Cultural Geography Flashcards
What did the superorganic approach to culture entail in the Berkeley school?
- Reification of culture (ABSTRACT TO CONCRETE), separating it from individual agency
- “Culture was viewed an entity above man [sic]” (p182)
- Culture as a genetic code reinforced through inheritance (still forgetting human agency!)
- Concedes defeat to dominant forces changing society
- Homogenous cultures (and racism)
- Ontological and empirical errors
(Duncan, 1980)
What does modern (the “new” and contemporary forms of) cultural geography do?
Denaturalises notions of difference in people and places
What is culture, a priori?
- VALUES: this is paramount
- Customs
- Products
- Power
- Ideology
- Identity
Give 3 ways of understanding culture
- A way of seeing
- A way of being
- A way of shaping
What is one way in which culture could be seen as involuntary?
- The Spectacle (Debord, 1967)
- Images and materials shaping consumerism in western, advanced capitalist societies
- May not be part of identity, just a superimposed norms
- Life is all about getting the best commodities
What are the 5 aspects of the Berkeley school?
- Rejection of environmental determinism
- Culture as a morphology
- Spatial diffusion of cultures
- Sequent occupance and outcomes
- The “culture group”
What is a “culture group” (Sauerian cultural geo)?
- How cultures can be learnt from the family
- Cultural determinism
An overview of Berkeley school flaws
- Culture created change, not individuals changing culture
- A material focus, not looking at processes or nonmaterial aspects
- Rejected theoretical approaches
- A “genetic explanation” of outcomes, not processes
(Solot, 1986)
What is ironic about Sauer’s rejection of environmental determinism?
- In rejecting environmental determinism, he was against an overriding force determining places (Solot, 1986)
- Cultural determinism resulted in equally racist views because of the idea of a “culture group”, homogenity of culture and inherited cultures (Duncan, 1980 - see Mexican character types)
How did Sauer view animal domestication? What is wrong with this view?
- Rejected economic reasons for domestication because he believed this was driven by environmental issues (scarcity of resources, a Malthusian approach viewed by environmental determinists)
- Instead due to religion (SOLOT, 1986)
- Forgot that economic reasons can be a social relation, as Marx theorised - domestication to get more profit. A major misinterpretation of economics
- Religeous reasons probably before economic reasons, though (Philo 1995)
What did Sauer do well?
Resources determined by culture
(but if culture is superorganic how does this work? Marx saw resources as a social relation driven by values…)
(Solot 1986)
Why did the Berkeley school focus on rural areas?
Rural centrism due to the homogeneity assumption - rural areas less complex
(Duncan, 1980)
Has anyone supported the Berkeley school?
YES
Price and Lewis, 1993
- No superorganic in Sauerian cultural geography (even though Duncan showed it was strongly implied by Sauer and Zelinsky)
- Generalised all “old” cultural geography
Was the Berkeley school explanative?
Sequent occupancy described how the material landscape becomes what it is, which could be viewed as an explanation. NO explanation as to WHY changes occurred (Duncan, 1980)
Requires more of a Socratic method
What did the “New” cultural geography, with its origins at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), Birmingham, focus on?
- Power shaping cultural landscapes
- Culture as a “way of seeing”, thus differentially revealing and obscuring the world
What is an example of a cultural clash?
- Tebbit Cricket test (1990)
- “Which side do they cheer for? It’s an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?” (Tebbit, 1990)
- Makes culture a matter of choice and values
- Also power to force cultural change
- Economic rationality also important in culture
How does the Tebbit test link to the Berkeley school conception of culture?
Culture exists in a place prior to the arrival of people (superorganic, Duncan, 1980)
Interesting how the superorganic fallacy is used as a way of shaping values and power here
Good texts for landscape and power?
- Marxist approaches to landscape, capital and power (Nayak and Jeffrey, 2013)
- Subjugation of cultures in frontier capitalism (Patel and Moore, 2017)
- Shock doctrine and Sri Lanka developments (Klein, 2007)
How is power used to shape the landscape in Bedford, NY (In Landscapes of Privilege)
- Segregation through laws of exclusion enforced by local residents
- Prevents 4 acre plots being subdivided to allow less affluent citizens to move in
- Environmental issues used as main discourse in arguments
- Privacy defines Bedford - the town “wouldn’t exist” without 4 acre plots
- “Situational environmentalism” - environmental issues selectively used as cultural values
- Workers who are excluded from the community live in Mount Kisco nearby. These latino labourers maintain the pristine and cherished landscape in Bedford
(Duncan and Duncan, 2004)
What is the effect of racial minority labourers being excluded from the landscape of privilege they maintain in Bedford?
