Nature, culture, and the work of physical

geography
Marc Tadaki, Jennifer Salmond, Richard Le Heron and
Gary Brierley
Human–environment relationships are increasingly regarded as complex and worthy of
interdisciplinary scrutiny. In this context, several physical geographers have made calls
for their subdiscipline to take a ‘cultural turn’ and engage more fully with human ele-
ments of environmental change. However, despite sharing a general commitment to
thinking about the material implications of human behaviours, definitions proposed for
a cultural physical geography lack theoretical rigour and consistency. This paper inter-
rogates the prospects for a refreshed cultural turn in physical geography by situating it
within its constitutive, historical and institutional dimensions. First, how might ‘culture’
be defined and constituted, and with what implications? This question recognises that
conceptual work around culture depends upon the sociotheoretical paradigms that are
chosen. Second, an exploration of key moments in the definition of geographical
research projects and trajectories provides insight into why this turn has not happened
before, and what kind of work was pursued in its place. Third, a cultural turn positions
physical geography to do particular kinds of work within wider ecologies of knowledge
production. Careful reflection on the methods and commitments of different
approaches is needed to assess where and how such a project might be at all geograph-
ical. The notion of culture embraced and practised by physical geographers has mate-
rial, epistemological, institutional and ethical implications. Broadening the scope of
‘work’ from the outputs to the outcomes of geographical practice creates the conceptual
space for much needed reflection and dialogue. A cultural turn that acknowledges the
‘webs of significance’ within which physical geography is embedded presents a pro-
gressive trajectory of inquiry.

key words nature ⁄ culture physical geography cultural turn

integration history of geography epistemology

School of Environment, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
email: m.tadaki@gmail.com

revised manuscript received 23 September 2011

2007). Human activities alter and interact with

Introduction
Human interactions with ecological systems are
numerous, varied and increasingly the focus of
environmental enquiry. This ubiquity of human
modifications to atmospheric, geomorphic and
biogeographic systems means that physical geogra-
phers studying the non-human world can no
longer take ‘natural’ (non-human-modified) states
as necessarily given or even relevant to forming a
rigorous and accurate understanding of the
biophysical world (Phillips 2004; Wohl and Merritts
atmospheric physics and chemistry across local–
global scales, human modifications of landscapes
and biomes occur in different ways across space
and time, and human actors and institutions pro-
pose and coordinate metaphysical structures to link
observations and ideas about the natural world.
Biologists Ehrlich and Kennedy (2005) have gone
as far as to call for a Millennium Assessment of
Human Behaviour (MAHB), a global assessment
focused on the operation of human systems and
the ecological ramifications of their organisation.

