I would like to participate in the meeting on "Formal Models of Common-Sense Geographic Worlds" because it seems to be concerned with research problems in which I am very much interested and on which I have worked, am working, and think I may have something useful to say. I work on cognitive models of the macro-environment (cf. my earlier work on peasantry, my more recent and current work in several cultures on the development of macro-environmental cognition in children and the hypothesis that some elements, such as mapping, are cultural universals). I work on ethnoscience and ethnogeography, an interesting methodology used mostly by anthropologists for examining linguistically the scientific (geographical) theories of ordinary people in different cultures and cross-culturally. I am very much involved in the critique of Eurocentrism and Eurocentric diffusionism in matters relating to human cognitive abilities (cf. my critique of the theories of "Western rationality" and "primitive mind" in The Colonizer's Model of the World), and I believe that a non-Eurocentric perspective on environmental cognition and behavior w ill solve some of the vexing research questions concerning theses matters. I have been interested for a long time in the concepts of space, and am trying to download many of the issues concerning space from philosophy to psychology and ecology, mainly by distinguishing philosophical concepts of space from empirical questions of environment and its cognitive modeling. I am also much interested in the issues of "modularity," "innateness," etc., but remain agnostic on these matters. Probably my most useful contribution, however, will be to present new evidence from out work (Blaut, Stea, Spencer, Blades, and coworkers) in the UK, the US, Mexico, South Africa, and Iran that mapping behavior is a cultural universal, and to try to generalize the hypothesis of universality to other part of environmental cognition.
Jim Blaut
I do not know whether formal presentations will be made by participants in the workshop, If so, I might deliver a few words on the following topics:
1. The Hypothesis that Mapping is a Cultural or Behavioral Universal. I have proposed (with Dave Stea) the hypothesis that mapping is a universal in human culture; that mapping ability emerges naturally (without training) in very young children of all cultures; that mapping is an important ecological adaptation in all cultures; and that map-like models of one sort or another have been made in all cultures since prehistoric times. [1] We are probing for developmental, ethnographic, and prehistoric evidence which should provide a strong (though not final) test of the hypothesis, and are formulating a cultural-ecological theory which suggests the reason for the hypothesized universality of mapping in human and archeological evidence of mapping. Most of the work is a probing of the untaught (hence "natural") mapping abilities of preschool-age children studied in the UK, US, Mexico, South Africa, and Iran. Briefly, four-year-olds in all these cultures have demonstrated mapping abilities, testing mainly with aerial photographs but also (in Mexico and the UK) with toy-play. We theorize that cognitive modeling of the stable space-time features of the macro-environment is an ecological necessity, everywhere leads to physical modeling, in two or three dimensions, of the landscape as through viewed from overhead and reduced in scale, develops naturally in very young children of all cultures (whether or not there is an innate component), and is prominently assisted by toy-play and by constructing imaginary maps of what the world may look like from overhead. [2] (Note; Do not children everywhere make model landscapes with toys on the floor or ground?)
2. Space, Place, and Environment. Provably we cognize space in two different ways. One sort of cognitive model represents the macro-environment and is spatio-temporal, not (narrowly speaking) "spatial," although it includes relatively stable elements, those which would not change in the macro-environmental scene being imagined or remembered. The second model -- not a simplification of his first model -- is specifically spatial, an imagined form from which change has been bled out, leaving in essence geometry. In the external world (as such) space is strictly spatio-temporal, and we call it "spatial" mainly to indicate its geographical/ecological size relative to our bodies. Psychologists have tended to test for abilities to conceptualize geometric-type space in small (hence non-"spatial," i.e., micro-environmental) experimental settings in procedures that partially bleed out time, and this may be a source of confusion in our thinking about spatial behavior and spatial cognition. Probably very different processes are at work in the cognition of macro-environments. I suggest that a young child, for instance, does not have to possess understanding of a particular geometric-spatial principle (e.g., perspective) in order to learn about he macro-environment -- a spatio-temporal problem, not a spatial one.
3. Some primitive ideas about GIS applications to historical geography and cultural evolution: identification and mapping of space-time geographical place-events, or dated place-mentions. I have done this by hand to show how world-history texts (sampling dated place-mentions in text) and historical atlases (using map centroids as dated place-mentions) conceptualize (even today) a "march of history" from the Near East to NW Europe, and an expansion (diffusion of history outward from Europe to the wider world. [3]
[1] See Natural mapping, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16ns [1991]:55-74.
