Download HG ch1 What is Geography

INTRODUCTION
TO HUMAN
GEOGRAPHY
AIMS
• To know what geography is and how to distinguish
between human and physical geography
• To know what the Five Themes of Geography are and to be
able to identify them when analyzing geographical issues
• To understand how and why geographers use maps, scale
and connectedness to understand the world around them.
WHAT IS HUMAN
GEOGRAPHY?
Human Geography is the study of:
• how people make places and develop places
• how we organize space and society
• how we interact with each other in places and across
space
• and how we make sense of others and ourselves in our
locality, region, and world.
HOW DO GEOGRAPHERS STUDY
PEOPLE?
Geographers like asking questions…
Why do people migrate?
When will india’s population exceed china’s?
Where are cities located and why?
Who will be living in the downtown eastside in 50
years?
What role does religion play in political conflicts?
How do places affect peoples identity?
You are now a geographer! What kinds of questions
would you ask about people and places?
GEOGRAPHIC INQUIRY
FOCUSES ON THE SPATIAL:
• the spatial arrangement of places and
phenomena (human and physical).
• how are things organized on Earth?
• how do they appear on the landscape?
• why? where? so what?
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
What processes create and sustain the pattern of a
distribution?
Map of Cholera Victims
in London’s Soho District
in 1854.
The patterns of victim’s
homes and water pump
locations helped uncover
the source of the disease.
What other spatial distribution
patterns might we be interested in?
FIVE THEMES OF GEOGRAPHY
The Five Themes of Geography act as a foundation for our study of
people and the world we live in…
1. Location
2. Place
3. Human-Environment Interaction
4. Movement
5. Region
1. LOCATION
• How the geographical position of people and things
affects what happens and why
• Location Theory questions/predicts trends
2. PLACE
• A place is defined by it’s unique physical &
human/cultural characteristics.
• Allows places to develop a special/unique character
• People attach emotion to these places to create a Sense
of Place
• Perception of place: belief or understanding of what a
place is like, often based on books, movies, stories, or
pictures.
3. HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTION
• Builds on spatial perspective to understand how humans
interact with their environment
• Recognize three key concepts:
 Humans depend on the environment.
 Humans adapt to the environment.
 Humans modify the environment.
Perception
of Place
Where Pennsylvanian
students prefer to live
Where Californian
students prefer to live
4. MOVEMENT
• the mobility of people, goods and ideas across
the earth’s surface
• Movement is an expression of the
interconnectedness of places
SPATIAL INTERACTION: THE
INTERCONNECTEDNESS BETWEEN PLACES
DEPENDS UPON:
• DISTANCE
• ACCESSIBILITY
• CONNECTIVITY
5. REGION
•
Formal region: defined by a commonality, typically a
cultural linkage or a physical characteristic.
e.g. German speaking region of Europe
•
Functional region: defined by a set of social, political, or
economic activities or the interactions that occur within
it.
e.g. an urban area
•
Perceptual Region: ideas in our minds, based on
accumulated knowledge of places and regions, that
define an area of “sameness” or “connectedness.”
e.g.
the South
the Mid-Atlantic
the Middle East
The meanings of regions are often contested. In Montgomery,
Alabama, streets named after Confederate President Jefferson Davis
and Civil Rights leader Rosa Parks intersect.
Photo credit: Jonathan Leib
APPLYING THE FIVE THEMES
Watch the video clip of flooding in North Korea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Yx7aC9cmQ
• How do the Five Themes relate to this story?
• Can you think of other issues in the news that we could
apply this model to?
• Are there any limitations of using the Five Themes model
when trying to understand an issue?
What’s missing?
The Cultural Landscape…
•the visible human imprint on the landscape
•Layers of imprints from years of human activity
•Changes in technology and cultural traditions
•Occupiers use what they find and add to it
This is known as
Sequent Occupance
Can you think of a place that has imprints from different
types of human activity?
WHY ARE GEOGRAPHERS
OBSESSED WITH MAPS?
TWO TYPES OF MAPS:
Reference Maps
Thematic Maps
-Show locations of
places and
geographic features
-Tell a story about
the degree of an
attribute, the pattern
of its distribution, or
its movement.
-Absolute locations
What are reference
maps used for?
-Relative locations
What are thematic
maps used for?
Reference
Map
Thematic
Map
What story
about median
income in the
Washington, DC
area is this map
telling?
Geographic
Information
System:
a collection of
computer hardware
and software that
permits storage
and analysis of
layers of
spatial data.
REMOTE
SENSING:
A METHOD OF
COLLECTING
DATA BY
INSTRUMENTS
THAT ARE
PHYSICALLY
DISTANT FROM
THE AREA OF
STUDY.
WHY ARE GEOGRAPHERS
CONCERNED WITH SCALE
AND CONNECTEDNESS?
SCALE
Scale is the territorial extent of something.
The observations we make and the context
we see vary across scales, such as:
- local
- regional
- national
- global
SCALE
SCALE IS A POWERFUL
CONCEPT BECAUSE:
-
PROCESSES OPERATING AT
DIFFERENT SCALES INFLUENCE ONE
ANOTHER.
- WHAT IS OCCURRING ACROSS SCALES
PROVIDES CONTEXT FOR US TO
UNDERSTAND A PHENOMENON.
- PEOPLE CAN USE SCALE POLITICALLY
TO CHANGE WHO IS INVOLVED OR HOW
AN ISSUE IS PERCEIVED.
- e.g. Zapatistas rescale their movement
- e.g. laws jump scales, ignoring cultural differences
CULTURE
Culture is an all-encompassing term that identifies not only
the whole tangible lifestyle of peoples, but also their
prevailing values and beliefs.
- cultural trait
– a single attribute
- cultural complex
– combination of traits
- cultural hearth
– where cultural traits
develop and diffuse from
DIFFUSION
Diffusion: the process of dissemination, the spread of an idea or
innovation from its hearth to other areas.
What slows/prevents diffusion?
- time-distance decay
- cultural barriers
Expansion Diffusion – idea or innovation spreads outward from the
hearth
• Contagious – spreads adjacently
• Hierarchical – spreads to most linked people or places first.
• Stimulus – idea promotes a local experiment or change in the way people
do things.
Relocation Diffusion – actual movement of people who carry the idea
to a new place e.g. migrants
USING GEOGRAPHIC CONCEPTS
TO ANSWER GEOGRAPHIC
QUESTIONS
Old Approaches to Human-Environment Questions:
Environmental Determinism:
• suggesting climate is the key factor in controlling human behaviour
• has been rejected by almost all geographers as it makes sweeping
generalizations
Possibilism:
• suggesting society choices depend on member requirements and tools
available.
• although a counter argument to above, less accepted today, because it starts
with environment and asks what it allows
Out with the old…
AND IN WITH THE NEW…
New Approaches to Human-Environment Questions:
Cultural ecology:
• concerned with culture as a system of adaptation to environment
Political ecology:
• concerned with the environmental consequences of dominant
political-economic arrangements and understandings