Download - Geo2630 fall2013 session19
Session 19: Power, identity and global landscapes – Part 5: Geographic disparities
November 7, 2013
Langa Township,South Africa
Norton, W. (2005). Cultural Geography: Environments, Landscapes, Identities, and Inequalities. Oxford University Press, Don Mills.
Readings: Chapter 7 of Norton – A Cultural Geography of our Unequal World
1) Lecture: Geographic disparities;
2) Time for photo-elicitation group assignment: Share photo elicitation results with your group, chart and make outline for poster, and time to get supplies (40 mins)
Unequal worlds –
• Total population
• Crude birth rate
• Crude death rate
• Infant mortality
• Life expectancy
• Per capita income
• Health stats (e.g., HIV/AIDS; diabetes)
Geographic disparities
Geographic disparities
Theorization of global inequalities
European Miracle (the story goes...)
Europe - mild summers permitted physical activity- cold winters reduced the dangers of the
disease- rainfall permitted agriculture
Agriculture diffused from hearths to other suitable areas
“guns, germs, and steel” used to conquer
culture, money, knowledge “development”
Geographic disparities
Of course is value laden
What is meant by “development”?
How do we measure “development”?
Of course is value laden
Indicators
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC1KE66sldA#t=67
Canadian Index of Wellbeing
Geographic disparities
Competitive ideology: inherent in Protestantism, the dominant religion on Western Europe
European Miracle vs. European Myth
European Myth:
Processes of European expansion as the cause of disparities (poverty and other types of inequalities) elsewhere in the world:
- colonization- exploitation of resources- institution of slavery- Eurocentric forms of scholarship
Geographic disparities
In cultural geography (based on postmodernist and related ideas): it is not acceptable to assess the “weaknesses” of cultures
European Miracle vs. European Myth coloured by the preferred ideology
raises contentious issues around the legitimacy of European scholarship
Progressive vs. Backwards
(European) (the rest of the world)
Geographic disparities
Box 7.7
Capitalist economy
“the core needs to maintain the underdevelopment of the periphery”
Dependency theory (illustrates the consequences of the Marxist idea of ceaseless capital
accumulation)
Geographic disparities
5 mechanisms involved in the deepening of the capitalist system:
1. commodification, a shift from use values to exchange values in both social and economic life;
2. proletarianization, the transformation of subsistence labour into paid labor;
3. mechanization, the application of ever-increasing technologies to produce activities;
4. contractualization, a formalization of human relationships
5. polarization, the increasing disparity between different parts of the world system
Geographic disparities
Demise of the state ‘the state as a dysfunctional unit for organizing human activity and economic endeavour’
3 main reasons:
1. The rise of multinational organizations (replacement of the state; diminished power)
2. Claims are being laid to subnational territory based on ethnic distinctiveness (fragmentation)
3. State is challenged by current attitudes towards the environment (ecological perspective)
Guest: Paul Cormier – Indigenous and decolonizing approaches to theory and research
Session 20: Power, identity and global landscapes – Part 4: Indigenous peoples and decolonization
November 12, 2013
Readings: Supplementary reading