The Nature of Cultural Geography Chapter 1 The Human Matri

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The Nature of Cultural Geography

• Chapter 1
• The Human Matrix

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Discussion

• Pair up into dyads
• Discuss these two questions for 10 minutes five
  minutes each
• What does culture mean to you
• Would you identify yourself as belonging to a
  cultural group Why or why not

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Introduction

• Humans are by nature geographers
• Possess awareness of and curiosity about the
  distinctive character of places
• Can think territorially or spatially
• Each place on Earth is unique
• Places possess an emotional quality and
  significance that contribute to our identity as
  unique human beings
• Geographers over the centuries generated a
  number of concepts and ideas that literally
  changed the world

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Seven Cultural Geographical Idea That Changed the
World

• Maps
• Human adaptation to habitat
• Human transformation of the earth
• Sense of place
• Spatial organization and interdependence
• Central place theory
• Megalopolis

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Geography as an academic discipline

• Natural human geographical curiosity and need for
  identity
• First arose among the ancient Greeks Romans
  Mesopotamians and Phoenicians
• Arab empire expanded geography during Europes
  Dark Ages

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Geography as an academic discipline

• Center of learning shifted to Europe during the
  Renaissance period
• Modern scientific study of geography arose in
  Germany
• Analytical geography began in the 1800s asking
  what where and why
• Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter

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What is cultural geography

• The meaning of culture
• For this course defined as learned collective
  human behavior as opposed to instinctive or
  inborn behavior
• Learned traits
• Cultural geography the study of spatial
  variations among cultural groups and the spatial
  functioning of society.

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Cultural geography

• Focuses on cultural phenomena that may vary or
  remain constant from place to place
• Explains how humans function spatially

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What is cultural geography

• Physical geography brings spatial and ecological
  perspectives
• Bridges the social and earth sciences
• Seeks a integrative view of humankind in its
  physical environment
• Appears less focused than most other disciplines
  making it difficult to define

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No easy explanations for cultural phenomena

• Many complex causal forces
• Wheat cultivations (next)
• Cultural geography seeks explanations of diverse
  casual factors

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Themes in cultural geography

• Culture region a geographical unit based on
  human traits
• Maps are an essential tool for describing and
  revealing regions
• Major types of culture regions
• Formal
• Functional
• Vernacular

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Formal culture region
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Kerala India

• A formal culture region can be defined in this
  picture by ethnicity dress and social custom.
• While people do not generally reveal their bodies
  in public at the end of the day they dress up to
  go to the beach and watch the sunset.

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Kerala India

• Boys and girls do not mingle but observe each
  other from a distance.
• Unchaperoned dating is rare and marriages are
  typically arranged.
• These are learned collective human behaviors.

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Formal culture region

• An area inhabited by people who have one or more
  cultural traits in common.
• More commonly multiple related traits
• No two cultural traits have the same
  distribution.

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Complex multiculture regions
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• Territorial extents of a culture region depend on
  what defining traits are used.

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Formal culture regions

• Many different formal regions can be created
• Depends on traits
• Geographers intuition

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Boundaries

• Formal culture regions must have boundaries
• rarely sharp because cultures overlap and mix
• Culture regions reveal a core where all defining
  traits are present
• Farther from core regional characteristics weaken
  and disappear
• Formal regions display core/periphery pattern
• Human world is chaotic

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Functional culture region
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Minneapolis Minnesota

• This mobile post-office is the node of a
  functional region.
• People come to the node at specific times during
  the week to deposit their mail.
• This vehicle is one of several linked to a
  particular post office which is part of of a
  larger network of post offices.
• Each post office is a node in its own mail
  delivery region.

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Functional culture region

• The scene is in the citys CBD where individual
  buildings are nodes of activities linked to other
  buildings and places.
• Note the skywalk which facilitates interaction
  between structures.

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Functional culture regions

• An area organized to function politically
  socially or economically
• Examples city independent state church
  diocese a trade area
• Have nodes or central points from which functions
  are coordinated and directed.
• Many functional regions have clearly defined
  borders

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Farm as a formal culture region

• all land owned and leased farmstead is node
  borders marked by fences hedges

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Functional culture region

• States in the United States and Canadian
  provinces
• Not all functional areas have clearly defined
  borders newspapers sales area
• Fans of UT vs TAMU
• Generally functional culture regions do not
  coincide spatially with formal culture regions

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Vernacular culture regions

• A region perceived to exist by its inhabitants
  has widespread acceptance and uses a special
  regional name.

