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?

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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