Chapter 2

Layers of Tradition: Culture Regions at Different Scales

A. Logistics

Students’ Time Requirements

Activity 1:Mapping Culture Regions30 minutes

Activity 2:Culture Traits of Your Culture Subregion40 minutes

Activity 3:Regional Imagery1 hour plus travel to store

Activity 1 involves various characteristics to define the Middle East or the American Southwest culture regions. Activity 2 is focused on the culture region in which your university resides and involves students identifying a list of culture traits popular or unique to your region. Activity 3 also applies to your university’s own culture region—specifically what can postcards tell us about the region’s essential traits and regional identity and whose identity is represented.

None of the activities build directly on any other, so they can be done independently or in any combination. However, Activity 1 is a good introduction to Activities 2 and 3 and will help students to answer those questions. We recommend completing Activity 1 before the others.

If your university is in the American Southwest, Questions 2.4 and 3.1 overlap somewhat with the material in Activity 1 and with each other. We still recommend you assign the question, however, because students will likely find postcard imagery that is not a map layer in Activity 1.

Activity 1 requires access to the Internet. It can be done individually or in groups, in a computer lab or outside of class.

Activity 2is an excellent in-class group activity. It can also be done at home.

Activity 3 requires students to go to a local store where postcards are sold. It is important that they go to a store with a good selection, so you may want to make some suggestions. You may wish to assign a supplemental exercise to search for competing images of regions, such as websites from state agencies, chambers of commerce, etc. These could supplement the store postcards nicely.

Of all the exercises, this one has the most open-ended questions and is the most subjective. In some ways, it is the most demanding to grade. Thus, it is a candidate for pass-fail grading.

B. Lesson Plan

I. Culturedefined

II. Regions

  1. Formal regions
  2. Functional regions
  3. Perceptual regions
  4. Vernacular regions

III. Culture Traits

  1. Technological
  2. Sociological
  3. Ideological

IV. Culture Regions

1. Examples

2. Regional identity (awareness of belonging to a group united in a common territory)

3. Ways of life and the culture/landscape interface

V. Cultural Landscape

  1. Carl Sauer and the Berkeley School
  2. Cultural values and the landscape
  3. Symbols
  4. Regional identity
  5. The problematic nature of one all-encompassing regional identity (multiculturalism)

VI. Defining Culture Regions

  1. Core
  2. Domain
  3. Sphere
  4. Syncretism

VII. Do Activity 1 in class if you have a computer lab. Otherwise, assign as homework. Also assign Activity 3. Do Activity 2 in class in groups.

VIII. The Middle East

  1. Media stereotypes and perceptions
  2. Terrorism and U.S. armed intervention
  3. Fertile Crescent and empires
  4. Judaism and Islam
  5. Ecological trilogy
  6. Natural landscapes
  7. Colonialism
  8. Arab Spring

IX. The American Southwest

  1. Vegetation and climate
  2. Topography and physiographic provinces
  3. Three cultures: Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo-Americans
  4. Economy

X. Discussion of your local culture region and how it is portrayed on postcards (optional)

C. Answer Key

Activity 1: Mapping Culture Regions

1.1AmericanSouthwest

Three PeoplesFusion of Native American, European, and Hispanic Cultures

ChilesChile Peppers

CoyotesCoyotes

GeographersSouthwest Division of the Association of American Geographers

GeometricSouthwest Quadrant of the United States

GrazingGrazing on Public Lands

HispanicU.S. Hispanic American Borderland

MexAmericaOne of the Nine Nations of North America

MissionsSpanish Missions

National ParksTen or More National Parks, National Monuments, or NationalHistoric Sites

Native AmericansNative Americans in the Southwestern United States

NCAANational Collegiate Athletic Conference SW Conference

NorteñoHistorically Isolated Frontier Region

Park ServiceNational Park Service District

SaguaroSaguaro Cacti

SunshineAbundant Sunshine

VernacularVernacular Southwest

WatershedsColorado River and Rio Grande Watersheds

Middle East

ArabicArabic Language

CamelsNumber of Camels per Person

Desert & SteppeDesert & Steppe

DesertDesert

Goat MilkPer Capita Goat Milk Production

IrrigatedIrrigated Land

IslamIslam as Dominant Religion

OilOil Rich

No PorkLack of Pork

1.2Criteria appropriate for defining the American Southwest includes:

Watersheds

Sunshine

Hispanic

Missions

Three Peoples

Vernacular

MexAmerica

Norteño

Native Americans

National Parks

Chiles

Saguaro

Coyotes and Grazing are certainly included in the Southwest (so are acceptable choices), but those variables are also prevalent in other regions in the U.S.

