GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION AND EVALUATION OF ITS SCOPE
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Introduction
The role of geographer has been questioned by Royal Geographical Society (RGS). The whole frame is based on the studies of geography as a practical field to estimate its implication for the students, who are competent in this field and might take it further as a profession in future.
RGS attempts to target the competent,experienced professionals who excel in applying geographical knowledge, with sheer dexterity in the workplace. As a result, an evaluation on modern geography has been proposed by RGS to survey the views of students and to evaluate the option of geography being taken as a profession.
Thus, this essay aims to cover the critical analysis of what phenomenon geographical imagination implies for and how it can be adopted in abroader perspective as a profession by the people who have considerably vast knowledge in this domain.
Geographical Imagination
Human, as a seeker of epistemology, experiences diverse philosophies in relation to his/her comprehension of landscapes, power, idiosyncrasies, pressure, environment, cultures and meanings of colossal territories as a part of life.
The mixture of these aspects can be aligned in a terminology called ‘Geographical imagination.’Tateo, (2016) illuminated the relationship between imagination and reality by considering them co-constructive rather than opposition to each other.
This link laid the ground to understand the transition which happened during the process of imagination and led towards tangling the threads of rationalism. This statement clarifies the fact that imagination sets the first base of cognitive processes.
Tateo(2016) further supported it with the fact that imagination is the higher mental function thatconstitutes the world for us and we strive to experience it. This is the first step of thought process. Geographical imagination is a way to perceive the world.
It shapes the distinct images of places, cultures, societies and people in an individual mind that add experientially to the understanding of human mind. Furthermore, Gieseking (2016) elaborated the concept that the geographical imagination explored the ways to enquire the influence of assumptions,expectations,and stereotypes attributed to space and place, and traced the major causes of why and how werethey linked.
The author also highlighted the significance of individuality in the world as every human being possessed strikingly different cognitive abilities which tailored in shaping their personalities based on their perceptions and experiences.
In 2016, David Harvey stated that geographical imagination is a habit of human perception that enables geographers to identify the role of space in their own regions and how it affects people. On further exploring the idea of Harvey, geographers studies the deep link between their ‘own place and ‘others place’.
Moreover, it has been observed that in past, geographers have the significant contributions in addressing awide variety of issues which are related to different territory like,how political factors influence the ethnic relations of any society.
Nature and Significance of Core Knowledge of Geography
This notion offers to explore the scope of geographical imagination beyond the full range of different domains such as adopting it as a practical field, classifying it in different categories including physical geography.
As Daniels (2011),unearths the nature of this field and presented his knowledge by elaborating the nature of this discipline.According to him, it is particularly shaped by the imagination and itsinterpretationto enhance the geographical skills.
Specifically for modellinglandscape, symbolism, reconstruction of theenvironmentand multiple modes of mapping.The authorfurther explained that geographical imagination has the capacity to relate the things metaphorically to reshape any larger field conceptually,to bridge the physicality to the mental world.
Referring aforementioned ideas,Daniels (2011) further explained that geographical imagination is a process which is used to specify a way of thinking about the world for the categorisation of its places and to maintain the relationship of ‘our’ and ‘other’ places.
By exploring the nature of geographical knowledge, its impactsbecome evident which shows that,geographic research advocates in framing distinctiveness of any territory to address a range of social issues andpolitical identities, which are based on the specific place and construct the societal identity of that particular place.
James (2011) while explaining the character of John Akin in his book’Religious Dissent and the Aikin-Barbauld Circle’, emphasised on the connection of geographical imagination with its social and natural relation with life and land to justify the characters behaviour.
He supported the idea that study of geographical imagination provides a new perspective on the importance of social and cultural aspects of a family circle as well.
Knox and Martson (2013) talked about the inter relationship of human geographers and the capacity of their geographical imagination. Knox defines human geography as a broad and dynamic discipline that deals with its objective approach and traditions to reflect the changing world.
Geography has been facilitatingin avariety of contexts to bring the societal improvements in the world. One of the domains, where the contributionsof geography are prominentis science discipline. Geographers contributed a lot in terms of advancing the frontier knowledge andworked out several significantinsights needed for the society’s wellbeing (RGC, 1997).
Geographers advocate in understanding the phenomenon of world-integration and how places are interdependent on each other. Geographic thinking and approach broaden understanding the scientific theories.
For instance, the way geography produces the substantial informative datarequired for the integration and significant analysisof a place, provide an integrative perspective to understand scientific theories of distinctiveness of places and environmental-societal dynamics (RGC, 1997).
Moreover, geographical knowledge focuses on the connection between social and environmental resource with its population to explore the nature of this connection by collecting data to identify and analyse the constant changes of environment, population and social responses for the purpose of sustained population growth.
In addition, geographical knowledge is required to study the flow of material and energy resources to estimate the powerful impact of human use of theenvironment. As the science of human-environment relationship has emerged as a priority concern for all the disciplines, geographers may contribute in providing significant insights of contemporary climate changes and global environmental change.
Geographic research based on integration in place is important for the scientific understanding to highlight the important societal issues, like ecosystem change, economic heath and conflict and cooperation. Furthermore,Kuus, (2016) considered geographical sensibility as cultural knowledge which is practised by foreign policy professional to the political space of distant place………………………continued
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