Recent  

The authors of this editorial call for a more consistent opening of population geography in epistemological, methodological and theoretical respects. They want to point out possibilities of connection to debates that have already found a firm place in other fields of human geography. At the same time, it is a concern to emphasize the necessity of continuously subjecting the discussion of the phenomenon of population to critical scrutiny, both within (human) geography and outside of it.

Halford J. Mackinder's heartland theory became one of the most popular and cited geopolitical concepts in the 20th century. Through a complex process of trans- and international reception and adaption, the theory lost its attachment to its original geographical and historical parameters. Its translation from text into a simplified representation in maps accompanied the process of popularization and made the theory an instrument of legitimizing political actions in the public sphere.

Scientific freedom involves three aspects: Freedom as power and privilege, freedom as a right of defence, and freedom as autonomy for self-regulation. But how to decide in science when science itself has marked all scientific criteria as contingent? At this point, the article proposes to acknowledge the decision-making challenges in science, to engage in theory-theoretical dialogues and thus to preserve autonomy.

At the end of XIXth century, French authors shared a posture that mixed admiration and criticism toward German science. Reference to Ratzel was used both for structuring human geography and feeding a struggle between geographers and other social scientists. Divergences with Ratzel’s work deepened during the war and lead geographers to revisit his key notion, Raum, by giving it a pragmatic sense in the light of pangermanism and interpreting it not as mere expanse but as a process of enlargement.

The cultural memory of Aleida and Jan Assmann has received little recognition in international geography. However, by focusing on the concerns of a geographical study of places of memory, it is possible to develop a spatially oriented conception of cultural memory spaces based on the assumption that places of memory cannot be a storage, but only an anchor for memories.

Policymakers and academics primarily discuss the use of data from Earth observation (EO) satellites by developing countries, to promote development, at a theoretical level. Accordingly, based on interviews and other methods, this paper looks at practices and experiences of researchers, who use such data in southwest Nigeria, arguing that we need to develop more collaborative and appreciative perspectives on science in developing countries to address our global challenges.

Drawing on qualitative research on the production and use of weather information for small-scale farmers in western Kenya in the context of a changing climate, this paper shows how navigating the uncertainties of the weather is enabled by a combination of scientific and experiential knowledge. Inspired by work in science and technology studies, I argue that these different forms of knowing should not be treated in opposition but as connected resources through which farmers relate to their world.

This article analyses the transformation of geographic, international legal and racial-biological relations within large-scale theories. The change in discourse implies the question of the extent to which geographical knowledge was relevant for the Nazi extermination policy; at the same time, the focus is on the shift from a description of human communities based on natural laws to an action-based programme of racial-biological homogenization.

The French geographers of the inter-war period considered the figure of Ratzel with admiration and criticism and tried to go beyond his work, and even to use it against his heirs, in particular the supporters of Geopolitik. Throughout the crises and world wars that gave him a persistent relevance, his image oscillated between that of a precursor scholar and a bad teacher of geography, largely responsible for Germany's excesses and territorial ambitions.

The text explains the main topics and conceptual arguments of the theme issue on the diverse reception of Ratzel's spatial theories in Italy, France, Germany and the USA. The focus is both on the different national academic traditions and on an interdisciplinary approach. The work and impact of Friedrich Ratzel between 1880 and 1945 are examined in the perspective of a history of transformation based on the history of knowledge.