The Dictionary of Human Geography

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Post-structuralists (seepost-structuralism),

following Foucault (1980a [1976]), argued

that the coherent, independent subjectivity re-

quired for conscious agency is an epiphenom-

enon of discourse: there is no prior

ontologicalself but, rather, a sense of self-

hood is an effect of discourse. The ‘self-

contained, authentic subject conceived by hu-

manism to be discoverable below a veneer of

cultural andideologicaloverlay is in reality a

construct of that very humanist discourse’

(Alcoff, 1988, p. 415). Others have critiqued

the intentionality ofhumanismand structura-

tion theory where agency is equated with ac-

tion, thus assuming intentionality and capacity

to act. As a result, some have investigated

psychoanalyic theoryto expose the motiv-

ations behind actions, to reveal thatsubjects

are not entirely self-aware and self-fashioning

agents. Feminists have reacted more power-

fully topostmodernand post-structural pro-

nouncements of the ‘death of the subject’,

wondering whether this had occurred just

when the male, white, subject might have had

to share its status with those formerly excluded

from agency (see Fox-Genovese, 1986; Mas-

cia-Lees, Sharp and Cohen, 1989: see also

global warming).

The structure–agency debate continued

through the discipline’scultural turn, with

some fearful that the favoured discursive ap-

proach represented a new determinism that

denied individual agency – see the debate be-

tween Duncan and Duncan (1996) and

Mitchell (1995). For others, the privileging

of discourse was an over-interpretation of

agency, which regarded people as overly the-

oretical beings in their own decision-making.

As a result, some have turned to ethno-

methodology and non-representational

theoryapproaches in an attempt to record

human agency without imposing the inten-

tionality of discourse (Thrift, 1997c).

Another dimension of the debate over

agency concerns the extent to which humans

are the only active or creative agents. Trad-

itional cultural geographers challenged the an-

drocentric accounts of early agriculture by

suggesting that certain plants andanimals

may ‘elect’ to live near humans rather than

human subjects knowledgeably selecting spe-

cies for domestication. Others have offered

theoretically more sophisticated accounts of

the effects of non-human actors. Haraway

(1992, p. 331) suggests broadening our under-

standing of the place of agency, arguing that

non-humans ‘are not actants in the human

sense, but they are part of the functional col-

lective that makes up an actant’, and has

developed this in terms of the ‘cyborg’subject.

Whatmore’s (2002a) ‘more-than-human’

geography similarly highlights the agency of

a variety of objects (seeactor-network the-

ory), and has offered an image of anetwork

of capable, but not necessarily conscious,

agents. jsh

Suggested reading

Duncan and Ley (1982); Giddens (1984); Thrift

(1997c); Vidal de la Blache (1926); Whatmore

(2002a).

human ecology This term is in some ways

as suggestive as it is substantive, at least from

the standpoint of contemporary sensibilities in

the geographical tradition of studying human–

environment relations. Specifically, the term

carries an almost seductive appeal in promis-

ing transcendence of the pervasivenature–

societydualisms that are widely noted and

of considerable contemporary preoccupation

in explorations of the geographies of socio-

natures, techno-natures and the like (see, e.g.,

Haraway, 1997; Swyngedouw, 1999). And in-

deed, to the extent that the term is actually

invoked by contemporary geographers, it is

typically in the context of research on the

human origins and implications of environ-

mental change, and on the complex interrela-

tions between societies and the biophysical

resourcesandsystemsonwhich thesesocieties

rely. For example, in their discussion of factors

shaping social vulnerability to globalclimate

change, Bohle, Downing and Watts (1994) in-

voke ‘human ecology’ to refer to highly specific

relations between society and nature, but with

emphasis on the ways in which ‘... social or-

ganizations and [social] reproduction (encom-

passing, for example, population growth) have

direct implications for sustainability and how

the environment is experienced in terms of

riskand threats ...’ (p. 40). Notably, they

reject the mere application of ecological con-

cepts and methods to the study of human popu-

lations. Similarly, Bassett (1988) refers to

human ecology [specifically human ecologists]

in much the same way; that is, a concern with

the articulations between human populations

and key biophysical resources (somewhat con-

sistent with the term ‘political ecology’).

References to ‘human ecology’ should, how-

ever, be accompanied by knowledge of its

polyvalence, not least as a product of the

term’s history of usage by geographers and

non-geographers. This history can be traced

at least to the early twentieth century, when

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HUMAN ECOLOGY