The poor choices, which use artificial boundaries that are not based on any cultural or environmental variables, include:

Geometric

NCAA

Geographers

Park Service

Middle East
Students may say that none of the variables “best” define the Middle East. All of the maps either extend well beyond what most consider to be the Middle East (Arabic, Camels, Desert, Desert & Steppe, Goat Milk, Islam, Oil, No Pork) or exclude key Middle Eastern countries (Arabic, Camels, Desert, Islam), or both. While none of the variables are perfect, none are poor choices either. All portray some aspect of culture and/or environment that encompasses the Middle East. Question 1.3, where students justify their choices, is more important for the Middle East exercise than for the Southwest exercise.

1.3Justifications include the following:

American Southwest

WatershedsBoth are major western rivers that evoke images of the Southwest. Their watersheds are in what most would consider the core of the Southwest. Both are major irrigation sources for arid areas.

SunshineOne aspect of the Southwest is its dry, sunny climate. Many people migrate to the Southwest for the sunshine.

HispanicA visible Hispanic minority is not unique to the Southwest, but it is an important cultural element here.

MissionsThis is an historical dimension that goes back to the Spanish influence that brought the Spanish language and Catholicism to much of Latin America.

Three PeoplesThis definition is based on the fusion of three cultural heritages and defines the region in terms of the overlap of the three.

VernacularThe regional terminology used by residents to describe their own region is a good indicator of the regional identity as perceived by local people.

MexAmericaJoel Garreau based his regionalization of North America on the perceptions of newspaper reporters and a whole host of economic, cultural, and environmental factors. He sees the Hispanic influence as what sets the Southwest apart from “The Empty Quarter” which contains most of the rest of the Rocky Mountains.

NorteñoLeon-Portilla’s Norteño includes all of Arizona and New Mexico, plus the Mexican states to the south of AZ and NM. While the exact location of the boundary follows political rather than cultural lines, Leon-Portilla emphasized that these two states are a frontier region with an independent-minded mentality. They are historically isolated from power centers, and historically there has been a lot of human/cultural interaction across this physiographically similar region. While students probably would not know this justification, they might say that it makes sense to focus on these two states that are purely southwestern, and omit those states that could also be classified as part of “The West,” “The Pacific Region,” or “The Great Plains.”

Native AmericansAlthough there are denser concentrations of Native Americans in South Dakota and Oklahoma, the Southwest (because of its inhospitable climate and isolation) was the last refuge of independent Native Americans. Thus, counties with 10% or greater Native American populations retain a strong Native American influence.

National ParksThe Grand Canyon National Park is one of the jewels of the National Park system. Many people make a pilgrimage through the region’s parks using the Grand Canyon as their focus and form their impressions of the Southwest from that trip. But the criteria of ten such parks is arbitrary. If there were a state the size of Delaware in the Southwest, it might simply be too small to have ten such parks, even if it shared all the cultural and environmental attributes of the Southwest.

SaguaroThe saguaro cactus of Arizona and Sonora is a prevalent symbol of the southwest and a very good variable to define the region.

GrazingThe abundance of federal land and the arid climate contributes to much grazing in the Southwest. However, this is also true for most of the Mountain West, much of which is outside of the Southwest.

CoyotesThe coyote howling at the moon is an enduring symbol of the Southwest (thanks to New Mexico art that popularized this image), but the coyote habitat extends throughout the continental United States.

ChileChile peppers are another prevalent symbol of the southwest, and the states that cultivate chilies would be a reasonable definition of the region. Be aware that the inclusion of California in this variable is simply a function of its huge agricultural industry.

Middle East

ArabicMost of the Middle East is comprised of Arabic countries (Israel and Iran as notable exceptions), so mapping the Arabic language is a good choice for regional definition.

CamelsThe camel is the traditional pack animal found throughout Saharan Africa and Central Asia, so their prevalence can be an indicator of the Middle East culture region. Note that many areas outside of the Middle East also rely on camels.

DesertMany people think of the Middle East as desert. While this is often true, the desert extends well beyond the Middle East (with the Sahara as the most obvious example). Also, much of the Middle East is not desert, so students will need to justify this choice.

Desert & SteppeIncluding steppe regions extends the desert boundary to include more of the Middle East, but also adds much more area that is not Middle East.

Goat MilkWhile goat-milk production is prevalent in the Middle East, it is also prevalent in much of Africa, Asia, and Europe. This variable paints a very broad swath across the region.

IrrigatedAreas that rely heavily on irrigated land is a better variable than just desert areas, although some countries central to the Middle East are left out (Jordan, Syria and Lebanon).

IslamMost of the region is predominantly Muslim (note Israel and Lebanon as exceptions), so Islam is a good choice. Again, this variable extends well beyond the Middle East.

OilAt least one of the large oil-producing areas can be used to define the Middle East.

No PorkLack of pork identifies the Islamic and Jewish areas.

