Sacred Space

A sacred space is a location that has acquired an elevated, often spiritual status for a specific group. This status may truly be religious, or it may be more connected to territoriality and cultural identity. This is in contrast to profane space, which does not carry the same status, and which is the location where everyday activities take place. Generally speaking, a place identified as belonging to sacred space requires a special reverence and behavior of those who recognize it, which is usually expressed in the form of ritual or sanctity. Sacred space can be created by human activity, or it can consist of a natural setting that acquires mystical, religious, or nationalistic importance.

There are thousands, and probably millions, of examples of sacred spaces that have been constructed by human activity. These range in size and significance from a single tomb or gravesite to entire cities, such as the city of old Jerusalem, almost all of which may be considered sacred either by Jews, Christians, or Muslims (or in some cases, by all three faiths). Conflict can arise when more than one group claims a space as sacred. The Temple Mount of Jerusalem is a prime example, which both Jews and Muslims claim to be a vital part of their exclusive religious tradition, but other conflicts abound. In 1992 in the Indian city of Ayodhya a mosque was destroyed by a mob of Hindu believers because they believed that the building occupied land on which the Hindu god Rama was born, and thus considered the Muslim structure to be intrusive and offensive. Before the mosque was built in the 1500s, a Hindu temple had stood on the site. In some cases rather than being destroyed, the sacred space of one faith may be adopted and converted by another. A good example is the Haghia Sophia in Istanbul, which functioned as a Christian church for over 1,000 years, and since 1453 has served as a mosque. 

Locations may be considered sacred that are tied to historical events that are especially important to the identity of an ethnic group or country. Serbians, for example, have a special reverence for the region of Kosovo, because they suffered   a dramatic loss there in 1389 at the hands of the Turks. For Serbians, the plain of Kosovo represents a tragic, costly, but heroic sacrifice, and similar places may be found across the world. In the United States, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the Alamo in Texas, and Pearl Harbor in Hawaii would all qualify in a similar way as sacred space for many Americans. Natural features may also function as sacred space.

Transhumance

A seasonal migration among nomadic herders between regions of different elevations. Transhumance is a type of pastoralism, but is specific to topography and should not be confused with more general nomadic herding or migration with animals. In the process of transhumance, the migration of humans and animals takes place as movement between pastures located at varying altitudes. Typically, during the warmer summer months, when temperatures are warmer and vegetation is available, herds are moved to higher locales. Herders, often with their entire extended families, move with their animals and take up residence at these places, living in either temporary shelters that may be relocated from pasture to pasture, or in more permanent buildings that are used at the same location from year to year. 

In late summer or early fall, again depending on the elevation of the pasture being utilized, the herd is moved downslope to a lower elevation, where temperatures at night are still tolerable to both human and beast, and sufficient plant material is available to maintain the herd. This process may continue over several weeks or even months, as pastureland at progressively lower altitudes is used in a step-by-step fashion, until the lowest land is reached during the coldest period of the year. The animals are kept at this location until warming temperatures in the spring allow for the use of higher grazing land, at which time the cycle begins anew. The most common animals involved in the process of transhumance are sheep and cattle, but other grazing animals may also be moved between elevations. 

Many people across the globe practice transhumance, and pastoralists continue to employ this process even in technologically advanced economies—it is not strictly confined to developing regions of the world. In France and Spain sheep and goats are moved seasonally, and transhumance involving dairy cattle remains quite common in some European countries, especially Switzerland, Austria, and the Scandinavian countries. The historical record indicates that the practice of transhumance was common by the early Middle Ages and may have originated in alpine Europe as early as the Bronze Age. Some famous elements of the cultural geography of this region are connected to the use of mountain pastures, such as the use of the alphorn and yodeling, both of which almost certainly originated as means of communication between shepherds separated by wide distances. 

