Regions as Social Organisms: The Lamarckian Characteristics of Vidal de la Blache's Regional Geography

Geographers currently are refocusing attention on the study of localities and regions. The new regional emphasis is based on the perceived need to establish a theoretically sophisticated approach to the study of regions. This paper argues that the concern for theoretical sophistication is worthy, but by no means new in regional geography. At the turn of the century, Vidal de la Blache similarly sought to establish a more scientific, theoretically cogent, regional approach in lieu of the then growing number of descriptive accounts of specific areas that geographers were putting forth. On the basis of what he called the “biological method,” Vidal similarly sought to determine the relationship between necessary and contingent processes in the formation of regions. I seek to demonstrate such similarities by examining the organicistic characteristics of Vidal's largely neglected “general geography,” which he considered to be the very basis for his regional approach. Particular emphasis is put on the distinct Lamarckian characteristics of Vidal's organicism in terms of what is considered to be a sociospatial whole, or “organism,” and how such wholes evolve. Reconstructing the Lamarckian influence on Vidal's organicistic general geography is the necessary first step to determining the contemporary lessons that may be drawn from this earlier attempt to establish a theoretically sophisticated regional geography.