Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Coming Home, Risa Palm

Geosciences Faculty Publications

This address argues that human geographers should be eclectic in method and open to a variety of data sources but should frame our research so as to integrate micro- and macro-level observations. To do this, we must focus on the mutual effects of agency and structure. We should under­ stand the interactions between people and environment as being neither random nor law-given but rather the combination of historical circumstance of both long and short duration, confining and yet not determining human behavior. This approach has the power to return geography to its intellectual home, an openness to the world in …