Encyclopedia of Human Geography

Critical Human Geography

A disciplinary trend, critical human geography is the result of the growing influence of-and interest in-critical theory in the social sciences. This paradigm change in scholarly thought must be understood in relation to, and as the result of, historical and social conditions. Although critical human geography is an emergent paradigm at a global scale, the discussion here focuses on its development in Anglo-American geography.

The emergence of critical human geography is tied closely to the social tensions of U.S. and British politics during the late 1960s. In the United States, it was especially the impact of the civil rights movement and the reaction to the Vietnam War that resulted in various forms of social critique and protest. In academia, this trend translated into the influence of a wide array of theoretical developments. Among them were Marxist critiques of capitalism, the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, French poststructuralism, post-colonial theory, feminist thought, ...

—Olaf Kuhlke