Tuan, Yi-Fu (1930–)

The works of the Chinese American geographer Yi-Fu Tuan represent a major contribution to geographical scholarship. His huge corpus of writings reflects a humanistic-geographical approach that in the 1960s and 1970s went against the grain of positivistic studies that were reflected in the so-called quantitative revolution.

Tuan was born in Tanjin, China. The work of his father, a diplomat, required the family to move frequently between continents, and Tuan was educated in China, Australia, Britain, and the United States. For much of his early life, therefore, his “home” was rarely static; he never lived in one place for more than 5 yrs. (years) until he was 38 yrs. of age, when he became based at the University of Minnesota. He completed his academic career at the ...