GEOG final exam review

political geography

= examines the geographical and spatial aspects of politics.

• That is, how people in specific locations around the world have organized themselves into political groups, and how political groups influence and interact with each other.

• Topics include: states, borders, nationalism, terrorism, “the war on terror,” armed conflict, resource extraction, governance, international relations, world political economy, urban political systems, peace building, refugee movements, and more.

Politics

• concerns the distribution of power & resources within a community, and relationships among communities.

• More narrowly, ‘politics’ refers to governance (organized control over a human community), particularly of states.

Geopolitics

• study of the effects of geography (ie. space & place) on international politics and international relations.

The Domino Theory

• Once on country falls to Communism, its neighbors will soon follow and eventually Communism will reach America

Patrice Lumumba

• democratically elected nationalist and independence hero – assassinated by CIA & Belgian govt – replaced by Mobutu Sesse Seko, ruthless dictator

 

State

• a territory with a population governed by an authority structure (government) that holds a legal monopoly on the use of force; a territorial organization

Nation

• group of people with shared culture, history, ancestry, and territorial homeland

Nation state/plural states

• The term "nation state" implies that the two coincide, but this doesn’t happen in practice.

• As a result, all states have ethnic minority populations. All states are “plural states.”

Types of states

1. Organization of economic institutions

market economy ←→ centrally planned

2. Political governance

authoritarian ← → democratic

3. Position in world system

Global North: imperial states - US, Europe, Japan, Russia, also “white dominions” (Canada, NZ, Australia) - that have a lot of power and control over the global economy

Global South: formerly colonized states with little economic power; often with little control over their own economy which may be controlled by other states, IFIs or corporations = neocolonialism

Borders

• Drawn by colonial powers without reference to reality on the ground; often straight lines

E.g. Partition “70 years after the partition of India, Al Jazeera examines the history and troubled legacy of the event that shaped the subcontinent.”

• Borders (& states) are political and social constructions whose location and meaning can change.

Limits on state power

• Climate change; pollution

• Armed groups/individuals

• International agreements and treaties

• MNCs

• Refugees fleeing persecution

• Independence movements

• Macro-regional groupings (eg. EU)

• Supra-state organisations (eg. WTO, IMF, UN, NATO)

• Sub-national bodies (eg. provincial govts)

The personal is political

=political decisions affect the personal lives of individuals

• Oppressions and inequalities that people face cannot be addressed through individual solutions; they require collective or political interventions (eg. unemployment is not an individual problem, but a systemic issue).

• THE PERSONAL IS GEOPOLITICAL

Traditional (state) security

• concerns a state's ability to defend itself against external and internal threats.

Human security

• argues the proper referent for security should be the individual rather than the state.

• The personal is political!

UN Human security threats

• Economic security

• Food security

• Health security

• Environmental security

• Personal security

• Political security

• Community security

State vs human security

Animals used in war

• horses, camels, mules, dogs, cats, bats, pigeons, dolphins, rats, chickens, monkeys, bears, elephants, cows, canaries, lions, pigs, glow worms, turtles.

• They are used as bombs, transport, messengers, to detect gas or mines, and for companionship.

• Many millions of wild & domesticated OTH animals are killed in every war.

Women in war

For women, war and peace and long been blurred.

• Impunity for sexual and intimate partner violence during “peace”

• Increased sv against women during “war”

“What do you expect - that’s just what happens.” → unacceptable!

Security council resolution 1325 (SCR 1325)

• broadly, recognizes that men and women experience security differently, and that to build sustainable peace, women need

to be fully involved.

― examples? US & Taliban, Jugoslavia, Rwanda, Myanmar

Everywhere wars

e.g.

• “War on drugs”

• “War on terror”

• Drone strikes

o Commuter killers

o City as battlefield

o Civilian & Combatant

US drone attacks in Pakistan

• “High-value militant leaders” make up around 2% of those killed.

• Apart from proven civilians, the remainder of those killed, even according to the White House, are “low-level, alleged militants” or “suspected militants.”

• However, “militant” is never defined. Also, all “militants” are not legitimate targets of lethal force!

