For verification of this paper, please visit on http://www.socialresearchfoundation.com/shinkhlala.php#8

Geographical studies employ various approaches to understand the Earth's physical and human phenomena. Here are some common approaches in geography:

Physical Geography: This approach focuses on the natural elements of the Earth, including landforms, climate, vegetation, soil, and ecosystems. Physical geography examines processes such as erosion, weathering, plate tectonics, and the distribution of natural resources.

Human Geography: Human geography explores human activities, their spatial patterns, and their impact on the environment. It includes topics such as population distribution, migration, urbanization, cultural landscapes, economic activities, and political systems.

Regional Geography: Regional geography studies specific regions, examining their unique characteristics, spatial patterns, and interactions. It analyzes the physical and human features of a particular area, including its environmental conditions, cultural practices, economic activities, and political dynamics.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS): GIS involves the use of technology to collect, analyze, and visualize spatial data. It enables geographers to create maps, study patterns and relationships, and analyze complex geographic phenomena.

As for the stages of thrust or focal points in geography studies, the discipline has evolved over time, and different geographic paradigms have emerged. While the specific stages can vary based on theoretical frameworks and individual interpretations, here are some broad stages of focus in geography:

Environmental Determinism: In the early stages of geographic studies, there was a prominent focus on environmental determinism. This approach suggested that physical environment and climate largely determined human behavior and societal development.

Possibilism: Later, the possibilism perspective emerged as a reaction to environmental determinism. It argued that while the environment influenced human activities, humans had the ability to adapt and modify their environment based on their cultural, technological, and economic choices.

Humanistic Geography: Humanistic geography emphasized the subjective experiences and perceptions of individuals in relation to their environment. It focused on the study of sense of place, cultural landscapes, and the meanings attached to specific locations.

Critical Geography: Critical geography challenged traditional approaches and examined the social, economic, and political power structures that influenced spatial patterns and inequalities. It analyzed issues such as globalization, capitalism, social justice, and the impacts of colonization.

It's important to note that these stages represent general trends and are not exhaustive or mutually exclusive. Geography is a dynamic discipline, and contemporary geographic studies often combine elements from multiple approaches, integrating physical and human perspectives to gain a holistic understanding of the Earth and its complexities.

‘Critical theory is a term coined by Max Horkheimer in 1937 to describe the work of the Frankfurt School (Buchanan, 2010). From then on, its meaning and scope have begun to broaden gradually and now it is an umbrella term mainly used in social sciences, humanities and art studies. It sees the events, phenomena, developments and processes in social world with/through critical lens not basing them on meta-narratives and grand-theories which have firm ontological and epistemological foundations (Crotty, 1998). Meta-narratives could be generally found in positivism, Marxist theory or the Western-oriented Enlightenment. Critical theory and researches tend to be found across all social disciplines blurring the discipline boundaries as drawing on multiple sources. Critical theorists learned to interpret the particular with an eye on the totality (Bronner, 2011). That’s, theorist tries to see the particular in its totality and setting. Critical theory does not mean to criticize everything or in Tyson’s terms critical theory is not fault finding (Tyson, 2006) as its name may imply. It has developed mostly in reaction to modernism, meta-narrative, economic determinism in Marxist theory and foundationalism. It stands against foundationalist ontology, epistemology and methodology. Critical theory can be seen as precursor to postmodernism as Zuidervaart (2015) has suggested. Despite the time span between the two, they share many similar characteristics such as contextuality, historicity and theory-leadenness of any given phenomenon or explanation. Critical theory dates back to 1930s and has developed over time aiming to deal with institutions, culture and society through critical lens. Currently, critical theory-based research designs and research paradigms inspire a large number of books, articles especially in qualitative researches due to their beneficial outcomes for the vulnerable, the poor and the othered segments of society with which critical researches are mainly concerned.In the study, firstly it was described critical theory and critical research characteristics. Secondly, human geography and critical research relationships covered. Thirdly, human geography courses in geography teaching departments in Turkey explained in connection with critical theory. The relationships between these courses, critical theory and critical research were tried to explore. The study emphasized the importance of critical theory in courses in human geography considering far-reaching effects of critical theory on humanities, social sciences and art studies. Human geography has and should have close connections with other disciplines and sub-disciplines drawing on multiple theories, concepts and approaches.’[1]

‘Though Nordic geography could be considered as a community of practice, it has certainly not developed in a vacuum and there have been important theoretical and philosophical exchanges, not only among geographers within the Nordic region but also with geographers situated elsewhere. Particularly in the early history of institutionalised Nordic geography the discipline was strongly influenced by German geography. But later inspirations have also come from particularly French, British and Anglophone North American geographers. Meanwhile, Nordic geographers of the past and the present have occasionally made impressions well outside the Nordic region.’[2]

‘Theory, in my view, is what defines an academic discipline. When we study a particular geographical phenomenon, we can go about describing it in great detail and accuracy, much like the heydays of regional geography prior to the so-called ‘quantitative revolution’ in the 1960s (Barnes and Farish, 2006). Theory was not the core concern then in regional geography; accurate and comprehensive description was. Equally, we can re-present the pattern(s) and process(es) of this geographical phenomenon in stylized models and theories that ‘abstract’ their essence from the empirical details or ‘mess’, much like what the young Harvey (1969: 486) was advocating as ‘controlled, consistent, and rational, explanation of events’. To Harvey (1969: 46–47), this a priori reduction of explanation to variation in the laws of mechanics is a ‘mechanical’ or ‘mechanistic’ explanation.’[3]

