What is critical physical geography?
Critical physical geography combines critical attention to relations of social power with deep knowledge of a particular field of biophysical science in the service of eco-social transformation. CPG’s central claim is that our environments are as much the product of unequal power relations, histories of colonialism, and racial and gender disparities as they are of hydrology, ecology, and climate change. Understanding our field sites thus requires careful integrative work to render these deep interconnections between biophysical and social systems legible.
CPG has three key tenets:
- Landscapes and hydroscapes are deeply shaped by structural power relations that in turn draw on biophysical characteristics and processes, co-producing inextricably eco-social systems.
- These same structural power relations also shape how we study eco-social systems, affecting the questions we ask (or ignore), what we consider to be persuasive evidence, who is considered a legitimate researcher, and even our results.
- Our research process and the knowledge we produce have deep impacts on the people and landscapes we study. Our choice thus is not between being political or apolitical but among different possible political commitments
This is not a new project: there is a long history of research that attempts this kind of integrative work in fields such as biogeography, climatology, economic geography, geomorphology, and soil science (e.g., Thornes 1981, Vale 1982, Denevan 1992, Zimmerer 1994, Massey 1999, Rhoads et al. 1999, Turner 1999, Lane 2001, Clark and Richards 2002, Urban and Rhoads 2003, Engel-Di Mauro 2006, etc.). One initial goal for CPG was to build visibility and intellectual community by pulling that work together under one umbrella. An equally important goal was to provide institutional cover for people wanting to conduct critical integrated research, especially students and junior scholars.