- Production alienation of workers from the fruits of their labour
- Consumer alienation (of post-marxism) of employers and the workers (links to class alienation)
- Mount Kisco is viewed as the “servants quarter” (p204) for Bedford’s workers by locals
(Duncan & Duncan, 2004)
What is discourse?
- A means of producing knowledge about the world, shaping how we see it
How does performance differ from discourse?
Shapes the world rather than simply presenting it
see Butler; Nussbaum, 1999
How does Orientalism by Said relate to geopolitics and cultural geography?
- Gives westerners authority over “oriental” places abroad
- Appropriates cultures and reinforces racial stereotypes
- Colonialism (geopolitics) is a “geographical imagination” - development is needed to help them (see Escobar)
How can seeing the landscape text be obscured by power structures and grand narriatives?
Landscape as a way of SEEING for bourgeoisie (illusionary) versus a WAY OF LIFE (/BEING) or the proletariat (vernacular) - a big emphasis on positionality (Daniels, 1989)
Interesting how even cultural geography’s categorisation into “ways of seeing” can be generalised
In what ways was the imagined and material landscape of St Petersburg changed after 1991?
- Authoritarian communist symbols removed
- New place names (Leningrad to St P.)
- Material aspects lost: monuments
- Communal apartments still exist (for this - Bater, 2006)
Why are post-socialist urban areas significant regarding cultural changes?
The fall of the soviet union and the adoption of free market capitalism resulted in very abrupt changes to citizens lives
Where were most family apartments built in St Petersburg during the Khrushchev years?
In the suburbs, mainly low-rise apartments (Bater, 2006)
How many (absolute and as a proportion of all apartment types) of people live in Communal apartments in St Petersburg in 2000?
- 328, 000 families
- 9.3% apartments
(Bater, 2006)
How was social class segregated in St Petersburg during the imperial period?
- A “three dimensional” segregation
- Segregation within apartments and buildings, despite the city being designed to segregate more by neighbourhoods
(Bater, 2006)
How did people proclaim their status during the Imperial era in St Petersburg? Why?
- Clothing and “uniforms”
- Due to mixed neighbourhoods of different social classes
- “[D]ress, or personal appearance, not address, defined who one was” (p22)
(Bater, 2006) - Interspatial expression of class, mobile, and encompassing many parts of the city
Why does much of St Petersberg city centre still exhibit Imperial architecture?
- No need to build parade squares in Soviet Era
- Imperial aspects still exist in the material environment, strongly contrasting with soviet buildings and requisitioned parts of the city
(Bater, 2006) - A phenomenological aspect of place memory in everyday life
How could the expression of social class in clothing be applied to post-modern city mixed developments?
Could see people express their class and social superiority in clothing, so needs more egalitarian measures to reduce wealth
CONSPICUOUS CONSUMERISM
(an extension)
Why did social class segregation continue in the Soviet era, despite egalitarian measures (eg nationalisation of property)?
- Still enclaves of wealth adjacent to enclaves of poverty in the centre
- Rise of a mertiocracy towards end of Soviet era, with managerial class rewarded with better apartments
- City centre still seen as attractive to families etc
(Bater, 2006)
In what ways could cultural change in the St Petersburg landscape relate to marxist geographies?
- Since 2000 apartments have been gentrified due to privatisation (Bater, 2006)
- Many refurbished former communal apartments are surrounded by pseudo-communal apartments still (Bater, 2006), increasing divides and class segregation
- Capital made by wealthier investors - perhaps cheap communal apartments are a frontier of capitalism? Material changes affect place memory
How has neoliberalism in St Petersburg affected industries in St Petersburg?
- Industries have closed as can no longer compete (Bater, 2006)
- Derelict appearance of parts of the city, even in the centre because of soviet planning to evenly spread industries… (Bater, 2006)
- Place memory in these derelict areas represent changes in the city and remind residents of past events. Urban natures too - a fundamentally random biological process
Has St Petersburg changed?
Yes and no. There has been “continuity and change” in the city (Bater, 2006)
How did everyday life change in Soviet times, especially towards the end of the era?
People wanted to be more “normal”, like people in the west (Harris, 2005), unlike the economic anomaly they were portrayed as by the west
Did normality arrive for citizens of Russia and St Petersburg post-1991?
- Not really
- Many aspects of the Soviet era still existed (Harris, 2005)
- Communal apartments remained (see Bater, 2006)
- Communal apartments site of abnormality (Harris, 2005)
- Also sudden shock of liberalisation (Klein, 2007)
- A new dynamic to place memory
In what ways did everyday life extend beyond the communal apartment in St Petersburg?
