Music Regions and Mental Maps: Teaching Cultural Geography

Abstract

Music informs understandings of place and is an excellent vehicle for teaching cultural geography. A study was developed of geography students' perception of where music genres predominate in the United States. Its approach, involving mental map exercises, reveals the usefulness and importance of maps as an iterative process in teaching cultural geography. Three points are discussed. First, music often serves as a surrogate for cultural understandings of place and regional stereotypes. Second, the combined use of music and maps is an excellent vehicle for teaching cultural geography. Third, maps should be more comprehensively integrated into teaching and researching cultural geography.

Key Words:

• music
• region
• popular culture
• cultural geography
• mental map

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge Heather Whipple, Tom Hutchins, and Beth Robinson for their assistance with the cartography in this article.

Hunter Shobe is a visiting assistant professor in the geography department of Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA. His teaching and research interests are in cultural and urban geography and center on how place is constructed and understood through different aspects of popular culture.

David Banis manages the Center for Spatial Analysis and Research in the geography department at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, USA. He teaches GIS, cartography, and other map-related topics and has strong interests in cultural geography and resource management.