• The US administration considers “all military-age males [killed] in a strike zone” to be “combatants…unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” (which there never is)

-You must ask gender questions to understand international relations

-The personal is (geo)political

Urban geography: urbanization

-Increase in # and proportion of people living in cities

-Process by which a landscape becomes more densely populated with more complex functionality, mixed land use, and infrastructure

Urban form: land use and built environment; changes over time

• Early cities

• European colonial cities

• Industrialization - Europe 19th c

• Transportation - canal, railway, car

• 20th c - deindustrialization in GN, shift to services and gentrification

Automobile oriented development problems

• Parking

• Pollution

• Congestion

Role of governments

Current efforts to address problems

• Tolls, congestion charges

• Car share programs

• Banning cars

• Promoting cycling and walking

• Removing free ways

• Permits

• Funding public transit

Urban wildlife

MTH (more than human) species that utilize human dominated urban ecosystems

• Typically, generalists

• Can change their behavior and adapt to major environmental disturbances

• Urban development fragments natural landscapes

• Refuges and parks can act as stepping-stones for navigating human-dominated landscapes

• Best way to avoid human-wildlife conflict? —> Reduce availability of attractants

Urban social landscape: spaces of elite consumption

• luxury goods retailers, elite office spaces, expensive residences; wealthy migrants

Spaces of non-elite consumption

• low-income neighbourhoods, SROs, strip malls, slums; temporary foreign workers

Residential (spatial) segregation

-race / ethnicity

-class

Informal settlements

• 1/3 world urban pop = 1b+ people

Issues

• Inadequate, informal housing

• Poor/no sanitation

• Little/no investment

• Informal employment

• Slum clearance

Alternative

• “Self-help” housing

Sh*t (i.e. excrement)

- Is it a political issue??? —> YES.

The politics of shit (Appadurai, 2002):

Reveals the situation of postcolonial urban residents who, by virtue of their social location (class, caste & gender), cannot distance themselves from the stigma and dangers of waste.

• Geographers are interested in how “the politics of shit” is spatialised.

The politics of sht

• highlights that the provision and distribution of infrastructure is not a technical issue, but rather a political process

• reveals how the planning, installation, and maintenance of infrastructure can produce and reinforce political power in urban spaces

• The personal is political!

Capitalism and cities

-Need for endless, exponential growth

-Urbanization as capitalist investment

• Cities for profit

• Gentrification

Housing

• Housing is a class struggle playing out in urban land markets, between those living in housing precarity and finance capital.

• One form this struggle takes is gentrification.

Gentrification

= rebuilding and renovation of residences and businesses,

accompanied by an influx of middle-class residents into the gentrified

area, usually displacing existing lower income residents (LIR)

-Gentrification is a spatial expression of class inequality.

Results

• Rent increases → LIR can’t afford to live there

• Expensive shops, restaurants move in → LIR can’t afford to eat, shop

• Look and feel of the place changes → LIR no longer feel comfortable

• Security guards move people along; police ticket minor offences

(jaywalking, selling items on the street); illegal to sit/lie on

pavement; bum proof benches → LIR driven out and/or criminalised

“Accumulation by dispossession” - David Harvey

Agriculture: subsistence

• Production primarily to meet family needs, plus a small amount for local trade/sale

• Challenges: farmers driven off land by mining companies, plantations, debt (govt & IMF encourage focus on exports which require expensive inputs), free trade (can’t compete with flood of subsidized products from the GN)

-e.g. Farmer in Ethiopia who lost his farm, animals, and everything else when a Chinese factory was built on his land. Now he has nothing.

-Beach in Pakistan to be destroyed as part of new Chinese port

development; many subsistence fishers will lose their livelihood,

which is already negatively affected by port traffic. Violence in Balochistan is aimed explicitly at Chinese investment in the region.

Pastoral nomadism

• Subsistence agriculture

• Moving around to graze animals; land recovers in the meantime

• Typically where agriculture isn’t feasible (too dry)

• Challenges: most state govts have stopped this practice as part of enclosure movement (land wanted for industrial development); pastoralists often have no land title, no rights

Swidden

• Subsistence agriculture

• “Shifting agriculture” in tropical forests where soil is very fragile

• Gives land time to recover

• Challenges: enclosure; no land title/rights; people no longer have enough land to move around on, so land doesn’t have time to recover

Plantations

• Commercial agriculture

• Started by European colonizers in colonized countries, mostly operated with slave labour on land stolen from indigenous people

• Monoculture - cash crops – examples?

