Cultural Geography other disciplines and subdisciplines across

the humanities and the social sciences.

MARK PATERSON The story of cultural geography starts
in the United States in the 1920s with the
Cultural geography is a subdiscipline of Berkeley School and the idea of the “cultural
human geography that explores the human landscape,” but on its adoption in the United
organization of space and the impact of Kingdom the pathway diverges and the
human activities and culture upon the nat- notion of cultural geography diversifies. Nev-
ural environment. Human geography is one ertheless, we can identify two clear historical
of the most active and interdisciplinary areas waves in this story. Generally, the notion of
within the social sciences. There is a crossover “culture” that cultural geographers employ is
in methodological and theoretical approaches comparable to notions of culture elsewhere
with disciplines such as anthropology, soci- in the humanities and social sciences, so
ology, and cultural studies. But cultural that cultural geography shares with cultural
geography in particular retains its focus on studies and with cultural anthropology the
culture and its signifying practices of self, interest in problematizing the very concept of
groups, the creation of “others” and of worlds “culture.”
of experience while maintaining an emphasis The influence of the Berkeley School per-
on environment, space, and place. According sists in cultural geography in the US. This
to one of its most politicized proponents, its movement focuses on the range of human
focus “includes the investigation of material interventions in transforming the surface
culture, social practices and symbolic mean- of the earth, and is thus most interested in
ings, approached from a number of different material culture and space. It emerged against
perspectives” (McDowell 1994: 146). Broadly, the prevailing background of “environmental
the development of cultural geography arises determinism” in the early twentieth century,
in dynamic opposition to positivist themes where humanenvironment relations were
in geography. We must remember that the specified as determined by a straightforward
roots of academic geography lie in colonial causality. The Berkeley geographer Carl Sauer
exploration and “discovery” (see, e.g., Driver instituted a backlash against this determin-
1992), which explains its strong predilection ism, emphasizing the cultural history of
for “the empirical,” with fieldwork across landscape and stressing the importance of
sites, of going “out there” into the “field,” phenomenological experience. The evolution
developing mostly descriptive accounts and of this new, open-minded, and philosophi-
seemingly hostile to theoretical innovations cally aware branch of human geography stems
from outside (see Anderson et al. 2003:8). from this period but subsequently branches
Despite-or perhaps because of – geography’s in many directions. One development was
colonial heritage, there is a critical edge to so-called “humanistic geography,” led by
cultural geography that asserts its relevance, geographer Yi-Fu Tuan and others. However,
especially in the “new” cultural geography, in the UK this new cultural geography was
by being radically interdisciplinary and by interrupted in the 1970s by another positivist
being influenced by, and in turn influencing, approach known as “spatial science.” The

The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, Edited by Michael Ryan.

© 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444337839.wbelctv3c012
2 CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

