Introduction
Cultural geography is the study of norms, cultural products and their variations in relation to places and spaces. This piece elaborates my interaction with cultural geography my participation in the class. In the first section, the paper presents my view of the world has changed following the study. The second section states my preconceived notions. The fourth and the last sections elaborate on the changes I have experienced, what I have learnt and what ideas about culture changed or altered during the class.
Change
The integration of cultural geography into my life has had a serious impact. Before the earth was round and occupied by different people of different races and languages all working towards economic success. Now all that has changed as I come to the understanding that the world was more than that, the world was more than locations and much more was in surface of it than I had anticipated. There were things all around us in different locations significant in their sphere all spread out in different locations. Each of these things attributed to different characteristics of the world e.g. physical features, landforms, climates, natural vegetation. In addition to them are the human beings and their complexities cities agriculture, towns, transportation systems, factories, and businesses.
Though I had known that language was a component of the world, the course helped me in understanding that language was part of geography. Greiner, (2014) asserts that Language geography is a feature of human geography that revises the geographic circulation of language or its ingredient rudiments. Greiner, (2014) points out two key areas of language study in geography: one is geography of languages involved with space of languages and the course of history. The differences in culture have a wide range from technology, economy, agriculture, architecture, transportation, and industrialization. Unlike before I, was able to appreciate the world made up of many different communities. All together set apart by their music, grooming, dress code, cuisine, sport, etiquette, dance, pottery, paintings, and beading.
Pre-perceived Notions
When I first had about cultural geography, I hardly had any understanding on how geography and culture related. However, the class made that a bygone. The understanding that culture was part of the world’s surface brought about many discoveries that prior to the class I had not perceived in any way. Concept like culture region that is a lot historic than I could have thought, equally changed my perception that Geography had nothing to do with history. However, that too was wrongly informed the world divided into regions whose cultures got differently informed in the past and equally presently as well. Through the cultural geography class, I leant how Globalization plays a part as Greiner, (2014) explains the media closely bond to the cultural geography of globalization. The images produced by the media showing places and spaces add to the global surge of people whether as tourists or émigrés. These have led to the appreciation of the contributions of culture through identification of visual distinctiveness in many different areas. Equally, I have been able to understand how cultural communities have adapted to their current locations and what impact the acclaimed changes have had on their environment. Now I can confidently note different cultural traits with the understanding every discovery only opens the door to many others unknowns or cultural communities
Lesson Learnt
A topic like cultural region, which addresses common cultural elements in different areas of the world, was not an expected topic. Similarly, I did not expect to learn about cultural diffusion that deals with concerns about the spread and integration of different cultural factors. Neither was cultural interaction, which focuses on existing cultural components in every particular community part of my expected teaching
It was not my expectation that the geography had anything to do with political geography. The genesis of political geography lounge in the birth of human geography: Early on practitioner's interests mainly lounged with politics and military cost of the interaction between physical geography, state power and state territories. Greiner, (2014) Political geography has made it possible to understand political components in over large landscapes, which characterize the world.
Alteration
Conclusion
When I joined the class of geographical culture, I had no idea how culture linked to geography. Geography to me was simply a matter of landscape thought, as I was to learn I was lost in error. Culture as I came to learn is inseparable to geography and the two go hand in hand in shifting the way the earth’s surface looks.
References
Greiner, A. L. (2014). Visualizing human geography: 2nd edition. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
