Research Needs in Human Geography

Scholars need to ponder research themes and directions for future human geographics and for those studying human geographics of the future. Geographers in the next century will continue to study familiar themes, including landscapes, environments, regions, diffusions, interactions, and places at all scales (personal to extraterrestial) within social, economic, political, and cultural contexts. Ten research themes are suggested for future inquiry. These include internationalizing economic geography, information and communications, timespace convergence, networks and networking, administrative organization and reorganization, postindustrial economies and societies, quality of life and welfare issues, including survival, and the human intellect and spirit. Pioneering research in these and related areas will blur traditional disciplinary and interdisciplinary boundaries as we search for increased common ground. Creative maps and ways of mapping, including new projections, will be developed to portray new and exciting human geography frontiers of the mind, land, and environment.