Human Geography: Space, Location, and Culture
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 1
Space = The areal extent of something
- Absolute space
- Objective, physically real, with measurable extent and definable boundaries
- Key for map-making, description and analysis (explanation) of spatial distributions
- Relative Space
- Subjective/ Perceptual variable over time
- E.g. Topological maps, scale, distance and positioning are guesstimates
- Clarity, relative spacing vs objective accuracy
- Location: refers to a particular position in space
- Absolute (mathematical) location
- Relatively stable, unchanging
- e.g., Latitude and longitude co-ordinates using an arbitrary mathematical grid: 80 W, 43N
- Relative (perceived) location
- Subject to change and interpretation
- e.g. a short drive from downtown, or adjacent to Cootes Paradise, etc.
- Nominal (or toponym) location: A place name
- A location of significance is typically given a name
- Names of places can provide a degree of locational understanding
- Places names can be contested e.g. Iqaluit/Frobisher Bay | Derry/Londonderry
- Place: A location with a particular identity, meaning or significance
- Individual or collective
- e.g. Location + cultural/human meaning = place
- Sense of place: The personally significant attachment we associate with certain place
- Sense of place can be positive or negative
- Some place evoke a sense of place even though you have never been there e.g. Eiffel Tower
- Place making: The transformation of ‘space’ or location into ‘place’.
- How are our perceptions actively shaped? By whom?
- Places that evoke little to no meaning whatsoever are referred to as placeless
- Linked with homogeneity and standardization e.g. Walmart, Booster Juice
- Distance: The amount of space between two or more locations
- Absolute/physical distance: Shortest distance (straight line)
- Time/Travel distance: Fastest route more realistically taking consideration method of travel n all dat
- Economic distance:
- Psychological distance:
- Distribution
- Geographic phenomena can often be explained with reference to the distance between them and their spatial organization
- Density: The frequency with which something, exists in a measured area
- Concentration/Dispersion: How something is spread over an area
- Concentrated/ clustered (agglomerated): Objects are close together (small distance) e.g. Restaurants in a towns central tourist area
- Dispersed (scattered): Objects are far apart e.g. Service Canada locations
- Pattern: The spatial arrangement of objects
- Linear, rectilinear, random, uniform/ordered. Etc,
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 2
- Region: a part of the world that is different/distinct from the rest
- Part of the earth’s surface that displays internal homogeneity and is relatively distinct (different or heterogeneous) from surrounding areas according areas according to some criteria
- Criteria could be: human/culture or physical or a combination of both
- Internal homogeneity (uniformity) vs external heterogeneity
- Regionalization: the process where we simplify our complex world and its human and physical geographic patterns and processes into regions
- Scale: a way to think about society at different levels or layers
- Global, national, regional, provincial, city, neighborhood
- What might be viewed as a region from one perspective may no longer be significant when viewed from another
- Landscapes: the visible features of the land/area
- Landscapes can be natural/physical and/ or human/culture
- Regions are often defined / identified by their landscapes
- Cultural landscape: the outcome of the interactions between people and their environments , the visible human imprint on the land
- Eg/ indigenous architecture
- Each cultural group imprints itself on the landscape in different ways
- Cultural groups modify their landscapes to suit their needs; these differences can be slight or vast
- Colonialism devasted many traditional indigenous cultural landscapes
- Reclaiming, restoring, taking inspiration
- Diffusion: the movement/spread of a geographic phenomenon across space and over time
- Relocation
- Expansion
- Eq/ immigrants
- Hierarchical: ideas, innovation, diseases, etc. Leapfrog form one important person to another, of from one city to another, temporarily bypassing: less significant places and people
- Contagious diffusion: the rapid and widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population eg/ pouring a cup of water
- Eg/ how disease moves, social trends, etc
- Two main forms of diffusion
- Relocation diffusion: the spread of ideas, cultural characteristics, etc from one area to another via the physical movement of people
- Not only do the people change, but the landscape changes
- Expansion diffusion: the spread of innovations and other phenomena
- Two main subtypes
- Perception and mental mapping
- Our experiences with these environments are actually determined by how we perceive them to be, rather than by how they actually are
- Unique to individuals
- Reflect imperfect knowledge
- Perceptions drive behaviors
- Worked with Amish kids
- Key points
- Home is the same between all the kids, home is always the center
