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Файл:Fundamentals of Geography. Study guide
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The Earth's Biosphere
51
no more than 0.1), therefore, the biological cycle is the most intense here (Kovda,
1985). The biological cycle, including inanimate components in its numerous
cycles contributes to the reproduction of plants and animals, thereby greatly influencing the appearance and condition of the biosphere.
The oxygen cycle. Its biochemical cycle is a planetary process making us consider the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere together (Fig. 12). Free oxygen
supports life, but it is also a product of the vital activity of organisms.
Fig. 12. The oxygen cycle in the biosphere (according to Vronsky, 1991)
The oxygen cycle in the biosphere is very complex, as it has many different
chemical forms and is part of many compounds of mineral and organic origin.
The process of oxygen production and release during photosynthesis by green
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plants (especially a lot of it is released into the atmosphere of the temperate forests of the northern hemisphere) is opposite to the process of its consumption by
heterotrophs (animals) during respiration. A small part of oxygen is also formed
during the dissociation of water molecules in the upper atmosphere under the
influence of ultraviolet radiation. Oxygen is also consumed for oxidative processes in the earth's crust, during volcanic eruptions, etc. It has been estimated
that it takes about 2000 years to completely renew all atmospheric oxygen. However, human activity (deforestation, burning of fossil fuels, pollution of atmospheric air by anthropogenic toxicants) began to have a negative impact on the
biogeochemical oxygen cycle.
Progress check test
1. Part of the biosphere (according to V. I. Vernadsky) is a substance that arose
as a result of the joint activity of living organisms and stagnant processes (weathering crust, soil, etc.):
a. inert substance
c. living substance
b. biogenic substance
d. bioinert substance
2. In the biosphere, one of the types of vegetation has only 30–35 species:
a. gymnosperms
c. angiosperms
b. Equisetophyta
d. fern-like
3. According to the degree of organization, living organisms are divided into:
a. prokaryotes, eukaryotes
c. flora and fauna
b. stenobionts, eurybionts
d. producers, consumers
4. The slowest link (the activity of matter is 8000 years) of the water cycle in
the Earth's biosphere:
a. soil moisture
c. polar glaciers
b. surface water
d. groundwater
Project tasks
1. Define the word "Biosphere"; compare it with the definition given by E. Suess.
2. Compare the biomass of living organisms living on continents and in the oceans.
3. Describe the oxygen cycle in the Earth's biosphere.
53
T O P I C 7
Co u ntr y stu d ies as a s c i enc e
Country studies have become the main field of geography since they were
considered as an academic subject at the end of the 19th century. However, the
roots go back to ancient times, in fact, country studies are the oldest branch of
geography that emerged in the ancient world and was brought to life by the practical needs of people who were trying to understand various countries. Strabo
and Herodotus mentioned choreography (description of localities) as a separate
branch of geography. However, today few scientists are ready to call themselves
"country scientists".
In Russian science, the following definition of country studies has been accepted.
Country studies is a discipline in the system of geographical sciences that
deals with the comprehensive study of continents, countries, and large areas
(Mironenko, 2001). Country studies show how common patterns and typological
features are manifested in particular territories, brought respectively by physical
geography and economic geography. In European science, regional geography is
meant as regional geography (Mashbits, 1998).
In Russian scientific thought there is an area of regional studies that is partly
linked with country studies – the study of factors of development of territorial
communities, foreign policy, geographical, economic, socio-cultural, confessional
and other regional groups, countries and their regions.
Modern country studies are classified as geographical (general) country studies and sectorial sections: linguistics, political, military, tourism, etc. (Kosolapov,
2005). Within each section, both theoretical and practical aspects of the discipline
exist, develop, and rest upon basic elements, theory, practice, experience and
a colossal information database, having been accumulated by traditional general
country studies.
According to the object of study, large and smaller regional studies sections
are recognized:
− Oriental studies (including Sinology, Vietnamese Studies, as well as Afri-
can Studies and others);
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− European Studies (including Caucasian studies and others);
− American Studies (including Latin American studies and others);
− Ocean Studies (including Australia studies, Hawaiian studies and others).
Further, we will discuss the evolution of the field of regional studies, its role,
methods, approaches and significance.
The approaches of country studies can help in research, whether they work
with the concept of a region as a theoretical idea or with regional topics related to
urbanism (for example, cities-regions), political geography, cultural geography
(for example, regional identity) or economic geography (Mashbits, 1998).
