geography 107 introduction to human geography
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Geography 107Introduction to Human Geography
California State University, Northridge
What is Geography
• Geography is a subject.• Geography is a discipline.
– Geographers use a set of methodologies.– Geographers have an epistemology.– Geographers ask, “Where?” when they want
to know “Why?”
• Geography is what geographers do.• Anything that takes place can be studied
from a geographic perspective.
What’s wrong with Geography?
• The “Mother of all Disciplines”…
• Ancient history
• Encyclopedia of every place…
Environmental Determinism.
• Flawed notion that culture is a direct response to the dictates of climate and topography.
• Popular during the 1800s-1920s.
• Has some ugly potentialities and undermined the success of Geography as a discipline.
How this course works
• The most important thing for you to learn is how to think…epistemology and methodology.
• You will be introduced to a series of subjects (politics, language, ethnicity, industry, etc.)
• You will be shown how geographers understand these topics and how spatial thinking can be applied.
Some preliminaries…
• Background vocabulary and some basic skills are in order…
Place is important
• Location– Position
– Description
• Site– Physical characteristics
– Attributes
• Situation– Relative location
– Comparisons
– Significance of location
Region
• Several different types of regions…or groupings of places.– Formal– Functional– Vernacular
Functional Region
• Has a concentrated center and fuzzy boundaries and is based frequently on economic linkages, communication and transportation ties.
• “Core and Periphery”• KTLA, a Los Angeles TV station has a
functional region…• “LA” is a functional region that extends
outward to include suburbs...
Functional Region: TV Markets
Formal Regions
• Formal regions are defined by some characteristic.
• The characteristic may be absolute, or simply “predominate”
Formal Region: Election
• All the people who have an address in California can vote as “Californians”.
Formal Region: German
Speakers
• Note the German heartland is both Protestant and German speaking, but the periphery is Catholic and more likely to include other languages.
Formal Region: Rural America
• figure
Vernacular Region
• A region perceived to exist by people living within it, or by outsiders.
• An outgrowth of a sense of belonging
• Probably an outgrowth of a need to exclude others as well.
• Powerful emotionally
• Hard to characterize systematically
• “SoCal” is a vernacular region…
Vernacular Regions
• “Dixie” is another word for the the southern US, but exactly where is “The South”?
Where? Where!
• “Where?”, is the most important question geographers ask.
• Where things are give us important clues about why they are as they are.
• Historians tend to ask “When?”…and focus on chronology.
• Geographers focus on chorology…or more commonly “distribution”
Properties of Distribution
• Density – measurement– Number of objects– Land area
• Concentration– Clustering– Dispersal
• Pattern– Irregular– Linear– Rectangular– Grid
• Cholera map…
Payday Lenders vs. Doughnut Shops
• Which industry do you think is more concentrated in the San Fernando Valley?
• If one industry is concentrated spatial and the other is not, what inferences can we draw about the competitive nature of each industry?
Connectivity
• Spatial interaction
• Characteristics spread through diffusion
Health and Medical Questions?
_
Diffusion
Figure 1.9.2
• Characteristic spreads across space and time
• Hearth - locations and nodes
• Relocation diffusion – physical movement
• Expansion diffusion– Hierarchical
– Contagious
– Stimulus
Diagram of Diffusion Patterns
Environmental Determinism
• Flawed notion that culture is a direct response to the dictates of climate and topography.
• Popular during the 1800s-1920s.
• Has some ugly potentialities and undermined the success of Geography as a discipline.
Environmental Possibilism
• People are the primary architects of culture, although the environment gives us options that we may choose to follow or ignore.
Environmental Possibilism?
• figure
Environmental Possibilism?
• figure
Environmental Perception
• This school argues that perception of the environment is most important.
• Ignorance is as important as knowledge
• Geomancy or Feng Shui
• Natural hazards and hazard zones
Hazard Location
• Figure
Hazard Location: Malibu
• figure
Humans as modifiers of the earth
• Opposite of environmental determinism.
• Argue that it is humans that are in the drivers seat in this relationship.
Earth Modification
• figure
Cultural Integration
• Cultures are complex wholes
• Cultures are integrated systems
• Each cultural aspect is dependent on others
• Example: religion and politics and economics and race and …
• Cultural determinism is a danger
Social Science
• Scientific method applied to people• Laws are sought which explain humans
spatial behavior• According to the text, space (geometric
space) is a key concept in this modernist approach.
• Model building is common• Economic determinism is a danger• Some progress made in accounting for
geographic variation.
Humanistic geography
• Place and place meaning
• Humanistic views and subjectivity
• This is an area of geography that is very
much like English, history or art
appreciation.
Postmodernism
• Multiple definitions of postmodernism
• Critical Theory and Cultural Studies
Cultural Landscape
• The built and humanized landscape• Landscapes tell of the culture• Can be “read” like a text• Three principal aspects of cultural
landscape – Settlement patterns– Land-division patterns– Architecture
Landscape• Consider the parking structure across from
Sierra Hall. What does it suggest about the culture that built it?
• What symbolic values does it have?
• What is not said?
Conclusion
• Example: the American log house
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