Cultural Geography Research Articles

Mapping the cultural divides of England and Wales: Did the geographies of 'Belonging' act as a brake on British Urbanisation, 1851-1911?

Although both the analysis of regional culture and urbanisation are long-standing preoccupations in geography, few studies have considered the relationship between the two, the former traditionally being a topic in cultural geography, while the latter is usually interpreted and analysed as a process in economic geography. Taking evidence from the 1851-1911 censuses of England and Wales, this article analyses individual migration paths to identify stable regions of human interaction by applying a sophisticated community-detection algorithm. By accurately mapping the regions within which the majority of migration occurred between 1851 and 1911 and arguing that the stability of these geographies is evidence of more than just mutable communities but rather of persistent regional cultures, this article responds to previous studies that have sought to identify the cultural provinces of England and Wales. Indeed, by demonstrating that the regions bear a striking resemblance to those that have long been hypothesised as being distinct cultural provinces of England and Wales, this article empirically corroborates their existence. In order to further demonstrate that the regions constitute cultural provinces, this paper incorporates these boundaries into a spatial interaction model (SIM). The results of the SIM not only shows that the boundaries between the regions limited the number of migrants that crossed them-over and above that explained by control variables-and therefore represented the boundaries of cultural provinces, demarcating discrete regions of human interaction-but that such boundaries disproportionately restricted rural-urban migrants, thereby slowing the pace at which England and Wales urbanised. This paper therefore demonstrates that urbanisation should not only be interpreted as only an economic phenomenon, but a cultural one also, and that if urbanisation is to be fully understood, individuals' attachment to place as a component of their identity, ought to be formally incorporated into models of migration.

The Mappalili Tradition as a Form of Maintaining Agricultural Culture in South Sulawesi (Cultural Geography Perspective)

Abstrak
 Menurut pandangan geografi budaya, tradisi ini merupakan hasil budaya masyarakat dengan sebagai respon terhadap lingkungan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan pemertahanan budaya pada tradisi mappalili di Sulawesi Selatan. Metode penelitian kualitatif dengan telaah studi pustaka digunakan untuk mengungkap gambaran kondisi tradisi mappalili. Analisa dilakukan secara deskripsi-eksplanasi untuk menjawab permasalahan penelitian. Hasil analisa didapatkan adanya upaya pemertahanan budaya pada tradisi mappalili di Sulawesi Selatan yang menandai awal musim tanam padi. Wilayah yang mempertahankan tradisi mappalili ini diantaranya Kapupaten Pinrang, Kabupaten Sidrap, dan Kabupaten Pangkep. Temuan utama dari penelitian pustaka ini adalah adanya perkembangan zaman menyebabkan tradisi mappalili mengalami perubahan pada kelengkapan ritual upacaranya. Implikasi hasil penelitian ini selanjutnya dapat dijadikan rujukan untuk dasar kebijakan pemerintah daerah Sulawesi Selatan atau masyarakat Bugis dalam menjaga tradisi yang berkaitan dengan budaya pertanian. Oleh karena itu pemertahanan budaya tradisi mappalili ini menjadi poin penting agar keberlangsungan identitas suatu suku Bugis tetap terjaga.

“A lot of people there were undocumented, or at least looked like me”: illegality, visibility and vulnerability among immigrant young adults in Florida

ABSTRACT Contemporary migration studies in cultural geography emphasize place-based approaches, recognizing the relational and contextual nature of belonging, especially as these are nested within material and symbolic structures of racial inequality. This article highlights the role of precarious legal status, focusing on undocumented immigrant young adults who grew up in the United States, to examine subjective experiences of place-making and belonging in situations of heightened visibility, deportability and vulnerability. We analyze 56 interviews with undocumented immigrant young adults, predominantly from Latin America, collected in Central Florida. Findings focus on themes linked to shared experiences of vulnerability due to illegality and visibility: (1) belonging in co-ethnic/co-legal neighborhoods, (2) ethnic and racial tensions, (3) neighborhood (in)security and safety, and (4) mutual assistantance and support among neighbors. In addition to poverty, poor infrastructure, and lack of safety, many neighborhoods in which undocumented youth grow up are characterized by racial and ethnic divisions. Our findings contribute an analysis of how undocumented migrants experience place as intersecting with broader patterns of race and ethnicity, and point to the importance of “co-legal status”. This extension of the concept of co-ethnicity references shared experience of illegality as it relates to place-making for legally precarious individuals.

