Geography is a humanities science. Human geography of space

Dmitry Zamyatin: “The so-called symbolic culture is a product of modernity”
Photo from the archive of Dmitry Zamyatin

Candidate talks with Deputy Editor-in-Chief of NG Andrei VAGANOV about the new direction in geographical science geographical sciences, Doctor of Cultural Studies, Head of the Center for Humanitarian Studies of Space, Russian Research Institute of Cultural and natural heritage named after D.S. Likhachev Dmitry ZAMYATIN.

Dmitry Nikolaevich, until recently you were in charge of the human geography sector at the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D.S. Likhachev. Now this sector has been transformed into the Center for Humanitarian Studies of Space. What exactly is the object of your research? After all, the very concept of “space” and even more so its “humanitarian research” sounds somehow too broad, I would even say metaphysically...

– Object... I’ll try to answer why we suddenly became so “wide”. The human geography sector has existed since 2004. We released collections " Human Geography"(only seven were published, 2004–2010), conducted international conference“Russia: imagination of space / space of imagination” (2008). And at some point I realized that if we position ourselves only as humanitarian geographers, then, despite all our advantages, we are limiting ourselves. The word “geography” is a fairly strict natural science term. And our time is the time of interdisciplinary projects, the time of program fields. And in this sense, if we cling even to the most dynamic sciences: sociology, cultural studies, anthropology - whatever - we risk losing interesting directions thoughts, interesting discourses.

I thought that we should position human geography as a broad interdisciplinary field of study. If we have key concept– space, and if we are humanists, then we end up with humanitarian studies of space. This means that we leave human geography as the core, since we study spatial representations in all its aspects. But at the same time, we capture a lot of interesting and non-standard directions of thought that have remained in the shadows until now.

-What do you mean?

– These are, first of all, such research ways of thinking as, for example, geopoetics - at the intersection of literature itself, literary studies, and cultural studies. Here are poets, here are writers, here are philologists, anthropologists, psychologists who are trying to study not just poetics in the narrow philological sense, but in in a broad sense, at the intersection of the science of art: how you, he, I or any community experiences a particular landscape, this or that locality, how it can be expressed in an artistic essay, poetic or scientific text.

– Is geography itself, as a natural science discipline, receding into the background or third place?

– In my understanding, the entire current era is a post-positivist era. The powerful dominance of positivism in the 19th century, and then the entire 20th century, was a reaction to positivism. Already at the beginning of the last century, phenomenology existed, other humanitarian and humanities-scientific directions arose, for which positivism no longer meant anything or meant very little. But nonetheless strong field Positivism still covers most sciences today, including the humanities. And the geography in modern Russia- one of those sciences that suffers from physicalism, is still almost completely located in the conceptual field of positivism. And this is a very conservative science in its rules.

In the West, the situation is different: social and cultural geography in the broad sense makes up approximately 80% of research; the rest is classic, good quality Physiography. We have this pyramid, I repeat, inverted.

My colleagues and I, having created the Center for Humanitarian Studies of Space, want to make a “leap into the future”, declaring a wide programmatic field and formalizing it institutionally.

Returning to your question about the scientific areas included in this program field. Another of them is the anthropology of space... Again, in the West, relatively recently, such areas of research as the anthropology of urban space, visual anthropology, sound spaces, and so on began to develop. But the anthropology of space still remains a “poor relative” among other anthropological studies.

On the other hand, space is well studied, for example, by philologists, psychologists, political scientists, and historians. But for them this is not the core of the disciplines themselves, not the main thing - rather the substantive periphery.

And when we begin to attract this research field to ourselves, for us space becomes a means of both expanding the topic and deepening it; this is our conceptual core. For us, the key space is the humanitarian one. Russia lives in space. Visual, geographical images - they dominate in the human mind.

– What intrigues me most is the position on which you initially insist – territory as an image. What does this mean from the perspective of the concept of humanities studies of space?

- This is very important question. What do we usually do when we come, say, to another city, to another area? We are talking about spatial representation.

I like to classify spatial representations by psychological levels: unconscious, subconscious, conscious. The level of the unconscious is precisely geographical images, powerful clots of your imagination about this place. It could be some emotional assessments, internal experiences or, conversely, complete indifference and denial of this place. They nourish your emotional core.

