RADICALISM

Component-I(A) - Personal Details

Role Name Affiliation

Principal Investigator Prof. Masood Ahsan Siddiqui Department of Geography,

Jamia Millia Islamia,
New Delhi
Paper Coordinator, if any Dr.Taruna Bansal Department of Geography,
Jamia Millia Islamia,
New Delhi
Content Writer/Author (CW) Mr. Joydeep Saha Department of Geography
Bijoy Krishna Girls’
College
(under University of
Calcutta)
Howrah, West Bengal
Content Reviewer (CR) Dr.Taruna Bansal Department of Geography,
JamiaMilliaIslamia,
New Delhi
Language Editor (LE)

Component-I (B) - Description of Module

 Items Description of Module

Subject Name Geography

Paper Name Geographical Thought

Module Name/Title Radicalism

Module Id GEOG/29

Pre-requisites

Objectives To understand the evolution and nature of radicalism

Keywords Radicalism, Liberalism, Social Relevance, Marxism

Component II - e-Text
RADICALISM

I- Introduction

In the Leftist ideological group, there were two sections – Left-liberal and Left-radical. Both the
sections were concerned with inequalities, deprivation etc, i.e. problems pertaining to rich-poor
divide. They were against capitalism. They both criticized Positivists because Positivism could
not answer the questions of deprivation, dislocation, crime, problems of female issues, class
differences etc.

Left-liberals were those people who want minor adjustment in society for the benefits of have-
nots. But Left-radicals wanted to change the entire social order.

II-Context

Amid mass demonstrations against government’s social policies, for which people came out on
the streets of American cities, political radicalism through the revival of socialist parties
happened due to certain reasons, as follows:

1. After the World War-II, there was a steady economic growth for two decades. Then an
economic slowdown or slump started to happen. In such a situation, people became
 conscious of the role of the government – its successful schemes and failed projects. It
was widely felt that the fruits of economic growth were not shared equally, and a
substantive chunk of society was facing economic hardship. This fueled grievance against
the government, and that’s how Civil rights Movements took place in almost all
American cities during the late sixties.
2. Another point of discontent was Vietnam War where USA’s aggression was viewed as an
imperialist hegemonic pursuit.By and large, it was against the essence of democracy
which the USA preached and practiced. It not only led to the destruction of lives and
properties of Vietnamese but also led to the death of US soldiers fighting in Vietnam.
American people, especially the youth, revolted against the government for Vietnam
War. Student protests were not only limited to its place of origin i.e. USA, but it
expanded to several European countries also.
3. Problems of Black population, who lived in the shabby physical environment, started to
emerge. Such problems pinpointed the failure of economic growth-centric government
policies, which was running under the profit maximization policies.

III-Social Relevance Revolution

Given this context, a reassessment of purpose and methodologies of natural as well as social
sciences began. It was felt that human being and their environment as a part of the earth is the
most important subject that natural and social sciences should enquire in details. Geographers,
who were working on the themes of “optimum location” of infrastructural facilities, now started
to focus on the physical and social environment that surround people. This phase of revolution in
geography, after the much-acclaimed quantitative revolution, is known as “radical revolution” or
“social relevance revolution”.

III A-The Radical Stream of the Relevance Movement:

In fact, “radical revolution” emerged as a critique of quantitative revolution. During the 1950s,
the philosophy of positivism and empiricism became very influential. Geographers, while
interacting with other disciplines, also started applying various tools and techniques to analyze
and explain the spatial variation of man-nature interaction. They got so engrossed in model
building, that the theoretical approach towards looking at socio-economic problems was
sidelined, and availability of data and application of techniques started to guide research
procedures. In such a context, through “radical revolution”, a new discourse started that
reminded geographers it is theoretical understanding that shows the path of research through an
exploration of suitable dataset and methods, and not the other way round.

Radical viewpoint started through William Bunge’s work who wrote about Radicalist ideas in his
book Theoretical Geography in 1962 and who founded Society for Human Exploration at Detroit
in 1968. This Society urged geographers to undertake fieldwork in areas where poorest people
live or the areas which are most backward and depressed. Such expeditions targeted to acquire
firsthand and unbiased information of these areas so that a collective engagement with local
people can bring meaningful inputs and bring about sound policy and planning framework. Few
expeditions were carried out in Detroit. For providing training to aspirants who shown interest to
participate in such expeditions, a course was opened at the University of Michigan. As university
officials did not cooperate at the later stages, such expeditions were stopped in the USA.
However, the expeditions continued in Toronto (Canada), Sydney (Australia) and London
(England). Moreover, the Union of Socialist Geographers (USG) was established in 1974.
Members of USG also participated in special sessions of AAG conventions and IBG annual
meetings.

