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THE CULTURAL DIMENSION IN ACTIVE GEOGRAPHY
2006-07-19T14:57:27Z
Editor(s)
Claval, Paul
Pagnini, Maria Paola
Scaini, Maurizio
Abstract
In this paper I will attempt to illustrate briefly the importance of the cultural dimension in
geography, and especially, as suggested by the convention programme, in those geographical
studies theorised and applied by myself, as well as, I believe, by other colleagues and their
younger assistants at the Economics Faculty of the University of Novara, as evidenced by their
experience and by their research programmes currently under way.
These experiences may be aggregated into two groupings, which in and of themselves
express two methodologies, interconnected and inseparable, of approaching geography and its
objectives. These would in fact highlight the importance of the following cultural values: 1)
the geographic representation of our world, as produced historically, particularly with regard
to regional development; 2) geographic planning, that is to say, voluntary or applied
geography. In both the representation and the planning of the territory, culture in its multiple
manifestations can be considered both as an object (or component of the territory), as in a true
cultural geography, and as a factor (or determinant of the territory). It is on the latter aspect,
that is to say on the explicative function of cultural variables, that I wish to treat especially in
this brief statement; either because cultural studies have had in recent years increasing
influence on other geographies, and particularly in economic geography, or because a socalled
cultural “approach” seems to have become fashionable, such that this meeting of the
UGI Commission has been entitled “the cultural turning-point in geography”.
Journal
Proceedings of the Conference THE CULTURAL TURN IN GEOGRAPHY, 18-20th of September 2003 - Gorizia Campus
Part VIII: Final Round Table
Languages
en
Rights
© Copyright 2003 Edizioni Università di Trieste - EUT
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