Then comes the level of mythology. Myths are like certain stories, like certain sequences of images, which, for example, dominate the archaic. The archaic is all woven from myths. A modern world also cannot do without myths. They can be very primitive, very banal, they can be deliberately thrown into space mass communications... Mythology is a part of human consciousness.

– Myth as a folk technology for mental space exploration...

- Yes, sure. Arriving somewhere, we somehow already have an idea in advance, an image of a particular area. You must come up with a story that helps you survive or live in this territory, and make it attractive to you. Sometimes you may not even realize this, leaving everything on an unconscious level...

– And then you, human geographers, appear in front of this mass, which is often not aware of the images branching like fractals in the heads of representatives of this mass. Moreover, you act as certain points of crystallization, centers of boiling, around which the geocultural branding of the territory should take shape (another term that I borrowed from you). Aren’t you afraid that you will end up in this mythology, like the Olympian gods?

- Of course there is danger! But the basis of geocultural branding of territories is the concept of “geoculture”. This means that in the territory where people and communities live, certain stable ideas about this territory and the identity of this territory are formed. And this is the main difference from ordinary, traditional territory branding. I insist that geocultural branding of a territory is a completely different activity; all the semantic weight in this concept, phrase, lies in the word “geocultural.”

When a certain sustainable complex spatial representations, associated with images, with myths, with the identity of a place or territory - geoculture grows. For example, the Pomeranian geoculture, or the Siberian geoculture, or the Ural-mining plant. In any case, this is a complex of ideas about oneself, about the world around us, about the relationship between oneself and the other world.

Every time certain people come to a specific territory and say that we are professionals, we will do everything for you, we will “brand” your territory, I say that all this is not true. We are not representatives of this particular geoculture, we did not live here for 20 years and our ancestors did not live here. In my opinion, it is the geocultural branding of the territory that is relevant, which should be done by joint teams consisting of external and local people who have established real meaningful communication and understand each other. The most interesting things happen at the border. No matter what Varangians come, they will not create a brand for you simply because they are outside the framework of this geoculture and do not possess the organic nature of this territory.

– What does this give to the territory?

- Let's think about it. We have already talked about images, myths and identity. Finally, the visual level of perception of landscapes, visual image. As a result, geocultural branding of a territory is always a powerful practical discourse, a message that also includes systemic practical recommendations. Let's say your territory is characterized by a unique geocultural archetype. For Pomors, for example, the sea is a special sacred space. And this archetype can be transferred to anything. It shapes special type identity, a special landscape, its own mythology. Many people may not like the industrial landscape, but people live in it, and they love this place, creating their own images and myths.

This means that we must formulate a certain geocultural message - this could be a slogan or logo in the usual external sense, expressing, if you like, a sacred idea specific place or territory. But in any case, these should not be superficial games with numbers and jewelry symbols that are typical for standard branding: “seven wonders of something,” “three diamonds of something,” etc.

– By the way, Victor Pelevin’s novel “Generation Pi” describes the life of a specialist in creating such verbal calls...

- Absolutely right. And Pelevin very accurately felt that today’s era is the era of such technologists. And he technically and ironically shows the vulgarity, derivativeness, and unoriginality of such “production.”

But, from my point of view, the main thing in the geocultural branding of a territory is the internal energy, the feeling of exactly this, and no other, space. You can bring as many political strategists to this or that territory, and they will not be able to do anything - there must be a feeling of the internal energy of the place. There should be some kind of joint community in dialogues or polylogues with people who recognize this territory as their own.

- To this point. In one of his novels, writer Boris Khazanov cites an ancient Indian parable. The salt doll wanted to know what the sea was. It enters the sea further and further and, naturally, gradually dissolves and melts. When the last crystal of this salt doll dissolved, she managed to think: “The sea is me.” That is, one must really immerse oneself in the energy of a spatial image in order to understand it.

- I agree with you. And this can even work phonetically, linguistic level. One “Tagil rules!” what is it worth? And mass culture hit the nail on the head with this slogan!

– Or: “severe Chelyabinsk men”...

