The Human Mosaic CHAPTER ONE Human Geography: A Cultural Approach

The Human MosaicThe Human Mosaic

CHAPTER ONECHAPTER ONE

Human Geography: A Cultural Human Geography: A Cultural ApproachApproach

Aboriginal Painting, Australia. What do you think it depicts?

Catholic Church in Honduras

Buddhist temple in Laos

I. Introduction:

► What is geography?► What is culture?► What is cultural geography?► Power, ideology & postmodernism► Five themes in cultural geography:

1) Culture Region2) Cultural Diffusion3) Cultural Ecology4) Cultural Interaction5) Cultural Landscapes

What determines the production of wheat worldwide?

Generalized model of a Latin American city

Explaining the processes at work shaping Latin American cities.

Culture Region► formal culture regions► functional culture regions► vernacular culture regions

terminology: cultural traits, cultural borders, border zones, nodes, core-periphery patterns, perception and identity

Vernacular often refers to the language or dialect spoken by ordinary (“folkish”) people in a particular region. Vernacular regions refer toperceived regions (and their mental maps) like the “Midwest”, “Dixie”, the “Outback”, themselves expressions of their ordinary people’s culture.

Inuit hunter with his dogsled team

Formal Regions of Europebased on language and religion

East vs. west and north vs. south in Germany

Traditional rural formal culture regions of North America

Culture regions, traits and boundary (or border) zones

Aerial view of Denver. Can you see any boundary zones?

A valley filled with farms

“Dixie”: a vernacular culture region.

San Fernando Valley (“the valley”, “valspeak”, “valley girl”)

Cultural Diffusion(after Torsten Hägerstrand)

►expansion diffusioncontagious, hierarchical, stimulus

►relocation diffusion

terminology: independent innovation, time-distance decay, absorbing barriers, permeable barriers, neighborhood effect, migration, transnational migrants & globalization

Types of Cultural Diffusion

Early diffusion of the printing press in Europe

Diffusion of HIV/AIDS in Ohio

According to your textbook, a demonstration against the deportation of immigrants in Germany. The banner, however, seems to address the issue of wars, possibly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cultural Ecology► Relationship between people & environment

► Importance of adaptive strategies

► Different schools of thought: a) environmental determinism (humans as clay to be molded by a dominant

nature) b) environmental possibilism (local cultures develop within the possibilities

offered by the environment) c) environmental perception (choices people make depend on their perception of

the environment rather than the actual character) Organic vs. mechanistic view of nature

d) humans as modifiers of the earth (humans mold nature)

Ecofeminism? Are women better ecologists and environmentalists?

Environmental determinism, possibilism, & the role of culture

Environmental determinism, possibilism, & the role of culture

Post-Katrina New Orleans

Soil erosion and deforestation in the Amazon Basin, Brazil

Landslide in El Salvador, Central America, killed more than 1,200 people in 2001.

Cultural Interaction

►Intertwined facets of global cultures

►Interdependencies and uneven development throughout the world

►The Human Development Index Life expectancy, adult literacy, gross

domestic product (see images below)

Global culture on the street of Moscow

Cultural Geography: Science or Art? Both?

-social scientists develop models to better understand, say, Latin American cities-humanistic geographers try to understand “place” (topophilia) not seeking “laws”

Cultural Landscapes

► visible expressions of culture humanized landscapes bear cultural meaning the art of reading cultural landscapes landscapes of folk vs. popular culture

► settlement landforms, land division patterns, architectural styles, grave yards, symbolic landscapes, and the power of globalization

Terraced cultural landscapes in China

Yokohama, Japan, at dusk

American ranch house

Market Square in Warsaw

- Westmoreland, Imperial Valley, CA

- Land Ordinance of 1785

Loghouse, Ottawa, Canada

Toronto landscape, Canada

Aboriginal painting / map of Arnhem Land in Australia