Chapter 7: Social Identities and Landscapes
Ⅰ、Learning Objectives
By reading this chapter you will be able to:
1. Understand and explain the main criticisms of modernism and its belief in
positivism.
2. Understand the difference between essentialism and constructionism, and how
these apply to humanist, Marxist, feminist, and post-modernist thinking.
3. Define the difference between feudalism, capitalism, and socialism, and elaborate
on their relative places in history.
4. Demonstrate knowledge of what humanist, Marxist, feminist, and post-modernist
geographers study, in terms of choice of subject, context, and method.
5. Demonstrate knowledge of the type of real-world issues, such as genocide,
multiculturalism, identity, well-being, gender relations, tourism, and health that
critical geography can be applied to.
Ⅱ、Chapter Summary
In recent years, human geography has undergone a ‘cultural turn’, whereby there is now
increased understanding of how culture affects identity and political and economic
activities. Further, culture is now recognized as a multiplicity of concepts. Culture as
process is not as fixed and predefined (essential), but socially constructed and therefore
dynamic. From this perspective, human geographers interpret culture as a system of
meanings represented through symbolism, and of interaction between meanings, or
symbolic interactions.
Marxism can be used to interpret early European culture by defining feudalism,
capitalism, and socialism as various modes of production, each with different power
relationships. These different modes of production are maintained through power
relationships—power is identified and maintained as the dominant discourse
(hegemony). From this perspective, human geographers can identify concepts of ‘class’
and ‘other’. Capitalism is currently the dominant mode of production and many scholars
debate whether it is the best mode of production, as it is self-expanding and leads to
class conflicts, or if it positive—the ideal mode of production to grow economies.
Capitalism often seems to focus on the individual, although it is often criticized for not
actually promoting freedom for the individual. The phases of capitalism identified by
human geographers are competitive capitalism, organized capitalism/Fordism, and
disorganised capitalism/post-Fordism. Socialism, which focuses on the ideals of equality
and the well-being of society as a whole, has existed in multiple forms, although many of
these have strayed from Marx’s ideals.
The cultural turn and its focus on multiple meanings challenges positivistic claims
that social science is value-neutral and that the testing of theories with the use of
hypotheses to establish laws is the best explanation. Marxist, feminist, and
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post-modernist approaches all accept that social science as research is interpretive, and
that the researcher is defined by positionality, that is, their ideological preferences and
identity impacts their interpretation of results. Humanists focus on a sense of place.
Marxists focus on social inequalities as they are expressed through cultural symbolism,
gender, and sexuality. Feminists suggest that the fundamental inequality which exists
between women and men is due to the patriarchal structure of society and that gender is
socially constructed, rather than an essential quality. While modernism developed out of
positivism, post-modernism is the idea that reality cannot be studied objectively and,
therefore, multiple interpretations are possible. Post-modernist research emphasises
deconstruction and focuses on differences and uniqueness.
These critical perspectives are highly relevant to discussions of difference, power,
and inequality. These discussions might include a look at ethnicity, race, genocide,
multiculturalism, gender and sexuality, well-being, and health. Many of these are based
on fluid definitions often with disagreement, or lack of alignment between the definition
by a specific group of ‘otherness’ and the definition put on that group by the dominant
discourse. Consider that race is ill-defined when applied to differentiating between
groups of humans. Also consider that when gender is thought to be socially constructed,
there emerges a fluidity of gender which goes beyond male and female, addressing both
biology and behaviour.
Tourism is another area of study for human geographers where the concepts of
‘otherness’ come into play: tourism hinges on the creation of identity for a touristic
region, often in relation to the expectations and self-identify of tourists. In this way,
tourism spots are mutually constructed by local people and by tourists.
Hence critical geographies and concepts of positionality and recognizing differences,
gender, and power are all relevant to examinations of many social and political issues
and how these relate to place.
Ⅲ the key points of the text
Rethinking Culture
Traditionally culture has been studied in terms of its impact on landscape and through the formation of
regions. Sauer’s view of ‘culture as a cause’ was not questioned until the 1980s, when a new debate
emerged.