• Challenges: Still mostly owned by Europeans and NAs; requires massive amounts of industrial chemical fertilisers, pesticides,

herbicides; species extinction; destruction

Population

-Human population keeps growing, but farmland is disappearing due to urbanization/urban sprawl; over-use of chemical pesticides & fertilizers; global warming & desertification

Aquaculture

• Commercial agriculture (factory farm)

• Accounts for over 50% of fish eaten

• Issues: animal welfare; large amounts of chemicals – pesticides, dyes; waste, parasites, diseases enter wild chains; seals, sea lions, birds, dolphins, whales, other animals affected/killed

Subsistence farming

-production primarily to meet family needs, plus a small amount for local trade/sale

-small scale

-farming as a way of life

Commercial farming

-production primarily for sale and profit

-small scale or large scale (increasingly large scale as small farms can’t compete with large agribusinesses)

-farming as capitalist enterprise, may be based on factory system model

Agribusiness

-production exclusively for sale and profit

-large scale, capitalist production

-may be family owned or owned by a corp.

-farm as factory

Consolidation

1. Farms: fewer + larger

2. Food supply: small number of corporations control breeding (animals and seeds/plants), production, processing, marketing, and sales (e.g. Monsanto, Cargill, Tyson, DuPont, Smithfield, Kraft, Nestle, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Mars)

Pigs/chicken

• Almost all 35m pigs in Canada live in barns in individual cages (sows) or overcrowded pens (hogs) and never see daylight.

• Killing piglets by body slamming them on concrete is routine.

• Baby pigs are castrated by having their testicles cut open and ripped out, without anesthetic.

• Clipping baby’s teeth—> Done without anesthetic

• Their tails are cut off with pliers, without anesthetic (tail = part of the spine)

• Male baby chicks are ground up alive or simply thrown in the garbage (7b/yr).

• Almost all 130m chickens in Canada live in barns in cages and never see daylight or go outside.

• “cage free” chickens

• Chickens’ beaks are burned off

Cows (13m) in Canada

branded; tails cut off with pliers; udders burned; given electric shocks; horns removed; milked by machine; stand on concrete or thick manure; eat corn; severe health problems. Calves removed from mothers and put into veal crates or thrown in the garbage.

Traditional farm vs. contemporary agribusiness

Negative externalities

• Negative effects of a transaction between two parties on a third party who is not involved in the transaction

• Costs that are not included in the price of goods

• Technical sounding term that means “let somebody else deal with the problems that a corporation creates”

Example:

an agribusiness corporation is able to produce large amounts of meat

at a low cost – but only by draining public wetlands for water;

causing intense pain and suffering to animals; using antibiotics,

hormones and pesticides that harm human health; employing

migrant workers at below living wage; and allowing the waste to

drain into surrounding land/water systems.

Common externalities

• GHGs, pollution, chronic health problems in human and MTH populations, environmental destruction, extinction, cost of building roads + railways, evictions, pain, cancer, ocean dead zones, deforestation, homelessness…

• A profitable exchange between a buyer & seller is only desirable for society as a whole when prices reflect the full social and environmental costs involved in the exchange.

Insect pollinators

The world’s insect pollinators are dying off due to:

• destruction of their homes and livelihoods

• use of pesticides

• climate change

Indian farmers

in the past 30 years, 300,000 Indian farmers have committed SS (typically by drinking pesticide)

Economic geographies of industry

3 economic sectors:

1. Primary

Extracting materials, animals, plants from the earth

2. Secondary

Assembly, manufacture, processing into finished goods

3. Tertiary

services

Location of industry, incl. services: SITE factors (land, labour, capital)

• Cost of land, labour, energy

• Available natural resources, including land

• Availability of capital & local tax rates

• Labour laws

• Local environmental regulations

Situation (relational/external) factors

• Proximity to market (consumption) or raw materials (production)

