Last night I received my copy of the Spring issue of ArcNews, a newsletter published by ESRI which includes news and applications of ESRI’s Geographic Information System (GIS) software.
A substantial part of the newsletter (3 of 42 pages total) is dedicated to an article entitled "Bring Back Geography!" by Jerome E. Dobson, president of the American Geographical Society. After a few paragraphs, I decided to write a diary about the article. After reading the entire article, I decided to take up the challenge laid out by the author to disseminate knowledge about geography here at dailyKos.
Today’s diary has three purposes. 1. To begin discussion of Dobson’s article and why "Bring Back Geography!" inspired me to 2. begin a weekly series discussing geography and 3. my qualifications for this topic.
"Bring Back Geography!" Link
Geography is more than you think. Geography is to space what history is to time. It is a spatial way of thinking, a science with distinctive methods and tools, a body of knowledge about places, and a set of information technologies that have been around for centuries. Geography is about understanding people and places and how real-world places function in a viscerally organic sense. It's about understanding spatial distributions and interpreting what they mean.
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Does geography really matter for grownups? Of course it does. Geographic knowledge, understanding, and skills matter, for instance, in formulating foreign policy, designing and using GIS, and just about everything else in society that involves locations, movements, and flows.
How often do you think about geography? Probably not often. Yet geography is an integral part of our lives because we do not live in bubbles. We interact with out physical and cultural environments and navigate our ways through daily commutes and errands. One way we identify ourselves is through location, such as where we were born, raised, or live (for example see the number of user names here on dailyKos that include a geographic identifier).
Any field that deals with spatial relationships (how objects and people spatially relate to each other), and almost all fields do (business, politics, anthropology, etc.) owes something to the field of geography. Yet, the study of geography is in decline here in the United States.
Lately, geography is enjoying a resurgence due to the phenomenal success of GIS and the need for better understanding of foreign lands and peoples in this age of globalization and geopolitical turmoil. Peers in other disciplines now respect, and some are adopting, our hallmarks—spatial analysis, place-based research, and scientific integration. What this resurgence means is that existing geography departments are adding faculty and new graduate degrees. Unfortunately, however, only four new undergraduate degree programs have been added in the past 10 years, and only one new department is being discussed at present in a serious way. As incredible as it may seem, the purge continues, and there will be a net loss this year as Southern Oregon University closes its geography department.
Geography is experiencing a net loss not only in colleges and universities, but also in primary and secondary schools. Next week I will discuss geography education and Dobson’s article in more detail. For now, I hope you understand some of my reasons for beginning a series on geography.
Geography! The Series
Each week on Saturdays (as time permits) I will diary about geography, the sub disciplines of geography, and the uses of geography.
I have begun to outline the next few entries in the series. Next week, I will finish discussing the article "Bring Back Geography", the history of geographic education in the U.S. and the current state of geographic education. Then I will dedicate at least one week to each of the four sub disciplines (cartography, physical, human/cultural, and GIS), before delving into more detailed subjects, such as uses of geography in politics.
What are bluesweatergirl’s qualifications for writing about Geography!
Why should you listen to me when I write about geography? Well, I’m currently working on a M.S. in Geographical Studies and plan to pursue a Ph.D. in the subject. I also have taught a course in GIS, so I understand teaching geographic subjects. Finally, although I most often identify myself as an archaeologist, I am also a geographer. I care about maps and spatial analysis for archaeology. I include aspects of human and physical geography into my archaeological research. Geography is an important part of my research!!
I hope you will come back next week and subsequent weeks to discuss why geography is important and to learn more about the subject.
Oh, and please vote in the poll. I am hoping to include the results in next week’s post.