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

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
      
      

    • 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.

Patterns in Cultural Landscapes- Architecture

Traditional Architecture: Influenced by the environment and built with available local materials. reflective of history, culture and CLIMATE