Possibilism (geography)
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Possibilism in cultural geography is the theory that the environment sets certain constraints or limitations, but culture is otherwise determined by people. The Possibilist school of thought would believe that desert cultures would have similarities due to living in environments that have similar limitations, but they would also have important differences due to being different peoples. Paul Vidal de la Blache is often regarded as the founder of this school of thought. In Cultural ecology Marshall Sahlins used this concept in order to develop alternative approaches to the environmental determinism dominant at that time in ecological studies.
