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Geography, sociology, anthropology for starters. Take a read about postmodern epistemologies. See how many papers draw on "pure theory". I even saw this in my r
by peatmoss 2y ago
Geography, sociology, anthropology for starters. Take a read about postmodern epistemologies. See how many papers draw on "pure theory". I even saw this in my required coursework prior to dropping out of a PhD in urban planning.
- greentxt 2y ago[flagged]
- AlotOfReading 2y agoThe parent post talks about "recent years". Postmodernism being in any way dominant hasn't been a thing (in American universities) since the late 80s or maybe early 90s. The common approach these days is theoretical pluralism.
- felixgallo 2y agocan you point to a specific example of a geography program turning away from the scientific method? I've seen postmodernism and deconstructivism applied to architecture and rhetoric, but as convoluted and ultimately non-explanatory as I found them, they were still based in the formal ideas of cause and effect, and experimental approaches to theories.
- peatmoss 2y agoWithout diving into my personal experiences with a specific department, I invite you to take a look at google scholar for peer reviewed publications grounded in theory approaches such as queer theory and critical theory in geographic studies: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C48&q=queer+theory+critical+theory+geography&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C48&q=que... Also please note that me calling these theories non-scientific is not a colloquial dig at them. I'm speaking precisely that the literature contributing to these theories explicitly and frequently opposes the scientific method as a tool of oppression. Even though I believe in (bounded) rationality, I do agree with this viewpoint in part. Science, as practiced by fallible humans, can be used for bad things! But, where I disagree with critical theory and its children, is that this somehow delegitimizes scientific epistemology. A specific publication I remember reading years ago as an assigned reading cites, as a limitation of the paper their use of the Cartesian plane in mapping, as the Cartesian plane is incompatible with queer theory: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00045600701734042 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/000456007017340...
- felixgallo 2y agothe existence of a couple of papers that some people got published doesn't meet the bar of a discipline turning against the scientific method. Could you please try again?
- peatmoss 2y agoDid you bother to click the google scholar link? Several dozen pages of results that fit the mold and you call it "a couple of papers"? I don't want to assume you are trolling, but seriously.
- felixgallo 2y agoyour link was simply for a google search for 'queer theory critical theory geography'. Because 'geography' is an overloaded word that both refers to a formal discipline about the physical world (mapping, terrain, elevation, boundaries, borders, GIS) and also the concept of exploratory investigation in analytical thinking, the search finds a lot of earnest cases of people talking about the concepts of gender, some cases about whether geography-as-a-subject is over-fixated on imperial origin, and to my counting, zero cases of geography as a discipline abandoning the scientific method. So your initial assertion remains unconvincing. Please feel free to name a specific department if that helps. It's easy to make fun of some of the overwrought academic papers that are out there. Nevertheless if you're a huge fan of the scientific method and rigorous thinking, as you seem to claim that you are, then making your own overwrought and specious claims about the issue is not a way to solve the problem.
- peatmoss 2y agoHow do you imagine that literature searches are conducted in academic studies?
- felixgallo 2y agothey aren't just google search term count presented as evidence, if that's what you're asking.