A variety of approaches causes some uncertainty among scientists. In the late
1960s, Roger Michell identified key methodological problems solved by country
studies scientists (country desk officers) in very different ways: namely, searching
methods, defining, displaying and describing areas and regions. This uncertainty
goes back to the history of the discipline. Some scientists believe that since the
mid-30s there have been almost as many concepts of country studies as there have
been geographers of country studies.
Indeed, it is obvious that the discussions about the idea of the region itself
provided one basis for justifying the existence of geography as an academic discipline and, consequently, the term "country" has become the main symbol of identity of the region, the symbol that is often taken for granted in research. For many
scientists country studies, therefore, was simply an academic discipline that served
as a guarantee which didn’t allow other academic disciplines to engulf geography.
The focus of methodological problems has dramatically changed since new
concepts of countries-regions constantly appeared in the 1960s (Mironenko,
2001). In addition, while the notion of a specific "geographical region" lost its
importance in academic geography after World War II, the conceptualization of
the definition of a country-region constantly motivated geographers. The Hand-
book (a guide) on geography of countries and territories, published in 2018,
clearly demonstrated the multidimensionality of regional terminology. The authors of this book compiled a list of at least 150 concepts describing the countries
and regions of the 21st century.
Initially, geographical regions were defined in two different ways: from small
units to larger ones, and vice versa. The idea of a geographical region was not as
narrow as the idea of a "natural region", which was used in many countries before
World War II. This idea was most clearly described by A. J. Herbertson (1865–1915)
Country studies as a science
55
in the book, which described approaches to identify large-scale natural countries
using primarily climate indicators. This is an idea based on the supposed existence
of "natural boundaries".
This exploitation of the natural basis for the delimitation of regions was also
manifested in political geography, where scientists discussed the so-called "natural
boundaries". This idea could be found even in political practice, when State leaders and military authorities sought to negotiate, establish and protect such borders
through diplomacy and war.
It was believed that regions and their borders were imposed by nature, and
bordering regions were considered as organisms that expand in the same way as
biological organisms. Although the concepts of natural boundaries have been rejected, world textbooks on country studies and textbooks on cultural geography
still remind us of the tendency to divide the earth's surface into such large-scale
components, and their authors often rely on some macro-scale regional structures
to simplify the management of complex extensive material. Such attempts are also
common in the field of research, in the following word combinations: for example,
the global south, Latin America, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa or Europe.
The task of country studies geographers to identify regional spaces is related
to regionalization and regionalism. Regionalization as a practice of allocating regions by dividing or combining spaces is always important both in regional planning and in the management of public life in space.
Think, for example, about the current tendency to scale state spaces, which has
been manifested in devolution, in the merger of territorial units, or in efforts to
create and strengthen supranational institutional regional agreements, such as the
EU or NAFTA.
Similarly, regionalism, originally cultural and political movement based on
regional characteristics and interests, is often based on regional knowledge, and
sometimes on the ideas of a particular region: its unity and identity. Regionalist
parties and movements usually transform such ideas into political practice and
often fight for autonomy or independence, either peacefully or through conflicts. Regionalism has also been and remains a significant source of motivation
for art (painting, literature, architecture). It has also been an important source
of inspiration for many traditional geographers. Unlike traditional regionalism,
which turned inward, the "new regionalism" (regional reforms) had a more open
character, often being a tool for economic and regional development strategies
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in the world in which public administration and power relations are undergoing
large-scale changes. Both concepts of regionalism and regional reforms are social practices that combine political-geographical, regional-geographical aspects.
The most significant and permanent place for the application of regional
knowledge, however, was education and the formation of a geographical
worldview on academic, educational and social levels. This knowledge was part
of a broader social process.
Country studies courses are included in curricula at all levels of educational
system and occupy a strong position in the academic environment and in the market of schooling as well as in university textbooks in geography.
In European culture, historically, the driving force was not only enthusiasm
of teachers or professionals, but also interests of government and military officials, political leaders and nation builders who drew the world's attention to such
concepts as the environment both in social reproduction and formation of national identity. When geography appeared in university programs at the end of
the 19th century, the main ideological prerequisites for this step were nationalism
and colonialism; it was simply considered that geographical knowledge was crucial for such ideologies. Thus, geographical education was accepted not only as
an intermediary, but also as means of building and reproduction of regional and
national territories, national stereotypes and ideologies, and sometimes images
of the "enemy".
