Historical Development of Cultural Geography

Stephen McFarland

Geography + Cultural Studies

“The insertion of spatial concepts into social theory has not yet been successfully accomplished…The junction between geography and social theory is one of the crucial flash points for the crystallization of new conceptions of the world and new possibilities of active intervention.”

–David Harvey

Harvey- History of Geography

• The history of geography is tied up with the history of our society.

• Changing societies make changing demands for geographic knowledge.

• Defining Geography: “Geography records, analyzes and stores information about the spatial distribution and organization of those conditions (both naturally occurring and humanly created) that provide the material basis for the reproduction of social life. It promotes conscious awareness of how such conditions are subject to continuous transformation through human action.”

• Geographers as generalists, “synthesizers of knowledge in its spatial aspect”

Harvey- Bourgeois Geography

1) Mapping, surveying2) Systematic description of Earth’s surface3) Spatial variations in ways of life (culture)4) Geopolitics- spheres of influence5) Quantitative study of population,

infrastructure for rational planning6) Ideology

Harvey- People’s Geography

• Against Positivism (uncovering hidden assumptions and biases)

• Calling out racism, sexism, prejudice• Challenging role of geography in imperialism,

social control, exploitation• Marxism, anarchism, humanism, advocacy,

“geographic expeditions”

Harvey on neutrality

“Geographers cannot remain neutral. But they can strive towards scientific rigor, integrity, and honesty. The difference between the two commitments must be understood. There are many windows from which to view the same world, but scientific integrity demands that we faithfully record and analyze what we see from any one of them. The view from China looking outwards or from the lower classes looking up is very different from that from the Pentagon or Wall Street. But each view can be represented in a common frame of discourse, subject to evaluation as to internal integrity and credibility.”

Mitchell- Cultural Geography

“A Critical Introduction”• “the goal is to explore the struggles that make

"culture," to show how they get worked out in particular spaces and places - in particular landscapes - and to show how struggles over "culture" are a key determinant, day in and day out, in the ways that we live our lives”

• “Materialist and Marxist”

Mitchell’s Standpoint

• “I have an agenda”• “my primary goal has been to show how

"culture" is never any thing, but is rather a struggled-over set of social relations, relations shot through with structures of power, structures of dominance and subordination. Such a position (like any intellectual position) comes with its own set of blinkers.”

Mitchell’s Aim

• [My] focus is on cultural struggle, on the imposition of social control through "cultural means,“ and on the construction of and resistance to the cultural spaces that define social life in different settings.

Mitchell Ch.1: Culture Wars

• Battles over cultural identity reflect and shape geographies

• “Culture is socially constructed through all manner of contests and cooperations over the materials that make up our lives– places, jobs, pictures, foods, art, histories, ethnicities, sexualities” (p. 12)

Mitchell- Defining Culture

• Culture as total “way of life”• Culture as “structure of feeling”• Culture as “what’s left when you subtract

economic, political, and social” from human activity

• Culture as the symbolic

Mitchell- 6 Ways of thinking about Culture

1) Culture is the opposite of nature2) Culture is a way of life3) Culture is the processes by which a way of life

develops4) Culture as set of markers defining group

membership5) Culture is the way patterns, processes and

markers are represented6) Culture as a hierarchical ordering of ways of life

Mitchell- History of Cultural Geography

• Environmental determinism- The natural features of the earth’s surface shape human culture

• Carl Sauer- agency of “man” on earth: “Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the cultural landscape the result”

• Wilbur Zelinsky- Superorganicism: culture as unified, semi-independent force over and above people

• 1970s critiques: where is power? Where is difference? What about cities? Modern life?