‘Marxist ideas had little influence in human geography until the 1960s when a younger generation of geographers became increasingly frustrated at the inability of contemporary geographical theory to contribute to the pressing social problems of the day. Key issues, such as racial tensions in US cities, the Vietnam War (symbolizing the imperialism of US foreign policy), gender inequalities, and the rediscovery of poverty in inner-city ghettos, were largely absent from geographical research, leading David Harvey to call for a revolution in geographic thought: The quantitative revolution has run its course, and diminishing marginal returns are apparently setting in … There is an ecological problem, an urban problem, an international trade problem, and yet we seem incapable of saying anything of depth or profundity about any of them.’[4]

‘Geography is a discipline with a diversity of subfields, including cartography and GIScience as well as human, physical and nature-and-society geography. Despite the enduring debate on whether geography should be an idiographic (aiming to produce phenomenal/declarative knowledge) vs. nomothetic (aiming to develop general principles and theories) discipline, geography has witnessed dramatic specialization within its subfields over the past two decades. This specialization might enable scholars to develop in-depth understandings and techniques that better address the issues faced in respective subfields under particular contexts or conditions. These specializations may lead to topical overlap with scholars from other disciplines with whom they still differ by their geographical imagination and approach. Thus, there is a need for geographers to articulate general principles and analytical frameworks that are held in common across the diverse subfields in geography to both better articulate what is common to geography and how it is different from other disciplines and approaches.’[5]

The study is designed on the basis of the secondary data available on the various sites of internet that provide research journals with quality research papers therein. The conclusion is drawn on the basis of the study of the approaches of Geography.

There are two main approaches to geographical studies:

Systematic approach studies a particular phenomenon in detail, regardless of its location. For example, a geographer using a systematic approach might study the distribution of earthquakes around the world.

Regional approach studies a specific region of the world, and examines all of the different phenomena that occur in that region. For example, a geographer using a regional approach might study the geography of the Middle East.

The stages of thrust of geography studies are:

1. Descriptive geography was the dominant approach in geography until the early 20th century. It focused on describing the physical and human features of the Earth's surface.

2. Analytical geography emerged in the early 20th century, and it focused on understanding the relationships between different geographic phenomena.

3. Quantitative geography emerged in the 1950s, and it used statistical methods to analyze geographic data.

4. Critical geography emerged in the 1970s, and it focused on the social and political dimensions of geography.

5. Humanistic geography emerged in the 1980s, and it focused on the human experience of place.· 

These are just some of the major approaches and stages of thrust in geography studies. The field of geography is constantly evolving, and new approaches and perspectives are being developed all the time. In addition to the two main approaches mentioned above, there are also a number of other approaches that are used in geography studies.

Spatial analysis is the study of the spatial patterns and relationships of geographic phenomena. GIS (Geographic Information Systems) is a computer-based technology that is used to store, analyze, and visualize geographic data. Remote sensing is the use of technology to collect data about the Earth's surface from a distance. Geographic modeling is the use of mathematical models to simulate geographic processes. These are just a few of the many approaches that are used in geography studies. The field of geography is a vast and complex one, and there is no single approach that can be used to study all of the different aspects of the Earth's surface.

Geography is one of the sciences where everything connects. Geographers take a phenomenon and apply various methods to find out how it affects the societal or natural systems. Take a forest for example, what is a forest to you, a collection of species of plants and animals, a place to go hunt in, a place where you relax, a place you maybe fear as you are not familiar with it, or maybe you see forest as ecosystem service, that provides all of the above and more, lumber, food, medicinal plants, safety for animals, CO2 capture, hiking paths etc.

Geographers look at mundane things and place them in context. Geographers can for example look at the locations where the malls are and find out through GIS research how much CO2 emissions are produced by using those, and where should new one be built to minimise the effect. Geographers study volcanoes, and in addition to the obvious physical questions, they can ask how it has affected the local culture and life around it.

Geographers study humor, the differences in humor between places, and ages. How humor can shape our worldview.

1. https://www.quora.com/Is-geography-a-major-subject-of-the-humanities 2. https://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-a-person-studies-geography-What-does-a-geographer-do 3. https://www.quora.com/Most-students-think-that-geography-memorizes-the-names-and-locations-of-countries-cities-capitals-rivers-etc-But-geography-is-so-much-more-than-that-How-are-you-going-to-discuss-this-subject-engagingly 4. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-geography-a-unique-subject 5. https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-approaches-of-geographical-studies-What-are-the-stages-of-thrust-of-geography-studies 6. https://www.quora.com/How-does-geography-affect-population-distribution-Why-is-the-study-of-geography-important 7. https://www.quora.com/What-two-major-approaches-can-be-used-to-study-geography 8. https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-approaches-to-the-study-of-behavioral-geography

1. Münür Bilgili-Critical Theory-Based Approaches in Geography Teaching Departments in Turkey, Journal of Education and Training Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2; February 2018
2. Peter Jakobsen, Erik Jönsson & Henrik Gutzon Larsen- Geographies and Theories of Geography: An Introduction, Socio-Spatial Theory in Nordic Geography pp 1–13, 31 May 2022
3. Henry Wai-chung Yeung- What kind of theory for what kind of human geography?, Dialogues in Human Geography, Volume 9, Issue 3, 2020
4. A. Cumbers- International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2009
5. Daniel Sui & Matthew Turner- General theories and principles in geography and GIScience: Moving beyond the idiographic and nomothetic dichotomy, Annals of GIS, Volume 28, 2022 - Issue 1: General Principles Analytical Frameworks in Geography/GIScience, Pages 1-4