The Nature of Cultural

Geography
Chapter 1
The Human Matrix
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?

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

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

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

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
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.
Cultural geography
Focuses on cultural phenomena that may
vary or remain constant from place to
place
Explains how humans function spatially
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
No easy explanations for cultural
phenomena
Many complex causal forces
Wheat cultivations (next slide)
Cultural geography seeks explanations of
diverse casual factors
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
Formal culture region

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.
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.
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.

Complex multiculture regions

Territorial extents of a
culture region depend
on what defining traits
are used.
Formal culture regions
Many different formal regions can be created
Depends on traits
Geographers intuition
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
Functional culture region

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.
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.
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
Farm as a formal culture region
all land owned and leased, farmstead is
node, borders marked by fences, hedges
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
Vernacular culture regions
A region perceived to exist by its
inhabitants, has widespread acceptance
and uses a special regional name.
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
Vernacular culture region

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

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

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.
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.
Diffusion


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.
Diffusion
Proctor and Gamble
has designed soaps
and detergents for
Chinas specific water
conditions.
Just as P&G diffused
from North America to
China, other
manufacturers will
diffuse into other
parts of China.
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?
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
Neighborhood effect
Hgerstrand
Hgerstrand
Hgerstrands 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
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
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.
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
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.

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
Cultural ecology
Four schools of thought developed by
geographers on cultural ecology
Environmental determinism
Possibilism
Environmental perception
Humans as modifiers of the earth
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
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
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
Possibilism
Chongqing and San
Francisco
Similar environment
Street patterns
SF has smaller
population but larger
area
Culture
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.
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
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)
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
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
Monserrat - 1996
Missouri River

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?
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
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
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
Environmental modification

Queensland, Australia
Rainforest north of
Cairns, signs
demonstrate
conflicting
perceptions of a
particular resource.
Thousands of acres
of Australian
rainforest destroyed
yearly.
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
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
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
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
Models
Model of Latin American city
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Cultural landscape


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.
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.
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
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
Cultural landscape
Architecture
North Americas different building styles
Regional and cultural differences
Conclusion
Five themes of geography are interwoven
Culture region
Cultural diffusion
Cultural ecology
Cultural integration
Cultural landscape

Folk and popular architecture
reflect culture