Thus, country studies are closely linked with public and political power.
The need to study national stereotypes was recognized by UNESCO after the
Second World War. This topic is closely linked with cartography. Probably, in no
other field of geography was the power of maps as obvious as in country studies.
Country–oriented representations and narratives are always based on certain variants and simplifications and allegedly make the regional worlds they represent
more objective. This effect is especially important when these worlds are mapped;
the maps fix them as clearly timeless and "stop" the historical process which is
actually taking place in the region. Local history education and maps effectively
create and reproduce the image of identity among cultures and limited spaces,
thereby creating a sense of "us" ("here") and "others" (or "them, there"). Thus,
maps are a key tool for naturally marking the boundaries between cultures and
cultural heritage.
Country studies as a science
57
The combining and homogenizing process of complex cultural relations in
some spaces has been sharply criticized by geographers and anthropologists over
the past few decades.
The development of modern country studies in the world.
The definition of country studies has been a controversial issue in history.
R. V. Dickinson defined it as the unification of various spatially distributed phenomena in a certain area, either it is a local territory, country or a continent in the
1970s. He argued that the task of a country scientist is to discover integration processes which give a certain degree of identity and uniqueness to the region.
When mapping is involved, regional consciousness and the names of regions
are important for him. Regional consciousness and identity have been important
issues, especially among geographers of continental Europe, until recently. These
issues have become increasingly important both in politics and in European strategic planning since the beginning of the millennium, partly because the EU Commission headed by Romano Prodi recognized regional identity as one of the cornerstones of regional policy and economic development policy.
Unlike the current situation, when Anglo-American theories and approaches
are considered to be dominating in the international geography of mankind, the
origin of country studies in Great Britain and North America (especially in the
USA) largely reflected the developments of Germany and France. Hugh Clout
notes that in the UK, majority of the teachers of the geography departments of the
1930s and 1950s got inspiration from the country geography of the French classical geographers. Paul Vidal de la Blache (1845–1918), the founder of modern
French geography, considered country studies as the core of the discipline.
In France, the perfect ideas for popular regional monographs at that time were
small regional places corresponding to a certain type of landscape, and the close
relationships between people formed by their physical habitat and lifestyle. It was
assumed that such combination made regional identity and identification stronger,
which local people noticed. The study of such unique regions was considered as
a key task for a geographer. French geography was characterized by a relatively
high degree of unity before the Second World War, and was based on the predominant influence of Vidal. Vidal's approach to country studies was inductive and
historical, but some other contextual approaches were more theoretical.
Some key representatives of horological thought, such as Alfred Hettner
(1859–1941) in Germany, Richard Hartshorn (1899–1992) in the USA and many
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other scientists in Germany, Russia, Japan, Belgium and Switzerland built their
concepts on the of division of labor.
Hettner (1927) and Hartshorn (1939) were inspired by Immanuel Kant’s
(a philosopher (1724–1804)) works on the classification of sciences, where he
wrote about the difference between geography and other fields of science, along
with history, arguing that it didn’t not have any specific object of research that
would define its own field. According to Hettner and Harsthorn, geography has an
"exceptional" mindset, observing the world in space, and history in time (Hartshorne, 1948).
For horologists, regional geography was an opportunity to apply geographical
method: that is, the study of the natural and human world in accordance with their
spatial differentiation; they emphasize the "areal" differences between regions, as
well as mapping, describing and explaining the cause-and-effect relationships that
appear in different combinations of phenomena within (and actually constituting)
different regions. Accordingly, the region was considered to be the central element
of the discipline's identity as a synthetic field, and also a tool for analyzing the
differentiation of the earth's surface.
Hettner's theoretical ideas supposed a close connection between regional and
systematic geography, and his reasoning about geography as a horological science
paved the way for research of many scientists. Unlike their French colleagues,
German geographers did not primarily study Germany and its territories, but often
conducted regional studies abroad.
Geographers spent a lot of time thinking about the fact whether country studies was a true "science" or should it be considered more as a form of "art" or applied geography (Hart, 1982).
This discussion characterized the pre-quantitative tradition of geography that
was generalized by Hartshorn in the late 1950s. He argued that the regional concept or regional method should not be confused with what we usually call country
studies, since the former is usually used in all aspects or at all levels of geographical research, from the study of the most elementary integrations (the "systematic" approach) to the study of maximum integration (the "regional" approach).