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012

ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
548
In 2003, geographers Thornes and McGregor
argued for a ‘cultural turn’ in the field of climatol-
ogy. Noting the many scales and facets of human
interaction with the atmosphere, they proposed
that the definition of geographical-climatological
inquiry be expanded to include these interactions.
They proposed that cultural climatology involve:
The study of the processes of, and the interactions and
feedbacks between, the physical and human compo-
nents of the climate system at a variety of temporal and
spatial scales. (Thornes and McGregor 2003, 178)
Three years later, in concluding a substantial
assessment of the role of humans in changing river
channels, geomorphologist Gregory suggests:
Just as a more society-oriented climatology or cultural
climatology can be envisioned so we can now contem-
plate a cultural geomorphology ... Is it now timely for a
‘cultural turn’ that affected human sciences including
human geography to be embraced by geomorphology?
(Gregory 2006, 185)
Two questions immediately present themselves.
First, what might a ‘cultural physical geography’
entail? In entering new intellectual territory it is
important not to reinvent the wheel, so a survey of
definitions and approaches is useful. Second, in
what ways is physical geography positioned to
provide strong contributions in this area?
The argument of this paper is that this ‘cultural
turn’ in physical geography can be fruitfully con-
ceptualised through three distinct but overlapping
lenses. First, how should the ‘cultural turn’ be
constituted? The definition of what constitutes
‘culture’ wields tremendous power in its capacity
to do boundary work – it can simultaneously
legitimise and ignore entire strands of research
(see the second section). Second, the cultural turn
can be situated within its historical trajectory.
There have been and continue to be fierce debates
over what geography is and what it is not, and
whether its human and physical halves can and
should integrate and in what contexts, so it is rel-
evant to consider why this ‘turn’ has not been
embraced before (see the third section). Finally,
geography is not the only discipline to approach
the human–environment interface, so reflection on
the role of geographers in contributing to these
issues is valuable (see the fourth section). To con-
clude, the notion of ‘work’ is employed to under-
stand these three dimensions of a cultural turn,
and the politics of a ‘cultural physical geography’
is expounded.
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Marc Tadaki et al.
The argument made here is explicitly situated,
recognising at the outset the context in which it
has been assembled. The project emerged from a
self-directed graduate level research paper.
Through a series of generative engagements with
supervisors – an urban climatologist, an economic
geographer and a fluvial geomorphologist, respec-
tively – we began to think very broadly about the
work of our discipline, and the practices that
underlie and reproduce its meanings. The subject
emerged at a time when we were collectively
thinking about the value and work of disciplin-
ary identities following a re-branding of our
School from a ‘School of Geography, Geology
and Environmental Science’ to that of a ‘School of
Environment’.
The conceptual work of ‘culture’
The geographical and environmental literatures
have been debating the nature of ‘human dimen-
sions’ in environmental research for decades, and
have formed coherent communities of practice
along disciplinary boundaries, each enacting their
own definitions. Demeritt (2009) offers that treat-
ments of human dimensions generally tend to
externalise social life by holding it constant, reduce
human dimensions to material inputs for models,
or reconstitute knowledge production frameworks,
and ‘interfere’ with the status quo so as to reallo-
cate power via knowledge. When asking ‘why a
cultural turn?’ in physical geography, the signifi-
cance of Demeritt’s last category needs careful con-
sideration.
The notion of culture, broadly construed, con-
cerns itself with either the operation or constitution
of societies. Culture can be conceived of as a sys-
tem of ‘regularly occurring, organised modes of
behaviour in technological, economic, religious,
political, familial, and other institutional domains
within a population’ (Rohner 1984, 113). This is
called the ‘entity’ view of culture, and concerns
itself with material (behavioural) forms of repro-
duction. Alternatively, Geertz offers that
man [sic] is an animal suspended in webs of signifi-
cance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those
webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an
experimental science in search of law but an interpre-
tive one in search of meaning. (Geertz 1973, 5)
Debates over the use, relevance and ontological sta-
tus of cultural concepts in research have raged
Nature, culture, and the work of physical geography
since the 1970s, and continue to this day (e.g.
Mitchell 1995 2000; Rohner 1984). Table I docu-
ments a number of definitions of culture proposed
by geographers and others.
Definitions of culture rely on conceptions of how
societies work and the nature of the human condi-
tion. From a glance at these definitions, at least
three points can be made. First, culture can be vari-
ously described as a process and ⁄ or a form. Cul-
ture, in Gregory’s definition, reflects a pattern or
shape of attributes of a group of people and their
organisation. In this sense, he means culture as a
structure or form of human society (the entity
view). Williams, by contrast, contends that culture
is more centrally a process of signification, which
may or may not lead to obvious organisational
manifestations. Second, Kashima points out that
such systems of meaning must be enduring, and
that they must be shared. In this sense, culture
might be seen as an emergent property of process
and form, where the constitution of societies shape
the meanings derived within them, and the mean-
ings themselves emerge from a collective interac-
tion of meaning and constitution. Third, the work
of Mitchell suggests that all conceptualisations of
culture have agenda, in that they propose to
order society in particular ways, through power–
knowledge relationships.
Culture as black box
One of the enduring tensions in cultural-environ-
mental research has been the need ⁄ desire ⁄ tendency
to assign culture a kind of ‘mop up’ explanatory
role (Proctor 1998; see also Latour 2005). To pick a
Table I A range of definitions for culture
Author (discipline)
Thornes and McGregor (2003, 190)
(geographer-climatologists)
Gregory (2006, 186) (geomorphologist)
Williams (1981, 13) (cultural theorist)
Mitchell (2000, 74–5) (cultural geographer)
Kashima (2008, 107) (social psychologist)
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
549
‘clearly’ cultural topic such as the landscape prefer-
ences of a polity, it might be tempting to relate
findings to economic variables (such as household
income), to political variables (such as political
party preference) and social variables (such as gen-
der). When these results are compared across poli-
ties from different catchments or nation states and
the results differ, the explanation tends to be ‘cul-
ture’ (see Le Lay et al. 2008 for an application).
Latour (2005) refers to this kind of thinking as the
‘sociology of the social’ which takes the ‘social’ as
a kind of material, urge-giving ‘stuff’ which can be
measured and given explanatory power. He prefers
instead a ‘sociology of associations’, which, while
complicated in detail, might be loosely understood
as accepting that the political, economic and social
influences are themselves governed by those associa-
tions or meanings produced by individuals, which
is to say, culture. In this light, and according to
Cosgrove and Jackson,
[c]ulture is not a residual category, the surface variation
left unaccounted for by more powerful economic analy-
ses; it is the very medium through which change is experi-
enced, contested and constituted. (Cosgrove and
Jackson 1987, 95, emphasis added)
It is well agreed that culture as a concept should
not be reduced to explaining differences in variables
of economic, political or social categories, but
rather that categories, if required, should be built
from the bottom up with a progressive definition
(e.g. Williams 1981) in mind. Proctor (1998) offers
three assumptions which allow this reductionism
to become entrenched. First, culture is conceived as
Operational definition of culture
‘all that is not nature’.
‘a particular form or stage of civilization includes the pattern of human
knowledge, belief, and behaviour embracing language, ideas, beliefs,
customs, codes, institutions, tools, techniques and works of art, and so
should be reflected in legislation and in ethical values’.
‘the signifying system through which . . . a social order is communicated,
reproduced, experienced, and explored’.
‘there is no culture in the world, only differing arrays of power that
organize society in this way, and not that. Hence there is only a powerful
idea of culture, an idea that has developed . . . under specific historical
conditions and was later broadened as a means of explaining material
differences, social order, and relations of power.’
‘an enduring and shared system of meaning’.
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
550
separate from other forms of human experience.
Second, culture is thought to be represented by the
thoughts, attitudes and behaviours of individuals
(rather than group dynamics), referred to as meth-
odological individualism. Finally, his notion of exter-
nality assumes that
when culturally based attitudes, beliefs, and so forth are
mentioned as important filters in the ways people per-
ceive and respond to global environmental change,
there is no concession that the cultural filters of the ana-
lyst’s scientific tradition may play any role. (Proctor
1998, 234)
The non ⁄ existence of culture
While an emphasis on structures of symbolic signi-
fication enjoyed a reasonable consensus in the
1980s and 1990s, the proliferation of ‘superorganic’
theories of what culture actually is prompted a
postmodern reanalysis. Mitchell (1995) bemoans
the ambiguity of definitions provided by Williams
and others, and argues that the idea of culture (like
all keywords, see Jones 2009) is so fuzzy that it can
be mobilised to serve a range of interests. Mitchell
offers that,
by recognizing the emptiness of the abstraction ‘culture’
we can begin to ask the important questions: who rei-
fies? In whose interest is the idea of culture deployed?
What relations of power are maintained by invoking
this idea? (Mitchell 1995, 110)
By concretising (reifying) particular notions of cul-
ture through discursive reproduction in research
practices, certain ideas about action are implicitly
