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Environmental Determinism
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Environmental determinism, also known as climatic determinism or
geographical determinism, is the belief that the physical environment
predisposes human social development towards particular trajectories. A
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century approach to the study of geography
argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in
the physical sciences. Geography, therefore, became focused on the study of
how the physical environment affected, or even caused, human culture and
activities. At the time that this field was expanding it's knowledge, practices and
theories, it allowed for geographers to create "scientific justification for the
supremacy of white European races and the naturalness of imperialism". A
prominent member in the study of environmental determinism, Ellen Churchill
Semple, chose to apply her theories in a case study which focused on the
Philippines, where she, "sought to map the distributions of 'Wild', 'Civilized' and
'Negrito' peoples on the topography of the islands". From Semple's works, other
members within the field of study were able to find reasonable evidence to
suggest that, "the climate and topography of a given environment" would cause
specific character traits to appear in a given population, "leading geographers to
feel confident on pronouncing on the racial characteristics of given
populations." The use of environmental determinism allowed for states to
rationalize colonization, by claiming that the peoples within the given land were
"morally inferior", therefore legitimizing exploitation. Consequently, the use of
this theory in explaining, rationalizing and legitimizing racism, ethnocentrism
and development, has been strongly criticized, and in recent years, has become
mostly obsolete."
Historiography
Origins
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Environmental determinism's origins go back to antiquity, where it is first
encountered in a fifth-century medical treatise ascribed to Hippocrates: Airs,
Waters, Places. In Roman times it is, for example, found in the work of the
Greek geographer Strabo who wrote that climate influences the psychological
disposition of different 'races.' Some in ancient China advanced a form of
environmental determinism as found in the Works of Guan Zhong (Guanzi
管子), perhaps written in the 2nd century BCE. In the chapter "Water and
Earth" (Shuidi 水地), we find statements like "Now the water of [the state of]
Qi is forceful, swift and twisting. Therefore its people are greedy, uncouth, and
warlike," and "The water of Chu is gentle, yielding, and pure. Therefore its
people are lighthearted, resolute, and sure of themselves."
Another early adherent of environmental determinism was the medieval AfroArab writer al-Jahiz, who explained how the environment can determine the
physical characteristics of the inhabitants of a certain community. He used his
early theory of evolution to explain the origins of different human skin colors,
particularly black skin, which he believed to be the result of the environment.
He cited a stony region of black basalt in the northern Najd as evidence for his
theory:
"[It] is so unusual that its gazelles and ostriches, its insects and flies, its foxes,
sheep and asses, its horses and its birds are all black. Blackness and whiteness
are in fact caused by the properties of the region, as well as by the God-given
nature of water and soil and by the proximity or remoteness of the sun and the
intensity or mildness of its heat."
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The Arab sociologist and polymath, Ibn Khaldun, was also an adherent of
environmental determinism. In his Muqaddimah (1377), he explained that black
skin was due to the hot climate of sub-Saharan Africa and not due to their
lineage. He thus dispelled the Hamitic theory, where the sons of Ham were
cursed by being black, as a myth. Many translations of Ibn Khaldun were
translated during the colonial era in order to fit the colonial propaganda
machine. The Negro Land of the Arabs Examined and Explained was written in
1841 and gives excerpts of older translations that were not part of colonial
propaganda. Ibn Khaldun suggests a link between the decline of Ghana and rise
of the Almoravids. However, there is little evidence of there actually being an
Almoravid conquest of Ghana. Ibn Khaldun also anticipated the meteorological
climate theory later proposed by Montesquieu in the 18th century. Like
Montesquieu, Ibn Khaldun studied "the physical environment in which man
lives in order to understand how it influences him in his non-physical
characteristics." He explained the differences between different peoples,
whether nomadic or sedentary peoples, including their customs and institutions,
in terms of their "physical environment-habitat, climate, soil, food, and the
different ways in which they are forced to satisfy their needs and obtain a
living." This was a departure from the climatic theories expressed by authors
from Hippocrates to Jean Bodin. It has been suggested that Ibn Khaldun may
have had an influence upon Montesquieu's theory through the traveller Jean
Chardin, who travelled to Persia and described a theory resembling Ibn
Khaldun's climatic theory.
