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Cultural Geography
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- Cultural Geography
- Institución
- Universidad De Navarra (UNAV)
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CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY: 1. GEOGRAPHY AND CULTUREKnowing where thing “are” vs “why?”
Study of spatial variation: how and why things differ from place to place, how spatial patterns evolved through time.
Interaction of people and social groups with their environment and with each other
About space and the content of space: physical and cultural aspects.
1. WHAT IS GEOGRAPHY?
Specialized subfields are not divisive but interrelated
Physical geography focuses on the natural environment side of the human-environment structure
Human geography emphasizes ….. its content provides integration for all the social sciences because it gives the neces-
sary spatial and systems viewpoint.
Both physical and human geography are interested in the spatial arrangement of places and phenomena, and how they
appear on the landscape.
Subdivision of Human Geography and allied fields
2. WHAT IS CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY?
The study of cultural products and norms and their variations across and relations to spaces and places.
It focuses on describing and analyzing the ways language, religion, economy, government and other cultural phenomena
vary or remain constant, from one place to another and on explaining how humans’ function spatially”.
Focuses “upon the patterns and interaction of human culture, both material and non-material, in relation to the natural
environment and the human organization of space” (Cosgrove 1994)
“Is about understanding people and the places they occupy by analyzing cultural activities and cultural landscapes”.
(Norton, 2006)
CG focuses “on where cultural ideas and practices developed, how and where they diffused, and how they affect land-
scape, human perception, and human-environment relations”. (De Blij, 2003).
3. KEY CONCEPTS IN CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY
- Culture: Specialized behavioral patterns, understandings, ad-
aptations and social systems that summarize a group of people’s
learned way of life.
Transmitted within a society by imitation, instruction, and example.
Not biological
Visible/tangible and invisible/intangible evidence of culture.
, - Cultural trait: is each single element of normal practice in a culture. (Wearing a turban, eating with knives and
forks, herding of cattle…)
Its origin can be localized precisely or not. (We know the origin of the Muslim religion; we don’t know the origin of agri-
culture)
Not necessarily confined to a single culture (common in more than one culture) (not only the Muslims wear a turban, also
Hinduism, and not only for men but for women too and even can be considered fashion).
Each culture consists of a discrete combination of traits or culture complex. (The Maasai of East Africa vs European: We
both share the cult for animals, but the Maasai have evolved in a belief where the animal represents your prestige and
economy, we lost that meaning and importance to the animals, eve thought we still use them for food and clothes).
- Culture region: is the result of grouping culture complexes (ethnicity, language, religion, tradition, history…→ all
these features being connected to physical geographic features and environmental adaptation)
Types:
A formal region has a shared cultural or physical trait or more.
A functional region is defined by a particular set of activities or interactions that occur within it. (the best example is the
city, the bigger the city the more activities) Nodes: central connection points
A perceptual region is an intellectual construct, and it exists because its inhabitants believe it. (“vernacular regions”)
Geographical unit that shares culture regions.
- Diffusion: is the process of dissemination or spread of an idea or innovation from its hearth (origin) to other people
& places.
Cultural hearth is an area where cultural traits develop and from which the cultural traits spread
Sources of civilization: ideas, innovations and ideologies radiate outward from them.
The ancient hearths and their diffusion routes are speculative.
Nowadays, industrial and technological culture hearths are superimposed.
When a cultural trait develops in more than one hearth without being influenced by its development elsewhere, each
hearth operates as a case of independent invention (Agriculture invention showed by Sauer’s Agricultural Origins and Dis-
persals)
Time and distance affect the diffusion of people and ideas: “time-distance decay”.
The farther a place is from the hearth, the less likely an innovation is to be adopted.
The longer it takes to reach its potential adopter, the less likely to be adopted.
Cultural barriers can also work against diffusion. (Consumption of pork in Muslim countries)
But, traveling long distances in short times and communicating instantly have globalized the world.
Globalization is a set of processes that are increasing interactions, deepening relationships, & accelerating connectedness
across country borders. (Does it make every place the same? No, cultures keep their roots and introduce innovations that
can come along with them→ Differences from place-to-place matter).
Types of diffusion
Expansion diffusion: innovation or idea develops in a hearth and remains strong
there while also spreading outward.
- Contagious: individuals and places adjacent are affected. (Islam: there is no
territorial and time gap)
- Hierarchical: main channel of diffusion is some segment of the population
and then jumps to general population. (Crocs: originated for sailing and now-
adays they are everywhere, little by little they achieved segments of popula-
tion).
- Stimulus: idea or innovation needs to be adapted to faveur its adoption.
(McDonalds: in India they do not sell beef, vegetarian…)
Relocation diffusion: it involves the migration of people that already adopted the idea or innovation. (people who mi-
grated took with them personal and culture traits which helped to the diffusion) (China town in many cities; London, NY,
Toronto, Buenos Aires…)
Space and place: these two terms tend to be used interchangeably. However, they represent separate concepts, interact-
ing in a dynamic relationship.
, ● space: is real. an aerial extent with definable boundaries. Basic to making maps and spatial analysis. It is also abstract,
since it has to be colored with personal experience.
● place: attributes and values we individually associate with a location. Attributes develop and change over time (we also
develop perceptions of places where we have never been through books, movies, stories, and pictures)
A place can be seen as a space that has meaning. Place can be described in the extent to which human beings have given
meaning to a specific area. Meaning can be given in two different ways, namely: In a direct and intimate way, for example
through the senses such as vision, smell, sense and hearing. An in an indirect and conceptual way mediated by symbols,
arts, etc.
- Environmental determinism Vs Possibilism Environment has a double meaning: social (specific cultural traits that pre-
vail in a specific place) and natural (physical traits that form the setting of a culture)
● environmental determinism holds that human behavior is strongly affected / even controlled or determined / by the
natural environment that prevails.
● climate change is the critical factor. The ideal climate would be that of Western Europe.
History has shown that ancient culture hearths brought up in apparently unfavorable climatic zones.
• environmental possibilism: natural environment is a source of affording opportunities rather than imposing limita-
tions.
Social choices depend on people´s requirements and the technology available to them to satisfy these. Increasing mod-
ernization and technological sophistication download the degree of influence of the natural environment.
- Landscape: term used to refer to the material character of a place: complex of natural features plus human struc-
tures. ``No environment stands apart from human action. Each place we see is affected by and created by people, and
each place reflects the culture of the people in that place over time´´
Cultural landscape: ``Forms superimposed on the physical landscape by human activity´´ (Sauer, 1927) `The cultural land-
scape is fashioned from a natural landscape by a cultural group. Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the
cultural landscape is the result´´ (Sauer, 1925)
- Branches of Cultural Geography
1. Berkeley and Sauer(traditional)
From 1920s: formulation of cultural landscape. Culture is responsible for the transformation of a natural landscape into a
cultural one.
Premise is opposed to the environmental determinism: he saw that cultures and societies both developed out their land-
scape, but also shaped them too.
Focused on studying human interventions, and thus interested in quantifying material culture (ex. buildings, architec-
tures, agricultural technologies and other industries)
2. New cultural geography:
From the 1980s, Cosgrove and others.
Different theoretical assumptions, methods and subjects
Rather than focusing on material culture (mainly of non-modern and rural societies), the new examined culture in con-
temporary and urban societies, and on investigating non-material culture. (Identity, ideology, gender, sexuality…)
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