[2] Natural mapping, op, cit.; Mapping as a cultural universal, in J. Portugali, ed. The Construction of Cognitive Maps (NY: Kluwer, 1996) (D. Stea, J. Blaut, S. Elguea, J. Stephens); Mapping abilities of four-year-old children in York, England Journal of Geography 95 (1996); 107-111 (S. Sowden, D. Stea, C. Spencer, M. Blades, and J. Blaut).
[3] Mapping the march of history. Paper presented to the AAG 1993. Being revised for publication.
Born New York, NY, 10/20/27, U.S. Citizen. Address: c/o Dept. of Geography, U. of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 We. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607-7138. Phone: 312-278-4746 (home): FAX 312-278-3989
Present Position:
Prof. of Geography and Anthropology, U. of I. at Chicago
Education (in brief):
U. of Chicago, Ph.B., B.Sc. (1950);
Imperial Coll. of Tropical Agriculture (now U. of the West Indies Fac. of Agriculture), Trinidad, postgraduate course (1951-51);
Louisiana State U. M.S. (1954), Ph.D. (1958)
Major Academic Appointments:
Instructor U. of Malaya, Singapore, 1951-53,
Instructor, Assistant Professor Yale U., 1956-61,
Visiting Professor Cornell Univ. (Agricultural Economics), 1960,
Dir. Pan American Union /U. of Puerto Rico program of graduate studies in Caribbean social science 1961-61,
UEMSCO advisor, Dominican Republic (Planning Board) 1964,
Dir. Caribbean Research inst. College of the Virgin Is. 1964-66,
consultant 1966-67,
Visiting Prof., U. of Connecticut, 1966-67
Visiting Prof., Clark U., 1967-71
Professor and Acting Chairman, Geography, U. of Puerto Rico, 1971-72
Visiting Professor (1972-74), Professor, U. of Illinois at Chicago, 1972-
Research interests
Ethnoscience, cultural ecology, environmental cognition and map learning in children, critique of Eurocentric diffusionism, philosophy of science, cultural evolution, microgeography of peasant agriculture
Field research
On peasant agriculture and ethnoscience in Singapore (1951-53), Jamaica (1958-59), Costa Rica (1960), Venezuela (1963-65), St Croix (1964-66), St. Vincent (1970), Grenada (l981-83). Research on environmental learning in children, Puerto Rico (1966-70), St Vincent (1970), U.S. (1967-74, 1990-); on Eurocentric diffusionism (1987-93). Planning and advisory work with governments of Singapore, Peru (UN and OAS), Venezuela, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Is., Dominican Rep. (OAS, UNESCO), Grenada.
Invited lectures
at Australian National U., Ceylon [Sri Lanka] Agricultural Coll. Peridiniya, Chicago State U., City U. of New York, Columbia U., Hebrew U. Northwestern U., Simon Fraser U., Syracuse U. Universidad national de ingenieria de Peru, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, u. of Wisconsin, U. of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, U. of Indonesia, U. of Minn., U. of California at Los Angeles, U. C. Berkeley, U. of Maryland College Pk., U. of Malaya, K. L., U. of the West Indies, Jamaica, U.W. I. Trinidad, u. of Chicago, U. of the District of Columbia, University College London.
Research grants
Conservation Foundation, National Science Foundation (1960, 1995), U.S. Office of Education, OAS, Govts. of Singapore, Venezuela, U. S. Virgin Islands, Research Institute for the Study of Man, and other sources. Other grants from Am. Council of Learned Societies, Am. Conservation Assoc. Voc. Rehab. Admin. Govt. of U.S. Virgin Is., and other sources.
Five Relevant Publications:
Diffusionism: A uniformitarian critique. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77 (1987); 30-47
Place perception in perspective. Journal of Environmental Psychology (1987):297-306
Natural mapping. Transactions of the Inst. British Geogs. 16ns(1991): 55-74
The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History, NY: Guilford, 1993).
Mapping as a cultural universal. In J. Protugali, ed. The Construction of Cognitive Maps (NY; Kluwer, 1996) (D. Stea, J. Blaut, S. Elguea, J. Stephens).