statistical modeling of patterns of urban THE FIRST WAVE (1925–73): THE

settlement and development harked back to BERKELEY SCHOOL
the earlier era of causal explanations, and
revisited the notion that the foundations of Sauer’s seminal paper “The morphology of
human geography shared a scientific justi- landscape” (1925), written partly as a kind of
fication alongside physical geography (the manifesto, attempted to establish the whole
scientific study of the environment, or earth discipline of geography on a phenomenolog-
sciences). ical basis rather than being solely concerned
The second wave of cultural geography, with natural or cultural landscapes per se.
known as the “cultural turn” in geography, Sauer thought the geographer’s task was to
defined itself in opposition to statistical discover the connection between phenomena
modeling and reductive causal explana- in distinct regions of the earth, which could
tions, instead looking to human experience account for some of the interactions between
as a justification for thinking about human humans and their natural environment. Thus
“the task of geography is conceived as the
relationships with space and place. This sec-
establishment of a critical system which
ond wave, instituted by the British Marxist
embraces the phenomenology of landscape,
geographer David Harvey in 1973 with the
in order to grasp in all of its meaning and
publication of Social Justice and the City, has
colour the varied terrestrial scene” (Sauer
been flourishing and diversifying ever since
1925: 25).
and encourages a more catholic approach to
This approach seems all the more remark-
geography, incorporating diverse theoretical
able if we consider that, before Sauer, most
and methodological approaches that pertain
geography worked under the assumption
to experiences of gender, ethnicity, political
(known as “environmental determinism”)
activism, embodiment, religious belief, sexu-
that human activities were determined
ality, and more. Harvey has been influential by physical landscape. The view received
outside the discipline of human geography as new impetus in the late nineteenth century
well. His book The Condition of Postmoder- because of discussions stimulated by the work
nity (1989) is a classic text, still cited within of Charles Darwin, who, along with other
a number of disciplines. After Sauer’s cul- scientists working in the same vein, pointed
tural landscapes of the first wave of cultural to the impact of natural conditions on the
geography, Denis Cosgrove then turned to evolution and development of organisms
scholarship in the humanities to examine of all kinds. Geographers saw that these
artistic representations of landscape that ideas could help to explain the pattern and
reveal relationships of power, inequality, and processes of human habitation of the earth’s
so on in Social Formation and Symbolic Land- surface. The discipline of geography, in par-
scape (1984) and, with Stephen Daniels, The ticular, embraced a form of evolutionary
Iconography of Landscape (1988). Another theory that gave the environment a key direc-
widely read figure in cultural geography is tive role in the evolutionary process, both
Mike Davis, who has produced evocative, biological and social, leading to the economic
politically aware, and socially concerned determinism of the early twentieth century.
treatments of urban landscapes in books such Ellen Churchill Semple gave the most explicit
as City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in expression to environmental determinism
Los Angeles (1990) and, more recently, Planet in her influential book The Influences of
of Slums (2006). the Geographic Environment (1911). Semple
 CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY 3

made two main arguments: first, that the extensive fieldwork in South America. While
natural environment provides the physical retaining rigorous field-work, this legacy of
basis of history and is immutable; second, disciplinary diversity has persisted through-
that human temperament, culture, religion, out later developments in cultural geography.
economic practices, and social life could all be Meanwhile, it brought into the scope of
derived from environmental influences. This geography other areas of nature-culture
reductive approach led to racist observations interactions that were more theoretically
such as the following: and historically grounded, including a very
significant development in cultural geogra-
The northern peoples of Europe are energetic, phy that looked at traditions of landscape
provident, serious, thoughtful rather than
painting (treated in the following section).
emotional, cautious rather than impulsive. The
southerners of the subtropical Mediterranean Sauer always stressed the historical aspect to
basin are easy-going, improvident except under the formation of cultural landscape and this
pressing necessity, gay, emotional, imaginative, was exemplified in another work from the
all qualities which among the negroes of the Berkeley School, Glacken’s 800-page detailed
equatorial belt degenerate into grave racial overview of the history of environmental
faults. thought from ancient Greece to the nine-
(620) teenth century, Traces on the Rhodian Shore
(1967). The historical aspect was later taken
In absolute contrast to this reductivist
up and developed especially in the UK as a
notion of nature and culture, Sauer’s concept
distinct and respectable subfield of cultural
of culture was derived from the anthro-
geography known as “historical geography.”
pologist A. L. Kroeber, who had studied
the indigenous peoples of North America.
Furthermore, for Sauer culture included the THE SECOND WAVE (1973-PRESENT):
various human activities that had an impact THE “NEW” CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY
upon the environment, including human
occupancy and cultivation. But the under- Although the Berkeley School flourished in
lying geographical concept around which the US, elsewhere it went into decline. In
natural environment and human culture the UK, there was what Cosgrove termed
interact here is “landscape,” derived from “a period of spatial analysis and geograph-
the German idea of Landschaft, a system of ical ‘relevance’” (1984:87). In other words,
human-made spaces in the land, a patch of more positivist methods were resurgent and,
cultivated ground that becomes an admin- while worthy issues such as poverty and
istrative region. This is an explicitly cultural disease were being tackled, the methods used
notion of landscape, which Sauer formulated involved so-called “spatial science,” spatial
in “The morphology of landscape,” providing analyses looking at distribution models and
a starting point for cultural geography. On the probabilities, for example, for urban planning
one hand, the Berkeley School was energized and informing policy. Despite the rigorous
by this idea, and various of its members, as application of statistical models for very
well as the graduate students, applied them- important and pressing social issues, spatial
selves rigorously to empirical studies in a science showed itself to be unable to offer any
large number of areas outside the usual disci- solutions to the many social, economic, and
plinary boundary of “geography,” including environmental problems of the 1960s. This
religion and settlement, and by conducting forced many geographers to re-engage with
4 CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

the underlying philosophy of the discipline. is a strong intervention of interpretive the-

