A metamorphosis of discourses: Quebec and geography
Imported from France in the 1930s, and permanently in contact with British and American geography, Earth study was dominated in Quebec by two preoccupations: first, to explain the forms taken (now or in the past) by the organization of space in the St. Lawrence valley (and elsewhere), and second, to understand the permanency of a French-speaking community in this part of the world. The first preoccupation explains why research over the last fifty years underwent the same mutations as the rest of the Western world. While at first dominant, the second preoccupation lost part of its appeal and was increasingly limited to cultural inquiry, but it certainly explains the remarkable inventiveness and freedom of expression of scholars. Globalization explains the growing extension of the spaces studied, and the increasing attention given to the social, cultural and environmental problems of today’s world.