ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the history and philosophical thrust of humanism. The chapter discusses how these ideas found expression in the move from medical to health geography and especially through the adoption of qualitative methodology. Humanism is a diverse philosophical tradition that places human consciousness and reason as the defining attributes of the human condition. Emphasizing the complexity of experience, humanistic geographers turned to what Seamon and Lundberg call methodologies of engagement that privileged intimacy and connection to the lifeworlds of research subjects. The chapter argues that critical health geography remains indebted to the legacy of humanism in terms of both empirical diversity and methodological heterogeneity and that the shift toward post-humanism represents a renewed attempt to understand what it means to be human. Yet, in important ways the post-humanist critique serves to extend humanist interest in how different groups of people are made unequal in the opportunities they have to engage with health-giving resources.