• Transportation options

• Proximity to amenities

• Agglomeration effects

Location of industry; scale: Local/regional scale

• Site & situation

• eg. North America/Europe CBD→ suburbs→ neoliberal regions

Global scale

• Site & situation

• eg. NIDL

-Europe/NA → Asia & LA

New international division of labour (NIDL)

=spatial division of labour in which production is no longer confined to national economies; shift of mfg from Europe & NA → Asia & LA

Context:

Globalization, neoliberalism (free trade, deregulation, free movement of $)

Site & situation factors:

• Cheap land & low taxes

• Low labour costs & weak labour laws

• Weak environmental regulations

• Next to large emerging markets

• Near skilled, controlled labour force

Issues (EXTERNALITIES):

• Working conditions, gender

• Pollution & environmental destruction

Peak everything

• Peak Fossil Fuels

-peak oil, natural gas, and coal

• Peal Minerals

-peak uranium, peak metals

• Peak Food

-peak fish, peak soil, peak water, fertilizer (peak gas, peak phosphate rock, peak potash)

Peak sand

• No sand → no concrete, ceramics, computer chips, glass, plastics,

abrasives, paint, etc.

• Illegal mining in 70+ countries → environmental destruction, death of sea life. Indian Sand Mafia very powerful

• Dozens of islands have disappeared completely

• 75%-90% of beaches are receding; by 2100 all beaches may be gone

-Sand comes from mountains and flows down rivers to the sea. But thanks to millions of dams, most rivers no longer take sand to the sea.

Energy

• Rare earth elements for “clean energy” generate 2,000 t of toxic

waste for every t. produced

• As ore quality ↓, industry uses ↑energy to mine it

“The current global mining footprint is already “unsustainable” …the world needs a better plan to avoid collapse than replacing one unsustainable fossil fuel system with another intensive mining system powered by even more extreme energies… Fundamentally, we need to talk about a future of less instead of a future of more.”

Military industrial complex

+ military (soldiers)

+ industry & tech (owners)

+ US Congress (legislators)

+ other governments

+ private mil contractors (mercenaries)

+ REVOLVING DOOR:

elites moving between industry, regulation, contracting, government,

conservative think tanks, industry, regulation…

Mining companies

• 75% of the world’s mining companies are based in Canada

• These companies operate in: Papua New Guinea, Congo, Philippines, Tibet, Eritrea, El Salvador, Guatemala, Sudan, DRC, and other places

Resource curse (aka paradox of plenty)

Paradoxical situation in which countries with abundant non-renewable resources (esp. minerals & FFs) experience less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer resources.

Neo-colonialism

The continuation of colonial-type geopolitical relations through the use of economic, political, and cultural pressures to control or influence former colonies.

Oil accidents

-During the last 50 years, nearly 7,000 oil accidents occurred in the Niger Delta, and the several billion litres of spilled oil have transformed the former natural paradise into hell on earth. A further 13 million barrels of crude oil contaminate the Delta every year, causing widespread cancer and death.

Conflict minerals

• Tantalum (coltan)

• Cassiterite (tin)

• Wolframite (tungsten)

• Gold

• Other minerals & their derivatives

• Children in Congo risk their lives to supply our mobile phones

• Boys as young as 12 spend days underground digging minerals

• You handle conflict minerals every time you use your mobile phone – but business has the power to change the situation…IF we demand it

-Around 14 million tons of plastic enter the oceans each year

What to do

-advocate for systemic change

-reduce consumption (& vote with your wallet)

-avoid/reduce use of plastics

-educate yourself so that you can make informed choices

-support local & organic food production

-demand corporations stop externalizing costs onto others

-let politicians know you care about these things

-identify source(s) of hope and hang on to them!

Environmental geography: Who are non-humans?

• “They are all the creatures with which we share this world—flora and fauna, and all sorts of creatures that are too small for us to see with our eyes, but that are nonetheless our daily companions. Non-humans include the plants that convert solar radiation into food and the microorganisms that ferment milk to make cheese.

• We cannot exist without them. We cannot breathe without oxygen being produced by plants and trees. We cannot live without eating plants and animals, and we cannot digest some foods without the microbes in our gut that turn what we eat into metabolites that we need to be healthy. We cannot shelter or clothe ourselves without the materials that come from our ecosystems. We cannot do anything at all without non-human help.