It is interesting to note that Harvey, one of ories, methods and ideas in a field heavily
the key advocates of spatial science during influenced by tasks of mapping, describing
the 1960s, ended up being its most outspoken societies spatially, and economistic theories”
critic by the early 1970s. (2000: 14).
This heralded the arrival of a whole new
wave of geography known as the “cultural
“CRITICAL” AND “IMAGINATIVE”
turn” in human geography. Wishing to say
GEOGRAPHIES
something profound about the multiplicity
and complexity of human spatial experience
The cultural turn in geography has been met
in a way that spatial science could not, the
with a spatial turn elsewhere, but cultural
renewed interest in cultural geography after
geography remains distinct in its explicit
the dominance of spatial science has allowed
geographers to reach toward other disciplines focus on space and place, whether that is
across the humanities and the social sciences, filtered through ideas of identity, politics,
and has become an incredibly prolific area gender, ethnicity, power, or any other con-
of scholarship. Arguably the cost of such cerns of contemporary human geography.
diffuse interests and interdisciplinary con- Along with the emphasis on place and space
nections is that cultural geography loses its the new cultural geography emphasizes
own identity, or is subject to the vagaries of imagination and critique. Barnes and Dun-
fashion within critical theory and philosophy, can deftly describe the critical aspect of
rather than preserving a core of key concerns geography:
that are more pertinent to geography per se.
While there is an element of truth to these A truly critical human geography [exposes] the
taken-for-grantedness of everyday life … how
views, the anxieties of the discipline should
the worlds which we inhabit are the products
be outweighed by the amount of relevant, of processes operating over varying timescales
important, and innovative research that this whose outcomes could have been different: thus
new wave is fostering. This research might there is nothing inevitable about the [world
be described as “post-disciplinary,” in that or its] processes operating over varying geo-
cultural geographies can be and are being graphical scales which join our lives to those of
produced not only by human geographers but countless others.
also by academics from social anthropology, (1996: 8)
sociology, cultural studies, and elsewhere,
through which alliances form along partic- In this, the critical part of human geog-
ular theoretical convergences such as place, raphy is comparable to other areas in
space, politics, and identity, say, rather than the humanities and social sciences, like
through the traditional route of particular the “critical theory” derived from the
institutional departmental affiliations. Disci- Marxist-influenced Frankfurt Critical School
plinary differences can then provide unusual of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and
perspectives and possibly shed new light on others. The critical aspect of human geogra-
these ideas. Within the discipline of geogra- phy is the engagement with social relations,
phy itself the vitality of cultural geography with the relationships between people and
is recognized, even within highly traditional the material world, and, where necessary,
subdisciplines. As Marcus puts it: “[W]hat providing an impulse for social action and
the cultural turn has meant for geography political change. As Atkinson et al. (2005)
 CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY 5

