Environmental Studies and Interdisciplinary ResearchAuthor(s): Brian GoodeySource: Area, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1970), pp. 16-18Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20000439 .

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Environmental Studies and Interdisciplinary Research Brian Goodey, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Birmingham

'You have accounted yourselves happy on being environed with a great ditch from all the world beside.'

Cromwell to Parliament, 25 January, 1658.

In resuscitating the idea of environment Kenneth Hare poses fresh questions and invites further comments on the role of geography in environmental studies.' The thrust of the argument, that geographers may contribute to lessening the threat of man's suicidal destruction of resources, commands our

assent, but the relevance of certain underpinnings of the argument is question able. Do we really need to devote more time and effort to identifying, demar cating and fortifying a private niche in environmental studies? Or is there really a case for reviving the historic tenets of Semple and Barrows to support our claims?

Any useful academic discussion on the environmental problem should not, surely be concerned with the roles of disciplines or with the 'proper' territory for one discipline, but rather with the links which might be forged between disci plines, between the research and teaching functions of an institute or department, between research and practice, and between practice and public participation.

Considering the size and nature of the belatedly recognised environmental emergency, disciplinary boundary patrolling could be interpreted as malingering in the face of a call to action.

Some geographers are at present actively engaged upon research into pressing environmental problems and Hare welcomes the emergence of environmental studies centres and programmes either directed by or employing geographers. It is surely inconsistent at this moment to condemn geography 'as a science that deliberately stays out of phase with the climate of the times. '2 Over the

past ten years we have seen at least two major trends develop in geography. Both have reflected and have been reflected in parallel developments in other social and physical sciences. The 'quantitative revolution' has brought method

ological rigour to all levels of geographical research and teaching, and by sharing models, programs and methods of analysis, geography has established links with other disciplines. Since the mid 'sixties we have also seen the emer

gence of what Gould has called 'behavioural geography' focusing on human

behaviour in, and especially perception of, the environment.3 Lowenthal, Saarinen and Brookfield have surveyed the range of studies bearing the, some times ill-fitting, 'perception' tag.4 Brookfield concludes that there will be much

more geographical investigation of 'perception' now that we recognize (or some

would say, rediscover) that 'decision makers operating within an environment base their decisions on the environment as they perceive it, not as it is.'5 Further evidence that geography is 'getting into phase with the climate of the times' comes from the United States, where after a good deal of argument, geographers are turning their attention to human problems in the urban environment. Rose's recent report on ghetto development illustrates this trend.6 We could also point

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Environnmental Studies and Interdisciplinary Research 17

to several studies in geomorphology, conservation and land-use analysis which are similarly directed towards the solution of pressing social problems.

But does the existence of this work provide an answer to Hare's questions? Probably not, for Hare questions the value of such studies to the development of geography as a discipline. He is disturbed because he can neither see a 'new, tough discipline for environmental studies' emerging, nor the intellectual profits which geography may derive from such a discipline. But should environ mental studies be a discipline with predominantly intellectual profits? Surely the largest share of profits should accrue to society through the improved perfor

mance of decision-makers in environmental management. In the public, as opposed to the academic, situation in which environmental

researchers must inevitably find themselves, the private claims of separate disciplines are possibly irrelevant to the purpose of the operation. Interdisci plinary research cannot prosper if the loyalties of each member still reside with a former department or profession. Interdisciplinary research on environmental problems demands loyalties to the truth and to society rather than to narrow academic compartments.7 There is need to improve communication between the various disciplines now associating with environmental studies rather than to define further boundaries between such disciplines. Discussing the nature of environmental studies, Wells has already provided instance of the gap which exists between geographers and psychologists when he notes that geographers' interests in environment will 'tend to include a smaller range of physical conditions (than for the biologist) and these may be treated without reference to any specific creatures living in them.'8 A truly interdisciplinary worker acknow ledges no arbitrarily defined disciplinary frontiers except those of his own limited competence. Ideally, Campbell sees each worker as part of a 'fish-scale' pattern of overlapping interests, rather than as a free-floating isolate who sometimes brushes and sometimes barges against one of his colleagues.9 On the subject of environmental studies as an interdisciplinary research focus, Dan sereau endorses Campbell's view.10 There is ample evidence to suggest that younger geographers are already in a position to contribute to a 'fish-scale' approach. Political geography, as recently outlined by Kasperson and Minghi, and by Cox retains a base in the traditional concerns of the field but also provides considerable overlap with political sociology and psychology.'1 In geographical ' perception' studies the related areas of architectural and environmental