Radical ideas flourished in the hands of David Harvey and Richard Peet. Harvey wrote Social
Justice and the City where he talked about Black people living in Ghettos. Richard Peet started
to publish articles in a famous journal known as Antipode in Clarke University in Massachusetts
in 1969. The issues in Antipode were quite revolutionary. They talked about urban poverty,
discrimination against Blacks, feminism and cruelty against women, crime, deprivation,
problems pertaining to minorities etc. Therefore, geography again got a breakthrough from its
original systematic or regional approach when it started incorporating new social issues.

Due to increased poverty and inequality, especially poverty among the people of Ghetto and
rural areas, Radicalists tried to perceive planning from a new viewpoint i.e. planning with the
people rather than planning for the people. According to Harvey, geographers should consider
the question as to who is going to control whom, in whose interest the controlling is going to be
exercised and if it is exercised in the interest of people, who is going to take it upon himself to
define that public interest.

Important features and objectives of the radical stream of relevance movement are following:
 1. To expose the issues of discrimination, deprivation, inequalities, crimes, issues pertaining
to health and mental degradation in the capitalistic society.
2. To pinpoint the weakness of Positivism and Quantitative Revolution in geography which
emphasized geography as a spatial science and did not deal with the human issues.
3. To remove regional inequality
4. Radicalists opposed economic and political concentration, imperialism and nationalism.
5. They opposed superiority of a particular race.
6. They also prescribed revolutionary changes in the work order to develop a tension-free
peaceful environment for all.

Radicalism was developed as a critique of existing models, because such models especially those
adopting a positivist methodology which was supposed to be value-neutral, was helping the
imperialistic forces to maintain the status quo. Geography was a tool for imperialists. Radicalism
was critical to this system.

Radicalists always talked from the standpoint of those people who were not in control of means
of production (land, labour, capital, organization), and they always supported the downtrodden
group of society. Radicalist thinking always went against nationalism. Before Radicalist
thinking, geography was a science which protected the ideology of majority who owns the means
of production. Radicalists criticized this scenario. It also developed as a protest against data.
Radicalists thought of a society which is controlled by all.

Radicalistslike James Blaut (1970) attempted to link the issue of imperialism with capitalism.
Imperialism denotes domination and subordination of one country to another – be it in economic
or political terms. More developed countries had a tendency to control less developed ones, by
exploiting natural resources and setting terms of trades often biased against less developed
countries. Capitalistic countries, through this control, created a monopoly situation. Another
issue was ethnocentrism, where an ethnic group was considered superior to another group(s).
European ethnocentrism pointed towards the superiority of Europe over Asia and Africa, the
superiority of Whites over non-Whites. It also showed the world how and why development
persists in Europe. Blaut was very critical to this unicentric model and explained how Europe
progressed at the cost of disrupting African and Asian countries. Imperialistic hegemony,
through colonization of many African and Asian countries, paved the way for European
countries to access billions of wealth. This led to the progress of Europe, in terms of expansion
of industries, commercial activities, education, and technology. As the entire idea of racial
superiority and ethnocentrism was based on certain prejudices, Radicalists opposed it.

Radicalists also opposed the way females were oppressed in developing and developed countries.
Females were found to have an unequal role in terms of decision-making in households. They
were systematically exploited, as their role was defined from a male perspective. They had
relatively less mobility, and their role was defined to be restricted within household – cooking
and taking care of children and so on.

To a certain extent, Radicalism was linked with anarchism. Anarchism called for the removal of
state, and its replacement by voluntary groups of individuals. These individuals could work
without external pressure and maintain social order. In a way, anarchism promoted individual
liberalism and socialism. Peter Kroptokin and Elisee Reclus elaborated on the way by which
such social orders can be maintained. Kroptokin attacked capitalism on the ground that it
increased competition and inequalities. He commented that mutual cooperation and support help
a community or a society to live peacefully. Cooperation based production, decision-making at
grassroots level, the spread of democracy, greater integration of short-distanced workspace and
living space were some of the ideals many Radical geographers followed.

