CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY: HISTORY, OBJECT OF STUDY, CONCEPTS - GEOGRAPHY - 2025

The cultural geography is a branch that comes from human geography and is responsible for the study of human civilizations and cultural level. It focuses on the relationship that exists between human civilizations and the natural environment that surrounds them.

Values, customs, daily practices, the diversity of a society, its modes of expression and other related elements are examined within this discipline.

Myanmar, Haze. Beliefs can establish the way in which human groups build buildings and modify the geographic landscape.

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

The main aspect is culture and this same can define the distributions of human beings on the earth's surface. For this reason, cultural geography also analyzes how the senses of identity are generated in a population, how the logic or the conception of a space is produced in people and also how human groups are capable of generating knowledge to communicate and generate meaning.

Some aspects such as arts, music, religion, language, and the social and economic structures of a society are also closely related to culture.

Cultural geography is related to sciences such as anthropology or sociology, to carry out its applications. Its great difference lies in the fact that it is interested in understanding the meanings of each cultural practice, including human groups, their conceptions of the "other" and their development in the world, emphasizing the landscape, places and natural surroundings.

History

The history of cultural geography is very recent, developing the concept from the 20th century in the United States. To understand its origins, it is worth mentioning the American geographer Carl Ortwin Sauer (1889-1975), known as the father of this branch for many academic circles.

Most of his studies focused on nature, landscape and culture, but he wanted to show that although the natural environment does not define culture, the latter develops linked to it, creating certain ways of life.

Sauer was interested in studying the environmental impacts generated by the activities of human beings. He was also interested in discovering the origins and cultural spread of common practices such as agriculture, the use of fire, and the domestication of animals. Beyond this, Sauer did not broadly define culture as a concept, but rather focused on a simple "way of life."

Subsequently, the geographers Philip Wagner and Marvin Mikesell, in the 1960s, defined cultural geography based on the diversity of existing cultural expressions and their influence on the way in which humans interact with the Earth.

Thus, they affirmed that cultural geography focuses on the study of cultural conflicts and on the way in which the meanings of culture are imposed on society as a form of control.

Besides, they also categorized cultural geography as a subdiscipline of human geography, charged with exploring the form of human organization and how its cultural activities impact the environment.

Object of study

Cultural geography is a branch of human geography. Source: Pixabay

This discipline differs from others by the fact that it does not focus on studying a predetermined classification of geographic environments, but rather delimits the spaces for analysis based on culture.

In this way, traditionally, geographers in this area monitor the development of culture and society within their specific landscapes and also analyze how they are able to shape and modify them.

From this interaction between humans and the natural environment, the composition of what is known as "cultural landscape" arises. It is the latter on which cultural geography is applied following guidelines such as the study of the way of life of a society.

Analyze civilizations through structures, ideas, attitudes, beliefs, languages, and even institutions of power. It also studies issues related to territory and the sense of place, and issues such as colonialism, internationalism, migration, ecotourism, etc.

Process to map

For cultural geography, maps are drawn based on cultural factors such as religion, ecology or the language of the different regions of the planet.

In the first instance, the areas of the Earth that may have cultural elements in common are delimited and contrasted with those parts that are different. It also describes the way in which some cultural sector can expand and position itself as a defining characteristic of a part of the planet.

Maps are also built depending on how culture is able to visually modify a place. Geographers also take into account the way in which cultural groups mold or impact the natural landscape. Among other things, they evaluate how a feature of a specific culture can give life to another new cultural group.

Important concepts

Geography has developed various concepts to classify or name common aspects or elements within studies.

Cultural environment

It refers to the focus on the role of culture in the way human beings interact and understand the environment. Identify the variable or constant phenomena in each aspect of the culture within a place, such as religion.

Cultural landscape

It refers to a natural landscape that has been altered by human influence through activities. The human group that modifies the space carries with it a culture that results in behaviors, symbols, religious buildings, structures of society or the economy, as well as other components that make up a civilization.

Rhythm of daily life in Tokyo, Japan.

Image by Jason Goh from Pixabay

For example, urban planning, shopping centers, agriculture, religious buildings and traffic signs are ways of modifying a natural landscape through a culture that accompanies a human group.

Other trends such as clothing or food are also taken as aspects of a cultural landscape, since this concept encompasses the basic needs of people, which determine part of their behavior and interaction in society.

Culture

Within cultural geography, culture is seen as the compendium of data that relates to attitudes and everyday behaviors that become shared patterns within a society.

It refers in general terms to the way of life that characterizes a geographic group. Culture is one of the most important elements for geographers when it comes to studying the earth's surface and geographic landscapes.

Cultural hegemony

It refers to the action of turning one culture into the dominant one in relation to others, so that its worldview becomes the accepted cultural normal, the valid and universal ideology, justifying the status quo.

Globalization

Phenomenon that refers to the interaction that occurs between people, communities, companies and governments worldwide, which are generating the adoption of certain traits and a unification of various cultural identities.

Cultural diversity

It assumes the multiplicity and interaction of the cultures that coexist in the world and, according to UNESCO, are part of the common heritage of humanity. It is as necessary for humans as biological diversity for living organisms.

Methods

The unit of study of cultural geography is the landscape. Source: Pixabay

In cultural geography, the researcher must know how to identify the chronological order of landscape objects and forms. Hence the importance of managing different time scales.

In this sense, the historical method is key to studying the dynamics of successions of the cultures studied. It also involves the management of geomorphological, ethnological and anthropological methods.

The researcher must also emphasize field work, which implies the use of cartography at human scales. It also requires the implementation of qualitative methods in which the interview and observation stand out.

References

1. Balasubramanian, A. Basics of Cultural Geography. University of Mysore. Recovered from researchgate.net
2. Johnston, R (2019) Human geography. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Recovered from britannica.com
3. Price. M; Levis. M (1993). The Reinvention of Cultural Geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Vol. 83, No. 1. Recovered from jstor.org
4. Cultural Geography. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Recovered from en.wikipedia.org
5. Carl Sauer and the Cultural Landscape. College of Earth and MIneral Sciences. GEOG 571 Intelligence Analysis, Cultural Geography, and Homeland Security. Recovered from e-education.psu.edu