invoked, while others deprivileged. The politics of
culture become visible. The idea of culture can be
used to invoke both same-ness and difference. By
asserting that people are from ⁄ have a different cul-
ture, we have reasons for difference, and con-
versely, by mobilising a process-based formulation,
we can make very different polities similar by
focusing on the role of meaning generation in both
societies. In a modern context these issues are
being hotly debated. For example, after Crate’s
(2008) argument for increasing anthropological
engagements with indigenous understandings of
climate change, anthropologist Gunther Schlee
points out that romanticising ‘other’ cultures to
argue for climate mitigation may be ‘moral’ in one
respect, but it is tyrannical in others (cited in Crate
2008, 589). Can ⁄ should cultures not ever change? If
we categorise Thornes and McGregor’s (2003) defi-
nition as ‘process’ and Gregory’s (2006) as ‘form’,
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Marc Tadaki et al.
which should be embraced and for which context?
What kinds of questions become legitimate and
which ignored when cultures are irrevocably ‘dif-
ferent’ relative to seeing them as the same or mal-
leable? When international public surveys of river
health (see Le Lay et al. 2008) suggest that prefer-
ence for woody debris varies across ‘culture’, what
is being reified here, which opportunities for action
are being promoted and which social ontologies
embraced?
Cultural hybrids
Quite often, culture is employed through a dichot-
omy to distinguish culture from other realms of
social life, perhaps none more prominent in
geographical thought than nature ⁄ culture. This
invocation has served as the lifeblood for environ-
mental geographers for decades, but the point here
is that the culture ⁄ nature distinction does a partic-
ular kind of work – it erects boundaries and forti-
fies epistemologies, even – and especially – when
that boundary is supposed to be transgressed
(Urban and Rhoads 2003). For instance, when
Thornes and McGregor (2003) suggest that clima-
tologists should now become more concerned with
the cultural ‘half’ of the nature ⁄ culture dichotomy,
it presupposes that climatologists’ work was not
already cultural in the first place, and that their
methods and practices are inherently ‘natural’. The
central thesis of this paper is that a cultural turn
in physical geography should proceed by
acknowledging that physical geography has
always been cultural, as the practitioners and insti-
tutions of physical geography provide a signifying
system through which ‘order is communicated,
reproduced, experienced, and explored’ (Williams
1981, 13).
Unpacking the historical work of physical
geography
Any and every history of geography can be seen as
exactly false. As Richards (2009) points out, physi-
cal geography has been and continues to be diverse
in method and approach, and any attempt to clas-
sify physical geography as a coherent or unified
entity is fraught with difficulty. However, many
contend that an understanding of disciplinary
epochs, figures and trajectories is still valuable for
educational and reflective reasons (Castree 2005;
Kennedy 2006). We agree, and in this section we
‘put history to work’ by reassembling some con-
Nature, culture, and the work of physical geography
tested discourses regarding the aims, scope and
practice – the ‘work’, if you will – of physical geog-
raphy. While space and expertise limit our focus to
the similarities and differences between the trajec-
tories of climatology and geomorphology, we
acknowledge that other disciplinary branches (such
as biogeography and quaternary science) will have
their own stories to tell.
Contesting discourses in physical geography – a
historical sketch
The traditional history of geography can be loosely
said to have three major phases corresponding to
pre-1945, post-war and modern eras (see Castree
2005).
Pre-1945 At the turn of the twentieth century
geography was just being established as a univer-
sity subject, and a number of its proponents
attempted to outline the scope of the discipline.
The young Halford Mackinder argued that it was
the scope of geography to explore the human–envi-
ronment nexus, and that
The course of history at a given moment, whether in
politics, society, or any other sphere of human activity,
is the product not only of environment but also of the
momentum acquired in the past. (Mackinder 1887, 157)
In 1905, Herbertson refined Mackinder’s ideas into
a manifesto for taking the ‘region’ as a natural unit
of integrative inquiry (Castree 2005). The region
remained a strong and integrative concept through
until wartime, culminating in Hartshorne’s (1939)
passionate plea for systematic (if not explicitly sci-
entific) studies of ‘areal differentiation’. This is gen-
erally understood as a descriptive period in
geography, where the uniqueness of ‘regions’ was
embraced and emergent explanations were pro-
moted (i.e. Mackinder’s notion of societal ‘momen-
tum’).
In physical geography, Davis (1899) described
and classified landscapes within a Cycle of Erosion,
while Koppen (1900, cited in Heymann 2010) and
others (e.g. Ward 1906) described and classified
climatic biomes of the world. Complementary
approaches to process geomorphology were devel-
oped by Gilbert (see Kennedy 2006). Although
Davis (1902) had called for an integrative physical
geography which linked land and society, geomor-
phic enquiry continued to emphasise concerns for
landscape development (Kennedy 2006). In con-
trast, climate-society geographers did take up the
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
551
call, using climate classifications to ‘explain’ human
societies in deterministic ways (e.g. Huntington
1915).
Around 1930, something amazing happened in
climatology: the atmosphere grew a third dimen-
sion. Prior to this time, climatic study was limited
to the ground-level measurement and interpreta-
tion of atmospheric dynamics. Throughout the
1920s and into the 1930s, the work of Bjerknes and
his students revealed the systematic consistency of
air masses across large areas, and linked them to
sources of formation and spatial trajectories
(Heymann 2010). In this sense, the object of analy-
sis shifted from the land to the sky, and the study
of climate became ‘delocalised’, a development
which has had far-reaching implications for current
understandings of climate–society relations (Hulme
2010; Jasanoff 2010). This new type of study, which
focused on the formation and development of
weather systems rather than their effects on land-
based regions, was coined by Bergeron, a student
of Bjerknes, as ‘dynamic climatology’.
While regional descriptions and classifications of
climate continued, they took a systematic turn with
the contributions of Thornthwaite (1931), who
offered what might be called a process-based
approach. Trying to move beyond subjective
notions of biomes, Thornthwaite proposed a tem-
perature-precipitation based metric to map hydro-
climatological potential across space, which could
be used to explain some – but not all – aspects of
biome composition, leaving work for succession
ecologists and others to rigorously explain, rather
than merely describe, regional variation.
A third strand of climatological inquiry emerged
in this period, building on Sauer’s (1925) notion of
a ‘cultural landscape’. The five-part study by
Bonacina (1939 1941) embraced the atmosphere as
part of the phenomenology of landscape, and pro-
posed the notion of ‘landscape meteorology’ as a
conceptual guide to its investigation. Bonacina was
concerned chiefly with visual symbolism, a thread
which was revived after the war by Thornes (1979
2008). Bonacina asserted that
the scientific and artistic methods are on different
modes of approach to the phenomena of the self-same
world, and that each, if cautiously but resolutely coordi-
nated with the other, is bound to open up wider vistas
of truth. (Bonacina 1939, 485)
Across the Pacific and unbeknownst to Western
geographers at the time, Japanese philosopher
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
552
Watsuji published a book on the phenomenology
of climate, with the profound thesis that ‘the phe-
nomena of climate [should be] treated as expres-
sions of subjective human existence and not of
natural environment’ (1961 [1943], v). He argued
that human experiences of – and relationships with
– climate were heterogeneous and embodied
through the values and history of a society, rather
than being universally determined.
Post-war (1945–1970) The post-war period saw the
return of geographers involved with wartime
efforts, many of whom were unhappy with the
apparent irrelevance of their geographical training
to wartime tasks. This brought about major struc-
tural change in the discipline, including the termi-
nation of Harvard’s geography department
(Ackerman 1945; Smith 1987). In line with this mal-
aise, Schaefer contended that
[d]escription, even if followed by classification, does not
explain the manner in which phenomena are distrib-
uted over the world. To explain the phenomena one has
described means always to recognize them as instances
of laws . . . [S]cience is not so much interested in indi-
vidual facts as in the patterns they exhibit. (Schaefer
1953, 226)
While Hartshorne (1955) rebutted Schaefer’s argu-
ment in detail, the backlash to regional geogra-
phy had been cemented by others (e.g. Leighly
1955; Thornthwaite 1961) and a new ‘relevant’,
law-finding and rigorously quantitative geography
arose in both human and physical subdisciplines
(Castree 2005). In human geography, ‘spatial sci-
ence’ was used to describe the new field con-
cerned with the laws that governed human
activity across space (Castree 2005), and physical
geography had begun the ‘process ⁄ form’ revolu-
tion (Kennedy 2006; Rhoads 2006). Geographers
such as Strahler (1952) argued for a liberation of
geomorphic inquiry from the baggage of Davisian
cycles, to derive empirical process ‘laws’ of drain-
age network and hillslope formation (see Kennedy
[2006] for a critical review of the period, but
see Rhoads [2006] for a defence of Strahler’s leg-
acy). Fuelled by major advances in aerial photog-
raphy and systematic hydrological and geological
surveying, physical geography flourished through
making use of these new infrastructures, and
applications were often employed for purposes of
resource development (Church 2010; Heymann
2010). The aftermath of the war also invoked
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Marc Tadaki et al.
similar calls for climatology to embrace more
quantitative, mathematical and law-finding
approaches (Leighly 1955; Thornthwaite 1961).
The subject of climatology was split between
geographer-climatologists and the physics-based
meteorologists, however, and beyond the few
law-like applications of indices by Thornthwaite
and Leighly, it was unclear where geographers fit
into the mix. If meteorologists ‘owned’ the sky
