人文地理学的“视觉”研究进展与启示

A REVIEW AND REVELATION OF THE STUDY OF VISUAL IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

随着近年来人文地理学的"文化转向"和西方人文社会科学对于视觉的社会文化构建的高涨热情,丰富而庞杂的视觉影像和人们的"观看之道"逐步为西方人文地理学界所关注。学者开始关注不同的社会行为主体如何通过不同的视觉影像可视化表征地理实体,"视觉"成为塑造和重构空间和生产地方想象、认同和社会关系的重要手段;同时,视觉物质又为涉及人类主观实践、展演和生产技术的重要之物,视觉物品在人们涉身的空间政治、日常物质接触和情感中又可催生非常广泛的社会文化意义。本文通过对人文地理学,特别是西方人文地理学界对于"视觉"问题的广泛关注和多样的介入方法进行梳理,以期展现充满文化、社会、政治乃至经济内涵的"视觉"地理问题发展脉络及其独特意义,也为国内社会文化地理学开拓新的研究视野。

The discipline of geography had long been playing the emphasis on making better images to illustrate the knowledge of geography and facilitate the geographical studies sufficiently, influenced by the rational discipline. However, accompanied with the ＂culture turn＂ in human geography and increasing numbers of social science scholars paying more attentions on culturally constructed way of seeing in recent years, Anglophone human geography has been trying to take into consideration the geographic significance of different themes of visual images and the ＂way of seeing＂ of people. Accordingly, it is argued that visuality and visual images are remarkably novel research objects rather than research instruments, which can represent and visualize place, space and landscape to shape and constitute geographical imagination, place identity and social relationship in particular ways, under the controls of various social groups. Also, visual materials and the process of making things visible are active participants in everyday practices of geography, some human geographiers being interested in the cultural significance of visual images when they are used and performed in particular encounters, situations and （geo）politic with people as objects. This article reviews and generalizes current western human geographical researches regarding visual and their multiple analytical methods, in order to demonstrate and classify the main topics, developments and academic significance of visual research in the field of human geography, and further expand the researchscope of domestic social and cultural geography researches.