Guest Editor’s Column

The theme of this issue of Puls is music and minorities. Three words, a perspective, and a field of research. The first word states the field’s raison d’etre, its empirical research focus, aim and objective. The last sets the starting point that serves to place the field within specific social and cultural geographies and to populate it with a certain kind of research objects. And in the middle that little connecting word that establishes the productive intersection that makes the field meaningful. It is this ‘and’ that sets up and signals a relation to be explored, about expressive forms and certain types of groups, about power, visibility, recognition, cultural complexity and more. The articles are based on presentations at the 11th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group of Music and Minorities, held in Uppsala, Sweden, 25–29 October 2021. After being postponed due to the Covid pandemic some 50 ethnomusicologists from 19 countries in four continents gathered, onsite and online, to discuss themes like music of minorities as national cultural heritage, ecological issues on music and minorities, new research, theory and method. All the articles discuss the roles and functions of music for groups that position themselves or are positioned as minorities in some respect, either the emphasis is on how music helps to establish, shape and gather, or to express, manifest, symbolise and represent such groups.

The stakes of abyssal geography. Response to commentaries on David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's ‘Abyssal geography’.

The stakes of abyssal geography. Response to commentaries on David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's ‘Abyssal geography’.

종교의 영향에 의한 태평양 지역 거주민의 모국과 민족성의 재창조

This article analyzes a case in which homeland and ethnicity were simultaneously re-conceived due to the influence of religion— the case of Polynesian Mormons. Through religious conversion, these Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) were assigned and came to accept new claims about their ethnic origin and homeland. In particular, through the Book of Mormon scriptural story they came to believe their ancestors had “House of Israel” heritage via an American-continent homeland. The paper reviews both religious place-making and homeland concepts within cultural geography, arguing that the mutual constitution of ethnicity and homeland deserves more attention. It contextualizes this case of homeland/ethnicity creation in relation to examples from the Pacific Islands and around the world. It then uses historical and discourse analysis to show how the new homeland narrative was created for (and partly along with) Polynesian Mormons, as well as how the central church sought to sustain the narrative for more than 100 years. It concludes by assessing the implications of this case and pointing to resonances with the place-centric nature of many of Korea’s new religions.

‘A great pedestrian’: John Stuart Mill, the Walking Philosopher

Abstract Walking was an essential part of John Stuart Mill’s education, working life, and leisure. As a boy, James Mill schooled his son on daily walks; as an adult, Mill made an 11-mile round trip across London on foot to work and back each day; for recreation he went on walking tours; his passion for botany led him to walk regularly in rural Britain; later in life he undertook walking tours across France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Mill, in short, was ‘a great pedestrian’. But this aspect of his life remains under appreciated by historians. By combining insights from the history of emotions, cultural history, and cultural geography, with the burgeoning literature on the significance of walking, this article will demonstrate that Mill’s walking – including where he walked, and how he walked – is not only worthy of attention, but can help us to better understand both his identity and his thought. The article not only connects Mill to the peripatetic and romantic pedestrian traditions, but also seeks to demonstrate that walking aided the process, and helped to shape the content, of Mill’s philosophy. In particular, the article argues that an appreciation of Mill’s walking can contribute to the development of a new perspective on the thorny question of Mill’s understanding of higher and lower pleasures.

