a way of thinking for economic geography. Economic geographers have recognized this tradition but its continuity and compass is not fully appreciated. To provide such an appreciation, this paper argues that the paradigmatic distinctiveness of dissenting institutionalism rests especially on its recognition that real world economies are embedded, have histories or evolve, and are different. The discussion is based around these three cornerstone principles of embeddedness, evolution and difference. For the future, greater attention to the region as an institution, albeit a complex one, along with greater attention to the synthesis of multi‐dimensional processes that are normally analyzes as separate conceptual categories, is encouraged.     

Travelling down the road to postdisciplinarity? Reflections of a tourism geographer

Like many other forms of scholarship in geography, tourism geography has evolved as a distinct subfield of inquiry within the discipline, although the contributions of tourism geographers are perhaps more readily acknowledged in the multidisciplinary realm of tourism studies. I trace the evolving relationship of tourism geography to both the discipline of geography and to the field of tourism studies. In doing so, I reflect on such influences as the role of institutions, paradigm shifts, technology, and other factors that affect the creation and management of geographic knowledge in the twenty‐first century. The intent of this article is two‐fold: first, to appeal to geographers for greater recognition of the importance of tourism as a quintessential component of geographic study that in today's world warrants integration into core aspects of geographic enquiry; second, to use current debates within both tourism studies and geography to reflect on issues of disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and even postdisciplinarity.     

历史地理学的学科属性辨析

文章从学科属性、历史根源及客观现实等方面剖析了历史地理学科命名上的名实不符问题。认为历史地理学的研究应回归到研究社会历史与地理环境关系的轨道,现实的历史地理学研究内容应归属于地理历史学的学科范畴,指出了研究社会历史发展与地理环境关系的重要性与必要性。     

Geography in the Republics of Central Asia

A review of the last 50 years of geographic research in the four Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Kirghizia, Tadzhikistan, and Turkmenia, where the dominant desert and mountain landscapes impose a specific character on geographic investigations. Physical geography has tended to focus on glaciation in mountains and on surface runoff in the desert as potential sources of water for irrigation. Economic geography has emphasized the utilization of desert pastures.     

Interaction between Nature and Society and Modern Geography

This paper, delivered by one of the leading Soviet philosophers at a plenary session of the Fourth Congress of the Geographical Society USSR, is the latest authoritative statement on the relationship between physical and economic geography. The author balances the fact of increasing differentiation and specialization and the continued existence of separate physical and economic-geographic groups of disciplines against the need for more synthesis in geographic research. He thus echoes ideas expressed by V. A. Anuchin earlier this year in the philosophical journal Problemy Filosofii [see Soviet Geography, April 1964]. Konstantinov, in preparing the paper, made use of the materials of the Combined Conference of Philosophical [Methodological] Seminars of the Academy of Sciences USSR on the theme “The problem of the interaction of nature and society and the place of the geographic sciences in its solution” [see Tezisy dokladov (Abstracts of Papers), Moscow, 1964], especially the paper by A. G. Doskach, Yu. P. Trusov, and Ye. T. Fadeyev on “The interaction of nature and society and some problems of modern geography.” Konstantinov also acknowledges suggestions from Academician I. P. Gerasimov, V. Zh. Kelle, a philosopher, and Academician Ye. K. Fedorov, a geophysicist.     

Scientific Fundamentals of Higher Geography Education in Universities and Teachers Colleges of the USSR

The geography curriculum of universities is analyzed in terms of the total number of class-hours allocated to various groups of subjects: systematic geography, regional geography, specialization courses, courses in physics, chemistry and mathematics, and education courses. It is suggested that systematic courses could be strengthened by introduction of more courses on theoretical subjects, such as the fundamentals of landscape science and the theory of economic geography. Regional courses suffer from excessive factual material and not enough discussion of general patterns and concepts. Courses that shape the specialization of geographers should be more flexible in order to reflect continuing changes in emphasis in geographic research (for example, by introduction of a course in remote-sensing techniques). A background in the exact sciences is thought to be essential for the modern geographer.