psychology and proxemics are admitted without debate. Workers with a back ground in either the new political geography or in 'perception' studies would undoubtedly be a considerable asset to interdisciplinary environmental research. There is a growing realisation amongst young social scientists that disciplines are, at best, academic pigeon holes, and that argument concerning the exact dimensions of such holes is of little relevance to the problems which the societally oriented researcher encounters.

In his closing paragraph, Hare poses the $64,000 question with regard to any new approach to societal problems when he notes that 'academic ventures of this sort, responding directly to social demand, are simultaneously praiseworthy and dangerous.' Usually the academic, safe within the walls of his discipline, has chosen to applaud the praiseworthy from afar whilst pointing out that the danger is too great to risk the involvement of personal, departmental, or professional 'names'. The reader will no doubt be able to provide his own parallels in period and place for similar hesitancy to enter the arena of social

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18 Environmental Studies and Interdisciplinary Research

action. Ultimately, as with peace demonstrations, sit-ins, letters to the press, protests against misplaced authority, a decision to become involved must be both moral and personal. Interdisciplinary research must, of necessity perhaps, come under fire from all the sides that it seeks to link. Cullingworth notes that it must be 'independent-but not remote-from the area of action,'12 while

Donnison points out that the interdisciplinary worker must question the actions of decision-makers, 'even when their academic colleagues prefer to stop short at analysing a problem or exposing a scandal.'13

Geography, as a traditional academic discipline looking back to its achieve ments in the early twentieth century, would seem to have little to offer for the improvement of environmental conditions. In the past we have failed 'to

maintain constant and vital relations with the life of the community,"14 but in the new frameworks of environmental studies we are given a chance to develop these relations once more. The environmental crisis, even though it may be simplified for publicists, politicians and students, demands that we respond.

Notes and References 1. F. K. Hare, 1969. 'Environment: Resuscitation of an Idea', Area 1969/4, 52-5. 2. ibid., 53. 3. P. R. Gould, 1969. 'Metholodogical developments since the fifties', in C. Board and

others (eds.), Progress in Geography: International Reviews of Current Research (London, Arnold), 2-49.

4. D. Lowenthal, (ed.), 1967. Environmental Perception and Behavior (University of Chicago, Dept. of Geography, Research Paper 109); T. F. Saarinen, 1969. Perception of Environment, (Washington, D.C., Assoc. Amer. Geog. Commission on College Geography, Resource Paper 5); H. C. Brookfield, 1969. 'On the environment as perceived', in Progress in Geography, 51-80.

5. Brookfield, 1969. 76. 6. H. M. Rose, 1969. Social Processes in the City: Race and Urban Residential Choice (Wash

ington, D.C., Assoc. Amer. Geog., Commission on College Geography, Resource Paper 6).

7. T. Roszak, 1968. 'On Academic Delinquency', in The Dissenting Academy (New York, Random House-Vintage), 3-42.

8. B. Wells, 1965. 'Towards a definition of environmental studies: a psychologist's contri bution', The Architects' Journal Information Library, 22 September, 677-83.

9. D. T. Campbell, 1969. 'Ethnocentrism of disciplines and the fish-scale model of omni science', in M. and C. W. Sherif (eds.), Interdisciplinary Relationships in the Social Sciences (Chicago, Aldine), 328-48.

10. P. Dansereau, 1957. 'Resource Planning: a problem in communication', Yale Conservation Studies, 6, 1-4.

11. R. E. Kasperson and J. V. Minghi, (eds.), 1969. The Structure of Political Geography (Chicago, Aldine): K. R. Cox, 1969. 'The voting decision in a spatial context', in Progress in Geography, 81-117.

12. J. B. Cullingworth, 1969. The Politics of Research: An Inaugural Lecture (University of Birmingham), 17.

13. D. Donnison, 1969. 'Pressure group for the facts', New Society, 11 December, 935-7. 14. G. H. T. Kimble, 1945. The Craft of the Geographer (Montreal, McGill University), 19.

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