Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Johnson and his colleagues argued that the Los
Angeles riots were more than a spontaneous reaction to
a verdict. They were rooted in the growing despair and
frustration of different ethnic groups competing for a
decreasing number of jobs in an environment of declin-
ing housing conditions and scarce public resources. At a
time when signifi cant unemployment is affecting com-
munities all over the United States, their work shows the
importance of looking beyond the immediate catalysts of
particular news events to the local, national, and global
geographical contexts in which they unfold.
Geographers who study race, ethnicity, gender, or sexu-
ality are interested in the power relations embedded in a
place from which assumptions about “others” are formed
or reinforced. Consider your own place, your campus, or
your locality. What power relations are embedded in this
place?
Summary
Identity is a powerful concept. The way we make sense of ourselves is a personal journey
that is mediated and infl uenced by the political, social, and cultural contexts in which
we live and work. Group identities such as gender, ethnicity, race, and sexuality are con-
structed, both by self-realization and by identifying against and across scales. When
learning about new places and different people, humans are often tempted to put places
and people into boxes, into myths or stereotypes that make them easily digestible.
The geographer, especially one who spends time in the fi eld, recognizes that how
people shape and create places varies across time and space and that time, space, and
place shape people, both individually and in groups. James Curtis ably described the
work of a geographer who studies places: “But like the popular images and stereotypical
portrayals of all places—whether positive or negative, historical or contemporary—these
mask a reality on the ground that is decidedly more complex and dynamic, from both the
economic and social perspectives.” What Curtis says about places is true about people
as well. What we may
think
to be positive identities, such as the myths of “Orientalism”
or of the “model minority,” and what we know are negative social ills, such as racism and
dowry deaths, are all decidedly more complex and dynamic than they fi rst seem.
Geographic Concepts
gender
identity
identifying against
race
racism
residential segregation
succession
sense of place
ethnicity
space
place
gendered
queer theory
dowry deaths
barrioization
Learn More Online
About the Gay and Lesbian Atlas
www.urban.org/pubs/gayatlas/
About Racial and Ethnic Segregation in the United States, 1980-2000
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/resseg/papertoc.html
About the Murals in Northern Ireland
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/mccormick/intro.htm
