Cultural Geography

REANIMATING CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY 185

of geographical inquiry as the study of ‘areal

differentiation’, requiring attention to unique

assemblages of phenomena (natural and human)

that seemingly create distinctions between differ-

ent regions of the earth. This apex – ‘regional

geography’ – was reached through integrating

findings of ‘systematic geographies’, synthe-

sized with reference to particular areas.

Hartshorne portrayed animal geography, allied to

zoology, as one such systematic subfield of

geography.

Thus through this first half of the twentieth

century animal geography was an active if small

portion of the discipline. Two approaches to the

field were clearly articulated, reflecting the widen-

ing divide between physical and human geography.

First was zoögeography, focused mainly on animal

distributions, and rooted in physical geography,

zoology and the emerging science of ecology.

Second was a culturally oriented geography of

animals, focused on animal domestications,

grounded in human geography and social sciences.

Zoögeographers, typically affiliated with

physical geography, focused on geographic

distributions of animals, and determinants of

distributional patterns at both small and large

scales, incorporating notions of space, spatial

patternsand spatial relationsinto their research.^1

Core questions related to where different types of

animals live – breed, forage, migrate, give birth –

and determinants of animal distributions such as

climate, topography, hydrology, soils and

vegetation, other fauna, and species-specific

habitat preferences. The approach was conven-

tionally scientific, utilizing field techniques,

mapping procedures, quantitative analyses,

hypothesis testing and model specification. The

ambition was to establish general zoögeographi-

cal laws of how animals (populations and

species) arranged themselves across the earth’s

surface, or at smaller scales, to establish patterns

of spatial covariation between animals and other

environmental factors.

Zoögeography rarely contributed directly to

debates about animal interactions with human

society. But zoögeographers were not unconcerned

about anthropogenic influences on animals,and in

turn what animals might mean to people. Cansdale

thoughtfully explored the relations between animals

and humans in terms of ‘competition,conflict,

Figure 9.1 New World monkeys (from M.1. Newbigin,Animal Geography, 1913)

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