and geographers were forbidden the region, it
needed to be asked: ‘What does geography need
from climatology?’ (Jones 1950).
While region-based geographical climatology
had begun to wane and meteorology claimed much
of the dynamic inquiry into the atmosphere, some
geographers argued for rigorous quantitative train-
ing (Leighly 1955), while others advocated for more
applied pursuits (Williams 1961). With Curry’s
(1952) call for economic analyses of climatic phe-
nomena and Lee’s (1953) proposal for ‘physiologi-
cal climatology’ as a field of study, applied
questions were being resituated as the niche for
geographical (as opposed to dynamic or other
forms of) climatology. Indeed, these questions were
embraced by many, not as the mere scraps left over
from the meteorologists, but as a valuable contribu-
tion to society. As Crowe opined,
Some years ago Thornthwaite was criticized for taking
a plant’s eye view of climate. The critic said: ‘I want to
classify climates in terms of climate itself.’ But the dis-
cussion in the meeting brought out that he really
wanted a climatology for aviators. It seems to me that
plants are just as important as airplanes, and perhaps a
shade more so. But the point really is that climatology
has many applications and that it is only through these
applications that it becomes useful to research in
human geography. It is intellectually enriching to learn
about air-mass analysis, cyclogenesis, and the jet
stream, but unless a geographer learns how to apply cli-
matological concepts to the actual research problems of
human geography, his professional training has not
really been advanced. (Crowe 1965, 42)
Around the same time, physicist and then-
president of the Royal Meteorological Society,
Penman, deplored the over-mathematical abstrac-
tions of atmospheric research, arguing that ‘what
should be the study of the physics of a real
atmosphere overlying a real earth is degenerating
into the production of idealised mathematical
models telling us how the atmosphere ought to
behave’ (1963, 453). He praised geographers for
their societal applications, and derided main-
Nature, culture, and the work of physical geography
stream practice in meteorology as having ‘nothing
to apply itself to other than itself’ (1963, 455,
emphasis in original).
The ‘quantitative revolution’ included both
halves of geography, and while its focus on nomo-
logical-deductive (i.e. law-based) inquiry saw the
halves follow their subject matter in different direc-
tions, they remained linked through their method-
ology, namely model-based statistical analysis or
‘explanation through quantification’ (Castree 2005).
In an interesting parallel with climatology, geomor-
phologist Wagner (1957, 191) further argued that
quantitative methods were entirely compatible with
a focus on human impacts:
We know that the mark of man [sic] on earth is the
product of ‘the appropriation of habitat by habit,’ and
that this mark – what the geographer calls the ‘cultural
landscape’ – is produced by the deflection or modifica-
tion of physical and biological processes by man. We
know further that the intervention of man in these pro-
cesses, and the effects of that intervention, differ from
place to place as human habit differs.
Man’s [sic] intervention in the totality of nature has
grown so in scope that it is no longer possible to take
the natural order as ‘given’ and to preoccupy ourselves
exclusively with our changing relations with the super-
natural, as was the custom of our forebears. We are too
involved in the material world and too much concerned
with its metamorphoses to disregard its meanings.
Human–environment geography from this period
came mainly from two schools of thought. First,
beginning in the 1940s, the ‘Chicago school’ of
White and his kin explored the adaptive response
of humans to environmental hazards, which
corrected determinist frameworks by incorporating
elements of human agency (Burton and Kates
1964; White 1945). The ‘Berkeley’ or Sauerian
school examined cultural meanings imprinted on –
and derived from – landscapes, in the tradition of
Sauer. Both climatology and geomorphology devel-
oped significant research communities across these
themes (e.g. Bonacina 1939; Gares et al. 1994; Sewell
et al. 1968).
Modern (1970–present)
While the 1970s was a period of political and envi-
ronmental fervour, this did not consolidate human
and physical geographers, as each were being
pulled in different directions for different reasons.
From the 1970s in particular, human geography
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
553
began to radicalise. It started, it could be argued,
with the realisation by environmental geographers
that people do not actually behave in the way that
the billiard-ball models of spatial science suggest –
this is certainly obvious when people keep rebuild-
ing their houses on floodplains. Geographers who
attempted to bring in phenomenological aspects of
living (and hence decisionmaking) were designated
‘behavioural geographers’, and these developments
led to a humanistic strain in human geography,
concerned with the subjective states of human
beings (Argent and Walmsley 2009). Building on
both humanistic and quantitative trajectories, Har-
vey (1974) attacked the ‘ideology of science’ which
possessed the capacity to enact – rather than purely
describe – the material realities of human beings,
highlighting the role of unexamined values which
underlay research problem selection, formulation
and interpretation. King (1979, 155) later observed
‘a symbiotic relationship between quantitative
geography and the planning and control of
society’.
Through the 1980s, humanist and Marxist analy-
ses gave way to those drawing heavily from the
emergent field of cultural studies – feminism ques-
tioned the naturalness of masculine subjectivities,
post-modernism deprivileged knowledge and truth,
post-colonialism questioned the influence of power
in defining knowledge and asserting subjectivities
onto ‘others’, and post-structuralism questioned the
role of language and discourse in the production of
knowledge (Castree 2005). From the quantitative
revolution and ‘spatial science’, human geography
was rapidly introduced to the politics of said sci-
ence and quickly moved onto addressing more
qualitative and emancipatory questions – this new
‘critical human geography’ sought not only to
explain, but to change the order of the world.
While human geography was being revolution-
ised down to its political foundations, physical
geography underwent a revolution of technique
developments, employing new technologies for
process-based measurements and characterised by
the mantra, ‘if it moves, measure it’ (Trudgill 2003,
272). New spatial dimensions provided by remote
sensing allowed much larger units for observation,
and made new observations possible and at much
larger scales. Developments in radiocarbon dating
and quaternary studies likewise became much
cheaper and more widely used, giving new tempo-
ral scales of inquiry as well (Church 2010).
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
554
In climatology, the applied basis for geographi-
cal contributions continued to expand, although
mainstream climatology was developing in very
different ways, much of it to do with computer
models. After surveying the breadth of the field,
Miller (1972) affirmed that climatology’s scope
made it ‘an aid in unifying geography’, and in
developing the applied focus, Perry (1971) argued
that geographers could pursue and develop the
notion of ‘econoclimate’ to be of explicit use for
policy. Terjung’s (1976, 201) famous question sum-
marises the concern well:
If we merely become meteorologists or geologists, then
what happens to our mission to link man [sic] and sci-
ence? We should use the best tools of the environmental
physicist and apply them to problems of human rele-
vance. Moreover, if such problems are not tackled by
geographers, they will be assumed by others . . . with-
out the integrative viewpoint of the geographer.
For the most part, geographical climatology contin-
ued apace across a wide swath of subject areas and
research questions (Skaggs 2004). Developments
around global climate change and the formation of
international institutions such as the Intergovern-
mental Panel on Climate Change saw a reordering
of supply and demand for climate knowledge (see
Heymann 2010; Hulme and Mahony 2010), but
applied questions continued to remain at the fore
(Perry 1995). Through the 1980s, managerial per-
spectives on climate began to emerge and started
to drive research agendas, from agricultural policy
and insurance to acid rain and infrastructure devel-
opment (e.g. Thornes 1981). The 1990s saw contin-
ued calls to integrate climatology with social (but
mostly economic) sciences, such as Perry (1995,
281), who suggested the need for a ‘complete cli-
matologist’ who is ‘conversant with the social sci-
ences’. More recently, Hulme (2010) and Hulme
and Mahoney (2010) have begun to thoroughly
unpack the institutional workings of climate
change knowledge at the global scale. Others, such
as Thornes et al. (2010), are still making headway
into economic and structural analyses of atmo-
spheric services. The field is broad and fruitful.
In geomorphology, as the process ⁄ form revolu-
tion continued unabated, Brown (1970) re ⁄ made
the argument for the consideration of human
impacts in geomorphic inquiry, and further pro-
posed an integrative concept dubbed the ‘area’,
which would be explicitly quantitative and rigor-
ous (Brown 1975). Gregory (1976) called such inte-
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Marc Tadaki et al.
gration naive and idealistic, suggesting that
geomorphology had in fact grown out of geogra-
phy. The sheer bulk of demand for those with
environmental engineering qualifications, Gregory
argued, provided enough evidence that the quanti-
tative ⁄ law-based approach was working and that
was enough to satisfy any claims of public value
(for a recent echo see Church 2005). Further, if pro-
cess and modelling studies were pieces to the puz-
zle of the biophysical world, systems theory and
approaches were increasingly seen as the blue-
prints for their assembly. Proposed early on by
Chorley (1962) and Kennedy and Chorley (1971),
systems thinking became tightly coupled to process
studies and provided a link between the descrip-
tive and modelling approaches in geomorphology.
Kennedy saw the work being done in the name of
‘systems’, ‘processes’ and ‘modelling’ that went far
beyond her initial proposition. She disagreed with
the discourse that
[m]an [sic] – or, at any event, the geographer – now
understands enough of the workings of Nature (and in
any case, can exert a sufficiently stern command over
her operations, if not his own) that there is no need to
pursue the traditional paths of observation and analysis.
Instead, the geographer - or the reader - is urged to