Cultural geographies II: In the critical zone? – Environments, landscapes and life

In this second review of recent cultural geography research, I use the concept of The Critical Zone (originally from US Geoscience) as a lens. The environment is far too voluminous a field of cultural geographic research to be surveyed here, but it is too significant a body of research to be overlooked. Here, three key dimensions of Critical Zone studies offer a means to navigate this work: (i) multi-scalar (temporal and spatial) considerations of matter, energy and forces; (ii) biotic and abiotic relations; and, (iii) a commitment to producing knowledge beyond disciplinary silos. Discussion explores each of these in turn before reflecting, to close, on what cultural geographical thought and practice might add to considerations of the criticality of the critical zone.

Muslim geographies, positionality, and ways of knowing migration

AbstractAmid the proportion of work on ‘Muslim geographies’, the majority has focused on Muslims as a minority discussed within societies of the West. Additionally, this work rarely discusses the positionality of the researcher despite significant overlap with work in feminist, social, and cultural geographies. This paper takes ‘Muslim geographies’ as a starting point to further problematise accounts of knowledge, subjectivity, and power with regard to the treatment of Islam in geography. I argue that geographical analysis from different standpoints is needed to yield other ways of knowing about Muslims and how they orient themselves across space and time. This theoretical intervention is informed by my fieldwork experience as a Muslim male conducting ethnographic research on migration and labour precarity with other Muslim migrants across Taiwan. As I transited through various Muslim spaces, being Muslim provided privileged access and shaped the direction in which the research progressed.

Mining presence: extraction and embodiment in Valles Centrales, Oaxaca

ABSTRACT This paper offers a critical reflection on the ways extractive industries manifest within and across place. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Mexico over 8 months in 2019–2020, this paper focuses on the experiences of residents living in a town adjacent to an underground silver mine in Valles Centrales, Oaxaca, Mexico. I argue that a focus on lived, sensory and long-term engagement between people and mining opens new avenues for geographers to consider ‘what mining does’. Looking beyond the language of ‘impacts’, I build upon work on cultural geographies of presence and absence to put forward the notion of ‘mining presence’: mining’s present and absent affects and materialities that interweave with residents’ everyday lives, homes, bodies, and landscapes. In other words, I explore the qualities of mining that bring the San José mine into a neighbouring town and mediate spaces of daily life. In doing so, this paper contributes to the geographies of the extractive industries by showing that attention to life with mining requires a re-thinking of the spatiotemporal relations of extraction itself.

“Art of Uncertainty”—Taking Fujian Art as an Example

As Fujian is located in a culturally open area, its art presentations have distinctive regional characteristics. From a holistic perspective, the development of traditional art in Fujian is dominated by art forms represented by art inheritors and cultural heritage. From a local perspective, Fujian art has entered the context of contemporary art history and has been divided into contemporary Fujian art and traditional Fujian art by modern cultural viewpoints. In this paper, “Fujian art” from both the holistic and local perspectives is discussed at three levels: the uncertainty principle and the study of Fujian’s regional culture, the contemporary characteristics of Fujian culture and art, and the development of contemporary Fujian art, which are discussed based on different art types and their cultural and regional characteristics. The paper argues that the development of Fujian art has a strong artistic vitality and cultural inclusiveness and, from the contemporary perspective, has an obvious characteristic of “uncertainty” in the field of cultural geography.

A Plagiarized Testimony?: Authorship, Legacy, and the Holocaust Art of Henryk Beck and Zinovii Tolkachev

ABSTRACT This article explores the case of an alleged plagiarism of Holocaust staple artistic images by two different artists on opposite sides of the WWII frontlines. From 1941–1944, Zinovii Tolkachev (1904–1977), a Soviet artist on a military mission, and Henryk Beck (1896–1946), a Holocaust survivor and artist in hiding, had created at least two pairs of identical works. Tolkachev’s images, included in his 1944 series ‘Majdanek’ became known as the earliest artistic representation of the Holocaust in East European art. Identical images created by Henryk Beck three years prior to those of Tolkachev remained unbeknownst to the general public until recently. By providing a comparative analysis of Tolkachev’s and Beck’s personal biographies, war-time itineraries, and artistic language, this essay seeks to reenact the historical circumstances for a possible encounter between the two artists, to identify the genuine author, and to understand the underlying personal motifs for this plagiarism. Bringing my analysis beyond the images’ iconography and visual semantics, I conceptualize these works of art as complex Holocaust texts bridging personal testimony, material culture, military history, Holocaust resistance, cultural geography, and art studies. A story of a migrating Holocaust image, the case of Beck-Tolkachev challenges our knowledge of Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and Jewish artists’ relations during the war and reveals methodological uncertainties in dealing with the artistic legacy of the Holocaust.

