radical geography

1
radical geography

• part one introduction

2
the geography is dead school of thought

• Have globalization and modern technology have
  rendered distance and place irrelevant, or at
  least less relevant than before?
• Facebook distance learning telecommuting
  global shopping mall culture liberation from
  geography, borders, the physical world?

3
the geography matters school

• local culture, customs, and arrangements of space
  actually have a lot of power.
• This story about the world being flat just
  doesn't hold up in reality.
• Communities around the world are reengaging with
  activities that give them a sense of place,
  like buying local produce at farmers markets,
  and theyre also discovering the wonder in other
  places from around the world (cumbia music,
  Bollywood films, Japanese anime, Egyptian belly
  dance, Afghan kebobs...)
• Distance, as measured in an absolute sense, is
  indeed less important, but place, space, locality
  and relative distance between these things are
  not. Global processes are really stretched
  local to local processes, and they unfold in
  localities that have a unique history and
  character. (Geographies of Globalization,
  Warwick Murray, 2006)

4
Why radical geography?

• we have an inner need for "sense of place,"
  psychologically spiritually. Were getting
  bored of the blandscapes around us, and we want a
  connection to the land to real living beings.
  Living without relation to place is hard on the
  soul.
• if we know something about the space around us,
  we're less likely to destroy the environment, or
  allow it to be destroyed.

5
Why radical geography?

• we need to be more aware of geography in order
  to address the inequalities and imbalances of our
  time. Six out of ten young Americans cant
  identify Iraq on a map (in a 2005 study) fewer
  than three in 10 think it is important to know
  the locations of countries in the news.

6
Why radical geography?
To summarize the ecocrises (ecological
economic) making themselves apparent in this
century can be viewed through a spatial lens.
They have been caused in part by poor
relationships to space, and they can be solved by
reorganizing how we use space and reconnecting to
space. Radical geography strives to perceive
the problems with the way we use space and
considers active ways to solve these problems.
7
global awareness
this map was created by fivethirtyeight.com in
response to the idea that global warming would
only lessen global GDP by 5 it shows a world
with the countries which consume 5 of the GDP
erased
8
imagining local solutions
9
changing space and place

• In the U.S., we no longer experience the world
  on the scale of a pedestrian (relative to our
  ancestors, anyway). As Rebecca Solnit writes in
  Wanderlust A History of Walking
• The body is nothing more than a parcel in
  transit, a chess piece dropped on another square
  it does not move but is moved.

10
changing space and place

• The way we experience space and place is
  changing, due to
• technology
• economic interests / economic coercion (streetcar
  conspiracy, strip malls, etc.)
• social factors (gated communities, fear)
• What are the implications of this?

11
changing space and place

• "Transported every which way from childhood
  through adolescence, young people lose their
  independence. They fail to expand their horizons,
  to see new surroundings, or to acquire
  independence and liberty on their own. The
  outside world dominated by the road bores, and
  television or computer games beckon. A study
  comparing ten-year-olds in a small, walkable
  Vermont town and youngsters in a new Orange
  County suburb showed a marked difference. The
  Vermont children had three times the mobility,
  i.e., the distance and places they could get to
  on their own, while those in Orange County
  watched four times as much television." Jane
  Holtz Kay, Asphalt Nation

12
changing space and place

• These changes arent always disastrous, though
  the new technology of the bicycle helped women
  become more mobile

13
space and culture

• Our use of space shapes our culture, health, and
  psychology.
• Therefore, all of us should think about space,
  not just geographers, architects, or planners
  because we all are affected by the space around
  us and how we interact with it!
• But it's interesting to think about how other
  cultures experience space. Consider in Western
  culture, mountains are symbols of power to be
  climbed and conquered (think of all the English
  guys climbing the Himalayas back in the day,
  etc.) However,
• In Japan mountains have been imagined as the
  centers of vast mandalas spreading across the
  landscape like, in one scholar's words,
  'overlapping flowers,' and approaching the center
  of the mandala means approaching the source of
  spiritual powerbut the approach may be
  indirect. (Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust)

14
space and culture

• How we interpret a landscape depends on our
  culture.
• So our use of space changes our culture, and our
  culture shapes our use of space... it's beginning
  to seem like an endless cycle.
• We might ask where does this "culture" come
  from? Religious views inform our cosmology, to
  some extent, as in the Japanese pilgrims that
  used to walk around mountains, believing it was
  sacrilegious to ascend to the summits.

15
space and culture

• How we interpret our environments is also
  informed by the existing economic (and political)
  system.
• Ownership "Imagine the countryside as a vast
  body. Ownership pictures it divided into economic
  units like internal organs, or like a cow divided
  into cuts of meat, and certainly such division is
  one way to organized a food-producing landscape,
  but it doesn't explain why moors, mountains, and
  forests should be similarly fenced and divided.."
  (Solnit, Wanderlust, 162)
• We understand space to be used for certain tasks
  or activities, because of how the economic system
  is constructed shopping space / office parks /
  residential neighborhoods / recreational space /
  etc

16
space and culture

• Can we consciously decide how we want to
  experience space?
• What does that look and feel like?
• Is it psychological not feeling out of place or
  intimidated when in a bad neighborhood or in a
  corporate office park?
• Is it active does it demand re-engineering /
  revising the built environment, or re-purposing
  existing spaces, to suit human health
  happiness?
• How can we encourage others to re-imagine the
  space around them (us)? What cultural changes
  need to take place?