Carl Sauer (Carl Ortwin Sauer, 1889-1975) was an American geographer, born in the state of Missouri, with parents of German origin. Sauer is considered one of the main names in the history of geographical thought, being one of the forerunners of the so-called Cultural Geography and one of the main names of the “School of Berkeley”. His works and contributions are still widespread and widely used by authors from various fields of knowledge.
In 1915, Carl Sauer completed his studies at the doctoral level, under the guidance of North American geomorphologist Rollin Salisbury. In 1923, he entered the University of Berkeley and became professor emeritus from 1957, following his work until the year of his death. One of his main works is the book “The Morphology of Landscape” (The Morphology of Landscape), produced in 1925, in which he weaves some of his main considerations about Geography and the direction of the cultural area.
The main merit of Carl Sauer's works is to bring new premises to Cultural Geography which, under the affiliation of the German school and thinkers such as
Richard Hartshorne, conceived the idea of differentiating landscapes. Sauer, on the other hand, valued the relationship between man and the environment, conceiving the landscape as a habitat and breaking with the premises that brought this concept into a formal, functional and genetics.Another important contribution by Sauer is the study of the relationship between man and space based on the comparison of different expressions of landscapes, returning to the core of Geography the merits of Chorology, a premise that was abandoned by the author in his last books and publications.
In a famous phrase, Sauer states that “the last agent that modifies the Earth's surface is man”[1]. Thus, the human being must be considered as a “geomorphological agent”, which intervenes and gives new meaning to the terrestrial surface features. For this reason, Cultural Geography, in its conception, should be interested in understanding and analyzing human works on space and their impression on the environment.
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The concept of "culture” marked by Sauer comes from the influence of the anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber, who conceived of it as a phenomenon that is understood in the light of historical time, but which is drawn from space. It was, therefore, from there that conceptions about the influence of space on human activities and the idea of spatiality.
Sauer understood as important for Geography the consideration of the lived world, that is, the space as apprehended by different people, based on their cultural influences. After all, each individual acts in the process of meaning reality based on their conceptions and worldviews. Thus, there is a relative influence of the phenomenology in Sauer's studies, even though this author has not dedicated himself to phenomenological studies in a deeper way.
As pointed out by Holzer [2], the main contributions brought by Sauer to Geography are: a) the appreciation of the cultural in the anthropocentric perspective; b) the maintenance of respect for themes concerning the lived world, opening perspectives on the perception of being about the real; c) the emphasis on the interdisciplinarity between Geography and the human sciences in general, in addition to Philosophy; d) the valorization of field work as a way to demystify conceived ideas a priori.
It is for all his contributions and merits that the books and articles produced by Sauer allowed for profound advances in the field of Geography, notably used from the 1970s onwards, which led to the appreciation of his works as one of the main references of geographic studies throughout the world.
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[1] This phrase can be found in a text by the author translated for Espaço & Cultura magazine (UERJ), in 1997, which can be accessed on here.
[2] HOLZER, W. Our Classics: Carl Sauer (1889-1975). GEOGRAPHY. Year II, nº4, 2000. p.135-136.
By Rodolfo Alves Pena
Graduated in Geography
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PENA, Rodolfo F. Alves. "Carl Sauer"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/geografia/carl-sauer.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.