move at once into the conversion of existing informa-
tion into the mathematics thought to be most appropri-
ate for control and prediction. The object of interest is
to become a system of symbols; the tools of the new
trade are to be those of information theory and control
engineering. (Kennedy 1979, 550)
The similarities between her statement and that of
King about discourses of control is illuminating,
because human geographers (for the most part)
altered their practice when confronted with the
prospect of producing subjugating knowledges,
whereas geomorphologist Gregory (1976) narrated
an adaptation to opportunities he saw opening up
in the field. Kennedy further dissented that
As there appears no perceived need for – or value in –
understanding the way the world works, in order sim-
ply to model its preferred future performance, there
equally seems to remain room for two groups upon the
environmental scene or landscape. The technologists or
systems analysts may be one, whilst the academics or
geographers form the other. By all means let the mathe-
matical modelling of the naughty world continue apace,
but let us not confuse those models with reality.
(Kennedy 1979, 558)
The work of geographers – and of geography – in
Kennedy’s vision, was to contest the clean abstrac-
Nature, culture, and the work of physical geography
tions of the mathematical world with the fuzzy
edges of the ‘naughty’ one. That said, geomorphology
largely continued on its process ⁄ form and systems
trajectories, mobilising new technologies to mea-
sure and then model a wide array of landscape
processes (Church 2010).
The 1990s saw three key shifts in physical geo-
graphical enquiry (Castree 2005). First, the balance
of power shifted from pure to applied research, as
environmental managers operationalised physical
geographic concepts. Second, the rise of global
environmental change emerged as a key focus and
vehicle for much research funding, including global
modelling and Quaternary studies, and third, the
theoretical basis for landscape development shifted
from reductionist process ⁄ form understandings to
‘naughty’ ontologies of complex natures (cf.
Clifford 2001; see also Schumm 1991). While the
influence of Strahler’s kin remains strong, notions
of (dis)equilibrium, complexity, emergence, lagged
off-site response, equifinality and the like are prov-
ing increasingly difficult to reconcile with reduc-
tionist approaches to landscape analysis (Phillips
2004; Rhoads 2006). While reductionist approaches
are not in danger of being overthrown, they are
certainly being heavily revised.
Why care about history?
In considering the implications of a cultural turn in
physical geography, it is helpful to consider three
types of work that physical geography has done
throughout its history.
First, physical geography has done intellectual
work. It has produced, evidenced and re ⁄ articu-
lated knowledge and concepts in many ways,
using particular methods and philosophical frame-
works.
Second, physical geography has done institu-
tional work. Not only has it contributed ideas in a
general sense, but it has contributed to some trajec-
tories of thought over others (e.g. environmental
determinism, process form, systems modelling),
and the trajectories of thought which have been
created and supported by inquiry have changed
over time. Why were Wagner’s (1957) and Brown’s
(1970) calls for a human geomorphology not mains-
treamed? Was the human impact on landscapes
not a ‘truth’ of nature worthy of understanding
and explanation? Ideas that we might call ‘scien-
tific’ may have an internal logic, and they may be
widely evidenced, but knowledge is also about tra-
jectories, and as such it is about values – what kind
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
555
of research do we want, need and value? Why do
we have so many climatologies for aviators, and so
many for plants? In the present sense we might
also ask: why so many climatologies of the future
(Hulme 2011), so many climatologies of the
wealthy, white and male (O’Neill et al. 2010), or so
many climatologies of the global (Hulme 2010)?
Third, physical geography has done discursive
work. As Heymann notes,
Scientific findings had to be described and framed suc-
cessfully, interpreted and filled with meaning, furnished
with credibility and the status of sound evidence,
accepted and furthered by scientists and scientific com-
munities, equipped with visibility and weight, linked
with broader cultural interests and popular perceptions
and transferred successfully into a more general scien-
tific and public discourse. (Heymann 2010, 582)
In the context of geomorphology, Kennedy high-
lights the discursive work of the process ⁄ form rev-
olution:
[A] key element in our vision of Homo dictator has been
the staggering general success of Western engineering
technology, with its necessary emphases upon simple
relations between action and reaction. That, in turn,
emphasizes the human and temporal and spatial scale,
its inevitable intersection with political visions and
its inherently reductionist principles. (Kennedy 2006,
120)
Physical geography is situated within a proverbial
soup of temporally specific and contingent meta-
phors, values and trajectories. Physical geography
must not only produce knowledge, it must produce
relevant knowledge, useful knowledge and accu-
rate knowledge. While issues of ‘relevance’ and
‘usefulness’ have largely been assumed as given by
funding bodies or implemented through the intu-
itions (or perhaps conscious but undocumented
reflection) of particular researchers, the time may
have come to make these assumptions explicit.
Institutional imperatives and ecologies of
knowledge
The contributions of physical geographers are
made onto a vast landscape of knowledge produc-
tion. Physical geography as an institution is being
pulled in many different directions and for many
different reasons, but three key concerns seem to
have emerged from the recent literature: specialisa-
tion, structural incentives on knowledge and inte-
gration.
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
556 Marc Tadaki et al.
While Johnston (2006) laments Pitman’s geographi-
Specialisation
cal call to ESS as patronising, his argument that
Physical geography has an active fringe of special-
‘geographers should just get on with what they are
ist subdisciplines, with lots of interdisciplinary
doing’ (2006, 7) does not address the willingness of
interactions, but seems to lack a common core.
physical geographers to be engaged in arguments
Physical geographers tend to publish in specialist,
about the values underlying research trajectories.
interdisciplinary and non-geography journals (Laf-
ESS is political and reductionist in significant ways
fan 2010), leading some to argue that this reflects
(Clifford and Richards 2005), and this poses impor-
robust progress in the field and that physical geog-
tant questions about the role of environmental
raphy could even be more outward looking in its
research in governance. To whom is ESS account-
orientation than human geography (e.g. Viles
able, and whose values underlie its use? What are
2005). Geomorphologists Phillips (2004), Church
the opportunity costs of this type of research?
(2010) and Dadson (2010) all affirm that geomor-
Finally, while ESS might be posed as an integrating
phology is becoming ever more specialised and
template for the natural and social sciences, this
‘rigorous’ in its geophysical scientific reputation,
claim needs to be greeted with scepticism. The
but there are queries over what this means at a
notion of modelling material flows echoes
practical and organisational level. At the practical
Demeritt’s (2009) inputs problem, where human–
level, splintered specialisms produce knowledge
environment research reduces one into an input for
from a particular kind of framework with particu-
the methods of the other.
lar kinds of uses, which may or may not corre-
ESS provides but one example of the many pres-
spond to outsiders using different kinds of
sures acting on the production of physical geo-
frameworks. Soil scientists, hydrologists, geomor-
graphical knowledge. Physical geographers also
phologists and quaternary scientists, for instance,
have to grapple with issues around the neoliberali-
may bring highly specialised knowledge to bear on
sation of knowledge and its governance (Lave et al.
a problem, but if their concepts are incompatible
2010a), the commodification of environmental
then capacity for explanation is lost. At the organi-
goods and ‘ecosystem services’ (Potschin and
sational level, physical geography may no longer
Haines-Young 2011; Robertson 2011; Thornes et al.
need to exist and may dissolve into its composi-
2010), the privatisation of knowledge institutions
tional specialisms. At this point, one begins to ask,
(Lave et al. 2010b), globalisation (Clifford 2009) and
‘How and why do we specialise, and how does
new media technologies (Tooth 2006) as well as the
specialisation affect the kinds of questions which
classic debates around relevance, usefulness and so
are pursued?’
on (e.g. Church 2005; Tooth 2009). There are now
many reasons for geographical knowledges to take
Structural incentives and knowledge creation
particular shapes, and considered reflection on the
Some of the largest funding opportunities in com-
politics of these processes is welcome – how do
ing years will no doubt come from Earth Systems
institutional structures affect the types of biophysi-
Science (ESS) and its regional forms of integrated
cal knowledges deemed relevant by society?
environmental assessment. The idea of ESS is to
model the biophysical systems of the entire earth
Integration
and, to the extent that it is capable, the human sys-
Human and physical geography have largely
tems which occupy it (Dadson 2010). Pitman (2005)
parted ways since the 1950s, and hopes for meth-
recently argued that ESS is a fundamentally geo-
odological ‘glue’ in the form of parallel quantitative
graphical project, requiring a holistic perspective of
methods were dashed by the humanistic and –
system analysis as well as ‘equal’ recognition of
ironically – cultural turns in human geography.
social sciences, but some are sceptical. Richards
More recently, prominent geographers have tried
and Clifford point out that the ESS project
to initiate dialogue ‘across the divide’, in the hopes
of finding a common ground with which to recon-
is about scientific institution structures, names, bound-
aries and relationships. This implies that the terms of figure a disciplinary core (Harrison et al. 2006).
reference go well beyond critical scientific appraisal, Many reasons and methods for achieving such con-
extending to matters of evaluating a social organization, versations have been proposed, such as a conver-
and to politics, policies, purposes and practices. gence around theoretical concepts like complexity
(Richards and Clifford 2008, 1323) and emergence (Phillips 2004; Harrison et al. 2006),

