cultural meanings gg2001 module 5, lecture 2 tim unwin
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Cultural meaningsCultural meanings
GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2
Tim UnwinTim Unwin
![Page 2: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Lecture outline
• Geographical interpretations of cultural meanings
• Analysing cultural data
• Visual imagery
![Page 3: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
By the end of the lecture, you should….
• Be aware of some of the ways in which geographers have sought to interpret cultural meanings
• Understood something of the complexity of interpreting visual imagery
• Be prepared to undertake the practical on interpreting imagery
![Page 4: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Geographers and cultural meanings
• Why the emphasis on “meanings”?
• What do you understand by “culture”?
![Page 5: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Defining culture• Mike Crang (1998):
– …”cultures are sets of beliefs or values that give meaning to ways of life and produce (and are reproduced through) material and symbolic forms” (p.2)
• What are the significant words in this?– Beliefs and values– Produce and reproduce– Material and symbolic
![Page 6: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Cultural analysis• Techniques for making sense
of– Beliefs and values– Material and symbolic
• Last lecture briefly illustrated– Landscapes– Texts– Adverts
• What other examples of cultural elements might we look at?
![Page 7: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Geographers and cultural analysis (i)
• Cultural Geography (Jackson, 2003) - key themes– mid-1980s, a ‘cultural turn’– Politics of representation
• Emphasis on self-reflection
– Social differences– Cultural diversity– Embodied identities
• Constructed through socially significant others
• Cover of Almudena Grandes’ Atlas de Geografía Humana (1998)
– Geographies of consumption
![Page 8: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Geographers and cultural analysis (ii)
• But how do we analyse these?– “Mapping cultures”
• Traditional approaches– Textual analysis of symbolic meanings– Landscape iconography
• More recent emphasis– Questions of representation– Material objects: the social life of things– Places of consumption
• Such as supermarkets
![Page 9: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Analysing culture: a checklist
• Meanings– What were materials and symbols meant to
mean– How do we, and others, interpret them
• Intentions– What were the original intentions behind their
production?– What are the intentions of consumption?
• Differences– How do we convey differences in meanings?
• Re-presentations– How do we re-present culture?
![Page 10: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Visual imagery• Traditional focus on texts and landscapes• But diversity of visual imagery all around
us– Television and Films– Magazines– Advertisements– Video games– Posters– Architectures
![Page 11: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Ways of seeing• Distinction between ‘vision’ and ‘visuality’
– Vision: what our eyes see– Visuality: the way in which vision is constructed
• Our ways of seeing are socially and cultural constructed
• Studying visual images– The production of the image– The image itself– The audience for the image
(Morgan, 2003)
![Page 12: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Analysing image production
• What is the image?– How do we see it?
• Who produced it?• Why was this particular
image produced?• Who was it produced
for?
![Page 13: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Analysing the image itself• Where is the image?• What is being shown?• What are the components
of the image?• What use is made of
colour?• Is it combined with text?
![Page 14: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
Analysing the audience
• Who consumes the image?
• How is the image consumed?– Alone or with others?
• What do consumers make of the image?
• Where is it seen?
QuickTime™ and aSorenson Video 3 decompressorare needed to see this picture.
![Page 15: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Visual culture (Rose, 2001)
• Images do something– Images are sites of resistance and recalcitrance
• Images visualize social difference– Especially with feminist and post-colonial writings
• Concern with ways in which images are looked at– Spectators look in particular ways
• The embeddedness of visual culture in a wider culture
![Page 16: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Visual methods (Rose, 2001)
• Sites and modalities: a framework for seeing• Sites
– Of production– Of the image– Where seen
• Modalities at each site– Technological (from oil painting to the Internet)– Compositional (content, colour, spatial organisation)– Social (economic, social and political relations)
• The value of semiology (the study of signs)– Signs that stand for something other than themselves– Important in our understanding of many images
![Page 17: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
The practical: wine images• Why do we drink wine?• An interpretation of
wine imagery• How do wine
advertisements draw on our cultural imagery?
• Using Rose’s framework
![Page 18: Cultural meanings GG2001 Module 5, Lecture 2 Tim Unwin](https://reader030.vdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022020105/5513cf955503463a298b5082/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
An opportunity for any questions?