The Venezuelan Andes and the Geographical Imagination

Abstract

For much of this century geographers have wrestled with concept and significance of region (Hartshorne 1939; Entrikin 1991; Livingstone 1993). Some consider discerning description of areal variation to be geography's raison d'etre; others dismiss regional studies as particularistic, theoretically bereft, and incapable of constituting a disciplinary core. But whether science or art, passe or avant-garde, regions are most common spatial abstraction geographers create. And that act of regional construction illustrates geographical imagination at work.(1) The concepts of region, a contiguous bounded territory, and regionalism, sociological characterization of an area, are a spatial shorthand. Regional tags act to amalgamate vast areas like the Orient or smaller subnational entities such as the Pampas. Regional designations highlight meaningful spatial and social networks, though ignoring troublesome anomalies within constructed areas. Invariably, regions become more than territorial delineations, because generalizations about society and culture are embedded within their boundaries. Geographers' regional imaginings unify social base and geographical imagination, a dialectic of people creating places and places shaping people (Agnew 1982, 159). Regional depictions, crafted with care, affirm power of narrative description lauded by Yi-Fu Tuan as that magical idea that mere words can call places into being (1991, 691). Regional studies have incorporated a full range of epistemological approaches, from natural science, to positivism, to interpretive art (Haggett 1990, 70-94; Archer 1993; Meinig 1983). In some regional writing, naturalism pervades regional discourse and overlooks genetic and structural questions (Pudup 1988, 371). When geographers do consider processes that form spatial aggregations, they generally stress material and economic forces over cultural and social drives (Tuan 1991). They seldom consider regional origins, and interpretive and imaginative processes behind their construction too often go unexamined. Outside geography, regions are typically viewed as unproblematic units that naturally spring forth on maps, in literature, and through casual conversation. Yet common regional labels reflect historical and contingent aspects of their creation. In United States, we travel back and out West; sequence of settlement ordains phrases, even if someone is traveling east for first time or returning to a western home. Exactly where East ends and West begins is less important than is notion of core areas with blurred edges. This example suggests three important aspects of regional construction. First, a popular or vernacular mental map of national subdivisions is often widely shared. Regions may not be real, but at least regional tags are collectively understood. Second, regions exist not just in space but also in time, so regional boundaries and identities change. Third, regional identity depends on existence of other regions. For an idea of East to take hold, a distinctive image of West has to have evolved. A most intriguing - and potentially divisive - aspect of regions is that their creation depends on distinguishing not what holds unit together but what separates it from surrounding areas. Geography may have a bigger stake than do most disciplines in defending chorology, but geographers are not alone in their regional interests. American history took a strong regional turn in 1930s and 1940s. Today regions have a relict status with historians, who are ever more likely to explore questions about gender, class, and ethnicity (Limerick 1996, 84). Still, a small but respected circle of historians continues to explore regional formation and change, especially in field of environmental history (White 1980; Cronon 1991; Ayers, Limerick, and others 1996). Cultural anthropologists, especially in 1950s and 1960s, mapped culture regions as energetically as did geographers, largely along ethnic and linguistic lines. …