Human geography with networks

As with most key concepts, it is nearly impossible to trace the inception of the term network. Geographers, particularly, have employed network thinking and used networks in geographical practice for a long time, to the point that it would be more beneficial to chart when human geography became human geography than to trace the connection between networks and geography. The ways networks have been understood, however, have been subject to paradigm shifts. Geographers have moved from charting and visualizing space with networks to representing and visualizing space as networked. Still, the way social scientists lead the discussion about relational, networked space is not as novel as it might seem. Topological spatialities have parallels with the ‘topology of multiplicities’ as illustrated by Deleuze and Guattari which again strikes similarities with Tarde’s ‘nebulous clouds’ of ‘multiple agents’ an idea forwarded from Leibniz’s nomads. While there are numerous examples where novel progress is made through the eclipse of past philosophical discussion, the main purpose of this paper is to shed light how geographers have thought through networks and why human geographers cannot live without the concept. Based on a genealogical analysis of networks in geographical literature and a data analysis on Web of Science illustrating who human geographers cite when they use networks, the paper encourages geographers to see the links between geography, philosophy, social sciences and mathematics and to contextualize how and what kinds of networks shape space and regions.