This book addresses the impact, significance, and characteristics of the 'cultural turn' in contemporary geography. It focuses on the development of the cultural geography subdiscipline and on what has made it a peculiar and unique realm of study. It demonstrates the importance of culture in the development of debates in other subdisciplines within geography and beyond. In line with these previous themes, the significance of space in the production of cultural values and expressions is also developed. Along with its timely examination of the health of the cultural geographical subdiscipline, this book is to be valued for its analysis of the impact of cultural theory on studies elsewhere in geography and of ideas of space and spatiality elsewhere in the social sciences.The scope of the book is therefore broad, covering work that spans the geographical discipline and even going beyond that to touch on debates in the social sciences and humanities. The book's potential readership is also broad.
The summary chapters which precede each section will appeal to undergraduate students, whilst chapters written by individuals leading their fields will be compulsory reading for researchers at all levels of higher education. *Cultural Turns/Geographical Turns will take a much more interdisciplinary approach than existing textbooks, illustrating what makes cultural geography peculiar and unique within its wider discipline, what its guiding tenets are and how it has developed over the last fifteen years by influencing work in other areas of geography and the social sciences *Contributions from the leading cultural geographers in the field such as, Chris Philo, Linda McDowell, Sarah Whatmore, David Sibley etc *Organised around key themes in cultural geography, combining empirical work and examples with theoretical ideas and arguments *Each key theme (eg popular culture, economy, nature etc) forms a section of the book and is introduced by a short, simple introduction by the editors