Mobility and Identity in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Mobility and Identity in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Florence Kelley: Pragmatist, Feminist, Socialist

Florence Kelley: Pragmatist, Feminist, Socialist

Never Caught Twice: Horse Stealing in Western Nebraska, 1850–1890

The history of the North American West—whether real or imagined—is one in which violence looms large. The Archimedean spirals of winter counts depict men and animals red with gore; the journals of black-robed priests, fur traders, explorers, and emigrants note the ravages of war and a catalog of much smaller misdeeds. Indigenous rivals vied for control over millennia and across landscapes; European invaders charted a path of destruction across the continent, the legacy of which remains today. Murder, assault, and arson connect events as diverse as the Washita massacre and the sack of Lawrence, Kansas. To this litany of destruction, Never Caught Twice adds a seemingly innocuous transgression. Through meticulous analysis that is by turns qualitative and quantitative, the book is equally a microhistory of a particular time and a very specific place, and a grand tale about power, greed, and desire. The time and place are western Nebraska in the second half of the nineteenth century; the objects of desire are horses.From the outset, the author makes a strong case for the unique nature of his subject. Western Nebraska is not merely a place to be endured on the seemingly endless trek between Gothenburg and Scottsbluff, nor are horses mere beasts of burden. Aridity, isolation, sand-topped hills, and riparian valleys conspired to make the region a place where horses, horse owners, and thieves collided. The obvious qualities of horses—power, speed, and nimble action—made them indispensable to anyone wishing to get from one point to another. But horses’ intangible attributes—their grace, beauty, generosity, and indefatigable memories—also made them a vital part of many people’s lives. Luckett’s attention to “the miracle of the horse” allows for a truly monumental reading of horse theft—an activity that bound people together, pushed them apart, and shaped an entire continent.Never Caught Twice opens with the historical and cultural geography of western Nebraska. A summary worthy of the late D. W. Meinig points to factors that encouraged horse theft, including terrain and the presence of major wagon roads. Though the author’s reading of Plains equestrian cultures is rather conventional, he makes the familiar interesting by delving into Indigenous accounts of horse-based reciprocity. Horse raids, horse gifts, and ceremonial practices pointed to the complexities of horse wealth and ways in which horses were intertwined with human emotions and interactions. Horse theft functioned as proxy warfare (warriors seized horses instead of killing one another) and an economic system in which Indigenous communities transferred horse wealth among themselves.Anglo-Americans disrupted this delicate balance when they invaded the grasslands, decimated wild game populations, carved paths through Native homelands, and unwittingly inserted themselves into Indigenous rivalries. The United States Army, occupying a line of forts throughout the plains, often interposed itself between the two groups. Though the military carried out violent punitive campaigns against Native peoples, many army officers also helped Native people recover stolen horses, warned them to beware white thieves, and worked with Native leaders to preserve peace. The author is careful to distinguish between major military campaigns (the focus of much scholarly and popular literature) and the far less visible efforts of army officers committed to upholding treaty obligations.Never Caught Twice focuses on Anglo-American horse thieves in at least three of its six chapters; material on the habits and characteristics of outlaws functions as an ethnography of sorts. Scholars of Plains Indigenous communities—and lovers of horses—will find much of interest nevertheless.

