A brief history of development studies in geography

Poverty and inequality; social, economic, ethnic or any other reason, although not as severe as today, has always existed, and has been found as an important research topic in the scientific literature. However, in both social and economic policy, the focus was on poor people, rather than on poor areas. In other words, the place which is an integral part of development has been ignored. Nowadays, the perspectives that bring space to the fore in development research have gained importance. The number of researches on development by geographers is increasing in this process. This study entitled “Brief History of Development Research in Geography “ seek answers to the questions “What are the main research topics and researches about development with a geographical approach, When are the start dates of these investigations?” It is also necessary to problematize the concept of development for answering relevant questions. For this reason, the development literature is examined around the main axes and the current use of the concept is explained before the development geography studies. Development studies in the field of geography have been examined from the 1940s until today. This review is based on “what and when” questions from a historical reading perspective. In the historical development of the development studies conducted in the discipline of geography as a result of examining the related publication series, four different periods have been distinguished. The first consists of regional geography surveys that were dominated by the 1960s. The second period is the period characterized by spatial modeling developed under the influence of the quantitative revolution since the 1960s. The third period is the period when the critical research started to emerge as a result of the impact of Marxist understanding on geographic thought since the 1970s. The fourth one is the period which can be characterized by the relational studies that emerged as a result of the post structural approaches that started to develop since the 1990s