KATHLEEN E. BRADEN
(DR. BRADEN is an associate professor of
geography at Seattle Pacific University, Seattle,
Washington 98119)
ABSTRACT
Ellen Churchill Semple's regional studies of eastern
Kentucky and the Mediterranean are examined in light of present-day
structuration theory. Important elements of this theory are well displayed in
Semple's work: place as process, emphasis on physical environment and human
institutions, and humans treated as agents of change and victims of place
constraints.
FOR many years I
have been listing myself as a Soviet regional specialist. Recent events have
not been easy on me, and with the breakup of the Soviet Union, I have found
myself experiencing an identity crisis and even a sense of loss. It was such a
neat region: easy to define in its established political boundaries, distinct
in people's imaginations, and unified by a language, knowledge of which was a
secret initiation key to rigorous research based on primary sources. Now I am a
specialist without the object of specialization. The place that was the Soviet
Union still exists but is transformed. Additionally, the structural aspect of
the specialization has been lost. Communism was a tidy, failing enterprise to
criticize, and now a new reality comes crashing in to muddy the analysis. What
is a regional geographer to do? Must a person cease to be a regional geographer
when there is no region? These questions are part of the burden that regional
geography has long borne. In this article I focus on Ellen Churchill Semple as
a regional geographer by examining her work on the Mediterranean and eastern
Kentucky. The links between my opening remarks and Semple's work lie in the
role of time and dynamism in regional geography. I assert that Semple did
account for these process items, which have been defined in recent explorations
of structuration theory (Giddens 1976, 1979; Pred 1984). It is disregard for
this concept of place as process that intellectually limits the traditional
Soviet specialist and that must ultimately inform any new regional approach we create
in geography. I apply the elements of structuration theory to Semple's
work on the Mediterranean, with some
attention to her early article on the Appalachian area of Kentucky. The
elements I discuss are dynamism of region, or place as process; the role of
institutions, the role of nature; and the individual as agent and victim.
Almost thirty years
ago, John K. Wright published a gentle critique of Semple's work, in which he
called attention to her use of language. In a way, she did an injustice to her
work through her lack of guile and obfuscation. Semple wrote what she meant.
Wright (1966, 159) calls such sweeping generalizations categorillas and notes
that they abound in Semple's writing. Although Wright discusses her use of
adverbs and words like "wherever," I am interested in her
subject-verb combinations. What actions does she describe occurring in a
region-that is, what is the role of process? Who is the agent of an action, and
who is its victim or receiver? Critics of her work have traditionally asserted
that nature was always the agent, humankind the victim. I can make no new
revelation about her regional works to refute that contention, but I do think
that she gives more notice than she has been credited for to the elements of
structuration theory and the changing agent victim relationships of humans and
nature. Here are passages from two seminal works; notice the key
subject-actionobject formation in each.
The morals of the mountain people lend strong evidence for the
development theory of ethics. Their moral principles are a direct product of
their environment, and are quite divorced from their religion, which is an
imported product. The same conditions that have kept the ethnic type pure have
kept the social phenomena primitive ... (1910, 586)
When the Lydian army under Croesus invaded the Persian territory of Asia
Minor in 546 B.C., they found the Halys River impassable; under the direction
of Thales of Miletos, who had spent some time in Egypt, they diverted part of
the river and made the channels fordable. (1931, 115)
In the first
quotation, nature is the agent, humans are the victims: conditions affect
ethnic types, and environment creates morality. In the second quotation, humans
are the agents, and nature the transformed victim: rivers are diverted and
rivers are utilized. In the latter case, humans make choices to modify or at
least to overcome the environment for their own purpose.
STRUCTURATION THEORY AND REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY
To appreciate my
contention that Semple offers at least a rudimentary structuration theory, we
must first briefly examine the theory. Geographers have long been familiar with
the dichotomy between regional geography and topical or systematic geography,
between opinions of geography as art or as science. Much of the discourse has
been riddled with value judgments and prejudices about either the rigor or
authenticity of one subfield versus another, which has merely reinforced the
original dichotomy. Other voices assert that the dichotomy is illusory, because
all geographical inquiry occurs in the regional context.