explain, the newly invigorated cultural geog- represented, whether in written texts, art,
raphy of the early 1980s showed a marked maps, or topographical surveys. Landscape
critical edge (see, e.g., Cosgrove 1984). But itself becomes what Michel Foucault termed
before the flowering of theoretical innovation a “discursive formation,” a way of linking
that characterizes the new cultural geogra- up discourses, through which other rela-
phy, following the turmoil of student protests tionships and positionalities (in place/out of
and fervent activism around the world in place, male/ female, land owner/peasant, etc.)
1968, academic geographers began to ques- are then historically articulated. In this way
tion the workings of power and authority the landscape is interpretable as “text,” and
within society, focusing through the lens of representations of landscape are recognized
space. Emboldened by classic works such as as not fixed or neutral but as reflecting power
David Harvey’s Social Justice and the City relations and dominant ways of seeing. Fur-
(1973) and the upstart of the radical critical thermore, as Cosgrove argued, the meaning
journal Antipode, geographers could now of landscape is then a historically contingent,
ask questions about capital, the state, and symbolic text that emerges and is shaped
uneven development. Doreen Massey (1984) differently over time according to prevailing
famously advanced this work, looking at views or ideas. Often these meanings, such
postindustrial Britain from a gendered per- as the morally improving or educative effects
spective. It is from this critical background, that the landscape is presumed to have, are
is engaged and immersed in social relations, imposed by a dominant class and through
and reacting against the positivist impulses a hegemonic process. In their influential
of geography’s colonial heritage, that the new collection of essays, The Iconography of Land-
cultural geography flourishes. scape (1988), Cosgrove and Daniels clearly
explain this “new” approach to landscape
with a suitably visual set of metaphors: “[A]
THE “NEW” LANDSCAPE SCHOOL: landscape is a cultural image, a pictorial way
DENIS COSGROVE of representing, structuring or symbolizing
surroundings” (1).
One spur of the new cultural geography Developing ways of seeing or reading
was to analyze the landscape and its artistic landscape as a “text” like this can be suitably
representations as a symbolic “text,” nodding applied to a range of representations within
toward the humanities more than the social architecture, cinema, and painting. Even geo-
sciences by employing literary theory, critical graphic writing itself can be subject to these
discourse analysis, and semiotics to examine interpretive methods, as geographers them-
discourses, or ways of thinking and writing selves historically deal with the relationship
about a subject that produce “meaning- between the world and its representation.
ful” knowledge within a system of thought. Similarly, in that troubled and troubling zone
Attending to discourses of landscape through between world and representation, dominant
its various representations thereby reveals notions of “truth” are being problematized
mechanisms of power, constructions of gen- and disrupted as elsewhere in the humani-
der, portrayals of sexuality, ethnicity, and so ties and social sciences. One further thing
on. Shifting from analyses of the material that characterizes cultural geography and
production of the environment, the “new” landscape is the investigation of multiple
landscape school problematizes the predomi- discourses concerning place and identity.
nantly visual ways that landscapes have been Part of this work is the recovery of “lost” or
6 CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

previously ignored senses of place and ways of late modernity shaped around spatially
of seeing the landscape constructed by the uneven processes, cultural boundaries that
powerless or disenfranchised rather than were previously fixed in space and stable over
those powerful or dominant groups who have time are transgressed, and this is to recognize
historically determined our ways of seeing or an increasing cultural hybridity. Cultural
interpreting the landscape. Another strand of geography examines these transgressive and
cultural geography that deals explicitly with hybrid spaces in which cultures are fluid,
these representations, in literature and cin- mobile, negotiated (see Pile and Thrift 1995).
ema especially, has been termed “imaginative These spaces were recognized as more fixed
geographies” (see, e.g., Gregory 1994). This and stable within previous traditions of
work demonstrates that, according to differ- human geography such as “spatial science”
ent media and material historical conditions, prior to the cultural turn.
and according to culturally variable aesthetic Harvey’s work has been crucial in the
traditions, it is clearly possible to imagine the turn to the city as an object of study, and its
landscape in different ways. The recognition cultural life from the onset of industrialized
of this difference and the critical politics of settlements to urban modernity and thence
these views is to acknowledge a “politics of to the fragmented cities of late modernity or
location” (Jackson 1991) which has radically postmodernism. Urban cultural geography
transformed cultural geography. shifted the focus of study to theoretically
heavyweight ideas concerning Marxism and
uneven development, and subsequently to
EXPERIENCING THE CAPITALIST CITY: even more abstract ideas concerning mem-
DAVID HARVEY ory, identity, and the imagination; or in other
words, how people undergo, and respond
If the “new” landscape studies followed to, the “urban experience” (Harvey 1989).
the mantra that the preindustrial or “nat- Figures such as Davis and Harvey blur the
ural” landscape was just another text to be distinction between urban, economic, and
interpreted, this is equally applicable to the cultural geography and attempt to describe
cultural politics of social life within global- the new landscapes of power, consumption,
ized cities, with their vibrant, diverse, hybrid and spectacle that is the city in late modernity.
populations. The project of cultural politics Harvey started his academic career rather
within cultural geography, whether in the city conventionally, attempting to put human
or the countryside, reveals the importance of geography on a rigorous scientific footing
the different spatial experiences of particular in his first book, Explanation in Geography
groups of people divided by gender, class, (1969). Following a move from the UK to
ethnicity, age, bodily or mental facility. Each Johns Hopkins University, his second book,
of these sections of society has differing Social Justice and the City (1973), reflected
experiences governed by spatial organiza- a wider exposure to economic theory and
tion or powers of spatial negotiation, which philosophy, especially Karl Marx, and so
has strong political and social implications. accordingly called for a geography that could
Writing about these different experiences study the world in order to change it. With this
and perceptions of the city is another impor- work Harvey spearheaded a significant turn
tant strand within cultural geography, and to Marxist thought within human geography,
shares interests most closely in this respect which remains to this day, especially within
with cultural studies. Of course, in an era economic geography, in its task of outlining
 CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY 7

