3.1 Overview

Introduction

In the previous two lessons, we introduced you to human geography and cultural geography, and to the intersections of human geography with intelligence and military operations, which have implications also for human security. In this lesson, we will begin diving into some of the theoretical concepts used in cultural geography that have particular significance to issues of intelligence and human security.

This lesson and the two that follow focus on identity. In this lesson, we lay out the theoretical foundation for how identity is conceptualized and used in cultural geography, which we will expand on in lessons 4 and 5.

Warning: this lesson has some of the heaviest and longest lecture notes that you will encounter this term. We strongly recommend that you pace yourself accordingly. It also includes several exercises intended to get you thinking about the material. We expect that you will do them as you read the content. They are not graded, and you do not need to turn them in.

Learning Goals and Objectives:

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to:

1. Evaluate the intersections of identity categories.
2. Analyze and categorize spaces with regard to scale.
3. Assess the relationship between scale and identity.
4. Appraise spaces to determine how they are coded with respect to who is implicitly included or excluded from them.