- In soviet and post-soviet everyday life, people perform actions and communicate with others outside their apartments
- Allows mixing within certain groups not bound by place
(Harris, 2005)
How can places of dynamic change, such as St Petersburg, be studied?
- Alltagsgeschichte: “history from below”
- “Ordinary people” under oppression could still express themselves (had choice) and roles in everyday life
- Allows the society under a totalitarian regime to be understood better
- Sheds light on the citizens views of regimes (support and resistance)
(Harris, 2005)
Is the communal apartment in St Petersburg really the “abnormal” anymore?
- It depends
- Some see private family apartments as “abnormal” and alienating
- Communal apartments seen as a way of life, sometimes preferred
- Political change did not bring changes to everyday life
(Harris, 2005)
- What is considered to be the norm is fluid. Culture is not set in stone. Values change
Were communal apartments a place to express yourself?
Yes, they became an informal economy (Harris, 2005)
Was clothing used as an expression of social class only in imperial St Petersburg?
No
- Also used to express social class, especially among the bourgeoisie during the New Economic Policy (NEP 1921-28) (Harris, 2005)
- Due to formal segregation in Soviet era, though
How could Khrushchev’s “major reform” have affected place memory?
- Agency to build own home incentive, not seen under Stalin’s leadership
- Allowed workers to build their own home (Harris, 2005)
- Marxist elements: less alienation from their environment (also link to Heidegger’s Dasein)
- Privatisation later: not only transferring ownership but changing the design and making capital
In what ways was there “public privacy” (publichnaia privatnost) in communal apartments?
- Private areas (eg sleeping quarters) visually private but transparent to sound
- Public areas (eg toilet) could intermittently become private spaces, although communal activities outside changed substantially
(Harris, 2005) - Spatial (material) and symbolic aspects of privacy
Why were communal spaces in apartments in St Petersburg kept to a minimum cleanliness?
- Not due to laziness
- Meant nobody cloud claim the space
- Polite to do so
(Harris, 2005)
Why was state-owned housing significant in St Petersburg?
Occupants could be disciplined in the world of work (Harris, 2005 - good links to Biopower and Foucault)
Why did communal apartments act as a microcosm of an informal economy?
- Social hierarchy (due to length of occupancy and social identities, jobs etc)
- Cultural capital in an oppressive regime and communal place
(Harris, 2005)
Why is Bedford, NY, seen as a “privileged landscape”?
- Exclusion from development
- “Invisible walls around towns” (p102)
- Education affected by exclusion (as local taxes pay for it and thus regulate it)
- Workers are detached from the landscape
(Duncan and Duncan, 2004)
What aspects of cultural geography are there in St Petersburg?
- Place memory
- Postmodern cultural geo (images and materials)
- Marxist geographies (with capital and gentrification)
- Power and private spaces
- Informal economies
- Norms and performances
What are geographies of sexuality?
- Ambiguous nature of sexuality
- The relationship to space and place
- “Inherently spatial” - space is needed from sexuality to be constructed (Mitchell, 2000)
What was Freud’s understanding of sexuality?
- the family was key
- Sexuality learned and constructed through interaction with others and ones self
- People reflect sexual identities and views onto others
- All people predisposed to be attracted to both sexes
- Freud thought heteronormativity was good and that homosexuality was due to inappropriate interaction
What was Foucault’s understanding of sexuality?
- Discourse analysis: ‘A history of the present’
- Sexuality is a discourse and a historical product, not a biological fact
- ALL OF SOCIETY shapes sexuality
- Sites of sexuality: how places are used by certain genders. Spatial divides reinforce what is “Normal”
- “Acts to identity” - and the relationship with power and the state
What was Butler’s understanding of sexuality?
- ‘Gender Trouble’ (1990)
- Replicated acts reperforming identities as a social artifice separate from nature
- Corporeal aspects - how we use our bodies constitutes reality
- Normative dimensions of culture
- Post-structuralists criticisms and resistance
Why is space important in projecting identity and resisting social norms?
An empty box to overcome norms and powerful conventions - as seen with rent strike in 1915 Glasgow (Castells 1983)
Why were women important in the 1915 Glasgow rent strike?
- Not the subjects of the protests, just participants
- The action might have made them more self-aware of gender inequality (as well as factory labour for first time)
(Castells 1983)
What are some issues with geographies of sexuality?
- Public space focus
- Does not look at intersectionality and other groups which are studied as separate, discrete structures in society (Oswin, 2008)