- Non amish kids draw more stuff, show a lot more space in their neighborhood, lots of objects, animals, playgrounds, swimming pools, neighbors, free range kids, open area drawings
- Amish kids draw just their house, their drawings arent very open, with borders or boundaries
- We can see the reflection of the Amish standard of living
- Non amish kids draw their neighborhoods like maps
- Amish kids draw their neighborhoods as art
- Amish kids are used to work, draw the functionality of their locations
- Much of our engagement with real environment (physical or human) actually occurs through a personal lens
- Mental maps: a unique personal representation of reality
- Gillespie is interested in the connection between individuals and their environments
- Region: a part of the world that is different/distinct from the rest
THE MAP
- Every map focuses on somethings and leave other things out
- Map
- A two dimensional graphical representation of the world; device used to communicate info and analyze spatial problems
- Eg. Locations of towns/ citiers, property boundaries, the distribution of poverty in hamiltionm , the diffusion of contagious disease
- A necessary abstraction of complex reality
- Maps are socially constructed
- Reflect the power of the people that draw
- Maps relfect current knowledge: terra incognita
- Maps are political and cultural, they both create and reflect
- Cultural worldviews, biases in a certain time and space
- Anxieties, preoccupations
- Justification of necessary action
- Used as statements of power and authority
- Maps are like other forms of visual representation of data. Key considerations in the production and interperting maps is:
- Scale
- Perspective
- Projection
- Type
- Scale
- Representative fraction
- 1/50000 is a pretty small number (0.00002)
- 1/250,000 is even smaller (0.000004)
- Therefore: a map at 1/250,000 is a smaller scale than one at 1/50,000
- However, this 1/250,000 scale is actually portrays a much larger area, large area= small scale
- Small scale maps show large areoas, and generally depict very little detail
- Large scale maps show smaller areas and geneeally have greater levels of detail
- Indicates the spatial relationship between real-world locations, distances and areas, and their representation on the map
- All maps are scaled representations of the real world
- Typically expressed as a ratio (1:50,000)
- Large scale vs small scale
- Perspective
- How is a map oriented?
- Tools to help orient your self: north arrow or a compass rose
- Atlantic centric and the european world view
- Pacific centric and the asian world view
- There is no correct map perspective; instead, lets consider the authors intentions and biases
- Theres no right or wrong way but humans choice of map projection is political nad serves different interests
- Map type
- Revel patterns of spatial concentrations (clusering) or dispersion
- eg. Density, origins, diffusion of disease
- Communicate information using colour, shading
- Eg. Population density, growth/decline, aging, etc
- Use colour to connect locations of equal data value
- Eg. Rainfall, temperature, plant hardiness, etc
- Space is distorted to emphasize patircular attributes
- Eg. Electoral outcomes, population sizes, etv.
- Accurate representation of spatial data
- Dot maps
- Choropleth maps
- Isopleth maps
- Cartogram
- Geographic information science (GIS)
- A tool for analyzing complex spatial problems
- Maps multiple layers of data
- A rapidly growing field and an excellent career opportunity
THE MAP
- Every map focuses on somethings and leave other things out
- Map
- A two dimensional graphical representation of the world; device used to communicate info and analyze spatial problems
- Eg. Locations of towns/ citiers, property boundaries, the distribution of poverty in hamiltionm , the diffusion of contagious disease
- A necessary abstraction of complex reality
- Maps are socially constructed
- Reflect the power of the people that draw
- Maps relfect current knowledge: terra incognita
- Maps are political and cultural, they both create and reflect
- Cultural worldviews, biases in a certain time and space
- Anxieties, preoccupations
- Justification of necessary action
- Used as statements of power and authority
- Maps are like other forms of visual representation of data. Key considerations in the production and interperting maps is:
- Scale
- Perspective
- Projection
- Type
- Scale
- Representative fraction
- 1/50000 is a pretty small number (0.00002)
- 1/250,000 is even smaller (0.000004)
- Therefore: a map at 1/250,000 is a smaller scale than one at 1/50,000
- However, this 1/250,000 scale is actually portrays a much larger area, large area= small scale
- Small scale maps show large areoas, and generally depict very little detail
- Large scale maps show smaller areas and geneeally have greater levels of detail
- Indicates the spatial relationship between real-world locations, distances and areas, and their representation on the map
- All maps are scaled representations of the real world
- Typically expressed as a ratio (1:50,000)
- Large scale vs small scale
- Perspective
- How is a map oriented?