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Vernacular culture region

• Generally lack sharp borders
• Can be based on many different things
• physical environment
• economic political historical aspects
• often created by publicity campaigns
• Grows out of a peoples sense of belonging and
  regional self -consciousness

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Vernacular culture region
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Vernacular culture region

• Not unique to North America
• Northern Territory Outback Australia
• Transcends state lines
• Japanese ties
• Heavy duty bumper and roo bars to deflect
  wildlife

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Differences

• How do vernacular culture regions differ from
  formal and functional regions
• Often lack the organization necessary for
  funtional regions
• Unlike formal regions they frequently do not
  display cultural homogeneity
• Many are rooted in the popular or folk culture

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Cultural diffusion

• Spatial spread of learned ideas innovations and
  attitudes.
• Each cultural element originates in one or more
  places and then spreads.
• Some spread widely others remain confined to an
  area of origin.
• 100 Percent American
• Torsten Hägerstrand

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Cultural diffusion
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Expansion diffusion

• Ideas spread throughout a population from area to
  area.
• Creates a snowballing effect
• Subtypes
• Hierarchical diffusion ideas leapfrog from one
  node to another temporarily bypassing some
• Contagious diffusion wavelike like disease
• Stimulus diffusion specific trait rejected but
  idea accepted

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Relocation diffusion

• Relocation diffusion occurs when individuals
  migrate to a new location carrying new ideas or
  practices with them
• Religion is prime example

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Time-distance decay factor

• Ripples on a pond.
• Acceptance of an innovation is strongest where it
  originated.
• Acceptance weakens as it is diffused farther
  away.
• Acceptance also weakens over time.

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Barriers to diffusion

• Absorbing barriers completely halt diffusion
  Afghanistan.
• More commonly barriers are permeable allowing
  part of the innovation wave to diffuse but
  acting to weaken and retard the continued spread.

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Diffusion
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Guangzhou (Canton) China

• PRC recently opened its doors to foreign
  investment and a number of cities have been
  designated as Special Economic Zones.
• An absorbing barrier has become permeable.
• Sincle coastal cities were the first to allow
  foreign instrusions these have highest influx of
  joint-venture projects.

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Diffusion

• Proctor and Gamble has designed soaps and
  detergents for Chinas specific water conditions.
• Just as PG diffused from North America to China
  other manufacturers will diffuse into other parts
  of China.

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Diffusion

• As more cities are opened Chinas urban economies
  will become increasingly internationalized and
  each city will function as a key center of
  diffusion to places lower on the social-economic
  hierarchy.
• How does time-distance decay play a role here

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Stages of innovation acceptance

• First acceptance takes place at a slow steady
  rate.
• Second raid growth in acceptance and the trait
  spreads rapidly
• fashion or dance fad
• neighborhood effect
• Third slower growth and acceptance of innovation

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Neighborhood effect
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Hägerstrand
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Hägerstrand

• Hägerstrands explanation of the core/periphery
  spatial arrangement of diffusion resembles
  pattern in culture regions
• others say too narrow and mechanical
• assumes all innovations are beneficial throughout
  geographical space
• nondiffusion more prevalent than diffusion but
  not accounted for

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Susceptibility to an innovation

• More crucial when world communications are rapid
  and pervasive
• Friction of distance is almost meaningless
• Must evaluate and explain on a region-by-region
  basis
• Inhabitants of two regions will not respond
  identically to an innovation
• Geographers seek to understand spatial variation
  in receptiveness

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Cultural ecology

• Ecology is two-way relationship between an
  organism and its physical environment
• Cultural ecology is the study of the
  cause-and-effect interplay between cultures and
  the physical environment
• Ecosystem entails a functioning ecological system
  where biological and cultural Homo sapiens live
  and interact with the physical environment.

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Cultural ecology

• Culture is the human method of meeting physical
  environmental challenges.
• adaptive system
• assumes plant and animal adaptations are relevant
• facilitates long-term successful nongenetic
  human adaptation to nature and environmental
  change
• adaptive strategy that provides necessities of
  life food clothing shelter defense
• No two cultures employ the same strategy evenin
  within the same physical environment

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Cultural ecology

• The physical environment plays a powerful role in
  the cultural landscape of this remote region of
  Pakistans northern frontier.
• The Muslim Pathan have an adaptive strategy of
  harnessing local resources for their needs.

