Geographie der Hybriden

Abstract

If human geography is conceived as a social science (but not as a science of space or landscape), then the ontological question how matter, meaning and social structures exist becomes a fundamental problem for geography that has to be reflected permanently. In this respect, applying a language pragmatics perspective, this article proposes a non-dualistic and non-metaphysical ontology. Discussing authors like Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway, a general form of relational thinking will be developed. Regarded from within this frame any attempt to maintain transcendental epistemological categories is doomed to fail. Consequently the categorical separation of nature and culture cannot be maintained any longer. By losing the status of objects of research, nature and culture are also deprived of their ability to legitimate the academic division of labour. Therefore, taking into account the co-existence of different living beings and inorganic processes, this text provides some starting points for the necessary development of alternative conceptions of nature, culture and society. If the academic division of labour, particularly the distinction between physical and human geography, cannot be derived from a given object of research, then it should result from (a) different research interests, (b) the competition for scarce resources, and (c) from a differentiation of empirical research methods corresponding to the physical and mental abilities of different beings. From within this perspective it seems possible to bring physical and human geography closer to each other without falling back into a united discipline of social mechanics or landscape hermeneutics, which would not respect the methodological difference between social- and natural sciences.