- Exactly. It is important for them that it ended up in the “box”, on the TV.

– By the way, you write that one of the important components of geocultural branding of a territory is the creation of a media territory.

– The only thing I put a little emphasis on is that this is not a media space in the traditional sense, as a set of means mass media, namely the media territory - as a gradually built togetherness in dialogue between people who are either outside or inside this geoculture. This design, as always, is borderline. The point is that when such networks are formed, a specific territory seems to grow, expand, it becomes a dynamic, living “organism”. And such communication networks themselves may be small, but at the same time very effective, effective in an applied sense.

– Don’t you think that what you are talking about very much intersects with the concept that was proposed 30-40 years ago by the English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins - the concept of memes? (From English word meme, created as a pair to the word “gene” from the word memory (“memory.”) The task is to create a meme, launch it, or even better, launch it into a pre-prepared network. The higher the quality of the meme, the longer it lives, the more virulent this meme is, that is, the more deeply it affects other people’s brains. All mythologies from the point of view of this concept are memes.

– This is a very interesting concept. And by and large it works, it is very effective. My remark is that such memes are often not of the author’s nature. They can be born by chance, from the interaction of several individuals or groups. That is, they are also of a borderline cognitive nature. It's rare that a meme can be tied to a particular personality. After all, Christ himself is a myth; historical figure, who over thousands of years became a god.

– Attempts to describe the spread of memes very quickly come to mathematical and physical models that describe the spread of viruses, ordinary viruses in the biological sense. Perhaps the natural-scientific, positivist approach, from this side, too, sooner or later, will be included in your concept of geocultural images?

- It's possible. I have great respect for biology, physics, and mathematics. But my point is this. There is a tendency, coming from Platonism, that mathematics is pure higher science. I do not believe in this.

- That is, mathematics is not universal language Nature?

- Not universal. I recently read a study that was about why math became a symbol pure science. And I, like many critics, do not consider mathematics to be the ideal of the sciences. Although I respect and love her.

Such models are possible. I try to use them in my work. But they do not cover the field that I, so to speak, am trying to create regarding humanities studies of space. In my understanding, mathematical and physical models very fruitful and effective. But these are all analogies. The key problems for us are “space and body”, “space and death”, “space and life”. And here biological, physical, mathematical analogies and images are very useful.

In this sense, a very interesting paradox arises if we begin to consider evolution. When an embryo develops under the influence of some genetic program, he is undergoing changes. The basic nature of life is the nature of a crooked line, the nature of unexpected doubling - where does everything come from! This question, as far as I know, has not been resolved in the theory of evolution: where and why does the doubling of space occur? Space, as it were, generates itself, is located within itself. This problem may not be solvable from the point of view of rational science - at least as traditionally thought of by physicists or mathematicians.

Perhaps the problem of self-generation of space is partly explainable from the point of view of metaphysics. I don't even bother to explain. But for me, this problem is the essence of the ontologies of space. I want to emphasize that so far, within the framework of neither physical nor biological models this task not solvable.

– You often hear that Russia is called “the country of victorious semiotics.” Symbols are everything to us. Some people call this veneration of symbols main feature Russian character, Russian tradition, special Russian spirituality. How do you feel about the opinion that in Russia special treatment to symbolic culture?

– Perhaps I agree with this statement. The fact is that the so-called symbolic culture is a product of modernity, which also processes signs and symbols traditional societies. It actively began to be introduced and developed in the world at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the Soviet Union this was done rather rudely and “clumsily”. Now, in conditions of total penetration of mass media, it remains possible to brainwash 100% - the “box” for 70% of our fellow citizens is the number one source of information and ideas about the world.

Of course, what we have now is a product of a very powerful modernity, which creates its own system of images and symbols. But still, as in Stalin era, “loopholes” are preserved into which you can escape. Like, say, we have the Internet today: you can be blocked from accessing Facebook or Twitter, and you “will not exist,” but this is not being done - every smart bureaucrat understands: if he tightens the screws all the way, everything will explode.

