Quantitative Geography: Representations, Practices, and Possibilities
Quantitative Geography: Representations, Practices, and Possibilities
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定量地理学：表征、实践和可能性
DOI：
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发表时间：
2001
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通讯作者：
E. Sheppard
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作者：
E. Sheppard
数量地理学的代表，无论是从业者还是其他人，都倾向于将量化与实证主义，实证主义以及社会和学术现状联系起来。质性地理学则相反，它被认为是非经验主义或后经验主义，对复杂性、情境敏感，能够赋予非主流的学术方法和社会群体以权力。试图在这些立场之间进行辩论的尝试很少挑战这种二元论，将定量地理学的表述再现为逻辑实证主义，并将定量地理学和定性地理学分开。我认为，通过解构潜在的代表性，这种二元论可以被打破。我讨论了为什么这种代表性出现，它是如何稳定的;如何密切关注定量地理学家的实践，特别是这些实践的演变，揭示了它的不足之处;以及从这种解构中出现了什么新的定量实践的可能性。地理信息系统，最近的表现形式之一，周围的表示数量地理学的混乱，被用来作为一个案例研究，以说明这些论点。我特别注意的问题，解放人文地理学的定量实践的相关性。
Representations of quantitative geography, both by practitioners and by others, have tended to associate quantification with empiricism, positivism, and the social and academic status quo. Qualitative geography, by contrast is represented as nonempiricist or postempiricist, sensitive to complexity, contextual, and capable of empowering nonmainstream academic approaches and social groups. Attempts to engage in debate between these positions rarely challenge this dualism, reproducing the representation of quantitative geography as logical positivism, and a dualism separating quantitative and qualitative geography. I argue that this dualism can be broken down, by deconstructing the underlying representation. I discuss why this representation came into existence and how it was stabilized; how close attention to the practices of quantitative geographers, and particularly to the evolution of these practices, reveals its inadequacies; and what new possibilities for quantitative practices emerge from this deconstruction. GIS, one of the recent manifestations around which representations of quantitative geography polarize, is used as a case study to illustrate these arguments. I pay particular attention to the question of the relevance of quantitative practices for an emancipatory human geography.