Culture, Environment and Society

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Culture, Environment and Society

• Introduction

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Introduction Geography Matters

• Geographers are interested in the diversity and
  variety of peoples and places
• Particularly the spatial organization of human
  environments
• The study of places
• The uniqueness, generalities, and interdependence
  of places

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Introduction Geography Matters

• Geographic ignorance
• Wheres Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Israel,
  Palestine, Georgia?
• Very prevalent in the U.S.
• Locate Texas, Idaho, Oklahoma, New York on a U.S.
  map

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The meaning of places

• Places are
• Dynamic
• Change over time
• Fluid
• Boundaries change
• Socially, environmentally constructed
• Product of the interplay of human and
  environmental interaction

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The meaning of places

• Places provide the setting in which people carry
  on their daily lives
• Physical well-being
• Opportunities
• Lifestyle choices

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The meaning of places

• Places as
• Emotional and cultural symbols
• Socially constructed
• Part of our cultural identity
• Given different meanings by different groups for
  different purposes
• e.g., Texas, France

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Blarney Castle, Cork, Ireland
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Consumption of symbolic tourist places Kissing
the Blarney Stone, Blarney Castle, Ireland
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The meaning of places

• Places as
• Sites of innovation
• Economic
• Technological
• Cultural practice
• Sites of resistance
• Political
• Cultural
• economic

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Interdependence of places

• Most places are interdependent
• Cities of various sizes often fill specialized
  roles
• Larger cities may impact smaller cities
• Culturally, economically, technologically

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Interdependence of places

• Places defined by both wider processes and their
  unique characteristics

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Scale and interdependence

• Scale
• Not so much a zooming device i.e., local,
  regional, national, global
• Materialization of real world processes
• The tangible partitioning of space within which
  life occurs

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Scale and interdependence

• World is divided into
• World regions
• States
• Localities (settlements)
• But
• Most cultural phenomena occur simultaneously at a
  variety of levels with different outcomes at
  different scales

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Scale interdependence

• E.g., Scale jumping
• Used to be that most economic activity was
  regulated at the national scale
• Local communities could appeal to National Gov.s
  for help if their industries were suffering
• Now much economic decision making occurs at the
  global level reducing the ability of National
  Governments manage their economic affairs

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Scale and interdependence

• E.g., Globalization
• Global increase in wealth
• Some places benefit
• Some places loose out
• Factory closes and moves offshore
• Lower costs to U.S. consumers
• Maybe higher pay for workers at new location
• Unemployment in previous U.S location
• off-shoring of pollution effects
• Cheap products in U.S.
• Lower pollution in U.S.
• Pollution from manufacturing occurs elsewhere

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Basic Concepts

• Location
• Nominal (just a name!)
• Relative
• Site
• Physical characteristics
• Soils, climate,
• Morphology
• Situation
• Location relative to somewhere else
• e.g., Denton is 35 miles north of DFW on I-35

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Absolute location

• Latitude
• Angular distance of a point (degrees, minutes,
  seconds) north or south of the equator
• Equators value is 0
• North Pole is 90
• Denton, Texas 33 12'

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Absolute location

• Longitude
• Angular distance of a point on the earths
  surface, east or west of the Prime Meridian
  (Greenwich, England)
• Greenwich is 0
• 180 (to east and west)
• Denton 97 06 W

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Prime Meridian

• Prime Meridian, Royal Observatory in Greenwich,
  England

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Basic Concepts

• Cognitive location
• Mental maps
• Psychological representations of locations that
  come to mind from peoples ideas and impressions
  of their locations
• e.g., Mental Map of Washington DC.

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Distance

• Absolute
• Physical distance between two points
• Relative distance
• Time to travel between two points
• Cognitive distance
• Perceived distance
• e.g., going to and coming from a concert
• Friction of Distance
• Further apartless interaction

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Distance

• Accessibility
• Defined by
• relative location
• Implies relative distance
• Connectivity
• How well places are connected via channels of
  transportation and communication
• e.g., Albuquerque, NM to New York
• Albuquerque, NM to Nacogdoches, TX.

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Distance

• Topological space
• Some dimensions of space and spatial organization
  not suited to description by distance
• Here connectivity of people and places is more
  important
• And how to get there

Milan, Italy, Metro Map
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Spatial Interaction

• Movement and flows involving human activity
• Complementarity
• Demand in one place supply in another
• Transferability
• Cost and time to actually move something over
  space
• (time-space convergence in a shrinking world)
• Intervening Opportunity
• Alternative origins or destinations
• e.g., South Africa as destination for Australian
  immigrants in 19th century)

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Spatial Diffusion

• Usually not physical material
• Ideas, innovations, diseases, cultural norms,
  religions etc.,
• Occurs over time
• S-curve
• Slow buildup
• Rapid spread
• Leveling off

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Spatial Diffusion

• 3 types
• Expansion or contagion
• i.e., through contact because of proximity
• E.g., new hybrid seeds for agricultural practice

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Spatial Diffusion

• Hierarchical (cascade)
• Spreads from one location to another without
  spreading to people and places inbetween
• e.g., fashion trends

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Spatial Diffusion

• Combination
• Spreads via contact (proximity) and between
  locations
• E.g., Aids

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Regions

• Formal regions
• Homogeneity of one or more particular features
• e.g., Corn belt
• Absence or presence of a particular of corn
  grown in rural areas
• Feature(s) used to define the region depends upon
  the definer and what you are trying to classify

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Regions

• Functional (nodal) regions
• Overall coherence to the structure and dynamics
  of economic, social and political organization
• E.g., the Metroplex
• Southern California

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Landscape (cultural)

• The reflection of a particular society
• Ordinary (vernacular) landscape
• Everyday life
• Sense of place
• Everyday routines in familiar settings
• Lead to a pool of shared meanings
• May carry over to feelings about themselves and
  their locality (e.g., small town feel)

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Landscape cultural

• Symbolic landscapes
• Represent particular values or aspirations
• e.g., Washington DC
• Designed to communicate power
• e.g., West of Ireland
• Irish identity and nationalism

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Globalization and Place
The end of Geography?, The end of Place?
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Globalization and Place

• Will globalization render geography obsolete?
• Unlikely!
• The more universal the diffusion of material
  culture
• The more valuable regional and ethnic identities
  become
• The faster the information highway takes people
  into cyberspace
• The more people feel the need for a subjective
  setting, i.e., a specific place or community
  (local character)

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Globalization and Place

• The greater the reach of transnational
  corporations
• The more easily they are able to respond to
  place-to-place variations in labor and consumer
  markets
• so place become important in the competition
• The greater the integration of transnational
  governments and institutions
• The more sensitive people have become to local
  cleavages or race, ethnicity and religion, e.g.,
  Northern Italy, Scotland