the relationship between social processes perceptions of people living within these cap-
and spatial forms. For Harvey, the actual italist spaces. The question then becomes one
geographic, material landscape – the spatial of scale rather than space per se. For example,
distribution of towns, populations, transport, his co-authored book, The Factory and the
and energy networks, etc. – betrays the very City (Harvey and Hayter 1993) highlights the
real relationship between geography and the plight of Rover car-workers in the UK.
workings of capitalism, something that Marx While the struggle to keep their jobs is
himself neglected. There followed works that a worthwhile socialist objective, and keeps
explicitly addressed forms of capitalist expe- money in the local economy, at a larger scale
rience in cities, attempting to theorize how the inescapable fact is that more cars are being
those without economic or political power produced for predominantly middle-class
respond to living in industrialized capitalist consumers that increase pollution globally.
cities.
After moving to Oxford, Harvey wrote
The Condition of Postmodernity (1989), a HOPE AND FEAR IN LOS ANGELES:
book that became highly influential across a MIKE DAVIS
range of academic disciplines, being a crit-
Like Harvey, but this time examining
ical analysis of the rise of postmodernism
the urban experience of Los Angeles,
in architecture, urban consumption, and
California-based urban critic Davis has
elsewhere. On his return to the US, he con-
had a profound effect on cultural geogra-
tinued to publish as a Marxist with Spaces
of Hope (2000) and Spaces of Capital (2001), phers’ examinations of the city in general,
but the wave of Marxism within geography and the postindustrial city in particular.
had lost its momentum and Harvey found Davis has demonstrated the mechanisms
himself increasingly out of sync with con- of repression and control that structure the
temporary geographers and social scientists, spatial practices and representations of a
who were paying increasing attention to the contemporary city with literary flair, albeit
more grounded experiences of resistance with an accompanying sense of doom and
within contemporary globalized cities in despair. Some measure of a dialectic of hope
the social sciences. Harvey’s long-running and despair is found in the opening chapter of
contributions, first to human geography and his classic City of Quartz (1990), the chapter
then to cultural theory in general, center entitled “Sunshine or noir?” cutting right into
around his argument that space and social these competing attitudes toward LA. The
life are inextricably bound up as an “active “sunshine” is the optimism pumped through
moment” in human affairs. That is, space the language of property developers and
(the material form of what is literally on the politicians, familiar throughout American
ground, including infrastructure, buildings, history as perpetuating the Californian myth
sites of consumption etc.) is both cause of fertile land and the persistent promise of
and effect of social life. Harvey examines a better life. But the “noir” is a competing
the notion of space from an abstracted, view of the city, recognizing the exploitation
structuralist Marxist position within which of both human labor and nonhuman envi-
capital and mechanisms of accumulation and ronment, and the inevitability of some form
overproduction are the center of analysis. of ecological disaster or payback as a result
But he also attempts to accommodate the (investigated further in his Ecology of Fear
more grounded, “subjective” experiences and [1998]). Davis’s controversial and radical
8 CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