Beginning in the
1980s, the term "new" regional geography began to appear and launched
the discipline on the quest for another Grail; perhaps geographers were tired
of being defensive about the old version but were not certain what the new one
should be (Pudup 1988). Several integratingsocial theories have emerged to
inform the search for the new regional geography. The one I examine here is
structuration as propounded by the sociologist Anthony Giddens and elaborated
by geographer Allan Pred. Giddens (1976, 1979) sought to eliminate the
dichotomy between the structure of society and the behavior of individual
agents by demonstrating that neither is independent of the other. Humans both
create and in turn are socialized by societal structures, a system of rules and
events in a given time and space. The system has this temporal and spatial
dimension; the structure does not. Giddens refers to locales as the use of
space to provide settings for interaction.
Pred (1984) applied
structuration theory to the idea of place. He included these ingredients:
time-space, biographies of individuals, power relationships between individuals
and institutions, and the natural world or physical setting. He argues that
place is a process, not a thing, and that both nature and society are
simultaneously transformed. By extension of his thesis, regional geographers
may be liberated, almost like Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim, to become unstuck
in time and space.
Spatially, this
means that regions need not be defined as contiguous in physical setting.
Temporally, it means that regional geographers need not be disenfranchised with
the apparent demise of their region, for example, the Soviet Union. Soviet
geographers themselves perhaps have long understood this notion of historic
context much more than Western geographers: few Soviet regional studies take a
purely contemporary viewpoint. If the region called the Soviet Union is a
process, not a thing, then my analysis need not end with an institutional shift
or a redefinition of borders. Pred's structuration approach of place
"becoming" also suggests new techniques to conduct study that include
the time dimension.
An intriguing
by-product of this approach is how to label this multidimensional, time-wafer
stack of a region. Names become an important element of discourse and regional
identity, and as a region is a human construct, its identification in a
specific slice of time-wafer also informs its character. Semple used subtitles
to set her regions in the historic context-The Geography of the Mediterranean:
Its Relation to Ancient History. We know by glancing at the title that her
Mediterranean is not the same on a map as is the Mediterranean of the European
Community. But we also believe that the region-process called Mediterranean
exists, transcending time. How do we find a similar time-transcendent region
called the Soviet Union? Regional names matter.
STRUCTURATION THEORY APPLIED TO SEMPLE'S WORK
Does reexamination
of Semple's regional geographies provide some guideposts for the new regional
geography? The elements of dynamism of region, or place as process, the
interplay of institutions, individuals, and physical settings, and the dual
role of humans as agents of change and victims of actions are all present in
Semple's works. Pred (1984, 279) argues that places and regions have been
portrayed as little more than frozen scenes for human activity, but there is
much in Semple's regional geographies to suggest an incipient framework of
structuration.
Semple was
interested not only in how the environment influenced human behavior but also
in how geography influenced human history. Her regional geographies were
inherently set in historical context, or at least drew heavily on history, as
in the Appalachia study, if she discussed contemporary issues. The two works
considered here are her massive study of the Mediterranean in ancient times
(1931) and her short treatise on the Anglo- Saxons of eastern Kentucky (1910).
Semple's viewpoint that the natural environment influenced or even determined
human societal responses is clearly stated in the two works, but acknowledging
her categorillas on this account does not negate the fact that the elements of
structuration theory do emerge when one examines these writings. Semple drew on
a definite time context for her exploration of region; she wrote about human
beings both as agents and as victims, although her discussion of the latter
draws the most attention. She incorporates environment and human institutions
in the context of events and space.
