the term can be applied to early patterns of
landholding and husbandry that entwined
groups of cultivators into communities of
mutual or common interests through their
use of landedresources. In studies of the
historical geographyofeurope, particular
attention has focused on the manner in which
the intermixture of land between landholders
has taken the form of strips or parcels. Other
themes that loom large in defining such
systems are the extent to which the system
possessed a communally regulated system of
cropping, or the degree to which arable cultiv-
ators possessedrightsin common over the
cultivated area after harvest. Analysis of such
systems has also been linked to the nature of
land tenureand the extent to which individ-
ual ownership of land prevailed. Debates sur-
round the extent to which communal systems
of tenure and their associated field systems are
seen invariably to predate those based upon
enclosed fields held in severalty. In consider-
ing open field systems, emphasis might be
placed on the way in which individual’s hold-
ings or strips of land were distributed over
larger fields subject to rule-based cropping
practices that were generated internally by
the cultivators themselves or imposed by out-
side agencies such as landlords, or formed a
means ofriskminimization to ensure that
cultivators had lands under different crops on
variable soil types, or whether they were
incompatible with effective and efficient agrar-
ian management. Such systems have formed
the basis of debates inpolitical economy
about the benefits of individual over commu-
nal tenure. The debate over theenclosureof
open field systems into enclosed fields and
associated scattered free-standing farms man-
aged without reference to communal rules and
regulations has played a prominent place in
the timing of theagricultural revolution
(Allen, 1992). Other scholars have focused
on the supposed social consequences that
may have flowed from enclosure and how the
removal of access to communal grazing, post-
harvest gleaning and the right to collect fuel
and other food resources from commons
turned smallholder peasants into rural prole-
tarians (Neeson, 1993). rms
Suggested reading
Neeson (1993).
fieldwork A means of gathering data that
involves the researcher in direct engagement
with the material world. Once based in the
enlightenmentassumption that ‘reality’ was
out there available for straightforward appre-
hension, fieldwork is now recognized as a
more complicated mode of learning that pro-
duces situated knowledgeabout people,
processesandplaces. While this perspective
may be seen as a hindrance in positivist
approaches to human geographical research
that seek to neutralize the researcher and
aspire to statistical generalizations, many now
recognize the strength of self-reflexivityand
the necessarily partial nature of the informa-
tion collected. The two modes of scholarship
endure in fieldwork, and the epistemological
tensions between them can be daunting (e.g.
Sundberg, 2003: see alsoepistemology).
Field research has a long history inhuman
geography. Since antiquity, much of it has
been associated with imperial projects, and
thus involvedexploration, mapping and the
taxonomic categorization ofresources– ani-
mal, plant, mineral and human. But fieldwork
is also a means to examine the relationships
between people and their environments, the
material social practices of place-making, the
productions of natureand the sedimenta-
tions of these relationships in diverse historical
geographies. Fieldwork in this regard has had
a more ambiguous and contested relationship
with the discipline – pitting observational
against theoretical knowledge and sometimes
challenging received ways of knowing (cf.
Driver, 2000). Its multiple strands include
the ‘stout boots’ tradition of British geography
and Sauerian cultural geography in the
USA (Delyser and Starrs, 2001; cf. Withers
and Finnegan, 2003). Evolving from a natural
history tradition, wherein physical evidence
was collected in and from the environment,
fieldwork of this nature focuses onlandscapes
as evidence of differentiated, sequential and
uneven human occupance; seeking relation-
ships and patterns in their production and
persistence. Many of the field methods associ-
ated with these traditions are rooted in obser-
vation. The taken-for-grantedness of seeing as
well as its reliance on unmarked ‘vantage
points’ has been subjected to a thorough
critique asmasculinist, because its claims to
objectivity rest on unstated hierarchies,
detached observers and distancing assumed
adequate to reveal hidden dimensions of the
scene (Barnes and Gregory, 1997b; Rose,
1997b; Sundberg, 2003). Given these con-
cerns and other limits of traditional
approaches to fieldwork, including its inter-
ested nature, unsustainable assumptions
regarding the distinction betweennatureand
culture, and the tendency to focus on visualGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_F Final Proof page 251 31.3.2009 1:20pmFIELDWORK