Only later did these forms of long-distance communication acquire artistic musical expression, with numerous melodies and songs emerging as part of the folk culture of Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and other alpine areas of Central Europe. Modern technology has altered some of the characteristics of transhumance in developed regions. For example, in some economically developed countries, those keeping flocks at high elevations during the summer are supplied via helicopter deliveries, whereas for centuries the traditional system relied on a supply system of mounted riders, who would periodically bring provisions to the herdsmen in the mountain pastures. Despite modern adaptations, the basic characteristics of transhumance remain a way of life for thousands of people across the globe.

Transculturation

A concept that holds that the cultural identity of subjugated peoples during the era of imperialism was transformed, with the indigenous culture absorbing and modifying characteristics of the imposed European identity. In other words, colonized peoples or minorities construct cultural histories for themselves that at least partially incorporate the perspectives and logic of the dominant culture, resulting in a self-representation that is partially rooted in cultural constructs imposed from above. The term was first used in the 1940s and 1950s by Latin American intellectuals like the Cuban ethnographer Fernando Ortiz and the Uruguayan writer Angel Rama, who focused on the role indigenous culture played in shaping the character of national identity. 

A common manifestation of transculturation is religious syncretism, with the resultant faith sometimes gaining recognition as a new religious movement, as in the case of voodoo, Santeria, or the so-called “cargo cults” of the South Pacific. Transculturation is related to the process of modernization, but where the latter term implies an abandonment of cultural values and practices in favor of uniform, contemporary standards, transculturation suggests an adaptation based on the interaction and interpretation of social and historical evaluations from all the included cultural influences. The process of crafting a national identity in a multinational state that may eventually lead to the evolution of a nation-state, may be seen as a variation of transculturation. Such identity to be successfully constructed involves the adaptation and reconstruction at some level of values and mores of all member groups, who must by default constitute and recognize its legitimacy.

Some post-modern scholars of literature, such as Mary L. Pratt, have argued that transculturation is in reality a form of resistance to the ethnocentrism of the colonizing power, and that the process is most pronounced in so-called “contact zones.” Such zones are fundamentally a geographic construct, because they represent the space in which the process of transculturation transpires, and in which elements of a cultural hybridization are incubated and ultimately expressed. In purely geographical terms, such spaces represent the reduction of distance in a core and periphery relationship linked to cultural diffusion. In a post-colonial context, globalization may be viewed as an expression of transculturation. This situation is more complex than the colonial example, in that globalization does not transpire via exclusive binary relationships, nor is there a single “hegemonic” culture, to borrow Pratt’s term, that dominates, although some commentators would contend thatWestern culture itself serves as the hegemonic element in globalization.

Tragedy of the Commons

This phrase is the title of an article by the biologist and social commentator Garrett Hardin, first published in 1968. The article and the concepts regarding the conservation of resources it presents are still widely debated by scholars in the social sciences. The problem that Hardin describes, the proper management of resources held in common, represents a dilemma that has been addressed by philosophers and economists since ancient times. Hardin uses the metaphor of a “commons,” a communal pasture, to illustrate how individual self-interest may be in conflict with community interests when utilizing a common resource.

In Hardin’s example, a pasture is held in common by a group of farmers, where each farmer is allowed to graze as many cows as he/she wishes. Because there is no cost to any farmer to graze an animal, each will attempt to place the maximum number of animals on the land to gain the greatest amount of “profit” in the form of additional livestock. As each user adds additional cows, the quality of the pasture steadily declines due to overgrazing, but because none of the farmers actually owns the land, and there is no greater authority that can limit the pasture’s exploitation, the land is degraded to the point that it can no longer support livestock. This occurs because the users of the resource (the pasture) have no motivation to conserve it, only to maximize their individual gain from it, and the damage from placing additional cows on the land is shared with the other users. According to Hardin, such abuse of a common property is in the rational economic interests of each individual farmer, because the advantage each receives, even after the pasture has been badly overgrazed, is still greater than any costs associated with using the “commons.” The “tragedy” in Hardin’s title refers to his view that such behavior is inevitable when humans attempt to utilize a “common” resource for which there are no associated costs.

