Read the following paragraph carefully and answer the following questions.
Winters in the town of Trondheim mean fierce winds and heavy snow. The skies are dark for months. Kari drives to work in the dark at 8 am. She has special tyres for the winter and keeps the headlights of her powerful car switched on. Her office is artificially heated at a comfortable 23 degrees Celsius. The campus of the university she works in is built under a huge glass dome. This dome keeps the snow out in winter and lets in the sunshine in the summer. The temperature is controlled carefully and there is adequate lighting. Even though fresh vegetables and plants don't grow in such harsh weather, Kari keeps an orchid on her desk and enjoys eating tropical fruits like banana and kiwi. These are flown in from warmer areas regularly. With a click of the mouse, Kari can network with colleagues in New Delhi. She frequently takes a morning flight to London and returns in the evening in time to watch her favourite television serial. Though Kari is fifty-eight years old, she is fitter and looks younger than many thirty year-olds in other parts of the world.
This case study is an example of ______.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Possibilism
Kari’s society faces a harsh winter, yet it lives in comfort with the help of technology. This is possibilism.
Option (1) Determinism — Incorrect. Environmental determinism is the stage when people had very low technology and adapted to the dictates of nature. Kari’s society is not ruled by its climate.
Option (2) Behaviouralism — Incorrect. The behavioural school of thought studies lived experience and how social groups based on ethnicity, race and religion perceive space.
Option (3) Post-modernism — Incorrect. Post-modernism (1990s) questioned grand generalisations and stressed understanding each local context.
Option (4) Possibilism — Correct. Heated offices, a glass dome over the campus and fruit from warm lands are possibilities created in spite of nature’s limits.
NCERT (2026-27): “The people begin to understand their environment and the forces of nature with the passage of time. With social and cultural development, humans develop better and more efficient technology. They move from a state of necessity to a state of freedom. They create possibilities with the resources obtained from the environment. The human activities create cultural landscape. … The earlier scholars termed this as possibilism.” “… It is technology that has allowed the people of Trondheim and others to overcome the constraints imposed by nature.” |