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012

ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Nature, culture, and the work of physical geography
philosophical reflections on method and practice
(Rhoads 2006) and applications to particular envi-
ronmental problems (Urban and Rhoads 2003).
One way to make sense of the politics of this
turn is offered in Table II. Five trajectories are
listed for human–environment research, with exam-
ples listed. These fields are not exclusive, but they
are fairly distinct. From reading Table II, the poli-
tics of defining ‘culture’ become clear, as successive
layers become legitimised with increasingly expan-
sive notions of culture. Perhaps the most obvious
climate–society link, for instance, is the idea of
climate as environment, or a boundary condition
of human experience. If we define culture as a
form or structure of society, it becomes easy to
make the determinist leap, as van de Vliert (2009)
does when he uses climate and wealth correlations
to ‘explain’ cultural forms. If we allow for human
557
action and response, the adaptive trajectory is legit-
imised. If culture also has to do with the behav-
iours of and meanings derived by individuals with
relation to their environments, then the perceptual
and symbolic trajectories become legitimised. At
this point, both Thornes and McGregor (2003) and
Gregory (2006) are similar in their definitional
scope, although Thornes and McGregor stress
material feedbacks (determinist and adaptive)
rather than the symbolic and perceptual aspects.
The final step, hidden in the nature ⁄ culture dichot-
omy, unlocks critical institutional analyses of
knowledge production and mobilisation. The criti-
cal approach does not separate human from natu-
ral entities, and highlights the role of knowledge
production in producing discourse which then gov-
erns human action. Although the definitions pro-
posed by Gregory and Thornes and McGregor for

Table II Five trajectories of nature–society inquiry

Trajectory Approach Examples

Determinist Environment used to explain or predict change in Kellie-Smith and Cox (2011),
human systems, but can be iterative or operate in Huntington (1915), van de Vliert
reverse – for example, global climate models running (2009). See also Hulme (2011)
on emission scenarios. Requires physical flux. Earth
system science and integrated assessment modelling
feature here.
Adaptive Environment quantified as a risk or resource for policy Perry (1971 1995), Sewell et al. (1968),
formation. Frequently used to examine costs and Thornes (1981), Thornes et al. (2010)
benefits of particular courses of action such as
agricultural cropping, land use change or climate
change scenarios. Creates knowledge which directs
action.
Perceptual Examines perceptions and knowledge of environments, Burton and Kates (1964), Le Lay et al.
seeking to explain how these vary across groups. (2008), White (1945)
Perceptions are generally standardised by survey
metrics and are methodologically individualist,
reducing culture to the attitudes, beliefs and values of
individuals (cf. Proctor 1998).
Narrative ⁄ symbolic Environment as text. The biophysical environment is a Bonacina (1939), Crate (2008), Sauer
canvas or object to which we attach our own personal (1925), Thornes (1979 2008), Watsuji
meaning. Could be analysis of art or cloud-watching, (1961 [1943])
but has to do with the symbolic role of the environ-
ment in life. Is strongly interpretive, but also individu-
alist – it investigates meaning but is not with an eye to
changing it – an entity view of culture. While it is
concerned with meaning, it is less concerned with the
manner in which that meaning is reproduced.
Critical Environment as institutional construction, whose Hulme (2010), Hulme and Mahony
identity is constantly being redefined, reified and (2010), Jasanoff (2010), Lave et al.
negotiated between entities for various reasons. (2010a 2010b)
Examines the discursive work done by producing
particular kinds of knowledge. Emphasises the power
to ‘do things differently’ and enact new values and
knowledges, thus corresponding to a process view of
culture.

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012

ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
558
a cultural physical geography emphasise the mutu-
ally deterministic, material relationships between
people and environment and accept the pluralist
symbolic interpretations, they are not inherently
self-reflexive.
A critical physical geography acknowledges that
physical geographic ideas and practices do signifi-
cant work by drawing boundaries around prob-
lems. The notion of what constitutes a ‘natural’
river, for instance, affects what is deemed as nor-
mal behaviour for that river system, and thus how
that system ought to be managed (Fryirs and
Brierley 2009; Phillips 2010; Wohl and Merrits
2007). The metaphors generated in and appropri-
ated by physical geography are not just descriptive,
but performative in the sense that they propose
desirable states for the world (Demeritt 2009). Phil-
lips’ (2010) proposition for ‘the job of a river’, for
instance, argues against using equilibrium notions
as a management heuristic, and emphasises the
contingent, complex and dynamic nature of geo-
morphic evolution. The concepts generated in
physical geography create management paradigms
and define terms for action.
A critical, physical geography?
Culture . . . is best understood as a process, a set of
relationships that gain efficacy as they are reified.
(Mitchell 2000, 287)
The concepts, practices, actors and institutions of
physical geography are immersed within ‘webs of
significance’ which relate human and non-human
worlds; these elements combine to create meaning
and inspire particular kinds of action. Through our
practices as knowledge producers we reify particu-
lar ideas, rationalities, subjectivities and ‘objectivi-
ties’ into being, which reify investment streams
and structures, frame questions in particular kinds
of ways, and de ⁄ legitimise other ways of knowing
the world. There is no longer the category of ‘nat-
ure’ or ‘natural’ which can provide refuge for the
‘non-cultural’ physical geographer – all knowledge
has politics.
This paper has attempted to constructively
engage the question of a cultural turn in physical
geography by situating it within its constitutive,
historical and institutional trajectories. It is not an
attempt to sketch the boundaries of a newly pack-
aged cultural physical geography. Rather, our aim
has been to highlight how doing so is a political
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Marc Tadaki et al.
act which requires ethical reflection and rigorous
contestation, and to argue that an engagement with
culture as a system of meaning generation goes ‘all
the way up’ to include not only lay subjectivities
but also the codes, norms and practices of those
doing geography (Le Heron and Lewis 2011). There
is no discrete domain of enquiry to which cultural
physical geography belongs and to which research-
ers can subscribe or not subscribe. Rather, we are
always reifying culture through our practices, even
and perhaps especially when that involves thinking
about culture as something that is separate from
our object of study. From these recognitions we
offer three questions that could help guide future
discussion.
First, how should we reify culture, and to what
effects and affects? What happens when we reduce
‘human dimensions’ to material inputs for numeri-
cal modelling (Demeritt 2009), and what happens
when we treat lay and non-lay experiences of bio-
physical environments as equal resources for
knowledge production (Lane et al. 2011)? There are
a wide range of ‘human dimensions’ projects on
offer, and while we do not seek to promote our
own pet projects here, it is worth highlighting that
these are more than simply intellectual or practical
decisions. It has been thoroughly established that
‘scientific’ or natural science framings of environ-
mental issues have often become problematic
because they mask a range of value-based assump-
tions about social ⁄ environmental ontologies and
how they ought to be governed. These practices do
work, and the more that physical geographers
engage with the implications of these, the more we
can offer to the world as a discipline, far beyond
simply ‘get[ting] on with what [we] are doing’
(Johnston 2006). By allowing the nature ⁄ culture
dichotomy to assume ontological status in theory
and practice, physical geographers may have not
been aware of the cultural work of their projects. It
is hoped that this paper has shown that perhaps,
as geographical thinkers Leunig (Figure 1) and
Watsuji suggest, we might begin to see ourselves
in our work and collectively reconstitute its impli-
cations.
It is often said that not only is man [sic] conditioned by
climate, but that he, in his turn, works on and trans-
forms climate. But this is to ignore the true nature of
climate.. [I]it is in climate that man apprehends him-
self . . . [C]limate does not exist apart from history, nor
history apart from climate. This can only be understood
Nature, culture, and the work of physical geography 559

Figure 1 Is it time to start seeing ourselves in our work?