Toponymy

The sub-branch of cultural geography that studies the location, use, and origin of  place names. A toponym is the name used to identify a specific location on the landscape. An examination of place names in a region can provide a great deal of information about the cultural landscape, both past and present, and may provide clues regarding sequent occupance. The etymology of a place name may reveal much about those who imposed it. For example, migrants sometimes name their place of settlement after some characteristic of the “home” they left, maintaining a sense of a familiar place, although the actual physical setting may be far different than the original. Hermann, Missouri, for example, was founded by German immigrants in the 1800s, and is named for a German hero who defeated the Roman Empire. 

Lawrence, Kansas, was founded in the 1850s by abolitionists from Massachusetts, who named the new settlement after a famous anti-slavery Massachusetts politician, Amos Adams Lawrence, reinforcing the status of Kansas as a free state. The influence of Spanish culture and settlement in southern California is evident in place names such as San Louis Obispo, San Diego, and Santa Barbara, along with dozens more. Across the United States, the ubiquitous presence of Native American place names for towns, counties, major cities, and states themselves indicates the lasting cultural impact of the region’s original inhabitants. The specific language used in such naming indicates the home territory of individual groups—Tallahassee, Florida is derived from the language of the Muskogee people who lived in the region, while the name of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, comes from the Algonquin languages, spoken by several Native American groups who occupied the northern United States. 

The origin of many place names is not as obvious as the examples mentioned above. Toponyms typically have two components, a specific portion and a generic element. In the case of Cartersville, Georgia, “Carter” is the specific part of the name, while “ville” is the generic segment. The use of certain generic components is sometimes unique to specific languages and/or ethnic groups, and linguistic geographers can often trace the origins of migrants through an examination of these patterns. For example, the generic suffixes of boro, shire, and ford used for town names (Foxboro, Wiltshire, Milford) are typical of English and Scottish settlements in New England. These generic components of place names have been transplanted to other areas of the United States, usually by migrants from the northeast. A suffix of dorf or burg in a city place name often indicates settlement by German immigrants. Studies of toponyms can uncover cultural relict boundaries in the landscape, because the toponyms used by a people often persist on the landscape long after the group has disappeared or moved on, or new boundaries have been formed. Of course, a toponym may provide descriptive information about the physical characteristics of a place as well. The qualities of Death Valley, California, and Pleasant Valley, Iowa, are reflected in their respective toponyms, at least according to those who named them.

Buenos Aires

BUENOS AIRES IS the largest city in ARGENTINA, and as part of a federal district, it serves as the country’s capital. The city’s name means “good airs” and derives from the name of a patron saint of navigators known as Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Aire. Measuring 77 square mi (199 square km), the city is located in eastern Argentina, near the South ATLANTIC OCEAN, just south of Argentina’s border with URUGUAY. 

In 1536, the Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza led an expedition that founded the city of Buenos Aires on the banks of the Río de la Plata. This initial settlement failed after five years because of a lack of supplies and conflicts with the native inhabitants. The Spanish settlers fled Buenos Aires for the fortified city of Asunción. In 1580, Juan de Garay led a new expedition from Asunción that reestablished Buenos Aires. The new settlers began to exploit the pastoral animals that had multiplied since being left by the earlier settlers. For more than 200 years, Buenos Aires grew slowly. While the city possessed a good port, it was largely excluded from the highly regulated Spanish colonial system of trade. Spain permitted only trade through certain ports in the New World and in SPAIN.

As a part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Buenos Aires was governed from Lima and its port of Callao. Thus, to obtain European goods, porteños, as residents of Buenos Aires are known, had to wait for them to be shipped through Callao and then by oxcart to Buenos Aires, which could take six months. To export their goods, residents of Buenos Aires also had to ship them through Callao and then to spain.

Before the second half of the 18th century, Buenos Aires had little contact with the silver mining regions of the viceroyalty. Instead it developed an economy based on ranching and contraband trade. This contraband trade, especially with Brazil and the Caribbean islands, allowed porteños to thrive. In 1618, the city became the seat of an imperial governorship. By the 18th century, they were exporting cereals, hides, and dried beef. By the mid-1700s, the city’s population had reached 20,000. In 1776, as part of a series of reforms implemented by the Spanish government, Buenos Aires became the capital of the new Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. The city now had administrative authority over much of southern South America. With its new status, legal trade greatly expanded and Buenos Aires prospered from direct trade with Spain and with the mining regions of South America. Economic prosperity also led to increased population, which reached 42,500 in 1810.

