firms actually do with respect to the setting up
or closure of plants is best understood in this
broader context ofpolitical economy. There
has recently been a revival of interest in
aspects of location decision-making, however,
including the learning process and corporate
strategy with respect torestructuring. The
work of Schoenberger (1997) emphasizes rec-
ognition of the significance of cultural factors
to the operation of the firm.
Other aspects of human geography in
which the decision-making perspective
assumed importance include response to
environmental hazards(e.g. Kates, 1962),
residential choice (e.g. Brown and Moore,
1970), shopping behaviour (e.g. Rushton,
1969: see alsorevealed preference analy-
sis) and the decision to migrate (e.g. Wolpert
1965). Again,neo-classical economicswas
originally influential, the concept ofplace util-
itybeing an obvious geographical extension of
the theory of consumer behaviour. While qual-
ities ofplaceas people evaluate them do influ-
ence decisions including locational choice or
movement, there are many other consider-
ations of a fortuitous and seemingly irrational
nature. Indeed, geographers can easily exag-
gerate the spatial element in decision-making.
Research involving qualitative methods
has sought a more sensitive understanding of
how people assign meaning to various aspects
of life and how decisions follow from this. For
example, the decision to seekhealth care,
involving the coverage of distance, is influ-
enced by culturally specific conceptions of
the meaning of illness, personal and shared
experience of being ill, assessment of the bene-
fit likely to be derived from the doctor’s advice
based on past contacts, the felt need for treat-
ment or reassurance, and so on. Such work
helps to set the spatial aspects of decision-
making and taking in a broader context,
getting away from crude notions of human
behaviour as some stimulus–response mech-
anism and allowing greater scope for the way
meaning is interpreted and translated into
action. Work in the earlier tradition is now
part of the discipline’s history rather than
important to contemporary practice. dms
Suggested reading
Chapman and Walker (1991); Hayter (1997);
Malmberg (1997); Smith (1981 [1971], Ch. 5);
Wolpert (1964).
decolonization The process, often long,
tortuous and violent, by which colonies
achieve their national aspirations for political
independence from the colonial metropolitan
power (cf. nationalism). Decolonization
can be understood as the period of later colo-
nialism (Chamberlain, 1985). Moderncolo-
nialismcovers the period from the fifteenth to
the twentieth centuries, and hence decoloniza-
tion is uneven in its geography and history. In
the New World, which had been subjected
to Spanish, French, Portuguese and Dutch
colonial rule in theFirst Age of Colonialism,
the first wave of decolonization occurred in
the eighteenth century. In this regard, the so-
calledClassical Age of Imperialismin the last
quarter of the nineteenth century was short,
the first decolonizations of the second wave
being achieved after the end of the Second
World War. The two cycles ofimperialism
both concluded with a limited phase of decol-
onization, followed by the rapid collapse of
empiresand an irresistible push to political
independence (Taylor, 1994b).
The first challenge to the first wave of
imperialism came in 1776, as British North
American colonies declared independence.
While Britain maintained its Caribbean and
Canadian colonies, the Napoleonic upheavals
in Europe so weakened Spain and Portugal
that European settlers from Mexico to Chile
expelled their imperial masters. By 1825, the
Spanish and Portuguese empires were dead
(cf.latin america). In the subsequent 115
years up to the Second World War, decolon-
ization was limited to Cuba in 1898 and two
groups of British colonies: the white settler
colonies (Canada, Australia, New Zealand
and South Africa) granted internal autonomy
and finally full sovereignty in 1931, and Egypt
and Iraq after the First World War. The
Second World War marked the death knell
foreuropeancolonization: India’s separation
from the British, Indonesia from the Dutch,
and the remaining Arab mandated territories
and Indo-China from the French. The inde-
pendence of Ghana in 1957 marked an
avalanche of liberations in africa,though
the process was not complete until 1990
(Namibia). Between 1945 and 1989, over one
hundred new independentstateswere created.
Decolonization is a process marked by the
achievement of political independence, but
the duration, depth and character of decolon-
ization movements vary substantially. In some
African colonies, colonization was barely
accomplished, and resistance movements of
varying degrees of organization and institution-
alization attended the entire colonial project.
In other cases, an organized anti-colonial and
nationalist movement came late, accompaniedGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_D Final Proof page 145 1.4.2009 3:15pmDECOLONIZATION