Week 13 Readings

“The Four Corners Country” by J.B. Jackson

The thing that struck me about Jackson’s article on the Four Corners region is the initial emotion he lays out for his readers. From the start you feel his antipathy for the monument at the four corners, simply by the small phrase, “and least worth visiting.” It sets the tone for the paragraphs to come, and I suddenly felt antipathy for the darn thing myself, even though I’d never gone there! However, I see now after reading the rest of the article that the Four Corners monument is supposed to be a pivotal spot around which to spin his tale about the surrounding region. I also see that it was meant to contrast a prominently visible monument which is praised by many with the hum-drum environment surrounding it carrying infinitely more meaning. I like his style.

As far as mobile home trailers go, I’m reminded of when I was a teenager and an empty lot in my neighborhood faced the wrath of its pretentious neighbors. Word came around that the new owner the lot, empty for many years, was going to put a “manufactured” home on it. Those were the days when manufactured homes were little known, and so the name communicated “mobile home” to the neighbors. There was indignant outcry and injured self-importance over the entire matter, because who would dare to place such inferior architecture (if you could even call it that) in the midst of this respectable first-class neighborhood? No one admitted that in actuality the neighborhood was aging, it lacked streetlights, traffic flew down the street at a dangerous pace, and the three vacant lots were a blight to the neighborhood. A fight ensued, and the prospective builders had to prove they were putting in something higher quality than a mobile home, and they had to promise it would blend in with the rest of the homes. Everyone slunk back into the corners of their living rooms, sulkily waiting to be proven right once the monstrosity was completed. The new manufactured home ended up being quite attractive, and it did blend in with the neighborhood. Ultimately, the two other vacant lots followed suit, and the neighborhood is better for the entire conflict. However, for me, this incident symbolizes the attitude of most people, including myself, toward mobile homes.

“Dominance and Affection” by Yi-Fu Tuan

I began reading Yi-Fu Tuan’s chapter “Dominance and Affection” with one question in mind: how do pets have anything to do with geography? What I discovered is still a stretch to place it in the field of geography, but the great point of the article is not just about pets, it’s about how people’s emotions affect their behaviors, which leads to the reasons why people build what they build (palaces and gardens), lead how they lead (despots and tyrants), do what they do (employ servants), etc. This article highlights one motivation in human behavior—the need to dominate and show affection—which in turn is an underlying cause in the cultural geography of a region. It’s a stretch to place this article into the field of geography, but that is where geography shines…in its interdisciplinary capabilities, pulling so many diverse concepts into one field of study to look at the whole picture.

“A Macrogeography of Western Imperialism: Some Morphologies of Moving Frontiers of Political Control” by D.W. Meinig

This article is a great example of how the study of geography can be used to create solutions and understandings of an issue. In this case, “for establishing some order out of a seeming chaos of geopolitical issues” (238). In reading about the European conquest of the rest of the world, it occurred to me that dominance must be in European blood because now, with the age of imperialism over for some time, Europeans are trying to regain some of their power by uniting into the European Union. At least, that’s how I look at it. They realize that alone, they have little influence over a world largely hostile to their control anymore, but if they unite, they again become a strong force, even if only in the minds of EU’s leaders and citizens (which is what it is right now!) Otherwise, I love history, and I enjoyed this reading of history as well. I especially liked how the empires were partly categorized by the geographical features (rivers and oceans). It put the geography into the history.