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Bahrain Pakistan

• The settlement hugs the valley walls and the
  river is harnessed to provide water power for
  turning grinding stones (primarily corn) in the
  foreground structure.
• Since limited wood supply precludes its
  widespread use houses are constructed of
  dry-mortared stones and many have sod roofs

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Cultural ecology

• Four schools of thought developed by geographers
  on cultural ecology
• Environmental determinism
• Possibilism
• Environmental perception
• Humans as modifiers of the earth

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Environmental determinism

• Developed during the first quarter of the 20th
  century.
• Physical environment provided a dominant force in
  shaping cultures
• Humans were clay to be molded by nature
• Believed mountain people because they lived in
  rugged terrain were
• Backward
• Conservative
• Unimaginative
• Freedom loving

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Environmental determinism

• Believed desert dwellers were
• Likely to believe in one god
• Lived under the rule of tyrants
• Temperate climates produced
• Inventiveness
• Industriousness
• Democracy
• Coastlands with fjords produced navigators and
  fishers
• Overestimated the role of environment

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Possibilism

• Took the place of determinism in the 1920s
• Cultural heritage at least as important as
  physical environment in affecting human behavior
• Believe people are the primary architects of
  culture

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Possibilism

• Chongqing and San Francisco
• Similar environment
• Street patterns
• SF has smaller population but larger area
• Culture

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Possibilism

• Physical environment offers numerous ways for a
  culture to develop.
• People make culture trait choices from the
  possibilities offered by their environment to
  satisfy their needs.
• High technology societies are less influenced by
  physical environment.
• Geographer Jim Norwin warns control over
  environment may be an illusion because of
  possible future climatic changes.

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Environmental perception

• Each persons or cultural groups mental images
  of the physical environment are shaped by
  knowledge ignorance experience values and
  emotions
• Environmental perceptionists declare-choices
  people make will depend more on how they perceive
  the lands character than its actual character
• People make decisions based on distortion of
  reality with regard to their surrounding physical
  environment

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Environmental perception

• Geomancya traditional system of land-use
  planning dictating that certain environmental
  settings perceived by the sages as auspicious
  should be chosen as the sites for houses
  villages temples and graves (feng-shui)
• an East Asian world view and art
• affected the location and morphology of urban
  places in countries such as China and Korea
• diffused (look up feng-shui on internet)

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Natural hazards

• Humans perceptions of natural hazards
• Flooding hurricanes volcanic eruption
  earthquakes insect infestations and droughts
• Some cultures consider them as unavoidable acts
  of the gods sent down as punishments because of
  the peoples shortcomings
• During times of natural disasters some cultures
  feel the government should take care of them
• Western cultures feel technology should be able
  to solve the problems created by natural hazards

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Natural hazards

• In virtually all cultures people knowingly
  inhabit hazard zones
• Especially floodplains exposed coastal sites
  drought-prone regions and active volcanic areas
  
• More Americans than ever live in hurricane- and
  earthquake-prone areas of the United States

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Monserrat - 1996
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Missouri River
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Hazard Perception

• Levees failed to prevent the Mississippi and
  Missouri rivers from flooding.
• Floods are natural occurrences and contrary to
  the perception of some human made devices are
  directed toward control rather than prevention.
• When the water recedes and tons of muck and
  debris are removed will the farmer move back and
  start over

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Natural hazards

• Migrants tend to imagine new homelands as being
  more similar to their old homelands than is
  actually the case
• Humans perceptions of natural resources
• Hunting and gathering cultures
• Agricultural groups
• Industrial societies

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Humans as modifiers of the earth

• Another facet of cultural ecology
• In a sense the opposite of environmental
  determinism
• George Perkins Marsh
• Example of soil erosion around Athens in ancient
  times

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Humans as modifiers of the earth

• Human modification varies from one culture to
  another
• Geographers seek alternative less destructive
  modes of environmental modification
• Humans of the Judeo-Christian tradition tend to
  regard environmental modification as divinely
  approved
• Other more cautious groups take care not to
  offend the forces of nature

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Environmental modification
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Queensland Australia

• Rainforest north of Cairns signs demonstrate
  conflicting perceptions of a particular resource.
• Thousands of acres of Australian rainforest
  destroyed yearly.