approach is traceable to his pre-academic ecology of the city. If the cultural ecology
life when he worked full time for New Left of “Latinized” cities is cause for hope (reso-
Review. Broadly, he has opened up a way of nant perhaps with Western Europe’s urban
seeing the city not only as a terrain of political intake of South Asian and North African
struggle but also as a space of memory and immigrants), there is still ample cause for
power. despair in terms of repression, control,
Davis combines cultural theory, history,
and surveillance. Again, LA is exemplary
and a plethora of pop references, including
but not unusual. The concluding chapter
pulp fiction and disaster movies, exploring
of Ecology of Fear, entitled “Beyond Blade
the city and its imaginary as inseparable and
coextensive. He contrasts the differing “fire Runner,” demonstrates that the famously
geographies” in magnificent and luxurious dark, dystopian vision of a futuristic LA in
Malibu with the working-class downtown Ridley Scott’s classic 1982 film is difficult to
area, and warns of the inevitable revenge of disentangle from the dark facts of present LA;
nature on a city always built on the domina- truth, it seems, is stranger than dystopian fic-
tion of the natural environment: “Make your tion. Ecology of Fear leads to a “re-mapping”
home in Malibu, in other words, and you of LA using a departure point familiar to
eventually will face the flames” (Davis 1996). geographers and urban planners, the series of
Elsewhere he declares, “we know more about concentric circles originating from the Cen-
rainforest ecology than urban ecology,” yet tral Business District (CBD) and progressing
the global environmental impact of vast cities outward, known as the Burgess model. Davis
and the complexity of their ecology remains
explains that his work “preserves such ‘eco-
under-examined so that “the most urgent
logical’ determinants as income, land value,
need, perhaps, is for large-scale conceptual
templates for understanding the city-nature class and race but adds one decisive new fac-
dialectic” (2002: 363). Nowhere is this need tor: fear” (1998: 363). With this adaptation,
more apparent than in the huge megacities LA becomes a fragmented and frightening
like LA, Mexico City, or Tokyo, all densely city with privatized prisons on the outskirts,
populated cities that have clearly detrimental satellites of affluent, gated surburbia, and a
effects on their surrounding environment set of inner rings dominated by working-class
through pollution and development, and communities dabbling in crime, “home-
unusually complex and difficult relationships less containment zones,” regulated drug-
with nature within their city limits, too. and alcohol-free parks, and what he terms
Although Davis’s form of urbanism seems a downtown “scanscape” as opposed to a
relentlessly bleak, the appearance of Magical “landscape,” dominated by surveillance tech-
Urbanism (2000) is optimistic about the
nologies. Here, LA works as a paradigm, an
demographic shifts within urban America, as
exemplar by which the future of all cities can
the political and cultural identities of major
be gauged. Its shifting natural and cultural
cities are being transformed by immigration
from Latin America. The effects are mani- ecologies reflect the dynamic tension between
fold. Noting the reinvigoration of previously human and physical geography realized in
deadened downtowns, but also observing the a teeming city full of hopes, dreams, and
terrible living and working conditions that desires (refracted through Hollywood), yet
remain, Davis outlines the diverse nature of also by its automobile culture and ethnic
Latino life and how this affects the cultural diversity and associated tensions.
 CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY 9