The very plan of her
Mediterranean book gives a clue as to the emphasis she placed on various
elements in a region. Part I, on the natural environment, receives 137 pages;
Part II, on barriers and breaches, is allotted 122 pages; Part IV, on human
maritime activities, gets 129 pages. The remainder, 315 pages, not including
bibliography and index, is devoted to vegetation and agriculture, which is
mainly a narrative of case study after case study of human modification of the
Mediterranean environment. For each demonstration of a natural constraint on
human affairs, she offers an example of how humans overcame it. For every
barrier, humans found a breach.
ROLE OF NATURE
The physical
environment appears to hold center stage in Semple's work, until one recalls
that it is only valid in the context of human reaction to nature. But the
physical world of the Mediterranean, for example, does determine much of the
ancient history related by Semple in the book. The Mediterranean "creates
common history," and it provides a melting-pot setting for the regions as
well as a crossroads. It creates paths to stimulate commerce and allow
invasion. It drives colonization outward from the region's heartland, and it
contributes characters of mythology. It even stimulates, and therefore creates,
civilization itself. Likewise, Semple attributes the backward society of the
Appalachian Anglo-Saxons to their isolation. "Man has done so little to
render this district accessible because nature has done so little" (Semple
1910, 564). She argues that the mountains acted as a barrier to communication,
which inhibited commerce, which in turn impoverished people, which then
prohibited highway construction: a vicious circle of backwardness set off by
the mountains.
Semple writes
respectfully about nature, and her critics have contended that she gives it too
much credence in determining human affairs. Yet she also writes about it with
reverence and sometimes even poetically. In her work on North America, Semple
(1903, 70) describes the movement over the same Appalachian barrier that was
the culprit in the 1910 article.
But in spite of dangers and hardships, the trail through the wilderness had
its joys-the charm of the wondrous Appalachian forests, the flicker of sunlight
through the high-reaching trees, the plunge into a tunnel of green through the
tender spring underbrush, the sense of strong, pulsating life with the upward
climb, finally the deepdrawn breath on the summit before the outstretched
billows of land, and the hope of opportunity beyond.
Of course, in this
passage she describes the feelings of the people who moved through the mountain
barrier. In the discourse on the hill people of Kentucky, she implies that
their ancestors were the odd offshoot who decided to stay.
INSTITUTIONS
Semple does not
ignore the importance of institutions governing human affairs. She offers quite
a few categorillas about government, law, civilization, and primitive behavior.
She is as judgmental about disobeying proper institutions as she is grandiose
about environmental determinism. A good example of her emphasis on institutions
is her description of irrigation projects in the ancient Mediterranean.
Throughout the chapter on irrigation (Semple 1931, 433-473), she describes the
social context that allows different irrigation and land-reclamation responses
to environmental constraints. But she also stresses that irrigation requires
concerted, cooperative, collective effort; it is not the product of the
isolated farmstead. "All citizens, by labor or taxes, contributed to the
construction and maintenance of the irrigation works, all were entitled to
share the benefit, and all learned a lesson in the sovereignty of law"
(Semple 1931, 469).
In her view, the
natural environment does much to influence what type of institutions arise in a
region, but those institutions in turn build canals, modify river channels,
overcome mountain barriers, grow food in unfriendly climates, and even change
the environment forever, as with deforestation. Nowhere does she make the
argument for institutional importance more strongly than in the chapter on
irrigation. She notes that humans moved southward into arid zones, an action
accomplished over time and space by individuals working in structures created
by themselves and their institutions amid interaction with nature. Her regional
geography of Mediterranean irrigated lands in ancient times is structuration
theory in practice.
HUMANS AS AGENTS
One can easily find
a multitude of examples in Semple's works demonstrating humans as victims of
the environment, at least in the sense of the environment propelling a human
reaction, both positive and negative. Semple already is well known for her
description of humans as the object of the transitive verb, not the subject.
But there are also numerous cases of humans as agents of change or modification
of a regional environment, especially in the Mediterranean. In addition to the
irrigation cited above, four other examples are noteworthy: river diversion,
selective animal breeding, construction techniques, and destructiveness of
human actions. People in Appalachia might also be limited by environmental
constraints, but Semple describes adaptation to these limitations. People
muddle through with agriculture and forestry; they keep bees to provide honey
because sugar is not supplied through commerce (Semple 1910, 572).
