Environmental determinism

Also called: Determinism · Topic: Human Geography: Nature, Scope and Approaches · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Human Geography: Nature and Scope"

Meaning

Environmental determinism is the school of thought that says the physical environment, especially climate and relief (the height and shape of the land), controls human life, culture and development, so people can only adjust to what nature allows. It says differences between peoples come from climate and landscape, not from inborn qualities [4].

It matters because it was the first big school of human geography in the 19th century. Every later school, from possibilism to neo-determinism, grew out of attacking it. Its ideas were also misused to support colonialism and Nazi expansion.

Explanation

How it works: cause → process → result

• Cause: very low technology.
• NCERT says what matters is not what people produce, but "with the help of what tools and techniques" they produce it.

• When tools are very simple and society is at an early stage, people cannot change nature.

• Process: humans follow nature.

• People do only what their land and climate allow.

• NCERT calls this stage the naturalisation of humans. A person living like this is a "naturalised human".

• Result: nature becomes a master.

• People obey nature, fear its fury and worship it.

• NCERT links this stage to environmental determinism.

• What breaks the link: technology.

• Technology comes from understanding natural laws. Friction and heat gave fire. DNA and genetics gave ways to conquer diseases. Aerodynamics (how air moves around objects) gave faster planes.
• NCERT says technology "loosens the shackles of environment". More tools mean more choices, so nature controls people less.

Roots and main thinkers

• Early roots: Hippocrates, Aristotle, Ibn Khaldun and Montesquieu all linked climate and place to people's nature and way of life.
• It became an academic school in the 19th and early 20th centuries:

Thinker	Main work	Key idea
Friedrich Ratzel (German)	Anthropogeographie; Politische Geographie (1897)	Used Darwin's ideas. Saw the nation-state as an organism that struggles for land, where only the strongest states grow [6][4]
Ellen Churchill Semple (American)	Influences of Geographic Environment (1911)	The physical environment decides human history and culture. She studied under Ratzel at Leipzig [5]
Ellsworth Huntington (American, 1876–1947)	Civilization and Climate (1915; revised 1924); The Human Habitat (1927); Mainsprings of Civilization (1945)	Climate controls human energy and the rise of civilisations [7]

• Anthropogeography was Ratzel's word for human geography: the study of how people relate to the land they live on.
• Together, these geographers said societies grew strong in the temperate zones because of the climate there [10].

Lebensraum: the political branch

• Lebensraum means "living space" in German. Ratzel used it to connect human groups to the land where they grow [6].
• His idea: the state is like a living thing. It needs land to grow.

• Sources: Politische Geographie (1897) and the essay Lebensraum (1901) [6].

• How it was misused:

• Ratzel only said that states tend to grow or shrink according to what they are able to do [6].
• The Nazi misuse came mainly from the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén's reading of Ratzel [6].
• Karl Haushofer, a German geopolitician, used Mackinder's Heartland idea (the inner core of Eurasia) in a plan to control the "World Island" of Eurasia and Africa [9].
• Hitler, in Mein Kampf, said Germany's Lebensraum lay in Ukraine and eastern Europe, to be taken from the Slavs, whom he called Untermenschen ("subhumans") [8].

Why it was rejected

• It ignores human choice and technology. It looks at the place and forgets the tools people have.
• It treats correlations as causes. A correlation means two things happen together. That does not prove one causes the other.
• Hot regions and poverty may appear together.

• But colonial rule, trade and technology also shape wealth.

• It was used to justify colonialism and racial ranking.

• The "tropical laziness" myth said people in hot lands were naturally lazy.

• Colonial powers used it to claim that temperate peoples should rule tropical ones.

• It was replaced. Semple's determinism caused much controversy, and later approaches that rejected it took its place [5]. First came possibilism, then neo-determinism.

Where it occurs

• Abujhmarh (Abujh Maad), Chhattisgarh: NCERT's example of a naturalised human is Benda.
• Location: a hilly, forested area in Narayanpur district, southern Chhattisgarh, between the Indravati river (a tributary of the Godavari) and the Bastar plateau.
• People: the Abujh Maria, a Gond group, listed as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) [2].

