Harold Brookfield

Harold Chillingworth Brookfield
Born 1926
London
Nationality British, Australian
Institution Australian National University
Field human geography, cultural ecology rural development
School or tradition
cultural ecology
Alma mater London School of Economics (B.A., PhD)

Harold Chillingworth Brookfield (born 1926 in England) is a British and Australian geographer specialising in the analysis of rural development, small-scale societies, family farming, and the relationship between land use and society in developing countries. He retired from the Australian National University in 1991.

Background

Harold Brookfield grew up in North London, England and attended Minchenden Grammar School from 1937–1943. Apparently remaining in London through the war, he took a BSc degree in geography, graduating in 1945 from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London at age 19 or 20. His PhD followed in 1950, a study of post-eighteenth century urban development in coastal Sussex. However interests soon shifted to rural issues in developing nations.

His academic positions were:

He was also an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex in the 1970s, and led the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme in Fiji.

Contributions

Brookfield's research is primarily dedicated to the study of rural societies and the environment in developing nations. He emphasises field studies at the microlevel, drawing on understandings from a range of disciplines. He developed close comparative research methods, identified with cultural ecology to understand rural societies and particularly food-getting activities and farming systems.[2] Brookfield wrote that his abiding concern was the ‘… adaptation of the use and management of land to variability and change in society, economy and natural environment’; this he called the ‘soul’ of geography (Brookfield, 2004, 40).[3] He was always ‘… drawn back to the practice and often times humbling experience of fieldwork in distant farmlands, forests, islands and mountains of the developing world’ (Connell and Waddell, 2005, 130). Particularly while working at the ANU, beginning in Papua New Guinea, he worked on the 'how' and the 'why' of land use, agrarian systems, and rural development. This came to be known as the 'Brookfield school' of analysis.[2]

Brookfield’s book ‘Interdependent Development’, written in 1975 was lauded as a classic (Corbridge, 1996; O’Connor, 1996). It started a ‘… theoretical backlash against the irrelevance of several geographical traditions’, and argued for a more historical and green/environmental perspective, based on empirical research (Connell and Rugendyke, 2005, 58). His collaboration with Piers Blaikie produced one of the key political ecology texts, 'Land Degradation and Society' in 1987.

The United Nations University's Project on People, Land, Management and Environmental Change (PLEC) was a major comparative initiative begun by Brookfield and others, looking at different land use trajectories and how farming actually creates positive biodiversity in the tropics. It promoted farmers as experts. It started in 1992 and was latterly funded by the Global Environmental Facility until 2002. It has resulted in many substantial works.

Recognition

Major publications

Further reading

References

  1. "The one that finally did tempt me to accept included a proposal that I play a leading role in a new African studies center at Pennsylvania State, but on arrival I quickly found this was at that time nothing but a front, and that it seemed to be assumed I would become a cultural ecologist of the United States. My actual teaching role seemed to me to resemble that of an assembly-line operative in a huge education factory. All this was discouraging, but the worst part of the experience was that Pennsylvania State University was located deep in 'middle America', and I had gone there in 1969 at the height of the Nixon period in American history. I quickly developed contacts in Canada, and on the day Nixon invaded Cambodia in 1970 I happily resigned my tenured post to go to what was initially a very temporary position at McGill." Brookfield, H.C. 2004: American Geography and one non-American geographer. Geojournal 59, 39–41.
  2. 1 2 3 http://www.iag.org.au/about/awards-of-the-iag/brookfield-citation/
  3. Brookfield, H.C. 2004: American Geography and one non-American geographer. Geojournal 59, 39–41.
  4. Elections to the Fellowship 2009: Professor Harold C. Brookfield British Academy website
  5. Fellowship profile on the ASSA website
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