PLACE AS PROCESS
Space and time
cannot be separated in Semple's regional geography because they are so firmly
acting in history. An example of this treatment is her characterization of the
spatial notion of frontier not as a line but as a shifting zone of
assimilation. Her Mediterranean landscape is one of constant change;
individuals and societies come and go, assimilate and separate, branch out and
populate space, shrink and decay. Likewise, Appalachia existed as Semple found
it in 1910 because it had been frozen into an eighteenthcentury type of
existence by environmental forces. "It is the great upheaved mass of the
Southern Appalachians which, with the conserving power of the mountains, has
caused these conditions to survive, carrying a bit of the eighteenth century
intact over into this strongly contrasted twentieth century" (Semple 1910,
561).
There is a sense of
dynamism to Semple's regional geography. To capture the essence of region, she
may turn her focus more to the role of nature than do present-day scholars, but
she is still sweeping several layers of time with her discussions. Semple's
regions are animated: they are becoming places, not merely still photographs.
BARRIERS AND BREACHES
Two elements of landscape
to which Semple devotes an entire section of the Mediterranean book are the
isolating impediments of mountain barriers and the breakthrough cracks of
breaches, or passes. She describes the barriers found to all four directions
from the Mediterranean, but she illustrates in each case the human ability to
find the breach and to use it advantageously. In these barriers and breaches is
a summarizing clue to understanding her regional geography as evidence of early
structuration theory. Spatially, the barriers enclose regions, but the
boundaries are constantly in flux as breaks are located. Temporally, the
barriers only isolate the regions as long as technology, human institutions,
and even key individuals do not take advantage of the breaches. Nature and human
society interact. Structures are created and changed, as in Giddens's
definition, a system of rules that binds people together, both enabling and
constraining them. Irrigation exists as an element of societal structure in
ancient Greece, created by individuals given the natural environment,
technology of the time, and locale. This element allows certain human actions
to occur, even overcoming the constraint of environment, but further social
institutions are required to maintain the element. Eventually, the system of
irrigation becomes a restraining force on individuals who must participate in
the system and who become locked into its organization.
Are the humans in
Semple's geographies victims of the barriers or users of the breaches? The
answer is both: they contribute to the total assemblage of items in
structuration theory that define a region as a process. Semple offers several
slices of time-wafer, with its attending environmental, individual, and
institutional interactions, to describe a region. Unfortunately, she is
constrained spatially and temporally. The context that propelled certain human
responses for the "Rhode Island spinners" of her North America shifted,
and the decline in fortune may be less attributable to environmentally determined
causes than to changes in human institutions. Even in the timewafers she
describes, there were certainly different responses to environment occurring in
separate places on the globe. The unlimited space that in her opinion created
American democracy did not determine that tradition simultaneously on the
Russian steppe.
If there is to be a
new regional geography and if structuration theory plays a role in finding new
ways of knowing the concept of region, it is worth reassessing regional
geographers such as Semple. The old informs the new, and perhaps the regional
specialist will find that only strobe lights can truly illuminate a region.
REFERENCES
Giddens, A. 1976. New rules of
sociological method. London: Hutchinson.
----------------1979. Central problems
in social theory: Action, structure, and contradiction in social
analysis. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Pred, A. R. 1984. Place as historically
contingent process: Structuration and the time-geography
of becoming
places. Annals, Association of American Geographers 74:279-297.
Pudup, M. B. 1988. Arguments within
regional geography. Progress in Human Geography 12:369-
390.
Semple, E. C. 1903. American history and
its geographic conditions. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
---------------1910. Anglo-Saxons of the
Kentucky mountains: A study in anthropogeography. Bulletin,
American
Geographical Society 42:561-595.
---------------1931. Geography of the
Mediterranean region: Its relation to ancient history. New York:
Henry Holt.
Wright, J. K. 1966. Human nature in
geography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
