Space: Cultural Identity

In addition to race and ethnicity, sex, age, and class are important elements of cultural identity. Geographers study these elements of cultural identity because they help to explain why people sort themselves out in space and move across the landscape in distinctive ways.

The distribution of women does not vary across space like ethnicity and sexual orientation, although some communities such as those with military bases may have a lot more men than women. As discussed in Chapter 2, in some countries, notably the two most populous China and India, the number of female babies is suspiciously much lower than the number of male babies.

Distribution by Sexual Orientation

Openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (or questioning) people may be attracted to some locations that reinforce identity through spatial interaction with other LGBTQ people. Spatial interaction and a supporting environment for cultural identity can take place at many scales: neighborhood, city, state, and country.

Among the 50 largest U.S. cities, the percentage of LGBTQ people varies from 6.2 percent in the San Francisco metropolitan area to 2.6 percent in Birmingham, Alabama. San Francisco, which has a reputation for being an especially hospitable city for LGBTQ people, has neighborhoods such as the Castro that have especially strong LGBTQ identities

Figures are the percentages of people who self-identified as LGBTQ in a 2017 survey conducted by Gallup.

At the scale of the 50 U.S. states, the percentage of people who self-identify as LGBTQ also varies. According to a 2017 Gallup survey, the percentage varies among states from a high of 5.3 percent in Vermont to a low of 2.0 percent in South Dakota. (The District of Columbia has 8.6 percent.) However, the percentage of people who supported same-sex marriage in 2015, a few months before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized it, varied much more widely among states, from a high of 75 percent in New Hampshire to a low of 32 percent in Mississippi.

At the international scale, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) identifies laws that discriminate or protect based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Some countries protect LGBTQ people, whereas other countries criminalize them. In 2017, the ILGA classified 72 countries as criminalizing LGBTQ people, including eight that imposed the death penalty: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen.

Distribution of Sexual Orientation Laws,2017

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association maps the distribution of laws that discriminate or protect based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Distribution by Ethnicity & Race

Geographers are especially interested in ethnic identity, because ethnicity is closely tied to the cultural traditions of a particular location on Earth, as discussed in more detail in Chapter 7. That chapter also discusses how the distribution of ethnicities in the United States varies considerably at all scales, and how, for historic reasons, African Americans are clustered in the Southeast, whereas Hispanics are clustered in the Southwest. Ethnicities are highly clustered within cities (see Chapters 7 and 13). In Miami, which contains large percentages of African Americans and Hispanics, the major ethnic groups display distinctive distributions. African Americans are clustered in the north and Hispanics in the south.

Distribution of Ethnicities In Miami, Florida

African Americans are clustered to the north of downtown Miami and Hispanics to the south and west

Race, like ethnicity, is a social construct, but the two have different meanings. Ethnic identity is tied to a particular place, whereas racial identity is a social construct built around perception of a physiological trait, such as skin color. However, some cultures have further assigned racial identity a geographic feature through legalizing spatial segregation and other discriminatory practices. For example, as discussed in Chapter 7, South Africa enacted laws, known as apartheid, to separate into different geographic areas four races, known as white, black, colored (mixed race), and Asian. For example, Johannesburg, an urban area of nearly 8 million inhabitants, has extensive neighborhoods that are virtually all black, a legacy of the apartheid era, when the different races were required to live in specific areas

Distribution of Ethnicities, Johannesburg, South Africa

Blacks comprise 99 percent of Soweto’s population, a legacy of apartheid policies

Although South Africa has repealed the apartheid laws, racial segregation remains widespread, in part because of disparities in the average income of different races. For example, the mean annual household income in South Africa is around $30,000 for whites, $18,000 for Asians, $12,000 for coloreds, and $6,000 for blacks.

All academic disciplines and workplaces have proclaimed sensitivity to issues of cultural diversity. For geographers, concern and deep respect for cultural diversity is not merely a politically correct expediency; it lies at the heart of geography’s understanding of space. Geographers have deep respect for the dignity and equality of all cultural groups