Structure and event, networks and nodes in human geography: the 1960s revisited

Abstract

In search of transnational scholarship and languages within human geography, the so-called “Quantitative Revolution” of the 1960s arguably holds considerable pride of place. More than previous innovations within geography, which were largely bounded within (and by) national intellectual traditions, the innovate practices associated with the 1960s arguably hold a key to understanding how intellectual traditions become shared traditions and as such enrich both national and international research practices. The present paper uses insights gleaned from the 1960s in the context of a geography still oscillating between “structural-” and “eventdriven” forms of explanation in an attempt better to understand pronounced (if historically uneven) interweavings of national traditions that shape discourses and practices in human geography across the globe. Part of this analysis will focus on the importance of structures and careers in the making of such traditions, thereby contextualising the widely shared notion of an “Anglo-Saxon hegemony” currently prevailing in human geographical theoretically informed practices. Throughout, the paper focuses on the task of editing a journal like Geographica Helvetica as a transnational journal interested in bridging traditions formed by particular languages across Europe and beyond.