In 1806 and 1807, British forces attacked the city. Local militias succeeded in repelling the attackers, contributing to the porteños’ sense of pride and nationalism. In 1808, city residents opposed Napoleon’s invasion of Spain, and in 1810, the town council cut its formal ties with Spain, replacing the Spanish viceroy with a colonial-dominated junta. For the next decade, the city was a center of revolutionary activity. However, the interior provinces did not immediately follow the lead of Buenos Aires. Finally, in 1816, the provinces also declared their independence and Buenos Aires became the capital of the newly independent United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata. Much of the first half of the century was marked by political and military conflict between unitarios and federales. The unitarios were those who favored a strong central government at Buenos Aires, while the federales preferred provincial autonomy. Buenos Aires generally dominated the struggle. In 1880, the city separated from the province of Buenos Aires and became Argentina’s national capital as part of a federal district.

In the second half of the 19th century, Buenos Aires prospered and grew. By 1860, the city had more than 100,000 residents, and by the early 20th century, the population had surpassed one million. Several factors contributed to the transformation of the city, all of which were reflections of the economic prosperity of the surrounding countryside. One change was the arrival of massive numbers of immigrants from Europe and elsewhere. About 80 percent of the immigrants came from Spain and ITALY. By 1914, half of the city’s population was foreign born. Often unable to buy land in the countryside, many immigrants settled in Buenos Aires, as there was a need for labor in the city’s port, industries, and service sectors. Many older sections of the city came to be dominated by foreigners.

A second change was the flow of wealth into the city. This wealth can be seen in the construction of numerous great mansions in the city. Indeed, Buenos Aires came to be a symbol of great wealth and the phrase “to be rich as an Argentine” could be heard on the streets of Paris. A third change was the spatial change that took place. Buenos Aires sought to copy the model of PARIS, especially as it began to prepare for its centennial celebration in 1910. Thus, the city constructed a subway system and broad avenues like those in the French capital. Other improvements included sanitation, gas, electricity, and water.

By 1914, Buenos Aires had reached a population of over 1.5 million, making it one of the 10 largest cities in the world. About one-fourth of Argentina’s entire population lived in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, which was seven times larger than the second biggest city in the country. Several key developments marked the 20th century. First was a change in the source of newcomers to the city. After about 1930, European immigration virtually ended. Migrants from the interior provinces of Argentina filled the city’s labor demands. Others came from the neighboring countries of Uruguay, PARAGUAY, and BOLIVIA. Most of the new arrivals were mestizos. This racial difference led to frequent social conflict. Most of the migrants were poorly educated and had few job skills, making it difficult for the urban economy to employ them. Many of these migrants became supporters of Juan Peron, often viewed as the champion of the poor.

A second, related, change was growing urban poverty. Despite the support of politicians such as Juan

Perón, the new migrants remained poor. Most found the inner city too crowded. Instead, they chose to live in the growing shantytowns that surrounded Buenos Aires, known as villas miserias. A third key development in the 20th century was a change in urban transportation. Like many other modern

cities, Buenos Aires came to be dominated by automobiles and buses, replacing the electric streetcar

system. However, Buenos Aires lacks a major freeway system. A network was planned after World War II, but it was never built. The building of the Metropolitan Railroad in 1979 helped somewhat. However, by the end of the 20h century, traffic problems and urban gridlock were commonplace in the Argentine capital.

A final development was industrialization. In 1914, the city had 17,000 industrial establishments that employed some 300,000 people. By the 1960s, there were more than 70,000 establishments providing jobs to more than 700,000 porteños. Some 40 percent of all Argentine industry was located in the city. Such industrialization reinforced the flow of migrants to the city. By the end of the 20th century, the metropolitan area had more than 11 million inhabitants, making it one of the largest cities in the world.

