[Sigia-l] The Nine Nations of North America

[Ben Henick]

Just so's it's made clear up front, this is a GENERAL rant.  Considering 
the source, are you surprised?

On Sat, 20 Apr 2002, Lucie Melahn wrote:

> I'll be damned. Someone put together a clickable HTML version of Garreau's 
> book.
> http://www.harpercollege.edu/~mhealy/g101ilec/namer/nac/nacnine/na9intro/nacninfr.htm

Sort of.

It appears to have eighth-graders specifically, and grades 7-12 generally, 
as its audience.  Perhaps I am too harsh in my judgement, but the thrust 
of the content and its lack of depth tend to support this opinion.

...And while Garreau's book as presented by this site (which was never 
mentioned - much less referenced - in any of my course material as a 
Geography major in the mid '90's) does a passable job of ignoring 
political boundaries to the benefit of describing of North America's 
cultural geography, I for one am appalled at the generalizations made, 
and concepts ommitted in the map alone.

I bring it up because the book's plight raises something that HCI/UX/IA 
professionals deal with every day: the people who make the product aren't 
necessarily the people who use the product.  In this case, the guy who 
wrote the book isn't one of its readers; then again, I find it entirely 
likely that he knew he was writing for a general audience and felt free to 
paint his proverbial picture with broad strokes.  There is a secondary 
and on-topic lesson to be learned from this resource, even if I am having 
a hard time articulating its substance.

> It leaves a LOT to be desired, but you can at least see his geographic 
> divisions. Garreau doesn't have a "Midwest" by the way. He calls it "The 
> Foundry". And his "New England" includes the Canadian Maritime provinces. 

It depends on what you consider to be the "Midwest" - some people think of 
it as the Great Plains AND the Rust Belt, several here think of it 
specifically as the Rust Belt, others (such as myself) think of it 
specifically as the Great Plains (which is to say, everything between the 
Mississippi River and the Front Range of the Rockies).  There are enough 
commonalities between the two that they could be amalgamated in a cultural 
sense.

...By way of responding to the earlier thread.

> (while that doesn't fit the official definition of New England, it does 
> make a certain cultural sense).

...If your cultural heritage is Anglo-Saxon.  Those of Gallic or Latin 
origin (who settled the Maritimes while the English were settling Mass., 
R.I., and Conn.) might not necessarily prefer the appellation "New 
England."

And of course, there's another name for the region defined on the map as 
"Mex-America" - it's called "Aztlan" by a sizable group of people.

If I'm peevish on this subject, it's because of the same broad brush that 
I referenced above.  I suspect that those of you with knowledge-in-depth 
of esoteric subjects (as in, the entire membership of this list) feel the 
same way about popular works addressing your own specialty.


-- 
Ben Henick
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http://www.io.com/persist1/      http://www.digital-web.com/
persist1 at io.com                  bmh at digital-web.com
--
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