Geography as holistic discipline: theoretical and empirical reflections
Keywords:
Geography, environment, transdisciplinarity, intrinsic value, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.Abstract
This article answers the call to transcend the traditional divisions between the social sciences, the natural sciences and the humanities. It highlights how geography as a discipline has internalized many of the most recent theoretical and empirical contributions by the sciences and the humanities in a transdisciplinary effort to better understand socio-environmental reality. The article proposes Robert D. Sack’s theoretical framework (1997, 2003, 2010) as an alternative to provide theoretical coherence and practical relevance to this intellectual potpourri. By showing some parallelisms between the framework’s conceptualization of reality and those proposed by the “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment” (2003) and several influential intellectuals, the author highlights that this non-reductive framework, has the potential to open our eyes to the range of possibilities at our disposal to move beyond both the overwhelming market triumphalism and the disorienting relativism that dominate our current public and intellectual discussions.
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