5/9/10 - University of Colorado Boulder · PDF file5/9/10! 4! Why world regional geography?!...
Transcript of 5/9/10 - University of Colorado Boulder · PDF file5/9/10! 4! Why world regional geography?!...
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What is Geography?���Why world regional geography?���
What is globalization?
May 10, 2010 GEOG 1982
Geography The study of Earth as created by natural forces and as modified by
human action (p.2)
• Physical Geography Deals with Earth’s natural processes and their outcomes (climate,
weather patterns, landforms, soil formation, and plant and animal ecology)
E.g. geomorphology, climatology, biogeography • Human Geography
Deals with the spatial organization of human activity and with people’s relationships with their environments (and each other)
E.g. cultural geography, economic geography, political geography, urban geography
• Technical Geography E.g. cartography, remote sensing analysis, geographic
information systems (GIS), geographic information science
video: learning country facts… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F_tT-q8EF0
Space, Place, and Scale
• location, spatial relationships and connections between the environment and people
• Space - general, objective location or area • Place - includes both objective and subjective
aspects of a location • Scale - the proportion that relates the
dimensions of a map to the dimensions of the area it represents
Space: container or relation?
“Container” filled up by people and things General, objective location or area
Relational: The built environment and real-world things
shape the way we live our lives
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Place
Includes both objective and subjective aspects of a location
Generalization about a place Who and what belongs where?
Scale
The proportion that relates the dimensions of a map to the dimensions of the area it represents
Scale
Global Regional National State Local Household Body
Map Projections
• Projections - different ways of representing the spherical surface of the earth on flat paper
• Each projection has some distortion • Examples of projections:
– Mercator projection – Goode’s interrupted homolosine projection – Robinson projection
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Why world regional geography? • World regions are large-scale geographic divisions
based on continental and physiographic settings that contain major clusters of humankind with broadly similar cultural attributes (p.1)
• The contribution of regional geography is to reveal how natural, social, economic, political, and cultural phenomena come together to produce distinctive geographic settings (p.2)
• Regions are in process, as process (p.3) • All regions & borders are political projects (arbitrary) • Contestation and internal variation
What is globalization? Definition: the increasing interconnectedness of different
parts of the world through common processes of economic, environmental, political, and cultural change. (p.7)
History: • Long histories of interregional trade • Interregional linkages increased during European
colonialism Regional geography is about understanding the variety &
distinctiveness of places & regions, without losing sight of the interdependence among them (p.2)
What is new about this globalization?
• Changes in global economic structures and flows • With developments in communication technology
and transportation, there have been increased interregional flows of: – information – goods – money – people
Global flows of information Global flows of goods Global production networks of transnational corporations (TNCs) http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/footprint/index.jsp
Commodity chains are networks of labor & production processes that originate in the extraction or production of raw materials & end with the delivery & consumption of a finished commodity (p.8)
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Global flows of money Global flows of people
Globalization & Inequality • Global flows of information, goods, money
and people are uneven
WTO & Anti-globalization • The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an
international organization designed to manage the rules of trade (& enforce free trade agreements)
• November 30, 1999 – WTO held its Ministerial Trade Conference in Seattle, Washington
• 40,000-100,000 activists (students, labor unions, religious groups, anarchists) tried to shut the trade meetings down to protest free trade & globalization
• Many people consider this a watershed moment of the ‘anti-globalization’ movement
• WTO Seattle 1999
Globalization & Culture • Culture – a shared set of meanings that are
lived through the symbolic & material practices of everyday life (p.11)
• Single global culture? McDonaldization?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Echi6oMYEOM&NR=1
Globalization & Culture • Single global culture OR increased exchange of
products, symbols, myths, events, & traditions leading to a common knowledge but not necessarily common reaction or response (p.11)
• Cultural flows take place in all directions
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Things to remember (study) Sub-disciplines of geography Definitions of space, place, scale Strengths & weaknesses of 3 map projections What is world regional geography? In what ways are regions political projects? Definition & examples of globalization Definition of culture, relationship between
culture and globalization READING FOR TOMORROW: Chapter 1 (1-5, 7-9, 29-52); Chapter 2 (56-76, 79-82, 84-93, skim 94-105)