We, in Russia, are simultaneously in different worlds. In the world of mass symbols and in the world of symbols that are not exactly illegal, but rather distant from the system of mass communications and work for small communities. These can be communities of interests, created according to any principle: there may be punks, or there may be raiders. There are always convenient islands on the World Wide Web where you can record your symbols, your images.

There is no direct answer to your question, but there is an intermediate analysis that if development continues in the field of this powerful, victorious semiotics of modernity, then at a certain moment the entire social structure will begin to collapse again... We do not yet have the will to overcome the dominant mass symbols.

– You have already said that Russia belatedly entered the postmodern era. But for some reason, Western societies, having gone through the powerful symbolic pressure of modernity, also created a powerful material culture, production. With us, in many respects, there are bare signs, only signifiers, but no signified; a pure sign that does not refer to anything, a simulacrum. Naked aesthetics is beyond all ethics. Previously it was “Glory to the CPSU”, now it is “Glory to God”.

– Indeed, in many ways our country is a country of bare symbols, signs that do not work. What we, my colleagues and I at the Center for Humanitarian Studies of Space, are trying to do is an attempt to see, to build, to create new images that can work. Living images that have a certain new energy - beyond the existing half-dead symbolic space.

Geoculture is an attempt to enter mental spaces that can act on our reality, on our reality, changing it, becoming an important part of it.

HUMANITIES GEOGRAPHY, a set of closely interrelated areas of geography that study the patterns of formation and development of systems of ideas about geographic space (in the mind individuals, social, ethnocultural, racial groups etc.), according to which a person organizes his activities in a specific territory.

The main directions of human geography: imaginary geography, sacred geography, mythogeography, cognitive geography. Imaginal geography (geography of images, figurative geography) studies the features of the formation and organization of geographical images (systems of concepts, ideas and stereotypes that characterize a certain territory in the minds of people). Sacred geography examines the patterns of formation of spatial representations in various religious systems. Mythogeography explores the semiotic patterns of the formation of spatial representations, studies modern myths(stable ideas about objects and phenomena), including geopolitical ones (partially reflected in national and regional ideological systems, in ideas about regional identity). Cognitive geography deals with common problems formation of systems geographical knowledge and spatial representations in the minds of individuals and various human communities, including representatives of various cultures (see also Behavioral Geography); takes into account linguistic aspects mental activity, works closely with cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, and other cognitive sciences. Other important directions Human geography is associated with the study of ideas about the cultural landscape. Systems of ideas about geographic space are also studied by cultural geography.

A methodological approach to the study of the interaction of culture and geographical space involves identifying a system of codes and symbols (language) as intermediate in the “subject - object of research” system. The principle of studying culture through the language of its codes and symbols is widespread in the humanities. Human geography studies signs and symbols (archetypes - stable fundamental concepts, stereotypes, myths, images, etc.) that reflect people’s ideas about specific territories, countries and regions. The features of folklore are explored, written sources, works of art, historical and architectural monuments, local toponymy, etc.

The emergence of areas of human geography is associated with the awareness in science of the 20th century (first in psychology and linguistics) of the role of thinking characteristics characteristic of representatives of certain cultures in the organization of their activities (see Cognitive science, Cognitive psychology). Features of thinking (mentality) are manifested in the specifics economic activity(for example, American and Japanese models business, etc.), state building(including the principles of administrative-territorial division), in the variety of patterns of settlement networks, demographic, migration behavior, architectural and planning solutions, etc.

The formation of areas of human geography is due to the presence geographical tradition studying the interaction of culture and space, as well as the development in the 20th century of phenomenological, hermeneutic, sign-symbolic, semiotic studies in cultural studies, sociology, linguistics and political science. Since the 1940s, sacred geography has been developing; in the 1950s and 1960s, the geography of perception (perceptual geography) and more general behavioral geography emerged, and in the 1970s, humanistic geography. At the end of the 20th century, behavioral-geographical research was transformed into cognitive-geographical research; increased attention to linguistic aspects understanding of space, as well as computer modeling geographical knowledge. In Russia, the directions of human geography began to take shape in the late 1980s in parallel with the development of cultural geography and behavioral geography.