Environmental determinism rose to prominence in the late 19th century and
early 20th century when it was taken up as a central theory by the discipline of
geography (and to a lesser extent, anthropology). Clark University professor
Ellen Churchill Semple is credited with introducing the theory to the United
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States after studying with human geographer Friedrich Ratzel in Germany. The
prominence of determinism was influenced by the high profile of evolutionary
biology, although it tended more to resemble the now-discredited Lamarckism
rather than Darwinism.
Decline
Between 1920 and 1940, environmental determinism came under repeated
attack as its claims were found to be severely flawed. Geographers reacted to
this by first developing the softer notion of "environmental possibilism," and
later by abandoning the search for theory and causal explanation for many
decades. Later, critics charged that determinism served to justify racism and
imperialism. The experience of environmental determinism has left a scar on
geography, with many geographers reacting negatively to any suggestion of
environmental influences on human society. Some believe this rejection has
gone too far, and that incorporating environmental factors into explanations of
social outcomes is not only useful but necessary.
The fundamental argument of the environmental determinists was that aspects
of physical geography, particularly climate, influenced the psychological mindset of individuals, which in turn defined the behaviour and culture of the society
that those individuals formed. For example, tropical climates were said to cause
laziness, relaxed attitudes, promiscuity and generally degenerative societies,
while the frequent variability in the weather of the middle latitudes led to more
determined and driven work ethics and thus more civilized and 'stronger'
societies. Because these environmental influences operate slowly on human
biology, it was important to trace the migrations of groups to see what
environmental conditions they had evolved under. However, since evolutionary
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processes manifest over very long time periods, the ability to adequately
correlate human behaviour with any specific environmental condition is
speculative at best, and impossible at worst. Key proponents of this notion have
included Ellen Churchill Semple, Ellsworth Huntington, Thomas Griffith
Taylor, and possibly Jared Diamond or Philip M. Parker. Although Diamond's
work does make connections between environmental and climatic conditions
and societal development, it is published with the stated intention of disproving
racist and eurocentric theories of development.
While this accurately reflects the popular belief and perception in the
geographic community towards environmental determinism, the debate was
overlaid with hues of gray. Rostlund pointed out in his essay in Readings in
Cultural Geography: "Environmentalism was not disproved, only disapproved."
He also points to the fact that the disapproval was not based on inaccurate
findings, but rather a methodological process which stands in contrast to that of
science, something the geographers have arguably sought to ascribe themselves
to. Carl O. Sauer followed on from this in 1924, when he criticized the
premature generalizations resulting from the bias of environmentalism. He
pointed out that to define geography as the study of environmental influences is
to assume in advance that such influences do operate, and that a science cannot
be based upon or committed to a preconception."
A variant of environmental determinism was popular among Marxists,
employing the dialectical materialism concept of history. To Marx's basic model
of the ideological and cultural superstructure being determined by the economic
base, they added the idea that the economic base is determined by
environmental conditions. For example, Russian geographer Georgi Plekhanov,
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argued that the reason his nation was still in the feudal era, rather than having
progressed to capitalism and becoming ripe for the revolution into communism,
was that the wide plains of Russia allowed class conflicts to be easily diffused.
This Marxist environmental determinism was repudiated around the same time
as classic environmental determinism.
Revival
The late 20th century saw a revival in environmental determinism as a branch of
the new, broader study of environmental history. This has been helped by the
quantitative revolution in geography and demography by authors such as
Braudel, and several popular accounts such as the works of Jared Diamond.
Critics, however, suggest that the so-called "neo-environmental determinism"
resurgence will promote harmful policies and should not merit scholarly
discussion.
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