Hägerstrand as historian: innovation, diffusion and the processual landscape

• Published in: Landscape research Vol. 45; no. 6; pp. 712 - 723
• Main Author: Sörlin, Sverker
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 17.08.2020; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Careers; environmental history; Geography; heritage; Historic sites; historical geography; Historiska studier av teknik, vetenskap och miljö; History of Science, Technology and Environment; innovation landscape; Innovations; Landscape; Landscape history; Landscape studies; landscapes; memory; processual landscape; Social change; Social interactions; time geography; Torsten Hägerstrand
• ISSN: 0142-6397; 1469-9710; 1469-9710
• DOI: 10.1080/01426397.2020.1790506

Torsten Hägerstrand explored innovation and diffusion as chorological processes but also as chronological processes. His strong interest in time brought him closer to the field of history which he saw as a key dimension of geography. His early work was founded on detailed studies of regional migration and innovation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Throughout his career, he returned to historical dimensions of cities, regions, landscapes, technology, heritage, transport, or any subject he worked on. His growing interest in ecological and environmental dimensions of geography and social change was later condensed in his concept förloppslandskapet-the processual landscape. This paper is focused on how Hägerstrand argued for historical approaches to landscape studies, and how he used history in pragmatic, yet original ways to shape his unique formulations of landscape, foreboding integrative strands of both geography and history playing out in the first decades of the twenty-first century.