Definition and Historic Development of Geography
“Earth Description”
Environmental determinism
Areal differentiation
Quantitative revolution
Post-1970
Unfortunately, school geography has never evolved much beyond “place name geography” in the United States.
According to the text:
“the science of place”
Is an art as well
Like history, but geographers study phenomena primarily through the lens of space, and secondarily through the lens of time.
Maps
GIS
Geography is what geographers do
Geography is a discipline whose practitioners privilege questions of space as they seek understanding.
Geography answers “Why?” by asking “Where?”
What--phenomenon
Why--process
Where--pattern
When--period
What is culture?
“Learned collective behavior”
Cultural geography is the study of spatial variation and spatial patterns of these behaviors
What is the interaction with the physical environment?
No easy explanation for phenomena
Each chapter revolves around a topic such as, agriculture, politics, religion, etc.
Each topic is covered by reference to five themes:
Culture region: where is it?
Cultural diffusion: how’d it get there?
Cultural ecology: how’s it linked to the environment?
Cultural integration: how does it interact with other cultural elements?
Cultural landscape: what does it look like?
Culture region: a geographical unit based on human traits
Formal
Functional
Vernacular
Area that people have one or more common traits
Core/periphery pattern
Corn belt
Bible belt
German speaking region
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A region that functions politically, economically or socially.
It has defined nodes and borders
Pizza hut delivery
The LA Times
The San Fernando Diocese
New Jersey
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A region perceived to exist by people living within it, or by outsiders.
An outgrowth of a sense of belonging
Probably an outgrowth of a need to exclude others as well.
Powerful emotionally
Hard to characterize systematically
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Definition: spatial spread of learned ideas, innovations and attitudes
Sometimes an idea has a single hearth, others multiple hearths develop independently
Various types of diffusion patterns:
Relocation
Expansion
Ideas move with people
Ideas spread, people stay put.
Hierarchical
Contagious
Stimulus diffusion
Three stages
Time-distance decay
Absorbing barrier (lousy term)
Barriers that prevent diffusion at some border
Border of Texas is an absorbing barrier for ____?
Permeable barrier
Permit only partial acceptance of an innovation or practice.
Liquor laws in the South
Since many places have accessibility to new ideas and practices, why is it that everyone, everywhere does not behave and think identically?
We must be able to contextualize the acceptance or rejection of new knowledges.
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Figure showing the invention and diffusion of the printing press in Europe
Confusing diagram depicting the distance decay of as innovations are accepted through time/space. Core development at the top (greater availability of innovations in single location)
Definition: cause-and-effect interplay between people and environment
Culture can be thought of as the way people adapt to the environment
Cultural ecology is the meeting ground of human and physical geographers
Cultural adaptation
Adaptive strategy
Environmental Determinism
Possibilism
Environmental perception
Humans as modifiers of the earth
Flawed notion that culture is a direct response to the dictates of climate and topography.
Popular during the 1800s-1920s.
Has some ugly potentialities and undermined the success of Geography as a discipline.
People are the primary architects of culture, although the environment gives us options that we may choose to follow or ignore.
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This school argues that perception of the environment is most important.
Ignorance is as important as knowledge
Geomancy or Feng Shui
Natural hazards and hazard zones
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Opposite of environmental determinism.
Argue that it is humans that are in the drivers seat in this relationship.
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Cultures are complex wholes
Cultures are integrated systems
Each cultural aspect is dependent on others
Example: religion and politics and economics and race and …
Cultural determinism is a danger
Scientific method applied to people
Laws are sought which explain humans spatial behavior
According to the text, space (geometric space) is a key concept in this modernist approach.
Model building is common
Economic determinism is a danger
Some progress made in accounting for geographic variation.
Place and place meaning
Humanistic views and subjectivity
Chaos Reigns
Multiple definitions of postmodernism
Critical Theory and Cultural Studies
The built and humanized landscape
Landscapes tell of the culture
Can be “read” like a text
Three principal aspects of cultural landscape
Settlement patterns
Land-division patterns
Architecture
Consider the parking structure across from Sierra Hall. What does it suggest about the culture that built it?
What symbolic values does it have?
What is not said?
Example: the American log house