OTHER DIRECTIONS: THE FUTURE OF Critical Discourse Analysis; Cultural Stud-

CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY? ies; Deleuze, Gilles; Foucault, Michel; Critical
Theory/Frankfurt School; Haraway, Donna;
In addition to the key figures discussed above, Marxism; Performativity and Cultural Studies
many practitioners of cultural geography are
shaping its future. A wealth of feminist
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
scholarship, such as that by Gillian Rose
and Linda McDowell, is adding important Anderson, K., Domosh, M., Pile, S., & Thrift, N.
and unique insights to both urban and rural (eds.) (2003). Handbook of Cultural Geography.
spatial practices, experiences, and power. London: Sage.
Atkinson, D., Jackson, P., Sibley, D., & Wash-
Geraldine Pratt’s Working Feminism (2004),
bourne, N. (eds.) (2005). Cultural Geography: A
for example, has looked at immigrant Fil- Critical Dictionary of Key Concepts. London: IB
ipina women workers and experiences of Tauris.
Asian youth in Canada. Like other disci- Barnes, T., & Duncan, J. (1996). The natures of
plines during the 1990s, cultural geography reading in human geography. In T. Barnes & D.
became fascinated with discourses concern- Gregory (eds.), Reading Human Geography: The
ing embodiment and subjected the body to Poetics and Politics of Enquiry. London: Arnold,
pp. 1–17.
spatial critique, including a recent emphasis
Cosgrove, D. (1984). Social Formation and Sym-
on performativity, influenced by the work of bolic Landscape. London: Croom Helm.
Judith Butler. One offshoot of this recent body Cosgrove, D. E. (2002). Cultural geography. In R.
of thought is known as “non-representational J. Johnston, D. Gregory, G. Pratt, M. Watts & D.
theory,” coined by Nigel Thrift (1997). Rather M. Smith (eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geog-
than dwelling on representations, as has raphy. Oxford: Blackwell.
been discussed extensively above, this the- Cosgrove, D., & Daniels, S. (1988). The Iconogra-
ory focuses upon practices, on how human phy of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Repre-
sentation, Design and Use of Past Environment.
and nonhuman formations are enacted or
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
performed. The debate is currently one of Davis, M. (1990). City of Quartz: Excavating the
the more active with in cultural geogra- Future in Los Angeles. London: Verso.
phy, drawing mainly from poststructuralist Davis, M. (1996). Let Malibu burn: A
philosophers such as Butler, Gilles Deleuze, political history of the Fire Coast. At:
Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, and others, www.radicalurbantheory.com/mdavis/
and focusing on collective social experiences letmalibuburn.html (accessed June 22, 2008).
Davis, M. (1998). Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles
of affects. Predictably, criticism is aimed at
and the Imagination of Disaster. New York:
the predominantly theoretical tack this area Metropolitan Books.
takes and the assumed lack of ground-level Davis, M. (2000). Magical Urbanism: Latinos Rein-
or empirical research. In some ways deriva- vent the US Big City. London: Verso.
tive of the fashionable end of contemporary Davis, M. (2002). Dead Cities and Other Tales. Lon-
European philosophy and social theory, it don: Verso.
correctly attacks geography’s historical legacy Davis, M. (2006). Planet of Slums. London: Verso.
Driver, F. (1992). Geography’s empire: Histories of
as centered on maps and other spatial repre-
geographical knowledge. Environment and Plan-
sentations, instead favoring “diagrams” and ning D: Society and Space, 10(1), 23–40.
“affects.” Glacken, C. (1967). Traces on the Rhodian Shore:
Nature and Culture in Western Thought from
SEE ALSO: Adorno, Theodor; Agamben, Gior- Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Cen-
gio; Badiou, Alain; Butler, Judith; City, The; tury. Berkeley: University of California Press.
10 CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

Gregory, D. (1994). Geographical Imaginations. McDowell, L. (1994). The transformation of cul-

Oxford: Blackwell. tural geography. In D. Gregory et al. (eds.),
Harvey, D. (1973). Social Justice and the City. Lon- Human Geography: Society, Space, and Social
don: Edward Arnold. Science. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity. Pile, S., & Thrift, N. (1995). Mapping the Subject:
Oxford: Blackwell. Geographies of Cultural Transformation. Lon-
Harvey, D. (2000). Spaces of Hope. Edinburgh: don: Routledge.
Edinburgh University Press. Pratt, G. (2004). Working Feminism. Philadelphia:
Harvey, D. (2001). Spaces of Capital. Edinburgh: Temple University Press.
Edinburgh University Press. Sauer, C. O. (1925). The morphology of landscape.
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