• More-than-human theory attempts to fill gaps in the social sciences and humanities, fields that have, for the most part, left non-humans out of the analysis.”

Environmental geographers

• Environmental geographers ask, “Where do environmental issues occur and why do particular issues appear where they do? What are the implications for different groups and individuals? So what –why should we care?”

1. “What is where,

2. why is it there, and

3. why does that matter?”

• A holistic perspective is needed because of how ecosystems work: everything is connected.

Value

• Use value: e.g. birds having value just by being watched; sacred Shinto tree in Japan

• Exchange value: just about money

Climate

= temp + precipitation

Currently in a cool period

CO2 and Temp concentration relationship

-the same

-temp will rise (human activity)

Some large positive amplifying feedbacks

Feedback mechanism: promotes change —> enhanced

Development geography (how the rich get richer); Development:

• Development: processes that bring about positive changes in economic prosperity and quality of life

Measuring Development: UN Human Development Index (HDI)

• Income

• Health

• Education

Men vs. women development

More wealth going to fewer people

Even in china, there is rising income inequality and rising GDP (but can’t just look at GDP)

Economic globalization

Deepening and widening of trade & investment around the world so that more places are integrated into economic processes that operate beyond the scale of the locality, region or state.

What has enabled globalization?

– Cheap, fast transportation & communications

– Global capital markets

– ↑ Consumer demand

– Creation of IFIs—(IMF (int. monetary fund) & WB (world bank); also WTO)

– Neoliberal economic policies, especially privatization, deregulation, & free trade

IMF (international monetary fund)

The more money a country puts in, the more voting power it as

-head is always from Europe

The world bank

HOB always from U.S.

2 key processes giving market forces greater power (benefitting corps over govts)

1. Deregulation

-weakening laws/policies

-corps have greater power

-2008 financial crisis

2. Privatization

-process of taking govt assets/services and moving it to private sector

Arguments for: govt needs $; gives it $; incentive to innovate; efficiency and produce monopolies

Arguments against: access goes down; nothing left for future gen; undermines democracy (undemocratic)

TNCS

In today’s globalised world, TNCs have become richer and more powerful than states

• (l) < 10% of companies earn > (m) 80% of all profits globally

• The top 10 corporations’ combined revenue > (m) the 180 ‘poorest’ countries combined

• 69 of the world’s 100 largest economic entities are corporations rather than countries

• 153 of the world’s 200 largest economic entities are corporations

“Free trade” policies

•elimination of tariffs (taxes on imported goods) and import quotas (limits on the amount of a product that can be imported)

•creation of “free trade zones” where there are only small or no tariffs, as well as cheap land and skilled, but controlled, labour

•reduction or elimination of controls on the movement of capital out of a country so profits can easily be returned to the base country or a tax-haven

•reduction or elimination of subsidies for local businesses so that overseas firms are more competitive

Increasingly, free trade policies override national legislation,

thereby undermining democracy.

7 key features of neoliberalism (+ related sound bite slogans)

1. Trade liberalization – “adopt free trade”

2. Privatize public services – “use business efficiency”

3. Deregulate business and finance – “cut red tape”

4. Cut public spending & welfare-state policies – “shrink gov’t”

5. Reduce & flatten taxes – “be business friendly”

6. Encourage foreign investment – “reduce capital controls”

7. De-unionize – “respect rights to work & labour flexibility”

These policies favour private enterprise and discourage govt investment in social infrastructure

2 possible routes to “develooment”

Scholars argue what is needed is a balance of:

• Competition

• Subsidies

• State ownership/control

• Openness to trade

“Aid” —loan (debt)

• Promises vs. reality

• Tied aid (purchases in donor countries)

• Aid = loan (must be paid back/interest)

• Affects gender/power dynamics

• Military aid

• Charity vs. wealth creation

• No accountability to recipients

• Cover for inaction

Rich countries rely on a large net appropriation of resources from the GS

• $242 trillion over the period 1990–2015

→ 30x the amount of aid received

→ major driver of underdevelopment & global inequality

“There is no catch-up development happening. This is not because poor countries are ‘behind’. It is because they are exploited.”

GS remittances vs. GN philanthropy

Remittance: $ sent back to home country