- Tools to help orient your self: north arrow or a compass rose
- Atlantic centric and the european world view
- Pacific centric and the asian world view
- There is no correct map perspective; instead, lets consider the authors intentions and biases
- Theres no right or wrong way but humans choice of map projection is political nad serves different interests
- Map type
- Revel patterns of spatial concentrations (clusering) or dispersion
- eg. Density, origins, diffusion of disease
- Communicate information using colour, shading
- Eg. Population density, growth/decline, aging, etc
- Use colour to connect locations of equal data value
- Eg. Rainfall, temperature, plant hardiness, etc
- Space is distorted to emphasize patircular attributes
- Eg. Electoral outcomes, population sizes, etv.
- Accurate representation of spatial data
- Dot maps
- Choropleth maps
- Isopleth maps
- Cartogram
- Geographic information science (GIS)
- A tool for analyzing complex spatial problems
- Maps multiple layers of data
- A rapidly growing field and an excellent career opportunity
THE GEOGRAPHY OF CULTURE
- What is culture
- The way of life of the members of society
- Culture is abput material pbjects, customs and practices
- Historically, culture has been a means of judging other groups of people
- Tied to the values, beliefs worldview, lifestyles, etc
- The human ability to develop ideas on the basis of experience and act on those ideas
- Our own culture can often seem natural and therefore hard to see
- Why care about materials, cuastoms pracyices?
- The tangible things tell us about intangible things
- Cultural region
- An area with a degree of homogeneity in cultural characteristics
- Spatial scale matters
- Regionalization: varies from one person to the next
- The hearth
- The area from which a cultural activity emerges or is most concentrated
- It may then diffuse across space
- Sub cultures
- The values, beliefs, lifestyle of a minority group within society
- Devience; resistance; distinction
- Cultural adaptation
- Migration to a new country or continent
- Climate change
- Foods
- Birth and death rituals
- Housing
- Clothing
- The adaptation (adjustment) by people and cultures, to the challenges posed by the physical environment
- A cultures evolution and adaptations to new places
- Thanks to cultural adaptation, each culture is unique
- People culturally adapt
- Cultural landscape
- The outcome of interactions between people (societies) and their environments
- The visible human imprint on the land
- Cultural landscapes reflect human modifications of the land
- Each culture imprints itself on the landscape in different ways
- Therefore, there are many cultural landscapes
- What is culture
THE GEOGRAPHIES OF LANGUAGE
- Language: A fundamental way that we distinguish between cultural groups
- Linguistic minorities as cultural minorities
- Language and the survival; of cultural groups
- e.g. Quebec’s language (sign) laws
- An expression of our beliefs, attitudes, ways of life
- e.g., The Korean word “han” (specific form of anger)
- How many language?
- 6900-7100 languages are “alive” today
- Numbers are in decline
- Language regularly go extinct
- Most languages are spoken by few people
- Is loss of language a positive or negative thing?
- Positive: Improved global communications
- Negative: Loss of culture akin to declining biodiversity
- Language extinction and revitalization are political
- Language suppression: A way that states engage in cultural assimilation (genocide) of minority ethnic groups
- Rationalized as: Linguistic Unity
- Sometimes this happens “in place”:
- Russian- Ukrainian, Polish, Belarusian, Lithuanian
- Japan- Korean, minority languages
- Great Britain- Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Welsh
- Turkey- Kurdish
- Other times, this process is highly geographical through the use of strategic location and distance
- State seizure of indigenous children
- Boarding schools, residential schooling
- Why does losing one’s language matter
- Stories, memory, teachings…CULTURE
- Truth and Reconciliation- Calls to action
- We call upon post-secondary institutions to create university and college degree and diploma programs in aboriginal languages.
- Classification and regionalization
- Language family: A group of closelt related languages that likely share a common (and ancient) origin
- Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan
- Language branch: A sub-set of a language family, and with a more recent origin (i.e. past several thousand years)
- Indo-European
- Romance: French, Italian, Spanish etc
- Germanic: English, German, Dutch
- Indo-European languages and cultural adaptation
- A single hearth area (Eastern Europe near the Black sea) and then diffusion
- Located in modern-day
- Diversification through cultural adaption
- Recall: Adaption, evolution in response to new environments
- Hearth (birth place)
- Major language families:
- Indo-European 3,089,786 ppl (444 languages)
- Sino-Tibetan 1,370,523 ppl (453 languages)
- European colonization amplified the spread of Indo-European languages (e.g. English, Spanish)
- Isolation (Sino-Tibetan) vs Diffusion (Indo-European)
- We can argue for the global language by:
- The number of speakers, or The spital extent of the language
- Other factors
- Mandarin as the global dominant language?