The term “human geography” was proposed by the Russian cultural scientist and geographer D. N. Zamyatin (1999), who combined a number of independent scientific directions having a lot common features in research methodology, into a single comprehensive discipline. Abroad, including in English-language literature, the term “humanitarian geography” has not become widespread (unlike the consonant terms “humanistic geography” - “humanistic geography” and “human geography” - denotes social geography in general ).

Lit.: Johnston R. J. Philosophy and human geography: an introduction to contemporary approaches. 2nd ed. L., 1986; Gold J. Psychology and Geography. Fundamentals of behavioral geography. M., 1990; Lavrenova O. A. Geographical space in Russian poetry XVIII- beginning of the 20th century M., 1998; Zamyatin D. N. Modeling of geographical images. Space of human geography. Smolensk, 1999; aka. Human geography: space and language of geographical images. St. Petersburg, 2003; aka. Metageography: space of images and images of space. M., 2004; Mitin I. I. Complex geographical characteristics. Multiple realities of places and semiosis of spatial myths. Smolensk, 2004; Humanitarian geography: Scientific, cultural and educational almanac. M., 2004-2006. Vol. 1-3.

N. Yu. Zamyatina, I. I. Mitin.

On the verification of existing “humanitarian geographies”.
Somewhat scientific "taste" of this story, in fact, is directly related to the increasing attempts at “privatization” in Soviet and Russian literature the term "human geography". In any case, the author is not the first to try to give “legal” status to the term “human geography” in domestic geography, and, of course, in every specific case motivation varied significantly.

In due time to systematize the entire sum of aspects geographical research of man and society D. Nikolaenko (Simferopol) put forward the concept of human geography. Its essence was the synthesis of human geography and the geography of society as complementary, but at the same time independent blocks of knowledge, highlighting three levels of research - economic, social and cultural. In the article “Human Geography: Problems and Prospects” (12), little known to the general reader, dated 1984, two ideas are advanced, one of which concerns the need for a radical expansion of boundaries geographical knowledge society and man and the creation of a new human geography, and the second indicates a method of such expansion, associated, in the opinion of this author, with the development of human geography and its organic combination with the economic, social and cultural levels geographical study society” (12, p. 8), which Veniamin Gokhman drew attention to earlier (5).

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Preface
Part I. THE SCIENCE OF “CROSS POLLINATION”
Chapter 1. Conceptual status, self-identification
Chapter 2. From description to scientific rationality
Chapter 3. “Cross-cutting” theory or “fata morgana”?
Chapter 4. Methods and educational aids
Chapter 5. Axiomatization and lawmaking
Chapter 6. Which chorological approach has become obsolete?
Chapter 7. Theoretical geography: crisis or “bifurcation” of ideas?
Chapter 8. Captive of idiologemes and sociomorphism
Chapter 9. About the “scarecrow” of anthropocentrism
Chapter 10. Geospace: meaning, metrics, topology
Chapter 11. Monism or dualism - the debate is not fundamental!
Chapter 12. Region: real construct or “garbage bin”?
Chapter 13. The Cross-Pollination Effect
Chapter 14. Ideas and concepts - “priorities”
Part II. HUMANITARIAN GEOGRAPHY TAKEN INTO PIECES
Chapter 15. Science or “ontologized scholasticism”?
Chapter 16. Economic geography
Chapter 17. Social geography
Chapter 18. Cultural Geography
Chapter 19. Political geography
Chapter 20. Historical geography
Chapter 21. Environmental Geography and geoecology
Chapter 22. Geoglobalistics
Chapter 23. Human geography and education
Afterword.

Plan:

Introduction

• 1 History of the term
• 2 Basic concepts
• 3 Main directions
• 4 Relationships with other areas of geography
  • 4.1 Human geography
  • 4.2 Humanistic geography
  • 4.3 Cultural geography
  • 4.4 Geomorphology
• 5 Institutionalization
Literature
Notes

Introduction

Humanitarian geography(in the interpretation of the school of D.N. Zamyatin) - an interdisciplinary scientific direction that studies various ways representations and interpretations of earthly spaces in human activity, including mental (mental) activity.

Human geography develops in interaction with such scientific fields and directions like cognitive science, cultural anthropology, cultural studies, philology, political science and international relationships, geopolitics and political geography, art criticism, history.

