The Understanding Of Cultural Geography

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The editors have contributed to this book with the various introductory statements. The Introduction to the book first discusses some cultural geographic themes, especially the way in which people experience and understand their world, as exemplified in a film about Hong Kong, A Very Good City. This is a thought-provoking opening, although students who do not know the film may not appreciate the nuances of the discussion. The editors also identify some cultural geographic themes, especially those relating to the body (identified as perhaps the most important scale of analysis for cultural geography), to difference, and to ideas about identity, as these are evident in the French Muslim schoolgirl headscarf incident of 1989. The editors build on these two discussions to discuss briefly the history and content of cultural geography and to justify the organization and contents of the volume. The Introductions to Cheap Juicy Couture the eight parts each provide a broad context for the selected readings with reference to other important writings. The introductions to individual readings provide ...
... context, identify related work and work that expands on the ideas included in the reading, and provide a brief biographical comment. All of this editorial content is useful, although much may be beyond the grasp of the identified readership of beginning students. Complex ideas are sometimes noted without substantive explanation, as with reference to object relations theory, while related readings are noted but not usually discussed.

The editorial understanding of cultural geography is stated in the Introduction to Part Two (Cultural Geography: A Transatlantic Genealogy) where there is a reluctance to identify a history of cultural geography because this might imply that current work necessarily builds upon what has gone before. The favored interpretation is that of cultural geography as heterotopia. Although the reluctance to Juicy Couture Necklaces outline disciplinary changes through time may be reasonable, it can result in students not fully appreciating the value of earlier work. There is not, for example, any account of the contribution of the classic Readings in Cultural Geography edited by Wagner and Mikesell. In similar vein, the authors choose not to refer to work as being either 'traditional' or 'new' as this might imply a disciplinary continuity, although the publisher's blurb refers to 'classic' and 'contemporary', terms that appear remarkably similar.

There are a number of unexpected phrases in the editorial content. The tradition initiated by Sauer is described as the "so-called Berkeley school" (p. 5). There are rather jarring references to "non-white geographers" (p. 6), to '"his culture'" (p. 11), and to "man's presence" (p. 153). The term 'race' is used without quotation marks alongside ethnicity, and there is no acknowledgement of the contested meaning of the word (p. 353). On balance, although much of the content seems to be at an advanced rather than introductory level, this is an interesting and valuable collection of carefully abridged readings with some insightful contributions from the editors. However, many cultural geographers may question whether the selected readings reflect cultural geography as it is currently taught in most North American geography departments. The sub discipline evident in The Cultural Geography Reader seems at best to be a partial representation, with some of our collective achievements neglected.