Social Geography

Social geography is commonly understood in the Anglo-American tradition as a subdiscipline of human geography, partially separate from others such as economic, political, and urban geography. In this way, social geography is recognized as a specialty that concentrates on the social differences, groups, and relations that interact with (and shape) the spaces in which we live. Within some European traditions, social geography has been understood differently as a more overarching and synthetic enterprise, an undertaking that draws together many of the dimensions studied in other subdisciplines (e.g., population, land use, cultural practices) to show the rich sociospatial composite that is produced as people build up layers of social life in a given place, territory, and landscape. In other cases, social geography has not developed as a strong component of human geography. Nonetheless, since the end of World War II, social geography has become increasingly popular and relevant in many Western settings as geographers mapped and planned for postwar progress and then turned to recognize the[Page 431] spatial occurrence of social problems and injustices such as poverty and racism. Geographers have used different theoretical approaches to investigate social issues; thus, as with other subdisciplines of human geography, we can observe the effect of spatial science, humanistic, Marxist, feminist, and postmodern or post-structural approaches. Across this diversity, social geography provides a key way in which to identify and explain the differences that transect a society (e.g., class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity) and the negotiations people must make in their everyday lives as these differences shape, and are shaped by, the spaces in their lives. Future social geographies will continue these traditions and add new considerations of ethics, morals, emotions, posthuman perspectives, and further materialist and action-oriented possibilities.