Source: Reproduced from Leunig (1995) with permission from the author

from the fundamental structure of human existence.
(Watsuji (1961 [1943], 8
Second, how might geographical history help us
understand where we have been, and where we
might yet go? We have acquired ample familiarity
with determinism, natural hazards, systems model-
ling and now grapple with the politics of ESS, con-
servation science and environmental impact
assessments. Physical geographers have led many
of these developments, all of them important and
useful. However, we share a concern with Trudgill:
about the ways subjects swing around in paradigm
shifts in rather a ‘herd instinct’ manner, and also about
the way fundability means that new knowledge is
derived from avenues which are directed by current
conventional wisdom. (Trudgill 2003, 274)
If our aim is to be critic and conscience of society,
we need to question the relevance of existing
investment and knowledge production structures.
As geographers, we have often throughout history
narrated ourselves into relevance – whether it be
description, explanation or quantification – by
means of appeals to authority, to outside forces
requiring us to act in particular ways and produce
particular kinds of knowledge (e.g. Gares et al.
1994; Gregory 1976; Schaefer 1953; and more
recently Church 2005). Such an argument holds
much less sway with a critical mandate to know
and make the world differently.
Finally, what kind of work might a cultural physi-
cal geography do for geography as a whole? The
‘work’ of physical geography and geographers does
not end with the research publication or presenta-
tion, but extends to consider how the practices and
outputs of physical geography are embedded within
wider systems of signification (Brierley 2009; Fryirs
and Brierley 2009; Lane et al. 2011; Thornes et al.
2010; Trudgill 2003). By embracing a critical
approach to culture, new research questions can be

