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research, policy relevance and critique as op-
posed to pedagogy. A self-styled ‘humanistic’
geography in the 1970s and 1980s (Ley and
Samuels, 1978) owed less to conventional hu-
manities study than to then fashionable psy-
chological theories and twentieth-century
phenomenology, but it openedhuman geog-
raphyto questions of perception and interpret-
ation that had long been associated with the
humanities (see humanistic geography).
Probably the most productive and widely read
contemporary practitioner of geography as a
humanity is Yi-Fu Tuan, whose autobiography
is explicit about his practice of geography as a
vehicle for self-understanding through reflec-
tion on the true, the good and the beautiful in a
world ofplacesandlandscapes(Tuan, 1999).
Many human geographers are profoundly
sceptical of the universalistic claims of ‘hu-
manity’ and the humanities’ focus on individ-
ual agency (both in subject matter and
authorship), and indeed many contemporary
scholars in the humanities have also sharply
questioned such traditional orthodoxies (see
post-structuralism). But recent critical and
cultural study within human geography signals
the discipline’s engagement in the conver-
gence of social sciences and humanities that
has emerged with the rejection ofpositivism
and the embrace of interpretive methods on
the part of the former, and acceptance of the
value ofsocial theoryon the part of the latter
(see also Gregory, 1994). The ‘cultural
turn’ has thus seen human geographers work-
ing with both materials and methods conven-
tionally associated with the humanities – for
example, the interpretation of texts and
images– although the ‘new’ cultural geography
represents an uneasy alliance between those
pursuing a traditionally social science agenda
and those who cleave to the more convention-
ally individualistic, reflective and pedagogical
concerns of the humanities. Still, that the As-
sociation of American Geographers could con-
vene a major interdisciplinary conference on
‘Geography and the Humanities’ in June 2007
says much about the salience of contemporary
conversations between the two, appropriately
enough, and hence about the continuing im-
portance of the humanities in geography and
geography to the humanities. dcoSuggested reading
Tuan (1996).hunger The right tofood– and relatedly the
right to not starve – represents one of the foun-
dationsofinternationalandnationalhumanandpoliticalrights. The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (1948), the International
Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (1964) and the UN Millennium
Declaration (2000) all refer to freedom from
hunger as a basic and inalienable human
right. The reality is, of course, very different.
According to the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), there are 854 million
people undernourished worldwide (FAO,
2006): 820 million in the developing world, 25
million in the transition (former socialist) coun-
tries and 9 million in the industrialized states.
Virtuallynoprogresshasbeenmadetowardsthe
Rome World Food Summit (1996) target of
halving the number of undernourished people
by 2015. There has been little change in
developing-world hunger since 1990–2. It is
true that the proportion of undernourished
people has fallen by three percentage points,
but the FAO projects that it is unlikely that the
UN Millennium Goal for hunger will be met.
The Near East, Southasiaand especially sub-
Saharanafricahave seen sharp increases in the
number of hungry people; currently, 33 per cent
of sub-Saharan Africa is undernourished.
povertyand hungerare very much partofthe
landscape of the twenty-first century. In the
periodsince1980,economicgrowthin15coun-
tries has brought rapidly rising incomes to 1.5
billionpeople,yetonepersoninthreestilllivesin
poverty and basic social services are unavailable
to more than 1 billion people. Nowhere is this
privationmorevividandpronouncedthanalong
genderlines.Ofthe1.3billionpeopleinpoverty,
70percentarewomen.Between1965and1988,
the number of rural women living below the
poverty line increased by 47 per cent; the corre-
spondingfigureformenwaslessthan30percent
(UNDP, 1996). A key measure of poverty is the
extent to which individuals are able to secure
sufficient food to conduct a healthy and active
life. By the conventional measure of hunger,
namely the FAO’s definition of household food
security (HFS) [‘physical and economic access
to adequate food for all household members,
without undue risk of losing such access’
(FAO, 1996, p. 50)], millions of people are not
household food secure. The FAO provides a
number of measures pertaining to food, hunger
and undernutrition. Currently, over 800 million
consumed so little food relative to requirements
that they suffered caloric undernourishment
(which often leads to anthropometric deficiency
and the risk of damaged human development).
Malnutrition (or undernutrition) refers to phys-
ical conditions that result from the interaction
of inadequate diet, poor food consumption,Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_H Final Proof page 359 1.4.2009 3:18pmHUNGER