• Life close to nature:

  • Shifting cultivation (clear and burn a forest patch, grow crops for a few years, then move on) in the penda (forest).
  • Thanks to Loi-Lugi, the forest spirit.
  • Bartering (swapping goods without money) the herbs Gajjhara and Kuchla at the madhai (tribal fair).
  • Mahua, palash and sal trees around him, typical of the tropical dry deciduous forests of central India.

• PVTGs across India: 75 groups in 18 states and 1 Union Territory, living in isolated, remote and difficult areas in small, scattered hamlets [2][3]. One of their criteria is a pre-agricultural level of technology [2][3], which is the condition NCERT ties to naturalisation.

• Shifting cultivation belt: in central and north-east India, burning and moving on is an adaptation to the forest environment.
• Leipzig, Germany: where Semple studied under Ratzel. This is how determinism spread to the USA [5].
• Temperate zones vs tropics: determinists said the temperate zones were best for civilisation [10]. This view fed the "tropical laziness" myth.
• Ukraine and eastern Europe: the land Hitler named as Germany's Lebensraum [8].

Don't confuse with

• Possibilism: determinism says nature controls people. Possibilism says nature offers choices and people pick among them. Possibilism came after determinism and rejected it.
• Neo-determinism (Griffith Taylor's "stop-and-go determinism"): a middle path. Nature sets limits, but people can choose within them. It is not the same as strict 19th-century determinism.
• Humanisation of nature: the opposite stage to the naturalisation of humans. As technology grows, people change nature and leave their "cultural imprints" on it. Determinism fits naturalisation only.
• Lebensraum vs Nazi geopolitics: Ratzel coined Lebensraum [6]. The Nazi misuse came mainly through Kjellén and Haushofer, not from Ratzel himself [6][9].

Prelims Hooks

• Book–author pairs: Politische Geographie (1897) – Ratzel; Influences of Geographic Environment (1911) – Semple; Civilization and Climate (1915) – Huntington [5][6][7].
• Semple was Ratzel's student at Leipzig. This is how determinism reached the USA [5].
• Order in time: environmental determinism → possibilism → neo-determinism (Griffith Taylor) → the quantitative, radical, behavioural and humanistic schools.
• The "naturalised human" lives with low technology and obeys, fears and worships nature. NCERT links this stage to environmental determinism. NCERT's example is Benda of Abujhmarh, Narayanpur district, Chhattisgarh, between the Indravati river and the Bastar plateau.
• Trap: "Ratzel was the main source of the Nazi Lebensraum policy." This is wrong. The misuse came mainly through Kjellén's reading of Ratzel and Haushofer's use of Mackinder's Heartland idea [6][9].
• NCERT's natural law → technology pairs: friction and heat → fire; DNA and genetics → conquering disease; aerodynamics → faster planes.

Mains Points

• Critique of determinism (GS-I):
• It ignored human agency (people's power to choose) and treated correlations as causes.
• Colonial powers used it through the "tropical laziness" myth to justify ruling tropical peoples.
• Ratzel's Lebensraum was twisted, through Kjellén and Haushofer, into Nazi expansion into Ukraine and eastern Europe [6][8][9].

• These are the reasons geography moved to possibilism and then neo-determinism.

• Technology decides how much nature controls people (GS-I):

• Communities like the Abujh Maria still live close to "naturalisation". They depend directly on forests and practise shifting cultivation.
• Their PVTG status shows the cost: isolation, low literacy, economic backwardness and a stagnant or declining population [2][3].
• Shifting cultivation works when there are few people, because the burnt land has time to grow back. When the population rises, people return to the same patch too soon. This causes soil loss and forest damage in central and north-east India.

• Possible policy responses: forest rights, help with settled farming, and land-use plans for each habitat. These should respect the community's link to the forest while still bringing services to them.

• Today's lesson: nature's limits are real, as climate change shows. But societies respond very differently to the same environment. This supports Griffith Taylor's "stop-and-go determinism" over strict determinism.

Related concepts

• Naturalisation of humans
• Abujhmarh
• Lebensraum

Read more

• Naturalisation of humans and environmental determinism