In France, classical country studies have become important. The practice of
country studies was viewed as a complex task in which scientific knowledge, cartographic skills and literary art were combined. Some scientists, such as Hermann
Alfred Kirchhoff created a mechanistic multilevel scheme for country studies.
Country studies as a science
59
Another German, Hans Spemann spoke about a dynamic regional geography emphasizing the forces which changed the regions.
Regional geography was closely related to another key category – landscape.
While in English landscape (scenery) is primarily a visual category, in German and
Scandinavian understanding, for example, region and landscape are combined in
categories such as Landschaft or Landskap. This idea has also been adopted by some
historical geographers in other countries. The most striking example in the USA is
Carl Ortwin Sauer (1889–1975), who suggested that geographers trace the areal
connections of the transformation of natural landscapes into cultural landscapes.
The relationship between the region and the landscape brings up an issue of
art in its artistic or aesthetic representation. These issues have been discussed by
many authors, for example, in France, England, Germany and Finland (Gilbert,
1988). This topic was particularly important in German geography, perhaps describing the dominant continental hermeneutical and interpretive philosophical
tradition, as well as the importance of neo-Kantianism. At the very least, there
were German geographers, such as Ewald Bahnse (1833–1953), who argued that
creative geography should be artistic, and he even made a small book on geography and expressionism in 1920. The outstanding German geographer Alexander
von Humboldt also recognized the importance of artistic description. Similarly,
the father of political geography Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904) discussed the role
of art in understanding nature in his work. Gilbert (Great Britain) suggested that
country studies is an art comparable to other arts; both poetry and painting can
depict landscapes. He also suggested that if geographers were going to make regions bright and lively, they really needed to have a kind of sensual imagination
of poets and artists. Hartshorne was much more categorical and argued that a description made in geography should include a considerable degree of art, not in the
sense of subjective impressions, but in an objective sense (Hartshorne, 1948). The
artistic nature of country studies has been discussed by a large number of scientists. Later it became especially important in "literary geography", where novels
and poems are the most important materials and sources of inspiration in the efforts of geographers to represent and understand regional diversity, regional identity and socio-spatial life.
Decline of traditional country studies.
The fate of the country study scientist changed in different countries after the
Second World War. In the USA and Great Britain, systematic approaches based
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on new theoretical, quantitative methods, statistical data processing soon became
dominant in the analysis of rapidly industrializing and urbanized capitalist states
characterized by human mobility.
This resulted in reduction in research, devoted to limited regional spaces in
country studies. The decline of country studies was based on several factors, in
addition to social changes. Human geography received new applied, more instrumental forms (Gregory, 1978). Along with the emergence of systematic approaches in geography, the development of quantitative methods and the adoption
of positivist philosophy, representatives of this “new type” of geography also for-
mulated critique ideas of country studies. The old concerns about subjective judgments hidden in the methods of country studies and the "incestuous", inward-looking exclusive approach were raised to a new level when they were combined with
the philosophical statements of the positivist concept regarding the exact paths to
give scientific explanations. As a result, the traditional geographical perspective
associated with the details of regions has now been challenged by generalizing
spatial science, separated from the "concrete geographical basis". Instead, it was
proposed to study abstract spatial relationships, networks, and forms of interaction
in order to recognize common patterns supposedly operating everywhere, rather
than unique and seemingly static material features of limited regions.
In his text posthumously published in1953, Fred K. Schaefer, a refugee from
Nazi Germany in the United States, challenged the descriptive regional-geographical approach and suggested that as long as geographers cultivated its systematic
aspects, the prospects of geography as an independent discipline were good. But
he was not so optimistic about the situation when geographers rejected the search
for laws, reflected only regional aspects for their own sake and limited themselves
to a simple description. In the same vein, in 1971, Ronald Abler and his co-authors
wrote in their “Spatial Organization: A Geographer's View of the World” that for
a long time geographers were inclined to believe that internally homogeneous regions based on one or more spatial features existed despite the principles that had
defined them. They argued that further progress depended on generalization and
analysis at levels beyond simple classification. The new spirit according to which
scientists emphasized the importance of distances, models, and relative spaces also
spread to geographic departments outside the US and the UK. This shift is regarded as the most significant revolution in the history of geography (Jones and
MacLeod, 2004). Abler et al. suggested that he had discovered an almost infinite
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