Cultural geography
Encyclopedia : C : CU : CUL : Cultural geography
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Cultural Geography is the study of customs, foods, clothing, music, architecture, traditions, religions and languages of the world, its spatial distribution and the study of causes of this distribution.
Areas of study
To help the reader attain a greater feel for the subject, the following terms and brief definitions are provided:
- Political Theory of Culture (p 14): understanding culture in a manner seeing politics, economics, and society as concerned with the material relations of society and culture with the symbolic - looking at the total way of life.
- Culture (p 14): a way of life encompassing ideas, attitudes, languages, practices, institutions, and structures of power and whole range of cultural practices (art, [[wiktionary:canon|canons]], commodities); opposite of nature; sets people apart from one another (I am an American); hierarchical order.
- Cultural Hegemony (p 51): Antonio Gramsci's idea; looks at how and why people consent to being dominated, when and under what conditions do subordinates consent to rule by the dominate group, and "consent" v "coercion".
- Cultural Differentiation (notes): differences of patterns across cultural groups; a way of life.
- Social Reproduction (p 54): everyday perpetuation of the social institutions and relations that make possible the material conditions of life; looks at what is produced and consumed.
- Cultural Resistance (p 62): explores the contours of cultural control and challenges; looks the conditions under which resistance occurs.
- Cultural Representation (p 66): people who act collectively can produce reality, represent beliefs, and lifestyles (eg: punk rock and Sex Pistols).
- Neo-Lamarckism (p 17): part of environmental determinism; belief that an organism can pass on acquired characteristics to its offspring / is part of genetic make-up; environmental conditions cause and create certain habits and get passed on to future generations; nature causes cultural differences.
- Lebensraum (p 18): means living space and like an organic thing it needs to grow; to Nazis meant "blood and soil"; was used to justify Nazi imperial order.
- Social Darwinism (notes): survival of the fittest; explains why some cultures are "fitter"; facilitated "civilized" argument.
- Carl O. Sauer (p 27): father of Cultural Geography; concerned with material aspects of culture (artifacts, tangible things); concerned with cultural landscape: (derived from man, not nature, the effect of man on his environment); written as a reaction to the errors of environmental determinism.
- Archaeological culture (p 44): concentrates on material conditions of society.
- Cultural Relativism (p 25): cultures can only be understood in their own terms and hierarchical scale is impossible.
- Cultural Area (p 25): geographical regions sharing particular distributions of cultural traits; is a means to an end (understanding culture process/historical events).
- Cultural Particularism (Sauer): vanquish ethnocentrism from geography by replacing it with a developed empathy for people and places of the world.
- Superorganism (p 30): Wilbur Zelinsky; belief in force larger than -- and independent of -- human lives; culture is a real, exisiting force independent of human will / interaction.
- Mass Culture (p 48): "popular culture" or expression of popular tastes; large network of practices.
- Antonio Gramsci: cultural hegemony; asked how and why subordinates consent to rule by dominate group, why the subordinates go against what looks good for them objectively, when and under what conditions do people consnet to being dominated, looks at the relationship between powerful and not powerful.
- Cultural Materialism (p 60): looks at the material conditions of society; believes in the indossolubility of culture, politics, and economy.
- Wilbur Zelinsky: superorganism; culture is a force independent of human will and interaction; the force is larger than and independent of human lives.
- Environmental Determinism (p 17): the environment or nature caused cultural differences by providing varying conditions under which cultures developed and were transmitted form one generation to another; environmental control over human society; Neo-Lamarckism; environment causes culture (eg: Lebensraum).
- 'New' Cultural Geography: looks at the differences in cultural areas, not hegemony; looks at power and class (Williams); attacks mass culture(Hoggart); focuses on concept identity (Hall); looks at material conditions of society.
- Johann Gottfried Herder: recognition of multiple cultures; how individuals are bound to culture; looks at cultural relativism (cultures are equally valid); justified cultural traditions of Folk Germany.
- Franz Boas (p 24 - 25): pioneer of modern Anthropology; one must loose his/her own culture to truly understand another culture; attacked Darwinism; looks at how natural and social environments both conditioned and were conditioned by cultural interaction.
Scientific journals
[Journal of Cultural Geography] - published since 1980, currently at Oklahoma State University.See also
- [Landscape pictures the nation]: Cultural Geography publication, Oxford University
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