There are new means to view culture and societies (and their structures, changes, and spatial variations),
which have grown out of deep discourse about the nature of society and how our cultures interact with our
environments (not just physical) to give rise to new landscapes— landscapes altering our society, and
society altering the landscape.
A Symbolic View
This concept focuses on the spatial nature of culture and the importance of interactions and
communications. Mead proposed that humans learn the meanings of things through social interactions
and that human behaviour is a response to the perceived environment.
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New Cultural Geography
There is a plurality of cultures that groups share in specific places at specific times. Culture is a process.
As a new understanding of landscape (that landscape is socially constructed) has evolved, two separate
views have emerged.
The essentialist concept views the characteristics that describe identity as inherited and unchanging, while
the constructionist view argues that the features that describe human identity are social and vary in
importance to different places at different times.
Types of Society
According to Marxist logic, each type of society is an example of a mode of production.
Feudalism
In a feudalist society, all land was owned by the king and managed by his vassals in exchange for their
political and military support. Peasants were allowed to live on the land in exchange for their labour and
were subject to the legal and political control of their individual lords. People were identified by their
social class; social mobility was extremely limited.
Capitalism
In a capitalist society labour is a commodity that can be bought and sold. The capitalist class owns the
means of production, and this ownership creates class differences that often lead to conflict.
While Marx viewed capitalism as an exploitation of the working class, Weber viewed it as an ideal type
of state. The contemporary world is dominated by capitalism, and the concept of class has become more
important as an expression of self-identity.
Socialism
A socialist society is built on the idea of the common ownership of the means of production. The focus of
this society is on community, equality, the well-being of a society, and the idea of a classless society.
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Social Theory
Diversity of Current Approaches
The mid-twentieth century was dominated by positivistic attitudes that focused on the development of
social theories. The late 1960s led to the emergence of alternative approaches that encouraged
interpretative efforts.
Humanism and Marxism Revisited
Humanists are interested in space, symbolic landscape, and iconography. Marxists are interested in social
inequalities reflected in space. Both schools of thought recognize the importance of space in social life.
Feminist Theory
Various schools of feminist thought exist, but they all have one common goal: improving the social status
of women and achieving equality between men and women.
Culture is held responsible for the construction of gender differences through different socialization
processes. Patriarchy is considered the principle reason for inequality.
Structuration
Giddens focuses on the role of the individual working as an agent within both a local social system and
larger social structures.
Structuration is a set of rules made by humans to facilitate human survival. Dualism noted the following:
The social structure allows human behaviour to influence and reframe culture.
The rules of social structure constrain human behaviour by limiting possible actions, but human
behaviour is not determined. One can relate this back to our view of environmental determinism in that
possibilities exist and not certainties.
Modernism
Modernism refers to the tradition-breaking movements that began in the mid-nineteenth century.
Modernism believes that reality can be both studied objectively and represented effectively. It is closely
linked to industrialization and capitalism.
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Postmodernism
There are many versions of postmodern theory.
The postmodernist alternative
Reality cannot be accurately represented and truth is relative. This alternative emphasizes the
deconstruction of texts and construction of narratives that focus on differences, uniqueness, irrationality,
and marginal population.
Diverse postmodernisms
The concept of postmodernism varies across disciplines but the central focus is always diversity and the
need to deconstruct the ideas and texts of those things we have held as more true than others. From that
point, it is possible to then see the deeper meanings and power relations among various groups that
determine how we create and hold our culture and social structures.
The cultural turn
There has been an increased appreciation of the role of culture in understanding humans and their political
and economic activities. The idea of contextualism—the need to know how knowledge is being
utilized—is associated with cultural turn. Like all viewpoints, the modernist and postmodernists
approaches have seen reactions from others who hold views more strictly aligned with positivism or even
Marxism.
Landscape as Place
Landscapes are not simply locations. They are also ‘places’ that convey a meaning. A place has a human
meaning that is based on social matters.
Places as Social Creations
Johnston studied regions as human creations that are self-reproducing entities. They are not separate from
individual members of society and they are often potential sources of conflict.
