From my experience, when the territory stops playing only a role of support to the actors, the research turns out to be interesting for geography....

A line perhaps could be drawn on geographical question in which the geography has not been impacted upon by humans.

Dennis

Dennis Mazur

There is a common phrase saying "Geography is what geographers do". Consequently non-geographical research is what non-geographers do.

We need to keep in mind that geography is the science which deals with the earth's surface, regarding its physical constitution (physical geography) as well its space and location of human life and action (human geography). However even the physical geography has always a link to human interaction (e.g. economy, population, human settlement). This delineates the physical geography from other natural sciences. The same applies for the human geography which researches human life and action in relation to the space and location. This delineates the human geography from other social sciences.

Dear Sanaullah Panezai,

I understand your question differently as it was tackled in the previous posts.

My reformulation of your question is: What is the difference between research in which any spatial context (expressed or implied georeference) plays a role and that research which is not related to spatial context?

Examples from your list:

expressed spatial context: geology, sociology, social work, economics, public administration

implied spatial context: international relation, public health, and development studies

in contrast to that

no spatial context: e.g., development of a robot that can answer questions, pharmaceutical research to cure liver cancer

If this reformulation of your question is interesting for you we can elaborate on that. However, if this is not the case, please excuse me for misunderstanding your problem.

Kind regards, Balázs

Dear Balazs Szekely, let me agree with your reformulation of my question. "What is the difference between research in which any spatial context (expressed or implied georeference) plays a role and that research which is not related to spatial context?". Can you please oblige me by giving elaboration to this reformulated question? Thanks

My PhD was by and large on this topic of delimiting the scope of the geographical. See the pdfs of the following two books in the contributions section of my profile:

Simandan, D., 2005. Pragmatic scepticism and the possibilities of knowledge. Timişoara: Editura Universităţii de Vest.

Simandan, D., 2005. New ways in geography. Timisoara: West University Press (Editura Universitatii de Vest) ISBN, pp.973-7608.

For a more recent and shorter formulation, see also the pdf for:

Simandan, D., 2017. Geography (Human and Urban) In Turner, B. (ed.) Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory.

Dear Sanaullah Panezai,

I appreciate that you reformulated the question. I feel honoured and also obliged to try to elaborate on that. I am not sure that this is an answer, it is rather putting the problem into another context and maybe a good starting point for discussion. This will be somewhat long.

Having been involved in a number of various projects of interdisciplinary character, I believe I have an idea on what you are asking. It is clear that my viewpoint can be considered as biased towards spatial context, so you may want to take this into account.

Somewhat surprisingly, I think that the separating line between the research that has a spatial context and that one having no such aspect is less depending on the problem and it rather depends on the researcher or researchers carrying out the study.

Of course, in many cases it is obvious that the problem has no spatial relevance, e.g., developing a wrist watch that has some special property, or finding a glue that can be used under water or at high temperatures. No one would raise the issue of georeference in the background. On the other hand, if you study bird migration, there will be geography included, and nobody would be surprised if you mention longitude and latitude in your paper.

Consequently, and rather funnily, the question itself defines a transition zone, or if you wish, the border line! If it makes sense to ask this question (I believe, it does!) it implies that there is a problem behind. There are research problems that may have a spatial context and some researchers conceptually deny that. And there could be other problems that are perhaps not related to georeference and some other researchers stick to involve geospatial context.

Assuming now we found at least a part of the problem, we can focus on the researcher(s) carrying out the study. Since spatial context may exist on its own, but it is not obvious, it may remain unnoticed, or it is possible to neglect that. Perhaps the best example is the first known successful application of spatial thinking, John Snow's mapping the 1854 cholera outbreak in London (see e.g., Wikipedia). In this case the spatial context could be ignored (causing a prolonged epidemic), and perhaps the problem could have been solved without that (e.g., somebody could repair the water pump independently), but bringing this property to the focus led almost directly to the solution.

That is why I think this is a question of the education, the previous experience and the research philosophy of the researchers carrying out the study. It may also be related to the size of the research group, because some members may suggest to bring the spatial context into the discussion and they can influence the group to consider it at least partly.

Another turning point is how important the (hidden) spatial context is to study the problem. One of my colleagues studied the distribution of Slovenian dialects. Obviously, this is a spatially related problem, it is important at least to note where the speakers live speaking the dialects in question. You can study maps and documents in the archives, maybe family trees to understand the spatial distribution. But what my colleague did (having been trained in geodesy and GIS) contributed to the solution considerably. Slovenia is a mountainous country and he calculated a cost function to go from a certain place to another using a digital terrain model (DTM), i.e. he tried to quantify how difficult is to climb through the mountains. The result was that the distribution of the dialects correlated strongly with the cost function so that the more difficult to come to a place from another, the more different dialects are spoken. Of course, if we know the result, it makes sense, but would any linguist per se consider to use a DTM? Most probably not. And that is fine.

I think, as more and more spatial techniques, data, software are becoming widespread, this brings more and more spatial conceptual questions, considerations into focus. Google Earth is now standard, but prior to its appearance I have been involved in processing and evaluation of satellite imagery (e.g., crop yield estimation) and at that time if you spoke about satellite images, everybody looked somewhat odd what these data could be. Who would have considered to plot his/her pizzeria or pub on a satellite image before?

Finally, to try to provide a sort of an answer to your question:

I think this question is raised mostly in the social science and alike. It is a relevant question, and mostly relevant if there could be a hidden/yet unrevealed spatial context that can be important or less important in the context. If persons, interaction of persons, companies, interaction of companies, or authorities are studied, the spatial context is obviously there (they have address, place of activity, etc.). The question is whether it is inevitable/important/worth to study that context. In my opinion, in most of the cases yes, it is worth to study that, because it may bring new aspects to the study.

Kind regards, Balázs

Dear Professor Balázs Székely,

First of all, let me offer my heartiest regards for your time and detailed answer. I believe your answer to be enough to satisfy my query.

My confusions are clarified to a large extent. However, there could be a debate on the importance/non-importance of spatial context in a particular study, whether constructed/attributed or real? Please correct if I am wrong, that, if geographers succeed to explore or attribute a spatial context to the problem under study, only then it can be claimed as their domain.

Lastly, in your point of view, what can be the features/ types of spatial context which might be enough to claim a topic having spatial context? For example, you mentioned about the addresses, distance from a certain place, use of satellite imagery and so on.

Here comes a question that what could be the spatial information which give spatial context to the problems?

I request you to please shed light on these aspects of the issue, if your schedule permits you. I hope your elaboration will help me get more deeper clarification on the topic under discussion.

Heartiest regards and thank you very much !

Sanaullah