British and Australian geographer (1926–2022)
Harold Chillingworth Brookfield (March 9, 1926 in England - May 22, 2022 in Canberra) was 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.[1]
Background
Harold Brookfield was born in 1926 and grew up in North London, England. He attended Minchenden Grammar School from 1937–1943. He joined the RAF in 1943 and trained as ground crew. In 1946 the government offered university scholarships to qualified servicemen, so he took a BSc degree in geography, graduating in 1949 from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. 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:
- Assistant lecturer in Geography, Birkbeck College, University of London, from 1948–1952.
- Lecturer and head, Department of Geography, University of Natal in Durban, 1952–1955.
- University of New England, 1955–1957.
- Fellow, Australian National University (ANU), 1957–1969.
- Professor, Pennsylvania State University, 1969–1971 (he resigned[2]).
- Professor, McGill University, 1971–1976, including a Guggenheim Fellowship.
- Chair of Geography, University of Melbourne, 1976–1982.
- Professor, ANU, 1982–1991.
- Emeritus professor, ANU 1991–2022.
- Also project Director and researcher with PLEC until the early 2000s.
He was also an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex in the 1970s.
He led the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme in Fiji.
Contributions
Brookfield's research was 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.[3] 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).[4] He was always ‘... drawn back to the practice and oftentimes 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.[5][3]
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.[5] It started in 1992 and was latterly funded by the Global Environmental Facility until 2002. It has resulted in many substantial works.
