Human geo quiz 3

ethnolinguistics

a sub-discipline of anthropology that studies a language and the cultural practices of the people who speak those languages

Raymond Williams on culture

culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the english language

Johann Gottfried on culture

Nothing is more indeterminate than this word, and nothing more deceptive than its application to all nations and periods

the dictionary definition of culture

the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement, regarded collectively

etymological origins

Colere became cultura: changed to culture in the french and english

Culture: originally, the process of tending to natural growth

modern usage: culture

1. physical process of cultivating (plants, animals, bacteria)

2. process of intellectual, spiritual and aethetic development

3. products and performances of intellectual and artistic activity

4. the particular way of life for people

culture links…

• general: the culture of Canada

• specific: individual canadian citizens

• material: a maple leaf

• symbolic: what the maple leaf stands for

• process: how Canadian culture created

• product: what are the results of this creation

how geographers study culture

traditional: focused on the geographic expression of culture in the landscape

new: focused on how ways of life are created and contested through spatial relations

culture of a spatial process

holidays and rituals, practices, and symbols associated with them, these are part of the process of cultural creation

environmental determinism

suggests that human development stems from broad environmental categories like climate or topography, linked to racism

sense of place

the place and the person

local places shape you and you shape them with experiences

Sauer’s approach: culture

focused on the formation of cultural landscapes; introduced a way of geographic understanding based on regional description

the Palimpsest metaphor

Sauer: cultural landscapes build up gently and harmouniously over time

spatial analysis

focus: spatial distributions of phenomena and their causes

• we still see it today, in the use of geographic information systems

psychogeography

how people feel about, experience, paint themselves into the world and take that portrait back into themselves as literal parts of who they are

place in huministic geography

with the rise of humanism and concepts like psychogeography, place comes to the forefront

defining place

a place is a dynamic assemblage of material from, persistent practice, and symbolic meaning

the significance of place

Jeff Malpas: place is perhaps the key term for interdisciplinary research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences in the 21st century

representing landscape

lanscape paintings first developed in western renaissance art

• blend of nature and culture

landscape

blend of nature and culture, particular scale, tangiable

colour theory

electromagnetic spectrum

• visible light

• colour dimension

• hue

brightness

how bright a colour appears

saturation

refers to the perceived amount of white added to a pure hue

value

how light or dark a colour appears

chroma

for a given hue, the perceived amount of grey, or, the amount the colour appears washed out

the Munsell model: hue, value, chroma

Henry Albert Munsell

• first standardised colour system

• the first system was a perfect sphere but was later revised based on perceptual changes in colour

RGB: Red, green, blue

computer, television screens

• based on light

CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow, black

printing, books, posters

• based on ink and paper

Pantone: new Jersey company focused on producing exact-match colours in CMYK

over 21000 colours

• standardize, so users of the pantone system can get exact colour every time

common colour problems

different viewers, colour changes depending on colour next to it (simultaneous contrast), culturally and linguistically

colour and direction: Indigenous America

indigenous medicine wheels are often divided into 4 directions and associated with specific colours, depending on the local culture

lake

insoluble pigment made from dye and mordant or carrier

dye

natural or synthetic substance used to add or change the colour of something

pigment

dry substance added to a liquid, which then becomes a paint

mordant

metallic salt used to fix dye into fabrics

colorant

umbrella term used for lakes, dyes, pigments, and mordant

Jean-Philippe Lenclos

looked at the vernacular colours of houses

lenclos theory: each geographic region inspires colour trends in housing that became part of a regional identity

red

cochineal: insect found in Mexico and Peru

• Red madder: dye comes from the root of the plant; wide range of reds are possible by varying the mordant

• red ochre: non-toxic, iron-rich earth pigment

orange

• annatto: South American grinding dried seeds or soaking them in water

• Lenclos found that clay tiles from certain areas turned red when fired

black

• iron gallotannate: from oak galls; black to dark blueish brown

• soot ink: soot created from burning oils, tar, pitch, resin

• charcoal: charred willow

white

chalk: mineral available in many places, but esp. north france

white lead: historically, Europe, China, Egypt

brown

Umber and burnt umber: more likely from Turkiye

• Sepia: ink secreted from cuttlefish, native to the Mediterranean sea

yellow

• Gamboge: fr. Cambodia; takes years to harvest

• orpiment: highly toxic mineral containing arsenic

• yellow ochre: common earth pigment

blue

• Indigo: grown in many places but two species stand out— Indigfera tinctoria and Indigo suffruticosa

• Woad: caucauses, central and western Asia

purple

tyrian purple: one of the most precious ancient colourants

green

• Green earth: rocks rich in green clay

• cleadonite: found only in cyprus and near verona

• verdigris: corrosion of copper

• iris green: made from the flower; more stable and predictable than verdigris

race as a social construction

largely comes from German anthropologist Franz Boas

• opposed the idea that racism was biological and rejected evolutionary approaches to the study of culture

what is racism

the assumption that people can be divided into a distinct number of discrete races according to physical, biological criterian adn that systemic social differences automatically and inevitably follow the same lines of physical differentiation

racism examined

at root, racism is a form of biological determinism; a seemingly iron-clad connection between biological characteristics and social characteristics

facts about race

1. race has no genetic basis

2. humans are one species

3. genetic variation is continuous

4. skin colour

5. racial classification is arbitrary

race as a modern concept

the term race only appeared in english in 1508 but was not widely used for another 2 centuries

modern historical context for race

European colonialism brought increased contract with different peoples; spawned a vigorous slave trade

McGirt vs Oklahoma

in 2020, the US supreme court held that the domain established for the Muskogee was never disestablished

race and the rise of suburbia

1. environmental push factors

• increasingly industry in city centres in the 19th century made these places unhealth and undesirable places to live

2. ethnic push factors

• 2nd half of the 19th century saw an influx of European immigrants ot American cities

3. government pull factors

race based property values

national home appraisal system also linked property values to race

national housing act consequences

government and private housing plicies further diminished the tax base of inner cities, which led to a decline in public amenities

• which further led to urban decay

white flight in the 50s and 60s

while whites with means could afford to move to the suburbs, the non-white poor were trapped in declining inner cities

• during this time, the rise of the automobile further accelerated the strucrture of US cities

50s-60s highway construction

several freeways were constructed to connect white suburbs with the CBD

• most construction ran through ethnic neighbourhoods

60s-70s inner city projects

government-funded housing projects built in the inner cities in the 60s-70s

fair housing

federal government tried to end racially discriminatory housing practices with law

the legacy of discriminatory policy

US governments actively channeled resources to whites and away from others

• has created an enourmous wealth gap

why does owning a home matter

home equity is the primary platform for funding education business opportunities, retirement, and inheritances

Africville NS

established in 1800s

• oldest black community in NS

• residents had endured decades of racism

• dismantled 1964

• were given token compensation and removed to other parts of city in 1970

four elements of dialect

1. accent

2. grammer

3. vocabulary

4. norms of usage