6.1 Overview

Introduction

Our discussion of nationalism took place primarily at broad scales (though it filtered down to the individual). In this lesson, we are going to zoom in a bit and examine a phenomenon that we experience on an everyday level: cultural landscapes.

Cultural landscapes are, we would argue, the primary physical manifestation of culture and human activity in space. They are both messy and symbolic, consisting of multiple layers that interlock, erode, reference and interrupt one another. But most of all, they are tangible and ubiquitous — and thus they can be an excellent primary source for understanding a place.

Objectives

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to:

1. Evaluate cultural landscapes to determine local cultural and subcultural significance.
2. Evaluate cultural landscapes to determine identity-based accessibility to spaces.
3. Assess cultural landscapes to identify cultural and subcultural expectations for behavior based on identity and insider/outsider status.
4. Critique the impact of new policies on cultural landscapes.
5. Generate a spatio-cultural analysis of a landscape from anthropological data.