"The Reinvention of Cultural Geography"

"The Revinvention of Cultural Geography"
By Marie Price and Martin Lewis (1993)

Synopsis: This article started a series of arguments and responses, and is basically refuting the "new cultural geographers'" claim that the "old" Berkeley School style was highly problematic and that the "new" people are doing something totally different. Feels that new cultural geographers critique the Berkeley School for only being concerned with artifacts, and for being anti-ethnographical and very conservative. Price and Lewis say no, that Berkeley School is not just about artifacts. and that Sauer never really did embrace the problematic superorganic model. Denis Cosgrove responds by saying he doesn't consider himself part of any school, and maybe Price and Lewis are pissed because geography is more about the city now. James Duncan replies that Sauer must have had an implicit theory of culture, and maybe is did fit superorganic model. Peter Jackson says fuck off, there is no coherent "new cultural geography" group, so stop policing the boundaries. Bottom line question: Has cultural geography split from its Berkeley roots, or has it simply broadened?

“The Superorganic in American Cultural Geography”

“The Superorganic in American Cultural Geography” from Annals of the Association of American Geographers

By James S. Duncan, 1980

Synopsis: Traces the evolution of and problems with the concept of the “superorganic;” interrogates the accepted view within geography that culture is “superorganic,” that is, “an entity above man, not reducible to actions by the individuals who are associated with it” (182). The superorganic is a concept that arose in the 1920s-30s with Carl Sauer and the Berkeley School geographers. That is, culture was seen as some upper layer of force/ultimate power/entity which made individuals mere passive agents. There have long been two competing ways of understanding culture: 1) individualistic – that we’re all separate entities and actors, 2) holistic – that actions occur in a large scale way via a sprit or collective consciousness (Durkheim, Hegel). Alfred Krober brought idea of cultural determinism (which is basically the superorganic idea that culture rules all) to anthropology in the 1950s. This idea of the all-powerful superorganic has been hard to prove and has been largely discredited. Duncan argues that idea of the superorganic is problematic as it ignores differences among populations, ignores agency of individuals, and ignores interaction between culture and individuals. Duncan thus argues for an interactive/reciprocal approach.

Interacts With:

Carl Sauer,

Labels: superorganic, Berkeley School, Carl Sauer