3.2) The Cultural Landscape

Describe characteristics of cultural landscapes

Explain how landscape features and land and resource use reflect cultural beliefs and identities.

What are cultural Landscapes?

Cultural Landscape: A natural landscape that has been modified by humans, reflecting their cultural beliefs and values.

Made up of combinations of

agricultural and industrial practices
religious and linguistic characteristics
evidence of sequent occupancy (has to be physical and purpose doesn’t have to change)
traditional and postmodern architecture
land-use patterns

What are cultural landscapes?

Sequent Occupancy: the idea that societies or cultural groups leave their cultural imprints when they live in a place, each contributing to the overall cultural landscape over time. Most cultural landscapes are a mixture of historic and modern structures. An example is the Great Pyramids

Patterns in Cultural Landscapes

Attitudes towards ethnicity and gender, including the

role of women
gendered spaces
ethnic neighborhoods

helps shape the use of space in a given society

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Ethnicity is a sense of belonging or identity within a group of people bound by common ancestry and culture. This is different from race which is based on physical characteristics.

Patterns in Cultural Landscapes- Ethnicity

1) Ethnic Neighborhoods/Enclaves: People of the same ethnicity that cluster together in a specific location, typically within a major city.

Way to see ethnicity on the cultural landscape.
- Language, religious imagery/ buildings, restaurants, specialty stores, markets
Connections to chain migration
Why do they form?
- A response to racism and discrimination
- A way to maintain cultural identity

2) Ethnic Patterns: There is oftentimes a predictable distribution of ethnicities that can be examines at multiple scales

United States: Historically and contemporarily there are clusters of ethnic groups in specific regions
- Southwest- Latin Americans and Native Americans
- Southeast- African AMericans
- West- Aisn Americans

Patterns in Cultural Landscapes- Gender

The Role of Women

In Traditional cultures, oftentimes the primary role of a woman is to have children, NOT be active in education or the workforce.

As countries become more economically and socially developed, women have access to more education, the workforce, and property rights
How do we see this in the cultural landscape?
- Do women own property and businesses?
- Are women present in colleges in colleges? Women’s dorms?
- Are there women working outside of the home?

Gendered Spaces: Places in the cultural landscape utilized to reinforce or accommodate gender roles for men and women

In a 2013 study of Mexico City women, only 19% of women surveyed reported that they feel very safe in the taxies, buses, and a subway that they use daily
In Mexico City, nine in ten women have experienced violence in public transportation.
Example is buses for women in Mexico City, Mexico

Patterns in Cultural Landscapes- Land-Use

Geographers study land-use patterns as seen on the cultural landscape which reflects the cultural values of the people living there

Example #1: Terrace Farming
- Typically practiced in South, Southeast and East Asia and Latin America
- Practice of cutting flat areas out of mountainous terrain in order to make it arable.
- Rice farming is most common, although other crops can be grown this way too.
Example #2: Indigenous Land-Use
- U.S. Reservation System
- Indian Removal Act of 1830: Forcibly removed indigenous peoples from land in order to make space and separation from American settlement. -> Trail of Tears \n \n
- US government established reservations which were plots of land in which tribes were forced to relocate and live.
Example #2: Indigenous Land-Use
- Subsistence Whaling
- Indigenous tribes in northern Alaska rely on the bowhead whale as both a food source and cultural lifestyle.
- Annual hunt to harvest whales, which are then divided up among the members of the community.
- Indicates cultural values of collectivism, sustainability and demonstrates the way knowledge is passed through generations.