Cultural Geography

CULTURAL GEOGRAPHIES OF RACIALIZATION 301

discussion of the spatial patterns and cultural

symbolisms of non-white residence within the

west. Nor does it seek to ignore or denigrate such

work. Rather we are concerned that such mater-

ial be understood in relation to the construction

of normative, often ‘racially unmarked’, identi-

ties. Without such a broadening of focus, ‘racial

and ethnic geography’ is easily represented as a

marginal subfield, that bit of geography that

deals with ‘the others’. Given that geography as

a discipline is largely white and western, such an

emphasis can easily slide into paternalism, an

altruistic concern about ‘problem communities’

and eternally suffering ‘victims’. By making it

clear that white people are also the products of

racialization, that their identities also have a

history and a geography and, hence, are change-

able, we can help collapse this kind of intellec-

tual and political distance: transforming the

critique of race and ethnicity from a ‘subfield’

into an essential and continuous theme running

throughout a rigorous geographical education.

In the first part of this chapter we introduce a

number of ways that the geography of territorial

and social distinctions can be brought into focus

and further explored, paying particular attention

to the history of the terms ‘Europe’ and ‘the

west’. In the second part the focus shifts to the

racialized nature of particular places and land-

scapes. As we shall see, the empirical work of

geographers on the way certain streets, neigh-

bourhoods and cities have been given racial

meaning allows us to witness the relationship

between race and territory in new ways and at a

much more detailed level. This section concludes

with the observation that, whereas traditionally

such studies have concentrated almost exclu-

sively on marginal and immigrant spaces, many

are now turning towards more racially unmarked

and normative places and landscapes.

This concern is developed in the third and fourth

sections of this chapter. The former provides some

theoretical context for new work within the area of

cultural identity that has sought to move beyond

essentialist notions of ‘race’ and black/white bina-

ries. The fourth section looks at why and how the

geography and history of whiteness have emerged

as central concerns of scholars interested in the

relationship between space and race.

THE CRITIQUE OF

ETHNO-GEOGRAPHY

Questioning the geographical categories which

we use to divide the world has a long history.

However, the vast majority of this work has been

designed not to problematize these divisions but,

rather, to query the claims of certain groups to be

admitted into the more privileged camps. For

example, inThe Decline of the West(1980, orig-

inally published 1918) Spengler was adamant

that ‘Europe’ was no longer a useful expression,

since it encouraged the view that the Russians

existed within the same ethno-geographical

sphere as western Europeans. ‘It is thanks to this

word “Europe” alone and the complex of ideas

resulting from it,’ he complained, ‘that our histo-

rical consciousness has come to link Russia with

the West in an utterly baseless unity’ (1980:

233). Far from opening up racial ideas for criti-

cal inspection, this kind of distinction reinforces

their authenticity. However, a far more careful,

yet also radical, kind of approach can also be

sought out.

Hay’s little book Europe: The Emergence of

an Idea(1957) provides one of the better known

English-language examples. Hay’s concern was

not with protecting the concept of Europe from

subversion, but with showing how a term now

widely accepted as obvious and natural became

hegemonic for political and social reasons. More

specifically, Hay detailed how ‘Europe’ had very

little purchase on the ancient and medieval imag-

inations and only developed as a self-definition

for those within Europe in the modern period,

gradually incorporating and eclipsing the older

idea of Christendom. Although Hay does not

detail the relationship, it is apparent from his

studies that the idea of ‘Europe’ grew as part of

a wider racializing project, a project often asso-

ciated with the rise of racial science. From seeing

themselves as simply English, French, Prussian

and so on, Europeans came to map their existing

religious affiliation (as Christians) and emerging

colonialist identity on to a natural, biological

entity, namely ‘the white European race’. Hay’s

text preceded, by nearly 40 years, the slew of

studies on the same theme that have been pub-

lished over the last decade. Recent titles, such as

Inventing Europe(Delanty, 1995), The History of

the Idea of Europe(Wilson and Dussen, 1995)

and The Making of Europe(Barlett, 1994), are

testament to the new-found acceptance of this

way of looking at ethno-geography. At an even

larger scale, Lewis and Wigen have provided a

general critique of The Myth of Continents

(1997). As they observe, racial essentialism

forms a core component of such divisions, with

Europe – in spite of its physical status as a conti-

nent being the most clearly suspect – providing

the standard against which other such regions are

defined. ‘While a few professionals may regard

Europe as a mere peninsula of Asia (or Eurasia),’

Lewis and Wigen note, ‘most geographers – and

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