Studying Places
The meaning given to a place is not individualistic but intersubjective; it is based on a shared experience.
The emotional attachment between a place and a person represents specific feelings. The degree to which
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something in the environment displays the characteristics of a place or placelessness determines its
consideration on a local or a global scale.
Vernacular Regions
Creating a Vernacular Region
A vernacular region is a region with specific values and meanings and a social and symbolic identity.
Delimiting Vernacular Regions
One way to delimit a vernacular region is to conduct a survey and collect responses from average people.
Zelinsky studied vernacular regions but avoided conducting surveys. Instead, he studied the frequency of
a specific regional term and a general national term in metropolitan business usage.
Vernacular Regions and Sense of Place
Vernacular regions convey specific meanings and emotional attachments that have more value for those
living in the region than those located outside the region. Some regions have powerful identities and even
the mention of their name creates mental images.
Psychogeography
The objective of psychogeography is to identify an internal self-image of a region without any external
references. An interesting example is the idea of topophila and topophobia—the love of a place and the
dislike of a place. Our sense of place, home, and other places outside our own region can have significant
bearing on our interactions.
Homelands
For a region to be categorized as a homeland there must be a sufficient population that will identify it as
such. The categorization considers people, place, sense of place, and control of place. There is also the
use of the term homeland in our social dictionary today that also points to the idea of control (protection)
of our place—and this is not a new term of idea as a review of past uses of the terms homeland,
motherland, and fatherland point to.
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Ethnicity
Raitz defined an ethnic group as a group that has a common cultural tradition and constitutes a minority in
the society where it is located. Race is commonly used to identify different people on the basis of skin
colour; however, it is a fact that race does not exist.
Some groups are regarded as minorities on the basis of religion, language, and ethnicity that make them
different from the majority. Human geographers use the term ‘ethnic’ to identify and discuss cultural
regions.
Ethnic Areas
Ethinic areas, such as a ghetto, are created as the initial step in the residential segregation of immigrants.
Assimilation or acculturation with the larger culture eventually occurs. The assimilation is determined by
the degree of spatial proximity between the ethnic area and its homeland and the impact of state policies.
Landscape and Power Relations
Discovering Difference and Inequality
In the 1970s a political dimension was added to human geography in terms of the considerations of
differences and inequality. Over the years the dimension has grown to include quality of life, elitist
landscapes, and landscapes of stigma and gender.
Gender in the Landscape
Visible and symbolic landscapes often reflect the inequalities of power that exist between women and
men. Cultural and biological reasons have been used to explain the differences in the work and life of
men and women. The city morphology reinforces traditional gender roles.
Gender and Human Development
Australia and Belgium are at the top of the gender-sensitive index of human development, a list that
shows rankings as they pertain to reflecting gender inequality.
Landscapes of Resistance
Dominant groups reflect their own characteristics by constructing landscapes. Places have, therefore,
often become points of conflict between different groups of people.
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Some groups understand themselves only in relation to others (for example, the Afrikaners imposed their
views on the indigenous Black population).
Ethnicity, gender, and sexuality are not the only grounds for exclusion from the majority group. The
homeless, the unemployed, and the disabled are all easily isolated.
Well-being
Landscapes vary depending on the well-being of their occupants as measured on various spatial scales:
local, regional, and global.
Welfare geography refers to issues of social justice and equality.
Crime
The main focus of human geographers in this field has been to relate crime to spatial and social contexts.
Two areas of concern are
 the relationship between areas of criminal activity and urban decline

how the use of space is affected by concerns about the likelihood of criminal acts
Health and Health Care
Health issues are related to various economic factors, social factors, and the availability of services. Issues
to consider relate to aging populations and income (those of a current retired generation have more
income at hand, generally) and the availability of health care and costs to any health care system where
the largest group using the system are older people who are making up a greater and greater proportion of
the population.
Elitist Landscapes
All cities have different areas that are associated with different social classes. In the privileged areas
identity and landscape are closely related.
