This meaning is often called the S ense of Place. In cultural geography, places are geographic locations that humans imbue with meaning. Basic Concepts in Cultural Geographyīelow are some commonly invoked geographic terms that cultural geographers use. Within this variety of subjects and approaches, some commonalities stand out. Marxism, feminism, cultural studies, post-structural philosophy, and many other approaches have been used to turn cultural geography into a highly theoretical field that is as varied as culture itself. Since the 1970s, cultural geographers practicing the so-called "new cultural geography" have searched far and wide for inspiration in their quests to interpret the cultural landscape in ever more complex and nuanced ways. His most famous article on this topic was 'The Morphology of Landscape' (1925). Sauer advocated the study of cultural landscapes over time to understand the imprint societies have on the physical landscape. His students, and their students, fanned out across the geography departments of the US, diffusing "Sauerian" cultural geography far and wide. Sauer (1889-1975), a geographer at the University of California-Berkeley, was the "godfather" of the Berkeley School of Latin Americanist Geography. US cultural geography grew out of Carl Sauer's rejection of Environmental Determinism (more on this below). Let's take a look at the foundations of this critical field. So, you will see that in almost every geographical study, culture is key to understanding. Without cultural geography, it is largely impossible to interpret even data like population or income. This is because, if we want to understand a human society, we naturally must first ask what ethnicity or ethnicities it includes, what languages are spoken, and what religions are practiced. Therefore, cultural geography can be seen as a fundamental part of human geography. Agricultural geography is also based in culture, and in population geography, the roots of migration are often cultural. Political geography derives much of its insights from cultural geography, given that so many political issues that involve ethnicity, boundaries, and territory stem from cultural differences. Economic geography recognizes that one of the reasons that economic activities vary from place to place is cultural difference. In human geography, culture is not just limited to cultural geography. Culture helps create identity, meaning, and continuity in human society. Culture in Human GeographyĬulture includes mentifacts like religion and language, artifacts like books and movies, and sociofacts such as gender identity. Read on to find out more about the fascinating ways that cultural geography shapes not just us, but the whole planet. People leave cultural artifacts in the places they settle, fashioning a cultural landscape. Think of it: where would we be without art, music, dance, language, story-telling, religion, cuisine, and movies? How would we communicate? What would we believe in? How could we even have real identities?Ĭulture goes hand in glove with geography. The near infinite varieties of culture are what make human society exciting and life worth living.
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