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Cultural integration

• Cultures are complex wholes rather than series of
  unrelated traits
• Cultures form integrated systems in which parts
  fit together causally
• All cultural aspects are functionally
  interdependent on one another
• Changing one element requires accommodating
  change in others
• To understand one facet of culture geographers
  must study the variations in other facets and how
  they are causally interrelated and integrated

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Cultural integration

• The influence of religious beliefs
• Voting behavior
• Diet and shopping patterns
• Type of employment and social standing
• Hinduism segregates people into social classes
  (castes) and specifies what forms of livelihood
  are appropriate for each
• Mormon faith forbids consumption of alcoholic
  beverages tobacco and other products thereby
  influencing both diet and shopping patterns

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Cultural integration

• If improperly used can lead the geographer to
  cultural determinism such as
• physical environment is inconsequential as an
  influence on culture
• culture offers all the answers for spatial
  variations
• nature is passive while people and culture are
  the active forces

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Cultural integration

• Social science
• Those who view cultural geography as a social
  science apply the scientific method to the study
  of people
• Devise theories that cut across cultural lines to
  govern all of humankind
• Believe economic causal forces more powerful in
  explaining human spatial behavior than any others

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Models
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Model of Latin American city
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Humanistic geography

• Celebrates the uniqueness of each region and
  place
• Place is the key word connoting the humanistic
  view
• Topophiliaword coined by Yi-Fu Tuan literally
  meaning love of place
• Has witnessed a resurgence in recent decades
• Social-science approach has declined in popularity

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Humanistic geography

• Anne Buttimer
• Seek to explain unique phenomenaplace and
  region-rather than universal spatial laws
• Most doubt that laws of spatial behavior even
  exist
• Believe in a far more chaotic world than
  scientists could tolerate
• Reject the use of mathematicsfeel human beliefs
  and values cannot be measured

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Who is right

• Debate between scientists and humanists in
  cultural geography
• Necessary and healthy
• Both ask different questions about place and
  space
• Geography is the bridging discipline joining the
  sciences and humanities
• Postmodernism

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Cultural landscape

• The visible material landscape that cultural
  groups create in inhabiting the Earth
• Cultures shape landscapes out of the raw
  materials provided by the Earth
• Each landscape uniquely reflects the culture that
  created it
• Much can be learned about a culture by carefully
  observing its created landscape

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Cultural landscape

• Some geographers regard landscape study as
  geographys central interest
• Reflects the most basic strivings of humankind
• Shelter
• Food
• Clothing
• Contains evidence about the origin spread and
  development of cultures

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Cultural landscape

• Accumulation of human artifacts old and new
• Can reveal much about a past forgotten by present
  inhabitants
• Landscapes also reveal messages about present-day
  inhabitants and cultures
• Reflect tastes values aspirations and fears in
  tangible form
• Spatial organization of settlements and
  architectural form of structures can be
  interpreted as expression of values and beliefs
  of the people
• Can serve as a means to study nonmaterial aspects
  of culture

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Cultural landscape

• How architecture reflects past and present values
  of landscape
• Example of centrally located tall structures
  built of steel brick or stone
• Example of medieval European cathedrals and
  churches that dominated the landscape

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Cultural landscape
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Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

• Now capital prior to 1997 administrative center
  for British colony of Malaya.
• During 20s an 30s Art Deco architecture popular.
• Built in 1928 originally wet market for mean
  poultry and fish were rendered and sold.

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Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

• Renewed it now contains a shopping bazaar
  selling local handicraft products souveniers and
  food.
• Heritage revealed through architecture and sign.
• Only traditional cart suggests truth.

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Cultural landscape

• Humanistic view of cultural landscape
• Content to study the cultural landscape for its
  aesthetic value
• Obtain subjective messages that help describe the
  essence of place
• Geographer Tarja Keisteri distinguishes the
  factual concrete physical functioning
  landscape from the experimental perceived
  symbolic aesthetic landscape
• Distinction between scholarly analysis and
  subjective artistic interpretation are often
  blurred
• Provides people with landmarks and reassures
  people they are not rootless without identity or
  place

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Cultural landscape

• Most geographical studies have focused on three
  principal aspects of landscape
• Settlement formsDescribe the spatial arrangement
  of buildings roads and other features people
  construct while inhabiting an area
• Land-division patternsreveal the way people
  divide the land for economic and social uses
• Example of land division of small and large farms
• Example of urban housing and street patterns

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Cultural landscape

• Architecture
• North Americas different building styles
• Regional and cultural differences

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Conclusion

• Five themes of geography are interwoven
• Culture region
• Cultural diffusion
• Cultural ecology
• Cultural integration
• Cultural landscape

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Folk and popular architecture reflect culture
Toronto
near Ottawa