Beyond the contours of Zionist sovereignty: Decolonisation in Palestine's Unity Intifada

This article takes the May 2021 uprising in Palestine, known as the Unity Intifada, as a prism to map old and new political geographies between coloniser and freedom-fighter, whose significance extends beyond the temporal limits of the May event. The first part of the paper investigates the role of identity and cultural geographies in re-enforcing Jewish claims to sovereignty. It shows how the Zionist production of pink (sexed/gendered), red (racializing/indigenising) and green (environmental) markers, is used to draw the contours of settler legitimacy and intensifies when faced by growing indigenous rebellion. The second part addresses the decolonising possibilities engulfing the Unity Intifada. It examines the role of youth, including women and queer collectives, and how their actions invoke new political and material taxonomies beyond the liberal peace structure to which Palestine has succumbed since the Oslo agreements. Overall, the article advances the political geographies of decolonisation by challenging the maintenance of settler colonial violence within the popular, political, and intellectual imaginary of ‘Israel/Palestine.’ It does so by tracing the spatial and epistemic value of decolonisation theories that extend from interactions across indigenous, queer feminist, critical race, and eco-materialist debates.

The Cultural Geography Perspective Of Zuoquan Folk Songs

The Cultural Geography Perspective Of Zuoquan Folk Songs

‘Standing still … in a moving place’ – reassessing lyrics and the spaces they construct through the musical landscapes of The Blue Nile

ABSTRACT This paper calls for a recalibration of how cultural geography engages with music, lyrics, motion, and emotion. Within existing geographical work on music, research on the music itself remains scarce, with reflection on lyrics rarer still. This paper addresses this via a close reading of the work of the Glaswegian group, The Blue Nile. It examines how the trio – and especially their principal songwriter, Paul Buchanan – used lyrics as a means for articulating distinctive conceptions of movement and stillness. The significance of song-words themselves is considered, but so too is their mode of delivery, and their relationship to the enveloping musical settings they are embedded in. The importance of time, space and place in The Blue Nile’s work is analysed and the methods by which they are evoked is investigated. The paper moves discussion on from well-covered terrain regarding music as a conduit for expressing youth focussed tropes, such as rebellion and speed, focusing instead on music’s facility for voicing ideas of slowness and immobility, particularly in urban settings. In doing so, it demonstrates popular music’s value for articulating sensations that are now being encountered with ever greater frequency, including those of stasis, drift, and disconnection.

Images among images: a map scholar response

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size DISCLOSURE STATEMENTNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsTania RossettoTania Rossetto is Associate Professor of Cultural Geography at the Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World of the University of Padova, Italy. She sits in the directory board of the Association of Italian Geographers and is a founder member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Mobility and the Humanities (MoHu). Her research interests include visual and posthuman geographies, urban visualities, cultural cartography and the relationship between map studies and visual studies.

Geographies of Belonging: Migrant Youth and Relational, Community, and National Opportunities for Inclusion

Migration research often focuses on exclusionary laws and social processes and how they impact children and the families they are embedded within. While important, this focus on harmful social structures can obscure forms of creative agency that are also inherent to young people’s migration, even in the face of racialized immigration policies that erect barriers to integration. In this theoretical article, we contend that spaces of belonging, where connection, sustenance, and recognition are readily available, are equally essential to immigrant youth and families’ experiences of migration. We conceptualize how these spaces are constructed at the relational, community, and national level, demonstrating how place, including physical, legal, political, and cultural geographies, shape these multilayered opportunities for belonging. First, we demonstrate how place informs the relationships that young people form with each other, with their families, and with other adults, and how the care that can emerge from these relationships is a critical foundation for spaces of belonging. Second, we articulate the conditions that enable spaces of belonging at the community level by examining how the geographic features of neighborhoods and cities shape young people’s opportunities for agency and recognition beyond their immediate relationships. Finally, we address the national-level dynamics that foster spaces of belonging, while attending to the reality that migrant young people and their families often live transnational lives across nation-state borders. This paper offers new ways of understanding how place informs migrant youth and children’s sense of inclusion and agency, illuminating how spaces of belonging at the relational, community, and national level support their dignity and well-being.