The Dictionary of Human Geography

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V

value-added A process that adds value (as

reflected in price) to some commodity.

Typically, value is added when labour is

applied to a material, transforming it into

something more useful (cf.marxist econom-

ics). Value can be added sequentially, at dif-

ferent stages in the production process, as

material is turned into a component, which is

added to others to make a finished article,

which is then packaged and marketed, for

example. A value-added tax usually applies

a fixed percentage to the price of a good or

service; this discriminates against poorer

people, who pay the same tax as the rich when

they purchase the same thing. dms

values The principles or standards inform-

ing individual or group ideas and beliefs.

Geographers have considered values held by

both individual geographers concerning their

subject-matter, and by individuals and groups

concerningsocietyandnature. The evolu-

tion of debate over values in geography reflects

different associations of the term, whether

social, economic, political, environmental or

moral. There is, however, common rejection

of the separation of fact from values; in par-

ticular, the promotion of fact as self-evident

and value-free inempiricism.

Values were a central question forhumanis-

tic geographyin the 1970s. Anne Buttimer’s

Values in geography (1974), produced for

the Association of American Geographers’

Commission on College Geography, sug-

gested that geographers consider the values

motivating and informing their analyses: ‘the

present time is in many ways ripe for the

expression of our caring presence to the world

via an authentically lived profession of geog-

raphy’ (Buttimer, 1974, p. 15). Buttimer

reflected upon her own values, informed by

personal history, Christianity andexistential-

ism, and their shaping of geography as ‘one

of the regions of my care’ (Buttimer, 1974,

p. 4). Discussion of values shaping earlier

and current geographical thought, and their

consequences for disciplinary identity and

geography’s engagement with the wider world,

followed. Buttimer assertedphenomenology

and existentialism as approaches placing val-

ues at the centre of human experience.

Responses from Blaut, Gibson, Ha ̈gerstrand

and Tuan supplemented and critiqued

Buttimer; in its presentation of debate,Values

in geographyoffers a fine insight into questions

then shaping human geography. In 1996,

Progress inhuman geographyaccorded it the

status of a ‘classic’ text; Buttimer reiterated its

relevance while regretting the ‘extremely

anthropocentric bias in the whole discussion’

(Buttimer, 1996, p. 518). The human valuing

of the non-human had, however, informed

other humanistic geographies, as in Burgess

and Gold’s collection Valued environments

(1982), which highlighted the human creation

of worlds of meaning, whether around public

symbols or fields of everyday care: ‘the close

and enriching affective bond between people

and the environments they create, inhabit,

manipulate, conserve, visit or, even, imagine’

(ibid., pp. 4–5).

Environmental values have remained an

important subject for human geography, as in

recent work onanimalsandmoral geogra-

phies. Smith (2000a) addresses the role of

intrinsic, anthropocentric and biocentric values

in debates over environmentalethics. Harvey

(1996) offers a contrasting perspective on the

valuing of environment, connecting values and

monetary value. Wary of conservative appeals

to values as a realm of permanence and stabil-

ity, Harvey seeks ‘to replace the fixed idea of

‘‘values’’ with an understanding of ‘‘processes

of valuation’’’ (ibid., p. 11), and pursues a

dialecticalunderstanding of values and soci-

ety: ‘Values inhere in socio-spatial processes,

and the struggle to change the former is simul-

taneously a struggle to change the latter

(and vice versa)’ (ibid., p. 12). The process

through which nature is valued – whether

through supposedly inherent value, monetary

value ormetaphor– becomes a nexus for

understanding and intervening in the relations

of society and environment (ibid., ch. 7).

Discussion of values is here, as elsewhere,

shaped by the definition of the term employed,

and must be understood in relation to the

political and social imperatives shaping an

author’s work. dmat

Suggested reading

Buttimer (1974); Harvey (1996).

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_V Final Proof page 797 30.3.2009 7:45pm