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012

ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
560
formulated, alternative approaches considered, and
‘downstream’ cultural work reorganised to facilitate
positive change. Geography is historically, conceptu-
ally and institutionally equipped to engage in such
a proactive, emancipatory project. This is not a mat-
ter of making geography more ‘relevant’ to society,
as many commentators have offered, but about real-
ising that all physical geography is applied and that
all physical geography is relevant. It is the questions
of ‘applied to what?’ and ‘relevant to whom?’ which
need to be considered more carefully.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank the managing editor
Madeleine Hatfield for her patience and support,
and to three anonymous reviewers for their con-
structive comments on the manuscript. We thank
Michael Leunig for permission to reprint his cartoon.
References
Ackerman E A 1945 Geographic training, wartime
research, and immediate professional objectives Annals
of the Association of American Geographers 35 121–43
Argent N M and Walmsley D J 2009 From the inside
looking out and the outside looking in: whatever hap-
pened to ‘behavioural geography’? Geographical Research
47 192–203
Bonacina L C W 1939 Landscape meteorology and its
reflection in art and literature Quarterly Journal of the
Royal Meteorological Society 65 485–97
Bonacina L C W 1941 The scenic approach to meteorology
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 67
305–14
Brierley G 2009 Communicating geomorphology Journal of
Geography in Higher Education 33 3–17
Brown E H 1970 Man shapes the earth The Geographical
Journal 136 74–85
Brown E H 1975 The content and relationships of physical
geography The Geographical Journal 141 35–40
Burton I and Kates R W 1964 The perception of natural
hazards in resource management Natural Resources Jour-
nal 3 412–41
Castree N 2005 Nature Routledge, London
Chorley R J 1962 Geomorphology and general systems
theory US Geolological Survey Professional Paper –
500B
Church M 2005 Continental drift Earth Surface Processes
and Landforms 30 129–30
Church M 2010 The trajectory of geomorphology Progress
in Physical Geography 34 265–86
Clifford N J 2001 Physical geography – the naughty
world revisited Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers 26 387–89
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Marc Tadaki et al.
Clifford N J 2009 Globalization: a physical geography
perspective Progress in Physical Geography 33 5–16
Crate S A 2008 Gone the bull of winter? Grappling with
the cultural implications of and anthropology’s role(s)
in global climate change Current Anthropology 49 569–95
Cosgrove D and Jackson P 1987 New directions in cul-
tural geography Area 19 95–101
Crowe P R 1965 The geographer and the atmosphere
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 36 1–19
Curry L 1952 Climate and economic life: a new approach
with examples from the United States Geographical
Review 42 367–83
Dadson S 2010 Geomorphology and earth system science
Progress in Physical Geography 34 385–98
Davis W M 1899 The geographical cycle The Geographical
Journal 14 481–504
Davis W M 1902 Systematic geography Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society 41 235–59
Demeritt D 2009 From externality to inputs and interfer-
ence: framing environmental research in geography
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 34 3–11
Ehrlich P R and Kennedy D 2005 Millennium assessment
of human behavior Science 309 562–63
Fryirs K and Brierley G J 2009 Naturalness and place in
river rehabilitation Ecology and Society 14 20 [online]
(http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss1/art20/)
Accessed 20 December 2011
Gares P A, Sherman D J and Nordstrom K F 1994 Geo-
morphology and natural hazards Geomorphology 10 1–18
Geertz C 1973 The interpretation of cultures Basic Books,
New York
Gregory K J 2006 The human role in changing river chan-
nels Geomorphology 79 172–91
Gregory S 1976 On geographical myths and statistical
fables Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 1
385–400
Harrison S, Massey D and Richards K 2006 Complexity
and emergence Area 38 465–71
Hartshorne R 1939 The nature of geography Association of
American Geographers, Washington DC
Hartshorne R 1955 ‘Exceptionalism in geography’
re-examined Annals of the Association of American Geogra-
phers 45 205–44
Harvey D 1974 Population, resources and the ideology of
science Economic Geography 50 256–77
Heymann M 2010 The evolution of climate ideas and
knowledge WIREs Climate Change 1 581–97
Hulme M 2010 Problems with making and governing glo-
bal kinds of knowledge Global Environmental Change 20
558–64
Hulme M 2011 Reducing the future to climate: a story of
climate determinism and reductionism Osiris 26 245–66
Hulme M and Mahony M 2010 Climate change: what do
we know about the IPCC? Progress in Physical Geography
34 705–18
Huntington E 1915 Civilization and climate Yale University
Press, New Haven, CT
Nature, culture, and the work of physical geography
Jasanoff S 2010 A new climate for society Theory, Culture
& Society 27 233–53
Johnston R 2006 Geography (or geographers) and earth
system science Geoforum 37 7–11
Jones R 2009 Categories, borders and boundaries Progress
in Human Geography 33 174–89
Jones S B 1950 What does geography need from climatol-
ogy? The Professional Geographer 2 41–4
Kashima Y 2008 A social psychology of cultural dynam-
ics: examining how cultures are formed, maintained
and transformed Social and Personality Psychology Com-
pass 2 107–20
Kellie-Smith O and Cox P M 2011 Emergent dynamics of
the climate-economy system in the Anthropocene Philo-
sophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369 868–86
Kennedy B A 1979 A naughty world Transactions of the
Institute of British Geographers 4 550–8
Kennedy B A 2006 Inventing the earth: ideas on landscape
development since 1740 Blackwell, Malden, MA
Kennedy B A and Chorley R J 1971 Physical geography: a
systems approach Prentice-Hall, London
King L J 1979 The seventies: disillusionment and consoli-
dation Annals of the Association of American Geographers
69 155–7
Laffan S W 2010 The citation relationships between jour-
nals of geography and cognate disciplines Geographical
Research 48 166–80
Lane S N, Odoni N, Landstrom C, Whatmore S J, Ward
N and Bradley S 2011 Doing flood risk science differ-
ently: an experiment in radical scientific method Trans-
actions of the Institute of British Geographers 36 15–36
Latour B 2005 Reassembling the social: an introduction to
actor-network theory Oxford University Press, Oxford
Lave R, Mirowski P and Randalls S 2010a Introduction:
STS and neoliberal science Social Studies of Science 40
659–75
Lave R, Doyle M and Robertson M 2010b Privatizing
stream restoration in the US Social Studies of Science 40
677–703
Le Heron R and Lewis N 2011 New value from asking ‘Is
geography what geographers do?’ Geoforum 42 1–5
Le Lay Y-F, Piégay H, Gregory K, Chin A, Dolédec S,
Elosegi A, Mutz M, Wyzga B and Zawiejska J 2008
Variations in cross-cultural perception of riverscapes in
relation to in-channel wood Transactions of the Institute
of British Geographers 33 268–87
Lee D H K 1953 Physiological climatology as a field of
study Annals of the Association of American Geographers
43 127–37
Leighly J 1955 What has happened to physical geogra-
phy? Annals of the Association of American Geographers 45
309–17
Leunig M 1995 You and me Penguin Books, Ringwood,
Victoria, Australia
Mackinder H J 1887 On the scope and methods of geog-
raphy Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and
Monthly Record of Geography 9 141–74
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
561
Miller D H 1972 Is climatology an aid in unifying geogra-
phy? Australian Geographical Studies 10 203–7
Mitchell D 1995 There’s no such thing as culture: towards
a reconceptualization of the idea of culture in geogra-
phy Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 20
102–16
Mitchell D 2000 Cultural geography: a critical introduction
Blackwell, Oxford
O’Neill S J, Hulme M, Turnpenny J and Screen J A 2010
Disciplines, geography and gender in the framing of cli-
mate change Bulletin of the American Meteorological Soci-
ety August 997–1002
Penman H L 1963 Mirror for meteorologists Quarterly
Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 89 453–60
Perry A H 1971 Econoclimate: a new direction for clima-
tology Area 3 178–9
Perry A H 1995 New climatologists for a new climatology
Progress in Physical Geography 19 280–5
Phillips J D 2004 Laws, contingencies, irreversible diver-
gence, and physical geography The Professional Geogra-
pher 56 37–43
Phillips J D 2010 The job of the river Earth Surface Pro-
cesses and Landforms 35 305–13
Pitman A J 2005 On the role of geography in earth system
science Geoforum 36 137–48
Potschin M and Haines-Young R 2011 Introduction to the
special issue: Ecosystem services Progress in Physical
Geography 35 571–4
Proctor J D 1998 The meaning of global environmental
change: retheorizing culture in human dimensions
research Global Environmental Change 8 227–48
Rhoads B L 2006 The dynamic basis of geomorphology
reenvisioned Annals of the Association of American Geogra-
phers 96 14–30
Richards K 2009 Geography and the physical sciences tra-
dition in Clifford N J, Holloway S L, Rice S P and
Valentine G eds Key concepts in geography 2nd ed Sage,
London 21–45
Richards K and Clifford N J 2008 Science, systems and
geomorphologies: why LESS may be more Earth Surface
Processes and Landforms 33 1323–40
Robertson M 2011 Measurement and alienation: making a
world of ecosystem services Transactions of the Institute of
British Geographers doi: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00476.x
Rohner R P 1984 Toward a conception of culture for
cross-cultural psychology Journal of Cross-Cultural Psy-
chology 15 111–38
Sauer C O 1925 The morphology of landscape University
of California Publications in Geography 2 19–54
Schaefer F K 1953 Exceptionalism in geography: a meth-
odological examination Annals of the Association of Amer-
ican Geographers 43 226–49
Schumm S 1991 Interpreting the earth: ten ways to be wrong
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Sewell W R D, Kates R W and Phillips L E 1968 Human
response to weather and climate: geographical contribu-
tions Geographical Review 58 262–80
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
562
Skaggs R H 2004 Climatology in American geography
Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94 446–
57
Smith N 1987 ‘Academic war over the field of geogra-
phy’: the elimination of geography at Harvard, 1947–
1951 Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77
155–72
Strahler A N 1952 Dymanic basis of geomorphology Bulle-
tin of the Geological Society of America 63 923–38
Terjung W H 1976 Climatology for geographers Annals of
the Association of American Geographers 66 199–220
Thornes J E 1979 Constable’s clouds The Burlington Maga-
zine 121 697–704
Thornes J E 1981 A paradigmatic shift in atmospheric
studies? Progress in Physical Geography 5 429–40
Thornes J E 2008 Cultural climatology and the representa-
tion of sky, atmosphere, weather and climate in selected
art works of Constable, Monet and Eliasson Geoforum 39
570–80
Thornes J E and McGregor G R 2003 Cultural climatol-
ogy in Trudgill S and Roy A eds Contemporary meanings
in physical geography: from what to why? Arnold, London
173–97
Thornes J E, Bloss W, Bouzarovski S, Cai X, Chapman L,
Clark J, Dessai S, Du S, van der Horst D, Kendall M,
Kidd C and Randalls S 2010 Communicating the value
of atmospheric services Meteorological Applications 17
243–50
Thornthwaite C W 1931 The climates of North America:
according to a new classification Geographical Review 21
633–55
Thornthwaite C W 1961 The task ahead Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 51 345–56
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 37 547–562 2012
ISSN 0020-2754  2012 The Authors.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers  2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Marc Tadaki et al.
Tooth S 2006 Virtual globes: a catalyst for the re-enchant-
ment of geomorphology? Earth Surface Processes and
Landforms 31 1192–4
Tooth S 2009 Invisible geomorphology? Earth surface pro-
cesses and landforms 34 752–4
Trudgill S 2003 Conclusion: contemporary meanings in
physical geography in Trudgill S and Roy A eds Con-
temporary meanings in physical geography: from what to
why? Arnold, London 269–77
Urban M and Rhoads B L 2003 Conceptions of nature:
implications for an integrated geography in Trudgill S
and Roy A eds Contemporary meanings in physical geogra-
phy: from what to why? Arnold, London 211–31
van de Vliert E 2009 Climate, affluence and culture Cam-
bridge University Press, Cambridge UK
Viles H 2005 A divided discipline? in Castree N, Rogers
A and Sherman D eds Questioning geography: fundamen-
tal debates Blackwell, Malden, MA 26–38
Wagner P L 1957 The face of the earth Annals of the Associ-
ation of American Geographers 47 191–3
Ward R D 1906 The classification of climates: I Bulletin of
the American Geographical Society 38 401–12
Watsuji T 1961 [1943] Climate and culture: a philosophical
study Hokuseido Press, Ministry of Education, Japan
White G F 1945 Human adjustment to floods: a geograph-
ical approach to the flood problem in the United States.
University of Chicago Department of Geography
Research Paper, Chicago, IL
Williams L 1961 Climatology and geographers The Profes-
sional Geographer 13 11–15
Williams R 1981 Culture Fontana, London
Wohl E and Merritts D J 2007 What is a natural river?
Geography Compass 1 871–900