Understanding More-than-human Geography

Abstract

Since the 21st century, human geography has undergone a paradigm revolution centered on the "material turn" and "posthuman turn," giving rise to More-than-human Geography (MTHG). Centered on relational ontology, this school challenges the long-standing anthropocentrism and human-nature dualism that have defined traditional human geography. It regards non-human lives, materials, and technologies as agents with agency, focusing on the complex relationships through which humans and non-humans co-construct space, place, and society. Based on relevant literature on domestic new cultural geography, urban space, animal geography, tourism geography, marine geography, as well as Western rural geography and urban ecology, this paper systematically sorts out the theoretical core, development context, and empirical fields of MTHG. Combined with typical studies on urban parks, rural idylls, Asian elephant conservation, tourist destination construction, marine aquaculture, and urban rewilding, it explains the school's cognitive progression from anthropocentrism to human-nature compatibility and then to more-than-human centrism, and analyzes the research progress of core propositions such as non-human agency, multi-species interaction, and hybrid place construction. On this basis, forming a localized understanding based on the practice of Chinese human geography, it reflects on the limitations of its theoretical application and localized development, and prospects its application prospects in urban governance, ecological protection, rural revitalization, and tourism development, providing a theoretical reference for understanding human-land relations in the new era.