Landscapes of Stigma
Landscapes of stigma reflect landscapes of exclusion and social injustice. This type is characterized by
landscapes of despair (homelessness) and landscapes of fear (safe/unsafe areas).
Folk Culture and Popular Culture
Folk culture is found primarily in rural areas and usually among distinctive ethnic groups. It often
represents resistance to change. Popular culture is mainly urban and is open to change.
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Folk Culture
Folk culture has a strong sense of place and is more traditional, less subject to change, and more
homogeneous than popular culture. The factor that unifies folk culture is usually religion, though kinship
is also very important.
Popular Culture
Popular culture trends spread rapidly. The greatest impact of popular culture on landscape can be seen in
terms of developments like shopping malls. Sports are extremely also important in popular culture, and
landscape regions can be defined in terms of sporting preferences.
Group Engineering in a Globalizing World?
Cultural variables such as language, religion, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality are all human
creations. Should humans undertake a process to bridge all the gaps and inequalities? Is it even
worthwhile to consider a single social structure or global culture within a world that is increasingly
connected?
Ⅳ、Study Questions
1、Short Answer Questions
1. Briefly describe what is meant by ‘positionality’ of the researcher.
Answer: The idea of positionality contests the positivistic claim that research can
be value neutral. Post-modern perspectives claim that the researcher cannot be
neutral and so, instead, it is important for the researcher to identify their own
ideological preferences and identity and examine how this relates to the research
subject.
2. How can gender be perceived in landscape?
Answer: Gender can be studied in landscape through the identification of the
reproduction of gender roles and relationships. Symbols of patriarchy—male
dominance over females—can be seen in cultural symbolism, such as the choice
of statues or names of places. Further, gender can be perceived in the design of
space in terms of how genders interact in these places and the associated power
relations.
3. How do human geographers incorporate queer theory into their studies?
Answer: Queer theory is seen in human geography through the identification and
study of the fluidity of sexuality in space. In particular, geographers might study
the gradual identification of some parts of urban centres as a commercial area
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where gays and lesbians frequent. Further to this, it is studied how these informal
‘gay’ versus ‘straight’ boundaries arise, and the opposition to the use of space
outside this commercial district for gay and lesbian activities and celebration.
4. What is the difference between mass tourism and ecotourism?
Answer: Mass tourism is a form of mass consumption, involving the purchase of
commodities and the continual development of new attractions—often different
sites are essentially similar, leading to the homogenization of place. Meanwhile,
ecotourism wants participants to experience a distinctive ecosystem that is
different from other places and to limit their consumption in an attempt to lessen
tourist impact on land.
5. How is ethnicity often poorly defined?
Answer: One researcher examined 65 studies of ethnicity and found that 52 did
not offer an explicit definition of ethnicity. Much confusion results from the fact that
ethnicity is a concept which defines a social group not living in its homeland in
which the members perceive themselves as sharing a common ancestry and
culture and therefore different than others in the host country. This difference may
be difficult to define and further confusion occurs when the terms ‘race’ and
‘minority’ are used in definitions, since these terms are highly contested in
themselves.
2、Research Questions
1. Drawing from examples, discuss the history of the concept of ‘genocide’. Discuss
which international bodies are concerned with it and why it is difficult to define and
identify its occurrence.
2. Drawing from examples, describe the factors that facilitated the rise of mass
tourism. Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of this form of economic
development in locales.
3. Discuss how feminist geographers study gender and landscape and, drawing
from examples, describe the importance of this type of study.
4. Examine how human geographers study regions and sense of place. What are
the features of the regions they select to study? What are their methods of
analysis?
5. How is Marxist theory relevant to the study of social identities and landscapes?
Drawing from examples, describe the relevance of Marxist theory to
contemporary human geography.
3、Links of Interest
United Nations Agreements on Human Rights http://www.hrweb.org/legal/undocs.html
Ethnologue Language Index http://www.ethnologue.com/country_index.asp
UNESCO’s Multilingualism in Cyberspace
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=16539&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SEC
TION=201.html
Religion and Place http://www.religionandplace.org.uk/
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life http://religions.pewforum.org/
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