Brunei

THE SULTANATE of Brunei is one of the world’s smallest countries, but also one of the world’s richest. A major landpower in the 15th century, the territory ruled directly by the sultan is now smaller than LUXEMBOURG, but its economic impact in the region is far greater due to the blessings of abundant petroleum and natural gas reserves. Its full name, Brunei Darussalam, is a compound of a Sanskrit name (possibly meaning “sea people” or the name of a local tree that also gave its name to the entire island of Borneo), plus the Arabic for “abode of peace,” added to the name by Muslim sultans in the 15th century.

Brunei is one of the four political components that make up the island of Borneo, along with Kalimantan (part of INDONESIA), and Sabah and Sarawak, two states of the federation of MALAYSIA. Sarawak surrounds Brunei and in fact divides it into two pieces. Sabah, Sarawak, and Brunei were at one time all component parts of the British East Indies colonies, but Brunei declined to join the Malay federation in 1961 and remained a British protectorate until 1984, preferring to rely on its own natural resources. These resources, in combination with a relatively small population, make Brunei’s per capita income one of the highest in the developing world. The sultanate has been ruled by the same family for six centuries, and the sultan is considered one of the richest individuals in the world: It is said he earns $100 per minute from oil. Brunei’s oil production is estimated at 163,000 barrels a day; its output of liquefied natural gas is the fourth largest in the world.

The country consists of a flat coastal plain along the South China Sea in the western part of the country, with some hills further inland. Mountains rise in the eastern segment of Brunei, which is also the most undeveloped and inaccessible part of the sultanate. An equatorial climate gives the area abundant rainfall, and most of the country remains heavily forested, with mangrove swamps along the coast. Most of the people live in the capital of Bandar Seri Begawan, along with its chief port of Maura, 25 mi (41 km) to the northeast. The other major town is Seria, the center of the oil and gas industry, in the western part of the country. Bandar includes great contrasts, between the sultan’s palace and the glittering Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque and the world’s largest stilt village, Kampung Ayer. This village, in existence for 400 years and providing housing for about 30,000 people, was declared a national monument in 1987 and is the most popular tourist attraction in the country.

His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Muiz’zaddien Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Dipertuan of Brunei Darussalam, leads a relatively extravagant life, but is generally ignored by the religiously conservative Islamic population. The sultan is the sovereign in more than just name: Elections have been suspended since 1962, and there is little sense of change in the near future. At its height in the 15th century, the sultanate controlled the entire north and west coast of Borneo, plus the Sulu archipelago (now in the Philippines). After its first encounter with European colonial powers—it was briefly occupied in 1580 by Spain—Brunei entered a long period of decline, and by the 18th century was a principal center for piracy and slave trade. Labuan, an island commanding the entrance to Brunei Bay, was ceded to Great Britain in 1846 chiefly to protect against this, and by 1888 the entire state was a British protectorate. Economically, Brunei was known only for its exports of gambier, a dye produced from mangrove trees used in dying of leather.

Then, in the early 20th century, large oil reserves were discovered, first onshore in the region of Seria and Kuala Belait, but mostly offshore by the 1990s. The British Malayan Petroleum Company was the greatest producer of crude oil of any British colony in the post-World War II era, but it is Royal Dutch Shell that has become the major company involved in Brunei’s oil industry. Revenues derived from this company alone have been significant in what is sometimes called the “Shellfare State,” in which all local residents enjoy free education, health care, and no taxation.

Local residents (mostly of Malayan extraction) are less willing to work in industry, so there is a sizable immigrant community of Filipinos and Thais. Oil reserves are expected to last 40 years, but the sultan’s government is already implementing a National Development Plan to reduce Brunei’s dependence on oil-based industries; $7.2 billion has reputedly been allocated for this plan, investing in production of rice, fruit, fisheries, and livestock—in 1981 the government purchased a cattle ranch in northern Australia that is larger than the entire country—with an equal push to boost tourism.