A forum for discussions on the complex relationships between humans and the environment - this is what the "Perceptual Geography Studies" series has been offering for 40 years. A look back at a piece of university history.
"Oldenburg? Isn't that where the geographers of perception used to live?" Prof Dr Ingo Mose hears remarks like these from time to time at conferences or meetings with colleagues. They refer to a field of research that was founded at the university in the early years and whose tradition lives on to this day in a series of publications - the "Wahrnehmungsgeographische Studien".
"The fact that the series still exists is a little strange, because there is no longer an Institute of Geography or a degree programme in Geography at our university," reports Mose, who heads the Applied Geography and Environmental Planning working group at the Institute of Biology and Environmental Sciences. The history of the white and blue volumes began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that time, researchers in Oldenburg founded the field of perceptual geography, which attracted a great deal of attention in specialist circles in Germany and Austria.
"The Oldenburg group led by geographer Prof Dr Rainer Krüger began to establish qualitative social science methods in the subject of geography," explains Mose. Until then, quantitative methods had predominated in geographical research, and it was mainly about numbers and measurable variables. However, the researchers at the young reform university, of which Krüger was the founding rector, adopted a different perspective: "They placed people at the centre, asking how they subjectively perceived their surroundings - landscapes, cities, changes," reports Mose. For example, they conducted biographical interviews, listened to everyday conversations or analysed newspaper texts. This approach was intended to help explain human behaviour and understand perspectives.
A highly topical subject: the perception, construction and evaluation of landscapes
As a result, the series of publications with the original title "Wahrnehmungsgeographische Studien zur Regionalentwicklung" was created in 1984. The first of what is now 31 volumes dealt with the topic of "Spatial development and identity formation in the coastal region of Lower Saxony". Mose finds it remarkable that the second volume already focussed on people's reactions to a very specific construction project, namely the construction of a new dyke at the Sielhafen harbour in Ditzum in East Frisia. "This proves that perceptual geography was not just a theoretical-conceptual approach, but that it was also decidedly about questions that people on the ground were very specifically concerned with."
Mose has been co-editor of "Wahrnehmungsgeographische Studien" since 2005, together with Prof Dr Rainer Danielzyk from the University of Hanover and Prof Dr Jürgen Hasse, who conducts research at the University of Frankfurt am Main. Both academics used to work in Oldenburg geography. The volumes in the series are published at irregular intervals by BIS-Verlag, usually once a year and now online. Sometimes the editors collect essays on current topics, more recently for example on the connection between food and geographical areas or the acceptance of large nature reserves. Occasionally, they also publish works by individual researchers in the series, which fit into the field of human geography in a broader sense and take into account subjective perspectives on a research topic. An end is not planned: To mark its 40th anniversary, Mose is organising a small workshop at the end of January.
And perceptual ecology itself? It's more of a niche field today. "It still exists, but it's on the fringes of the subject," reports Mose. However, this does not mean that the questions investigated no longer play a role - but rather that they are so omnipresent that they are studied in many different areas of the social and cultural sciences, emphasises the researcher: "Qualitative methods are standard today, even in geography - and the fact that you have to find out how people perceive changes in their environment, how they subjectively evaluate a specific project and that you have to take them into account in spatial planning is, of course, still highly topical."
