Goals and Objectives

The course investigates dietary, behavioral and ecological aspects of hunting and gathering societies. The internal and external causes and motivations for some societies to make a transition to an agricultural pattern of life will be considered. The concept of agricultural hearths will be discussed both from the point of view of small centers of innovation and situations where patterns of food production seemed to undergo change over broad areas without reference to any particular focus. The archaeological and biogeographical evidence for plant domestication in each continent will be surveyed. The course will consider the role of the garden in human culture history. The great gardens developed by high civilizations will be analyzed for their value and function and the insights they provide to the culture which produced them. The nature and role of the urban garden, which survives against all odds in the modem city environment, will also be considered. Commercialization of agriculture and food preparation has produced homogenization in some respects and yet in others promoted enrichment and diversity. Food, the most basic of human necessities, is closely associated with national, regional or ethnic identity. We embrace what is modem and new yet we also yearn for the security of the familiar that formed our first experiences and habits. The course will discuss how are these expressed in our environs and what is the relationship to the conservation of biological diversity for the future.

The student should be able to appreciate and contrast the complex cultural impact and understand the role of gardens and agricultural production in human cultural history. The role of man in the selection and the development of managed ecosystems in fields and gardens, and culture will be appreciated by students. The "foodscape" (food selection, diet and consumption patterns) should provide students with insights into the history and function of a community in much the same way that landscapes have traditionally done for geographers.

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Geography 101

Balick, Michael J. and Paul Cox. 1997. Plants, People and Culture, New York: Scientific American.

Martin, Gary. 1995. Ethnobotany, London: Chapman and Hall.

Nazarea, Virginia. 1998. Cultural Memory and Biodiversity, Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Sauer, J. D. 1993. Historical Geography of Crop Plants, Boca Raton: CRC Press.

None

None

• Two half day field trips will be held during the semester. The first will be on Saturday 11 September to the produce markets of Chinatown.
  
• A second field trip later in the semester will visit Honolulu Community gardens
  
  

The major areas covered in the course are:

• Plant gathering and agricultural transitions
  
• Geography of agricultural innovation
  
• Economic development, urbanization and agriculture
  
• Food and culture
  
  

Grades will be determined on the basis of a mid term and final exam and several short written reports during the course of the semester.

Midterm 30
Final 40
Written reports 30

Lyndon Wester