1. History of the term

The term “human geography” was proposed in 1984 by the Soviet geographer D. V. Nikolaenko as an attempt to formalize a new discipline (human geography) in contrast to the extremely economized Soviet social geography.

At the end of the 1990s. the term was assigned by the school of the domestic geographer and cultural scientist D.N. Zamyatin to unite independent scientific directions that have many common features in research methodology into a single scientific direction.

In English-language literature the term “human geography” ( humanitarian geography) has not become widespread, mainly due to the presence of established terms humanistic geography(“humanistic geography”) and human geography(social geography in general).

Representatives of social geography believe that the term has come to be used exclusively in the context of cognitive geography, which causes their strong protest. Thus, Yu. N. Gladky calls this an incorrect “privatization” of the term. Accordingly, by human geography Yu. N. Gladky understands the domestic analogue of human geography, that is, expanded social and humanitarian geography, since, in his opinion, there is no other acceptable translation into Russian of this concept.

2. Basic concepts

• Cultural landscape
• Geographical image
• Regional (spatial) identity
• Spatial myth (regional mythology)

3. Main directions

• Cultural landscape science
• Figurative (imaginative) geography
• Sacred geography
• Mythogeography
• Cognitive geography

4. Relationships with other areas of geography

4.1. Human geography

As noted above, human geography can be considered as a literal translation of human geography into Russian, since social geography considers only part of the issues related to human geography.

4.2. Humanistic geography

4.3. Cultural geography

Until recently, human geography was often mistakenly perceived as synonymous with cultural geography. Unlike cultural geography, human geography can include various aspects of political, social and economic geography related to the interpretation of earthly spaces.

4.4. Geomorphology

5. Institutionalization

Today, the only institute of human geography in Russia is the sector of human geography of the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D. S. Likhachev (Heritage Institute).

Literature

• Zamyatin D. N. Modeling of geographical images: The space of human geography. - Smolensk: Oikumena, 1999. - 256 p.
• Zamyatin D. N. Humanitarian geography (Materials for the dictionary of human geography) // Humanitarian geography: Scientific and cultural-educational almanac / Compiled by. ed. D. N. Zamyatin; auto Andreeva E., Belousov S., Galkina T. and others - Vol. 2. - M.: Institute of Heritage, 2005. - P. 332-334.
• Zamyatina N. Yu., Mitin I. I. Human geography // Bolshaya Russian encyclopedia. T. 8. Grigoriev - Dynamics. - M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2007. - P. 151.
• Zamyatina N. Yu., Mitin I. I. Humanitarian geography (2) (Materials for the dictionary of human geography) // Humanitarian geography: Scientific and cultural-educational almanac / Comp., rep. ed. D. N. Zamyatin; auto Abdulova I., Amogolonova D, Gerasimenko T. and others - Vol. 4. - M.: Institute of Heritage, 2007. - P. 282-288.
• Kagansky V.L. Cultural landscape: basic concepts in Russian geography // Observatory of Culture. - 2009. - No. 1. - P. 62-70.
• Mitin I. I. From cognitive geography to mythogeography: interpretations of space and place // First Russian Conference on Cognitive Science (Kazan, October 9-12, 2004). Abstracts of reports. - Kazan, KSU, 2004. - pp. 163-165.

Notes

1. Nikolaenko D.V. Humanitarian geography: problems and prospects. - Dep. Ukr. Research Institute NTI, No. 543 UK - D84., 1984
2. Humanitarian geography // Great Russian Encyclopedia. T. 8 (Grigoriev - Dynamics). - M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2007. - P. 151.
3. Zamyatin D. N. Modeling of geographical images: The space of human geography. - Smolensk: Oikumena, 1999. - 256 p.
4. Gladky Yu. N. Humanitarian geography: scientific explication. - St. Petersburg: Faculty of Philology St. Petersburg State University, 2010. 664 pp., pp. 34-38
5. Sector of Human Geography on the website of the Heritage Institute. - www.heritage-institute.ru/index.php?title=Sector_of_humanitarian_geography

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This abstract is based on an article from Russian Wikipedia. Synchronization completed 07/11/11 02:33:57
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