Course
Course Description
Contemporary cultural geography is a highly diverse field where the very meaning of the phenomenon it purports to study – culture – is highly contested. This course takes seriously a claim made 20 years ago that cultural geographers should abandon the search for culture’s existential roots. In short: there is no such thing as culture. Instead, what there is are actions or practices of people and things that can be followed. The point in following the action is to determine where, when, by what or whom, and under what conditions sites and situations are deemed cultural (as opposed to say, economic, political, or otherwise) and why that matters. In this mode of analysis, culture is something we arrive at rather than something we depart from. To pursue this approach to culture this course focuses on one particularly rich area of habitual practice: discard. In so doing, we let go of culture-as-thing and begin to see the relevance of thinking analytically about practices. When we follow practices we are in for continual surprises about where we find ourselves.
Syllabus