ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains about how population geography adds value to our understanding of society by studying both how populations are organized in geography and how populations are organized by and through geography. It argues that population geography's 'negotiated' legitimacy comes from the way it connects population matters to society through the evolving concepts of space, environment and place. The book discusses how national governments became key producers and consumers of population knowledge. It traces how geography grew as a discipline that informed state agendas through the concepts of space, environment and place. The book describes the heady days of the new sub-discipline and its rise to academic prominence between the 1950s and the late 1970s. It explores how work on transnational geographies, the geopolitics of population and activism both reflect and critiques the changing relationships between states and populations.
