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This innovative book marks a significant departure from tradition anlayses of the evolution of cultural landscapes and the interpretation of past environments. Maps of Meaning proposes a new agenda for cultural geography, one set squarely in the context of contemporary social and cultural theory. Notions of place and space are explored through the study of elite and popular cultures, gender and sexuality, race, language and ideology. Questioning the ways in which we invest the world with meaning, the book is an introduction to both culture's geographies and the geography of culture.
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MAPS OF MEANING Maps of meaning’ refers to the way we make sense of the world, rendering our geographical experience intelligible, attaching value to the environment and investing the material world with symbolic significance. The book introduces notions of space and place, exploring culture’s geographies as well as the geography of culture. It outlines the field of cultural politics, employing concepts of ideology, hegemony and resistance to show how dominant ideologies are contested through unequal relations of power. Culture emerges as a domain in which economic and political contradictions are negotiated and resolved. After a critical review of the work of Carl Sauer and the ‘Berkeley School’ of cultural geography, the book considers the work of such cultural theorists as Raymond Williams, Clifford Geertz and Stuart Hall. It develops a materialist approach to the geographical study of culture, exemplified by studies of class and popular culture, gender and sexuality, race and racism, language and ideology. The book concludes by proposing a new agenda for cultural geography, including a discussion of current debates about post-modernism. Maps of meaning will be of interest to a broad spectrum of social scientists, especially social and cultural geographers and students of cultural studies. Peter Jackson is Professor of Human Geography at Sheffield University. MAPS OF MEANING An introduction to cultural geography Peter Jackson London and New York First published 1989 by Unwin Hyman Ltd This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 1989 Peter Jackson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-42123-X Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-72947-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-09088-1 (Print Edition) Contents 1 2 Foreword ix Preface xi Acknowledgements xv Introduction: maps of meaning 1 An introduction to cultural studies Cultural politics and the politics of culture Notes 2 4 8 The heritage of cultural geography 9 The ‘Berkeley School’ and its legacy The cultural landscape Culture history and human agency Cultural anthropology: Boas, Lowie, and Kroeber The super-organic approach to culture Cultural geography and the new humanism Conclusion Notes 10 13 14 16 17 20 22 23 Problems and alternatives 25 The study of culture and 19th-century anthropology The problem of culturalism Culturalism and the city Culturalism and poverty Cultural materialism Culture and society A materialist cultural geography? Conclusion Notes 26 27 29 30 33 36 43 45 45 v vi