- Mandarin: 1 billion native speakers: The most spoken maternal language in the world
- But quite concentrated in mostly China
- Other factor: China’s investment in Africa; growth as a global superpower
- English as the global dominant language
- English the third most spoken language in the world
- But it is dispersed across many countries (50 countries)
- Colonialism, British imperialism have shaped its global diffusion.
- Language: A fundamental way that we distinguish between cultural groups
THE GEOGRAPHIES OF RELIGION
- Religion
- A set of beliefs (and associated activities) that facilitates an appreciation and understanding of our place in the world and acts to unity all those that believe into a single community
- One of the fundemental ways that we differentiate between cultural groups
- Universality
- Serves a basic human/ cultural need
- Religious law/ beliefs govern many aspects of cultural behaviour: diet, dress, roles of men/ women, laws, education, lifestyles, rites if passage, death rituals, etc
- In terms of number of adherents (followers/ believers) which relgion is the largest worldwide?
- Roman catholic
- Higher birth rates among muslims may outnumber christians by 2035
- Christianity = 1/3 of global population
- Islam = ¼
- Christianity is between ½ and 1/3 of canadas population
- Major religions typically have a hearth
- Religions from the semantic hearth: judaism, christianity, islam
- Religions from the indo-gangetic hearth: hinduism, buddhism, Jainism, sikhism, etc
- Between 2017 and 2019, 63.2% of canadians self identfied as christian
- The role of migration, diffusion
- Religion can diffuse through human migration
- Migrants bring their religion with them
- Then, they often retain their religion (perhaps unlike language, customs, etc)
- Desecration of religious landscapes and artifacts
- A spatial strategy to express intolerance, undermine feelings of security, inclusion
- Universalizing religion
- An offshoot of hinduism
- Slowly spread east from india and is more associated with china, korea and mongolia
- An offshoot of judaism
- Spread quickly through the mediterranean region through the efforts of missionaries
- Colonialism: voluntary and involuntary conversion
- Sees its faith applying to everyone
- Attempts to have global influence, and to appeal to people in all areas of the world
- Actively seeks new converts
- Buddhism
- Christianity
- An ethnic religion
- Cultural hearth area in northern india
- Gradually spread throughout india
- Marginal diffusion
- Polytheistic: worships more than one god
- Cultural hearth in the middle east (jerusalem)
- Then spread throughout europe and else where
- Monotheistic: a single god (the first of its kind)
- Appeals to a particular group of people
- Usually living in one region of the world
- Usually do not actively seek to convert others to their way of view
- Hinduism:
- Judaism:
- Religion
THE GEOGRAPHIES OF RACE AND ETHNICITY
Race and ethnicity
Globalization: Increasing global interconnectedness, interdependency
Citizenship: Citizens of Canada are Canadians- this is our nationality
Identity: Many people around the world lso identify themselves as belonging to an ethnicity or ethnic group.
Ethnicity: An individual’s affiliation with a group that distinguishes them from the rest of the population
- Can be on the basic of racial, cultural, religious or linguistic characteristics, national origins, nation of residence
Ethnic Group: A group whose members perceive themselves as different from others because of a common ancestry and or shared culture:
- Ex: Cyprus people referring to themselves as Greek or Turkish
- Linked to ancestors and to specific cultural traditions
- Often implied: Minority status
- Along with religion, is a source of conflict
Ethnicity is inherently spatial
Major ethnic groups in the U.S. have different spatial distributions: regional disturbutions:
- Hispanic-American (15%): African-American (13%), Asia-American (4%), American- Indian (1%)
Race:
- One of the most problematic concepts in the social sciences
- A race is genetically distinct group of species
- A new race only develops with prolonged seperation
- Race is entirely “Socially Constructed”
- “Races” may be invented when people delineate cultural subgroups delineated based on minor physical differences
- We are all descendants of the “human race”
Racism: A particular form of prejudice that attributes characteristics of superiority or inferiority to a group of people who share some physically inherited characteristics
Racial hierarchies preserve power for distinct groups of people.
- Power: The capacity to affect outcomes; more specifically, the ability to dominate other by means of violence, force, manipulation or authority.
Geographies and geographers of the Global South
- Caribbean, Central America, South America
- Asia, Middle-East, Africa
- Includes post-socialist countries
Beverley Mullings, Queen’s University
- How globalization is changing Jamaican women’s work and migration
- How INGOs relied on narratives of Black criminality in order to enhance their post-earthquake humanitarian work