III B-The Liberal Stream of the Relevance Movement:

Liberalism, although beliefs in democratic capitalism, advocates executive actions for

minimizing social and spatial inequalities in the levels of human well-being. It shows a
commitment towards ensuring a basic minimum level of standard of living for all. In this
context, it prescribes state action in helping less privileged section of the human society.
Statistical techniques, involving multiple variables, were applied to map levels of human being
(Thompson and associates, 1962). The work done by Smith (1973) and Knox (1975) are often
referred in geographical literature. Measurement and mapping of variables related to human
well-being became important, and such variables were categorized into three sub-sets- “physical
needs” (nutrition, shelter, and health), “cultural needs” (education, leisure, recreation and
security), and “higher needs” (through surplus income). Their works show that geographers can
play a significant role in informing policy-makers about the spatial implications of inequalities
so that better decisions can be taken for improving policies and schemes further. Another part of
these works is raising awareness among citizens so that they become better informed on welfare
issues. Cox (1973) and Massam (1976) looked at how efficiently public services can be
provided, by redrawing of administrative boundaries or changing the location of public facilities.
In his seminal book, Human Geography: A Welfare Approach, David Smith (1977) focused on
“who gets what, where and how”, and this reoriented the goal of human geography towards
making a society where spatial malpractices and injustices are done away with. Therefore the
“distribution” of fruits of economic growth emerged as an important issue.

Moreover, this stream of social relevance movement advocates that our surrounding environment
should be looked after well. Therefore, issues like environmental degradation-conservation-
management are often discussed.

III-Towards Marxist Geography:

A great contribution of guiding geography towards Marxism happened through the works of
David Harvey. In his book on Ghettos located in American cities, he pointed towards roots of
problems that lie in capitalism. According to him, the capitalistic system created such a market-
based mechanism, that regulate land use, and this is biased against the poor Black population. He
argued that once a geographer adopts Marxist approach towards looking social problems, he or
she cannot detach himself or herself. That’s why a political awareness is generated within them,
and they get actively involved in making a society with more justice. Harvey’s influence was so
strong that some practitioners of social relevance research started adopting a Marxist approach.
Nowadays, radical geography is more aptly known as Marxist geography.

IV-Critique:

Social relevance movement, especially radicalism was able to usher in some fruitful changes in
the methodological discourse of geographical studies. These are:

 From the rhetoric of quantitative technique based analysis of geographical attributes, it

reoriented human geography towards prominent social and environmental issues, thereby
broadening the scope of geography to interact with other disciplines of social sciences.
 The classical tradition of fieldwork in a small region was altered in the sense that more
in-depth and participatory planning oriented studies were encouraged. This fieldwork
entailed a new pattern where respondents were involved in the process of surveying. One
needs to understand that this new pattern was quite challenging. The expeditions,
promoted by the Society for Human Exploration, could not go on extensively due to
multiple reasons (including existing power structure), even though it received a certain
chunk of academic interest.

Some of the limitations or weaknesses of radicalism are:

 First criticism came from Russians who claimed themselves as true Communists and
Marxists. Radicalism was entirely an American enterprise. Though Radicalists in
America talked about the social change they never talked about an armed revolution
which is a basic component of Marxist ideology.
 The theoretical base of radicalism was very weak. Basically, they were dependent on
other social sciences. Whatever Harvey discussed in Social Justice and the City were
basically sociological, political or economic analysis.
 Though the topic of radicalism was varied, the techniques and methodologies were not
very path-breaking.
 Radicalism gave over-weight to Marxism. Geography, by virtue of its subject matter, is a
spatial science. It cannot be explained totally with the help of Marxist thinking.
 The ultimate question was ‘Who will guard the guardians’? Even socialist governments
following models of Marx could not solve problems of the oppressed class.
 Humanistic geographers criticized radicalists because the former gave more emphasis on
people, not as an ideology like the Radicalists. Humanistic geography says that
geography cannot be explained through any generalized theory. It is human-specific.
 Positivists criticized radicalism because they don’t take help from any empirical science.
 After the fall of USSR and East European nations in the end of 1980s, the worldwide
impression was that socialism has no value and capitalism has won its final victory.
Therefore, geography is essentially a locational science which is based on empirical
positivist values, which is the tool of capitalists.
References and Further Readings
Dikshit, R D (2013): Geographical Thought: A Contextual History of Ideas, PHI Learning
Private Limited

Husain, Majid (2010), Evolution of Geographical Thought, Rawat Publications, New Delhi
Peet, Richard (2011): Modern Geographical Thought, Rawat Publications

Gregory D, R Johnston, G Pratt, M Watts and S Whatmore (2009): Dictionary of Human

Geography, Wiley Blackwell