Description:
Geographers and Development — As he considers the part played by geographers in development studies, H.C. Brookfield tries to draw up the balance sheet of their intervention. He wonders how tackling the third world's problems might induce a reciprocal change of the theoretical and practical approaches by geography. He intends to appraise what might likely be its contribution to the development question, its current trends and system of reproduction being taken into account. As the third world's meaning changed, and as the third world itself became more and more diversified, geographers were induced into an often drastic alteration of their views by the growing relativity of indexes and successive paradigms. The author concludes that we shall return to the specific geographical approach, as defined by the original feeling of the interaction between man and the environment, far from theoretical debates and in spite of the discomforts of necessary political options. This is the price geography would have to pay for, if the branch wish to contribute again significantly in taking up the planetary challenge of underdevelop- ment.
S'interrogeant sur la contribution des géographes aux études sur le développement, H.C. Brookfield entreprend d'établir le bilan de leur intervention. Il est ainsi conduit à se demander en quoi la confrontation aux problèmes du Tiers Monde a pu changer réciproquement les approches théoriques et pratiques de la discipline. Il se propose d'évaluer ce que la géographie peut, dans ses tendances et sa reproduction actuelles, apporter au problème du développement. L'évolution de la notion, la diversification du Tiers Monde, la relativité des indicateurs et la succession des paradigmes ont conduit les géographes à réviser souvent radicalement leurs approches. Au-delà des débats théoriques et des inconforts d'un engagement inévitable, la spécificité de la démarche géographique, illustrée par le sens des interrelations de l'homme et du milieu, doit être retrouvée. La discipline pourra de nouveau, à ce prix, aider efficacement à relever le défi planétaire du développement.