The concept of super-organism in the study of cultural geography
“超级机制”与文化地理学研究

The super-organic concept,which had been suggested by anthropologists,was introduced into the study of cultural geography by scholars of Berkeley School,an influential school of the study of cultural geography in the United States.Wilbur Zelinsky,a geographer of Berkeley School,gave the features of super-organism in his book Cultural Geography of the United States.It is the super-organism that shapes the cultural landscapes on the land of America.This concept,however,has been seriously criticized by the New Cultural Geographers although it had ever-great influence on the traditional studies of cultural geography.The discussion here is focused on the usability and limitation of the concept of super-organism.The correct using of the method of causal analysis,the different usability of the concept of super-organism in the studies of different scales of the cultural landscapes or different social perspectives are the major questions discussed in this paper.Some case studies by Chinese geographers have been mentioned in this paper.They show both the critic standpoint and positive attitude to the super-organism in these case studies.And the authors address that either positive or negative view-angles have their reasons for existence in cultural geography,even the New Cultural Geography leads the trend.