1.4The answer to this questionhow closely do the boundaries of these three variables agreewill depend on which variables a student chooses. If the three variables agree closely, it suggests that there is a sharply defined “core” region that quickly transitions to another culture region. A “domain” occurs as a zone of transition between one culture region and another. It is the area where one or two characteristics are present, but not all three. Students studying the Middle East will likely find a large domain because many of the variables extend well beyond most people’s perceptions of the region.

1.5Many other variables might be good for defining the American Southwest, including:

  • desert/aridity/soil-moisture deficit
  • irrigated agriculture (though certainly extends into other regions)
  • lizard/coyote/cactus/pastel artwork
  • residential desert landscaping
  • temporary migration of winter residents (“snowbirds”)
  • Mexican Americans as the largest minority
  • skin-cancer rate
  • gun ownership

For the Middle East, we might wish to include:

  • garbanzo bean production/consumption
  • semitic languages
  • pita as the dominant bread type
  • prevalence of sheep or goat herding
  • olives or olive oil production/consumption
  • dates or figs production/consumption
  • nomadic population
  • areas where women wear veils/chadors
  • desert + steppe + Mediterranean climate

1.6Answers will differ from student to student. Students doing the Middle East exercise will most likely have regions that differ greatly from the map variables, since few of the map variables concisely define the Middle East.

Activity 2: Culture Traits of Your Culture Subregion

2.1–2.8 Answers will vary by student and by region. Since some will have a hard time coming up with answers to 2.3 and 2.4, this is a good in-class group activity. It also works well when students work on it independently ahead of time, and then discuss the subject openly as a class before handing in their materials.

Note: The answer to Question 2.6 will also vary by student and region, as they may not think of things that originated elsewhere a long time ago, such as horses, cattle, English, Christianity, the scientific method, corn, wheat, etc.

Question 2.8 can be a good class discussion item.Some students may appreciate the predictability that comes with more standard products—you know what type of food you will find in a certain restaurant, for instance.They may also appreciate the level of standards that are uniformly accepted.However, many may decry this familiarity.After all, if all places look the same and offer the same food or other products, why travel?Many appreciate chance encounters with the unknown, which is less likely to happen in a globalized world.Others may even argue that the world is not becoming more homogenized—that regional uniqueness is alive and well.Students should justify their answers for either the disappearance or continuance of regional cultural traits with good examples.Regional variation continues through speech dialects, political and religious views, food, clothing, and housing adaptations to local climate.

Activity 3: Regional Imagery

3.1The themes shown in postcards will vary from region to region, from place to place within a region, and even by the type of store in which the postcards were viewed.

3.2Depends on the place.

3.3Depends on cards selected, but students should think about what key elements define their region and determine if these are represented on the postcards.

Note: Many postcards at local stores will show local phenomena that do not apply to the larger region (e.g., cityscapes, campus photos). Likewise, some postcards will show regional phenomena that are not found locally (e.g., wildlife or ranching).

3.4Frequently, the purpose behind postcards is to increase tourism (boosterism). Cards therefore paint an idyllic version of landscape and life, focusing on dramatic and scenic features while ignoring the mundane aspects of common folk and landscapes. Other times, postcards may have little hope of actually promoting tourism, but serve as a way for local individuals to promote their hometown pride (this tends to be more often the case in small rural communities). Some postcards are intended to be humorous, but rarely are they critical of a region or place. Students may come up with other answers here as well.

3.5Minorities are often not included in any significant way in the portrayal of a place through picture postcards. At times they may be included, but often in stereotypical or romantic ways. This will, of course, vary between student and by region portrayed.

3.6Students should justify their answers based on cards collected and the student’s previous answer, but most likely the dominant cultural group defines regional imagery. Regional tourist agencies and chambers of commerce may play a direct role in defining this imagery, or it may be a reflection of prevalent values. Rarely do disenfranchised groups get the opportunity to portray their regional identity or their regional perceptions in postcard format.

D. Discussion or Essay Questions

Is regionalism disappearing in the United States or Canada as mass consumerism (promoted by such players as McDonalds, The Gap, and Hollywood movies) homogenizes our preferences and habits?(Follow on to Question 2.8.)

How do immigrants contribute to or detract from the core values of a place?

What acts to keep regionalism alive? How do regional subcultures sustain themselves?

Every location is in not one but many formal and functional regions of different types at various geographic scales ranging from small-scale elementary school districts to the developed or developing regions at the international scale. Name some other formal and functional regions we are in, at our exact location here on campus.

What do you call the culture regions to the north, south, east, or west of the American Southwest? What are their characteristics?

If you were blindfolded, put on an airplane, and taken to Region X [insert a North American culture region], what clues (culture traits) would there be in the cultural landscape that would tell you where you were?

Identify the vernacular names for your region.

In your opinion, does San Diego have more in common with Prince Edward Island or with the Mexican state of Baja California, just across the border?

What are the major differences between the North American culture realm and Latin America? How about between North America and Western Europe? Japan?